Adventures in Paddington
I really wanted to do a Saint Peter post, but I don't think I'll make it to a dinner service, so this post will be about two places: Saint Peter for brunch, and Victor Churchill.I can't remember exactly when Saint Peter started popping up on my radar, but its signature dish, oysters with blue scampi caviar, really caught my attention. Then once I saw the fish offal, I knew I had to go. However, I didn't really arrange a dinner since I was more interested in their brunch since it was equally unusual, and I hoped, to be more accessible.
So here I was. Turns out you kind of need a booking for brunch, which I had an inkling might happen, but I was hoping one wasn't needed, but if I were to be asked if a reservation was essential, I'd say yes. We were lucky enough to have a table for an hour, and since I saw Artificer post that Saint Peter was using their coffee, I decided to try it out. Their batch brew was not as bright and acidic, but that kind of explains the side of milk. An interesting approach, to serve just filter coffee. I kind of like it!
Okay. Yes, this picture has been shopped. I actually had to tone down the blue so that you can see all the different shades of caviar. When I tried this on my phone, I completely washed out the lemon so that it was almost white! That's how brilliant and bold this caviar is. Yes, it's tasty too! I was worried it was going to be too oceanic and briney but it actually was quite nice with the oyster. Because of its price though, I only put it on one of my two oysters. If I had the money, yes, I would put this $14.50 supplement on all my oysters!
Sea urchin crumpets! I found this to be a really interesting concept and wasn't sure it would work, since it would largely depend on the crumpet. I really enjoyed this; the crumpets, being house made, were not plasticky, and they were fried (I think), making them deliciously cripsy and therefore giving a complimentary textural contrast (can I use those three words like that?) with the smooth smooshiness of the sea urchin and its gooey umami.There was totally not enough urchin for the crumpet though!
Guyra Destructor Yabby scrambled egg toast! I love the name of this yabby because it's so adorable! It makes up for the fact that this day wasn't featuring the Donnybrook Marron scrambled eggs. But hey, when the crustacea is cooked this nicely, who cares! Plus there's that saying, two heads are better than one, right? When you think about it, you're forking out $38 for one slice of toast, a couple of eggs, and the rest of the money is going into these adorable creatures. Wow!So that's all I have for Saint Peter. I really want to come back and try the lemon tart and some of the fish offal that Mr Niland seems to be really good at preparing, but I am a little sad that I might not be able to... this restaurant would have to thrive the next three years for me to get another chance. So we'll see!
Since I was in the area, there was another place that I was meant to visit last time but didn't make it to - the glory that Victor Churchill. This kind of shiny is totally worth the trip - but bring a cooler bag! When there's what I think is a quarter cow greeting you, you know the stuff inside is good.
When I saw the stuffed pig ear terrine, I knew I had to get it. The downside to not planning ahead was that I had no way to take anything home, should I choose to buy things. The terrines were not suited for more than a couple of hours outside, even with ice, so what did I do? I bought the smallest amount the lady could cut - some pig ear terrine, a knob of saucisson, and a sliver of chicken liver pate - and ate them at a bench outside the shop! Why not, right? It's like a ghetto picnic with the best food ever. The pig ears were so crunchy, my favourite!
I could stare at butchers preparing meat behind a glass display forever...
And that chicken liver parfait with foie gras... oh my. If only I had money!Paddington is so shiny!
