Banana cupcakes at Cupcake on Pitt

I must say, I am a little cupcake mad. It all began when I stumbled across Lola’s Cupcakes in the Selfridges’ food hall sometime ago and ended up buying some to share with friends. Before you knew it, we’d each developed an antenna for cupcakes and embarked on a ‘mission’ to sample and rate as many of them ever since. We compare them on all sorts of different criteria: the number of types of flavours available; the taste, sweetness and texture of the icing; and of course the quality of the cake itself. Other than Lola’s Cupcakes, there are quite a few cupcakes stores around London nowadays such as The Hummingbird Bakery, the Primrose Bakery, the Buttercup Cake Shop, not to mention a number of online cupcake stores that deliver such as The Little Cupcake Company, Clares Cupcakes, Crumbs and Dollies and The Organic Cupcake Company. I don’t recall there being this many a few years ago so I am surely not the only person in London who is slightly crazed about these miniature creations of the baking world.

Global financial meltdown aside, this cupcake phenomenon also appears to be another effect of the globalisation that has impacted Sydney. In the three and a half years since I last visited Sydney there were no shops devoted specifically to cupcakes. Now there are at least two in the city centre.

One is Cupcake on Pitt, so named as it is located on Pitt St. Their cupcakes cost $2.00 rather than the $3.50 charged by The Cupcake Bakery, the second half of the cupcake duopoly in the city centre. Admittedly the cupcakes at the former are perhaps a little smaller than the ones at their rival, but this also means you can try two different ones for roughly the same price instead of just one. Or in our case, share four between two, imperative I thought in furthering the ‘mission’.

We tried a number of flavours, and of the lot, the carrot was the most delicious. The icing, made from cream cheese, was light and fluffy and not too sweet. The cake was light and moist, courtesy of the carrot content which helps to retain the moisture in the cake.

Cherry ripe on chocolate and vanilla on vanilla cupcakes

We also had the honeycomb, peanut butter and cherry ripe (Australia’s oldest chocolate bar which has a cherry-flavoured coconut centre) flavours. All three of these came with chocolate cupcake bases, but disappointingly the cakes were a little bland and a touch dry. The icing, with the exception of the peanut butter, tasted like over-aerated powdered cream, the effect of which left a slightly sickly aftertaste. Although they were described to me as butter creams, the icing was not the expected denser and sweeter texture of standard butter cream icing. The peanut butter icing however was lusciously creamy, with a slightly sweet peanut butter taste, like a Reese’s peanut butter cup.

Passionfruit and peanut butter cupcakes

There were clearly some goodies and some baddies at Cupcake on Pitt. Despite this, I still couldn’t help but be drawn to the cupcakes because they were so prettily decorated. So what is it about cupcakes that appeals to so many? It’s just a piece of cake after all, but baked in a cupcake patty. Therefore I suspect it’s all in the presentation. Miniature in size and cutely dressed, they truly look adorable, like a little baby cake. Cupcake on Pitt has lots of choice, about 28, although not all were on offer at the time of my visit. So if it is your heart’s desire, you can purchase a box of 12 from Cupcake on Pitt to coo over. Ooh, how cute!

A box of dozen cupcakes to coo over...

Cupcake on Pitt at:
323 Pitt St,
Sydney, NSW
Australia, 2000
Web: http://www.cupcakesonline.com.au

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Sydney Fish Markets

Today I met with some friends for lunch at the Sydney Fish Markets. A true Sydney institution, it ranks as the second largest fish markets in terms of variety in the world, thereby reflecting Australia’s status as a leading seafood nation. The largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world is the fish market in Tokyo, the Tsukiji.

Lobster, salmon & tuna fillets

I love the Sydney Fish Markets. It was an integral part of my childhood as my father was quite strict about eating only fresh seafood. No fish was ever eaten from being refrigerated overnight, only if purchased fresh on the day. So as we ate fish about three to four times a week, this would entail quite regular visits to the Sydney Fish Markets. Especially popular in my household were those occasions when we would buy live mud crabs which my father would then stir-fry with chilli, ginger, garlic, spring onions and all things nice.

