Sun Mi's Sushi

During a mad rush through central market for which I could not remember the reason we were in town, we decided to stop here for lunch because the patron's dishes looked appetizing. It's a little food stall at the corner of Central Market across from the seafood shop on Grote Street's side. They serve Korean food. I decided to order the Seafood Noodle Soup with kimchi flavoured soup. The soup and noodles were delicious but I was disappointed in the seafood. I was expecting decent sized prawns, squid and fish and maybe some mussels. Instead all I got was a few baby sized shrimp, mussels and octopus that look like they've came from a tin. It was very disappointing.

See the tiny mussel?

On the other hand seeing as Carl liked meat so I ordered Beef Bulgogi for him. Bulgogi is a Korean dish that consists of marinated meat which is usually grilled on a hot plate or over an open flame. It had a tasty sweetness to it. It was rather delicious.

Needless to say I was very jealous of Carl's dish and will remind myself not to order the Seafood Noodle Soup from there again!

Belair Hotel

This is not the first time I've been to Belair Hotel. In fact I've been a few times and unfortunately I must say the restaurant isn't great. It's rather expensive for what it is and the dishes so far haven't given me a sense of satisfaction. From watery curries to extremely fishy risotto, I haven't exactly had the desire to return. 

One night we chose this place out of mere convenience to meet up with someone before we catch a movie at Mitcham so being on a time constraint, we decided to sit at the front bar and ordered from the bar menu. I must admit the front bar menu looks better, though still pricy for a bar/pub being that you don't actually get to sit in the nice restaurant. Having said that we found a gem on the menu. Belair Dog - jumbo chorizo hot dog with bacon, onion, cheese, tomato sauce and mustard served with house made slaw and fries for $12.

It was delicious and satisfying. I loved the coleslaw too! I think next time we'll be eating at the front bar instead. 

Belair Hotel
141 Main Road
Blackwood, 5051
08-8278 8777

Sloppy Joe?

Hello hello. Unfortunately I have been ill (still am) and unable to venture far. I found this picture in my phone of Carl's attempt of Sloppy Joe's. I don't know how close to the real Sloppy Joe it is but it actually tasted really nice. And being Carl he decided to top it with some scrambled eggs.

Sloppy Joe is an American dish of beef mince and onions with a tomato based sauce. A bit like chilli con carne  I suppose. It's usually then served with a toasted burger bun. It's really sloppy to eat hence the name. I don't really know what the nachos and slices of cheese are doing on the side.

Coffee Walnut Loaf

So, I was clearing out my pantry and found some self-raising flour and walnuts. And then I found this recipe courtesy of Women's Weekly. I don't bake very often so this is a big moment for me. I made a Coffee Walnut Loaf.

Ingredients:
3/4 cup roasted walnuts
125g butter chopped
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp instant coffee
1 1/3 cups self-raising flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten lightly


Coffee icing:
1 tbsp boiling water
2 tsp instant coffee
2 tsp butter
1 cup icing sugar


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease a 14cm x 21 cm loaf pan and line the base and long sides with baking paper.
2. Chop half of the nuts
3. Stir butter, sugar, milk and coffee in a small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Then sift flour and cinnamon into a bigger bowl and stir in the butter mixture, egg and chopped walnuts. Mix well and pour into loaf pan.
4. Bake loaf for 15 minutes then sprinkle with remaining nuts and bake for a further 30 minutes. Stand loaf in pan for 10 minutes before turning it onto a wire rack to cool.

Coffee icing

1. Combine all the ingredients for coffee icing in a small heatproof bowl and stir until a firm paste is formed. Heat bowl over a small saucepan with simmering water and stir until icing is spreadable. 
2. Spread icing over walnut loaf and sprinkle with more walnuts if you like.

I made a couple of mistakes with this. Well, I was aware of it so it's not really a mistake. I don't have the smaller loaf pan so my loaf turned out flatter with a bigger surface. Admittedly this is the first time I tried to make icing as I personally don't eat icing. It tasted pretty good but I could have spread it more smoothly. Anyway, it's a great tasting loaf! Enjoy!

Camembert pasta

Goooood morning! I'm supposed to be shoveling dirt outside but it's raining so I'll just sit inside anyway. What a shame! While we're on the topic of creamy food, here's a pretty nice recipe I tried out the other day for Baked Camembert Pasta. We had some left over roast turkey so I just chopped it up and mixed it in with the pasta.

Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 x 250g camembert cheese
2 gloves of garlic
1 sprig of rosemary 
salt and pepper
100g baby spinach
300g dried penne pasta
parmesan cheese


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. If you bought Camembert in a box, unwrap it and place it back in the box. Otherwise, put it in a small oven proof dish/bowl. Cut a circle on the top and gently remove the skin. 
2. Finely slice the garlic cloves and lay it on top of the cheese (in the circle). Sprinkle some salt and pepper, bit of olive oil and rosemary leaves.
3. Place the camembert cheese in the oven to bake for approximately 15 to 20 minutes or until golden and melted.
4. Meanwhile, boil a large pot of salted water and cook the pasta.
5. When the pasta is cooked, add the baby spinach and leave for a further 10-15 seconds just to lightly blanch it. Drain water.
6. Divide the pasta evenly into two bowls and pour the melted Camembert cheese over the pasta.
7. Serve with grated or shaved parmesan.

It was a delicious cheesy meal. Can't go wrong with cheese. Penne pasta can be substituted for macaroni, rigatoni etc. I just used what I had in my pantry.

Creamy chicken, leek and mushroom stroganoff

Time for another recipe. This recipe features my new favourite Philadelphia Cream for Cooking. Where I would normally use cream, I substituted it with Philly Cream for cooking.

Ingredients:
1/2 a leek cut to pieces
5 medium size white mushrooms
2 chicken breasts OR 4 chicken thighs cut into pieces
knob of butter
250mL Philadelphia Cream for Cooking
5 sprigs of parsely finely chopped
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper

Method:

1. Heat the knob of butter in a pan until melted and add the leek. Cook until leek softens.
2. Add the chicken pieces and cook for a further 5 minutes then add the mushrooms.
3. Pour in the Philadelphia Cream for cooking (or normal thickened cream) and mix well. Leave to cook for about 10 minutes. 
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste, pour the lemon juice in and add chopped parsley. Stir through and it's ready to serve. 

It's quite a rich creamy dish so if you want something a bit lighter just reduce the amount of cream. 

Lenzerheide

Hello everyone! Sorry for the sparse posts as my 2 week madness has now extended another 2 weeks and possibly beyond. Nearly re-doing the whole front yard is not as fun as putting my designs on paper. I can see a lot of sinful, disgraceful McDonald's runs coming up. 

Anyway, it was the man's birthday last month and I decided to take him to Lenzerheide. Believe it or not, we have both never been there despite the hype around it and it's amazing food so what better time to go! It was a surprise so when I pulled into the car park he was gob-smacked and extremely excited. Located on 146 Belair Road, Hawthorn (very near my work yay!), Lenzerheide restaurant is actually a restored old historical house so the decor was not expected to be ultra modern. Having said that, the chairs were extremely comfortable and was the first thing I noticed when I sat down. Walking into the dining area I noticed a long wine rack with an extensive  selection of wine. Unfortunately I don't drink so I can't comment. I absolutely loved the indoor garden and thought it was a great feature. 

We started off with the Duck Salad and Shellfish Ragout. The Duck Salad was a warm salad of duck breast on julienne vegetables and radicchio with crispy duck spring roll and a sticky orange and star anise balsamic reduction. The salad and balsamic reduction was nice but the duck breast slices were in my opinion a bit dry and tasteless. The spring roll was crispy and fresh to bite into but needed a touch more seasoning.

Shellfish ragout - prawns, lobster tail and scallops cooked in a creamy tomato sauce served with puff pastry. The seafood was fresh and cooked just right. The sauce was beautiful and the puff pastry was perfect for that crispy texture.

After our delicious entrees we were starting to get excited for the main. We did go on a weekday and the restaurant was half full if even that but it took a little while for the food to come in between courses. We were having a good chat anyway so it didn't really matter but it was enough to be noticed. Carl just had to go for the Venison medallions pan-fried and served with button, Shiitake and Enoki mushrooms finished with a sweet soy and cabernet glaze. My god it was PERFECT! One of the best mains we've had all year. We both love the rich flavour of game meat and this venison was cooked to perfection. The mushrooms and accompanying sauce was beautiful and the whole dish just tied in so well together. All their mains come with a vegetable bundle which was tied with a long bean. It thought it was quite cute. Of course we HAD to go for the Potato Rosti as highly recommended by my colleague. All I can say is that it was a good recommendation.

I went for Steak Olympus - Eye fillet of beef with large Gulf prawns and sauced with honey, soy and cabernet glaze. The beef was like eating butter. It was so beautifully tender I thought it was never possible. They made a pocket in the eye fillet and stuffed a piece of what I believe was grilled lobster meat. That was delicious and fresh and definitely a nice surprise. Forgive the steaks looking so dark as I didn't really want to get the camera flash going in there. 

