SPICE magazine: Winter 2009

Restaurant Reviews: Sashimi

Sashimi is such a polarizing food. People either harbor a life-long addiction to its clean, subtle flavours or gag at the mere idea of sitting down to a plateful of uncooked ocean fare. Sashimi typically consists of really fresh raw fish, sliced thick or thin, served with soy sauce, a smidge of wasabi and the occasional pile of white radish. In Australia, the most popular varieties include salmon, tuna, kingfish and octopus. The key to good quality sashimi-grade fish is that it has little to no ‘fishy’ smell or taste, which indicates the beginning of spoilage. That was what was to be my litmus test in the search for ‘best quality’ sashimi…


Hayashi
Hayashi is an old favorite of mine. It was the first Japanese restaurant I visited in Perth in fact, and we have been fans ever since. It has a sweetheart of an owner who always ensures the sashimi is good and fresh. Every second morning he trundles off to the fish market in search of fish with the clearest eyes, firmest backs and reddest gills for his sushi chef. Bless. On this latest visit, we ordered the sashimi set ($26.50). Sashimi included tuna, salmon, kingfish, scallop and octopus, which were accompanied by rice, miso soup and a Japanese salad. The salmon was creamy and firm, as you would expect in this country. Aussies are so lucky –Tasmanian salmon is arguably among the best sashimi-grade varieties in the world. It must have been good anyway: my two-year-old was gobbling it down. The tuna was brilliant - succulent and melt-in-the-mouth, while the kingfish was tender, glossy and translucent, a good indication of freshness. Great,as always.

Hayashi, 2/15 Ogilivie Road, Applecross. (08) 9316 3384


Matsuri
Matsuri is a big, glass restaurant wedged into a corner of the city’s QV1 building. Although it is undoubtedly the best-known Japanese restaurant in the CBD, I had never been there. We sat at the sushi bar hoping for a little repartee with the sushi chef but sadly there was none. Instead we gazed at the rows of pre-sliced salmon, tuna, octopus, prawn and egg roll stashed at eye-level in front of us. The medium-sized sashimi platter ($19) consisted of firm, pink tuna, octopus and a decent amount of salmon, with red cabbage and seaweed thrown in as well. Sashimi-grade tuna is generally a headache for sushi chefs – it is hard to source because it’s seasonal, and being such a large fish is almost impossible to serve fresh, which is why most restaurants need to fillet and freeze it. Practically all tuna fillets are cut from the shoulder and are varying shades of red, but the best (and rarest) comes from the fatty belly and is pale and creamy. All was good with the fish, and the earthenware crockery added a home-spun touch. Also on offer was a tantalising soft shell crab sushi roll which, disappointingly, did not come in anything smaller than eight pieces. We tried the salmon roe sushi instead, which was fresh and generous, albeit its seaweed wrapper was dry and crunchy. A fair night out, but clearly set up for the business crowd as vibe and personal service were minimal.

Matsuri, Lower level, QV1 building, 250 St Georges Terrace, Perth. (08) 9322 7737.


Ha-Lu
Ha-Lu has been open for a couple of years now, and for me it continues to hold the mantle of best Japanese in Perth. Spurning the traditional menu, Ha-Lu instead offers its customers a more social, Izakaya-style dining experience: small tapas-style servings that are shared with your buddies and have your taste buds screaming for more. Cruel, really. Their sashimi is some of the best in town, and the cuts are super-thick. A bit daunting for those new to the joys of raw fish, but a glory for those who aren’t. We had the standard salmon, tuna and kingfish (is there anything else served in Australia?) and it was top notch – firm, bright and fresh. Some of the other dishes were so delectable and out-there that they also deserve a mention. The Patagonian toothfish netsuke, aubergine with soy dashi broth and pork belly ‘Kaku-ni’ were all completely lush. By the end of the night, I think we’d ordered the whole menu.

Ha-Lu, Shop 4/401 Oxford Street, Mt Hawthorn. (08) 9444 0577


Sushi Station Fuji Japanese Restaurant
It’s been a good while since I’ve visited this little restaurant in Victoria Park, famed for its authenticity and large contingent of Japanese patrons. It closed down for a long while, and everybody thought they were renovating. But they opened again earlier in the year and the décor looks exactly the same, so who knows? Perhaps it is now under new management, because it doesn’t seem quite the same. We were a tableful of cackling women, which appeared to go against our favour as the service was entirely absent. The large sashimi platter we ordered ($25) consisted of 2-3 slices of salmon, tuna and scallop, with a disproportionate amount of kingfish. The salmon, in all its orange vivacity, was top-notch, as was the creamy scallop. The tuna was thick and rather chewy. This was definitely just-thawed shoulder tuna. The kingfish was overly fishy: I kept it to one slice. Other dishes that passed muster (just) included vegetable and seafood tempura, gyoza dumplings and beef teriyaki.

