Ladies who lunch: The European

I started a new job when I got back from my holiday, so I'm now one of those people who work in the city. Yey! Access to new shops and restaurants is very exciting. My credit card is a bit scared, but I'm very excited.

The other week I had a lunch date with a friend, and her lovely 7 month old daughter at the European. The European is located on Spring St, next to the Princess Theatre. It's a moody little place – a long narrow dining room, black and white chequered floor, and dark wood panelled walls. As we were toting a pram, we were seated at the front of the room which meant a bit more natural light for pictures. Grand.

Freshly shucked oysters - slurp

We started with one of the day's specials – freshly shucked oysters. These were served with a little dish of a vinegary sauce. They were very hard to eat gracefully with the little garnish on top. Good thing we weren't trying to impress! The oysters were fresh and sweet.


Manchego and fig salami

We shared another starter – Manchego with fig "salami". Manchego is a sheep's milk cheese from Spain (as I have discovered). The slightly salty, creamy cheese was lovely with the fig (and on bread, and by itself).


Fish soup

I then had the fish soup with aioli. This was fish, prawn, clam, mussel, and a scallop surrounded by a tomato based broth. The seafood came out in the bowl by itself, and then the broth was poured on top. It was slightly tangy and seafoody. I also got some toast, which you can see in the background.

The food was presented nicely and the other plus were the little touches. For example, the lemon half that came with the oysters was wrapped in muslim to prevent lemon seeds from falling in. There was nice bread with a good quantity of garlic aioli. And the staff didn't bat an eyelid when cutlery and napkins got thrown to the floor or when my friend's lovely little daughter got a bit grizzly because she needed a nap. Thankfully it was fairly lively (noisy) in there so we didn't seem to disturb other diners.

This might be an ongoing series. My friend has gone overseas but we have a lunch date for January when she returns. It's my choice of restaurant this time; recommendations of good eating places around the top end of the city would be welcome (as long as they're pram friendly!).


The European
161 Spring St, Melbourne
Phone: 03 9654 0811

White Bean Dip

Generally I'm not a hoarder. Although I do keep some things like plastic containers and plastic cutlery. My Bro and I literally cannot throw these things out. We wash them and keep them BECAUSE THEY'RE USEFUL. Alastair doesn't agree. Sometimes he'll get so frustrated that he will sneakily clean out the cupboards and throw our plastic away. The next day, we'll be all accusing, "Did you throw our containers away??!"

So I'm not a hoarder but there are a few items that I have a lot of. For example, I own 8 different kinds of oil – canola, vegetable, peanut, rice bran, olive, extra virgin olive, avocado and macadamia.

Seriously, I'm not a hoarder. I bet other people have more.

The other week I started making a white bean dip, and then realised that I had run out of extra-virgin olive oil. The normal olive oil I own is just cheap stuff to cook with, so I couldn't use that. I decided to try the macadamia oil which is infused with chilli and lime. (It sounds nicer than it actually tastes.)

I forged ahead even though I had concerns about how it would turn out. The flavour was kind of all over the place - hello basil, hello garlic, hello chilli, hello lime?! But, it was passable. However, if I made it again I would definitely use plain olive oil.... alternatively I could always try one of the other 6 remaining bottles of oil!

White bean dip

1 can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 handful basil leaves
Salt and pepper
Good quality oil – whatever kind rocks your boat

Pulse the beans, garlic and basil roughly in a food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste, then, on a low speed, add enough oil to process into a chunky paste. Serve with crackers or grissini.

Banoffee Pie

The last time that I had banoffee pie was in Wellington. Alastair and I had one way tickets to the other side of the world, and didn't know when we would be back. Just before we left, Alastair, Pat and I went out to a restaurant and ate ourselves silly. We were greedy little piglets and ordered dessert too, which was banoffee pie. Even though we were stuffed, we ate every last crumb and enjoyed it immensely. A few days later, Alastair and I got on a plane, and we didn't see my Bro again for a year.

Four and a half years have gone by since that banoffee pie and life has changed a lot. Alastair and I travelled, moved countries, settled down, got married and imported my brother into Australia. Life may have changed but we still talk about that night in Welly and reminisce about that pie.

Banoffee pie was apparently invented in 1972 by the Hungry Monk restaurant in East Sussex, UK. It's a dessert with a pastry base, covered with layers of dulce de leche, bananas and cream. Once you've prepared the base and the dulce de leche, assembling the pie is very easy.

