Roast duck

There’s a bit of a reluctance, travelling alone, to go into restaurants full of groups having a good time. Better to seek out the cafes where local people eat, perhaps on their way home from work. May not be the haute-est of local cuisine, but good honest food. I was quite pleased yesterday to discover barbecued roast duck and rice from a sort of fast food outlet, Cafe de Coral, at one of the railway stations. Eating it standing up at a counter, beside a plate glass window, in full view of the passing foot traffic … would people stare? But no, not that I noticed, and chopsticks and duck don’t pose any sort of problem for me. So I wasn’t creating a spectacle. And I LOVE that roast duck, so my focus was on the food.

There was a bit more of a chopstick challenge at dinner though … deliciously fatty knuckles of pork, but so hard to manage. They’d provided a fork with the chopsticks, and I wasn’t too proud to use it to impale the meat with my left hand, while I prodded and poked with chopsticks in my right. Free entertainment for other diners? No, they were intent on their own eating.

And, as a postscript, some things in HK may be expensive, but eating like this sure ain’t.

A fine bakery

Back in Hong Kong, back at the same hotel I stayed at the start of last year. The great thing about returning, the immediate locale is a little familiar. A couple of road names known, a couple of small restaurants remembered. But best of all, just around the corner on Nathan Road, a great little bakery. Yamazaki Bakery. Excellent little croissants, and so inexpensive. Also, and this a real treat, delicious egg custard tarts. Those are something I somehow associate with Chinese cuisine … blame that on a taste sensation in Singapore once upon a time. But anyway, I can’t recommend this bakery enough … it’s always humming, mainly young women picking their selections with tongs onto trays … and then can be seen at the bus stop nearby nibbling away.

Anyway, so I’m skipping hotel breakfasts and eating in my room. Very contentedly!

Leaving, on a jet plane

Am at Auckland airport, once again, on my travels. Grazing on an apple & a glass of bubbles as I wait for my flight to be called. Half past ten at night, and the place is busy. Guess none of us will be looking so bright-eyed in twelve hours’ time. I know I won’t! Anyway, a chance to add a few random thoughts …

The garden, now planted up with vegetables for summer. Tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini, peas, silver beet. The same as last year. The reassuring cycle of the seasons. I hope, when I return, to find it looking healthy, if not yet bountiful. And, fingers crossed, none of the blight that affected the tomatoes last year.

And last night, a great Kiwi feed, courtesy of our neighbours … West Coast whitebait. Perhaps the fritter recipe in the Edmonds’ Cookbook is not the most flattering way to treat that expensive delicacy, but that’s how we had them. And they were fine. But I do recall once, in a restaurant, having them tossed in a beaten egg and lightly dusted with flour. That was the best ever, but I didn’t feel confident to try it last night.

Lots more I’ve been meaning to say, but it’s not important, can wait. Except to add, we have eaten again at Caffe Italiano in Cuba St since my last post … disappointing this time. I start to wonder whether it’s a franchise, and about quality control. Think it may be time to find a new favourite cheap-ish eatery.

But for now, I’m looking forward to some eating treats in Hong Kong.

Why Sue Bradford is (probably) right

Working at home this morning, an in-depth interview between Kathryn Ryan and outgoing Green MP Sue Bradford distracted me. An impressive interview, and when Bradford’s given the space to talk, to expand on her ideas & experiences, you realize what an injustice her public persona as humorless, battling activist does to her. But it was her thoughts on the economy, and economics, that struck a particular chord. Now, this is supposed to be a foodie blog, so let’s take this back to a supermarket experience, a little epiphany in the aisles. I enjoy a tisane in the evenings and was reaching for my usual herbal tea bags when I saw the price. From the last time I bought them, less than a month ago, the price had jumped from under $3 to over $4. A whopping increase. Unannounced, unexplained, and – as far as I could see – utterly unjustifiable. After all, they’re not petroleum based, transport costs must be minimal per unit … And this got me thinking about the essential POWERLESSNESS of the consumer and the worker in our economy. Why is it all right for the retailer or the manufacturer to push up prices relentlessly, or the employer to push wages down effectively by not matching cost of living increases, but the worker can’t act in the same way, can’t walk into work and say, right, you’re paying me an extra 50 cents an hour from today? Of course I understand why that wouldn’t work, it’d be chaos and societal collapse, but at the same time this inequity illustrates why capitalism is a desperately flawed system if you believe in a fair and just society. And because my tea bags leapt in price like that, well, that’s why I think Sue Bradford is (probably) right about the changes we need in our society. And so … haere ra, Sue Bradford, wahine toa. Kia kaha.

Pot luck dinners

 Something I’m NOT a fan of … pot luck dinners. Sure, they serve a purpose but I just don’t enjoy them. Part of me wants to say, when you come to my house I’m happy to cook and clean up for you, I don’t want to do the same when I come to yours. And part of my dislike of these events – and they’ve been cropping up regularly of late – is never knowing what to make. So I normally don’t go (and NEVER feel I’m missing out!), but there is one exception … the monthly Volunteer Service Abroad branch meeting. A gathering of people who’ve been volunteers and supporters, good people who it’s great to keep in touch with. Usually, coming from work, I grab something suitable from the supermarket but this month was at home during the day & turned to St Annabel for inspiration. Her chicken & noodle with chilli peanut sauce worked a treat. Even if I did end up using egg spaghetti rather than noodles, so a rather unusual fusion going on there. But it made me think, maybe I could put a little tick beside this … just in case I overcome my aversion to pot lucks any time soon.

