Prick With A Fork

Little boys in straw trilby hats? Tick!

Men in Deus ex Machina (if they’ve got children) or Superdry (if they don’t) vintage print t-shirts? Tick!

Rolled pastel three-quarter-length pants? Tick!

Ray-Bans, Havaianas, and trucker caps as far as the eye can see? Tick, tick, and tick!

Disney for hipsters…

Where else could we be but the Grounds of Alexandria, Sydney’s much-hyped epicentre of everything organic, sustainable, inner-west, New Class, cashed-up, and Bourgeois Bohemian, or “BoBo”, to borrow David Brooks’ perfect portmanteau? A Stuff White People Like theme park, the Grounds is an eco’stainable paradise reclaimed from Bourke Street’s post-industrial ruin, just the place to park your Audi 4WD and unexplainable job title to entertain your “Nothing But Flowers” fantasies for a couple of hours.

And a couple of hours it will be, given the ridiculous popularity of the place.  As Disneyland is to the American lumpen-masses, for the keen observer of Sydney’s tribes, the Grounds is the perfect place to observe the moneyed inner-west hipster in his natural environment.

Of course, it is not just the people who make a theme park, it is also the attractions: Thrill at the chickens scratching around in their coop! Coo at the baby pig rooting around in his pen complete with cubby house furnished with not-unpricey dog bed! Admire the “kitchen gardens” as lush as the fairways at Augusta! Ponder the “Research Facility” where scientists work in three shifts to discover the perfect ristretto! Flatter yourself that everything you’re about to eat, when you finally get the chance, will come from flora and fauna so lovingly tended!

Capitalist piggy

And indeed it is a good thing that there’s so much to do because it takes forever to get a table, though whether the activities create the wait is very much a question of which came first, the biodynamic chicken or the free-range egg? Regular readers of this site know that queuing for restaurants is something the Prick has never understood. Queuing for nice, pleasant, but in no way spectacular café food makes no sense at all. Yet having come this far, we couldn’t really abandon the project.

Taking the host’s word that it would be about a half an hour for a table, we took the opportunity to call in at the epically great Salt Meats Cheese next door, something which made the short hop over from Stately Prick Manor worth the trip even without a visit to the Grounds. There we stocked up on salamis and cheeses and ‘nduja and American goodies like Tabasco-brand Bloody Mary mix and hot sauces and flavoured salts (we’ll be sprinkling some espresso salt over a chocolate ganache one of these days), looked into some pasta classes (they’ll do a kids’ party if you ask!) and had a great chat with one of the gents staffing the galeria del jamon who, in great contrast to every other counterman in this town, hands-down refused to sell us anything until all of us had tried it first.

Eli, the Middlemost Little Prick, declared, “I could live here. Seriously.”

We nearly would have had to move in given how we found things back at the Grounds: A half-hour wait turned into forty-five, and “it’ll be longer than five more minutes, but less than ten” turned into another twenty. Despite this, new customers kept joining the queue, happy to take their buzzers and the promise of a ninety-minute (!) wait.

Finally!

What were they waiting for? The same thing as us: Food which, when we finally got to a table, was good, fine, and would be lovely at any corner café, accompanied by service that was friendly and efficient. Everything was as nice and inoffensive as a gaggle of Enmore playground mothers nodding over the wisdom of a carbon tax or the right-ness of public schools. “Breakfast burgers” were perfectly pleasant creations on brioche buns. Banana bread was fresh and moist. A “Turkish-style” eggs dish kind of missed the point with under-done, al dente-to-the-point-of-crunchy beans and under-seasoned everything. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Paying $7 for jelly jars of ice dressed with orange-carrot-ginger juice was mildly annoying, but like losing a few euro to gypsie scammers in Piazzo San Marco, it’s just the sort of colourful rip-off that comes with the territory. Even the Herald’s Terry Durack, whose Peter Pan complex regularly leads him to talk up any joint where more than two customers are wearing Onitsuka Tiger sneakers, could only bring himself to give it a 13/20, which is probably fair.

