I love going to the market, buying a cut of meat and then figuring out what to do with it. This week the mystery box was duck marylands. Chicken marylands are pretty much my favourite cut of any meat and I was hoping the duck would be just as good. Alas, it is far too sinewy and tough and not quite as flavoursome as I was hoping. I probably won’t be buying the marylands in the future (though I’d appreciate suggestions), sticking with breast instead.

A quick Forage and I found Abstract Gourmet’s Duck Breast and Shitake Risotto and this is based on that.

Duck Maryland

• Mustard seeds
• Fennel seeds
• Salt
• Pepper
• Thyme
• Pimento
• Whatever other spices you feel might go nicely.

Dry roast all the spices in a frying pan,then grind them, most of the thyme and the salt up in a mortar and pestle. Rub the mix into the skin of the duck. On high, heat the vegetable oil and the remainder of the thyme in the same pan, when the oil begins to smoke, fry the duck, skin down. Turn the heat down to medium and cook on both sides until it’s cooked, but not overcooked.

Mushroom Risotto

• Olive oil
• 2 handfuls of field mushrooms, sliced
• 1 leek, quartered and chopped finely
• 2 cloves garlic
• thyme
• 1 1/2 cups of Arborio rice
• 1-2 litres Chicken stock, preferrably home made.
• 1 glass dry white wine
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 1 tablespoon butter

Saute the leek in the olive oil in a large frying, when the leak is soft and begins to lose its colour add the mushrooms, garlic and thyme and cook until soft. Now, pour in your rice and give it a good toasting for about a minute. They say you shouldn’t stir risotto, so shake the pan instead.  Next, add the white wine and let it cook down. From now on, be careful not to let the rice go too dry. As the rice starts to dry out, add a couple of ladles of chicken stock. You will probably use about 1.5 litres of stock, but work by taste and feel. It’s important to season this as you go, you’ll probably find (depending on the stock) you will probably end up using a metric shitload of salt.

When the rice is firm, but not hard. You are almost done. Take it off the heat, and fold in the butter, and the parmesan. Serve it while it’s hot and garnish it with a few sprigs of thyme and perhaps a squeeze of lemon juice.

Wine

Duck and mushrooms. The perfect ingredients to match with an earthy, intense Pinot Noir. Try something from Geelong or Yarra Valley. Our selection was the 2008 Ata Rangi “Crimson” a perfect match for about $30.

It’s been a while since I’ve mixed something up in the monthly cocktail party that is Mixology Monday and I’m well and truly past the deadline. But I’m hoping that Kevin over at Beers In The Shower (one of my all time favourite pastimes along with shower pow-wows) will accept the submission.

The concept of the “Money Drink” is one I’m so familiar with, a friend comes over, sees your bar and asks you to whip them up a tastey cocktail. They aren’t sure what they like, and you want to blow their socks right out of the water. Where do you turn? There’s a few decisions you have to make, do they want something hard or something smooth? Sweet or perhaps dry? The answers all of course depend on your punter. Old Fashioned, Manhattan or a Negroni are my favourites, the beauties that I turn to when I want to impress myself. But when I want to impress someone else, the best place to start is with a Mojito.

Recipe

• 45ml rum. I think any lighter, unnaged rum is good. Traditionally of course it is Cuban, illegal in the US. Here in Australia we don’t have a problem with that so Havana Club is a cheap option, but Matusalem Platino is amazing.
• 30-45ml lime juice. This depends on how tangy the lime is. I usually use around 1 1/2 limes.
• 1 barspoon brown sugar. This is supposed to be cane sugar but I  use brown sugar. Palm sugar is a good option also, it gives the drink a slightly cleaner taste.
• Mint. Go out to the garden and grab a handful of mint, leave the stalks on there is a heap of flavour hiding in there.

Method

Put the lime juice (and the shells if you like), sugar and mint in an old fashioned glass and gently muddle it. Add the rum, and then top the glass up to the top with crushed ice. Add a splash of soda water (or not.) Clap a sprig of mint nice and hard and garnish.

