Last week the Herald’s “Good Living” supplement ran as its cover story a puff piece on chefs and their tattoos.
This week’s cover goes down the old evergreen “mythbusters” route, putting kitchen myths to the test. Though only half the “myths” are really “busted”, and who ever believed that putting a spoon in a bottle of Champagne would keep it fresh anyway?
I can’t wait to see what they trot out next week. Sommeliers and their dogs, perhaps?
It is really amazing how much our impression of what makes a good restaurant has changed over the past few decades. The thought occurred to me Saturday afternoon in Melbourne as Mrs Prick and I readied ourselves for dinner with a bracing episode of The Brady Bunch in the hotel room – specifically “The Babysitters”, in which Greg and Marcia are left to sit for their siblings while Mike and Carol take in dinner and a show and Alice is off on a hot date with Sam the Butcher. Yeah, I know, but in my defence (a) those old episodes are classics that hold up surprisingly well, and, (b) they’re fascinating pieces of social anthropology, providing an insight, albeit a stylised one, into family life in a ‘70s-era boomtime California where Davey Jones and not the Grateful Dead was on the stereo and the worst thing a kid might smoke was tobacco. It’s no coincidence that the Brady family was conceived by Sherwood Schwartz whose much-derided Gilligan’s Island, for all its goofiness, was actually a skilful look at the uniquely small-d democratic nature of Cold War American society. And with its relationship between the Skipper and his “Li’l Buddy” more speculated-upon than that between Christopher Pyne and James Ashby, it may have been a surprisingly progressive show as well.
Foie gras cigars, about as politically-incorrect a dish as you can conceive
Anyway, where was I? Restaurants. So in this episode of The Brady Bunch Mike and Carol leave the kids to go off to a fancy restaurant and a show. And what a restaurant: Curtains everywhere. Pale blue everything. Snooty maître d’ (“Erm, wine list sir, erm…”). This is what, thirty or forty years ago – and for a long time before that – we in the English-speaking West considered fine dining. The episode was shot six years before the famous Judgment of Paris, so Mike suggested they order a fine French Burgundy (and even though the Bradys never held a Bacchanal, it was also shot long before the writers would have to write in a line about “None for me. I’m driving!”. Perhaps they’ll dub it in later).
Fast-forward forty years and 7,500 miles: California is a basket-case, made all the worse by government debt and over-regulation (something foreshadowed when, after deciding to leave to check on the kids rather than eat at the restaurant, Mike has to pay a bill not just for the “cover charge”, but the “tax on the cover charge”). Australia, while hardly a libertarian paradise, is still by comparison in boom. And were Mike and Carol Brady to go out to a fine diner these days, the evening would not be filled with uptight wine captains but chefs and waiters floating around industrial spaces with body piercings and ink. Tony Bilson has closed his fancy hotel dining room (perhaps Sydney’s last outpost of haute-Brady cuisine) and is selling his wares at the markets: Sleeve tattoo gastronomy is the latest next big thing in high-end dining.
Delightful swordfish sashimi
Not that this is a bad thing, if Mrs Prick’s and my meal at Fitzroy’s Cutler and Co (never “Cutler and Company”, as I discovered when I made the booking!) is any indication. Perched in an industrial space off the main drag of Melbourne’s hipster-infested Fitzroy (a pre-dinner drink at I Know a Place made us feel like we were in Williamsburg), Cutler is the latest venture of Cumulus Inc’s Andrew McConnell, and it epitomises this very modern, non-fussy but still clever and technically proficient style of cooking.
How proficient? How clever? How much beyond the “bistro” tag that the Cutler crew hangs on the joint? Well, the meal kicked off (and was there any doubt we were going to go the degustation?) with a few starters including a pair of the freshest oysters I’ve had in a while as well as “foie gras cigars”, served in a cigar box: The lightest imaginable brik pastry wrapped around an ethereal parfait, this was brilliant. (What the olives were doing there, I’m not sure, but they looked lovely in their Georg Jensen bowl).
Swordfish sashimi was a bright delight; Mrs Prick thought there was just the right amount of wasabi though I could have done with one less globule. A pickled octopus with aioli and smoked paprika was a gem. And a dish of spanner crab and abalone (something I’ve loathed since a bad experience in Shanghai) was, at table, surrounded by a golden chicken broth that was all umami and aromatics, as good a broth as I’ve had. These were accompanied by various wines: an Alsace pinot gris, a Manzanilla sherry, a white (didn’t know they existed!) Chateauenauf-du-Pape, and so on. Good pairings, though only the sherry really blew me away.
Hay-baked carrots: What’s up with all the negative space, doc?
