Another long-arrived post, right on my birthday…

As the birthday girl, I fluttered my eyelashes and smiled my most simpering smirk, as my dearest male parental unit rolled his eyes and made the booking at a spiffy restaurant – ezard, of Little Flinders, tucked in the basement below adelphi Hotel.

I was so excited, that my stomach was shaking the liver and other offal next to it, shrieking “OMG! EZARD! OMG OMG!! OMG OOOOOMG!!!”, making me feel slightly ill. I’d been heralded with all the tales from my two good friends who visited ezard together a few years ago, and came away with the highest compliments. I cannot begin to tell you how envious I was – perhaps a nice emerald shade, or a pistachio green.

I sauntered into the restaurant, nearly rubbing my hands gleefully, ignoring my libido who processed a careful scan of the restaurant for hot waiters. It was my stomach’s night, and my insides shut up a bit as I sipped my first alcohol of the night, a nice champagne from Tasmania.

Conversation flowed smoothly as we tried to decide over the menu – I had cheated a bit earlier, and looked up the menu online before visiting ezard. I changed my mind a few times, then selected Yellowfin Tuna Sashimi with wasabi foam and bonito panacotta.

The first thing I noticed was an accidental smear on the white plate, next to the carefully lined-up sets, and the wasabi foam weren’t quite even. Hmmm. What if I was a food critic, with a foldable ruler and pocket scales? Even so, I ate it, and was surprised by the mix of flavours – creamy, fishy, sweet, with a touch of tang from the wasabi foam. I preferred my father’s order – Japanese-style oyster shooters, and I got two! They were excellent, with bonito and wasabi flavourings with mirin as the base! Mmmmmmmm! Were those available at a party I was attending, I’d disguise myself as a server, whisk the platter away, and find an empty room to enjoy myself…

The main was – well, I did a few more simpering smirks – and got to order a Wagyu 7+ grade steak, with truffled potatoes and… … … foie gras! It arrived in a towering form, and true to the fad that swept the late ‘90s, was quite small for such an expensive dish (as was my father’s and his partner’s). A story was told of how father and his dear partner went to an equally famous restaurant named Jacqui, ordered a fish dish, and they were truly shocked by the miniature scrap of food nestled in a mile-wide white dish.

Size aside, I was looking forward to the melody of flavours that would march on my palate – first, carefully separating the wagyu from the tower, and sampling it.

Hmmm.

Um.

Hm… hmmm? Hmm.

H…hrrrm.

Another bite, and I ‘hrrmed’ some more. My father asked me how it was – and I replied, unsure, wondering if my stomach was distracted by my libido’s pestering of how cute our serving waiter was. I gave my father a taste – and his face immediately scrunched up. Terrible, he spat out.

It was true; I had tasted wagyu previously – lower grade ones even, and they were far more superior than ezard’s version. I might have erred earlier, when the cute waiter asked me how I would like my steak cooked – I should have followed what the equally cute waiter at Taxi Dining Room had said, to always have wagyu well-done. (And by gods, their wagyu was beyond well done, it was amazingly done! It became the benchmark for other wagyu dishes!) This is because wagyu is famous for its marbled pattern of fat that ripples through the meat, therefore to eat it, is to cook it so all the fat melts and infuses the meat with juciness.

I had told them that I would leave the choice to the chef, to allow him/her to cook it as it should be done. Instead, what I received was a little under rare, but rare nevertheless – something that my father picked upon, and said that the previous weekend’s rib-eye rack roast was much better. I agreed heartily – my father had cooked up a farm-brought rib eye rack for two hours smeared in garlic, oil and oregano, and the results was eyeball-gouging good.

I tasted the foie gras, and I was disappointed to learn that it smushed rather pathetically against the heavenly benchmark I had set two years ago: the most amazing foie gras grilled on a stick, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and strawberries, in the heinous Roppongi district of Tokyo, that made half of my brain cells crash and burn with the pleasure overload, and the rest considered geese genocide. Oh well. It is supposed to be a delicate ingredient, and if the past dishes were of any clue, the kitchen staff were running in low spirits.

