Dusty kitchen

I must say this kitchen is collecting cyber cobwebs. It’s so dusty! But maintaining a kitchen like this is hard. Writing nice things about my food adventures and taking photographs is not the usual household chore, not when I’m still writing my thesis which is due in a month’s time. But still I found some time to change the kitchen layout- added a new header and template as you can see.

I’ve also spruced up my ABOUT page, added a new photo, wrote something new and true. I found an old photo that was taken the around the same time last year.

I’ve also spruced up the other ABOUT page on my other blog, agneskoh.wordpress.com. I’ve been writing there a lot more than this kitchen. When you’re doing work, you stay in your study room and not pantry; the same goes for this blog and that blog, which is my drawing board and whiteboard. That’s not to say I haven’t been eating. In fact, I’ve been eating well. I just haven’t been able to document them down. Give me a month or so and I’ll be back in the kitchen.

Something’s smoking

It was never my intention to have “Something’s smoking” as the first post of the “What’s cooking” category – way too ominous and not the best start to something new. Ideally, this column was to put in recipes (of my unorthodox creations) and now it’s also my bad that I have to disappoint my readers by saying that the only thing that’s smoking now is my brains. Oh oh, and the climate; and the social life too.

While those three aforementioned items burns exponentially and all comes to a boil (except the climate, which is already steaming) in about 5 months time, important things like the menu on my buddy’s farewell party can’t wait; I guess there isn’t a way to express my affection for the cupcake queen than a meal prepared by the kitchen queen herself. Yes, enough of bragging on this domain and enough of me picking the bones with eating establishments (although only two), I shall flex my culinary muscles. I seldom flex them for people; do I look like a full-time chef to you?!

Entree

Pan-fried risotto cakes with porcini or wild (whichever I get my trotters on first) mushrooms with truffle oil (hence the ‘trotter’ – pigs find truffles, you know?)

AND/OR

Mixed mushrooms in chicken consomme (excuse my lack of accents)

Mains

Roast lamb cutlets
sweet potato puree and mint raita (probably not for the lactose intolerant)

OR

Grilled salmon rubbed with miso paste
Summer salad of grated dill and tomatoes, and potato puree

OR

Classic beggar’s chicken
Chicken broth infused rice and wok-tossed water spinach in Southeast Asian spices (sambal)

Dessert

I WAS THINKING OF LYCHEE SORBET but the younger Miss Tan’s bread pudding whets my appetite more.

That’s about it folks. The next time I post will be the presentation of these dishes.

The lure

What the shark could be thinking at the sight of me: Food.

What I was thinking when I was looking at him: Food.

The two specimens in the picture are alike in so many ways: their love for the water and rather similar eating habits. Interestingly both are maneaters, albeit at different seasons; one eats men when it gets hungry or smells blood, and the other eats men all the time. Their lives were so intertwined with each other that one of the only differences between is: one’s higher on the food chain than the other.

I can never ever comprehend what is the fascination of shark’s fin as a delicacy – why does everyone enjoy his fin with such glee? And do you like that I just said it as though I don’t? Hyuk! I absolutely adore eating his fin in a thick starchy broth. I’ll dig into it even more when “superior fins” are used, and are swimming in a claypot filled with his crustacean buddies – the lobster and snow crab. Serve it to me simmering in an uncovered claypot as the smell of the sea wafts around the table and straight into my nose. Serve it to me now!!!

Note to self: Must stop hallucinating when writing food blogs. *Snaps out of daydream.

Truthfully, I really don’t understand why some people – including myself – (had once upon a time) loved shark’s fin. Essentially it is a stiff jelly-like substance with a fishy smell, which some think its not worth to be called a delicacy. And to further question the value of the fin, there are those who are quick to say that it has no nutritional benefits. Funnily, I agree with them all, and yet I thought shark’s fin soup was a boon to mankind. Paradox, I know. So if anyone can give me a reasonable answer to an irrational love for fins, do enlighten me.

It could be a very cultural thing – a la  the “Japanese eat whales” tradition – point a gun into our heads and the Chinese will still insist on having their fins. Look at the Japanese, even after years of international pressure, they’re not bowing to anyone over their appetite for whales. It could be ingrained in the Singaporean Chinese, and maybe all Southeast Asian Chinese to have shark’s fin. The shark’s fin broth and even the fin itself, is an ubiquitous dish in all Chinese dinners – they are the staple courses of milestone birthdays of the older generation and in Singaporean Chinese weddings. During weddings, the shark’s fin broth is the one that comes right after a cold dish combination which is marked by Kitaro’s Matsuri playing in the background with the wait staff streaming in, and who are usually accompanied by clouds of dry ice for some theatrics. As a munchkin, there is nothing funnier than those wait staff having their left hand behind their backs and coming into the ballroom with a kick in their hips – “Mummy, are they gonna do some kung fu? Do you think they’ll spill my food? Why don’t you give me dinner like them?”; as the kid who goes for wedding dinners to eat and drink as much soft drinks as I would like to, not giving two hoots about the (usually ugly sometimes I say pretty) lady in white and her penguin-looking escort, the shark’s fin dish and endless flow of coke remains one of the fondest memories of childhood events – it is the mainstay of my presence in that dinner.

