Ladies who Lunch: Bottega

My friend Emily and I just managed to sneak the next instalment of Ladies who Lunch into January. The restaurant of choice this time was Bottega, which is located at the top end of Bourke Street, not too far from Parliament.

We were offered bread to begin. Really Good Bread. Sometimes it's the very simple things that make me happy and the bread certainly did! The bread had a lovely chewy crust and moist, soft centre. The friendly and professional waiter came back later to offer us another piece, which I gratefully took because the bread was divine. (Another simple thing at Bottega that made me happy? Good quality wine glasses.)

We started off with the Silician sugar cured kingfish carpaccio with lemon, sherry, currants, radicchio and pinenuts ($18). Look at it. It was so beautiful it was a shame to eat it.



My main was the romesco crusted barramundi fillet with roasted eggplant shown on the left ($31.50). My dish was stunning. It seems like such a simple dish, but it was totally amazing. The fish was cooked perfectly – moist and just flaking under my fork. The eggplant was meltingly tender (and y'know how much I love eggplant). The romesco was full of flavour and garlic. The garlic didn't totally dominate though, and I didn't really notice the amount of garlic until I realised I was sucking down glasses of water like crazy.

Em had the nettle tagliatelle with fresh spanner crab ($21). I'm told that it was delicious and rather filling.



We shared a side of broccolini with lemon anchovy dressing ($6). Again, something relatively simple, but done so well. The still slightly crunchy broccolini was dressed in a salty, buttery, lemon dressing. Breadcrumbs provided a bit of textural difference to the dressing. So freaking gorgeous.



We didn't leave without having dessert. I had the cannoli filled with ricotta, hazelnut and chocolate candied orange with bitter chocolate icecream ($14.50).

The cannoli was a good way to finish off the lunch – not too rich or too sweet. The pastry tubes were slightly crunchy and firm, providing a nice contrast to the soft filling. I did find it a bit hard to eat with a spoon and a fork – too bad it wasn't the kind of place where I could just pick it up with my hands!. While I'm not that into candied orange or orange flavours (I have no problems with the fruit or juice though) I still found myself gobbling the little chocolate candied pieces up. They gave a little zing to the creamy ricotta. The ice cream was a deep, dark chocolate and my only complaint is that it melted too quickly!



Em had the bittersweet chocolate tart with morello cherries and creme fraiche ($15). It looked very decadent!

Bottega is comfy and stylish, and on the day we were there, much quieter than I was expecting (perhaps the rain that day had kept people in their offices).
It was a wonderful lunch to finish off January. The next restaurant in the Ladies who Lunch series will have to be pretty good to compete with this meal!

Bottega
74 Bourke St, Melbourne
Phone: 03 9654 2252

Garlic shoots and steamed tofu

Firstly, happy Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year! I've always liked Chinese New Year, mostly because of the red envelopes that are given out (who doesn't love a bit of extra pocket money?). Now that I live in a different country to my family, I don't get many red envelopes anymore. However, a phone call to my parents revealed that Grandma had given our red envelopes to mum. So there are some traditions that you can always rely on Grandma for!

The last couple of nights I've been cooking some rather Chinese inspired meals. I was doing some random food shopping and came across a bunch of garlic shoots. I first read about garlic shoots in someone's blog (can't remember which one now) so I bought some to try out. Garlic shoots are the young shoots that come off a garlic plant, prior to the bulb maturing. They look similar to spring onions, except that they're not hollow. They have a gentle, sweet, garlic flavour.

The garlic shoots went into a stir fry with shimeji and oyster mushrooms plus some bean sprouts. Yummo.



We also had some steamed tofu with the stir fry. There are lots of different kinds of tofu available but my favourite is silken firm tofu. It has a wonderful silky texture that shines when it's prepared very simply.



Stir-fried mushrooms and garlic shoots

1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into thin matchsticks
1 fresh chilli, seeds removed (if desired) and sliced thinly
½ bunch garlic shoots, roughly chopped into 3cm lengths
150 g shimeji mushrooms, separated or cut into small clumps
150 g oyster mushrooms
150 g bean sprouts, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
Salt and sugar

(I know that generally mushrooms don't need to be washed, but I think there are some kinds that do need a rinse. I don't know if shimeji and oyster mushrooms need it but I gave them a quick dunking anyway.)

Add the oil to a wok on high heat. When the oil is hot, throw in the chilli and ginger and swish around for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic shoots and stir-fry for a couple of minutes, until they start to become tender and brown in spots. Keep the garlic shoots moving.