After a very satisfying main, we are even more excited for dessert. I let slip that it was Carl's birthday and they kindly lit a candle for him on his Profiteroles. The profiteroles were filled with a chocolate liqueur cream, drizzled with dark chocolate sauce and served with vanilla bean ice-cream. 

 I was indeed very nice and like a little kid he seemed very impressed with the candle. I went for the Citrus Plate which was a plate of three different items. Lime and Passionfruit Souffle, Lemon Curd Ice-cream and Blood orange tartlet. The menu said to allow 30 minutes but it didn't actually take that long. Either way it would have been completely worth the wait. The souffle was so soft and fluffy with intense flavour. While I loved all three items on the plate, I have to say the Blood orange tartlet was my favourite. It was beautiful and maybe it was the fairy floss that pushed it to number 1 spot. 

My Hibiscus and Lavender tea

All in all it was a fantastic culinary experience and I wish I could have taken better pictures to share with you guys and to do it justice but I didn't want to disturb other diners with constant flashes of light. This may be the first time we visit Lenzerheide but it certainly won't be the last!

Lenzerheide

146 Belair Road,

Hawthorn SA 5062
08-8373 3711

Mapo Tofu

Mapo Tofu is also known as 'Grandma beancurd' in some Chinese restaurants. This dish originated from Szechuan province where they are famous for their very spicy dishes. This is my variation of this lovely dish. First I love this chilli sauce/paste. It can be found in Asian groceries. It's the Lao Gan Ma chilli.

My trusty chilli

Ingredients:

3 cloves garlic, minced

250g mince pork

900g extra firm tofu

2 generous tbsp Lao gan ma chilli

1 tbsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp Shao Xing wine

100mL water

cooking oil

spring onions or chives to garnish

Method:

1. Heat oil in pan and saute garlic until fragrant. Add mince pork and cook for 3-5 minutes.
2. Open the tofu pack, drain the liquid and cut the tofu into smaller cubes.
3. Add the tofu, soy sauce, Lao Gan Ma chilli, sugar and water. Mix well and bring to boil then cover with lid and leave it for 5 minutes on high heat.
4. Next, add the sesame oil and Shao Xing wine and mix it in well. 
5. The dish is now ready to serve. Chop some chives or spring onions for garnish and extra flavour.

Hope you guys enjoy the dish. If you don't have pork mince, other mince will do too but beef and pork tends to add the best flavour. Turkey can sometimes be too dry but if you like it, by all means use it.

Wood Oven Pizza Party

Good afternoon everyone! Someone has a new wood oven pizza and Carl decided he wanted a pizza party for his birthday. It was great fun making your own pizza and watching it bake in the pizza oven. The pizza oven is HOT! It does take a bit of time to set up though. Apparently about 3 hours before the perfect flame? Anyway here are some photos of our "adventure"!

The oven

Roll the dough out (This was a cheat dough bought from Bakers Delight)

Sauce it up with a smile

Pile it on

Hot salami pizza

Into the oven

Here's one we prepared earlier!

It was a good night of fun! The first time we used home made dough and I think that was much better and the wood oven taste was really there. With pre-baked pizza bases or frozen bases they don't seem to get the wood oven taste.......one of life's mysteries.

Enuf Burger Bar

Hello everyone! It was Carl's birthday on Thursday so we went to play golf at the Pat (my third time ever in my life, thankfully I didn't hold anyone up). On the way back we came across this burger bar. After 18 holes of golf, a burger bar is the foodie's equivalent of heaven!

Enuf Burger Bar is situated on Anzac Highway, Glenelg North. It's a nice little orange burger joint. We did intend to order two burgers but one of our burger order got missed. Thankfully I was generous to share mine with Carl while waiting for the other burger that was never going to come otherwise he would've gone home unhappy. 

It's not exactly the cheapest snack but rather satisfying. I ordered some Beer Battered Onion Rings and they were delicious. Carl was happy because they had Lime Milkshake. He is obsessed with citrusy milk shakes. Lime and orange....seriously.

I went for the Gerhard Burger with wholemeal bun. It had beef patty, bacon, camembert cheese, lettuce, tomato, caramelized onion, BBQ sauce and mayo. When the burger arrived the bun was huge. Just the bun. The burger filling is that of a normal burger. Filling you up on carbs! The burger was very delicious and satisfying but did cost $11.90. The burger, onion rings and milkshake cost $20 all up so it's not exactly a cheap lunch.