Hobart, Part I

Over the Easter long weekend, I abandoned all responsibility and escaped for a few days to Hobart, Tasmania. Although various people had tried to prepare me for the chill (and kept reminding me to pack warmly), I didn't quite believe them when they said it would be cold. I was also bemoaning the limited size of my sports bag, which was one third full when I threw in my towel - so regrettably I couldn't bring any of my fluffy marshmallow socks! Fortunately, I survived the biting cold, strong winds, and occasional rain, thanks to my favourite woollen winter coat and trusted scarlet umbrella.

Mures Lower Deck

Arriving in Hobart on a public holiday meant that no retailers were open and that our food choices were limited. As it took longer than expected sorting out the car rental, it was way past lunch time and we were starving. This meant finding food was our number one priority, which was quite an arduous task, what with interpreting the GPS's garbled messages and navigating through the various one-way roads. We happened to come across the 200-over-year-old Victoria Dock, home to numerous fishing boats and fish and chip vendors that were actually feeding the hungry.

My full bladder demanded that we eat somewhere with indoor plumbing, so we retreated into Mures Lower Deck, a cafeteria style eatery with a fancier component on the upper deck. Mures Lower Deck is family and group friendly, with large tables, stuffed toy souvenirs, and ice cream for the kids. As a random note, I thought the water dispensers were peculiarly sophisticated, with chilled and room temperature options.

Furniture!

 Ordering is at the counter and they give you a buzzer, just like in a food court. I won't elaborate too much on the food - it's standard fish and chips, except pretty fresh. Also, I was ravenous at the time and all I remember was devouring my share in an absolute frenzy.

Fisherman's basket: $14.90 (snack), $19.90 (meal)

Breadcrumbed scallops: $11.90 (snack)

Greek salad: $7.90 (small)

Battered fish: $14.90 (2 pieces)

Shark/ fish heads and stuffed animals.

Next on our agenda was grocery shopping! With technology what it is, we whipped out Google Maps and looked up our nearest Woolies, which was an easy 10 minutes' walk from Victoria Dock. Having paid for 2 hours of parking, we had plenty of time to walk over to Woolies to pick up a few necessities and walk back.

Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

 It was evening by the time we settled into our temporary home and we figured there was time to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing. We decided on the botanical gardens, as its website stated that it's open all year round. Being the last day of March, we were fortunate enough to have until 6.30pm instead of 5.30pm to look around. I have to say that the gardens were pretty impressive. Though smaller than Sydney's botanic gardens, each exhibit was carefully designed to suit a particular theme. I also really appreciated the considerable variety of plants and flowers. Sadly, I didn't get to see the whole garden because we ran out of time, but there was an arbour of rose plants that reminded me of smaller scale European gardens.

Entry fee: Gold coin donations

Opening hours: 8am to 5.00pm, 5.30pm or 6.30pm, depending on the time of the year

Time spent: approximately 2 hours (you could spend half a day there easily)

 

  Prince of Wales Hotel

 We decided to head to Battery Point for dinner, which was interesting to look at as a suburb. The houses were cottage-style and had so much character. Battery Point also had a vintage-looking independent petrol station and a convenience store that charged exorbitant amounts for their biscuits.

Cool petrol station!

Prince of Wales Hotel (I keep nearly typing out the word hospital) is located on 55 Hampden Road. The restaurant is located further inside, past the area with locals on bar stools catching up with each other on beers.

I ordered a whole-baked rainbow trout stuffed with herbs and lemon. It came with a side of mango salad and thinly sliced rosemary potatoes. I was actually not expecting much from this meal - simple but hearty pub food, perhaps, but nothing that tasted as good as what was actually served.

The trout was pretty bony, but the flesh flaked off easily, and it was quite easy to avoid any unpleasant stabs to the mouth as long as you avoided the head of the fish. They added just the right amount of lemon to the stuffing inside - a good amount of acidity to kill any fishiness, but not so much as to make you pucker your lips in distaste.

The rosemary potatoes were sliced thinly as if in a gratin, but baked until golden and crunchy. The mango salad was moist from the generosity of the dressing, and it tasted light and tangy from the mixture of mango, spinach leaves, capsicum and french onion.

Rainbow trout ($22.50)

Below is what my travel companions had:

Seafood chowder

The seafood chowder came out burnt (you could smell it from across the table), but they replaced it without a fuss. The garlic bread was lovely and soft.

Cheese platter

 The calamari came drizzled in coriander and lime aioli and served with vegetables.

Panko rubbed calamari

Tasmanian scotch fillet steak

Sydney Madang & N2 Extreme Gelato, CBD/ Chinatown

Eating out is always a bit of a situation where you have a friend with life-threatening nut allergies. After a while you get a sense of which cuisines are generally safe, which cuisines are big no-nos, and which ones require you to interrogate the targeted restaurant. In the case of my friend, Japanese is the failproof choice, as there is minimal risk of cross-contamination. However, on our most recent excursion I really didn't feel like eating Japanese and thought, 'Hey wait a minute, there are no nuts in Korean bbq!' and proceeded to drag my friends around the city looking for a place where we could eat bulgogi.

We entered the alleyway leading to Sydney Madang and saw there was no line (it was 6pm on a Friday night, so all the other diners must have been busy having their pre-dinner drinks elsewhere. Once we left around 8, there was quite a long queue.). Ever the opportunists, the four of us snagged the last free table upstairs. We should probably have asked whether they use peanut oil in their cooking (my friend can't eat any nuts, but the slightest particle of peanut will send her to hospital). Alas, we neglected to do so and my friend is still alive, which is a pretty good sign.