Add the shimeji and oyster mushrooms as well as the bean sprouts and stir-fry for another minute. Add the oyster sauce and mix well to coat all the vegetables. Taste before deciding whether you need to add more salt and perhaps a touch of sugar (I added about ½ teaspoon of each). Serve with rice.



Steamed silken tofu with ginger and chilli

1 block silken firm tofu
2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into thin matchsticks
1 fresh chilli, seeds removed (if desired) and sliced thinly
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon peanut oil

Carefully pop the block of tofu out of its container and on to a heatproof plate/bowl.
Bring a wok or saucepan of water to the boil. Put the plate of tofu in a bamboo steamer.
Place the sliced chilli and ginger on top and pour over the soy sauce and peanut oil.
Place a lid on the bamboo steamer and steam the tofu over boiling water for 10 minutes.
Carefully remove the hot plate from the steamer and serve immediately.

Fig porn

*lick*

Australia Day food porn: a tale of two BBQs

We were fortunate enough to have two BBQs during Australia Day weekend. Here's some BBQ food porn.

The first one was at our place on the warm Saturday evening. I kicked things off with a watermelon and ginger vodka slushie.



Naturally, there were packages of mystery meat. Or sausages.



We grilled some zucchini and onions that had been tossed with olive oil, garlic and thyme.



As well as some vegetable patties.



And what BBQ is complete without potato salad?



The next day we headed to a friend's place for another BBQ. All the "men" remained inside while the gals tended the BBQ.



Check out the butter in those mushrooms! Oh yeah!



Sausages!



Some chicken.



And here's my plate with a little bit of everything!

Delizia Cucina

To kick off the Australia Day weekend, Alastair and I had dinner at Delizia Cucina in Seddon.

While the food was good, there were a few things that marred my enjoyment. Let me get the complaints out of the way first. Being a small restaurant, the tables are packed very closely. How close were the tables? Well, whenever the skinny waiter bent over slightly to pour water or wine for the table next to us, his butt would bump our glasses. My other main annoyance was the noise. The restaurant is quite smartly decked out and we particularly admired the usage of the bottoms of plastic milk crates that lined the walls. But all the hard surfaces – hard floors, hard concrete-finish tables, hard wooden chairs, hard walls, everything hard hard hard, all reflected sound. With the restaurant full, the noise levels were very high. I'm being a bit of a granny complaining about the noise, but it was so loud that conversation over the table was difficult.

But on to the food. Once seated, a waiter uncorked the small bottle of olive oil sitting on the table, and poured some into a dish for us. Also on the table was a small dish of Murray River salt flakes, (with a spoon – hooray for places that care about hygiene). A basket of bread rolls was bought to the table, and it was hard not to fill up on bread. The olive oil was delicious and when sprinkled with a bit of salt – yum!

We skipped starters and went straight into the mains. I only took photos and notes of what I ate as it was very dark inside (another annoyance of mine…) plus the menu descriptions were rather long.


The quail, looking rather blurry.

My main was a partially boned quail filled with burghal, pistachios, pinenuts and currants, roasted and served with a quail and dual liver bisteeya and a carmelised pumpkin, grape and herb salad ($29). This was a dish that really emphasised the contrast of sweet and savoury. The quail was cooked nicely, and the stuffing was rather sweet. I would have liked the quail to have been slightly saltier (perhaps I should've used some of that salt on the table – duur). The flakey and sweet bisteeya was filled with a soft, creamy liver mixture. My favourite thing on the plate though, was the pumpkin and grape salad. It was brilliant, a bit sweet, a bit salty, a bit tangy. I loved it.

We also shared two sides – one was roast beetroot and other vegetables with pomegranate molasses (if I remember the menu correctly). The vegetables were cooked well, and the molasses gave them a sweet and sour edge. The other side was green beans with sumac (again, if I recall correctly). Oh, the green beans. I LOVED the beans! They were perfect – still slightly crunchy, and buttery with a slight lemon tang. I ate quite a lot of the beans and I could've finished the rest if I didn't have dessert in mind. The sides were around $7 and they were both generous serves.



My dessert was the rich chocolate fondant cake topped with a white chocolate and pistachio mousse and served with cherries poached in a spiced red wine syrup ($12). It was lovely – rich and dark, with the cherries providing a bit of boozy tartness. The mousse helped provide a bit of lightness to the dark chocolate cake.



Given the quality of the food, prices were reasonable. On a quieter night, perhaps sitting at one of the high-backed leather banquettes lining the wall, I would have loved eating at Delizia. I think it would be worth another look, perhaps on a weeknight.


Delizia Cucina
160 Victoria Street, Seddon
Phone: (03) 9687 9397