Shark’s fin was one of my best buddies when I was growing up. It signified that something was special and joyous enough for sharks fin to be on the table. (Don’t I sound pathetic like I’m deprived of food?) Kids… we know nuts about what the adults are doing in their weird world and so I took it that when they served that soft and gummy and fish-cake looking soup, they’re usually in a rather good mood especially when they’ve downed their “ribena” in a very fancy cup. Ribena!!! The worse case of deceit, ever! Whenever sharks fin is served, it is quite evident that everyone’s really happy; if I see shark’s fin and I’ll become happy too, since everyone else is and I get my bottomless supply of coke as well. I’m as happy as a lark while adults would drink like lords.

Later I got to know that the “fish-cake” was a very expensive item, which only made me cherish it more and thus appreciating the value of it in my perception. I elevated it to “treasure chest” status: the shark’s fin to be eaten only when everyone is happy and feeling rich. My increasingly keen sense of taste and first signs of gourmet purism started to appear as well. I scorn at corn in shark’s fin broth (“Spoiling the purity of the fin with cheap food,” I told my parents) and spoke with much contempt when I saw miniscule thread-like shark’s fin on my bowl (“Where is the fin? Is it like the threads of the Emperor’s new clothes, all invisible?!”). Everything was going well for the foodie who started to appreciate shark’s fin and knew the value of it. Everything went well until I got curious and discovered Discovery.

Ignorance is bliss and it tastes like shark’s fin. One of my deepest regrets for as long as I lived to 18 years old (grew out of that regret soon enough), was to tune into that episode of how were shark’s fin brought from oceans to palate. The crimson sea, the heap of fins on the starboard and men cutting the sharks without batting an eyelid – all too disturbing but none filled me with greater disgust that the sharks thrown into the oceans and were left to drown.  During swimming class, I attempted to swim without my hands; didn’t last one metre because was too scared to drown. It was silly to mimic what I saw on TV but there wouldn’t be any more apt wake-up call than trying to experience sharky’s dying moments. I felt so depressed at the irony of it all: a born swimmer dies by drowning. How can one of the most glorious hunters of the sea end up with such a sorry death – and worse, I’m a perpetuator of injustice to one of my favourite creatures?! Before Discovery came into my life, I’ve never wondered where my food came from. Oh heck, before my biology book came about, I wouldn’t even give two hoots where my food went after swallowing.

Abstinence from shark’s fin was certainly not easy and I’ve always wanted to break my cold turkey from the fin, often forgetting the little practice of “death without dignity” I had in the pool. I’ve often debated with the spokespeople of Discovery channel, i.e, my household and most of my relatives who vehemently criticise the presence of shark’s fin on any table. They’ll launch, especially my mother, into this argument of animal cruelty and punctuate the sentence with, “Do you want to die like that?!”

Surely if I had insisted on eating fins, I’ll die deaf. The shark’s fin argument has in tow questions of human chauvinism and is closely linked to the ethics in harvesting luxury foods, which could possibly compromise an animal’s well-being or right to a good death. I do care for animals as well. Not all, but at least I do care for some. It’s an ethical and moralistic acccountability: I eat them so much, they die for me, that the least I could do is to not let them die inhumanely. If I can’t stop eating them the least that I can do is to grant them a dignified death. Life is sacred and there’s an uneasy conscience making its slow descent whenever I think of foie gras and Peking ducks (don’t think anyone raises the ducks in that cruel way anymore). Being a licensed diver now, and having been a lot more intimate with the marine creatures, all the more I can’t bear killing the endangered sharks. With a closer proximity and knowledge of my diet, I do consider their welfare. I also try not to eat “flake” for fish and chips too, because flake, on the same modus operandi of ribena deceit, is actually the meat of a gummy shark. I’ve been close to sharks and there are times which I’ll feel like spitting out the breathing device and take a bite at the side of the shark but more often than not, I’ve always wanted to hug it and give it a good rub. In the wink of an eye, it’s been five years since I’ve eaten shark’s fin, but I reckon the real test for my shark’s fin abstinence is a visit to Thailand. I’ve visited Bangkok for approximately ten times and each visit there is a shark fin gluttony exercise; shark’s fin is such a common and cheap commodity there. I also reckon that my love for eating fins stemmed from the visits to Thailand.