Vegetable Empathy
I rarely get angry and I try not to rant too much... but I'm still annoyed so I figure I'll just keyboard rage a bit. Plus it's a good way to finally get my "vegetable empathy" thoughts out and to get a post in February lest I get caught up in life and stop posting again (my dream diary is already failing).Basically, when I was in Adelaide, I was in food heaven. Every other person was a foodie and all the people at farmers markets were curious and bought/sold all these "osbscure" food. Plus the quality was amazing (the baby watermelons I bought were so good, I don't actually eat watermelons in Perth because they're just not tasty enough, and I still regret not having bought a rockmelon when the Adelaide farmer said that his rockmelons don't taste anything like supermarket ones; I tried buying one from a Perth farmers market and didn't like it).I don't see any sorrel, meyer lemons, large varieties of potatoes, davidson plums, large varieties of figs or cherries anymore. It makes me sad. At least I can get purple cauliflower, purple broccolini, heirloom carrots, watermelon radish, pink beetroot, heirloom tomatoes, purple kale and purple brussels sprouts here!Anyway, so there was a whole chain of events leading up to this. First of all, at the farmers markets, a random passer by commented on me inspecting every tomato and putting most of them back, and only picking a few. He couldn't figure out why. I didn't think much of it, but then while I was lining up, he saw my artichoke stems sticking out from a bag and proceeded to say they looked a bit sad and old. I explained to him that they all look like that because the only edible bit of the artichoke is the heart, a tiny little bit of the whole thing. To that, he commented that artichokes seemed like diet food - as if you only ate it because you were trying to lose weight because of how small it was?!Then, another time, I was buying my usual stuff (see above list of interesting things I like), when these two ladies near me were buying carrots and one said to the other, "no, don't buy the rainbow ones, they're too *fancy*". And there I was with a bunch in my hand. They probably weren't judging me in any way, but I certainly felt mildly self conscious and offended, mainly because I don't even consider them to be fancy. To me, they were just carrots. And they were a different colour. So what. Maybe I like seeing colour on my plate and appreciate that each colour tastes different (purples have a strong carrot flavour and stains everything and has a cool yellow/white core, white carrots also have strong carrot flavour while yellows, guavas and orange are less "carroty"), and I knew these carrots could be super sweet at times.Just before Christmas, I was at a different set of farmers markets (my local was closed) and I spotted some purple broccolini. They were really nice looking, very vivid florets, so I took a bunch. Now I may have tried to smell them or put them close to my face, and then some guy came up next to me and said how the lavender looked really good. Um, sorry man, you're looking at broccolini - it's obvious it isn't lavender. They don't smell, they don't share the same physiology, the flowers look completely different....And then the last straw was yesterday, not at the farmers market but instead a cheap asian grocer. I had just mentally judged an old asian lady for throwing back mushrooms, and proceeded to pick ones for myself, when this guy comes up next to me and asks me what's wrong with the mushrooms. I took one look at him and he didn't even have a hint of foodie hipster, so I immediately mentally set to ignore whatever it was he was going to say. Plus it didn't actually register in my head what he was actually asking (since why wouldn't you inspect the food you are going to eat...), so he had to ask again, this time asking me why I was putting so many mushrooms back after looking at them. I really didn't have the energy to explain to someone who wouldn't care what I said anyway, so I gave a simple explanation of "my parents never took the ones that had exposed frills, so I do the same." I figured "cause parents" was as simple as I could be bothered saying. He then proceeded to just grab entire handfuls of mushrooms and put them in his bag. My real reason? Well, in addition to the above (which is true), it's also because a lot of mushrooms were bruised (soft, dark patches), old (the stem is brown and drier than others), or have fingernail wounds (when people pick them up carelessly and end up cutting the mushroom with their fingernails). If food's dying, I ain't eating it.Yes, I am a food snob. I'm well aware of it. I take only the best and as a result, I am continually disappointed by subpar stuff that doesn't actually have anything wrong with it; that it's just not the full potential of the food. But I am what I eat, and there's a reason I have a nigh invincible immune system and don't fatigue during the day (think about people who hate mornings, need coffee (I don't actually need coffee :P), want a nap, have an afternoon crash etc), and can sleep off a fever in a night. Funnily enough, I still get poisoned by food pretty easily, but who cares about that when what I ate is delicious. I am also very conscious of not only my nutrient to calorie ratio, but also nutrient to dollar ratio. So I pay a bit more for my food. But I also get more out of it.Which leads me to talk about vegetable empathy. Right after seeing the guy stuff mushrooms handful by handful into a bag, I was having a hard time picking potatoes. Some were beginning to sprout, others were