Australia Day 11: Brisbane, Yoghurt Bar and James Street Market

I realized I made my time in Brisbane sound extremely busy. It was but to be fair, in a place where time sometimes has a different meaning, you are not very very busy, it's more just that commuting takes up most of your day. I still had the mornings though and the first morning that I was there, I decided to take a walk at 7am to see what was open.


Well..not a super lot. The coffee places were already roasting and buzzing. On the way to find the Extract Coffee Bar, I stumbled upon this place, the Yoghurt Bar. Upon first sight, I was a little apprehensive at the tubs of yoghurt that looked like they may have been out for awhile. My curiousity overcame me though and I settled on a mango yoghurt where I could see swirls of fresh fruit.


The yoghurt had me at the first taste, it was that good. I'm really picky about yoghurt as well, preferring it to be natural (which is truly hard to find in Asia unless you make your own or are partial to Indian yoghurt which you Can find fresh) and sweet but not too sweet. This yoghurt was creamy, with a beautiful texture and the taste of the fresh fruit was just sublime.

It was so good, I came back the next day. And right before I had to get on a plane, I walked across the street from my hotel to the yoghurt bar and bought another small tub for a plane snack (I don't ever eat plane food, the salt gives me colic). Unfortunately, natural yoghurt has no preservatives and won't travel well at all (probably fortunate since otherwise I would have arrived home with buckets of the stuff).


If you ever go to Brisbane, do yourself a favour and try this place. You'll never look at yoghurt the same way again. I'm not sure exactly where it was but it was somewhere central on or parallel to Ann Street, right off Queen Street. Maybe one of the Australian readers will enlighten us about the exact address.


The other place that I just wanted to quickly mention, if you're ever in Brisbane and you want to have coffee in a snooty but stylish way (you know what I mean) and also want to see how the recent affluence of Brisbane has affected culinary life and shopping there, check out the James Street Market. This place reminded me of Palo Alto. I cannot say more how this store Wheel and Barrow is like Crate and Barrel, even the merchandise and packaging is the same.




Also, look at the little french bread section, I didn't take photos of the natural foods section but needless to say, this is a pricey place where you'll be paying A$5 for a mango (but it will have its origin written on the little placard) and A$48 for one small rack of lamb.

Australia Day 10: Brisbane, Jocelyn's Provisions

The last stop on my Australian trip was to Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I rarely get out here because there are not that many companies with headquarters sited here but I love my meetings here because the ones that do site here tend to be the most interesting and as you would expect, if their headquarter was in Monterrey as opposed to say, New York City, very individualistic and unique.

Brisbane sometimes feels like one big suburb, surrounded by a huge breadbasket and cattle ranching country, even more so than one would feel about Perth. It's laid-back, there's hardly any infrastructure to speak of (public transport infrastructure at least, which has been wanting since Brisbane became the Nevada- Carolina - Miami of Australian down-shifters and affluent retirees). Scratch Miami, there's nothing that alive and sexy about Brisbane.

The big cities in Australia are not perhaps culturally and atmospherically unique and separate to any other global city, nor at all removed from the consciousness of the modern world and regional Asia. I do though, feel that separation when I'm in Queensland or in Western Australia or most of all when in the Central Australian desert. There is something simple and resistant in these parts of Australia, something still wild, independent and refreshing.


My stay in Brisbane was a time alone and more reflective than most. The big hotels in this area are all very 80s style. The sun burns hot. People live an hour and a half commute out of the city. People own farms, they don't go camping, they just go on walkabouts. For months sometimes because work doesn't necessarily have the same meaning here as in Sydney, on a crowded and commercial Pitt Street. If you don't have a car here, you will wait at least 30 min on a street corner, while the cab company tells you on the phone, that they'll send a car when they have one.

It's the kind of place where you have time to stop and think. In fact, were it not for my meeting schedule, I'd say that in this kind of place, you have a whole lot of time. Perhaps that why, in this area, people also seem to have had the time to develop really interesting businesses and home-originated services.

