1. Having to be a ‘real lawyer’ and preparing not one but two matters for trial this week; and
2. A whirlwind weekend visit from Glamorous Sister No. 2.

Anyway, enough excuses – let’s just say I have lots of food stories to catch up on.

Glamorous Sister No. 2 brought her boyfriend, Strong Silent Type, along for the trip and since he had never been to Melbourne before, The Brooding Architect and I were keen to share some of our favourite Melbourne experiences. We ate breakfast at La Paloma, we had fancy cocktails at New Gold Mountain, we soaked in the hot springs down the Peninsula and we had dinner at our local, Tom Phat.

Tom Phat is a modern Pan Asian restaurant located on Sydney Road, Brunswick. The half-Singaporean part of me tends to avoid any restaurant which describes its food as ‘Pan Asian’ – but the food at Tom Phat  genuinely works. The flavours are predominately Thai and Vietnamese with lots of coconut-y curries, tangy tamarind and fresh chilli and lime. These flavours are all rolled together in the signature dish of crunchy pork belly and seared scallops served with a sweet caramalised sauce. I have eaten this (too) many times before and vouch for how good it is.

Tom Phat has  has recently been expanded to include a trendy bar section with cozy booths, Sapporo beer on tap and a great record selection. Most importantly though, you can sit in the bar section and still order from the full restaurant menu. The bar area is dark, brooding and a little rough around the edges (or as I like to say, the bar equivalent of The Brooding Architect).

Tom Phat Bar - Dark, brooding and a little rough around the edges

The main meals at Tom Phat are very generous, so you can easily skip an entree (to save room for dessert of course). Between our group of four we shared two entrees and four mains and still had to be rolled out the door.

We started with some smoky chicken satay sticks ($9.50), served with a crunchy peanut sauce and some spicy Thai fish cakes ($8.50), served with a traditional Thai sweet chilli / lime / cucumber dipping sauce. Again, let me stress that portion sizes are extremely generous – there were 5 chicken satay sticks and 6 fishcakes in each serve.

Smoky Chicken Satay

Spicy Thai Fishcakes

The entrees are not 100% authentic, but they were fresh and packed with plenty of the right – and when washed down with a round of Sapporo beer ($6 per pint) and some Westons Organic Cider ($12 for a 750mL bottle) authenticity does not seem to matter that much.

Westons Organic Cider

For the mains, we lived dangerously and ordered specials for that night. The specials ranged in price from $20 to $25. We ordered:

• Whole Prawns in a rich, creamy coconut sauce
• Twice cooked duck, served with a star anise and orange broth
• Red Thai curry with pork belly
• Whole fried crispy barramundi, served with a chilli, pineapple and tamarind sauce

And it was all as good as it sounds…

The prawns were so delicious that the whole plate had been eaten up before I even remembered to take any photos. The prawns had been cooked in the shell, which although makes the dish a bit more tricky to eat, but results in a juicy, succulent end product. The prawns were slathered with a rich coconut sauce and served with lots of fresh chilli, coriander and lime.  In true (half) Singaporean style, Glamorous Sister No. 2 and I sucked the juicy goodness out of the prawn heads, while The Brooding Architect and Strong Silent Type looked on with disgust.

I am one of those people that likes to order duck when I go out for dinner, for the simple reason that it is not something that I cook at home (if I did, I would probably end up with a common aliment amongst lawyers – gout). The duck was beautifully cooked. The meat melted in your mouth, allowing you to savour the infused flavours of star anise, Chinese five spice, ginger and soy sauce.  The dish was very rich though – certainly recommended for sharing, unless you are a true duck aficionado.

Twice Cooked Duck

Next out was the Thai Red Curry. Using pork belly in place of the standard chicken or beef, transformed a simple Red Curry into something unique. The curry had all of the usual suspects you would find in a Thai-style red curry – coconut cream, dried red chillies, galangal and fish sauce. The dish was lightened up through the addition of fresh red chillies, coriander, lime and cherry tomatoes. This really assisted in balancing the richness of the pork belly.

Red Curry with Pork Belly

Despite a not so promising start, the Barramundi was my dish of the night. The first time the Barramundi came out it looked fantastically impressive, but unfortunately was not cooked all the way through. When we brought this to our waiter/barman’s attention he quickly organised a replacement Barramundi for us. No questions, no attitude and no snarkiness whatsoever. It was even generously and unexpectedly taken off the bill at the end of the night. Refreshingly good service. Fortunately, Barramundi No. 2 came it out cooked to perfection. The skin was crispy and crunchy, a wonderful contrast to the sweet fish flesh and tangy tamarind and chilli sauce.

Whole Cooked Barramundi

Sadly, given that we had been eating and drinking for two days straight, there was no room for dessert. If I had any room at all I would have ordered the delicious sounding Five-Spice Banana Spring Rolls with coconut icecream. I’ll save that for next time.

Freaks and Geeks - Image from popculturism.com

Much like Red Wine Club, the rules of Pizza Club are pretty lax. A group of various Melbourne imports all meet up at a different pizza restaurant for dinner on the first Thursday of the month. A friend who is far more organised than me, the Frustrated Public Servant, sends out all of the details and it magically becomes a calendar appointment. I don’t have these special administrative skills. This is why make sure that I always stay on the good side of my secretary.

The Brooding Architect and I were out of town when the first meeting of Pizza Club took place, but managed to make it along to the second meeting which was held at Mr Wolf on Inkerman Street in St Kilda. It is very rare for The Brooding Architect and I to head south of the river these days – particularly after dark. Mr Wolf, seemed like a very genteel place, compared to the grit and grunge of my local pizza places on Sydney Road. On second thoughts, it may just have been Mr Wolf’s woodland creature themed interior, which gave me that impression.

