Embla
Embla and Bar Liberty were both restaurants that I really wanted to go to (though I guess they're more wine bars, but that's a minor technicality since they serve up delicious grub), and about equal on my piority list. In the end, I made my decision via the restaurants' proximity to my location at a set time. As a result, Embla it was, since Bar Liberty appears to be out in Fitzroy.It was a win/win to make a short notice decision because they're walk-in only (my favourite type of restauant), and it was a Monday, which meant it was guaranteed to be less busy. We were seated at the kitchen counter, so away we ordered!
These are Wapengo oysters. I'm pretty sure it was our waitstaff who said that he wasn't usually a fan of Sydney rock oysters, but that these were really, really good. I wasn't a fan of Sydney rock oysters either, but I gave these a go. Oh yes. I am now a fan of Sydney rock oysters! These were superbly sweet and briny, they were so good! I found that on this trip, I really developed an appreciation for oysters that I traditionally didn't like. It also helps that these aren't just generic oysters from an area; it's been narrowed down even further, sort of like how single origin coffee became single estate coffee. Knowing that little bit more goes a long way! These were so enjoyable that we actually ordered a second round!
You could say that at a wine bar, the wine is a little bit obligatory, but it's also because this little Burgundy caught my eye - it's a Anne-Sophie Dubois "Paso Doble" 2015. Considering I just danced the paso, I had to get it, plus it's my second favourite varietal. The gentleness of this was a bit of a surprise only because I've been having super tannic (though equally light bodied) nebbiolos in the past, so this was like drinking really smooth, fruity stuff. Loved it! And I was sensible and only had half the glass.
What's this funny flat blob thing? Apparently one of their signature dishes. Snapper carpaccio with fermented red peppers. Look at how thin those snapper slices are! How impressive! And the pepper sauce was great, it wasn't spicy - more like capsicum.
Look, broad beans! I love broad beans! These pickled mussels were delicious because they weren't overly pickled, there was still a lot of natural flavour. The addition of wild rocket and elderflower made it a great and interesting dish. Haven't seen it done before and it totally works!
Mr Cannubi noix de jambon. Oooh, you gorgeous fatty thing. This was flavour packed but not overly salty, the fat was so melty while the meat carried great flavour! My goodness! Every time I order a charcuterie item, this is what I hope to get every time - I have a very specific flavour preference for cured meats that's more often a miss than a hit (though a miss is still tasty, just not my dream flavour), so this really stood out, so much so that I said it was my favourite, and the waiter laughed because it was the one dish that they didn't have to cook. Oops! Though... I can still say they have very good taste for putting it on their menu, right???Gosh it was so gorgeous.
I'm a sucker for burrata, so I ordered this dish, even though the waiter recommended dropping this for whatever else I was pondering over. I should have listened to him. The burrata was great, but the onions didn't work. The onions were nice, but the flavour clashed with the cheese. They should probably serve it without the onions.
Yeeeaaah pippies!!! In butter. Wow drenched in butter. Loads of butter, so much butter. These were so tasty and there totally wasn't enough bread to soak up the sauce, so we gladly accepted more bread.
I remembered that my brother made this awesome shell arrangement back when we had pippies at Firedoor, so I tried to do it here! So pretty! Except the waiter then asked me to put the shells in the dedicated shell bowl haha.
And lastly, Cherries, Cherries, Cherries. I knew I wanted this one as soon as I looked at the menu. This was fresh cherries, macerated cherries, and cherry ice cream made with cherry pits! Wow! The texture of the ice cream was subtly grainy, in a pleasant way, because you knew that all of the cherry had been used. The size of this was pretty small, but it was so gorgeous, that again, it reminded me a lot of Firedoor, for their Iced Vovo dessert. I didn't mind that it was small, it was a tiny powerhouse of flavour and awesomeness, which meant it was a fleeting but lasting memory. I will love this dish forever and ever! I'm so glad I came here!Overall I loved this place, very friendly staff and really tasty food. I was so happy with it that I tipped, I dunno, I just find that when I am really happy I start tipping so that restaurants can use the extra money to thrive (I say this a lot because I love restaurants and all the hard work that all the staff put in). He thanked us for our generosity and then asked if we were having a second dessert, when I said I wanted the crepe store, he recommended that we also go to Spring Street Grocer for their pistachio gelato. How cool! I love getting recommendations!Definitely a place I would go back to.
Cumulus Inc
Can you believe I've not made a Cumulus Inc post before this? Even though it's my favourite accessible restaurant in Melbourne? Wow. I guess I finally found the time to do so, though yes, at the expense of some other stuff. I'm meant to be doing more food prep at the moment, but I know that if I don't get all these posts out before the new year, they're going to get forgotten like all the other times that I've gone to Melbourne and never posted about it. So I'm trying really, really hard!
