Well, I have finally gotten around to doing updates of this Blog after a nearly 6 month vacation. This page was created to show the events and happenings for 2014. So, I am adding events from September, 2014.
14 October – Vue du Monde book launch
Shannon Bennett is launching his new book, Cooking All Over the World, with a special dinner at Vue du Monde.
Our friend Gary asked if we had increased our mortgage to afford it. Any way this the representation of the menu:
We were sharing a large table and much of the courses. Nice people, inlcuding a Girl (Doctor) we shared an earlier meal at Union Dining.
The large range of desserts were set up on a table at the end of the room smorgasbord style. The following are a few shots:
We had a decent chat with Shannon who seemed like quite a nice guy. All in all it was a good night and we got a couple of copies of his book. But it perhaps was not super special.
23 September – Dinner at Florintino Upstairs
Thanks to our friendly Builder, BTK – Billy the Kid – we are treated to a fine meal at Florintino.
I have been slack in updating these Blogs for nearly 6 months so the memory is hazy on some (most) of the dishes. But they were quite special.
All in all a very good meal, thanks Billy!
12 August – William Angliss Great Chefs with Ben Pollard of Spice Temple
This event was supposed to have 6 of us but JV and I were the only ones who showed. Never mind.
The food was both interesting and good. We decide to leave before the dessert and speeches.
Restarting after the completion of the USA trip. It has been hard to get going
22 July – Behind the Red Door
“I saw an eyeball peeking through a smoky crowd behind the Green Door” – Jim Lowe, 1956
No, this Post is not about that famous 50s song. Nor is it about the film “Behind the Green Door” which was one of the films that ushered in the Golden Age of Porn back in 1972. Instead it is about this place in Windsor, Victoria called the Red Door for obvious reasons.
The Red Door is an antique furniture shop.
The Red Door is also a restaurant which serves Chinese food, primarily dumplings, and is BYO. The website is http://reddooryumcha.com/ however, it appears to be down, which is a pity as it was a good website and had the whole menu on it. Google Red Door and you will find review sites like:
We ordered a couple of the main courses which were not quite as good as the dumplings which were super.
So we went back and ordered more dumplings:
20 July – Meeting of the Masters
Today we had the opportunity to introduce two of our Tour Masters – Colin Mclaren, who has taken us on Gusto Sud (Italy) and Gusto New York City so far, and Roy Moorfield and Wife Selena who has taken us on a number of Duck Crawls in Melbourne and HOng Kong plus three great tours of the wine regions of France.
The venue is our Edgevale home. The menu was designed to be a Tapas / Pintxos type and included:
Duck Soup (with Duck Croutons)
Smoked Atomic Buffalo Turds with Prawn
Smoked Duck
Spanish Tortilla
Scallops with Lime/Wasabi sauce
Smoked Salmon in Lettuce or Brioche (home Smoked Salmon of course)
Walnut and Orange Salad
Not many pictures worked out but here is what we had left:
It was another good day and it was great for the two Masters to meet. Lots of nice wine including a 5 year old from Southern Italy that Colin had sent us after the Gusto Sud tour.
11 July – Blackrock Banquet
We head on down to Manning’s Blackrock abode for a “quiet dinner” prepared by Sue but also to watch our Footy team that night.
Food was good, our team won, so there was lots of wine before we crashed. Apparently Manning virtually did not get out of bed the next day.
4 July – Dainty Sichuan with the Rosners
We meet the Rosners again at Dainty Sichuan just after their return for their two week Europe holiday. We tired some things off the menu but also did their variation of a Fondue / Steam Boat.
The Fondue was a bit of fun but we decided we would probably not bother with it again, sticking with the menu which has lots of alternatives.
26 June – Lunch with Hugh and Neil
Hugh, my business partner, and Neil, our accountant, met up at Centonove which is a local Italian restaurant. It is possibly the closest to where we live but it was the first time we had been there. Seemed pretty good. Only one photo:
26 June – Game On Food and Bress wine tasting at Syracuse Restaurant
http://www.syracuserestaurant.com.au/html/s01_home/home.asp
A very good night of wine and food tasting at Syracuse Restaurant in Bank Place. It is quite interesting as our Accountant’s ex-office of 30+ years is right next door, I reckon where I was sitting was looking up straight into Neil’s old office – see post for tomorrow. The menu is quite a good one:
Menu of the night
NV Pinot Noir Chardonnay Sparkling, Macedon
DUCK
2013 Riesling, Harcourt Valley
New Release – 2014 Riesling, Harcourt Valley
PHEASANT
2013 Cabernet Rosé, Harcourt Valley
VENISON TARTARE
New Release – NV La Gallina Syrah, Sangiovese, Merlot, Heathcote
WILD BOAR
2013 Pinot Noir, Yarra Valley Macedon
2012 Pinot Noir, Macedon
CHEESE BOARD
2012 Harcourt Valley Le Grand Coq Noir Shiraz
I had not been to Syracuse before but was quite impressed with the food. The Bress wines were quite good too.