Sushi Station Fuji Japanese Restaurant, 233 Albany Highway, Victoria Park. (08) 9362 3796

Practical Parenting magazine - Toddler Diarist #4

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Image: Jenny Susanto-Lee

And so we are ensconced in our big new place. The packing boxes have all been flattened, the windows scrubbed and the cat can now venture outside without freaking out. Jordy’s new catch-cry is “Mummy, where are youuuuu?” and I get a real buzz calling back “By the lemon tree, darling heart” or “Just dead-heading the rose bushes, sweetness”. We’re very happy now. But the nights are not so hot..

When Darkness Falls

I guess an active fear of the dark had to happen some time. And as Jordy’s new bedroom is about three times the width and height of his old one, it’s fair enough too. There was a tickle of foreboding on the first day when he flatly refused to go down for a nap, but I put it down to the excitement of wanting to watch a really big truck unloading all our worldly possessions and let it pass. That night, though, it began as soon as his bedside lamp went off. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in that 0.1 second before the light hurriedly went back on again and, two weeks later, it’s still on. I tried a night-light, but the batteries went flat at 2:30am, resulting in the greatest hullabaloo. I tried a really cool stuffed toy that glowed, with light crystals that shined strategically around his room but, come bedtime, they were all booted out and as a result we have a running store credit with Toys R Us. Not that I blame him. How a two year old is supposed to be able to locate and squeeze a toy’s right paw, in the direction of some crystals, in the pitch black, in the middle of the night, I really don’t know. Anyway, now we are onto a touch lamp, which I tap down and he taps back up. My heart also stops on a regular basis as I’m startled awake by a small figure standing by my side of the bed in the gloom, trying to convince me that 1:20am is the new 7am and that the sun’s got it all wrong. So yes, all in all, nights are pretty hit and miss at the moment, but like everything else, we’ll get there.

Bedtime Buddies

When Jordy was six weeks old, his first smile wasn’t reserved for his doting parents but for a small, stuffed bunny from Marks & Spencer that lived in his cradle. He still loves that bunny but, somewhere along the way, he decided bunny was a bit lonely and needed some mates. So a teddy bear and various Night Garden characters came to live in his bed too. Now he’s decided they need an array of reading material, a warm blanket, a drink of water and a ticking clock that periodically crashes to the floor during the night. I’ve also tried to tell him that the three pillows he absolutely insists on sleeping with each night are a little over-the-top in a converted Ikea cot, but he will not be moved. I saw the cat sleeping in there the other day, and suspect she will soon be the next must-have night-time accessory. When will it end?!

A Public Nuisance

Our latest bug-bear is Jordy acting up when we’re out and about. What makes it all the more troubling is that we don’t know whether it’s us or him. Is he still settling into the new house? Is it tiredness from the broken sleeps? Are we too lax with him? Too tough? Or is he just well on his way to becoming a typical ‘threenager’ (he turns three in May). We can barely shop with him anymore because as soon as his feet hit the floor, he bolts. Our local Freedom store was the latest casualty. The little chat we had before entering about staying with Mummy and not touching anything went by the wall as he leapt for the nearest micro-fibre lounge suite and began bouncing energetically all over it before grabbing a handful of ornamental knick-knacks on a teak coffee table and yelling gleefully “No touch! No touch!”. The bemused look on the staff faces told me he’d been branded with that label all respectable parents dread: a little monster. I wanted to tell them how sweet he was normally, how much he adored snuggles before bed, how wonderful he was with babies and small animals. But I could see their point – he looked like a brat to me, too, and I was his mother. So I grabbed this new, strange monster-child and ran for the nearest exit.

Cravings Magazine, June 2009 - Blokes + Sausages = Bliss

Throw forty wheat farmers into an old stone barn with a few metres of sausage, some Shiraz and various animals flung onto a fired-up barbie, and you’re onto a sure winner.

This isn’t your typical Sunday session. Rather, it’s a cooking class for men who are interested in the finer points of culinary proficiency. The class, now into its second year, was dreamed up by Wyening Mission Farm owners, Ruth and John Young, and was such a massive success last year that they were begged to repeat it.

“We’ve been running smaller cooking classes for around five years now,” says Ruth. “But we noticed there were never any local men attending. So one of the farmers from up here suggested we run a cooking class for blokes, and the idea just took off from there.”

Meanwhile, back in the barn, it’s just turned 11am and the boys are cracking open their first stubbies for the day. Chef extraordinaire, Ann Meyer, is to be the class maestro, and her remonstrations soon see the boys edging out of their seats and up to the two long stainless steel demonstration trestles set up at the front. 

As they jostle around the tables, butcher Joe Princi begins to show the boys how to de-bone and roll an enormous slab of brisket. He makes it look so easy, yet there are clearly some formidable knife skills at work. One of the boys is offered a turn, and quickly becomes unstuck before being guided under Joe’s quiet tutelage. 

The wind howls outside and the flames flicker under a giant pot of beef stock simmering on the barbecue. Inside though, the atmosphere is warm and genial. As the boys become more comfortable with the set-up, the beer starts to unearth the larrikins and they are promptly put to work. 

