Archive for April, 2007
V Rating: VV After a six month absence, I rejoined Book Grub, my Asian themed book club, last Wednesday at Matsuri in Surry Hills. The neat thing about Book Grub is that each month we read a book set in a different country in Asia, and then meet to talk about it at a restaurant from the same culture. This month’s book was Across the Nightingale Floor, which is set in Japan. I was feeling very sheepish that I hadn’t found, let alone read, the book - so much for making a good impression on my return.
Our themed venue was Matsuri on Crown Street. Happily, for a Japanese restaurant Matsuri offers a decent vegetarian choice, with a selection of vegetarian entrees and sushi, if fewer options for mains. My friends were Matsuri regulars, and recommended the edamame beans and the agedashi tofu entree. I think that would have been a good choice. Stupidly, I distracted everyone with the specials menu and we ended up with the agedashi eggplant, and a tofu dish that I don’t remember the name of (this veneer of professionalism, it’s very thin). We threw in the spinach with soy and sesame from the regular entree menu and had some miso each.
These dishes were nice, but not as good as Japanese food I’ve had at Musashi or Naniwa-Tei. The eggplant was soft but quite oily and hadn’t fully soaked in the agedashi flavour. The fried tofu cubes had an interesting presentation, but I found the dish a little dry.
My friends also shared a plate of sushi and sashimi. Even though there was a wide range of vegetarian sushi to choose from, I short-sightedly decided I had enough food to eat with the entree dishes.
This was a pretty dumb decision on my part. As regulars know, Matsuri is famous for its sushi and sashimi and my friend’s plate looked amazing. I wouldn’t normally write about non-vegetarian dishes, but I’m posting this photo to remind myself not to be such a fool and overlook the sushi next time I try Matsuri. My previously mentioned friend (J, the) who was recently lured from Melbourne to Sydney, is already teaching me a thing or two about my home turf. For example, she’s put me on to an excellent organic delivery service called Lettuce Deliver.
Each week, Lettuce Deliver posts a list of available produce on their website. You select the fruit and vegetables that you’d like by 4pm on Friday, and it’s delivered to your doorstep on Tuesday morning. Lettuce Deliver gives you the option of choosing everything individually, but they also put together weekly standard boxes which you can buy for a fixed rate.
For the last two weeks I’ve trialed the $50 mixed fruit and vegetable box, and so far I’ve been thrilled with the quality of produce and the ease of the service. Most of the fruit and vegetables that I would order are included in the box, but there are always a few that I wouldn’t normally buy which is encouraging me to experiment. In the past, I’ve found that buying organic produce can be very expensive. While choosing vegetables individually from their website is reasonably pricey, the Lettuce Deliver box is not much more expensive than my standard grocery bill (bearing in mind that neither Andy or I eat meat or seafood, so vegetables and fruit make up a big part of our weekly diet and budget). I was also concerned that the organic produce would last for just a few days (I’ve sometimes had this problem with organic veggies in the past, and assumed this was because they don’t contain preservatives). It’s true that the vegetables are always better eaten fresh. However, the Lettuce Deliver vegetables do last the full week and I haven’t had a problem with wasted food. I have a busy lifestyle, and can’t rate highly enough the convenience of having a beautiful box of fresh, organic vegetables delivered to my door each week. Thanks J.
V Rating: VVV My friend, J, the, and I went to see the beautiful, moving and original Pan’s Labyrinth on Thursday night at the Palace Academy cinema on Oxford Street. The movie started at 7pm, and I was determined to squeeze in dinner beforehand. However, I often find myself at a loss for a good restaurant at the top end of Oxford Street. We wandered past the small cluster of restaurants between the cinema and Taylor Square, ruling out food we’d eaten the previous night (Thai, Japanese) and somehow ended up in front of Cantina. As I’ve written about before, for many years I avoided tapas bars because I assumed that they wouldn’t be vegetarian friendly. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by both Kika and Mojos, but after Cantina I’m a convert. Their delicious food proved to me beyond a doubt that tapas is a vegetarian friendly affair.
Cantina offers some classic Spanish tapas dishes, but the menu also draws on Spain’s Mediterranean neighbours, Portugal, Greece and Morocco. We ordered the patas bravas, sauteed baby spinach with toasted slivered almonds and raisins, sauteed field mushrooms with garlic and parsley, and roasted beet salad with goats cheese dressing and walnuts.
Cantina’s food was simple, but beautifully prepared. The roast beet salad was a highlight. Using the goats cheese as a dressing and drizzling it over the beets was a great improvement on crumbling it into the salad, which is the way I’ve eaten this salad before.
The spinach sauteed in a slightly creamy broth was just beautiful with the sweet raisins and almonds, and had both of us reaching for more. I am a sucker for a potato dish, and judge tapas bars on the quality of their patas bravas (cubed, fried potatoes in a chili, onion and tomato sauce). Cantina gets full marks. The perfectly cubed, bite-sized potato was golden and crispy on the outside, and the tomato sauce was spicy without being too hot. In fact, these were so good I found myself (accidentally) eating straight from the tapas dish. Ahh, the social challenges of eating food off small plates. Fortunately J, the was too polite to comment.
We didn’t have time to try Cantina’s desserts, but with classic choices like creme catalana, churros and saffron poached pears it’s on my to do list for next time. I’ve wavered before Cantina on other occasions when I’ve been to the Verona or Academy, but always averred in favour of one of its neighbours. Perhaps it is the beautiful, but slightly sombre decor, quite different from the exuberance of some of Sydney’s other tapas bars. What a fool! The food is a cut above, and the service is friendly, professional and fast. It’s the perfect place for dinner before or after a movie at the Palace, but would also make a lovely choice for a lingering night with friends. Definitely a new favourite. |
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