17 June – Daylesford Showcase Dinner
The Melbourne Pub Group with Annies Smithers and Bindi wines put on a Daylesford Showcase Dinner at the MIddle Park Hotel. We meet Dawn and Chas there. Quite an interesting menu.
The food was pretty good but there was too much of it. Neither Chas nor I could finish all of the Lamb Shoulder.
Friday the 13th (june) – Dinner with Donna at Bomba
It had been quite a while since we had caught up with Donna so we made a date for Bomba Bar & Restaurant.
We each ordered a couple of course off the menu which is designed for share plating.
This was a good variety of nice Spanish Food. Should definitely go back again.
Wednesday, 11 June – St Halletts Wine Tasting
Once again we meet up with Stuart Blackwell for another St Halletts wine tasting in Melbourne. This time there in a place I had not heard of before – State of Grace, 477 Collins Street, Melbourne, near the Rialto. I don’t have the menu or list of wines but the wines were very good again, as was the food.
Stuart was his usual ebullient self and it was another good night. One thin he pointed out was that there was a hidden “speakeasy” type bar downstairs which was called Fall from Grace. To enter into the stairs to go down to it, you had to pull a book out of the bookshelf nearby the door.
http://www.stateofgracemelbourne.com.au/
10 June – Special Winter Roast Dinner at the Flower Drum
As part of the whole Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, the Flower Drum put on a very special meal. You probably won’t be able to read the blurry menu but I can tell you that it was great. At the start I told the waiter that we didn’t do dessert so he brought out yet another special course.
It was really great food. Some people say the Flower Drum has gone down hill, I don’t think so at all.
8 June, Dinner with the Bishops
We had been overseas during Neil Bishop’s 70th so had not seen their new house. So we take the Tram up Whitehorse Road and drop by their place in Balwyn. After a tour and a nice glass of wine we off of to Toowoo Korean Charcoal BBQ back more toward the centre of Balwyn. We have a table upstairs.
The food was OK without being brilliant. Toulah very kindly drove us home although the Tram would have been fine.
https://www.facebook.com/towoobbq
30 May- Cooking lesson at LuvaDuck
We have signed up for a Duck cooking lesson at the Luvaduck showroom in Port Melbourne. So we hop onto the trusty 109 tram and with a bit of walking we make it to the showroom. After a cup of tea and an introduction spiel (did you know that Luvaduck is based in Nhill Victoria and that it puts out something like 10,000 ducks a week) we get into the cooking. Pairs of people are assigned dishes from the following menu.
Duck Dishes:
Vibrant Duck and Noodle Soup
Coconut Ginger Pancakes with Five-Spice Duck
Duck Satay with Satay Sauce
Aromatic Duck Curry with Sweet Potatoes and Snow Peas
Cardamon and Saffron Pilaf
Tea Smoked Duck Breast Salad
Oriental Noodle Salad with Peri Peri Duck Shanks
The food was not stunning, we made the duck soup which was unexceptional, but it is hard to go wrong with duck on the table. We learned a few interesting things and made some good purchases from the showroom. A taxi ride home.
29 May – Lunch with retired Regulators
This group, Ian Manning, Phillip Shelton, Jim Holcombe and Bill Balgowan, have regular get togethers for lunch. This time Manning was too busy to attend with our low class group although we did do a conference call with him later on. Normally we have been going to Little Malaysia on Liverpool Street but for a change we selected Saigon Inn, also on LIverpool Street.
Nice food, good service – would definitely go back again.
24 January – Jinda
The Sunday Age had a review of a relatively new Thai restaurant near our office called Jinda.
Independent of that, Steve Stathakis from work had recently gone there and highly recommended it. So we decided to go for a Friday lunch. I got there a little bit late but was the only one there for quite a while. Reni dipped out, Tahnee, Steve’s wife formerly from the GLR where we worked, arrived much later with new Bub and Steve even later after that.