When Ann asks if anyone owns a sieve, one jibes that he uses his to de-grease his engine parts. But there’s more than mirth. It’s refreshing to see how many Blundstone-clad farmers actually know how to make couscous, or when to add saffron to a dish. On Ann’s request, one particularly large chap makes his way to the front and begins to shyly explain to the group how to make gremolata.

As the day rolls on, the barn becomes redolent with aromas of goat, rabbit, smoked quail and the now-cooked brisket, all of which are dispatched post-haste by the lads for lunch. But now, what will become the highlight for many has arrived: the sausage making. Joe heaves an enormous crate of beef up onto one of the trestles and sets up a heavy-duty mincer.

The boys roll up their sleeves and jockey into position. As the diced beef is pressed through the mincer and guided home into its membrane-like intestinal casing, there is much jocularity as the boys taunt each other over proficiency and technique. Meanwhile, Joe coaches from the sidelines: keep your casings wet and soft, don’t pack them too hard, and for God’s sake don’t break them or it’ll reduce the flavour of the meat.

The boys work on a rotating basis, and before long there are metres of sausage snaking all over the table. Joe then proceeds to twist them into bunches with dexterity that so impresses the lads, they beg him to slow down so they can replicate it.

Before too long, all the meat has been minced, piped, twisted and cut into sausages. As the sun moves westward and the new sausages are thrown onto the barbecue’s hot plate (with a final plea from Joe not to prick them), the merriment in the barn reaches a crescendo and Matt the winemaker finally gets a look-in. At this point, there’s little doubt in anyone’s mind that they’ll all be back here to do it again, next year.

Practical Parenting magazine - Toddler Diarist #3

image: Jenny Susanto-Lee

Playdate sans Mum
We had a major first the other week. Jordy & I went to a friends’ place for a playdate, then I nicked off and didn’t come back for over half an hour. Okay, stop laughing. Seriously, it was a really big step for us. Rob’s folks live in Indonesia and mine live in Melbourne, so we’d never really had the chance to leave Jordy with anyone before (at least while he’s been awake). Plus, I’m a wuss. Anyhow, he went great guns. By the time he’d waded through the toys and made it out the back to the dog, the trampoline, the swing set and the multi-level cubby house with his buddy Eli I was back (slightly out of breath) from my hasty shopping expedition. And his only comment when I was away was “Where’s Mummy? I’m a bit scared” before hoovering up the proffered plate of chocolate Tiny Teddies & promptly forgetting I was gone.

The Drool Factor
You can’t blame us poor Mums. After being on the oestrogen circuit of playgroup, kinder gym and swimming lessons for a few years we’ve all become a bit, well, male-deprived. So it’s little surprise when we start to get a bit swooney over the male eye candy in our lives (other than our long-suffering partners, of course). The blue and new yellow Wiggle get more than their fair share of female ogling. So does Sportacus from Lazytown (well, he is awfully buff). Not to mention the token Dad at playgroup or the cute new teacher at the local school. It’s like being a teen again, right down to the revering of all-male pop groups (goodbye Duran Duran, hello Hooley Dooleys). And at the end of the day, it’s great for a laugh and a bit of good girly bonding. Just back off Sportacus, okay? He’s mine, even if he does live in Iceland.

In-Law Heaven
I’ve heard all the stories about scary monster-in-laws but truth be told, I adore my husband’s folks. Okay, so they don’t live here, which undoubtedly makes a world of difference, but having them here for two months out of every four is just a dream set-up. They are semi-retired now, and fly out from Indonesia to hang out with us several times a year. Mum S puts me to shame with her high energy levels as she whips us all into a familial frenzy of catch-ups, big meals, celebrations and mini-breaks together. It’s great. After the success of the motherless playdate, my in-laws agreed to start babysitting Jordy for one morning a week, and I can happily report the test run today was a stomping success. I got to do my errands in record time while Jordy discovered the joys of washing the toilet bowl with Mum S’s hairbrush. Although I do admit to shedding a couple of tears as I drove away from their house (he didn’t even say goodbye!) and then counting the minutes to picking him up again. My heart cracked a little that day, yet I was so proud of my independent little boy. A very bittersweet feeling.

On the Move
Apparently it’s supposed to be one of the most stressful times in your life. Apparently. Explain to me, then, why I so unaccountably excited about moving house in a few weeks’ time? We are so ready to move out of our little shoebox and into a slightly larger shoebox with a garden that it doesn’t bear thinking about. Jordan has become quite the packing box boffin, telling me exactly where to stick the sticky tape and folding the sides just so for maximum intake. He is mega excited about “the newwww house”: his bigger room with air conditioning, the large tract of grass that wraps around the house and the playground over the road. It’ll be interesting to see if that excitement persists once the house of his birth gets its last goodbye, and we’re irreversibly transported to a strange new land. And I’m not just speaking for Jordy either.