The sharks came on land, fought with the Thai Chinese, and wagered that whoever lost the arm wrestling match has his hands chopped off and displayed around shops. Legend also has it that the swallows used to converse very often with the Thai Chinese. They were best buddies and sat around drinking Starbucks until one day when a swallow spoke ill of Thaksin, offending the Thais and had his whole clan killed in the most horrible way: the Thais extracted their saliva so they could not badmouth Thaksin anymore, and their massive balls of saliva showcased as a deterrence to future offenders.

If you’re still on shark’s fin, please seek help immediately. Call the Agnes Kitchen hotline.

Morning has broken

Hearty breakfasts are a sure-fire remedy to morning blues. While shovelling some stir-fried vermicelli with a couple of oven-baked Spam into my mouth and spooning Frosties into my buccal cavity are proven, tried and tested ways of withholding my venom in the morning, I’ve always wondered what would a breakfast at a highly-acclaimed cafe that boasts the best scrambled eggs in the Southern hemisphere do to my day.

Before I went to Bills in Sydney, I thought, “How fanciful can scrambled eggs get?” The online world sings praises of Bills’ scrambled eggs and so I was eagerly anticipating some kind of scrambled egg which would taste like nothing I’ve ever had – I wanted to be surprised, blown away and swept off my feet. So when I did put the much celebrated scrambled egg into that minty-Sensodyne mouth of mine, my first thought was, “Not bad.”

I just had to be sure I did eat the celebrated eggs – I was waiting for the alarm bells to ring in my half-awaken brain and hollow tummy. I scooped a serving into my mouth and this time, attempting to savour it slowly. But no alarm bells rang.

I heard two voices speaking then. The first said, “You’re just so hard to please. These eggs are what they all unanimously call the ‘best eggs in Southern hemisphere’ – 10 plus online reviews and global expansion of the restaurant chain (to Tokyo) can’t be wrong – and you dismiss it as unimpressive?!”  The second was a mellower voice that whispered , “Trust your own taste buds and not what you read. The eggs can’t possibly please everyone.” And even after many bites, I still don’t quite see why and what the online world raves about. I actually don’t quite see eye to eye with what everyone calls the best scrambled eggs in the Southern hemisphere.

Fair enough, it was very light – plenty of air pockets – which only goes to show it’s been whipped well. It was like biting into a rain cloud made from the eggy oceans. Nimbus clouds (rain clouds) are heavier than usual clouds and contains water vapour which have been condensed from rivers, seas, oceans and are about to rain upon the earth because the cloud is getting too saturated. Likewise here, the flavours were condensed into a fluffy cloud, are saturated with the essence of egg and dairy goodness, which rained upon my taste buds.

You would think with such a verdict I’ll say it’s the best, but I think it could always do better because I’ve eaten other pretty good scrambled eggs. I kept asking the egg to “Show me you’re good, show me you’re better than all I’ve eaten!” It’s conclusively “the best” when there is little room for improvement. In my opinion, it hasn’t really reached the top of its game to call it “the best”. Also when using the word “best”, it is essentially a comparison to its peers. The first that came to mind was the ubiquitous McDonald’s scrambled eggs in the Big Breakfast set. Maccas’ eggs are simple: they essentially are to satiate your hunger and not to impress anyone. Comparing Macca’s to Bills, one is drier than the other, one is clumpier and stiffer than the fluffy counterpart, one is more synthetic than the other, but ceteris paribus, the flavour of egg and dairy is the same. I know what you’re thinking, “Agnes and her dainty tongue, what does she expect from scrambled eggs?”

To make the best food, I firmly believe one must have the best ingredients. Should Bills had a couple of hens to lay some golden eggs, that would have made it better. Obviously it’s impossible to have a golden egg or a golden hen but I suppose to make a scrambled egg stand out from the pack, the type of eggs used must be unconventional. How about ostrich eggs, or duck eggs or even quail eggs in place of the missing golden hen?! Something special and something other than the usual hen eggs value-adds the dish. Don’t even consider organic or free range to value-add the dish for you cos it’s done to death; Bill’s eggs are organic by the way. I would try doing scrambled quail eggs, or maybe even do some mix and match! Am I too unorthodox for you?

The second most important ingredient of scrambled eggs is milk or cream. But let’s just use milk because milk is the root of cream.. How about goat’s milk? Soy milk? Rice milk? Anything than the usual milk boosts the dish. If I wanted the best scrambled, I’ll spare no effort in getting the really fresh milk from the cow’s udders. I’ll get the dairy farm to deliver the milk to my restaurant the first thing in the morning.