The front page of the Menu. Worth a read.

The Middle Park Hotel has been refurbished, rebranded and reinvigorated. So they would have you believe. This ex-brewery, ex-party, ex-neighbourhood pub is the latest gastropub in town and the food is getting rave reviews. People are over the top with the quality of the food that chef Paul Wilson is producing and they are right, the quality of the food is great. Perfectly executed.

But what are they doing? The hotel is trying to be everything to everyone. It has an amazing feature-piece bar which dominates the room and a wine and booze list to match. The architecture is startling, built with beautiful dark wood, it even has a custom printed carpet with the hotel’s emblem. The collection of sporting paraphernalia adorning the walls is pretty impressive. Robbie McEwen’s signed green jersey, a Victor Trumper bat and a variety of panoramic photos, rugby jerseys and old, long-irrelevant highschool awards boards. I suppose it is left over from the days of the Gunn Island.

This strikes me as a hotel built by committee. Take 1 hotel owner who loves his sport and owns a great piece of real estate, add an investor who loves architecture and thinks an interior design makes or breaks a venue and top it all off with an awesome English chef who loves eating and cooking offal. The result is a superb restaurant with a statement on the first page of the menu that they love everything to do with sport and that the Spring Racing carnival will be played on all screens throughout the establishment. This is exactly what the discerning diner wants, the sound of people cheering on the boxing match (advertised on a letter-board out the front) while they are enjoying their offal salad.

The confusion doesn’t stop there. The menu doesn’t know what season it is. The pub has outside dining for close to 50 patrons, perfect to take advantage of the hot, upcoming summer, yet the menu consists of mostly heavy, winter style meals. Offal, roast chicken, lamb chops, pork chops and the “coming soon” roasts of rare animals are not the sort of meal to eat in 35 degree weather.

Nor have they quite grasped the concept of a bar menu. There are 2 menus, a restaurant and a bar menu, yet both can be ordered throughout the hotel but only is their any sort of service at the restaurant tables. Order your meal, explain to the bartender which of the 20 outdoor tables you are sitting at and you receive a box of cutlery, napkins, salt and pepper. With the quality of the food and the price of a meal, I expect a far higher level of service. Perhaps these may be teething problems, but the obvious solution is to only allow the restaurant menu to be ordered from the restaurant where the extremely good waitstaff can handle everything.

You see, the problem is that this pub could be so much more. The critics will love the food and the people of Middle Park are crying out for a place, any place to drink. But this hotel, even with it’s free wifi, superstar chef, and extensive wine and scotch list just isn’t going to be the haunt of the wealthy 55 year old BMW driving residents of Middle Park.

Sad really.

The Menu

More photos

After being disappointed with the cheap italian feel that was Basilico in Albert Park I was certainly expecting something good from the unpretentious restaurant serving local style italian dishes that Provincia advertisers itself as. The food lived up to this expectation, it was good, honest, well presented and represented the flavours of provincial italy with class.

The space isn’t big, it is dominated by the bar and it’s ceiling-high wine rack and spirits shelves. The room is dark, with most of the light provided by tea lights set on each table and a few muted hanging and wall lights. There isn’t many tables, all set out around the perimeter of the space with settings for 2 or 4. The dining room is intimate and almost unwelcoming for a group of 4, but perfect for a dinner of 2. Unfortunately our table was in front of the door and each time the door we felt an unwelcome gust of cold Melbourne night.

The service is as you would expect, perhaps a little too keen as I struggled to finish my whole glass of water before our waiter topped it up. I was disappointed with their wine service though. After we had ordered our meals we asked for a wine recommendation and the waiter told us that a particular wine was a nice italian variety. This has happened a couple of times recently and perhaps I’m not asking right, but I want to know what $60-100 bottle of wine will go nicely with our meals.

The menu consists of a variety of italian dishes under the premise of being each from provincial Italy. Beside most of the dishes is noted the area the dishes are from. The prices around the $30 mark and the quality of the food is easily worth it. The wine list is mostly international and as you would expect the majority are Italian. The bottles start at around $50 which seems a little excessive, perhaps they could provide a cheaper entry-level.

