One taiyaki.

I repeat: TAIYAKI!!!! I made my own taiyaki last night, having bought a funky pan on the internet. (I just did a search on Amazon.com, it was $AUD80 including shipping from the US).

Taiyaki is a super-delicious Japanese snack. It's made of a pancake-type dough filled with an pan (e.g. red bean paste) or other fillings, and cooked in a fish-shape mould. They're generally available in street stalls, and food courts, and at festivals. We had similar kaitenyaki (round shape) from a roadside vendor in Osaka whilst in Japan in '07, and fell in love with them!

Two taiyaki. Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun!

Taiyaki also feature prominently in my favourite anime, Azumanga-Daioh, when the impossibly cute Chiyo-chan takes a walk with the spacey Osaka-san during the cultural festival at their school. Because she is wearing her penguin costume, Chiyo can't eat the taiyaki herself, so Osaka-san has to feed her.

"Do you wanna start from the tail or the head?"

Kawaii~~~~i!

I haven't found taiyaki in Melbourne, and whilst I think you can get round kaitenyaki in packets at Japanese grocers, they're never quite as good as fresh ones straight from the pan. The ones here are also pretty much always red-bean filled, and whilst I love red-bean, certain people I know can't stand it, and have to have custard in their taiyaki.

Here is the pan.

The instruction on the box were in Korean, so unfortunately I could not read them. Googling recipes for taiyaki wasn't much help either, so in the end I just made my favourite waffle batter from The Roux Brothers on Patisserie. For fillings we had red bean (from a tin), and custard (a quick crème pâtissière I made).

Because I couldn't read the instructions, I brushed the mould with melted butter before cooking each one, but I then discovered that the mould is crazy-non-stick - no oil or butter required!


When I was halfway through cooking them, my Dad came home, and I had the brilliant idea of making kaya-filled ones for him and mum! Just like the kaya balls you can buy in foodhalls in Malaysia. Yum yum. For those of you who don't know, kaya is Malaysian coconut & egg jam, flavoured with pandan.

Kaya makes me proud to be Malaysian.


Kaya-filled... sedap, man!

Red-bean filled!

Custard filled. And yes, those are flecks of real vanilla - I still have a huge stash of cheap and fabulous vanilla beans that I am slowly working my way through.


And the next morning... we used the leftover dough to make waffles! I really liked the fluffy dough of the previous night's taiyaki, so I made some plain ones in the taiyaki pan too.

The breakfast of champions: waffles, taiyaki, red bean, creme patissiere and strawberries!

Interesting fact: strawberries + creme patissiere + crunchy waffles tastes like a French strawberry tart.

Ooh... fluffy.

I really, really liked the plain waffles cooked in the taiyaki pan, even better than waffles made in the waffle iron. They were soft and fluffy, compared to the crispy regular waffles. I also think that domestic electric waffle irons don't do waffles justice - they don't get hot enough and you don't get that wonderful contrast between crispy outside and fluffy inside. Until I can justify splurging on a stove-stop waffle iron, I'll be using my trusty taiyaki pan for waffles.

This heart-stoppingly beautiful piece of cake is, my friends, a piece of Bienenstich. You may remember it from such posts as "Germany 2008: Kaffee und Kuchen". It is my favourite cake in the whole world. Sweet yeasted dough, fluffy custard, and crunchy sugary flaked almonds. It is very hard to find here in Melbourne, and the few times I have seen it at cafes, it has been just crap - stale dough, garishly bright yellow custard and the meanest sprinkling of un-sugared almonds on top. (That's right Hootsen's on Glenferrie and the European bakery in Vic Market, I'm looking at you!)

So you can imagine my total delight and surprise when I saw that gorgeous specimen at Dench Bakers on the weekend.

Dench Bakers
109 Scotchmer St
North Fitzroy VIC 3065
(03) 9486-3554
Website

I suggested Dench for a weekend lunch date with my favourite uni friends because I wanted to try their famous breads. When we got there at about 1:45, it was still quite crowded, but we managed to score a spot inside. I have forgotten the exact prices, but they were all in the mid-to-high range.



From top: Full-sized veggie Soup; Pork chop on mash with apple sauce; Poached egg on rosti with smoked salmon.