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Sydney Opera House by night

After three and a half years away, I finally arrived in Sydney for my first long, overdue trip home. It’s always wonderful to come back, to the place of your childhood. Sydney has changed a little since I was last here, but it still has that same old familiar feel, that feeling of ‘home’. Coming back has been a moment that I’ve been looking forward to for sometime, and I’ve been counting down the days ever since my trip began in Indonesia, gradually feeling my sense of excitement growing and growing. There’s something quite extraordinarily wonderful when you’ve not seen your family for a while and you are due to meet up for the very first time after a long absence.

That first meal together is of course always particularly exciting for there is no better way to bond than to eat – to catch up over a pleasurable pastime. We’d chosen Mr Chow’s Peking Restaurant, a Chinese restaurant offering three different styles of Chinese cooking from three different regions: Peking, Canton and Sichuan (Szechuan). Its specialty is a derivation of the ever-popular Peking duck: a (jasmine) tea-smoked duck ($58). It is cooked with a special secret technique that causes the fat to dissipate, thus leaving it with no fat, but allegedly with no alteration to the flavour.

I have to admit that I am someone who is always seduced by the signature dish of a restaurant. Hopelessly drawn to the idea that it’s the best dish that the house has to offer, I would never want to lament passing up the chance to try the best. Unlike typical Peking duck, where you are served only the skin first and the meat second, the tea-smoked duck at Mr Chow’s was served with all the meat at once, and accompanied by steamed buns rather than thin pancakes. However it still came with the mandatory hoisin sauce and vegetable slivers of cucumber and spring onions. A delicate smoky-tea flavour permeated the meat, and as promised, the duck came with (virtually) no fat. However, unlike the typical variation, the meat although tender proved a little dry, no doubt as a consequence of the lack of fat. An experimentation point was thus proved – that fat helps improve taste. No wonder the French cook with glorious duck fat.

Tea-smoked duck

We stayed with the Pekinese theme for the rest of the evening, choosing another house specialty, the crab meat in egg white ($19.80), and also the Peking-style spare ribs ($25.80). The crab meat was wonderfully fresh and juicy, and the delicacy of the egg white in a gentle white sauce combined superbly with the subtlety of the crab. The boneless ribs were meltingly tender, although ironically quite fatty. Deep fried and submerged in a sweet sauce, it was delicious, although the flavour lacked the punch packed by some of the dim sum versions that you can get in Sydney’s Chinatown restaurants. Those have a thicker and crispier batter around the meat, giving them a crunchier outer coating, and they come with a sauce which is usually thicker and more caramelised, producing a stickier, more intense flavour.

Peking-style spare ribs

Mr Chow’s Peking Restaurant has that standard look and feel of a typical Chinese restaurant with standard Chinese touches and the ever mandatory fish tank on display that is common in Chinese restaurants in Sydney. However, Mr Chow’s, being situated in a more upper-end of town, in the Rocks area of Sydney and not Chinatown, it is furnished slightly more comfortably. It has a slicker, more polished look, with wider set tables and more spacing in between.

Its mood was relaxed and the quieter noise levels easily allowed for those catch-up conversations with family. The service was also friendly and came with a smile, something occasionally difficult to find in Chinatown! I enjoyed my first night back in Sydney at Mr Chow’s, especially for the million miles an hour conversation between my chatterbox sister and I. The food was of quality sourcing and tasty. There was also plenty of variety on the menu to keep any discerning palate occupied. But despite all this, at its pricing levels, no doubt in part to reflect its locale, Mr Chow’s just didn’t quite wow.

Mr Chow’s Peking Restaurant at:
33-35 Kent St
The Rocks,
Sydney, NSW
Australia, 2000
Phone: +61 (0)2 9252 3010
Web: http://www.mrchowspeking.com.au

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Throughout the years, I have always used the Lonely Planet travel guides. My loyalty had developed in part probably due to my familiarity with the format of the books and knowing exactly where to locate the information I needed. Not having used other guides, I can’t compare Lonely Planet to any others, but for my purposes they have served me just fine.

However there is this phenomenon I called the Lonely Planet effect. Whenever a restaurant (or a hotel) scores an entry in Lonely Planet, it obviously increases the exposure of that particular institution, and as a consequence usually increases tourist traffic. All things being equal, this sometimes has the effect of pushing prices up and possibly altering the dynamics of both the service offered and some of the original reasons the restaurant (or hotel) may have warranted a mention in Lonely Planet in the first place.