Date scones

 The long weekend provided a great excuse to get across to the Sounds again. Just the two of us, so a peaceful, relaxing time with only birds for company. Some gardening, some work around the property, but nothing too arduous. And a fair bit of eating. Decided one day that I’d make date scones. After all, how hard could it be? Pulled out the old Edmonds Cookbook and found the recipe. Make a soft dough, divide it in half. Roll out one half, stud with dates, then roll out the other half & place on top. Problem #1. What does a ‘soft dough’ look like? Mine was certainly soft, but would perhaps more accurately be described as soggy. The intelligent thing I suppose would have been to add more flour. But I didn’t, just persevered. The first half of the dough rolled out okay but, despite generous sprinklings of flour, seemed pretty glued to the board. So was the second half. Problem #2. How to get one glued-on rolled-out dough sheet on top of another date-studded ditto?? With a bit of scraping with a spatula and a helping hand, literally, it flopped on top, in a sad-looking mound. Teased it out to sort of cover the bottom layer, but then … Problem #3. It all had to transfer to a baking tray. Placed the baking tray on top, turned the board upside down … Oh dear, it didn’t look pretty, and no way could it be cut into scone sizes with a knife. Nothing for it but to bung it in the oven and hope. The miracle didn’t happen. Well, it did cook, and the end result was decently date-filled, but rather flat in appearance & rubbery in texture. Still, hot out of the oven & dripping with butter, they weren’t too bad. But why didn’t I just make a basic scone dough & mix in a generous quantity of chopped dates, I wonder? That’s what I’d expected to be doing. Shouldn’t have trusted the recipe! But at least I may be a little less critical, or a little more appreciative, of the date scones I encounter in cafés in the future. And will try again, doing things MY way next time. 

 

 

Spicy chicken mole

A fair bit of chocolate left after making the pear & chocolate crumble, so time for another of those excellent Annabel Langbein recipes, spicy chicken mole. It’s really just chicken & tomatoes & capsicums, plus spices, with the addition of 4 squares of dark chocolate. The chocolate gets mixed into the sauce & stirred till smooth before being poured over the chicken and bunged in the oven. The sauce gains a darker hue as a result of the addition of chocolate, but the real impact comes at the table. Remove the lid from the casserole and the first thing that hits you is the smell of chocolate. Wonderful. Even better, it’s just a background to the spicy sauce; not like eating chocolate chicken. Which would be disgusting.

Pear & chocolate

All this talk of crumbles, had me reaching for a bar of Whitaker’s dark chocolate at the supermarket. Mother-in-law had brought a large bag of pears with her, and the combination of chocolate & pears … yum. So Martin Bosley once said, and he’s right. This is his suggestion.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. In a bowl combine:

5 ripe pears, peeled, cored & roughly chopped

grated zest of a lemon

3 cm piece of ginger, peeled & grated

2 tbspn soft brown sugar

50 gms dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Place in an ovenproof dish, mix another 50 gms chopped chocolate into the crumble topping, and bake for 35 – 40 minutes. The chocolate melts through the dish. Bound to please.

Caffe Italiano (again)

Mother-in-law to stay, so a change to our evening routine. Earlier meals, desserts … and more traditional fare. Meat loaf, rhubarb crumble. Nothing wrong with those of course. But one night out to Caffe Italiano in Cuba Street. Where they had a very good, but rather loud, trio of musicians to entertain the diners. Fine for us, but I have noticed septuagenarians aren’t so keen on noise. But anyway, a successful choice of restaurant, even with the live music, and the food pleasing as always. This time I opted for a platter of entrées, a tasty threesome. The oven-roasted mushrooms, with fresh ricotta and pine nuts, perhaps my fave, but closely followed by the melanzana, which I later found out simply means aubergine (or eggplant). Layered and baked in a tomato sauce, with a crusty parmesan top. Was it parmigiana di melanzane? Bronze medal winner, by some distance, on the night was definitely the polpette, pork meatballs in a tomato sauce. Rather too solid. Those I was happy to share with the table!

Tinakori Bistro

The opportunity to eat at perhaps my favourite Wellington restaurant, Tinakori Bistro, the other night. The menu changes little, but the food’s always great. It was a cold night so the seafood chowder with smoked salmon a perfect beginning, the saltiness of the smoked salmon perfectly offsetting the creaminess of the soup. Then the venison, unfortunately not as hot as it should have been when it reached the table, but no complaint about the combination of medium rare cervena with the potatoes gratin, the glazed red onions, roasted garlic and, port sauce. And to finish, dessert, delicious white chocolate & raspberry cheesecake, with sorbet and crème anglaise. I walked back to my car after dinner feeling the world was a good place. That’s the effect of such a satisfying meal.