In my hotel room, I found a magazine, which I thought was brilliant, it catered to the well-travelled and epicurean tourist, basically profiling and showcasing Queensland businesses, districts, eateries and sights through asking questions in little exposes from entrepreneurs, politicians and chefs. These questions would be about their favourite local place to hang out, their favourite restaurant, the kind of house they would buy etc. There was also a section that focused on Brisbane's coffee craze and extolled the virtues of dedicated coffee bars (like Extract, Urban Grind, Merlo, Jamie's, Coffee Societe and the list goes on) and consuming only locally-roasted Di Bella coffee.


Like most of Brisbane, it was personal, thoughtful and ingenious. The dedication to farm-fresh produce and producer-sourced food was entirely apparent and seemed ingrained even into the fabric of non-artistic society.

There were two eating places that I'd love to try because they were unanimously recommended, the E'cco Bistro and a restaurant called (I think) Ibis. Unfortunately, over the time that I was in Brisbane, I had corporate dinners with my companies and wasn't able to make it to either. It was only after all my work and before my flight home that I had a bit of time to explore the city but I was determined to make the most of it.

I walked from Anzac Square, stopping for some breakfast muesli, small fashion label boutiques and furniture stores, all the way up to Fortitude Valley, in search of this place which at least five people in the magazine has said made the best cakes in Australia.


This is Jocelyn's Provisions, run by famous Queensland entrepreneur Jocelyn Hancock. She also bakes a range of beautiful biscuits and sells other items such as Kirk's Cultured Butter, Yea Clotted Cream and even Badoit mineral water at her store on the corner of James and Doggett Street in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane.


I admit when I first saw the homely store, I was a bit disappointed (having walked for over an hour by this time) but when I tasted the goods, I realized what an absolute talent Jocelyn is. She is a consummate pro and if you are anywhere near her store, you are in for a big treat. What I love most about her produce is its straightforward taste, freshness and consistency. She also uses seasonal Australian fruit and sources from small experts in preserves, fruit ranges and tablelands all over Australia. Check out her gorgeous website for more mouth-watering photos.


I bought the chickpea and feta frittata, a raspberry patty cake and a small bag of melting moments. The frittata was solid but not heavy and the patty cake was moist and lemony, with an icing that had a perfect balance of icing sugar and sour cream.


The melting moment biscuit crusted away in your mouth, breaking apart effortlessly to reveal a quick sharp tinge of sweetness from the raspberry puree and a smooth creamier sweetness from the thick but soft icing. They were all excellent. They were the kind of delicious that one can say without reservation, without exclusion and without compromise. Do you know how hard it is to find foods and worse, cakes, that you can say that about?


I do. This was one magic if melting moment. And when it was done, I felt very sad because I could not get these often, if ever, going forward. I was sorry to have such a taste, only to have to let it go. I saved up some of the melting moments and the patty cake for a car snack, which was wolfed down on the way to the airport, to console myself.

It's always these times, no? Tired, having had to deal with the worst personalities, jet lagged, slumped amongst luggage into the back of a car, with a long ride to the airport and an even longer ride in the air BUT eating the best melting moment this side of the equator. That's when I think, heck sure I work hard but there are perks!

Jocelyn's Provisions
open Monday-Saturday
Cnr Dogget & James St
Fortitude Valley, Queensland
+61 7 3852 3777
Website

Australia Day 9: Melbourne, Momotaro Ramen

I have so many great memories of university, too many to count, definitely too many to mention. One of them would definitely be driving around in my pyjamas (not pyjamas, you know, just what American college kids sleep in) to try random local eateries and explore different districts in the Bay Area.


After our wine trip, my cousin Z. and I were pretty exhausted. We went back home to shower and that revived us to our earlier plan of finding a light dinner before settling down to work. He showed up with his car and one of these great Cheap Eats books. This one is published by The Age in Melbourne for eating places under $25 and it's updated every year and categorized by district and cuisine type.


The book led us to Richmond and a hole-in-the-wall ramen joint called Momotaro Tomato. Richmond is an interesting area, you sort of drive through little Vietnam, streets where you might think you were actually in developing Asia, then you would also pass an old English church, or a suburb with pastel houses, curb parking and rainbow-hued trams.


This is my cousin checking out the variety of choices of ramen, all listed on the board above and all made on this little countertop by a friendly Japanese family.


