Dinner at Ezard's

Last night I had one of the most extravagant and expensive dinners in recent memory.
My friends and I have always been talking about dressing up, getting together and catching up over a fine dining experience somewhere.

So we did, and made a reservation (1.5 months in advance) for dinner at Ezard's


Ezards is located at 187 Flinders Lane, next to Adelphi Hotel.

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Run by owner, Teage Ezard, this establishment has already won accolades of awards the last 2 years for its innovative representation of Australian free-style cooking with strong influences from Asia.


I ordered a smoked duck salad for a starter, which came with pickled beetroot, pink grapefruit and topped with a hot and sour dressing.


For mains, I ordered the barramundi, served on a bed of roasted eggplants, tomato and lime salad and finished with a thai-style yellow curry dressing.

The service was impeccable, the wait staff always hovered nearby, with slick hair and suits, they were extremely attentive and knowledgeable about all the intricate aspects of the food and drink.

Everybody in our party was very impressed by the food.
I'll have to give it a 10/10 score, every dish was a sensational work of art, pleasing to the eye and bursting with flavour on the palate.

Equally impressive was the bill which came after rounds of coffee and dessert.
Thien took a peek, eyes widening as she gasped and quickly put the bill down. I picked up the book and took a look, never have I seen that many digits towards a dinner party of 6.

The wine alone cost $308..... (we had 2 bottles of merlot and 2 bottles of chardonnay)

The total bill was.... (drumroll please!)......
....
..

$1085 ++

ouch.

We walked out with our stomachs feeling very heavy after all that rich food, and our wallets feeling much lighter.

It was worth it though.

Michael Clayton

I just came back from the movies with Steph & Simon and we saw a film that is better than good.
In fact, it just about restored my faith in major release cinema. It is written for adults, it is mature, understated, intelligent and tautly suspenseful. A tale of morality which far outshines everything else in this genre.


George Clooney plays Michael Clayton, a lawyer in a firm who has a niche area of expertise, he is the specialist who comes in to cleanup in a manner of speak. He is like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction, the 'cleaner' who comes in do the dirty work and make problems in law disappear.



Clayton cleans up client's messes, handling anything from hit-and-runs, to damaging stories in the press.

A major agrochemical client, U North, is in the verge of a settlement when its top litigator Arthur Edens has an apparent breakdown and tries to sabotage the entire case. Clayton is sent for damage control and what ensues is the most exhilarating 2hrs in the cinema for me as the complex story unfolds.

I won't reveal too much, only to give it my nod of approval and a 10/10 score.


On another food related review, we had dinner at an awesome Korean restaurant in the city before the movie.
It is the Oriental Spoon on 254 LaTrobe St, Melbourne.

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We had sizzling hotplates of Beef, Squid, and Seafood Bulgogi; Hot and Spicy soup; Korean Chicken Ginseng Soup; and all these were accompanied with heaps of lovely side dishes, kimchi and rice. For around $23 per head for 5 of us, it was good food at a fantastic value.

Next time though, I'll be more adventurous and get everyone to order the DIY barbecue sets where I saw people cook mountains of meat and vegetables on a massive hotplate to be shared around the table.

Recovery BBQ at Fawkner Park

Sunday - This delayed entry is part 2 of my big weekend

So after only catching a few fleeting hours of restless sleep after Jimmy van M, I got woken up by my friend Marika asking me to come along for a impromptu BBQ at Fawkner Park with some of her friends.

I mumbled a half arsed reply before falling back to bed for an hour and then decided that it was a sunny 29degree day outside one of the few warmer days this Spring. So I got up, called her to come pick me up and grabbed some food and beer out of the fridge.

Fawkner Park is a lovely place situated in the South Melbourne area where I used to live. My ex-flatmates Jodie and Dave moved not too far off from here but at this point I was pretty scattered and uncertain of which part of the park their apartment overlooked.

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Ruby, the most adorable shih tzu - cavalier king mix puppy!


I was seriously considering stealing this dog because she was just too lovable


Claudette showing us a few tricks her dog picked up at training school


A welcome sight of dead meat sizzling on the public area electric BBQs


Nothing like a tasty steak to hit the spot



We were pretty well prepared for a last minute event, you gotta love girls when they get together to organize something


Marika enjoying the modern invention of wine from a box


A game of cricket going on in the oval near our benches


Despite surviving on 3hours of sleep, I thought this was a perfectly beautiful warm day out in spring and a nice way of winding down in the sun with food, drink and company after a big night out

Countdown to the snow

So here I am, finally crawling out of the clutches of the dreaded flu bug that's been plaguing me the last week.

I have this theory: On average, I fall really sick about twice a year.