My friend An got the pork chop, with a 1/2 & 1/2 soup for $9.50 extra (not photographed). He thought this meant you'd get a half portion of the main meal, with a half portion of the soup. But this was not the case - he did get a half-soup, but the pork chop was normal (massive) size. And yummy. An rocks because he lets me try all his food.

Sandra ordered a full portion of the soup - bizarrely the same price - which was a tomato-based vegetable soup, hearty and full of chunky vegetable pieces. I, being totally ditzy, ordered a dish with no bread! D'oh. However, my poached egg on rosti with smoked salmon and mayo was very nice, so I'm not complaining. The rosti was softer and less crispy than I'm used to, but it was good regardless.

An, being superhuman, had a 2nd latte and a super-dense ganache-covered flourless chocolate cake. I tried a little bit - almondy and delicious.

Adri bought a selection of cakes to take home, including the flourless chocolate.
Clockwise from back-left: Banana cake, crumble, bread and butter pudding, flourless chocolate cake.

I wasn't going to buy any cake, just breads, but then I saw the tray of proper-looking Bienenstich in the fridge. Yelp! Just had to buy 2 to take home.

And below is the bread I got:
From top: ciabatta, light rye, baton (French white with the cute pointy ends).

I actually only bought the rye and the baton, and they gave Adri and I a loaf of ciabatta each for free because it was closing time. Score! And more importantly, thank-you! We tried the bread later that night for supper, and it was amongst the best bread I've found in Melbourne so far. It was crusty, and the light rye had a lovely hint of caraway in it. It wasn't quite like German bread (das beste Brot in der Welt!), but I was still pleased with it, and would return for more!

Following this massive lunch, we were planning on going ice-skating at Docklands (now that the Southern Star Ferris Wheel is out of action, they've got to put some kind of activity there). By the time we found the rink - I always get lost at the Docklands, and get sooo confused by the parking - it was booked out and we couldn't ice-skate. Oops.

So we had a walk around the harbour town shops, which seem to consist mainly of discount shoe shops... and came across a Mövenpick ice-cream parlour! Such delicious Swiss creamy goodness. I didn't even know they had parlours here - when I was younger, my Dad used to buy Mövenpick for us in tiny but expensive tubs from Leo's as a treat. I dragged the group inside and we all ended up buying ice-cream, hehe.



Movenpick Ice Cream
36 Star Crescent
Waterfront City
Docklands VIC 3008
Ph: (03) 9670-7994
Website
Top Left: Caramelita (OMG best ice-cream flavour ever!) and cappuccino
Top Right and Bottom Left: Chocolate and Mango
Bottom Right: Raspberry

I personally love the creamy flavours the best. The cappuccino was a coffee-flavoured ice-cream containing a generous amount of fine chocolate flakes, and the caramelita had both caramel-flavoured ice-cream and a decadent ribbon of caramel (with some delightfully grainy pockets of caramel). The mango and raspberry had impressively pure, fresh flavours. Yes, $6.95 for 2 scoops is extremely expensive, but this was a time that I felt it was worth it.

Lindt Chocolat Cafe
271 Collins St.
Melbourne, 3000
Ph: (03) 9667 0900


I have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with Lindt milk chocolate. It is my favourite chocolate ever, and I absolutely love it in all its forms - Lindor balls, in those big gold bars, the 100g bars you get at the supermarket, and especially the hexagonal piccoli pieces (that I used to buy in the industrial-sized 2.5 kg bags). I love the super-creamy taste, the smooth texture, and the sweet hint of caramel you get when you bake pieces of it in a cookie and they get just a little bit burnt - wonderful.

So, there was a bit of crazy-excitement when I realised that the Lindt Cafe had opened in Melbourne. As I recall, I was driving to work (at some ungodly hour of the morning) when I saw a bus-shelter ad announcing its arrival. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! Now I have no need to go up to Sydney (except when Wicked moves there later this year).

The earliest time I could arrange to visit was Sunday arvo, before we caught the matinee session of Avenue Q (the last day too!). When we arrived at 1:30, there was a huge line, which was moving verrrry slowly. There was also a big cold gusty wind blowing in through the entrance - not a fun place to wait. However, we managed to get a table after only 10 minutes (we could skip the queue because the bigger groups in front of us had to wait for a bigger table to be free, but we only needed a table for 2).


