tummyrumbles.com …satisfying the internal growl

2

Sette Bello…again

Corner Hardware Lane & Little Bourke Streets
Phone 9670 7070

When a new place opens it often takes a while to hit its stride. Last time I visited Sette Bello, the menu was non-existant and the choices limitied, although at the time I didn’t know if this was actually the case or by design. Our most recent visit revealed that they now have a menu - and a particularly gorgeous one at that - with a larger range of breakfast items now available.

EG went the breakfast pizette with verdura (vegetable greens) and a poached egg. Apart from being huge, it was also absolutely spot on. Yeasty crunchy base, good quaity toppings, and an egg which bordered on the googy.

I on the other hand was feeling somewhat virtuous, and went with toasted slices of brioche topped with ricotta and drizzled with miele (honey). Growing up in an Italian household, I practically grew up on ricotta - on bread (mostly with a sprinkle of sugar), with pasta and parmesan, or just eaten as is. When I was a young girl I used to accompany Nonna down to the cheese factory in Hawthorn on “ricotta day”, just to pick up fresh ice-cream tubs full of still-warm curds, their perforated sides leeching out sweet smelling whey. We’d take it home and sit around the table with just a couple of spoons and just dig in. Yum. Don’t you just love when food triggers a memory like that?

2

Lor Mee

EG’s Mum is the best. She spent two days last week preparing the individual elements of this Hokkien/Singaporean dish, Lor Mee, and we devoured it in one fell appreciative swoop.

The dish starts with a flavoursome stock which is thickened to a gravy consistency with cornstarch and egg. Then come the addins - thick yellow noodles, beanshoots, slices of fish cake, slices of pork and some steamed fillets of snapper. Occassionally, EG’s Mum makes pork dumplings as well, although this version didn’t have them. To garnish, arse-burningly-hot slices of red chilli, raw minced garlic, celery leaves (an important and essential addition I’m told) and a couple of dashes of vinegar.

Oh yes. This is Hokkien comfort food at its finest.

4

Shoya: Spring Rall of Scampi (sic)

I have written about Shoya before (refer here and here), but this is the spring rall (sic) of scampi which is part of the matsu special lunch set ($33). Inside the spring roll wrapping is a de-shelled butterflied scampi stuffed with a delicate mix of pork mince and fragrant herbs.  An ume and mentaiko mayonnaise adds sharp and refreshing contrast to the deep fried spring roll pastry.  Speaking of which, they must hold this thing by its antennae in the hot oil to cook the pastry, as the top remains cooked, but certainly untouched by the scathing oil. Neat.

Anyway, I digress.  I also wanted to draw your attention to the rest of this delightful matsu set, or should I say, the menu description of this set. You get:

Sashimi, Sushi, Grilled fish, Spring Rall (sic) of Scampi, Savory Egg Cutard (sic), Small Bowl of Dish (sic), Mixed Steamed Rice, Miso Soup, Dessert.

WTF is a small bowl of dish? 

6

Please excuse us while we get changed in front of you…

tummyrumbles.com is getting a facelift (yeah I know…about bloody time! :-))

I’ve also made the jump from Blogger to Wordpress, so please be patient while I learn the new platform and work through all the bugs etc.  If you get any errors, please let me know in the comments (that’s the little comment bubble on the top right of this post).

Thanks!

(nb. you may also need to update your RSS feeds (link at the bottom of the page).  I haven’t worked out how to redirect them yet!)

8

Meiji Hokkaido Tasty Crunch

Meiji has once again provided a worthy candidate for my peculiar obsession with kooky Japanese sweets. Tasty Crunch are nuggets of Hokkaido milk chocolate studded with (the packaging doesn’t lie) salted french fry potato chips. And to be honest, they’re actually not that half bad!

I spotted this snack in the Great Eastern (Russell St) and Central Grocery (Melbourne Central) stores around town. So if ya hankerin for both a sweet and savoury snack, this this will surely satisfy - on both fronts - in the one snack.

0

Recorded Music Salon

Waiting for public transport (which, by the way, is fast becoming a Melbournian pastime) is not such a bad thing occassionally.