This is sort of your equivalent of a more upmarket hawker stall and yup, you pay, in cash, at the counter before receiving any food.


The restaurant only seats about 20 people but the ramen is steaming hot and comforting, as well as moderately priced. We had the shoyu ramen and miso ramen with a plate of gyoza. The bowls of ramen are huge and the ramen is home-made and springy. The broth is also well-made and tasty and the set comes with a Japanese coldslaw salad. You can also have katsu curry and some other Japanese specialties and the shop does takeaways.



The decor of the place is minimal, wood, tile and lots and lots of Japanese magazines and comics. It's cute and liked that lots of aspects of this place were very niche- you can find for example, a Japanese newspaper stuffer about a meeting for Japanese gay anime lovers.

We ate quickly and then went home to his apartment-with-the-beautiful-view (I envy you your student life Z.!) to hit the books in his case, or start reading for meetings the next week, in my case.

I felt like a 20 year old again. It was a bittersweet feeling!

Momotaro Ramen
392 Bridge Rd
Richmond, VIC 3121
Tel: 03-9421-1661

Ambiance: 4/5
Service: 3.5/5
Location: 3/5
Food: 4/5

Australia Day 8: Melboune, The Grapes of Yarra Valley

Waking up early the next day was definitely easy, there was much to look forward to! My cousin and I had planned to take a trip up to Yarra Valley and we were excited about restocking his wine supply.

Yarra Valley is east from Melbourne through tall timber country, which includes some of Australia's best eucalyptus forests and vast stands of mountain ash, the world's largest flowering tree. The road through Eltham and Yarra Glen passes through the Yarra Valley wine region. The Yarra Valley is a haven for wine buffs with 35 wineries open for tastings and cellar door sales.


We had some recommendations for where to go but the place is so tourist-friendly you can pretty much pick up a driving map like this one from any stop or vineyard and DIY. We stopped first at Five Oaks, a small family-run boutique vineyard with a small but quality selection of wines.


Then, we moved on to Wild Cattle Creek, which fortiously had a dining room and restaurant. We were allowed to sit outside and also to tour around the vineyard where they were in the process of harvesting the grapes.


Our lunch was simple, cold pate, olives and meats, lamb salad and this jaw droppingly good gnocchi, which is one of my favourite pastas, hence it was one of the best meals I had, really. Of course, this was washed down with their Sauvignon Blanc, one of the crispier but more well-balanced Australian whites I've tasted, with a nice long flavourful finish (rare!). They are selling out so if you can get some, buy more- this was my favourite wine of the trip.


The third place we went to was Coldstream Hills and this place is really well-known. Rightly so as even the aspect, from its position on a little hill, is pretty and the set-up is clean, white and bright. They were so efficient at the tastings that I didn't stay that long and I didn't buy anything- their white wine was not as smooth as Wild Cattle Creek's and their reds were classically Australian- very sharp and spicy, not my cup of tea.



Bar none, the most beautiful and photogenic winery was the Domaine Chandon, the joint venture with the French Champagne house of Moet et Chandon, it was landscaped to an open, broad perfection, with cunning little walkways like this one.


They make some wine but their breadwinner is really their Chandon champagne. I'm not an expert so I don't know how different it really is from the original Moet, except that it seems a bit lighter and definitely fizzier but that depends on whether you want to Curvee Reserve, the Curvee Traditional etc. It comes at a 50% discount, at about A$30 a bottle, so you can imagine the frenzy of buying that was going on in the showroom. This was a huge hit with all the domestic and overseas tourists, most of whom also took the chance to go on a photospree on the lovely grounds.



We were pretty tired and a little high after all that champagne but we soldered on to De Bortoli and were well rewarded for our endurance. I had been a bit resistant to going because I feel that its such a common name and it reminds me of supermarket olive oil but it's actually a really traditional vineyard and tasting room with a great cheese counter helmed by a dedicated cheese-maker. We bought a board for $5, which included this brilliant barnyard Brie, Parmigiana and Goat's Cheese. It was so good my cousin bought a packet to take home and I would have done the same, were I not travelling again the next day.