Most of the dinnertable conversation was about food; past, present, future experiences and expertises. There was the mini-rant about meat being done well, how that one should not just “butcher” good meat – spices is for cheap old cuts, and only the hints of salt and pepper is required for the top cut of the carcass. Benchmarks was the major topic – asian books were qualified as good only if they had a GOOD chilli jam recipe, how a child raised with poor cooking or cheap food develop a fussiness that will not allow them to taste the top notch produce. Like Home Brand fish fingers spoiling a person so much that they will not taste the most amazing deep fried snapper. Ordering the grilled chicken at several restaurants, for the most simple dishes prove the most difficult to perfect.

As I scraped the last of the truffled potato (the highlight of the dish for me), I leant back for the plate to be taken away and to receive the dessert menu. One of the passing waiter, perhaps the head one – dipped into my view and pointed out the Toffee-swirl-honeycomb-ginger icecream dish, murmuring “it’s good!”. Hmmm. Then my attention was drawn to the dessert wines section – I still have that fixation upon dessert wines, much to the dismay of my beer-aficionado friends. Hehehe.

And lo and behold, there was a small glass, exactly 45ml for 50 dollars – a 1909 french vintage! Nearly one dollar per millilitre! I did a quick little deduction: if I had a dessert and one of the cheaper glasses of sweetness, then it would be nearly the same price as the tallinating French 101 liquid. Hmmm. Time for another simpering smile and fluttering of eyelashes… ha!

A moment later, the glass of dusky garnet liquid was in front of me, and a surprise – a whole plate of the aforementioned icecream for me! The icecream did not disappoint, nearly cutting my mouth to ribbons with the toffee in my desperate bid to get it to my stomach, and the French wine was remarkably different. Made by two different grapes, it was thin, from its 100 years, but I could taste the wood that it was casked in – like I was licking the inside of the cask it was stored in. It wasn’t unpleasant, more of like nibbling sugar cane; it is where sugar comes from, but the taste is wholly different. It also tasted as port should be; and I dislike port – most of what I’ve sampled tastes far too much like some wine-flavoured cordial. Yes, I liked that one very much.

All in all, the ezard experience was a bit disappointing – it’s been quite a few years since I was told of its amazing dishes, and between then, I’ve been exposed to some mindblowingly delicious edible parades that climbed up to my kether and my consciousness flashed NEW HIGH SCORE! ENTER YOUR DISH/RESTAURANT NAME: _ _ _

Thank you again to my dear father and his dear partner, for making my night for my 27^th birthday!!!

Last night, I went out for an early dinner just a hop outside Melbourne’s rectangular-shaped CBD, riding my bike at a slight sluggard pace behind the bike of my host of the night’s actions.

The host in question was a nice, mild-mannered guy that I had a date with the week previously, and was eager in demonstrating his knowledge and enjoyment of Melbourne’s hidden authentic gems. He ushered me to an insignificant-looking café, the only lit shop amongst vehicle and furniture shops that bordered Elizabeth Street north of Queen Victoria Market. Its name was Chongong, 654 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, lettered by cheap 2-dollar shop stickers on the wide window.

Despite the dear host throwing up the first red flag of the evening, the restaurant threw up its magnificently green flag with its exclusively Chinese clientele dining under fluorescent lights, the walls stained and decorated with paper maché chilli strands.

Host had to step around and call into the kitchen to get the attention of the servers, and we were presented with a photocopied order form, much like the ones that you would get at some soul-sucking job that called for precise orders of staplers, pens, erasers, and so on. Doom upon you if you lost your allocated amount of paperclips – which is why I would order several of those staplers, fix them up like Tony Stark (cubicle = cave), and get a Stapler Man Suit. Then anyone who tries to tell me to do some overtime, or to get a coffee, or slap my ass, gets stapler pins in their soft parts…

Oh sorry, forgot this was a food blog for a minute there! Okay, back to the order form – that was a big green flag there, guys! I left the ordering up to the host, and he ticked down a list of ingredients, one plate of this and one plate of that – all ranging from 6 bucks to 3 bucks, and got a “Mild and Spicy Broths”. In only five minutes, barely making four pages of the conversation notepads,  the server had plonked a big metal bowl on the burner. It was split cleanly in two by a metal divider, both filled with the Yin and Yang of broths.