The Negroni was on the money. Personally I prefer a slightly more vermouth heavy Negroni but nonetheless it was a great start to the proceedings.

The pear, gorgonzola and walnut bruschetta was an ordering afterthought but was amazing. Mild flavours accentuating each other all capped off with the texture and flavour of walnut. Brilliant.

This great sized piece of porterhouse was cooked perfectly and served with grilled field mushrooms. It was a great piece of meat, cooked well, what more is there to say?

This roasted pork belly with a coriander salad reminded me more of a chinese-style pork belly, yet further research suggests it is just as italian as chinese. Fatty, crisp, tasty, perfect.

I didn’t taste this pasta, but it certainly looked great.

This slow-braised lamb shoulder was exquisite, melt-in-your-mouth lamb with root vegetables. This was always going to be a winner for me as it’s one of my favourite dishes. It didn’t last long on the plate.

The pannacotta was lovely and rich yet not overly sweet with the Campari reduction adding the necessary sweetness and orange flavour.

While the meals across the board were exceptional, this stole the show. The chocolate self saucing pudding with vanilla-bean icecream was heavenly. The chocolate sauce was thick and rich. The texture of the icecream was subtly granular and the vanilla flavour prominent. The dark and light flavours work so well next to each other.

Having been given the recommendation of a now closed restaurant, Amulet in North Hobart we were left on Elizabeth St searching for a place to eat. We were standing outside a busy seafood restaurant called, Fish 349 which looked good and didn’t disappoint. I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for good seafood at a reasonable price.

The restaurant is a really casual affair, the kid-friendly dining room (with colouring-in books) meant that there was a lot of small children around they weren’t disruptive, instead keeping the atmosphere light-hearted. The orders were taken at the counter, which I’m not a fan of, but the wait-staff had warm smiles and a great tableside manner and were happy to bring new water bottles and the tables were cleared quickly.

The food was impressive. The oysters were big, fresh, served quickly and cheap ($19.50 a dozen).

The Pistachio Dukkah Encrusted Blue-eye ( was perfectly seasoned and the mash and seafood dressing worked exceptionally well. Blue-eye Trevalla seems to be the most common eating fish in Tasmania, it has a mild flavour and a firm, meaty texture making it a great fish. I’ll be looking for it at the market.

The Grilled Flathead was cooked perfectly, the texture of the flesh was really firm and flavoursome. This was served on an olive mash with a capsicum puree which was sensational. The puree was nice and spicy and the olive mash is definitely the sort of thing I’m going to be reproducing at home.

I didn’t taste the Surf and Turf, it was a lamb sausages and prawns and looked amazing.

Having spent the better part of my drinking life living in Brisbane I’m acutely aware of the phenomenon that is the Fortitude Valley. One of Australia’s largest party and nightclub districts, the valley has around 60,000 people there every Friday and Saturday night. This makes the place a pretty impressive experience, there are people from all walks of life, pubs and clubs catering to every different subculture and musical interest, a shitload of police and a huge amount of street food-vendors, but it isn’t perfect, in fact far from it.

The problem is the experience so often isn’t good. There aren’t enough bars, pubs and clubs (or maybe there are too many people), there are huge line-ups for venues, most places are already over-crowded and there are a huge number of people on the street supposedly walking between venues. Add to this a lot of alcohol, a 3am curfew, a limited number of taxis and a mesh of cultures and the product is the violence and unrest that the Brisbane City Council and Queensland Police are acutely aware of.

I’m certain that all levels of government and police are trying to solve these problems in their own way, more police on the streets, tighter licensing monitoring, modifying terms of licenses, more licenses, less licenses, more cabs, more cab ranks etcetera, etcetera. Yet as the bandaids pile up, the solution becomes more and more clear to me and while attempting to model the nightlife on another city seems like a fools errand, I think that is the solution, but not quite the same as you are expecting.

