Melbourne restaurant Attica makes impressive debut on world's best restaurant list

Melbourne restaurant Attica is described as the best in Australasia and number 21 in the world by the World’s Best Restaurants Awards, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna. Along with the award for Australasia's best, Attica was rewarded as the best new entry in the elite list of restaurants around the world.
Describing it as chef "Ben Shewry’s innovative but nature-led Melbourne masterpiece" the judges commented:

There are dedicated chefs, and then there’s Ben Shewry. The New Zealand-born 35-year-old often rises before dawn to forage on the shore near his family home in Victoria, before starting the long commute into Melbourne. He’ll stop by local parks and even alleyways, as well as Attica’s own gardens, to pick up more raw materials to prepare meticulously for the restaurant that day. His commitment pays off: the cuisine is both uniquely imaginative and outstandingly good.

The style of food is called "Natural Antipodean" with the standout dish being "Potato, cooked in the earth in which it was grown."

• 74 Glen Eira Road
  Ripponlea, Victoria 3185
  +61 3 9530 0111
• attica.com.au

An instant noodle meal a month for every person on Earth

Instant noodle sales top 100 billion a year - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

Five decades after the easy-to-cook food's launch, sales climbed again last year with China, Indonesia and Japan rounding out the world's top three consumers, according to the Japan-based World Instant Noodles Association.

"The results show that instant noodles have become a global standard dish," said Norio Sakurai, an official with the Osaka-based association."

Instant success

1	China	44 billion
2	Indonesia	14.1 billion
3	Japan	5.41 billion
4	Vietnam	5.06 billion
5	India	4.36 billion
19	Australia	350 million

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A coffee custom to copy from Naples

EU Embraces 'Suspended Coffee': Pay It Forward With A Cup Of Joe : The Salt : NPR: 


"Tough economic times and growing poverty in much of Europe are reviving a humble tradition that began some one-hundred years ago in the Italian city of Naples. It's called caffè sospeso — "suspended coffee": A customer pays in advance for a person who cannot afford a cup of coffee. ... It's an elegant way to show generosity: an act of charity in which donors and recipients never meet each other, the donor doesn't show off and the recipient doesn't have to show gratitude."




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What those certification stickers on coffee mean

Coffee For A Cause: What Do Those Feel-Good Labels Deliver? : The Salt : NPR:

"What does it take to find guilt-free coffee?

Much of our coffee comes from places where the environment is endangered and workers earn very little — sometimes, just a few dollars for a whole day's work. Coffee farmers have helped cut down tropical forests, and most of them use pesticides.

It doesn't take much effort, though, to find bags of coffee with labels that promise social and environmental improvements. Among the best-known are Fairtrade or Rain Forest Alliance Certified."

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Walking off the calories

BBC News - Walk-to-burn-calorie menu 'diet aid':

"Menus displaying the exercise needed to burn calories in meals can help people consume less, a US study suggests.

Diners given this extra information ordered and ate less calorific food than other customers, a team at Texas Christian University found.

Knowing it takes two hours of brisk walking to burn off a cheeseburger may be more of a warning than being told how many calories it contains, the researchers say.

They now plan larger trials."

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Eating animal heads makes a comeback in China

Eating animal heads is making a comeback in the cuisine of Beijing. The New York Times reports that serving heads, preferably heavily spiced, is the latest repast to enjoy a growth in popularity. 

This isn’t novelty food; rather, it’s much-loved local street food with deep cultural roots, which has spread from the provinces into China’s biggest cities.

Reporting from Beijing, the paper's Craig S. Smith tells how, thanks to China’s decades-long economic boom, the increasingly cosmopolitan, educated and urban-bred young are drifting away from their rustic culinary roots. But that same boom is driving a culinary revival, with chefs rediscovering dishes that hadn’t been seen for decades.

While pig heads, goat heads and even dog heads are eaten in China, the reigning triumvirate is fish, duck and rabbit, each of which has restaurants devoted to its preparation.

Wine prices - Latour quits the merchant sales system

The peculiarly Bordeaux tradition of selling wines en primeur is underway with the normal haggling between producers and negotiants over the prices for the 2012 having one extra ingredient. Chateau Latour is not taking part with the first growth having decided to hold its wine back until it is considered ready to drink.

The risks of auction wine buying

Yet another cautionary tale about the foolishness of buying so-called "old wines" at auction.

NY jury awards damages to billionaire William Koch in wine fraud | Reuters:

" A federal jury in New York on Thursday handed a legal victory to U.S. billionaire William Koch and awarded him damages in his dispute over the alleged misrepresentation of 24 bottles of wine he bought at auction, one of the attorneys said.

Koch, 72, the founder of Oxbow Group energy company, accused tech entrepreneur Eric Greenberg of knowingly selling him counterfeit bottles of wine at a 2005 Zachys auction."

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Chia Seeds - a taste of South America

Five Ways to Cook With Chia Seeds | Food & Think:

"Chia, a flowering plant in the mint family known as Salvia hispanica, is native to central and southern Mexico and Guatemala. Domesticated in 2,600 B.C., the seed is said to have been a staple of the Aztec and Mayan diet. The Tarahumara of Mexico, famous for their incredible endurance running, consume a blend of maize and chia seeds while pounding the desert sand.