Lastly, cooking is all about mastering the fire. Granted that one may be proficient at the creation of flavours in marination and preparation, but it is the control of heat that catalyses the release of such flavours. The scrambled eggs that I once prepared, the one which I call “THE BEST”, is one that has a small areas which were crisp and browned that adds a different texture into the otherwise boring scrambled eggs. First you pour a really thin layer the well-whipped egg and milk into an extremely heated pan, let it go a little crispy. Take out the thin egg foil, reduce the heat and pour in the rest of the mixture, cook them for short periods of time on their surfaces, fold them in once you’re done with a layer, do not allow them to dry up and do all of the above to disperse the heat evenly. Scoop the scrambled egg out, take the thin egg foil, slice into two triangles and sit them atop the eggs like waffles on dollops of ice-cream. Now that could be the best scrambled egg after we garnish them with finely chopped chives.

I know it’s a tough stand to take and to doubt what everyone believes is the best scrambled eggs in the Southern hemisphere is certainly not quite the verdict I wish to have, but I hope I’ve substantiated my opinion with my two cents worth. I’m one of most disappointed souls around when something I taste was not quite what I read. A while ago, I did chance upon the scrambled egg recipe of Bill Granger (owner of Bills) who has published many cook books. The recipe uses 2 eggs, 1/3 cup of cream and a pinch of salt. In that instruction manual he did talk about heat control as well and the photo that was produced made the eggs look good. It wasn’t the soufflé looking scrambled egg that you see here. What I saw was a egg mayonnaise looking, little odd cubes of egg whites mixed with egg yolks. The picture made the eggs looked like it had more punch! Oh well, perhaps (to cut the best scrambled a bit of slack) the chef on duty probably did not have half the mastery of Bill’s best scrambled eggs.

To be the best is to be unparalleled and incomparable; I’ve had wonderful scrambled eggs in a brekkie set one of Melbourne’s bakeries (shall do a post on my fave Melbourne brekkie place when I’ve the time) and in fact there are tonnes of wonderful scrambled eggs everywhere. It’s really not that hard to find one. Just put me in the middle of Melbourne city, blindfold me, turn me around til I get dizzy and make me point in any direction. I will then stick my tongue (that’s how my compass works) and introduce you to a good breakfast place in that direction. It’s a guarantee to find you one comparable to the one I had in Bills that morning. This set at Bills ($13.50) comes with scrambled egg serving that is as big as my palm, probably about 2 eggs used, sourdough toast and butter. There are a couple of optional extras like bacon or avocado ranging from $4, $4.50 and to $5.70 that you can add to your set. One of the brekkie mates had mushrooms ($4.50) and another had cured ocean trout ($5.70); the mushrooms were average (it fell short of the explosion of the fungus flavour in my mouth) and I enjoyed the cured ocean trout more because it was fresh and very appetising.

The corn fritters with roast tomato, spinach and bacon ($18.50) is another signature set of the restaurant, which was was more impressive than the eggs. The corn fritters were similar to okonomiyaki ,sans the fatty dressing, a Japanese savoury pancake that has a variety of vegetables/meat and is grilled until its surface is crispy. If you’re used to eating okonomiyaki, you’ll won’t be too surprised to have the corn fritters. They were not that novel but are nonetheless still relatively unexplored in the Western brekkies and credit goes to Bills for his adaptation.

I’m not about to finish off my review with a splash of cold water but in fact I’ve saved the best for last. Bills’ most impressive breakfast item is the ricotta pancakes with honeycomb butter ($17.50), which I ordered for myself after I recommended the brekkie mates their eggs. Not my fault entirely because they preferred eggs. I still laugh sinisterly at my choice: I am truly the best at choosing food!

I’ll give the ricotta pancakes two thumbs up. Before I even got into the pancake itself, I was distracted by the attractiveness of the honeycomb butter that I portioned out 1/3 and surreptitiously slipped it into my mouth. The eyes darted left and right, up and down before I hid it in. Oh come on, it’s embarrassing to eat butter (and yet I am admitting it on this domain?)! But I couldn’t resist. I was thoroughly impressed the butter which was deftly interwoven with honeycombs. It was the best kind of pancake topping I ever had. Maple syrup bores me, honey no matter how special is still not an innovative addition to pancakes (as much as I love truffle honey), and ice-cream on pancakes is a no-brainer. Hence a combination of honey and butter – so creamy – makes a great spread on the cheese pancake.

I like to fluff my pillows before I rest my head on it; I like to fluff my pancakes (with the fork not my hands) before I dig into them just to see how much well they are whipped and these pancakes did not disappoint. The stack of three pancakes made me want to bring them along to bed, have my breakfast there and after which, plop my head backwards on the pillow. How decadent – eating on the bed (99.9% a nono for me) and sleeping after eating (also a 99.9% prohibited activity) but there’s no other way to describe how these pancakes have the power to make you feel so pampered that you wish to slip into a day of decadence. Grossly unfair that Cleopatra can have her grapes on a recliner! I want to eat my brekkie that way too. But I’m afraid I’ll choke; my tongue and taste buds have been faithful to me thus far but I can’t push my luck for my oesophagus.