A tiny little beef tartare on a thin crunchy toast thing. Delicious!
While I usually take the oyster option, today's special was too good to pass up. These were Cloudy Bay clams, lightly steamed and dressed with sea urchin emulsion. They were really pricey at $12 per clam, but totally worth it - the clams were huge and it was a great change from oysters! A rare find that was absolutely delicious!
While this was not super interesting, it was their special - Meatsmith Christmas ham, so I took it. Since I'm writing this after my holiday, I can say that while it was nice, it wasn't as tasty as the Fat Pig Farm ham that I bought. But now I know!
FISH SPECIAL!!! WHOLE FLOUNDER IN HERB BUTTER!! WITH SALTBUSH!Woah. I still have a very strong memory of being very impressed with the flathead special the very first time I visited this place, so I keep ordering the fish here. It's actually a whole flounder! The only reason why I say that is because at Embla, the whole flounder came headless.... The herb butter wasn't as good as whatever garnish the flathead had ages ago, but it was still nice, and I love saltbush.I was really full at this point - I took my dance partner to this place and ordered enough food for 1.5 people, but I ended up eating about 1.3 people's worth... I made him eat some of the flounder though. I was also trying to do the skillful thing of taking the top half off, and then removing the bone in one piece. What I didn't expect, was a belly full of roe! Wow, lucky lady, both she and I! Though mainly me, because I got to enjoy it. My dance partner was all like, "just flip it upside down" but of course, for the show of finesse, and Asian tradition says that filleting then removing the bone whole is the only way to do it. Even the waitress complimented me afterwards haha!While I knew that adult flounder have both eyes on the top of their head, their cheeks are still on the sides, so top and bottom. My dance partner thought I was eating the eyeball! No, I don't like eyeballs unless Mr. Niland does them.
So even though I was full... there's always room for dessert. This super light green apple sorbet with sheep's milk yoghurt and meringue totally hit the spot. It was light enough that I didn't feel like I was stuffing myself further.I always love coming to Cumulus Inc, it really is my favourite all rounder restaurant. I love it so much.Edit: I found my original visit''s photos already uploaded for this blog. So here it finally is: https://www.raining-chaos.net/blog/?p=4170
Tipo 00
My first impression of Tipo 00? Rather strange. They have a great and far-reaching reputation as an amazing Italian restaurant that everyone loves, so it went to the top of my list very quickly. However, I wasn't able to get a table last year. I tried a walk-in on a Friday night for 2 people (lol, so you can already guess what happened) and was told the wait exceeded two hours, so they didn't put us on the waiting list. They were slightly abrupt about it in my eyes, and that's why I found it odd that time. Probably not really that abrupt, but rather, just plain speaking.Fast forward and I attempted to call to make a booking for one person on a Thursday night this year, and they told me that I should be able to walk-in for it rather than place a reservation for me. I've not been declined a 1 person reservation before, though, I've also never done it over the phone (though I was about to shortly for Minamishima), so I found that odd. Maybe they were afraid of holding a single spot since 2+ diners were far more common? Perhaps also they didn't want a potential no show? I figure that they preferred the "security" of a 2+ person booking, which is why they recommended the walk-in.Anyway, so finally the time came for me to see if I could get a table here. I actually forgot that they weren't located on Flinders Lane; I had just had some coffee at BBB during closing time, and then wasted 30mins before attempting to find the restaurant. It turns out they're right next door to the cafe! So I walked all the way back, and made my enquiry at 6pm. Already the place was full, and for me to get a table for one, would be a one hour wait. Sure, I was happy to wait. I just couldn't believe they filled up so quickly! No other city seems to have a full house by 6pm. So, I put down my name and number, then took a walk. At 6:30, I got my call. Yay, a table was available! So I teleported back and finally got my seat.
What a nice view. It was raining outside, since the week of flooding had just subsided. I was hungry, but had no idea what I wanted. Lucky there was a chef's menu, so I left my meal in their hands.
Bread with ricotta and basil oil. A nice starter, but I was careful to eat the bread slowly since I knew more food was coming. That ricotta was pretty good, but I think I still miss the really nice smelling olive oil from Rosetta.
An arancini ball! How cute! But I still don't like rice. I guess it's something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.There was actually a couple sitting on the other side of my corner, and they mentioned that when they chose the chef's menu, they were given the ox tongue. That was cool, I think they weren't thrilled by it but I would have loved it! Alas, no tongue for me. Instead I got other goodies.
House cured ocean trout with black garlic and broad beans. Yeah this was so yummy! The trout was very melt in the mouth and I love broad beans! The garlic was lovely and I had to suffer through garlic breath that night... but it was worth it!
White asparagus!!! And there was a little green asparagus behind it. Not only was this pretty, but it also tasted really good and had a great aroma of truffle oil!