We order two Red Duck Curries and one Green Chicken Curry.
Two weeks later, Julie and I went back to Jinda before listening to music, Beachy Boys at Ruby’s Lounge. We had a few interesting dishes – the starters I forgot to photo, as usual. A spicy Smoked Salmon salad was very impressive as were rice paper rolls Chicken.
All in all quite nice Jinda, showing lots of promise.
21 January – Morris Jones
Julie entered a contest and won a meal voucher for a relatively new place called Morris Jones which is in Windsor (North).
We went with the Rosners and each of us ordered two courses instead of the degustation menu available. They were all supposed to be medium sized dishes.
The flavours of the risotto were stunning and there were baby octopus in there as well as the prawns. We each ordered a different main course.
All in all a good night. The food was innovative and good. The place is a large ex-warehouse and there were not many patrons while we were there, we started at 6:30. By the time we left, the place was filling up nicely.
http://www.morrisjones.com.au/
18 January – Blue Moon over Black Rock
This was a dinner at Manning’s place in Black Rock with guests the Sheltons, the Benbows and us. Most of the cooking was done by Sue Levy and the theme was “Israeli food”.
Manning and Phillip looked after the cooking of the marinated Lamb while Gary helped by talking with Sue in the kitchen much of the time.
Good food and a really good night. As usual, I cannot recall when it ended but I think it was late (or early as the case may be). Thanks, Sue and Ian.
12 January – Spanish Day at Dawn and Chas’s
On this Sunday, Dawn and Chas had us over with Lois and Peter and Jan and Dave. It turned out to be a Spanish food day. Again I was slack with photos. The Tapas starters were very good – Jamon and Avocado biscuits with herbs, Sardines on toast and Hot Chorizio cooked in Spanish Cider. For the main course, Chas cooked one of his famous Seafood Paellas.
It was a great day, perfect weather, good friends, good conversation, the odd grape – nothing better.
11 January – De Duck Table II
As has become a bit of a tradition at Edgevale, we invited the Pardoners and their Stalkers over for a day of Duck(ing). Once again I was too slace to take any photos but the following was the menu.
Duck and Mango Quesadillas
Chinese Duck Salad with Asian Spices and Home Made Duck Balls
Duck Soup, Asian influenced
Thai Green Curry Duck
Cherry Smoked Duck
Duck Fat Potatoes
Potato Salad
Brenda’s famous Strawberry Salad
Desserts from Dianne and Rosie
probably a lot more too.
I had to have one picture even though it was a year old. The Ducks were the same we just didn’t have the Poppers this year.
It was a great day, the weather nearly perfect, one or two bottles of wine.
A special thanks to Dianne’s friend Albert who not only brought a centerpiece that he had made, subject to much discussion between Christine and Sam, but also helped Julie out in the kitchen for most of the day.
During the function, Julie’s Son, Ryan, showed up to take away our house guest for the last 4 weeks while he was skiing in Japan.
Todd is an original Bitsa-Mogie. He is also the epitome of a Scaredy Cat – hiding under the bed for up to 18 hours if someone came to the door. He also does not Meow but squeaks instead. He eventually became comfortable and followed me around a lot. He was also very naughty.
8 January – Chinois Kitchen.
As we did not have an oven and we needed stuff from the Asian deli. So we went to this Chinese place on Glenferrie Road where Gary and I have been a couple of times.
For a change, I asked Julie to select our dishes. She selected Scallop Dumplings and two dishes from the Specials Page.
The Beef especially was very good and very spicy. We took a doggy bag home of this dish. Nice night out for a change.
Chinois Kitchen 03 9819 0038
2 January – Oven Games
The year started with a bang, literally. On 2 January, the Oven blew up with fire, smoke and fortunately a blown fuse.
http://www.camberwellelectrics.com.au/
I am not in favour of repairing electrical goods when they have this much trauma. So I headed to Camberwell Electrics the next day and selected a new ASCO oven. It was promptly delivered the next Monday but I had trouble organising the installation. Later on that Monday, I managed to get the installation scheduled for Friday morning, 10 January. This was very important due to the Duck function the next day. This installation was successfully completed by Esteem Plumbing.
http://www.esteemplumbing.com.au
The oven was almost immediately in use. Thanks Camberwell and Esteem!
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