The $5 sticky wine tasting in De Bortoli is also extremely worthwhile. It runs the range of three sweet wines, including their most famous Noble One Botrytis Semillion, a Noble Black, which is a gingery, balsamic, somewhat awful muscavado-ed dessert wine and three of their ports- while two were good, the one I loved and bought was a $27 bottle of 8 year old Tawny Port which tastes of toffee and moonshine. It's a different, very unique taste if you want to drink it neat and absolutely fabulous in brown sugar-based desserts or sauces.

After our super speedy but lovely tour of Yarra, we headed back into town. It would have been great to have had more time to explore the surrounding areas like the Dandenongs which is supposed to be a garden lover's delight, thick with cafes, restaurants and small art and craft galleries, or take Puffing Billy, the only survivor of several narrow-gauge steam trains, to Emerald Lakeside Park and Menzies Creek.

Australia is such a rich country and most Australians don't really travel enough domestically. I know I would. I think next time when I have kids, I will be like my dad and take them on these long driving holidays so that I can see all the sights and taste all the wines *grin*.

For more information on specific vineyards or if you're planning a trip to the Yarra yourself, check out this Visit Victoria link

Australia Day 7: Melbourne, Pure South and The Deck at Southbank

I was extremely happy that the weekend had rolled around as that meant I would get to take some time off before returning to work on Sunday evening. It's rare that I get to spend the weekend in one place, without travelling and I intended to make the most of it.

By the time I had finished my meetings on Friday, it was time for dinner. Luckily, as I was in Melbourne, there were ample restaurants for dinner and many districts that we could pick to go to dinner. As much as I enjoy Carlton and Toorak, it's unrealistic to think I can eat or even hang out there all the time. Most of my eating is in fact contained to the city area and I'm usually so tired that even St Kilda, with its numerous restaurants and bars just a straight tram ride down from the city, is out of the question.

One area that is a huge attraction for the corporate and tourist types alike, is the Southbank area. I've always thought that this was beacuse it was near the river and next to the Crown Casino complex. It's also a sort of promenande area where people can walk, show off and sit around in open-air eateries.

My personal experience with Southbank started on one visit a long time ago, when dinner plans for St Kilda were scrapped because of the lateness of the hour and the intermittant rain. My travelling companion and I shivered our ways down over the bridge to Southbank and through the hotel's concierge, fluked a reservation at what has become one of my favourite restaurants to return to.


Both the restaurants I've listed here are right on the same river-side building at Southbank, Pure South on the ground level and The Deck on the mezzanine level. I didn't eat at both at the same time obviously but since they can be found together I thought I might as well post the pictures at the same time. Additionally because they are primarily meat restaurants, it provides a good comparison.

Australia has some of the sweetest lamb in the world. That's more a statement of fact. I am still partial to US or Japanese Kobe beef and the reality is most of Australian Wagyu isn't above 10 on the marble score (not that it isn't still great). The benefit of having aspiring Wagyu farms though, is that it raises the standard of the usual beef - the beef with marble scores of under 6 are released for supermarket sale, which is a wonderful thing for the consumer. I'm not a huge fan or consumer of red meat but when I'm in Australia, I like to order the beef or lamb on the menu because I really think the quality of their home-grown meat is singular. You know you're going to have a good experience when looking at a knife like this one!


Pure South remains one of my favourite restaurants in Melbourne, although that may change as I've been told there are far better steak restaurants. What I appreciate about Pure South is that they have set up direct trade with farmers in the Islands of King, Flinders and Tasmania, firstly to ensure natural produce and secondly, to vouch for the premium of identifiable sourcing, down to the individual farmer and cow. It's really the direction that I see gourmet and single-origin food taking.



I was joined for dinner by my cousin Z. who lives in Melbourne and had sweetly offered to forego his usual plans and study to have a leisurely dinner. For starters, we tried the Highland goat's cheese stuffed Zucchini Flower ($17.90) and the Baby Calamari filled with Lobster, Whitefish and Tarragon mousse ($18.50). Here are the starters, broken open to show its cheese filling.

While both of them were excellent, I must say they were a bit light for a full appetizer price. Which is really one of my gripes about Australia, it's so unlike Asia in that going out to eat is a huge expense and a huge effort on top of that (to get the time off work, find a babysitter, commute into the city etc). I cannot really see that diners can enjoy appetizers when each small dish is so costly.