Things shifted gears with hay-baked carrots, a dish I was sceptical of but was delightful, especially with a bright goats’ curd. A presentation theme was developing as well: rustic ceramic, not bright white, plates (about time, I say) and off-kilter arrangements leaving a lot of empty or negative space on the plate. This was followed by what may have been my favourite plated dish of the night, duck two ways – smoked and fried – accompanied by morcilla sausage, beetroot and raisins. You’ve had the old seared-breast-and-confit duo of duck a million times, there’s no going back after this. This was a plate-lickingly fantastic, big, earthy combination of flavours, and went well with the SA Grenache, a nice shift away from the expected pinot noir. It was almost a shame to follolw this with the beef short rib, which was great, but too unilateral after the duck, and let down by the frankly uninspired choice of a Vasse Felix Heytesbury Cab-Sav. A lovely wine, but the Heytesbury chardonnay is the star of that line, and I would have thought they would have gone up the Yarra for at least one course. Then: a composed cheese plate, a celery granita on goat’s milk yogurt (very refreshing and I’ll try my hand at this some time), and a lovely plate of violet ice cream and ganache. All up, a great meal, and we didn’t mind having to walk back to the Westin when we couldn’t get a cab. (Oh, who the hell are we kidding? We were furious. But what can you do?)
All ducked up …
There were some other off-notes. Service started out enthusiastic and the front desk welcome was like arriving home, but things flagged as the night wore on: If you’re prepared to let someone order the full Cleveland at 10 o’clock at night, you’ve got to go the distance with them. I also am not a fan of the multiple-servers thing: It may be old school but I like to develop a rapport with one waiter over the course of an evening, not have plates dropped off with varying degress of interest or care (“Carrots!”). The meal was also let down somewhat by the wine pairings, not because they were poor choices, they just weren’t inspiring. We went the “premium” selection, and wonder why: there was nothing hugely special on the list, though there were some interesting choices. Nor were there any Victorians on the pour, which was faintly amazing as for a restaurant that has such an emphasis on produce, the wine could have really bolstered a sense of place. (A recent trip to Sixpenny was a delight for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the excellent and deep selection of NSW vintages). Can there not have been one worthy red from up the Yarra? A bracing Toolangi Reserve Chardonnay to take the edge of the wasabi? Anyway, these are quibbles: a top night that points in promising directions.
I’m pretty sure this seals the deal. Stately Prick Manor needs an ice cream maker.
Not sure if London’s on the Prick’s agenda any time soon, but if it is, we certainly won’t be going to Novikov:
But you really don’t have to hate Novikov on principle. There’s more than enough about the place to let you hate it on its own terms. There is the usual stupidity of booking a table for 9pm only to be told that your booking is for just two hours. There is the unusual stupidity of an ape in a bomber jacket shoving his body between you and the door and barking: “Are you eating here tonight?” To which I could but reply: “Only if you’ll let me”…
It reminds me of the mega restaurants of Las Vegas, with one crucial difference. In Vegas the restaurants are generally very good. There’s too much competition for it to be otherwise. This is generally very, very bad: prices that knock the wind out of you and moments of cooking so cack-handed, so foul, so astoundingly grim you want to congratulate the kitchen on its incompetence.
Amazingly, according to the review, the place is always chock-a-block full.
So we’ve just flown in from Melbourne, and boy are our livers tired. Fantastic weekend, and a much needed reminder that there’s a very European city (at least relative to Sydney) just an hour or so away. Just one thing, though, how the hell does your tram system work? We tried to get all Malcolm Turnbull and take public transport everywhere, but were defeated by the mere act of buying tickets (what’s a “myki”?). And when we did successfully board, we would get to a transfer point and then discover that the tram we needed doesn’t run on weekends. So, taxis it was!
Full report of the Pricks’ trip coming soon, including thoughts on Cutler & Co.
Regular readers of this blog know that one of its non-food interests is the continuing train-wreck that is Fairfax economics columnist Jessica Irvine. To bring newcomers up to speed, Irvine is a woman for whom no experience from losing weight (it’s, like, really hard!) to planning a wedding (it’s , like, really expensive!) goes untapped in her attempt to explain the world to us mere mortal readers through the prism of Irvine-nomics.
Today, however, she’s published her most revealing column yet. It’s not about her latest “it’s happening to me so it must be important!” drama (choosing a puppy is, like, difficult! They’re all so cute!) so much as it is a furious rant, written with all the smug self-righteousness of a high school newspaper essay about injustice and human rights and curfews.
Only in Irvine-world, it is in fact we who are the teenagers:
Apparently, science has discovered a new cut of steak:
“The Vegas Strip Steak is the latest and perhaps last steak to be found from the beef carcass,” said Jacob Nelson, a value-added meat processing specialist (and owner of the best job title of all time) at the Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center of Oklahoma State University. The Vegas Strip is the brainchild of Tony Mata, of industry group Mata & Associates, who approached Nelson and the FAPC for help developing the cut. “Initially, the cut was labeled as undervalued,” Mata told the Drovers Cattle Network. “Whenever we can take a muscle and turn it into a steak rather than grinding it or selling it as a roast, we are adding value to the carcass.”