The ricotta absolutely gave the pancake wings; it would have been an ordinary breakfast item with an extraordinary topping if not for the ricotta. Although I’m all for aristocrats marrying the working class, I don’t think such the acceptance of disparity should come to encompass what we put into our mouth – with something so amazing like honeycomb butter, isn’t it such a waste to kill its potential by marrying to a simple buttermilk pancake? Think of the offspring that could be borne with something more complex than the supposedly working class buttermilk pancake. That ricotta, as subtle as it was, didn’t go unrecognised – the melted unsalted cheese in pancake batter might be common but was an appropriate pairing to the very sweet honeycomb butter. Sometimes I taste more honey and sometimes I taste more cheese; experiencing different tastes with every bite is always something enjoyable for someone (as easily bored and hard to please) like myself.

The concealed bananas were great with the ensemble too. Nothing can go wrong with bananas if you can create pancakes as such. This was a newly ripened banana that was still a bit hard but sweet enough. It’s such a simple and commonplace ingredient and yet it was an immaculate addition to the pancakes set. And that’s what I really love about cooking: simple things can be glorious too and these are the ones that impresses me the most. Wondrous eats can be borne out of simplicity with the right combination of ingredients and a mastery of cooking techniques.

All the stars were aligned if I was to live the day in decadence because I had the one of the highest quality chocolate in my hot chocolate. Go google Callebaut and you’ll find this Belgian chocolate company is a major producer of chocolate for consumers and professional chocolatiers – now that’s cocoa from a golden seed and to have it in your drink would make Cleopatra turn green with envy. This hot chocolate ($4) was so refined compared to the others I’ve had. You know how Cadbury and Lindt tastes usual? Callebaut tastes like someone really did take care of the chocolate. You feel like it’s exclusive. It It was good chocolate mixed with steamed milk and so rich, so thick and so good, that I would have ordered another cup if I weren’t full. That chocolate was the perfect way to end my meal and my life. I’m kidding about the end of life anyway. I live everyday brimming with excitement and the love for life that I’ll never give up on it. Especially not when I began my day with the best pancakes and one of the best hot chocolates, and all in the same breath.

I’m absolutely loving each day.

Bills.com.au
433 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney is the most convenient location and the first of the branches.

I walked there from the city. Get to Liverpool Street (within the city) and walk away from the city into the suburbs. You should reach there in about 20-30 minutes. Totally works your appetite cos it’s a walk on steep little slopes when you get into the residential areas of Liverpool Street. On your return journey, Bills is an ideal position to roll down the slopes once you’re done eating.

Divine bovine

Breakfast (noun): The first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning.

I had plans to begin my first blog entry with a breakfast feature. I thought it was appropriate and only chronologically sound to write about brekkies before any meal, but the literary work can’t be differentiated from its author – I happen to be one of those who skips full breakfasts by simply grabbing a beverage and then heading straight for lunch – and so this blog tends to mirror my eating habits; I insist that my medium is an extension of me and is a representation of partial reality.

When I do get around to having breakfasts, I usually like them to be indulgent and elaborate. I have 2 different classifications of breakfasts: the first is those that I eat on my own, usually call it ‘Pauper style’ and can hardly fit into what the norms dictate a breakfast is, and the second is what I call ‘Empress mornings’ usually characterised by a wide variety of food with good company because good food and good meal companion = good life = you feel like royalty. Unfortunately ‘Empress mornings’ usually done on weekends, are few and far beyond, and I consider myself lucky (and so should most humans) that I have two other meals to slot good food and company together. I’ll definitely do a post on breakfast after this one of my most favourite kind of lunch: this the lunch that I skip breakfast for.

I make no bones about how I love to eat creatures that once had a pulse (I also like eating females because of their roe). I have to eat like eating those things with starch and sugars running through their veins but I love the kind of bovine that was treated like royalty before its death (although sometimes I feel really horrible that they died to make me happy). But you know, wagyu, your death or more specifically your meat, has the power to make me happy for 5 days and every fond memory of you makes my salivary glands so active. Your small little sirloin of just 280grams suffices; 280 grams of you makes a glowing Agnes. I can’t think of anything so light, so seemingly insignificant that satisfies me like you do. I love you forever wagyu, and same goes for all those bovines cultivated under special conditions. And so, I actually can’t stand the image of a pulsating, living and breathing you because that picture is like cacti rubbed against my conscience: too painful.

