Acland Street Cantina

Acland Street Cantina
2 Acland Street
St Kilda, VIC 3182
Ph: (03) 9536-1175
Website


So, "Modern Mexican". It's a Melbourne dining trend that has pretty much passed me by. I visited Mamasita once back in 2010, wasn't a huge fan, and never had any burning desire to go back. Upon reflection my dislike of the restaurant was more to do with the inexplicable hype surrounding it, rather than the food itself, which was fine, if a little expensive. I just don't get why you'd want to line up for hours for it. (Or any restaurant, for that matter - but that's just my inner grumpy-old-lady talking). I must admit it also really grated on me that it was gushingly described by fawning bloggers and food writers as "authentic" Mexican, when it clearly wasn't.

And so, I never really had any interest in any of the Modern Mexican wave (hah!) of restaurants that have sprung up in Melbourne over the past couple of years. Prior to this visit to Acland Street Cantina, I hadn't been to Fonda, to Señoritas, to Chingón, to The Newmarket Hotel, to Touché Hombre. I had been to (and enjoyed) Los Amates, but as it's been around for ages, and serves traditional Mexican comfort food, rather than modernising it or creating a nightclub vibe with loud music, dark lighting and/or queues, I don't count it as being in the same category.

I much prefer trying to cook Mexican-style food at home, especially with my lovely cousin Catherine, who shares my cynicism regarding "Modern Mexican". (See Mexican Lunch #1; Mexican Lunch #2; and Mexican Lunch #3. Hot tip for home cooks: sopes are way easier than tortillas!)

This is really just a long-winded way of explaining that I went to newish Mod-Mexican restaurant Acland Street Cantina twice this year, and despite all my preconceptions, really enjoyed it!

Acland Street Cantina

The first visit was on a Friday night - my cousin and I had just attended the launch of Circa's Pop Up Yakitori Bar at The Prince (you can read about it at Gourmet Chick's blog), and hadn't been sufficiently assertive in the packed crowd to get more than a couple of nibbles and a drink each. We decided to retreat next door to Acland Street Cantina (another Paul Wilson venture, incidentally) to continue chatting and get a bit more food.  We sat in the bar section at the front and shared some baja fish tacos and a bowl of bravas potatoes, both of which were very impressive.

Baja Fish Tacos, $14 for 2 (at night)

Bravas Potatoes - $7

The service was also very good - the waitress serving us was really friendly and patient, explaining the menu and even offering us tastes of the ice-cream when we went up to pay. (They have sweet corn ice-cream, peoples!) We left full and happy, promising that we'd come back together for a proper meal.

Imagine my delight, then, when I won a $95 voucher to Acland Street Cantina a few weeks later, as part of Cinco de Mayo! It was one of those "Retweet before 3pm for your chance to win" things, and I thought it couldn't hurt to give it a go. It sure didn't! I enthusiastically texted my cousin, but unfortunately the only time she had free was the last night my brother was in town and obviously we had to have family dinner. I felt so guilty cancelling on her! (Funnily enough though, they ran the twitter competition again that week, and guess who won that time: my cousin! Hah! What a crazy coincidence!)

I ended up taking my brother there for a weekday lunch - he's been living in Japan for the last three years, and I felt it was my duty, as an ambassador for Melbourne, to show him something really Melbournian - hence, Modern Mexican. And we've come full circle!

Flowers, tequila bottle

The restaurant portion of ASC only does dinner, but that was ok with me, as I prefer the bright and colourful front bar section anyway (the back section looks a bit dark and, um, sex dungeony - it used to be the bar Mink, if anyone remembers it).

Acland Street Cantina - bar section

Cinco De Mayo

They had a special Cinco de Mayo barbecoa feasting lunch, which is what my brother ended up ordering. It did come with beer or a margarita, but it was lunchtime, so just soft drinks for us.

Strawberry Iced Tea - $4
Jarritos Grapefruit - $4 (but included in the Cinco de Mayo plate)

We started by sharing a plate of pumpkin guacamole. Such a cute idea, and I liked the textural interest added by the toasted seeds (pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower) - something to try making at home one day. The stripey chips are vegetable chips - I think taro? Very crisp and a nice change from the usual corn / tortilla chips.