The steak itself weighs in at about 14 ounces and can be portioned out as small as 4 ounces. The taste, tenderness, and flavor are reportedly akin to a New York Strip or Flat Iron cut. “The tenderness of the Vegas Strip Steak is comparable to the New York Strip Steak,” said Mata. “It does not require aging or marinating to achieve tenderness and its visual appeal enhances the steak eater’s overall enjoyment.”
Wonderful news, though it is sad to think my children may grow up in a world where new cuts of steak are not being discovered. Hudson Meats, Victor Churchill, you know what to do.
Our friends at the Spectator have finally gotten around to putting up a link to my piece about the generally lousy state of establishment restaurant criticism in Australia and what food bloggers could – but aren’t – doing to remedy the situation.
The problem, as I note, is that food bloggers in Australia, the US, and elsewhere (especially the ones at the top of the tree as measured by Urbanspoon rankings) are shockingly reluctant to deliver anything but glowing praise. Over at Corridor Kitchen, it was recently posited that the restaurant industry is down on food bloggers; I can’t imagine why. When was the last time you saw a food blogger say they had a lousy night out? It happens, but rarely.
Whether it is politesse, an unwillingness to admit that one spent hard-earned cash on a crummy meal, or the hope of freebies (one highly-ranked Sydney blogger openly advertises that he is “available for restaurant reviews, media launches, special events and product samples”), food bloggers aren’t willing to go against the grain of the publicity-industrial complex that overlays most major metropolitan food scenes. As I note in the Speccie,
There are nearly 500 ‘food bloggers’ registered with the restaurant review aggregator Urbanspoon.com in Sydney alone (I even recently joined their ranks), and as of this writing about 700 more in Melbourne. Yet weirdly, given that the internet has broken down users’ usual qualms about being measured and judicious everywhere else, like their professional counterparts Australia’s own army of hungry Davids is gun-shy. Random spins through most local food blog posts reveal nothing so much as a collection of hand-hewn Roget’s thesauruses entirely devoted to the word ‘delicious’.
Come on guys, I’ve eaten at the same places, and they’re not all that good. And even when they are, everyone has an off night.
So I propose a new manifesto for Australia’s food bloggers, one which I will be more than happy to lead. Don’t be afraid to get down and dirty. Don’t be afraid to admit that you just spent $500 to celebrate your anniversary and got treated by the waitstaff like you were unwelcome in-laws. Don’t be afraid to say that the hot new dish of the moment or restaurant of the week is nothing but a bunch of pretentious faff arranged prettily on a plate. Don’t worry that people won’t like you, or that if your site becomes really popular, no PR girl will ever call you up to attend a private tasting for the latest hipster hangout. If that’s your motivation, get a new hobby. Don’t be gratuitously rude, but also remember that as a would-be food writer, Tolstoy’s maxim about families also applies to meals. All the good ones are the same, but all the awful ones are unique in their own way.
As I say, this doesn’t mean everyone has to be down on everything all the time. But – to take one example – Mrs Prick and I recently went to Sixpenny, and while we had a really fantastic time, there were a few off-notes I was happy to call them out on as part of an otherwise praiseworthy review. Perhaps other local bloggers who’ve been recently just got lucky and had better nights. But if food bloggers want to be of some service to their readers, they’ve got to write about the bad and the ugly, and not just the good.
According to my stats, somebody found this site today by searching, “methadone addiction and centrelink disability support pension eligibility”.
Welcome, junkie dole-bludging friend!
Balzac’s last meal … a ripper of a night!
Very sad to read the news that Matt Kemp has decided to close the Montpellier Public House, his recent (mis)(ad)venture to refurbish and rebrand what he previously operated as Randwick’s venerable Restaurant Balzac – a joint which was, while it was open, one of our favourite “occasion” places, and where we enjoyed any number of special dinners. The “Game Night” he put on a couple of years ago, with everything from venison to hare on the menu, and where we were very democratically seated with the Hon. Justice Annabelle Bennett, will always be remembered.
Mrs Prick and I were lucky enough to go Balzac’s last meal qua Balzac, but somehow never made it over to Montpellier: The long ride to Randwick didn’t somehow seem worth it for what we worried would be a dumbed-down format (the code words “more accessible” are like kryptonite to the Pricks), especially with the wonderful Devonshire Restaurant run by ex-Balzac sous chef Jeremy Bentley just down the road. We are sorry we never did now, and wish Matt all the best and hope to see him behind the pans again soon.
Prick With A Fork 