Reducing the average size of the licenses and increasing the number of licenses makes sense and seems to work to some extent in Melbourne, yet in the densely populated areas such as King St and Prahran, violence and chaos still abound. However, the areas where there is one or 2 small bars per block are quiet and civil. The sheer size of the Melbourne CBD creates vast number of nooks and crannies for these to thrive.

Reducing the crowd density per venue is obvious, but I believe the real solution is reducing the overall density of punters. Pushing the geographical boundaries of the valley out would increase the square metres of street the police would need to patrol and almost certainly incense the residents of the surrounding suburbs, but at what price do we put on the violence and unrest. There are a number of areas that this shift could move towards.

1. Remove the separation of “city” and “valley”, encouraging bars to reside at the southern end of Wickham St.
2. Encourage bars to open along the waterfront between the Valley and the Eagle St pier
3. Allowing bars to operate until 3 am along James St
4. Managing the red light district stigma associated with the northern end of Brunswick St thus encouraging a higher quality of venue to open in that area

Another week, another wine tasting. This week Randall’s hosted winemaker Kym Teusner of Teusner (Toys-ner) Wines who are a small northern Barossa winery, based around Ebenezzer. They make a small number of Rhone style reds and are slowly adding some whites with some serious character to the lineup.

One thing that distinguishes Teusner from a lot of wineries is that they are not vignerons. They buy all of their fruit from a few carefully selected vineyards, the owners of which are treated more like business partners. Their largest supplier of fruit is the Riebke brothers, this family have been growing grapes in the Barossa for generations and were slowly being made to pull all of their old growth, but unprofitable Grenache and Mataro vines and replace them with Chardonnay. Forced by big corporations and the government and their big bank accounts.

Kym overheard the Riebke’s at a barbecue talking about this predicament and quickly raised enough capital to buy a small portion of the fruit. This, along with a lot of patience and financial assistance from the Riebke’s saved the vines and neither the Teusners nor the Riebke’s have looked back.

The story doesn’t stop there, not long after – Kym was working at Rolf Binder wines while trying to get his own label off the ground when one of the Riebke’s showed up with a truckload of fruit and asked Kym if he wanted some more fruit. Kym told him that he would come out tomorrow and have a look at the vines, the Riebke’s reply was that tomorrow wasn’t soon enough, the fruit was in the truck, they didn’t want to take it to the big guys down the road and Kym could pay him when he could afford it. Turns out the fruit was great, the wine was amazing, the bill was paid, the vineyard was picked and taken to the Teusner’s each year, not Fosters.

This process of taking good, old vines that are being “wasted” in massive mass produced wines is a common theme, their Woodside Sauvignon Blanc is from growers in a similar situation. The wine was being all taken to a “big” producer and being mixed into whatever was seen fit, the grower offered his wines to Teusner, who decided they could make great wine with a bit of helpful guidance and good winemaking. The Woodside Sauvignon Blanc is like very few Sauvignon Blanc you will have tasted. Full of character and minerality and very little of the crazy acidity and citrus flavours.

This wasn’t Teusner’s only gain at the loss of the big guys. The Grange Hermitage fruit is taken from a number of vineyards around the Barossa. For this fruit to be used in the Grange it needs to meet the Foster’s quality levels this amongst other things involves maximum vineyard yield and in 2006 this was too high. Turns out the fruit was amazing and it went into the Astral Series Riebke FG Shiraz, a wine that at $130 is worth every cent (this coming from a guy that can’t afford it)

The Joshua, Avatar and Riebke are Teusner’s staple. The first 2 are both Grenache, Shiraz, Mataro and both completely different. I’m pretty sure I ended up with 2 of the same glass and only got to taste the Avatar. This was a complex, savoury blend that would match well with spring rolls, a rich red curry or a rare steak. I’m told the Avatar was a much different beast, a much more not over-ripe fruit driven wine made in a northern-Rhone style.

The Riebke is one of the best valued bottles of wine you will find, priced around $20 this is a perfumed, fruit driven shiraz without a hint of raisins or sultanas. The oak-driven spices hold up perfectly against the fruit and is carried perfectly by the soft tannins. This will sit perfectly against a meaty lamb or duck dish.