So why bother? Well, if food is your thing, you shouldn’t. Because what is on offer here is not a meal but a Rousseauian fantasy of a society remade where the cosmopolitan city dweller’s life is no longer divorced from the farmer on the periphery and where the middlemen, those evil corporations with their false consciousness-creating marketing schemes, are cut out of the equation. Thus the Grounds is not just a (wildly successful) capitalist project, but a socialist and revolutionary one as well: It may not have worked out so well when Pol Pot, Mao, and Castro sent their urban intelligentsia to the fields, but that doesn’t mean we can’t bring the fields to the urban intelligentsia, right?

Nice try, but the long waits prove what Churchill famously pointed out, namely that every attempt to create Utopia turns into “Queue-topia” in the end.

While we’re on the subject of France, I think I got to get me one of these:

The yearly calendar frenzy has emerged [in France] as an unlikely occasion for the country’s cheese-makers to try their hand at soft-core porn.

Launched in 2006, the From’Girls calendar (‘from’ being short for fromage or cheese) is now something of an institution according to one regional daily. The concept is pretty straightforward, if not necessarily appetising. The calendar features 12 women, clad in what looks like the weekend wardrobe of a 40-something with a penchant for rural swinging. Posing provocatively and slathered in make-up, the only seriously abnormal aspect of the pin-up calendar is that each of the women is clutching a giant slab of stinking cheese.

“Not necessarily appetising”? “Abnormal”? Please. So judgmental. Let’s work together to stamp out from’-ophopbia. And anyone who knows where to source one of these gems is urged to forward this information on as a matter of urgency.

“How can one bring together a country with 265 different cheeses?”, General Charles de Gaulle is said to have remarked* after the divisive (and, for him, disappointing) 1951 French elections.

The answer to the General’s question is, you bring them all together under the warm embrace of the Golden Arches:

In its continuing efforts to incorporate French sensibilities into its menu abroad, tomorrow McDonald’s France will unleash a line of limited-edition burgers that feature such beloved French cheeses as Camembert, Comte, Chevre, and Raclette. 

And, as The Australian reports, some French people are already pretty upset about the whole thing, with Camembert producers in particular complaining that they “feel used.”

Indeed, if reports are to believed, the nation of 265 fromages (or at least its arbiters of taste) are pretty much of a mind on this one:

Fast and Food conducted a professional taste test, concluding, “The slices of Camembert are rather smooth, lack strength, it’s really not the taste of Camembert that we know but something lighter. A number of customers will surely be disappointed…” L’Express makes the same point, writing that the cheese could even be confused with a Brie. McDonald’s France marketing director Nawal Trabelski tells the paper that the company, “had to find the happy medium between too strong and not enough” to be able to reach the greatest number of consumers.

Which is, in fact, the problem of cheesemakers everywhere. Bland = commercial success; powerful and complex = the applause of connoisseurs.

And it’s not just the taste-makers who are upset. The whole effort is looking to provoke French-on-French hatred of a sort not seen since at least 1848:

Patrick Mercier, chairman of an association of Camembert producers in Normandy, tells the newspaper that McDonald’s never consulted with the organization on the McCamembert. Though Basse-Normandie reports that Camembert is the second most popular cheese in France, its name is not protected. Therefore, non-Normandy producers are able to label their cheese “Camembert” outside of the AOC Camembert de Normandie. Mercier says that the McDonald’s version is “as bottom of the market as you can get. It comes from Brittany.”

Brittany. Can’t go any lower than that, apparently.

* The General: Charles de Gaulle and the France He Saved, Jonathan Fenby, p. 348

Have you heard the news?

A really good cheeseburger.

Thus Mrs Prick suggested a wander over to Norton Street to Bonarchè, the new burger joint we had been meaning to try since it appeared sometime in the middle of 2012 but somehow never managed to get around to. This was a good call.

Tucked into a small shopfront a pitching wedge up from the corner of Parramatta Road, Bonarchè is an early and welcome sign that as with Glebe Point Road and the Annandale village before it, Norton Street is on the cusp of undergoing some much-needed hipsto-gentrification. Leichhardt’s whole Little Italy routine ran its course ages ago. The “Italian Forum” is one of the most misconstrued developments the Prick has ever encountered, a cultural theme park in miniature surrounded by ‘90s-vintage apartment blocks. The suburb’s most famous restaurant is best known for its mention in corruption inquiries, while the new money coming into the neighbourhood wants more than processed pasta joints. Bonarchè is a hopeful sign more good stuff is on its way.

