Bastille Day dinner at the brasserie by Philippe Mouchel

On Bastille Day last week, we joined Benisa for dinner at the brasserie by Philippe Mouchel. A four course set menu was being served in celebration of all things French (or so the promotional email stated!). When we arrived, the first thing we saw was a guy in a beret playing the accordion. Is an accordion particularly French? I don't know! It was kind of funny though and fortunately he was pretty good (insert disparaging accordion joke here), since he played the entire evening.

The first course were snails wrapped in cabbage, on top of a poached liquorice bouillon. The snails were diced and mixed with finely cut vegetables inside the cabbage leaf. I think that even people who would normally have issues with snails would have no problems with this dish. I couldn't really taste the liquorice in the bouillon, but the broth was very nice and worked well with the sweetness of the cabbage. The snail meat reminded me of the texture of paua/abalone - which wikipedia says is a sea snail. That would explain the similarity!



For the second course we received sautéed scallops with couscous and vegetables and Argan oil vinaigrette. Look at those scallops - they were lovely, perfectly cooked and flavoured with ginger and chives. A small amount of cous cous and a couple of little vegetables were on the plate, but the scallops were really the star.



Next course was a slow-braised wagyu ox cheek with carrots and mashed potatoes. I've had a larger version of this dish before, when Alastair and I went to the brasserie for lunch a while back, and was happy to eat it again. The meat was very, very tender and braised in that dark, rich sauce. It was on the verge of being too salty, but when eaten with a bit of the smooth mashed potato it was fantastic.



Dessert was chocolate fondant with vanilla anglaise and pistachio ice cream. Hard to go wrong with chocolate fondant, especially when it was -



Mhmmm, gooey......



And finally some petit fours to finish off. Bro and I made everyone wait while we had a cup of tea (served in a very cute little teapot) and finished our petit fours. Yum.

Read about a previous visit to the brasserie here.

the brasserie by Philippe Mouchel
Riverside at Crown,
8 Whiteman Street,
Southbank
Phone: (03) 9292 7808

Poulpe provencal

This was the second dish I made for the French FFOF. I wasn't wowed by this – I wasn't impressed with the flavours. I just thought something was lacking.

If I made it again, it would need a bit of tweaking.

Poulpe Provcencal

From Cooking French

500g ripe tomatoes
1 kg baby octopus
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large chopped onion
2 cloves garlic
350 ml dry white wine
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
2 sprigs thyme
2 tablespoons roughly chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley

Score a cross in the base of each tomato. Place the tomatoes into boiling water for 20 seconds, then plunge into cold water and peel the skin away from the cross. Cut each tomato in half and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon and discard. Chop the flesh.

To clean the octopus, use a small sharp knife and cut each head from the tentacles. Remove the eyes by cutting a round of flesh from the base of each head. To clean the heads, carefully slit them open and remove the gut. Rinse thoroughly. Cut the heads in half. Push out the beaks from the centre of the tentacles from the cut side. Cut the tentacles into sets of four or two, depending on the size of the octopus.

Blanch all the octopus in boilding water for 2 minutes, then drain and allow to cool slightly. Pat dry with paper towels.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan, add the onion and cook for 7-8 minutes over medium heat until lightly golden. Add the octopus and garlic to the pan and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Add the tomato, wine, saffron and thyme. Add just enough water to cover the octopus.

Simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Uncover and cook for a further 15 minutes, or until the octopus is tender and the sauce has thickened a little. Season to taste. Serve sprinkled with parsley.

Croissants

One of the dishes I made for the French FFOF (flickr fuck off feast) was croissants. I followed the recipe outlined here, but omitted the vanilla essence.

They weren't difficult to make, but very time consuming. I left 5 hours on the actual day to prepare them, and that still wasn't enough time. My croissants came out quite flat – I didn't have enough time to let them rise before baking them. Part of the problem may have been that I rolled the dough too thinly.



Despite the flatness, they were still buttery and flakey and crisp on the bottom. Alastair enjoyed them so much he ate almost half the batch, ruining his appetite for the rest of the FFOF. Although I noticed that he still had room for Tim's creme caramel!