I really liked the fit-out - even though it was crowded in there, the high ceilings made it feel spacious and breezy.

Unfortunately they were out of delices (AKA macarons) and cerise (AKA Black Forest cake) so we chose from other parts of the menu. According to our waitress, the whole weekend's worth of delices sold out on Friday!

Ok... so we may have gone a little bit overboard...

Despite how busy it was, our food and drinks came out pretty quickly (but not all at once) - I was impressed.

White Chocolate Eclair - $7.00

Sandra ordered the white eclair, and I had a sneaky taste. The cream inside was really nice, as was the vanilla-flecked white chocolate topping, but the pastry itself wasn't that great - it wasn't as light and fluffy as I like choux pastry to be.

For my drink, it had to be milk hot chocolate.
Milk hot chocolate - $6.50 (eeek!)

Mmm... melted milk Lindt for my hot choccy

It's a cute idea to have the chocolate and milk separate, but just mixing melted chocolate and hot milk doesn't necessarily make the best hot chocolate, in my opinion, as the finished product is never intense enough. And anyway, I love Lindt melted milk choc so much I'd just drink it straight from the jug if there weren't anyone around to see. Hehe.

Milk Chocolate Mocha - $5.50.

Super, duper rich. A little too rich, when combined with the white chocolate eclair.

I ordered the waffle!!!!!!!
Waffles with vanilla ice-cream and dark chocolate sauce - $15.00

Yum...! The waffle was both crispy and fluffy, and the vanilla ice-cream was creamily delicious. I love the fact that it's Lindt's own ice-cream. This was definitely the highlight of the afternoon. The waffle, by itself (i.e. not ordered with alongside crazy amounts of hot chocolate and cookies), would be a perfect treat - decadent but not too rich.

After all that, I was absolutely stuffed, and couldn't finish the chocolate cookie I'd also ordered (yes, I went waaay overboard), so like an Asian mum I wrapped it up in a napkin and stashed it in my handbag.

Chocolate Sablé - chocolate shortbread studded with Lindt Excellence 70% chocolate - $4

I ate it later that night - it had a pleasant short and crumbly texture, and was still a little bit soft on the inside, with generous chunks of dark chocolate. The only problem with it was that it was quite salty. I know a touch of salt makes chocolate desserts pop, but I found the salt a bit too strong - I like it to complement the chocolate, not overpower it.

We had a lovely afternoon at the Lindt cafe, but I'm not in a rush to head back. It's still too crowded, and very expensive. All up we spent $41, including a $3.80 service charge (for Sundays). Apart from the delicious waffle, I didn't think the food was that much better than other cafes around town. Similarly, the drinks we ordered weren't as good as you'd expect them to be for that price. For now I'll keep getting my Lindt milk-fix from the good old 2.5 kilo bag.

Swiss Club
89 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000
Ph: (03) 9650 1196
Website

It's no secret that I love the food of Central Europe, so I'm not quite sure why it took me so long to visit Swiss Club. The Swiss Club has been around since 1899, as a social and cultural club for Swiss migrants and their families. To this day, the Club still runs cultural events - visit their website for more information.

A group of 4 of us visited a few weeks ago for a Friday-night dinner, partly to throw off the shackles of the working week, and also to welcome back our good friend Timmy K who is back from London! Wa-hoo!

Swiss Club is located on Flinders Lane, (look for the big Swiss flag out the front), next to Chop House, and you have to climb a couple of flights of stairs to get to the dining room proper. It's all clean and quite old-fashioned. As you enter, the bar is to the right, and booth-seats are to the left. The back half of the space holds the ordinary tables (where we sat). I wasn't quite sure why there was a split between booths and normal tables. Sandra suggested that the booths might be for members or frequent visitors, as this is how clubs operate back in Germany.

Beer! I ordered a Weissbier, but my favourite of the night was the super-malty Pilsner that Sandra ordered.

Bread - good taste, but cold and not crusty.