Another pain is how Melbourne, in my opinion, is lacking in excellent steakhouses. I have to trot all the way to Sydney’s Steersons Steakhouse to get my paws on some excellent steak. It’s a plus that the restaurant (I usually go to the 7 Bridge Street outlet that is near Circular Quay) is housed in the heritage listed Burns Philip Building and is furnished with European themed furniture that is quite a comfy environment to be in as one tucks into the divine bovine. I’ve eaten some of the entrees that are passable and not that spectacular, at least not as worth writing about as the beef. The sides are good though; I haven’t tried all of them but lunch mates love mushrooms and so I ordered the mushrooms on this visit (think I ordered it previously too). I took a nice picture of the mushroom. It was so full of the flavour of the earth: the oh-so fungusy taste was successfully retained in the garlic sauteed mushrooms that every bite left me wanting to pop another in. I reckon mushrooms can never get boring.

Steersons serves approximately 6 kinds of beef cultivated and treated under different conditions – some pasture fed, others grain-fed, some aged and a few from different parts of New South Wales – and I can never get around to eating all varieties because of geographical differences: I’m living in Melbourne and not Sydney. So whenever I get to Sydney, I cherish the opportunity to eat my wagyu that has a marble score of 6 (the highest it can go is 9+).

For the rather green (or unfamiliar) bovine consumers out there, Steersons is a great place to beef up your bovine eating experience. They have a menu that briefs customers on different cuts of the meat and the optimum cooking temperatures/cooking methods for the different cuts of beef. You come out of that menu reading session a more knowledgeable person and although I know those things already, I did enjoy reading more what I’m about to put into my mouth. The menu also says how and where they got the beef from and why are these cattle classified so. All in all, it helps a consumer makes an informed choice. One irritating fact about upmarket restaurants is that they use culinary jargon and some really pretentious words that the layman finds it hard to understand and embarrass to ask. For instance, I wouldn’t know that gyuyere is a kind of cheese unless I am in the know. The esoteric and exclusiveness of cooking lingo actually hampers people from going into classy restaurants so what Steersons does is a godsend for people who want to enjoy good beef without looking stupid.

Another main draw of this restaurant is that for A$37.50, one can get a 280 gram of a wagyu top sirloin with a marble score of 6 and a reasonably good quality of baked potato. The red wine jus on the side is also the perfect accompaniment to this masterpiece.

How shall I even begin describing the wonders of the divine bovine? I had mine in medium rare and it was done quite accurately. It looks rather nicely grilled at the top, looks like some well done steak but see how plump is my steak? That’s a good sign of the juices and blood captured in, and that’s what makes a good medium rare steak.

In my excitement I forgot how to take a mid-section shot of the steak to show you how bloody excellent the semi-cooked steak looks. After my first bite, it is possible to even forget the member countries of the G7 and for a political science nerd, that’s huge news.

I like the strong grilled flavour juxtaposed with the rawness of the steak. The magical combination of a cooked, partially charred surface and a totally untainted innermost makes my taste buds dance and sends some happy signals to my brains. When I place the piece into my mouth, the first taste is of a good flame grilled meat and when I get to chewing it, I always find it rather amazingly wagyus are easy to chew and not elastic or rubbery like lower classes of steaks; it isn’t a jaw-breaking experience to eat a medium rare wagyu but rather a really OOOMPH encounter. For a couple of reasons, I like a medium rare wagyu. The first is that the rawness of the steak is also a testament to the quality of the meat. It’s easy to discern if the meat is good or bad. If it actually stinks or has a repulsive taste, then wouldn’t it be quite obvious that the meat is substandard? So putting a piece into my mouth, it’s almost immediate report of the wagyu’s diet and treatment; I try not to think too deeply about that because ultimately I don’t wish to know how they might be deceived that their death is a pleasant experience, or be led to speculate how silly cows were probably led to thinking: “I am just sleeping, I am just sleeping, I am just sleeping.” But suffice to say, they’re reasonably well treated before they died hence they taste good. The wagyu here is the usual taste of beef but much fresher. There’s not a stagnant flavour (as with usual beef) but every chew spurts some rather harmonious flavours: fresh blood (sorry to sound like a vampire) and the spurt of the sealed juices, at varying portions of the semi-cooked beef brings forth this different taste buds encounters.

At its purest – it is what I like to call “state of nature” – you can really enjoy the steak as it is without covering your noses because then the cooked exterior of the medium rare masks the rawness and bloodiness of the beef. If you choose medium well, it’s a good choice too and actually recommended for wagyus, but the main difference is that you’ll probably can’t taste the “state of nature” because the heat has penetrated into the deeper layers. So I personally choose medium rare for the rawness that medium well fails to provide and the partially cooked taste that the rare can’t give.

I’ve eaten medium rare steaks from a few other places but they’re usually quite the horror to see because they’re usually barely charred: it’s like they place the steak on a pan for a couple of minutes and take it off – you know like ‘minute steak’; not many steakhouses prepare as good and accurate a steak as Steersons; I consider them to have passed the preparation test with flying colours. On the other hand, some people choose medium well so that they can taste the marble score more prominently with the fats all melted and fused into the meat. Both ways of eating has its benefits. I just choose to taste the more lifelike wagyu. Oh but please, no blue steaks for me.