Take for instance Ketut’s Place, mentioned in Lonely Planet for its Balinese buffet which is served on select nights of the week. Last night being one of those nights, I went along to take a look at Ketut’s Place. Ketut, the owner, greeted all the diners with a speech which was wonderfully welcoming and informative. He talked of the typical layout of a Balinese home and of certain Balinese customs. Ketut’s command of English was excellent, and as he was a wonderfully charismatic and charming man one would be hard pushed not to have felt welcomed by him. However, in the end I declined to take the buffet.

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There have been many husband and wife teams from years past that have worked well together. One couple that comes to mind was Marie and Pierre Curie. Although not Nobel winning, perhaps another couple might be that of Darta and Suti, the friendly husband and wife team who have turned their family home at 24 Jalan Kajeng (Kajeng Street) into both a guesthouse and a restaurant known as Rumah Roda.

Darta and Suti

Suti – wife, mother and chef – began her cooking career elsewhere. For about eight years she was the cook at Han Snel’s Bungalows, a slightly more upmarket tourist accommodation spot with individual bungalows in Ubud, Bali. After leaving Han Snel’s, Suti turned her attention to cooking a limited range menu for tourists at the family home in Ubud, Rumah Roda, where guests would sit at the one table for four placed right next to the family kitchen. About three years ago, the family decided to expand, and the current restaurant was built as an open air dining area overlooking the street, right above the family bedrooms. The extension provides a much larger seating capacity, about 20-25 rather than just four, and gives customers the option of either sitting at dining tables or on the elevated cushioned platforms.

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Coconut permeates daily live in Bali. It is shredded fresh daily by the locals for use in cooking, and no part of the coconut is left to waste, including the shell. So if you’ve ever wanted to be a coconut for a day, Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali is perhaps your chance. You could perhaps start your day off with banana pancakes dressed with shredded sweet coconut, followed by a lunch with coconut as a base ingredient. If you’re feeling like some relaxation, there’s a plethora of massage parlours which will rub you down with coconut oil, and when the afternoon heat gets too much, you could cool down with some coconut juice. Finally after a long hot day of sight seeing, you could finish off with a refreshing ice-cold cocktail… made with coconut!

Coconut juice

Curious to discover more about Balinese cooking techniques and the varied ingredients that make up the various flavours, I signed up for a cooking course. A number of restaurants in Ubud offer such courses, but I chose Bumbu Bali, a Balinese restaurant where I’d had dinner a few nights ago. Having eaten there, I knew the food was good and I’d therefore concluded that the course would probably be good too.

Ubud market

My day began with a visit to the markets to wade through the different types of local produce. Shopping at the markets for food has been a long standing tradition in my family. I prefer it to picking out packages of homogeneously sized vegetables at a supermarket. Chances are the produce has been produced nearby rather than shipped from afar, and I also prefer it for the fact that you also get to touch and smell the produce.

Back at the restaurant, we ran through the ingredients typically used in Balinese food including the many varieties of green and red chillies which I declined to taste test (ouch!). I was to cover six different dishes, but first and foremost, we covered in detail the base gede which is the true heart and soul of many Balinese dishes. This mixed spice paste consists of a large number of different spices including the most obvious ones such as ginger, garlic, chilli and turmeric.

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Rice fields around Ubud

One of the wonderful things about Bali is that despite having all the trappings of a modern tourist spot, in about a five minute walk it’s also possible to find yourself submerged in luscious green rice fields that spread on for miles. In the midst of one of these rice fields was Sari Organic, an organic farming venture that started about five years ago to service the needs of both local businesses and individuals. Its farming concept was based on ‘family-size’ farms, which consequently meant its business philosophy also provided jobs to local families. Over the years, Sari discovered that there was a genuine demand for organic produce in and around Ubud, and it now recruits and provides incomes to some 15 families.

Inside Sari Organic which looks out onto lush rice fields

For more immediate eating needs, there is also their organic restaurant, Warung Bodag Maliah. The restaurant is a two storey building, with the ground floor serving as the kitchen and the first floor as the dining area to allow you a wonderful elevated perspective of the rice fields. It’s an incredibly relaxed setting. The restaurant is windowless to allow in a gentle cool breeze and there are a range of seating choices; tables as well as cushioned platform seating areas. However if your fancy was to simply stretch out and snuggle up with a book on one of their benches as I saw one couple doing, this was also possible.

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