Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Not much love in this review of WA's Young Love Mess Hall


The Young Love Mess Hall is not only the apogee of hipster branding, it represents the apogee of hipster cookery with its pretensions, tone-deaf palate and ingredients so alien to each other it’s like wearing Manolos with a tracksuit. In other words, what at first blush might appear daringly individual, clever, anti-establishment and avant-garde is actually just BS.
When it opened last year, a bloggy person wrote that “Young Love Mess Hall is one of the most arresting venues opened of late”. No question: someone at Young Love should be arrested for crimes against food.
Which is not what bloggy person meant. Bloggy person was impressed.
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A rave review from London for a Sydney restaurant

A visiting restaurant reviewer extols the virtues of Lennox Hastie's wood fired cooking.
Firedoor, Sydney: special and unmissable:  Nicholas Lander in The Financial Times


‘The octopus was exceptionally sweet, having been cooked slowly in embers and then roasted in a wood oven’
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Thursday, February 9, 2017

Rush to find natural vanilla substitute as pod prices soar

Rush to find natural vanilla substitute as pod prices soar: The Financial Times

It is made from petroleum, cloves, Norwegian spruce trees and has even been extracted from cow dung. Now the world’s flavour companies are scrambling to find additional sources of vanilla flavouring as prices for beans have soared to a record.

Vanilla prices have more than tripled in the past two years to $450 per kilogramme, due to hoarding by local middlemen and crop collectors in Madagascar, the world’s largest producer. The surging price has been exacerbated as an increasing number of large food companies have pledged to use “natural” flavourings made from food sources.
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Let This Spirit Moo-ve You: Make Way For Milk Vodka

Let This Spirit Moo-ve You: Make Way For Milk Vodka : The Salt : NPR:

"The sweet, high-fat milk of about 260 head of cattle — Holsteins crossed with Norwegian Red and Fleckvieh — is separated into curds and whey. The curds are used to make award-winning cheddar cheese. The whey, once a waste product used for pig feed, is processed using a special strain of yeast to convert lactose into milk beer that is then distilled into vodka. It takes about 20 liters of milk to produce enough whey to make one liter of vodka.
... Black Cow, which is clear like conventional vodka, is sold in glass bottles to allow customers to see the spirit. And one sip makes it clear that milk vodka tastes nothing like milk."



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Wednesday, February 8, 2017

These Australian Chefs Are Taking on the World ... and Winning

These Australian Chefs Are Taking on the World ... and Winning - Bloomberg:



"With a number of Australian chefs picked for prestigious kitchens and a growing appreciation of their laid-back style,  2017 should be a big year for their impact on the global food scene. Start with these six, then sniff out your own Antipodean talents."

Beau Clugston, Head chef and co-owner of Le 6 Paul Bert, Paris
Frankie Cox, Executive chef, Two Hands Restaurant and Bar, New York
Dave Pynt, Head chef, Burnt Ends, Singapore
Morgan McGlone, Culinary director of Commissary, Hong Kong; head chef, Belles Hot Chicken, Australia
David Thompson, Restaurateur and chef, Nahm, Bangkok; Long Chim, in Singapore & Australia
Bao La, Head chef, Le Garcon Saigon, Hong Kong

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Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Choose your review and take your chances on WA restaurant Hamptons

John Lethlean in The Weekend Australian 4 February 2017:


On Trip Advisor: Hamptons given four out of five stars with a note that it ranked number one of 11 City Beach restaurants.

The lead review on Zomato's Popular Review section gave it the maximum five.