And everyone's favourite, the squid ink pasta with squid, roe and bottarga! Wow, the textures of squid and pasta were distinctly different here, whereas I think at Rosetta they were more similar. The pasta here was "just cooked" al dente, so a little harder than what I was expecting, but still cooked. This was tasty, though, to be really, really honest... I think I liked the double sided clam pasta I got at Lulu La Delizia more. In fact, I was so surprised that my little local Perth restaurant could actually make such strong headlines and be on par with a top Melbourne pasta bar! I think I just liked the bolder flavours and the ever so marginally more cooked, but definitely still al dente texture better at Lulu's.
Help, carb overload! Rabbit gnocchi with olives. That's a huge serve! So generous! I honestly couldn't finish this one because it felt like a full sized meal in itself; I had to look around to confirm that this was actually a smaller version for the chef's menu. Wow! The rabbit was so incredibly tender. Also seemed to have a bit more fat on it, to the point where I was seriously wondering if it was actually chicken (since I have previously cooked rabbit and it tasted like chicken lol).
Wow, and then two desserts came out at once! Woah. I had a new couple sitting across from me now, and the guy said I looked like I might not be able to eat the chocolate dessert... nope, it was all for me! The first was a honey panna cotta with watermelon, which was deliciously wobbly. It was light, and I really liked it, but as soon as I moved onto the tipomisu, I realised that the chocolate dessert was way tastier. I was so full, but the more I ate it, the faster I ate it! It was creamy, chocolatey, coffee, and salted caramelly! It was so good!!! While I thought I had gotten over trying out tiramisus at Italian restaurant, this one's proved me wrong.The service during my meal was great, and the staff were all really friendly - so were the customers! It was interesting the difference between being not a customer and being a customer, I felt that the restaurant had changed completely once you were seated. There was a lot of food given, and leaving several pieces of gnocchi behind was a good choice. Since it'd been a long time since I've had to eat like a true monster on holidays, my tummy was sore from all that food! It was so enjoyable though!
Shanghai - November 2017
Finally, some time off to continue posting! I've not had a blog backlog this extensive before. Good thing instead of bashing away at my Surface Pro 3 keyboard, I'm going full speed with my Cherry Blue MX Ducky. Woohoo! Hopefully I remember everything that's supposed to go into this post.To start off with, this was a necessary trip that wasn't my decision, so it was a super short stay where I didn't plan too much for myself in case there wasn't any time to explore. That being said, yes, there were backup plans. Just in case I could roam free....
I landed in the afternoon and met up with family. Dinner was simple and in a restaurant located inside a shopping centre, and the food here was Yunnan style I believe, so there were a lot of spicy things on the menu. I mostly let my parents order, since I didn't really have a preference. The first picture is a dish called "beef in copper dipper". Sounds unassuming, but was actually comprised of offal! Most of it was stuff I already liked, like tripe and tendon, but what was really interesting is that there were intestines in this one too. And intestines are tasty! Except for the fatty bits because those tasted like really strong beefy flavoured mouth coating sticky fat things, which wasn't half as pleasant as consuming the lining. There were also some rose flavoured red bean pastry things, which were nice but a bit sweet, and a tad more artificial rose flavour than I prefer.And of course, bullfrog! Braised bullfrog with bolete mushrooms. I love eating frog, and I love mushrooms, so this was a tasty dish. There were some green chillis in here that I ate just because, and while they weren't that hot, they still burned me a little. Sometimes I hate having a low chilli tolerance, but that doesn't stop me from eating things I like!
Look, the sky is blue in Shanghai! Who would have thought :D
My brother and I were left to our own devices the next day, so my plan was to revisit some cafes that I enjoyed during my 2014 visit. This was Essence Cafe, but their "SCAA" sign was no longer plastered outside. And in those 3 years, I think my coffee palate has changed, because this time round, the coffees weren't as tasty as I remember them to be. Their range was still great, but they'd changed the way they served it - last time they served half hot, half cold, and this time the beverages came as hot only.The top coffee was a Costa Rican CoE (probably #1), chosen by the 2014 WBC champion, and it cost a lot, at 130RMB. It tasted pretty good, but I reckon it could have been brewed better.The second coffee was a ninetyplus Ethiopia Tchembe. I'm not sure this was brewed properly because it didn't taste good until it had significantly cooled down.
