Prick With A Fork

It is an almost reflexive position of Australian left-wingers that tipping in restaurants, American-style, is a bad thing. For one thing, it’s American. For another, it’s a quick and efficient market mechanism that tends to link individual effort with reward, cutting centralised wage fixers out of the equation.

And oh yeah, did I mention it’s American?

Which is why I’m having a hard time coming at complaints by officials at something called United Voice — it’s the new name of the old Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union, apparently — that management is pocketing credit card tips intended for wait staff. Especially when their solution is for diners to leave cash.

Look, waiters and waitress often work damn hard. And if I give a tip in a restaurant (which I generally do, and do generously when the occasion’s right) I expect it to go to the floor staff. But on a Saturday night, this same staff is also getting paid upwards of $35 an hour, stretching already tight margins, pushing up the price of menu items while discouraging staff from going that extra mile. Add in tips at a reasonable joint and you’re talking about well north of $50 an hour.

Staffers’ unions and their mates need to make up their mind: if they don’t like management pocketing tips, they should call for a ban on gratuities. Otherwise, their members would be better served by letting restaurants set wages while letting diners reward performance.

It is funny how so many of the same people who love to shriek that “the science is settled” when it comes to some issues (the environment) are so willing to bend the facts when it comes to others:

What is really striking is that the eat-meat-die-young panic keeps rearing its ugly head so regularly, based on study after study with equally feeble risk ratios and numerous confounding factors. This suggests that the constant desire to scare those of a carnivorous bent has little to do with the evidence – which is shakier than a cow with BSE – and more to do with the prejudices of those who want us all to live a less red-blooded lifestyle. The particular desire to promote lentil-munching over hot dogs and burgers rather suggests a general sniffiness towards mass-produced food, too.

Absolutely right. I’d actually go further and say that a lot of environmental studies are equally dodgy but also have at their roots a desire to punish the masses for their bad taste.

Rockpool Bar and Grill is not exactly your average kids’ restaurant. Then again, our ten-year-old Nick is not your average kid. And although the odometer officially rolled over six weeks ago, hectic schedules kept us from delivering on our promise to take the lad out for his long-promised tenth birthday dinner until just this week. Happily, he’s taken it upon himself to write up the experience. Ladies and gentlemen, Prick With a Fork gives you a guest post by … Nick With a Fork!

I went to the Rockpool Bar and Grill for my tenth birthday yesterday and was overwhelmed by the good quality service and design. This meal was provided by my great family.

The moment that I stepped through those doors I was flung into a world of beauty. The seats were comfy, the roof was held up by marble pillars, and even the menu had a touch of colour.

First came a few slices of brioche with the creamiest butter you could ever imagine. It is apparently customary to tear an extremely small piece off and eat it with a dab of butter.

As a starter I picked out the “Four raw tastes of the sea”: First, a fatty tuna with a elegant touch of fresly harvested salt, then, a beautiful slice of ocean trout which had a completely different, more intense flavour. After that came a seafood civiche with a touch of coriander and cumin, and finally a very soft and delicate piece of kingfish which tasted like seafood at its best.

We then ordered a dozen oysters, six Pacific, and six Sydney rocks.

The Pacific ones had a very steely flavour, it tasted like an edible robot. The ones from the rocks however, were much smaller but I must say I enjoyed them much more then the others. All of the oysters were served with a dash of mignonette sauce which was a beautiful garnish to the dish.

One of the waiters noticed my great interest in food and offered to give me a tour round the kitchen. I agreed and walked with him past the great Salamander oven, whose burning tounges of flame which are at over 200 degrees celcius leaped out and perfectly finished the steak off. Then there was the fish station, where sizzling hot plates evenly cooked the meaty surfaces laid upon the oven, and there was the gigantic sous vide machine which gleamed in the burning inferno that is the kitchen.

A few minutes later came the steak, some macaroni and cheese and some fries, served on shining white dishes and cut with knives of sparkling silver.

As the steak touched the very surface of my tounge I explored a whole new world, it had an extremely crisp outside, whilst the inside had a tender, juicy feel.

It was very rich, cooked medium rare and bursting with flavour.

The macaroni and cheese was beautiful, topped with bread crumbs and enhanced with something that I detected as tomato.

I loved the fries too, please keep in mind that they are much better than chips, salty, with easily tasted potato and a soft centre, next time if you have a choice between chips and fries, choose fries over chips.

As I told you, I was there for my tenth birthday and the waiter must have heard me mention it because the chefs especially made me a cupcake without asking. How many resturants have you been to whose chefs do that?

The cupcake was extremely light, not the sort of junk served at average resturants and was very creamy. I got it for free which broke the rule that nothing was “on the house”.

The Rockpool Bar and Grill is a brilliant resturant dedicated to filling the bellies of hungry customers and I have all these reasons to prove it.

The Prick has been very busy the past few days, eating and drinking and discovering a new contender for the best Reuben in Sydney.

And yes, there have been some treats along the way:

You can read my article in the Spectator Australia about the latest assault on freedom of speech in Australia by clicking here: Shut up, they explained. Great cartoon, too.

Then go out and buy the magazine. It really is “Champagne for the brain”.

Commentator and friend of this site (if not necessarily friend of the Earth!) Tim Blair has some culinary adventures with creatures of the land and air on a trip to Guam.

Watch out for the high cholesterol, Tim. And the lingering … taste.

Who knew Grand Forks, North Dakota, had such a happening restaurant scene?

It had been a few years since I ate at the older Olive Garden in Fargo, so I studied the two manageable menus offering appetizers, soups and salads, grilled sandwiches, pizza, classic dishes, chicken and seafood and filled pastas.

At length, I asked my server what she would recommend. She suggested chicken Alfredo, and I went with that. Instead of the raspberry lemonade she suggested, I drank water.

She first brought me the familiar Olive Garden salad bowl with crisp greens, peppers, onion rings and yes — several black olives. Along with it came a plate with two long, warm breadsticks.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to an Olive Garden. Ten years almost to the day, in fact.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Jeremy and the team on their well-deserved “hat”! PWAF readers, do yourselves a favour and check out what I have long thought was the most under-rated restaurant in town, under-rated no more.

***

So it was back to The Devonshire in Surry Hills with our friend WB the other night to try out Chef Jeremy Bentley’s new-ish menu and take advantage of their no-corkage Tuesdays. The Dev has become something of a regular hang-out for Mr and Mrs Prick, though we had not been back since last year when we brought an old high school classmate and her proctologist husband who were out visiting from the US there for dinner. It was a good thing that we were the only table in the joint that night because much wine was consumed, hilarity had, and stories told – and as Kramer famously said in Seinfeld, “You meet a proctologist at a party, don’t walk away. Plant yourself there, because you will hear the funniest stories you’ve ever heard. See, no one wants to admit to them that they stuck something up there. Never! It’s always an accident. Every proctologist story ends in the same way: ‘It was a million to one shot, Doc. Million to one’.”

Fortunately even after that performance they were glad to see us back. Front-of-house chief Matt Jolly was quick off the mark with a smile, a thumbs up, and a martini. It was good to see that rather than being empty the place was about one-third full on a Tuesday night, with a clientele that seemed to be made up of a healthy mix of regulars ordering off the a la carte menu and female Asian food bloggers snapping their degustation plates with their iPhones from every conceivable angle. (I don’t mind so much, though I did hear a story from a friend who, while celebrating his partner’s 40th at Quay recently, saw an NRL player and his WAG ask for their photo to be taken with the MasterChef Snow Egg. Rubes.)

Kingfish, compressed watermelon, dill – and not a WAG in sight

Continue reading →