Steersons tops the preparation taste but has also passed the taste test with the good mix of flavours used to marinate the steak, the excellent red wine jus, the buttery and not excessively salted mash (or choice of baked potato or fries). I’ve always stuck with baked potato, my lunch mates are always the one choosing the mash and we never choose fries. As a gourmet purist, I consider mixing fries with a good steak a desecration of the steak: the oil of the fries taints the taste buds and will lessen your capability to appreciate the meat.

Lunch mates had the medium well John D Gold striploin (A$29.50), which in comparison to my wagyu, I could tell it ate different things when they were alive; how different, I can’t put my finger on it except that this John Dee Gold compared to my wagyu is probably eating more grain/corn. If you really are what you eat, the beef just underlines that truism. I can only imagine what a delicious platter I will be to cannibals because of all the good stuff I load myself with.

See the crunchy asparagus? That fibrous sidekick was quite a boon for the veggie lovers. The lunch mates (who aren’t quite the steak fans) loved the asparagus and bearanaise. I got to give it to Steersons for the bearnaise and red wine jus! Somehow their take on the traditional egg yolk sauce is tangier than most bearnaise which is definitely due to the freshness and quality of ingredients. In my opinion, every culinary creation of the restaurant surely came from top-notch ingredients.

I’m usually not a dessert fan but one of the most unforgettable sweet-tooth experiences that I had was also in Steersons. Last year when I dined with them, they had this lavender flavour ice-cream with warm chocolate cake (simplified from the snob jargon of Valrhona and Chocolate Fondant). The lavender ice-cream was THERAPEUTIC: aromatherapy, tastetherapy and had some calming effect. I love floral ice-creams! I ever had a sakura ice-cream too;  I ordered double scoops even after a heavy meal of sukiyaki and japanese rice in a claypot with a foie gras.  Thinking and writing about all these indulgent food actually introduces an influx of gastric juice – am so hungry now.

I have digressed. So back on the chocolate cake with lavender ice-cream, I was visibly disappointed to find out that they now serve coffee ice-cream. “Do you still have the lavender flavour?”

“Oh, we used to make that, but not anymore. Sorry.”

“Oh that’s alright.” My first lie of the day. I was obviously not alright. I think about floral ice-creams so much.

I ordered the summer pudding with elderflower anglaise (A$14) to appease the floral craving. Not expecting anything more than the usual serve of soft pudding and some fruits on the side, the dessert took me by surprise. It was truly a summer pudding. The berry flavours that was slightly sour with some natural fructose sweetness in the pudding, which tasted more like a bread pudding than a cream-based one, gives one a very refreshing feeling in the summer weather. The pudding was cooled to a comfortable temperature – I would go as far to say optimum. The elderflower angalaise (which is the yellow creme that you see), has a pleasant floral hint to it. It was what an elderflower in custard tasted like. I seldom compliment desserts but that summer pudding lived up to its name and  will even propose to name it Summer lovin’ – it’s that deserving. So pretty as well yeh? The blueberry isles are so adorable too. I felt like a god crashing the isles into waves of (creme) anglaise, then to each other and finally eradicating their existence forever. Oh it’s what Maldives and Fiji will be in 50 years if there isn’t any concrete and legally binding global climate change mitigation policy in place within the next two years.

What it could have fared better was to replace the oval scoop of cream with an ice-cream, which I’m hoping it’s lavender. I can even taste it now. Oooh so MMM. My second dessert, the white chocolate cheesecake was average and boring compared to the summer pudding, but still possibly one of the better cheesecakes around. What’s new about a dense cheesecake that tasted more like a lemon cheesecake than a white chocolate one? What’s new about passionfruit compote? In my “save the best for last spirit”, I cleaned the cheesecake off before I finished the summer pudding. This place has also earned some brownie points because they give chocolate coated coffee beans after your meal.

I suppose as a personal blog, I can be really blatant about my love for Steersons. Whenever people ask me what’s there to eat in Sydney, it’s always Steersons steakhouse that dangles at the tip of my tongue. Unlike reviews that typically give some scoreboard or rating, I shan’t quantify my review with numbers. For simple reasons: I think my quite subjective writing (compared to seemingly objective writing on the mainstream media) is enough to sway opinions and also the fact that I’ve decided to give it some coverage speaks lengths of its goodness or badness.

In the next post: Breakfast entry on the best pancakes in Sydney and some say the best scrambled eggs in the Southern hemisphere.