so scrubbed that they were missing half their skin, and there were plenty with holes and even one mouldy potato. And from the corner of my eye I saw someone's hand just grabbing handfuls of these potatoes. Makes me wonder if they just end up eating all that too. Admittedly, once cooked, it's probably harmless. But it was just painful for me to see.I realised that I am developing what I call vegetable empathy. It was last year that I realised just how processed washed potatoes are. In Adelaide I was buying freshly picked potatoes, complete with dirt all over them. Here, I was seeing washed potatoes and for the first time, I saw how scrubbed they were. The skins were all frayed, there were so many with dried, exposed flesh. It's as if they went through a poor quality car wash with the most abrasive bristles. People are so concerned about paint scratches on their car, but don't pay heed to how their food is treated. Same for carrots.Speaking of carrots, I realised that with the size and quantity of carrots out there, that these were being mass produced. The average farmer isn't growing vegetables, they're growing money. I once read an article about someone visiting an "organic tomato farm" - and tomatoes were the only thing being grown in some greenhouse type thing. The visitor was appalled, because sure they were organic, but there were no nutrients due to improper soil care and lack of crop rotation. Which made me realise most food in supermarkets is this way. Sure, you think you're doing a good thing by going vegetarian or you're following some lofty vegan philosphy and oppose animal cruelty (which I actually totally respect), but what are you actually eating? A watery, mass produced product where the person growing it doesn't care about its welfare. They're just pumping them out cause the masses need feeding. Take that in contrast to your farmer who takes care, uses biodynamic practises and cycles the correct vegetables through the soil and seasons to maximise nutrients and soil health. You get a much happier, tastier (by tastier I mean "real" tasting) and nutritious vegetable. It's the same with animals. Sure they still die, but that's part of the life cycle and humans are omnivorous for a reason. I require my vegetables and meat to both be raised with the same ethics. You can't say that you don't want animals to suffer when you happily allow your vegetables to be brought up in substandard conditions, so talk to me when you understand this. Tip: the most powerful name of a dish I have ever heard of, is one called "142 days on earth". It's about the cabbage on your plate (Ben Shewry, Attica), because that's all the life it gets. Less than half a year, and then it's gone. Think about it.And that's why I have no money. lol.
DeLish Expo!
I'm so totally poor, but here I am, still doing food and coffee things. If it makes me feel any better, I did pre-pay for these tickets when I was also poor! The earlybird tickets were only $10, and there was going to be a latte art competition, so why not. It's an excuse to take pictures if nothing else.There were actually quite a few coffee stalls, and one was doing espressos and piccolos for free! I was lured in by a nitro cold brew sample, but since I don't like cold coffees, I decided to try out a pic, for a nice pic.
This was from the Cold Matter/Black Matter coffee stand. So pretty!
Explored some tea options too. Nice sencha, tie guan yin, and buddha's tears. Decided to skip the peppermint and the goji berry one.
Some nice takeaway cups and pretty lights!
Since this was in Crown's grand ballroom, you kind of have to look up.
I don't like the look of most grinders, but I think the Mythos is starting to grow on me. This is where the latte art competition was, and somehow I managed to end up standing right at the front. It was a bit of a pain getting the right lens for this, I was carrying all three of mine, but I found the 60mm performed the best here, though to take pictures of people, I did have to switch back to my 19mm quite frequently, but since I can do this quite quickly, I found this combination worked better than my original zoom lens.
See? Taking pictures of people taking pictures. The best!
Everyone was amazed at how calm these baristas looked, but when you saw their hands, you could see how nervous they were! The hands, so much shaking!
And of course I love taking pictures of hands, hands are really pretty because of how complex the joints are (at least to me since I know nothing about anatomy). Plus each barista has their own style of how they pour and hold their cups, which is super cool to observe!
So many pretty pictures!!! I love my barista's branding on his jugs, too. He didn't make it to the finals, but I still love his stuff!
I'm actually glad there weren't too many swans in this competition. I've found that most places in Perth pour swans to the point where I'm sick of seeing them, and I miss my several layer rosettas. This time, there were some nice flowers. And these blobs, which came out really nicely after etching:
I'm not a fan of etching, but I admit, you can get some cool designs out of it! This comp essentially became a battle of the dragons, and this fantastic round had double dragons!
Close one! The only round to have divided judges too, every other round was unanimous!
That concentration...
Runner up design was pretty cool!
And the winner :DI did look around some more and sample some ice creams and buy some cakes, but nothing that came out as really pretty pictures. So here are some shots of the Crown!
No escape! Muahahhahaha
And an obligatory celebrity chef photo.