The Yin, or mild broth, was a pretty sight, with pale opaque waters. Spring onions and a thick slice of ham gently bobbed in the creamy liquid. The Yang, or the spicy broth, was the picture of Hell. The liquid was transparent, but made semi-opaque by the roiling and churning depths. It was the colour of bloody night, with flecks of chilli and sliced mushrooms (one of the banes of the lizard), and the only thing it had in common with its sweet cousin of light was the thick slice of ham, which was probably screaming for help.

The host interrupted me by telling me that, actually, he had no taste for spicy stuff – the wuss had probably thought fast when Vlad The Impaler’s soup presented itself – and so I took up the duty, using my chopsticks to carefully rotate the bowl until he had the Yin broth, and me the Yang broth.

During that semi-awkward rotation, the server marched in and out of the kitchen several times, bearing small plates of various sacrifices.

Unbidden, made wealthy by years of training and fertile imagination, I took the plates of food – chinese cabbage, lamb slices, bamboo shoots, freeze dried tofu, enoki mushrooms, beef slices and potato slices – warping them in my mind.

The bamboo shoots looked like skeletal rat tails, the lamb slices bright and jelly-like, possibly dog’s livers, and the freeze dried tofu had that right shade of grey as the interior of that calf brain I sliced up in Year 10.

But of course I did not want to throw up any of my own red flags, even as the guy was waving his ones as proudly and numerously as China’s citizens. At least all of those were overshadowed by the green flags that never let up at the restaurant, as I dropped in sacrifices one by one into the hellish cesspool facing me.

The broth’s degree of spicy heat was on par with its appearance – as I dabbed my streaming nose as femininely as I could, the wuss had the gall to ask me if it was too spicy, and that I could partake in his heavenly broth. Ha. No way, I’m not surrendering. I have a yang personality, and by gods, this was my domain! I tucked in, dousing titbits after titbits, my mouth on fire.

When eating something very spicy, I find the most rudimentary (and dumb) approach works: powering right on through, eating and eating and eating, paying no heed to the toxins in the chilli scratching its way up and down your airways and gullet. Don’t try and douse it periodically with water/lemonade/milk, or eat something to temper the chilli – just keep on eating. Eventually, your mouth will numb up, the numbness spreading out a few miles down your gullet and around your lips. Your nose will run dry, and you’ll have a strange but rather pleasant buzzing in your head. That’s the endorphins kicking in.

As my body began to relax in a drugged haze, I began to pace myself and started trawling around for the sacrifices I had heaped into the soup, dipping them into the sesame sauce before making an offering to the God of Lizard’s Stomach. I assured my host, smiling beatifically, that I really was okay and the broth wasn’t that hot, honestly. Aside from the spice, the best part of the dish was a surprising entrant: potato slices. Cooked in the spicy broth, and eaten as soon as it became soft – it was truly, I promise you, a slice of heaven found in hell!

The host and I had only eaten about half of the offerings, when we leaned back and groaned, our chopsticks falling from our fingers almost simultaneously. He and I locked eyes through the ever-present swaying pillar of steam – and decided to fly a white flag of surrender for the bill.

This place was one of the most authentic Sichuan places I’ve been to ages – and the surge of foodie tourists haven’t found this place, with its no-frills settings and service, the asian soft drinks in the fridge, and the food of course – they also offer dishes other than the Hot Pot, but be warned, huge ones! I’m talking about a mountain of fried chilli with fried chicken in it, golden nuggets to be mined… I am so going back there, this time with enough flags under my banner for a proper invasion, yessire!