The bricks of this kitchen

Agnes’ Kitchen was borne out of a random conversation between two gourmets who have known each other for about a decade; no less enthusiastic over good food and the good life than when they first met each other, Tim’s Kitchen spurred Agnes to sign up for a new wordpress blog that would document food-related activities. She has always thought that food, air, water and Macbook are the basic necessities of life; this blog exemplifies her belief by combining all of the above into a single entity.

Now back to writing in first person… I’ve always wanted a space to expend my creative juices, a place to dictate my own literary norm and a domain to write about my love for food. In school, it has always been about writing creatively as long as they are within limits of academic writing. Occasionally stifling, I wish I could begin my essays with a song lyric, a rather outlandish haiku or a risque remark that would be a fantastic lead-in for my introduction. Unfortunately I never had the audacity to probe the boundaries of academic propriety and would never be able to deviate from the norms set by our studious ancestors because I am not daring (enough). Fortunately my lack of guts doesn’t lessen any of my desire to find a free medium to expend all these pent-up expressions.

Writing about food goes way back into the days when first became a media student; the love for food, understandably, goes further back to those days of my “first solid food”. As a student journalist, I used to write food reviews, features and other food-related articles for the publications I had a hand in. On the print and online medium, I used to write for the music, event, people beats but I was never really as enthusiastic as I was for the food stories. This enthusiasm was soon evident when some of my food articles had the highest hits on the e-zine (not because I’m the editor who rigs the publishing process) but it had also invited glowing comments, and even a call from overseas that complimented my writing. Needless to say, at 18 years old, being praised over a telephone conversation for a piece I’ve written on the huge online medium sure warms the bowels of my heart.

I am a firm believer of writing with my heart and soul. Now three years of academic writing has started to take its toll on me and I can feel that creative and linguistic agility is slowly dissipating. I fear the day I lose the ability to write “colourfully” in a humorous tone and use wonderfully woven words; I am afraid that in another year’s time, all I can write is climate change related affairs (not that I mind but I would sure love to be well-balanced), but most of all, I’m afraid I’ll lose my love for food and the enjoyment I get from writing about this love affair.

Other than writing about food, I love taking photos of them; it is a less than fancy but a rather decent Canon DSLR. I usually accompany my writing with nice photos – the rather arousing kinds that makes you want to eat them as you become visually stimulated. Using every way possible – through the English syntax and visual aids – it’s my wish to engage and heighten my readers’ senses.

“Media is an an extension of man,” said Marshall McLuhan in 1964. The medium has always been the message itself and the message that you seem to receive is not exactly what you are reading. But lest I get too philosophical trying to explain the “fundamental concepts” of media studies, I want to assuage the fears and sceptism of the readers: love is always a motivation to start and sustain an undertaking; this blog exists not because I crave power and thus am attempting to be a shareholder in the expansive Culture Industry by seizing a small slice of the means of (information) production to manipulate the masses (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1944, “The Culture Industry” and McLuhan). Truth is: the only reason this exists is because of love. (So please take the tagline of queen and of allegiance with a pinch of salt cos it’s just a very sarcastic and humorous Agnes making fun at truisms.)

I love good food and am proud to be known within my social circle as “the one with discerning taste buds”, “platinum tongue”, “trustworthy food reviewer”, with my comments used as a pivotal and heavy influence in one’s selection of a dinner place.

“If Agnes says it’s not good, it’s really not good.”

“Listen to her, she makes the best recommendations.”

“Her taste buds are quite accurate.”

“I trust her tongue the most.”

“Damn her tongue is so hard to please!”

And so the praises of my tongue and taste buds are endless. The comments could veer off towards a rather salacious fashion and begin dripping with innuendo but nothing will dilute the reality that although it’s an uphill task, it’s not quite a tall order trying to please my sense of taste. I think of this blog as having a “higher calling” and that is to spread the goodness eating well and good; with such a discerning and knowledgeable tongue, the experience and the love for writing on food, and as quite and adept chef (if I may say so myself), I shall give these qualities a purposeful existence by employing them to help others make informed choices on food.

Everyone needs food, air and water – at least Maslow says so and no one really begs to differ. He also said that man is a perpetual wanting animal and will keeping on wanting to fulfill the deficiencies in his life. Mankind, just to let you know, I am working hard to raise the levels of the quality of your basic needs – I understand how you are a perpetually wanting animal, a rational (sub-optimal being), a Homo Economicus – I see you, I hear you and I feel you.  Currently I am working hard to fight for a world that sees an improvement to the quality of air and water as student of climate change politics. Now as I begin my second undertaking as a food writer that seeks to offer informed choices to your dietary needs and wants, I sleep peacefully knowing I have contributed to the progress of the society by raising their level of needs. Now no one can say, “Oh would you look at Agnes that useless entity who has done nothing for society!”

I’ll be doing a post within these couple of weeks… be sure to check back!