French Feast

The latest installment of the FFOF (Flickr Fuck off Feast) was held on Sunday. A FFOF is basically a meal where we decide on a theme, and everyone brings a couple of dishes relating to that theme. The concept started with Tim and a group of his friends, and he spread it to us. We've had several FFOFs now - Indian, Japanese, Spanish, Moroccan, and now the latest - French.

Alastair and I played the gracious, but rather non-French, hosts.

As always, there was a ton of food!

For dessert, Tim's creme caramel.



We spent a lot of time trying to get the toffee out of the bottom of the creme caramel moulds until someone (coughmecough) was smart enough to use the microwave.



Pete's berry covered brie.



Rhys made french onion soup. Mhmm good.



And now a trio - Dany's potatoes (I know there's a fancy name but it escapes me right now!), Kath's green bean and goat cheese salad, and Dany's onion tart.



Dany's pate and CHEESE.



Jaye's fried cheese with cranberry jam. Mhmmm deep fried goodness.


There was more food than this - Jodes' blue cheese and asparagus triangles, Jaye's lentils, and Kath's fauxscargo. Plus the two dishes I did - croissants and braised baby octopus. Posts about those to come!

Lunch at The Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel

The other Saturday, Alastair and I went on a lunch "date" to the Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel (Riverside at Crown).

When we arrived at 12.30, there were only two other tables and we were seated between them at a table by the window. Not a bad seat, but we could easily overhear the other conversations and it felt as if the tables were quite close together.

Al was in a minimal eating mood (whereas I'm always in a big eating mood!) so only I ordered an entrée. I tossed up between the Country style corn-fed chicken liver terrine, with onion jam and toasted sourdough , versus the Snails Provençale tomato fondue, garlic and parsley butter, & puff pastry before deciding on the terrine, as Al didn't seem keen to share the snails with me.


The terrine (pictured above) was lovely but very rich. It would've been great if there was more onions and sourdough toast! Still, I kind of wish I had chosen the snails. I'm sure I could've made Al taste one!

One sort of funny note – the knives and forks were set a certain way at each table. The forks were prong down, and the knives had flattened handles that enabled them to stand on their edge. I had moved my fork so that the prongs were up, and when the waiter took away my entrée, he reset my fork properly. Whoops! Naughty me!



For my main, I had the Slow braised Wagyu ox cheek served with truffled mash and carrots (pictured above). Ohmy. This was divine! I put my knife into it and the meat yielded with the bare minimum of pressure. It had been braised in a rich, meaty sauce and was served with truffled mash and baby carrots. The truffled mash was smooth, smooth, smooth, and it was unbelievably gorgeous. I wanted to lick my plate.



Al had the Medley of lamb, Navarin jus, sautéed Winter vegetables (above) – I was too in love with my meal to care about how his was going. But he ate it all, so it must've been good!

While we were eating, the restaurant filled up and my initial feelings about the closeness of the tables subsided. When there were more people, the restaurant was filled with a nice buzz from people talking which helped mute any nearby conversations. Unfortunately once the restaurant was a bit busier, it felt like we had become the invisible table! After our mains were cleared we waited at least 15 minutes for someone to offer us a dessert menu. When it was obvious this wasn't going to happen we had to ask for one - surely I look like a women who won't leave without dessert?? It was only a minor quibble though.



For dessert, we had the dessert tasting plate (I can never resist small tastes of stuff!). Several cute little desserts – profiteroles, cream brulee, apple tart, chocolate brownie, pistachio & lemon sorbet and some cakey thing. In hindsight, we should've started with the sorbets, as they were well on their way to melting by the time we worked our way through to them!

All in all, it was a great lunch and pretty good value. At lunchtime you can do 2 courses for $37.90 or 3 courses for $43.90 with a choice of side dish (a few menu items are excluded, but there's plenty of choice without them). I would go back just for another taste of that ox cheek... mhmm.... Oh, and the company was tops!