I was catching up with some mates for a Laotian dinner over in Bridge Rd, and patiently waiting for my ride to arrive at the corner of Collins and Spring Street tram stop. My eyes wandered to the left. Urgh…cowhide cowboy boots are so not cool. My eyes wandered to the right. When is this bloody tram going to get here? My eyes wandered upwards. Hmm. Funky people drinking it up in a rather innocuous second story window, above which the sign, Recorded Music Salon, catches my eye. What the?

Okay, yeah. I may be a little slow on the uptake here, as apparently this one has been around for a wee while (see here and here). But it’s newish to me, so I returned a few days later to sample their lunch.

It’s one of those places that instantly feels “cool”. I hate ascribing to that tenet, because such “feeling” is so overtly contrived. But the designers got it bang on - it is sophisticatedly retro in a seventies kind of way. Think polished timber, earthy walls, natural vinyls (no pun intended), bronze features, and the most kick-arse pottery light features (are they vases and plates?).

But on to the food. EG went the pizza with jamon and manchego. Just look at it. Does anything else need to be said how good those two ingredients on a pizza can be?

I went with a more sedate toasted ciabatta filled with chicken, rocket, roasted peppers and manchego cheese. It too was pretty good with solid ingredients, although at $12ish perhaps a little on the pricey side (for a regular weekday lunch anyway).

I’d like to come back and check this place out at night - but I fear I may be overrun with the-too-cool-for-school crowd; an unfortunate side-effect of such funky places.

3

Inspired by Invita - a recipe for Scrambled Tofu

Both EG and I absolutely adore tofu - silken, firm, puffed or frozen. We eat it dressed with tamari and sesame oil, or pan fried in teriyaki ginger sauce, or stuffed with fish paste in a soup, or cubed in miso. I could go on. In fact…I will. I have even converted EG into the delights of tofu mixed in with our morning breakfast of five grain porridge!

So we were quite impressed when we came upon this scrambled tofu dish at Invita, an outdoor cafe at the Queen Victoria Market that professes a somewhat healthy, fresh and organic bent. My only problem with the place is my comfort level in the winter. It really is quite chilling to place ones arse on their cold metal seats and basque in the glory of their tofuness.

Despite that, their coffee is hot (and a good brew to boot), and I can highly recommend their fruit toast as well. The not-bacon on the other hand is an acquired taste and should be avoided at all cost. What travesty.

Anyway, back to the scrambled tofu. The first thing that hit me was the sweetness of caramalised onion and carrot - those babies had been cooking for quite some time. Then rehydrated shitake added some earthiness, tumeric some pepperyness, and wilted spinach some body. And it was all freshened up with long thin slices of cucumber. Some toasted sourdough to the side, and baby, it was health on a plate.

I was so inspired after that (..and Invita, don’t hate me), I decided to recreate the dish at home. Well…they are not bloody open for dinner, are they?

RECIPE: Scrambled Tofu (Invita-style)

1 block of firm organic tofu
2 tbs olive oil
1 medium onion, sliced
1 medium carrot, grated
4 dried shitake mushrooms, rehydrated in hot water for 30 minutes, sliced
A couple of handfuls of baby spinach
1 tsp turmeric
Cracked black pepper and sea salt (to taste)
1 red chilli (optional)
1 cucumber, sliced into strips
Coriander leaves for garnish
Whatever bread you love, toasted

Place olive oil, onions and carrots into a fry pan and cook gently on a low heat for approx 10-15 minutes (you want these to caramalise and sweeten). Add the chilli, turmeric, shitake and spinach and cook until the spinach begins to wilt. Crumble the tofu into the pan and heat through, perhaps turning the heat up just a little to give it a last burst of heat. Note: be careful not to turn the tofu into mush. Season with cracked black pepper and salt.

To serve: place the scrambles on a warmed plate and garnish with cucumber and coriander. Add a toasted bagel or some sour dough and dig in.

2

Hori Corn Chocolate

EG’s parents took a recent trip to Hokkaido, and bought us back some local treats. So let me present one of the specialities of the region, Hori Corn Chocolate.

The gift box contains the same chocolate done two ways - in a long finger and a bite sized nugget.