Pumpkin guacamole with vegetable chips and salsa - $12

Here's the $25 barbecoa plate! The savoury items were very impressive, especially the tender and smoky slow-cooked pork rib, and there was a good variety of flavours and textures on the plate. I'd probably avoid ordering the tres leches cake myself in future, as it was a bit small (I'm of the understanding that the small dish you see below is the full serving size if you order it by itself), and I didn't like the addition of autumn fruits to the plain cake. 

$25 Barbecoa Feasting Lunch
Clockwise from right: Tostadas w/ wild mushroom queso fundido
Blue corn & prawn quesadilla w/ chipotle aioli
Cochinta Pibil style pork ribs w/ crushed sweet potato - slow cooked pork short ribs w/ achiote & seville orange sauce
Tres leches cake w/ autumn fruits

I knew I couldn't go wrong by ordering tacos (and they're only $5 each at lunch!).

Tacos!

Authentic Al Pastor Spit-Roasted Pork w/ Pineapple Salsa - $5 (at lunch)

Pueblan-style goat w/ red mole - $5 (at lunch)

Baja Fried Fish w/ slaw and chipotle mayo - $5 (at lunch)

I'd had a hard time choosing which tacos to go for - I chose a fish taco because I loved it so much the time before, the goat taco because of the relatively exotic meat, and the pork taco because, well, pork. I liked them all, but the goat and fish were my favourite! And at $5 each at lunch, they're really well priced. Three tacos made a decent sized lunch, and had I not been there with my brother, I would have been fine not ordering dessert.

But, for his sake of course, we did order dessert. (I'm such a good sister, don't you think?) I had to try the famous salted caramel ice-cream churro taco. It was a great, super-intense dessert - cinnamon flavoured deep-fried churro at the base, with two scoops of smooth and creamy salted caramel ice-cream, drizzled with salted caramel and sprinkled with crunchy sweet sugary praline. Delicious, but crazy decadent! Definitely one to share!

Salted caramel ice cream churros tacos - $12

I had a bit of value left on my voucher, so one of the waiters suggested I get some groceries to use it up. Here's what I got!

My chilli haul

It was: two bottle of hot sauce, two packets of dried chillies (there's ancho chillies and another one of which I don't know the name), and a tin of chipotle chillies in adobo sauce. I didn't realise until after I got home that  they were all chilli products! I think I have a bit of an addiction!

Thanks for the voucher, ASC, it was an awesome lunch! Looking forward to coming back again on my own coin one day!

Do you have a favourite Mexican restaurant in Melbourne? Do you prefer modern or traditional Mexican food? Do you like to follow dining and food trends or do you just eat what you like?

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The Unblogged Files: May 2013, Melbourne Edition

Yo yo! So, I know what you're thinking: "Whaaat?! It's only halfway through May, what's Sarah doing with another Unblogged Files already?" You see, I just got to Germany this morning, for a three-week holiday! I've got many, many delicious meals planned, so I thought it would make sense to do an Unblogged Files covering all the eating from Melbourne from the first half of the month, and do full posts for the Europe-based eating after I get back!

The first half of May was very busy food-wise anyway: I had a week off between finishing up at my old job and starting my new one, my brother was back in town for a week for a whirlwind visit, and I was also trying to catch up with as many friends as possible before my holiday!

First thing: cookies. I made a batch of The Rock's Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies (you can Google the recipe), replacing the suggested chocolate chips with a bar of Godiva Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate that my parents brought back from their most recent trip overseas. Wow.

The Rock's Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies with Godiva Salted Caramel Milk Chocolate

I also made a batch of Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies to take when we visited our friends who've just had a (gorgeous!) baby. These biscuits are also known as Pierre Hermé's chocolate sablés (again, you can Google the recipe), and they're incredible! It's a richly dark chocolate shortbread, crisp and crumbly, studded with little pieces of finely chopped chocolate and the crunch of fleur de sel.

World Peace Cookies

My brother's visit home from Japan was a busy and food-filled week (well, we are Malaysian, after all). Apart from my birthday celebrations that I mentioned in my last Unblogged Files...

We had family Yum Cha at Tai Pan in Doncaster East...

Tai Pan Yum Cha

I happened to win a $95 voucher from Acland Street Cantina, so took my bro for lunch there. We really enjoyed it and I'll be blogging it in full, but for now check out this picture of their delicious (and giggle-inducing) salted caramel ice-cream churro taco.

Salted Caramel Ice-Cream Churros Taco - $12

We also had coffee at Sensory Lab (super Melbournian experience, IMHO).