Overall, I thought the Mr Wolf experience was pretty average. The pizzas were good, but unfortunately the service really lets the place down – and by no means am I service snob. At a cheap to mid-range place, all I really expect is ‘not to die of thirst’ and be offered a drink (preferably alcoholic at dinner time) within 15 minutes. At Mr Wolf it took two attempts to flag down a waitress and be given a drinks list. With a group of 15 people, failing to take a drinks order sooner rather than later is only doing restaurant a disservice, losing an easy $130 from a round of beers and wine. That said, when I finally got my drink, I was really impressed with the Kelly Brothers Cider. Be warned though with a 7% alcohol content it really packs a punch. At Mr Wolf cider is served with lots of ice and a lime of wedge. I think this makes for a really refreshing combination and plan to steal this idea to use at home for drinks over the Summer.

Given that there were so many people on the table, I only got to sample the 4 pizzas at my end. These were the:

• No. 9: mozzarella di bufala, prosciutto, rocket ($23)
• Sicilian: mozzarella, prawns, peas, chilli, cherry tomatoes, fior de latte ($23.50)
• Broccolini: roasted garlic paste, mozzarella, broccolini, pancetta, gorgonzola ($23)
• Calabrese: tomato, mozzarella, parmigiano, salami, peppers, olives, roast chilli ($23)

Of these, my standout was the definitely the Broccolini. I have a weakness for a good, strong blue cheese (the mouldier the better in my mind) and this gorgonzola hit the spot. Although it seems strange to pair gorgonzola with broccolini, the combination just seemed to work. The broccolini was young and sweet and seemed to balance out the punchy gorgonzola. Plus all those greens make you feel somewhat healthy – even when you are stuffing your face with pizza. The crispy pancetta on top added some extra texture and crunch to the dish and somehow tied all the flavours together.

My standout of the night - the Broccolini.

The Brooding Architect was partial to the Sicilian. The flavours of the Sicilian were subtle and understated – the complete opposite of the Broccoini . The thin slivers of preserved lemon matched the juicy,  just opaque prawns perfectly. The use of fior de latte (mozzarella made from water buffalo milk, rather than the usual cow’s milk variety) made this pizza a bit special – well above the usual ‘what’s in the box’ takeaway variety.

The Brooding Architect's top pick - the Sicilian.

The pizzas and drinks came to $30 per head. The bill would have been higher though had we managed to get the waitress’ attention and order another round of drinks.

Good pizza, shame about the service. I would be prepared to give Mr Wolf another chance on BYO Tuesday though – at least I know I can always get my attention for a glass of wine.

The concept of the Red Wine Club is simple – bring a bottle (or two, or three) of a drop you are keen to try as well a plate of food to add to the pot-luck style lunch. Given that none of us actually know a lot about the specifics of red wine – apart from the fact that we like to drink a lot of it – the Red Wine Clubs is really just an excuse to get together for a long, boozy lunch with friends.

The inspiration behind red wine club

After a few prompting emails from The Organiser, the time and place for the inaugural meeting of the Red Wine Club was set.

The Brooding Architect and I had a few (okay 36) bottles of wine floating around from our recent trip to the Yarra Valley, so ended up choosing the following bottles to take along:

• Train Trak Sojourn Cabernet-Shiraz 2008 – Under $20 -  Label Reads: A medium bodied wine produced from 55% of Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% of Shiraz from our Yarra Glen vineyard. Lifted cherry notes and spicy flavours are supported by well round tannins. Produced at low cropping levels and matured in French and American barriques for twenty months.
• Train Trak Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 – $20 to $25 – Label Reads: Bright crimson with purple hues, the wine shows aromas of berry fruit leading to a full bodied palate. Blackcurrant notes upfront end with great length and fine grain tannins. Produced at low cropping levels, matured in French barriques (30% new) for eight months, then in older barriques for further six months before final blending. Rich and earthy.
• Punt Road Pinot Noir 2005 - $20 to $25 – Label Reads: Light to medium bodied with lively red cherry, plum and spice flavours. The palate has a lingering finish and a fine, soft tannin structure.

While technically outside of the red wine category, we also brought along some Punt Road pear and apple ciders. The Punt Road ciders are crisp and refreshing – a far cry from the sickly sweet Strongbows I remember drinking as a 17 year old. A key point of difference with the Punt Road ciders is that they are fermented using table quality (that is eating quality) apples and pears. These Cheddar Biscuits, from a recipe in David Herbert’s ‘The Really Useful Cookbook’ were a great nibbly to accompany the cider and kick off the festivities:

To mop up the red wine, we brought along some Rustic Ricotta Meatballs in a Tomato and Red Wine Sauce. This recipe tends to change each time I make it, but it basically consists of pork and beef minced, combined with fresh ricotta.

Of the wines we took along, the unanimous favorite was the very moderately priced Train Trak Cab Sav. The Train Trak website sells this wine for $23, but you can pick it up at the Cellar Door for about $19 if you buy it by the case. Also, if wine medals mean anything to you (they don’t to me), the Train Trak Cab Sav picked up the Bronze Medal at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show 2008, the Bronze Medal at the Yarra Valley Wine Show 2007 and has a 4 glass rating from THE Australian Wine Guru, James Halliday. 

The Red Wine Club is heading to the Mornington Peninsula weekend,  to get a much needed crash course in wine tasting and to stock up on a few new bottles to replace the 7 or 8 consumed last weekend. Stay tuned for Meeting No. 2…