It was a rather interesting snack consisting of popped corn and other chewy corn kernel bits smothered in Hokkaido milk white chocolate. It apparently comes in a regular milk chocolate variety as well.

And taste? Well, my feelings are a little ambivalent. The puffed corn is a little on the stale side, although it does amazingly taste corny (in a good way). The chocolate is also sweeter than we would probably have it here.

I give it points for uniqueness, but wouldn’t be too fussed not to have it again.

1

Mochi, Wagashi and err…Moffles?

I picked up the most gorgeous mochi (rice cakes) at the recent Japan Festival in Box Hill. After developing an appreciation for such things in Japan, I was quite upset that I couldn’t seem to find any freshly-made artisan ones here in Melbourne. Alas, we probably still can’t find them as these ones came all the way from New South Wales.

This is a Sakura (cherry blossom) flavoured mochi wrapped in a real pickled cherry blossom leaf. It imparts a definite fragrance and saltiness to the sweet rice dumpling which is filled with sweetened azuki (red bean) paste. Unlike many of the mochi I have seen, the grains of the rice remain intact instead of being pounded to a paste. Isn’t it just beautiful?

These are kashiwa mochi so named after the oak leaf they are wrapped in. They are traditionally made on the 5th May to celebrate Children’s Day in Japan. Like the sakura mochi above, you are not meant to eat the leaf. Inside the pounded glutinous rice exterior was the same sweetened azuki (red bean) paste, although I detected a definite honey flavour to it.

Finally, an assorted pack of mochi, although I don’t know whether some of these might be called something else (wagashi perhaps?). Towards the back was a green mochi filled with azuki, perhaps flavoured with mugwort (I’m guessing here). To the front were two rather unusual sweets. The one to the left was filled with the honey azuki paste mentioned earlier and the exterior was gingerbread in flavour. Yup, that’s right. Gingerbread. And the one to the right tasted just like white bread, and it too was filled with azuki paste and sprinkled with goma (black sesame seeds). Traditional? Hmm…perhaps someone can enlighten me?

Just as an aside, apparently a new craze has hit Japan, and that is the moffle - a cross between a mochi and a waffle. Ooh…I must try me some! Sugoi!

4

Sette Bello

Sette Bello, a rather funky mish mash of modern styling and retro cool, is an Italianesque cafe that is practically within throwing distance of where I live. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have a decent cafe nearby. My only gripe - they’re not open for Sunday breakfast! Ooh, what I’d give for a decent Sunday brekky joint in the CBD. And before you say it, no, Golden Tower is *not* an option.

Claire over at Melbourne Gastronome was the first to blow the lid on this little gem, and I certainly agree with her sentiments.

The first time we visited was for a post-shopping pick-me-up coffee and cannoli (we already know how much I love a good cannoli). The coffee provided the required hit of caffeine with a decent crema, and the cannoli, crunchy chocolate pastry piped full of citron studded ricotta was absolutely da business.

Impressed as we were with what we had experienced already, we decided to go back for breakfast on Saturday. The choice is small but sufficient - toasted brioche with marmalada (that being from the Italian meaning “jam” and not “marmalade”), tomato baked eggs in cazuela (terracotta dish) with spinach or prosciutto, or breakfast pizettes with egg and spinach or prosciutto. There is also a very good selection of will-power-weakening pastries, fruit brioche etc. to tempt those with a sweeter tooth (which is usually me, but on this occassion I needed eggs).

Our breakfast eggs were delightfully simple - two perfectly baked googies nestled deep into freshly wilted spinach and sweet tomato sugo (sauce). It arrived unseasoned - but it really only needed some cracked black pepper as the warm chunks of foccaccia were liberally sprinkled with flakes of sea salt. I really enjoyed this - more so because it wasn’t crappy, greasy bacon and eggs.

So take that as a warning breakfast people. Don’t go expecting a big menu with fry ups, french toast, pancake stacks, bircher museli or fruit salad. What you will get will be done well, and it may take just a little time to reach you (I don’t quite think they’ve hit their food-serving mojo yet - but cut them a little slack, they’re still new). But if you take a loved one and settle in for some good conversation, or mull over a newspaper with a coffee or two, it’ll be just fine.

nb. you may want to catch the updated Sette Bello.