Reading the menu, I wanted to order everything! Cheese fondue, Rösti, Wurstsalat... but we were expecting a hearty meal ahead, so just stuck to main meals. It turned out to be a good plan.

Geschnetzeltes – Pieces of tender veal in a creamy mushroom sauce - $22.90

Pork Schnitzel Emmenthal – Crumbed pork schnitzel over baked with cheese - $20.90


Beef goulash with spätzli - $20.90 (Pretty good, but the goulash and Spätzle at Muttis was much, much better).

I chose something similar to my beloved choucroute, the Berner Teller...
Berner Teller – Smoked pork loin, sausage & bacon with sauerkraut & potatoes - $20.90

I quite liked this dish, although I thought it could have been presented a little more neatly. The smoked pork (which I think is the same thing as Kassler?) was delicious, but I wasn't too big a fan of the sausage, and I ended up leaving most of it on the plate.


As you can imagine, we were totally stuffed. But somehow found room for dessert...

The chocolate fondue, I have to admit, looked pretty average when it came out, but actually tasted wonderful.

Apple strudel was average, not spectacular, but nice enough to end the meal.
Overall we had a fun time at Swiss Club, but the atmosphere was rather quiet, and the food wasn't as good as we hoped it would be. Perhaps it would have been a different story if we'd ordered the house speciality, the cheese fondue. I got the feeling that the menu was a bit tired. If in the mood for this type of food, there are a few other restaurants around town that I'd choose first.

Mille Feuille. Is there anything more dreamy? Generous amounts of creamy, vanilla-flecked crème pâtissière, sandwiched between layers of crispy, flaky, buttery puff pastry. Traditional versions are topped with a layer of icing or fondant, but I want nothing to get in the way of the crème-and-pastry magic.

Mille Feuille was my weekend baking project, to take to my friend Jess' house for dessert. Mille Feuille is one of her favourite desserts, and I had my puff pastry that needed using. The night before, I took 2 patons of pastry from the freezer and gave them their final 2 turns. I then rolled them into large rectangles, and heavily docked the pastry (i.e. pricking it all over with a fork). This prevents the pastry from rising too much in the oven. The next morning, when completely cool, I sliced and trimmed the pastry into 4 even pieces.


I also made the crème pâtissière the night before, and kept it in the fridge. Look closely and you'll see I made good use of one of the many fresh vanilla beans that I have stashed in my fridge. I just love fresh vanilla. (A good quality vanilla extract would work too, if you haven't come across a cheap source of good vanilla beans!)

By the next morning, the crème had unfortunately solidified into a big rubbery disc - I bet if you threw it on the floor it'd bounce right back up at you - definitely not suitable for spreading on frangible pastry. I took a tip from the masterful Roux Brothers, and folded some whipped cream through to lighten it up. (The way you do when making their croquembouche). It wasn't completely smooth, but still, it was light and spreadable, and the colour had softened from intense sunny yellow, to a pale cream. Lovely.

As you can see above, I did have 4 pieces of pastry. I used 3 to make the big mille feuille, and I sliced the remaining piece into thirds, and made a mini one to share with some other friends and family.
Back: Large Mille Feuille
Front: Half the smaller one

I didn't follow a recipe per se, but used those pieces of pastry and one quantity of crème pâtissière (i.e. 4 egg yolks, 500ml milk, 1/3c castor sugar, 1/3c flour). There was enough to fill the layers generously, with some leftover for the all important taste-tests! (Eating the offcuts of pastry with the excess crème is cook's treat).

You don't have to make the pastry yourself, with fancy Ardennes butter, but I'd definitely suggest making the crème yourself. (Google a recipe, there are gazillions out there!) It's not too difficult, and much better than anything shop-bought. Although, come to think of it, puff pastry isn't that difficult to make, it's just a time-consuming, annoying process. While researching mille feuille recipes online, I came across way too many recipes that used frozen puff, and custard from a carton. Blergh! Carton custard surely has its place (mmm... in a boozy trifle perhaps), but not in a dessert where it's the dominant flavour.

I loosely glad wrapped the mille feuille on the tray you see above, and, driving about 20km below the speed limit, made my way to Jess' house. Luckily, both the dessert and myself arrived unharmed and on time.