That is a tasty burger!

The name Bonarchè is a portmanteau of the names of foodie partners Roger Bond (billed as the “the Butcher”) and Tracey Archer (“the Chef”), though it was a bit of a role reversal on our visit. Ms Archer was nowhere to be seen, having given Bond his license to grill (sorry, couldn’t resist). Their respective pedigrees, including stints at Meat and Livestock Australia, mean the pair knows their meat, and a sign warning that customers who want their burgers cooked well done had better damn well ask for them that way earns them a place in the Prick’s Pantheon of Freedom.

We ordered a pair of “American” burgers – cheese, dill pickles, tomato relish & Coney Island mustard – and added some bacon for good measure. What we got was simply brilliant: beautiful meat with a nice char and a little bit of pink, a great balance between sweet and savoury and salty flavours (the pickles are a deft touch). Bonarchè eschews the whole leaning-tower-of-burger phenomenon whereby buns as thick as paving bricks sandwich teetering piles of condiments. One need not have ­a jaw that dislocates like some Discovery Channel predator to hook into a Bonarchè burger, nor does one need to de- and re-construct the thing with a knife and fork first. This is a good development, here’s hoping it’s a trend.

Leaning tower of burger at Moo: the Prick has driven Audis less over-engineered

Bonarchè certainly beats out other inner-west burger joints the Pricks have tried (and isn’t it ironic that an area with the highest quotient of vegans and veggos you’ll find this side of a maharishi’s ashram takes its ground cow so seriously?). While we have had many good experiences there, a recent venture to Newtown’s famous Moo Burger was, frankly, disappointing, with patties that were dry, over-worked, and packed too tight, accompanied by flavourless “cheesy bacon chips” which, like the Holy Roman Empire, were none of the above.

Back to Bonarchè, it is almost impossible to be critical of the place. One or two more crafty, less corporate beers on the drinks list might not go astray. I wonder if they’d do a double-double? Maybe if one asks nicely. Otherwise, an overwhelmingly welcome addition to the area.

A couple of weeks ago this site noted the shuttering of Danks Street Depot due to a number of factors, including higher power and refrigeration costs brought on by the carbon tax. Not surprisingly, Danks Street isn’t the only operation feeling the pinch:

Neil Perry runs four top restaurants in three states – NSW, Victoria and Western Australia. Food prices are one thing, he says. It’s the input costs that are the killer. Labour, transport, government red tape and energy. “My power costs have nearly doubled since last July,” Perry says. “Across the Rockpool group, electricity cost us $1 million in 12 months. We’ve been really battling not to put our prices up.”

Read the whole article: it’s a good round-up of the factors that make eating out – whether in pubs or fine diners – so expensive in this country. Added up, they go a long way toward busting the myth, repeatedly peddled, that running a restaurant is a quick ticket to wealth so long as one is willing to exploit staff. Instead we see that much – but by no means all – of the high relative cost of serving up food in Australia comes from the thousand cuts of government regulation, from labour market over-regulation to high taxes on alcohol (which is why a bottle of Grange can be found cheaper overseas than here at home).

With consumer spending on restaurants softening, the industry is likely to feel the pinch even further in 2013.

(Thanks to reader James in Footscray for the, ahem, tip).

As noted recently by the IPA’s Tim Wilson, the joyless, taste-deprived, freedom-hating puritans of Australia’s public health lobby are increasingly concerned that they are falling behind in the nanny stakes. The lead may very well be going to Britain, where ‘elf-‘n’-bloody-safety has been hijacked as a weapon to make the traditional Sunday roast as bland, tasteless, and leathery as can be:

It has been a staple of the British Sunday lunch for generations. But those who prefer their roast beef on the rare side could soon be locking horns with restaurants, which are overcooking their joints because of health-and-safety fears.

An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed that several large pub chains are telling chefs  to serve beef ‘medium to well done’ – even though there are no official guidelines telling them to do so.

Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants, owner of the popular Brewers Fayre chain, says its joints should have an internal temperature of  80C – despite food safety guidance suggesting well-done roast beef is cooked at 75C.

And thus it was after an agreeably pointy-ended flight to Melbourne, followed by a slightly less straightforward ride out to the country, that the Pricks found themselves in Yarra Glen, bang smack in the middle of the Yarra Valley at the start of the Australia Day weekend. As Sydneysiders, it was disorienting:

Don’t go “Russian” this Imperial Stout!

After all, Yarra’s a relatively short run out from Melbourne, yet it was the start of the holiday weekend and the place was not, as we had expected, teeming with Melbournians. The Hunter Valley, Sydney’s closest comparable wine region, is at least twice as far from the Big Smoke and on any given weekend – to say nothing of a holiday – is over-run with tour buses, hen’s parties, and concert-goers banging through more cellar doors than a Kansas tornado. Not that we missed them, but walking down the drag, the big question was, Where is everybody?

Well, not the only question. There was a more pressing issue on the agenda, namely, Where the hell can a Prick go to get some dinner in this town? The Yarra Glen Grand most assuredly isn’t, and as for Chateau Yering, we were booked in the next night. Happily, down one end of Bell Street in what used to be the town’s bank we found the Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company. What a lovely spot. And again, why the place wasn’t completely over-run and turning people away at the door was a mystery to us.

No knocking this gnocchi!

Because there’s no better way to kick off a long weekend in the vines than with a few hand-crafted beers and some straightforward, locally-sourced gastro-pub cuisine. We teed off at the charming four-seater front bar; Mrs Prick dove straight into the Hefeweizen, a lovely number lighter than one expects thanks to a blend of wheat and barley. I worked my way around the taps: a sentimental favourite was the latest release of their “Phoenix” red ale, so named because its brewed every year in the brewery reconstructed after the Black Saturday bushfires. Happily it did not encourage maudlin or morose reminiscences so much as an almost Eastern serenity and calm. Though this could have also been a side effect of their Russian Imperial Stout, a big black bastard of a beer (words written entirely affectionately) weighing in at around 12% alcohol. Boom.

De-feathered friend

We made it to a table before things got too out of hand: time to eat. The menu is straightforward, local, broken down into “nibbles and starters” and “larger plates” with not too many items. Still there was much to tempt, including the specials, so we split the difference and shared the house-made gnocchi – a simple pan-fried gnocchi with feta and herbs. This was what I was hoping for – but did not quite get – at Sede a few weeks prior.

Steaking a claim … too far with the caption-puns?

Then, mains.  The Pricks are big fried chicken fans, and a few times a summer at the Stately Prick Manor Test Kitchens put Thomas Keller’s recipe through its paces. So we were both intrigued and concerned by the menu’s listing of “southern fried chicken”: Could a chef in country Victoria pull off such a quintessential American dish? Answer: Yes, and pretty well. Mrs Prick’s bird had spent a while in the brine, we suspect, which made it tender as all get-out, but the crust could have been crispier (though it hardly lacked in flavour. Meanwhile a 500g ribeye, from just over the hill in Gruyere, was ordered rare and came rare, and was a pretty perfect bloody (in both senses of the word!) steak. No room for dessert we walked off our meal, the better to get a good night’s sleep for the big day of swirling, sipping, sniffing, and spitting (as if) ahead.

While the Prick sorts out a few things, why not check out the adventures of a Canadian duck working her way through the Cordon Bleu Academy in Ottawa? No foams or smears here!

Gentle Reader, the fates have conspired against the Prick. Where once I was supposed to touch down in Sydney in the early evening and have several hours of blogging bliss to give a full account of travels in the Yarra Valley and points north, the weather has conspired to bring me home sometime after 10 and it’s all I can do to make a tuna sandwich, have a slug of Glenmorangie, and steel myself for a return to the dark Satanic mills.

But watch this space! Full accounts of great wineries known (Yarra Yering, I’m looking in your direction) and unknown (lay in as much Madden’s Rise as you can, especially the reserve shiraz, before it goes all cult-ey and unobtainable) as well a bizarre experience at the most over-rated, hard-to-leave hotel this side of The Shining over the coming days.