Sensory Lab Coffee

And on his last night in town, I cooked dinner for the family, their favourite: Saffron-Scented Chicken Pilaf - a Nigella recipe from Forever Summer. It's the best! (My bro wrote a really nice Bliphoto entry about me and this dinner, you can read it here!)

Saffron-Scented Chicken Pilaf

Being so busy, I was totally slack in bringing my lunch to work, and visited Snag Stand a couple of times this month - I loved the "Das Bratwurst", which came with a bratwurst sausage, bacon-studded sauerkraut, onions and mustard - although I must say I felt conflicted about buying a grammatically incorrect lunch. (It's "Die Bratwurst!) The chips are very good too (even though I'd have to say Schnitz' are even better).

Left: Das Bratwurst
Top Right: American Classic
Bottom Right: Chips

Continuing on the "slack" theme, one morning I didn't even make my own breakfast (for shame!), and got a Croque Monsieur from Streat. At $8, it's more than I like to spend on breakfasts, but it was very buttery and tasty, and I loved the meaty ham and Gruyère cheese. A nice treat.

Croque Monsieur from Streat - $8

As I said above, I was trying to catch up with friends as much as possible before flying off to Germany - one night, we hit up Simon's Peiking Duck in Box Hill with some girlfriends and a bottle of pinot noir. SO MUCH DELICIOUSNESS.

Simon's Peiking Duck

We did one duck between four, and ordered two dishes as well: General Tso's chicken and Chinese broccoli stir-fried with garlic. All dishes were uniformly impressive.

Clockwise from top left: Duck meat stir-fried with beanshoots, General Tso's chicken, Duck soup, Chinese broccoli stir-fried with garlic

After dinner, rather than having dessert at the restaurant, we stopped off at Leo's Supermarket and picked up two tubs of Ben & Jerry's and some waffle cones, and had that for dessert. Great idea! Normally I find Ben & Jerry's a bit sweet, but I can say without hesitation that their Clusterfluff flavour is fabulous! It's peanut butter ice-cream with peanut buttery swirls, marshmallow swirls and caramel cluster pieces.

Ben & Jerry's Clusterfluff & New York Super Fudge Chunk

Ice-cream cone!

Last Saturday night we celebrated my friend Adri's birthday with dinner at Touché Hombre - I wasn't expecting to love it (I get stressed out when restaurants have a no-booking policy!), but the food was really good and the atmosphere was nice and chilled. I'll be blogging it soon. I really liked the Tostada Pulpo - chargrilled octopus, crab claw, spring onion, coriander and pico de gallo on a crisp fried tortilla.

Touché Hombre's Tostada Pulpo - chargrilled octopus, crab claw, spring onion, coriander and pico de gallo on a crisp fried tortilla  - $13

To celebrate the new job, (and to save me cooking on my first day!) my friend Jess cooked us the most amazing dinner: sticky roast chicken with mashed potato, homemade gravy and beans/brussels sprouts/mushrooms with a feta vinaigrette. Perfect comfort food for the cold weather! (The mashed potato/gravy bowl thingo was Sandra's idea).

Roast chicken, mashed potato, homemade gravy, beans/brussels sprouts/mushrooms in a feta vinaigrette

A few treats from Burch & Purchese!

Left: Chocolate, mandarin, salted caramel
Right: explosive raspberry milk chocolate

For my dad's birthday, we took him to Mr Huang Jin in the Rialto Building for dumplings. Although it's pricer than your standard dumpling restaurant, the quality is very good. We liked the Xiao Long Bao... (we tried four different types: chilli, tea-smoked, pumpkin, and normal pork)...

Tea-smoked Xiao Long Bao

 ...and the sticky pork ribs.

Sticky Pork Ribs with Peas and Walnuts

Afterwards we went for drinks at The Lui Bar, on the 55th floor of The Rialto Building. My mum, who's not much of a drinker, just had a latte, which was one of those famous $10 coffees that come with a plate of petits fours. (There was a boule of eucalyptus ice-cream, a "lamington" made of chocolate mousse, a pink candy gum leaf, a piece of crisp chocolate, and a bourbon jelly lolly.) My dad proclaimed the coffee and petits fours such good value that he ordered another one for himself, on which they wrote "Happy Birthday". Yay! Also fabulous were the apple donuts and the macadamia martini, which came with some salted macadamia brittle. Happy Birthday Dad!