I went to Libertine, North Melbourne, tonight with my dear mother. We went because it was Bouillabaisse night – a limited season that presents a delicious seafood soup every Wednesday night, true to its form in that the larger the soup is, the better it tastes. Therefore…

This was my first Bouillabaisse, and my mother’s second. My mother had her first one right on the Riviera in France – and as it turned out for her, a very different sort of bouillabaisse. My mother is a fan of thin, intensely flavoured soup with a zing (Hot n’ Sour Soup, Pho, Gazepacho) and her true French version was fish broth with chunks of onions, tomatoes, fennel and seafood tossed in. Libertine’s version was heavy, with tomatoes and onions pureed with the fish stock, and an extravagant bouquet of seafood. Since I have not tasted any other fish soup to compare, I found my dish indeedy very delicious and I mopped the bowl clean with the dinner bread. Now I want to find another version to compare, but mainly because I want more…

Also, I got to crack crab for the first time, having eaten crab cakes or soft-shell crab (urrrgghhh kill me tenderly), with a handy nut cracker. It got a bit complicated, and slippery, but it was very satisfying feeling that shuddering snap! of the exoskeleton. Yesssss. I found a neat tendon inside one of the claws, attached to the moveable part, and I had great delight making the crab claw click-clack to make my mother giggle.

…Some people may shy from taking photos of their meals for their blogs, afraid that the flash will disturb the patrons or make them look silly, but I am not afraid of being in a pishy French restaurant playing with my food, giggling dementedly and having my mother capture my antics on the video camera, while only a few tables away, the Minister of Science, Barry Jones, who probably scowled at me. (This one’s for you, dear dad, for all the chopstick fangs you did at nice Yum Cha restaurants!)

And now for the animation break… sponsored by French restaurants, excellent bouillabaisse and poor wee crabs.

Food = Tasty Fun

Here comes the candyman crabman, here comes the candyman crabman…

“Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to eat.”

- Iron Tokage

Salutations! After much influence (and a certain amount of pestering) by loved ones, I have launched my newest blog ever: Iron Tokage!

Iron, obviously for the element Fe and being common in cleavers and saucepans, and after my most favourite show ever – Iron Chef! Tokage is Japanese for Lizard, which of course you know who that means. Oh, yes… me!

To tell the truth, I’ve always had a food blog in mind – I do certainly have some favourites amongst the millions on the internet (and I shall be adding them in my blog roll shortly), but as I just mentioned – millions and millions of blogs – is what stopped me from starting one up.

What do I have to offer? How will this blog stand out from the ocean of desperately cooking housewives and egocentric brunch reviewers and nerdy food photographers? I have my own personal little blog, one that I’ve been ranting (occasionally about food) for a few years, but I didn’t want to make it into a 100% food blog.

I come from a incredible family of foodies, a mutant offshoot of several mongrel Anglo-Saxon Australian generations, and I bristle with pride when I tell my friend of how my father ate a whole chick-cooked-in-egg (balut). My mother is in a foodie phase, dragging me left and right to sample Kippers, Hot n’ Sour Soup and Bouillabaisse at various restaurants across Melbourne. My sister has a food blog focussing on Footscray where she thrives with her family and bemoans how her children only likes fish fingers with peas. Oh, and I do have a younger brother, who is more like our cousins, patrons of meat-and-three-veg (ignore the two other vegetables that ain’t potato) – I’m constantly trying to convert him to the way of the Foodie.

It’s pretty obvious I’m a huge fan of Iron Chef, and a few times I’ll be late to a party on Saturday night because it was Lobster battle – come on, LOBSTER!!! I love how that the chefs, with their stotic and sweating expressions, quickly and effortlessly whip up courses in minutes, without fumbling through recipe books or using Betty Crocker. Those men are exactly who I would transpire to be – as a hobby! – bringing delights to people who grace my dining table, testing and tasting ingredients from odd corners of the Orient, and just being plain CRAZY CREATIVE!

Ergo, this blog shall be about Iron Chef and the philosophy of cooking by taste, with the occasional recipe and review thrown in, swirled up and baked at 220 degrees, basting occasionally.

And for that extra garnish on top of my blog: Animation. Think of those as little ad breaks, calm waters between frenzied rants about how delicious black sesame spread is and the amount of chemicals found in boxed breadcrumbs, along with reviews of Iron Chef episodes and the many cafés that grace cosmopolitan Melbourne. That and just because I like animation, especially ones of lizards and food.

Allez Blog!