So counting this and the time back in January when Steph and Simon came to Singapore to visit and infected me with some pommie superbug from their England trip, I reckon I have reached my annual quota of great illnesses. If we assume that the past is a good predictor of the future, I'll be bullet-proof for the remainder of 2007!

Its almost midnight and I'm still slightly drunk. Was out earlier this evening for an informal catch up between my manager and the few of us Accenture folk working on this project. This was also a sneaky attempt by said manager running us through our annual performance objectives; what better way to do that than over dinner and drinks. I boldly suggested the european bier cafe across the road from our new office building on the posh end of Collins St and it was brilliant to break my 2 month abstinence from alcholol on Erdinger Weißbier Dunkel and Hoegaarden!!

2 more work days to go, I head up to Falls Creek this Friday for a 3 day weekend to have a go at snowboarding!

Badass Greek Burgers

Mention a hamburger and we'd normally associate it with the revolting dog crap served at fast food joints like McDonald's or Hungry Jacks (Burger King equivalent for those of you outside of Oz). Thanks to Morgan Spurlock's journey in the incredible documentary Super Size Me, I have since sworn never to eat another burger from the golden arches again. Even if I were trapped on a desert island and the last item of sustenance available was a happy meal, I'd rather eat sand.

However, there is nothing more satisfying than creating your own burger from scratch.
Here's a hunky & sexy creation of mine I did this evening in under an hour: Hamburger with a Greek styled influence.

Ingredients:
1kg very lean minced beef (I get mine exclusively from South Melbourne Meats; Shop 32, South Melbourne markets as they only use the leanest cuts of beef and grind it fresh at the store)
150g sliced black olives
2 red chillies, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
200g Greek Feta cheese
Handful of chopped parsley
Freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Combine all the above in a VERY large bowl until well mixed and shape them into 4-6 patties depending on how big you want your burgers to be.


Me? I made 4 patties from the above and yes I like my burgers to be of ridiculously large proportions. =)



Slap these babies on the grill and cook to desired done'ness



While the burgers are cooking, I rustled up some greens on the side by slicing some cool and crunchy continental cucumbers and sweet vine ripened tomatoes. A quick toss with some leftover Feta and Olives, add a splash of Extra Virgin and a dash of salt and pepper.




and voila!


Nothing beats the simplicity and elegance of a home cooked meal. Bon Appetit!

Ginza Teppan Yaki

On Saturday night, we went out to help Marika celebrate her birthday in style at the Ginza Teppan Yaki restaurant in Melbourne's Chinatown district.

I can help but feel that the whole setup was westernized to cater for the white clientele to the point of being cheesy, but nonetheless good entertainment when you're pissed drunk. The hostesses wore bright garishly coloured kimonos pottering around serving cocktails circa 1980's with little umbrellas in them. These girls were definitely non-Japanese (more like cantonese). The chefs entertained with high flying theatrics like throwing your food in the air and making you catch it in your mouth or in a bowl.

A quick search on Wiki reveals Teppan Yaki as originating in Japan in 1945 as a way of cooking Western Influenced food on a hot plate, which only really became popular with the foreigners and taking off in New York city.
No wonder it never got really popular with the Japanese, I mean if I was a Yakuza mobster and had a chef throw egg at my face, somebody will be losing the end of a finger on the Teppan by the end of the night!


Well enough of the ramblings and on to the photos and Videos !














Mmmm... Big juicy chunks of meat! Who cares if its artery clogging!

















Big bad ass prawns

















An egg roll goes flying throuhg the air!



The whole team.

Woodstock

My god, I ate one of the most crusty, savoury and mouthwatering pizzas ever this evening!

Went out with friends to Woodstock in North Fitzroy. This small eatery is as authentic Italian as you can possibly get, with checkered tablecloths, old posters in Italian adoring the walls and the well worn terrazzo floors. If you look closely at the picture on the left, you can even see a real vintage mini Italian car parked on display next to the back wall of the cafe.





The pizzaiola (pizza chef) there clearly knows his stuff. The open kitchen is simple, the ingredients are fresh and used sparingly. All you can see when you walk into this cosy place is the brick and stone oven with a crackling red wood-fire inside and the pizzaiola making each plate sized pizza by hand.




I had a pizza with porcini mushrooms and paper thin slices of porscuitto spread on top. The guys tried other variations of pizza while Steph and Thien had the beautifully made lasagne which was cooked by Nonna (grandma) in the back kitchen. This is what I really needed, a cosy dinner with close friends in the midst of winter.



After dinner, I decided to have a stay in, so curled up at home and dug into a book I'm currently reading:
If You Had Controlling Parents by Dan Neuhearth Ph.D.