Clockwise from top left: Glenmorangie on the rocks, Petits Fours, Latte, Apple Donuts, Macadamia Martini with Salted Macadamia Brittle

And finally, we flew off to Germany!! Before driving off to the airport, we had a tasty breakfast at home of takeaway coffees, peanut butter and chocolate muffins, and ham and egg toasties from Porgie and Mr Jones.

Breakfast

And that was (the first half of) May! Follow me on Twitter and Instagram to keep up with my European eating adventures! Apart from being in Germany, I have a weekend in London coming up and a few days in Paris planned... and I'm going to buy some stretchy pants tomorrow. Tchüss!!

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Salted Date Caramel Flapjacks

Salted Caramel Flapjacks

I bought a box of expensive Medjool dates a while ago to make Ottolenghi's delicious spinach and date salad and then spent ages trying to figure out what to do with the remainder. Don't you hate it when that happens? Well, one morning I made myself a bowl of porridge and added brown sugar and chopped dates for sweetness - I liked the combo so much that I decided to use the same flavours and bake a really intense, oaty, buttery flapjack with a layer of date caramel on the inside. And I am so glad I did!

My first impulse when it comes to baking is to reach for a Nigella book, but I vaguely remembered reading reports that her flapjacks were hard to flip and broke apart easily. And when I googled "flapjack", the amount of recipes that came up were astounding, with each author having their own tips on avoiding breakage, and Very Strong Opinions on the characteristics that make a good flapjack: crisp, soft, thick, thin, sweet, spiced...?

What was common, however, was the holy quadrilogy of flapjack ingredients: oats, golden syrup, brown sugar, and butter. For the oaty base, I took a rough average of the dozens of varying recipes I found online. I also (obviously) added a layer of date caramel, a good pinch of salt to balance out the sweetness, and also took Nigella's tip of sprinkling sesame seeds over the top.

Ingredients

Now: don't be fooled. The inclusion of oats does not make this a healthy treat!  With 150 grams of butter and 150 grams of brown sugar to 300 grams of oats (not to mention the golden syrup and date caramel), this is a seriously decadent treat. Think of the oats not as a healthy base, but rather as an efficient delivery system for the sugar and butter, much like a spoon or an IV drip. Ahem.

To make date caramel, you simply simmer pitted dates in a little water for five minutes, then blend them up in a food processor to make a sticky paste. Incidentally, date caramel is touted all over the place as a "healthy" and "natural" alternative to regular caramel, which is an image I totally don't get. Dates, like any dried fruit, are very high in sugar (67% according to this website), so I don't think it would be that much better for you than regular caramel. Basically, what I'm saying is - don't eat it to be "healthy", eat it if you like the taste!

Boiling the dates

Check out the oats, all slicked with melted butter and brown sugar. Love!

Oat mixture

I only used 100 grams of dates, which makes a nice thin layer and stops the finished product from being too sweet - but it's easy enough to scale the recipe up if you'd want more.

Caramel layer

All packed in and sprinkled with sesame seeds

And here it is, baked! I must admit I felt quite an unhealthy amount of glee watching the buttery sugar bubbling up and caramelizing on the sides as it baked.

Baked!

Baked flapjack

Check out the crackly sides

I found that the flapjacks were much easier to slice the next day, once it had cooled completely, but they taste so fantastic warm from the oven! I'd definitely suggest cutting off a few pieces whilst still warm and inhaling it alongside a cup of tea.

Flapjacks

I liked them cut into squat squares, and found that they lasted really well - I kept them in an airtight container on my desk at work, sneaking into them over the week when I needed a sugar fix in the afternon! (After a few days they seem to soften a little, but still taste fantastic!)

Flapjacks

Yum

Salted Date Caramel Flapjacks
An original recipe by Sarah Cooks

Ingredients
For the Date Caramel
100 grams pitted dates (preferably Medjool)
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
For the Flapjacks
150 grams unsalted butter
150 grams brown sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
300 grams rolled oats
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method
To make the Salted Date Caramel
Roughly chop the dates and place in a small saucepan with the bicarb. Pour over just enough water to cover and simmer for five minutes. Drain the dates, reserving the liquid. Place the dates in a food processor or blender, and whizz to combine. Add 1-2 tablespoons of the cooking water and whizz to make a rough purée.