While there are other specialities at Pure South, like the Roast Bluff Point pork belly, Pelican Island Pacific Oysters, Spring Bay Jumbo Tasmanian black mussels and Flinders Island roast lamb, we decided to go with the Pure South Beef, which is all grass-fed for 24-36 months and then dry aged for 21-28 days.

(Dry aging basically relaxes the muscles in the meat and solidifies the fat particles which upon cooking, are then reactivated and melt better into the meat, creating a softer, more tender texture. Now you know.)


We had the Cape Grim Black Angus Scoth Fillet (300g for $38.90) and the King Island Hereford Porterhouse (300g for $34.90) with madeira and mushroom sauce. All the steaks are served char grilled and served with King Island double cream mash, wild rocket, radish and truffle dressed salad.


What can I say? The steak melts in your mouth, it's dry yet moist, it's
tender yet flavourful. It'll make up for the last ten mediocre steaks you
shouldn't have eaten. It's not a cheap meal but it leaves you feeling sated. It's a meal made better with good company but good enough to make up for poor company as well. Notice how I have often mentioned that steak floating in sauce is never a good sign. In this restaurant, steaks are always served dry, with the sauce as an accompaniment and you can see that even without the sauce, the inside of the steak is juicy and cooked to a succulent pink perfection.

I should also give especial credit to their bread. Having been back for this long, I sometimes go into sourdough withdrawal. There is no real good sourdough in Singapore (they make some shitty sour stuff at sandwich restaurants but that's not really Sourdough) and in any case, there wouldn't be anything like true blue American sourdough. The bread here comes close and has a wonderful crusty, tasty rind that is super flavourful even as it stops short of being savoury. I'd go to South Bank just for the bread alone and every time I'm there, I endure the haughty waiters looks to get extra pieces and eat it neat with butter till I'm satisfied.


I've never had the stamina to try their desserts which all sound pretty normal but I do wish I had been able to try their King Island dairy cheese, especially the Triple (! Yeah arteries!) Brie with washed rind, sun dried muscatels and truffled honey ($19.50 for three cheeses).


The decor of this place is very presentable, it has indoor seating capacity, where I love the lighting and hardwood floors and an equally-sized outdoor area with tables under canopies and in winter, heating lamps. As with the rest of Southbank, it's the view; a full panorama of the riverfront, that really complements the straightforward, whole-hearted, precise cooking and food.


The other restaurant on the mezzanine level is called The Deck. Unlike Pure South, The Deck is probably a bit more corporate and doesn't take its meat quite as seriously.


This dinner was a bit of a disappointment but I didn't much mind, given that I only stopped in for an appetizer (was too full for any other kind of dinner) and I had the great company of the delightful Brazilian boys. Like the restaurants below, the Deck has both an indoor space, as well as outdoor (this time balcony) seating.


We started with a really measly asparagus with salmon and brioche taster, an argula salad, which was a tad bitter and platters of oysters.


This was the corn soup and you can see from the texture that it really had grits of corn in it, with some strange topping resembling fried shallots. Edible but not that appetizing.


This was the meat, which remember as I said before, I really disapprove of meat swimming in sauce because if really well cooked, it should not need copious amount of sauce? The consistency was also missing as different diners reported that their meat was ok to very hard.


The desert was an apple tartin of sorts but the pastry it was sitting on had been charred at the bottom so it tasted fairly bitter and very dry, even with the ice cream and sliced apple. Not a very pleasant experience. Possibly the restaurant was just very busy, given this was a weekend night in a town hosting the F1 series, or perhaps the table was very picky, since most of them got off a plane and went straight to Vue De Monde for lunch earlier the same day.


I would post the address and details and presumably (hopefully!) this restaurant is a lot cheaper than the others in the building, but if you're already in Southbank, I think there are better places you could eat at.

Pure South Restaurant and Bar
Website
Gr2 River Level
Southgate precint,
Southbank, Victoria 3006
Tel: 03 9699 4600

Ambience: 4/5
Food: 5/5
Service: 3/5
Location: 5/5

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