I've been wanting to make a banoffee pie for ages, but with the high banana prices over the past couple of years it never happened. Until the other weekend where I found an occasion for it - an Out of Africa barbeque! (Basically catching up with friends after our return.) The shortcrust pastry recipe came from Donna Hay's Modern Classics 2 and is extremely easy and has never failed on me yet. I love making desserts using shortcrust pastry because people are always impressed - and yet it's the easiest thing in the world. The rest of the recipe I took from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Kitchen. I cheated on the dulce de leche due to lack of time (and fear of exploding cans) and bought ready made caramel topping from the supermarket. The canned caramel topping was acceptable, but I have no doubt that boiling my own cans would've been better.

By the way, do try the almonds in Jamie's recipe. They were wonderful on top of the pie, giving a bit of crunch.

Sweet Shortcrust pastry
From Donna Hay Modern Classics 2

2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
3 tablespoons caster (superfine) sugar
150g (5 oz) cold butter, chopped
2-3 tablespoons iced water

Process the flour, sugar and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. While the mother is running, add enough iced water to form a smooth dough and process until just combined. Knead the dough lightly, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface or between sheets of non-stick baking paper until 2-3mm (1/8 in) thick, or whatever thickness is required, and line the tart tin. (This recipe makes about 350g (12 oz) pastry, which is sufficient to line up to a 26cm (10 in) pie dish or tart tin.)


Preheat the oven to 180 degree C (350 degree F). Place a piece of non-stick baking paper over the pastry and fill with baking weights or uncooked rice or beans. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the weights and bake for a further 10 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Banoffee Pie
From Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Kitchen

200g/7oz blanched, whole almonds
280g/10oz icing sugar
2 x 397g/14oz tins of condensed milk, boiled
6 bananas
565ml/1 pint double cream
1 tablespoon Camp coffee
seeds from 1 vanilla pod

Preheat the oven to 180 degree C (350 degree F). Give the almonds a rinse in water, drain them a little and mix them quickly with the icing sugar in a bowl until they are really sticky. Place on a baking tray and toast for 15 minutes in the oven until they are golden and crispy, turning them every couple of minutes. Don't let them turn black or they will taste bitter. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Make and bake the pastry (as above), remove from the oven and let it cool.

Spread the toffee as thick as you like across the base of the pastry. Slice the bananas and place on top of the toffee, then whip the cream. Add the Camp coffee - add a little less if you'd like a more subtle coffee flavour - and the vanilla seeds.
Then dollop the cream on top of the bananas, as high and as rough as you like.

Sprinkle the almonds over the top of the banoffe pie and serve immediately.

Hung Vuong

There's a number of reasons that I like cheap Asian food joints. One of those reasons is, well, it's cheap. Sure, I enjoy going to fancypants restaurants and blowing money on a meal, but I can't afford to do that all the time, so cheap = good. Another reason I'm fond of the cheap Asian places, is how fast you get your food. As soon as you put your order in and sit back, food starts to arrive. So that's all good, but unfortunately it's not without a compromise. The main compromise you make for cheap and quick is that generally the décor is a bit lacking....

When I say lacking, I actually mean a teensy bit gross! The tables might be sticky, and the chairs wobbly. But never fear - there ARE cheap Asian places where you don't need to compromise.

Hung Vuong is one of many Vietnamese restaurants along Hopkins Street in Footscray, but their point is difference is that it doesn't look like it was last decorated in the 80's. It's bright, with a large mirror lining the wall on one side of the restaurant and a large window at the front. The chairs and tables are non wobbly, and sitting on the tables are the obligatory condiments, thermos of tea as well as chopsticks, spoons and napkins. The menu is very limited – your food choices are rice paper rolls, spring rolls, broken rice, vermicelli and phở. In fact, the drinks menu seems longer than the food one! Not that limited choices is necessarily a bad thing. It means that you can decide on what you want to eat in 1 minute, have your food arrive in 5 minutes, and the bulk of your time there can be spent slurping up your noodles and chasing out any scraps of food in the murky soup.



I particularly love the special beef phở – a mix of sliced beef, tripe, beef sausage, tendon and brisket with flat rice noodles in a rich beef broth. Buuuut, if you're not into offal there is normal sliced beef as well as a chicken option. As with other places, the phở comes with a plate of fresh bean sprouts, fresh chilli, Asian basil and lemon and you can add them to your liking. I also like to add some of the chilli sauce that sits on the table – not the one that's in the bottle, but the one in the small container that has a hint of shrimp paste. That stuff is so awesome.