We were treated to a wonderful, Masterchef-inspired lunch (10 points Jessie!) of sliced potatoes stacked with coriander and dill sauce, mixed salad leaves, Bulgarian fetta and char-grilled lamb with a red wine jus. (There is something about those Meditteranean, oily-green sauces, seeping into still-warm boiled potatoes that is truly delicious).

It was not too huge a drama to slide the mille feuille from tray to chopping board, or even slicing it. (With my trusty super-sharp Wusthof bread knife).

For slicing something as delicate as this, I recommend a sharp serrated knife, and gentle, horizontal sawing motions. Whatever you do, don't simply press down, unless you want custard squishing out all over the place!
One neat slice, woohoo!

What you do once it gets to your plate is another matter entirely...

Of late, I have been super busy and tired with work, and ashamedly resorting to take-away and freezer meals, even on weekends. No more!


Mushroom Steak Sandwich


I've made this at least twice before, (in '05 and '07), and was reminded of it when I saw cheap Portobello mushrooms at Colonial Food Market in Doncaster Shoppo. I picked up some parsley and some sourdough rolls from Bakers' Delight (not foodie-chic, but they did the job)... and dinner was sorted!


You smear the mushrooms with a mixture of butter, garlic and parsley, and grill until cooked and juicy. Then you shove them in a Dijon mustard-smeared bun, squeeze with lemon, and eat. I added some baby spinach leaves for extra vitamins. The bread wasn't too bad, but it was very sour (i.e. more sour than normal sourdough), and super-duper chewy. I think toasting the bread first might have been a good idea.


Superfood Salad

After enjoying the Superfood Salad served at Match Bar, I decided to google the recipe and give it a go myself. (Link to recipe is here!) It's pretty easy, but kinda time-consuming - quinoa, broccolini and peas all have to be cooked separately, but the result is ultimately rewarding. It's so virtuously nutritious and filling. As you can see, I served it with some rare-grilled tuna - wonderful.


A Casual Mezze/Aufschnitt Supper


Last Saturday night's dinner was going to be a simple yet decadent Aufschnitt (cold-cut dinner) of salami, triple-cream brie and light-rye bread, but in the afternoon I realised my cousin Gina and my niece Cheryl would be coming over to hang out, and decided to pad out the dinner a bit.

I made a batch of Nigella's delicious eggplant, saffron and yoghurt dip, some taboulleh (with red quinoa replacing the usual burghal) and some Lebanese-style garlic chicken wings. I think there are a gazillion versions of classic Lebanese garlic chicken wings, but I follow the recipe from How to Eat, which involves boiling the garlic cloves first, to mellow the flavour, before mixing it with lemon juice and slathering it on the chicken wings.
After the allotted cooking time, the chicken was cooked through but still white. In normal circumstances I would have just eaten them like that, but I know that Cheryl hates bumpy white chicken skin, so I blistered them under the grill for a couple of minutes to crisp up. It turned out to be a winning move, because crispy chicken skin is fantastic, especially sprinkled with a little salt. Best. Chicken Wing. Recipe. Ever! (Well, maybe apart from Agnes' soy sauce poached chicken wings!)


Superfood Pilaf

This one is (gasp!) my own creation, which is big news coming from a girl who slavishly follows recipes. Inspired by the success of the garlic chicken wings and taboulleh, I was planning a weeknight re-run. However, by the time that weeknight came around, it was freezing, and I wanted comforting rice, rather than refreshing salad.


I cooked onions with spices, tossed in some basmati rice and red quinoa, added stock and chopped broccoli, clamped on a lid and let it cook through. When it was cooked, I tossed through some soaked sultanas, chopped parsley/mint, and toasted nuts and seeds (pine nuts, almonds, sunflower, pumpkin). Yum yum. It was pretty substantial, and would make a nice meal with or without the chicken wings. (Pilaf fans should also consider checking out Nigella Lawson's Safron-Scented Chicken Pilaf).

To make this pilaf truly "super", I'd probably suggest using brown basmati rice - does anyone know where to find this? I also considered using famously super cranberries instead of sultanas, but wasn't sure if this would taste too sweet. Perhaps next time I will be more adventurous.