We had to find lunch somewhere, and we were in the expat area where there were heaps of pubs and western restaurants. We were deciding whether or not to go with Wolfgang Puck's eatery or not, and decided not to. Instead we hopped into this pizza place called Bottega to have some simple fare. The antipasto plate wasn't too bad, I mainly wanted it for the buratta. Plus, my brother has been good antipasto while living in Japan, so we absolutely had to order it.I wanted a simple pizza since they're a measure of how good a place is. The picture doesn't really show the scale, but those tomato slices were HUGE. As big as my palm, maybe bigger! How do you get tomatoes that big?! It wasn't really that tasty. There was a lot of flavour lacking in this pizza, which should have been absolutely delicious considering it was mozarella, tomato and bocconcini,
Ah, the tall towers of Shanghai. Having previously visited the Oriental Pearl, the World Financial Centre and the Jin Mao tower, it was time to scale the newest tower - the Shanghai Tower. It's really, really tall and it's deceptively normal looking in that first picture, however in the second, you can see that we're significantly higher up. It was okay, but I still like my open air observation decks better. And ones where there's further visibility. One of the greatest attractions while we were here, was the window cleaners. How cool, and so many people were taking pictures of them! Imagine being a window cleaner for tall buildings - that's quite a drop!
Again, since we were in the area, a revisit to Fuel inside the IFC was warranted. Wow, what a weird menu. They had all sorts of weird descriptions for their coffees and their piccolo wasn't actually a piccolo (that I know of). This was a "latte ristretto", and wasn't as tasty as I remember it to be. This was their classic roast, and it was too dark for me now! It was a 4oz velvety coffee, because apparently some of their drinks featured "less velvety" milk. I don't think I understand.
More random restaurant pictures. Food wasn't that interesting for the most part, though I did see a lot of mantis shrimps, so I had to order one, especially because one of my favourite roasters, Mecca, made a Mantis blend of coffee based off the mantis shrimp, but I never got to try it, so I figured I'd go for the real thing instead. Sadly, I don't think this was a particularly happy or fresh shrimp because there was hardly any meat inside. Maybe if I wish really hard, I'll get a mantis shrimp one day at a fine dining establishment!
Okay. In walking through one of the shopping centres, I found this. The Starbucks Reserve Bar. I'd passed on them while I was in Hong Kong since there were other cafes and interesting drinks to be had (including butterfly pea tea), but here, well, I had nothing better to do, so here goes nothing. I was totally prepared for the worst experience.
First of all, our barista, a pretty cool guy who could speak English so I talked about coffee with him. He explained which coffees were on offer, so I made my choices. I wanted them brewed via syphon, and anytime I choose that method, I generally just want to show off. lol. By that I mean that the syphon is particularly eye catching and is generally a conversation starter for other customers and the barista. However, you know that the barista means serious business when he recommends a chemex instead. Anything but the syphon!
How wasteful, no dine in cups :(. This was the Ethiopia Bitta, a lot I hadn't heard of before. I imagine that Starbucks has access to a completely different set of beans from what hipster specialty coffee establishments usually buy. The chemex was also HUGE at 1L, so it was shared with my family. The barista also gave us a sample of chilled filter too. The chilled filter was better. That says something, especially because I love hot filters. The chilled one had a sweetness to it that was nice. The hot one had a nice aroma, but the taste of it wasn't great at all. It was pretty bitter, and got more bitter as it cooled down! Oh dear. Whatever Starbucks has done to these beans, it's beyond saving. I could taste some of the flavour, but not a lot. I imagine the green beans would have been brilliant if treated well, but after being roasted, this wasn't nice at all. I tried to finish as much as I can, but it was as bad as the aeroplane coffee I had. Oh well! At least now I know!Starbucks will always be Starbucks.
An intermission of a dog and a cat! My mum took us to an area that I think I'd been to before, one which was old style and full of traditional sweets, street food and tourist trappy souvenirs. There were a lot of stray dogs here that weaved through the crowds, looking for food scraps that'd been dropped.
On our last night, we walked past another trendy are of Shanghai. My brother pointed out a newer cafe - Seesaw Coffee, which had been on his radar for a while. At first I didn't think much of it, but since we had time after yet another family dinner, we decided to check it out. And look at that. A brew bar, and their La Marzocco box was on display! How cool!
Lovely pictures of lovely coffee. Yeah, this was totally more my style. A lighter roast, their espresso and filter were both fantastic! Ethiopia Aricha was on espresso, and it was pretty good. It was light and fruity, just the way I like it. The filters were also interesting. Not only was there the Panama Auromar geisha, one of the coffees that Proud Mary had (and it was really nice), but there was also some coffee from Yunnan! While it's more well known as a tea producing region, they grow coffee as well apparently! There were take home bags which showcased three different processed - washed, black honey, and sundried, which was super cool. After tasting these - which were actually rather delicious and interesting. It was surprisingly pleasant so we all bought some to take back home!That concludes my China trip for this year. I think every time I visit, it's slightly more bearable, but still not a place that I want to go back to. At least the coffee scene has improved, and the next one on my list, should I ever need to return, is Greybox Coffee or something along those lines, which is another new specialty coffee shop.
Doing my silly scribble thing again.