The rice paper rolls are better at other places, so if you're hungry, I would recommend ordering a large phở instead. A large one will cost you $9 and you won't regret it.



Also good is the vermicelli. You can choose from pork, chicken, prawn, or spring rolls. I like their vermicelli because it's not just a big bowl of noodle with a tiny bit of other stuff. You get pickled carrots, lettuce, Asian basil, cucumber, and chopped nuts along with the meat and a little bowl of vinegary sauce with a touch of fish sauce.


Avocado smoothie and three colour drink

The thermos full of tea might satisfy you drinkwise, but if you do feel like something a bit different there are other options. If you're feeling like something sweet, almost to have as a dessert, go for the three colour drink. This is a drink with red beans, green jelly and coconut milk with crushed ice. There's also several fruit smoothies such as an avocado smoothie, which is avocado blended with condensed milk. I like avocados but have only ever had them as in savoury dishes and found it very, very rich, very buttery and unbelievably thick. It's filling so don't order a large phở and an avocado smoothie unless you have a huge stomach. Just go the large phở instead. Like I said before, you won't regret it!

Hung Vuong
128 Hopkins St , Footscray
Phone: 9689 6002

Africa: A traditional Ovambo meal

One of the best experiences of our trip was in Swakopmund, Namibia. Swakop is a small city in northwestern Namibia and is located on the Atlantic coast. It has a population of approximately 29,000. The city's German origins are very evident, with the city centre filled with many examples of German colonial architecture. Being on the cooler coast, it's a very popular holiday resort, particularly during the summer months, and hosts many adventure activities, such as quad biking, sky diving, or sand boarding.

When you reach a place like Swakop, it's easy to get immersed in the adrenaline activities or backpacker culture and not do anything "real". We were fortunate though. Our guide Heini was from Swakop and he took us on a township tour through the suburb of Mondesa. We went to some shops that had been set up in shipping containers, the food market, a local bar, and were even welcomed into someone's home. After the township, we went to his mum's house for dinner, where we were met by a group of girls singing and dancing. We were led into the backyard where a long table had been set up. Peering over the fences on either side of their property was a crowd of curious neighbour who stayed there watching the whole time.

Heini's grandmother gave us a speech (which he translated) welcoming us to her home. She was so warm and seemed so happy to have us there. His family are Ovambo, the largest tribe in Namibia, and we got to try a traditional meal.


Fat cookies
On the tables were a few snacks – bowls of chips (not traditional!) and fat cookies. Fat cookies seem to be balls of slightly sweet, fried dough. If you've ever eaten the sweet version of yau ja gwai (a Chinese fried dough) it's very similar. However, I think I know why they're called fat cookies. They were delicious but felt very unhealthy.


Oshifima - millet porridge
After we were all seated, a bowl of warm water was passed around to wash our hands, as traditionally cutlery isn't used (or so we were told). Plates of oshifima (stiff pearl millet porridge also known as omahangu), came out. Millet is a staple of the northern Namibian diet, and not only is it used to make porridge, but a drink called oshikundu is made by fermenting it. Oshikundu is a sour-sweet drink and has quite a strong cereal taste. It's a taste to be acquired! I didn't take a photo of the drink, but found one on flickr.


Etiti's - the left with pounded beans and the right with spinach
We tore off pieces of oshifima and rolled it into balls. This was then dipped into the etiti's (shallow clay pots). One etiti held a spinach mixture and the other held pounded beans.

The oshifima seemed to be an acquired taste. It was quite bland, and it took a bit of practice to dunk it into the sauce without dropping it or getting stuff all over your fingers!


Chicken in marsala sauce
There was also plates of chicken cooked in a marsala sauce. The chicken was juicy and very delicious.


Mopane worms
Last were bowls of mopane worms. Mopane worms are large caterpillars that feed on the mopane tree. I'm proud to say that almost everyone in our group tried one. They were.... interesting. I eat pretty much anything (as you may have noticed) but I have a psychological aversion to eating insects. I tried one anyway, and it actually wasn't too bad. It had a gritty texture and tasted a bit like salty tea leaves. However, one was enough for me. I can cross that off the eating list!

After dinner the kids danced for us. All the children we met along the way were affectionate and oh so gorgeous. These ones were no exception. We got hugs from them as we left - just another little thing that made the evening so special.

By the way, photos from our trip can be seen on here on flickr.