At just 65 calories per tablespoon, chia seeds are rich in protein, fiber, antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids. The seeds transform water into a gooey, gelatin-like mixture one can drink (slowly) straight out of the glass. Their unassuming mild, nutty flavor can disappear into countless different dishes, from pancakes and mashed potatoes to barbecue sauce and Jell-O. Here are five ways to cook with chia seeds that go beyond breading and salad garnishes."

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Eating and drinking Japanese style

These read like my kind of place!
Now that sushi is sold in supermarkets and ramen has come to food courts, what next?

At Izakayas, Japanese Food Gets Informal - NYTimes.com: "Easy: izakayas. These informal Japanese restaurants have been opening at a rapid pace around the country, but most Americans haven’t figured them out yet. Where’s the sushi bar? What’s with the tiny portions? Is this Asian fusion tapas or what?

That’s the izakaya: easy to love, but hard to nail down. It’s friendlier than a French bar à vins, has more food choices than a Spanish tapeo, and takes itself less seriously than a British gastro pub.

But it makes the same point: drinking is primary; food is secondary; and if you’re doing it right, there will be hangovers."

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French fight against industrial cooking in restaurants

French chefs launch elite 'quality restaurant' grade - The Local: 

"Worried by the declining standards of France's famed restaurants, top chefs including Alain Ducasse and Joel Robuchon on Monday launched a new label for establishments that prepare their own food and give diners a proper welcome."

The "quality restaurant" label will be granted to eateries in any price range that meet the standards set by the College Culinaire de France, a 15-member industry group founded by the country's leading chefs."Of the 150,000 French restaurants, three quarters of them do only industrial cooking. The others fight to cook using fresh products and those are the ones we are looking to," said Ducasse, who operates restaurants in eight countries, including three-starred eateries at the Plaza Athenee hotel in Paris and the Dorchester in London.Ducasse told AFP the label would be granted to restaurants that provide information on the origins of their products, prepare their own food and offer a warm welcome.

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Real news Chocolate with tiny vodka jellies replacing half the far

BBC News - Chocolate and agar recipe can halve the fat:

"Chemists have determined a new way to halve the fat of chocolate while maintaining its typical "mouthfeel", using any liquid - even alcohol.

Low-fat preparations of chocolate are well known, but their textures tend not to match the real thing.

A report at an American Chemical Society meeting described a method using the popular gelling agent agar to make tiny "sponges" that displace fat.

When used with alcohol, Stefan Bon said they were like "tiny vodka jellies".

But the University of Warwick researcher said that up to half the fat in chocolate can be replaced with fruit juices or even plain water."

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A you kill it you grill it law

Montana legalises cooking and eating roadkill - Telegraph:

"Montana has become the first US state to allow drivers to cook and serve carrion picked up from road accidents under a 'you kill it, you grill it' law."

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Healthy fast food - not yet in Australia perhaps, but coming?

Yes, Healthful Fast Food Is Possible. But Edible? - NYTimes.com:
"Twelve years after the publication of “Fast Food Nation” and nearly as long since Morgan Spurlock almost ate himself to death, our relationship with fast food has changed. We’ve gone from the whistle-blowing stage to the higher-expectations stage, and some of those expectations are being met. Various states have passed measures to limit the confinement of farm animals. In-N-Out Burger has demonstrated that you don’t have to underpay your employees to be profitable. There are dozens of plant-based alternatives to meat, with more on the way; increasingly, they’re pretty good."

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Official recognition for beer's mighty microbe

Craft-Beer-Crazy Oregon Poised To Name Official State Microbe : The Salt : NPR:

A humble creature that has long toiled in obscurity for the benefit of humankind is poised to win a small measure of the distinction it deserves: designation as Oregon's official state microbe.It looks to be the first microbe to gain official state recognition.The microbe in question, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, plays a key role in the state's economy. Without it, sugar would not become alcohol, and Oregon would not have a craft beer industry worth $2.4 billion.That's a lot of yeast.The man behind the yeast's pending glamour moment is Mark Johnson, a Republican state legislator from Hood River, Ore. The idea, he says, came from a home-brewing constituent, who suggested that the Legislature — which has already designated a state nut (hazelnut) and a state fruit (pear) — do the right thing by another living embodiment of Oregon's contribution to quality foodstuffs.

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Pork gets a name change

Hello, My Name Is Porterhouse Chop. I Used To Be 'Pork Chop' : The Salt : NPR:

"Pork's most popular cuts don't have snazzy names. At least, not until now.

Coming soon to a grocery store near you are the New York chop, the porterhouse chop and the sirloin chop. Yes, pork is borrowing some of the nomenclature of beef cuts. Why?

"Names have the power to transform the 'everyday' into the 'extraordinary,' " according to a pork industry website aimed at retailers."

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Edible Spray Paint: Give Your Foods The Midas Touch

Edible Spray Paint: Give Your Foods The Midas Touch : The Salt : NPR:

"Ess Lack, or Food Finish, is an edible spray paint that turns your meals into metallic bites of luxury. Lobster not decadent enough for you? Why not turn that crustacean golden?

The product was inspired by the famed golden goose that has adorned European holiday feasting tables (or at least European imaginations) for centuries, says Arne Taegen of The Deli Garage, the German food company behind Food Finish.

It works like a basic spray can, making it practically foolproof, even if you're not a professional chef. "Just spray it on whatever you wish to decorate, give it some time to dry, and there you go!" Taegen says"

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