Having done London’s new pop-up restaurant Flash ( see review in today’s Independent on Sunday), it was interesting to pop over to Melbourne this week, and pop into the new pop-up bar and cafe in Federation Square.
The Greenhouse is the creation of flower artist and waste wizard Dutch-born Joost Bakker, in collaboration with events organiser Corina Baldwin and Melbourne chef, Shannon Bennett.
Quite frankly, it shows what a pop-up café can, and should be; created from nothing to be something that makes you smile and makes you think.
In New York, all the big-name chefs are falling over each other trying to create the all-time, ultimate, with-the-works burger. It all started with Daniel Boulud's iconic DB Burger at DB Bistro Moderne, which combines ground sirloin with a filling of boned short ribs braised in red wine, foie gras, black truffle and a mirepoix of root vegetables for US$32.
Now everyone's getting in on the act in London, too. This week's Time Out features a survey of London's best burger purveyors. Top marks went to Ground in Chiswick High Road, Haché in Camden Town, and Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Soho.
Go to Devon and you expect to have Devonshire tea with plates piled high with freshly baked scones, trays of golden clotted cream and big pots of sticky, home made jam. But I went to Devon and all I got was a nasty dry scone with the bitter aftertaste of bicarb, some okay clotted cream and a plastic sachet of commercially sweet jam. A. Plastic. Sachet. For. God's. Sake.
Apparently Jane Grigson said it first, in her 1973 book Jane Grigson's Fish Cookery. After cooking, "throw away any mussels that refuse to open". And that was that – her command has been slavishly followed ever since by food writers and home cooks around the world.
But the late Mrs Grigson may have been wrong. Writing in Australia's Good Weekend magazine, scientist and commentator, Dr Karl S Kruszelnicki claims Australians waste 370 tonnes of perfectly good seafood every year by following her advice.
Who could possibly fill the gap left by London’s much-loved Danish restaurant, Lundum’s, which closed its doors in March? Young Danish-born restaurateur Charlotte Kruse Madsen tosses her name into the ring with the brand new Madsen, just a little further down Old Brompton Road, near South Kensington tube. Ms Madsen trained with Copenhagen’s legendary Ida Davidsen, and together with head chef René Madsen (no relation, it’s like Smith in Denmark) has set herself up in a light, bright, Scandi-blondewood space with suitably Scandi-blonde staff.
Gorgeous, aren't they? Nobbly, rough-edged, crunchy, golden chips that are delightfully inconsistent in shape and size. But they wouldn't be anywhere near as good if they weren't cooked in beef dripping. These are the chips I mention in passing in the IoS review of the Lord Nelson in Nottingham, served in an enamelled bucket for £2.50. Just thought you might not take my word for it, so here's proof.
We must put an end to the gastronomic censorship around us, and force our chefs to leave the heads on fish, the skin on fillets, the fat on brisket, the tentacles on squid, and above all, the roe on scallops. Why eat just the white, meaty "scallop" (which is really just the adductor muscle) and not the roe, with its vibrant coral colour, richly creamy texture and delicate "seafood-mousse" flavour?
This, for instance, is the hand-dived scallop starter squaring up to be the signature dish at the new Tierra Brindisa in London's Soho, reviewed today in the IoS.
There will be lean times ahead, so it might pay to fatten up now if you wish to survive. As seen on the news, London's Green Door Bar and Grill is putting on a special "Polar Explorer's Menu" to commemorate the Matrix Shackleton Centenary Expedition. The four course menu guarantees to deliver six thousand calories - the same amount the original Shackleton Arctic expedition members stacked away every day to keep functioning properly in the freezing cold.
Now, 100 years later, six descendants of the original team are attempting the very same trek on 9 October, using much the same methods, a similar diet, and even the original compass.
It would be hard to ignore the fact that the glammy new Min Jiang restaurant reviewed today in the IOS is a Beijing duck specialist. Hard, but not impossible. The fact strangely eluded the Evening Standard's guest reviewer, Brian Sewell, but then, he "heartily dislikes" rice. Just the sort of person you'd want to send to review a top Cantonese restaurant, I'd suggest.
I spend so much time talking about the duck, in fact, that I had little room to comment on the first-rate lunchtime dim sum service. It reminded me of the chi-chi dim sum presented so elegantly by the top Cantonese restaurants of Hong Kong, Singapore and Guangzhou.
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