To make the Flapjacks
Preheat the oven to 160C and line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper.
Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a medium saucepan and stir to combine. Take off the heat and stir in the oats and salt. Spread half the mixture into the tin, in as even a layer as you can manage. Spread the date caramel over. There won't be a lot of caramel and the uncooked flapjack base isn't sturdy enough to withstand vigorous spreading (*ahem*), so the best way to do this is to dollop spoonfuls of the caramel over the base, then wet your fingers and spread the caramel out as best you can, leaving a 1-cm border.
Spoon the remaining oat mixture over and spread / pat it out to an even layer. Sprinkle sesame seeds over.
Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling. Allow to cool before transferring to a chopping board and cutting into fat slabs.
Makes 9-16, depending on how you cut them

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Corn Fritters

Corn fritters, (messily) poached eggs, smoked salmon, chive labneh, diced avocado

As you know, I love making quick-yet-nourishing weekday breakfasts, styling them prettily and instagramming them. On weekends, I've gotten into the habit of making slightly more involved cafe-style brunches - it takes a bit of time, but the results are delicious, and I do love pottering about the kitchen!

The breakfast, above, was my take on that ubiquitous cafe staple of corn fritters. I googled a few recipes to get a general idea of how to make them, and then ended up doing it my own way. Basically I wanted maximum corniness: loads of corn kernels just bound by a little batter.

To increase the corn-factor even more, I used a small tin of creamed corn as a binding agent, instead of just egg. Creamed corn is all kinds of awesome! For extra flavour I added a finely chopped red onion and cayenne pepper. (I later learned, through a hospo-working friend of mine, that one of the most popular restaurants in Melbourne uses corn purée in their fritters for this exact reason. Win!)

Corn fritter batter, pre-mixing

I used the kernels of a fresh ear of corn, and boosted quantities with a small tin of corn kernels, because this is what I happened to have in my fridge and pantry - for ease, in the recipe below I've specified either two ears of corn or a normal-sized (400 gram) tin of corn kernels.

Corn kernels

I loved the golden, corn-studded batter!

Batter

Shallow frying! One tip: this batter is quite delicate, with the corn kernels barely held together by the batter, so don't be tempted to flip the fritters until they are well and truly sealed on the bottom, and cooked at least half way through, otherwise you'll be in for a big mess! (As I write this, it occurs to me that you could deep-fry tablespoons of the mixture for a super-crispy result, but I feel that would be more canapé than brunch).

Frying

Cooked fritters

Now, the fun stuff: sides! I went all out and did poached eggs (mine were really messy, as you can see above - must practise!), smoked salmon, diced avocado spritzed with lime juice and sprinkled with salt and pepper, and chive labneh. And when I say labneh, I really mean that I just lined a sieve with a paper coffee filter, spooned some 0% Greek yogurt in there and let it drip while I got on with everything else. To serve the labneh, I poured over a little extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkled with salt, pepper and chopped chives. (Chopped chives make everything taste better!)

Diced avocado, chive labneh

Other ideas I had for sides: bacon, fried eggs, halloumi (like St. Ali's corn fritters), tomato relish (or any expensive relish/chutney/salsa that you have languishing in your pantry), guacamole, pico de gallo... anything you like, really! They're turn out quite sweet (corn, duh), so salty accompaniments work well. For the maximum corn-experience, why not wrap them up in a corn tortilla?

But you know what? Even if you eat these plain, they're pretty damn good. They're super-corny, nice and pancakey on the inside, and with fab crisp edges. Despite being fried, they feel light and bright and delicious. It's totally worth setting aside your Sunday morning to make these!

Corn Fritters

An original recipe from Sarah Cooks, inspired by the multitudes of corn fritters at Melbourne's cafes!

Ingredients

1 x 125 gram tin of creamed corn

1/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon bicarb

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 red onion, finely chopped

Small handful flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

The kernels from 2 ears of corn, or 1 x 400g tin of corn kernels

Method

Place all the ingredients except for the corn kernels in a mixing bowl, and whisk to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Slice the kernels off the corn (or open the tin of corn!) and add to the bowl.

Heat a layer of vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan. Cook spoonfuls of the corn mixture in the hot oil for about three minutes a side, only flipping when the fritters are sealed on the bottom.

Place the corn fritters in a 75C oven as you cook the rest of the batter.

Makes 6 fritters, serves 2-4 depending on how hungry you are and what you serve them with.

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