Sydney Madang gives you your usual condiments - accompanying sauces, kim chi, fish cakes, seaweed and that really yummy cold potato. Unfortunately, rice isn't included so we had to order that separately. For four of us, two bowls worked out just nicely.

Condiments

Our pork belly arrived first, with plenty of fat to go around. It positively melted and oozed around the hot plate, creating a lovely mess of grease. Not exactly the most appetising description to read, but fat is always a great ingredient ;) They were less generous with the raw garlic and lettuce (about 5 thin slices of garlic and one handful of lettuce), so I didn't bother eating it the authentic way and just shovelled pork, rice and bbq'ed garlic into my mouth.

Pork belly ($15.00)

Midway through cooking the pork belly, our Korean seafood pancake was laid in front of us. In most Korean places I've been to, the pancake is either crispy but not tasty, or tasty but soggy. Much to my delight, Sydney Madang made it both crunchy and delicious. Inside were the usual seafood pancake ingredients - octopus, shallots, chives, etc. While ordering, we had been tossing up between the small and the large, and I'm glad we decided on the large, as I smuggled slice after slice onto my plate. It also provided a nice carby alternative to rice to balance out all that meat on the bbq.

Seafood Korean pancake, Large ($22.00)

Finally, the main event was delivered - the meat platter containing a little bit of everything - mussels, prawns, octopus, marinated pork, marinated chicken, marinated beef and bulgogi! The meat was fresh, and it was all flavoured beautifully. However, I think my favourite on that platter was that bulgogi beef in the centre - tender, succulent and marinated nicely.

Meat platter ($53.00)

I had my doubts about whether we had ordered enough, but at the end of the night, I was almost uncomfortably full. It was probably also best to have ordered three dishes for the size of the table we had - there would have been no space for a 4th!

And, of course, you know you've had a great meal when you exit the restaurant smelling like barbecued
meat!

N2 Extreme Gelato

As Sydney Madang only has a bit of ice-cream for dessert, we decided to pass on having it there and ventured to N2 Extreme Gelato in Chinatown. I'd heard good things about it, but looking back on it now, I think the experience is more theatrical than anything - it's pretty cool to see smoke, beakers and people making ice-cream in lab coats.

The ordering system is slightly confusing, as patrons tend to crowd around the cash register even when they have finished ordering. Then again, that's like typical food court behaviour, so you just end up asking tonnes of people whether they are in the queue.

Their range of flavours on each visit is limited, and there is a lot of risk involved. One of my friends selected the "Salty Jesus Juice", a bright red sorbet-like concoction, containing salted coke and red wine sorbet. It was quite unpleasant to eat - though it tasted like sour, bitter coke (which matches the description), there was something quite jarring about the flavours. She ended up throwing it out after a few scoops.

I was quite content with mine - a "Strawberry Blonde Geisha", consisting of green tea and bits of strawberry. The consistency was creamy and these particular flavours mixed well. Nevertheless, I don't think it'll be top on the list the next time I feel like gelato - I much prefer Messina, with its larger range and milkier/ creamier textures. And to be honest, at $6.00 a scoop, I'd rather go to Coles and pick up a tub of Connoisseur.

1 scoop ($6.00)

Watermoon, Potts Point

Last Saturday I went to the Cremorne Orpheum to watch a French movie, a series of which were being screened in various independent cinemas. This particular movie was called Un Plan Parfait, or 'Fly Me to the Moon', which starred Diane Kruger and was lumped into the romance category. Though the description sounded like your typical chick flick, only in French, it was more comedic than romantic, as well as utterly hilarious! The movie ended pretty late but we decided to check out a particular joint in Potts Point. Sadly, when we arrived some time past 9.30pm they were still full and we were told that we would be given a table in an hours' time!

Needless to say, our dismay and hunger led us to venture elsewhere for food, and Watermoon happened to be in great shape to receive us. With the kitchen closing at 10pm, we had to decide on our order pretty quickly - though the waitstaff stressed we could take our time, we felt bad for showing up so near to the closing time. It was just as well we couldn't go through with the original plan, anyway, as I left my camera at home.


 We decided on a bunch of dishes to share with a bowl of rice each to accompany the meaty side dishes. The rice was standard Japanese rice, boiled just fine (if they don't stuff up plain rice you can't say much else about it!).

Rice ($2.00)

We ordered the chef's special of roast duck, which was a dish of moist and tender duck meat with a smidgen of fat attached. The sauce was sweet and light - it was served at room temperature, so it was a bit cooler than I would have preferred.

Roast duck ($7.80)

Next up was the geso karaage, a mass of battered squid legs with a serving of tartar sauce. The tartar sauce was creamy, so don't expect a kick out of it - tangy, spicy or otherwise. The squid legs were crisp and great with the spicy sauce from the chicken dish. There was also a lot of it, considering it was priced at less than $6. We were struggling to finish it off at the end.

Geso karaage ($5.80)

The spicy chicken was probably my favourite of the night. The chicken was only slightly oily, yet quite moist, and the spicy sauce was actually spicy.

Spicy chicken karaage ($7.80)

 The takoyaki (octopus) balls were quite mushy and soft, lacking the crispiness that some other restaurants lend to it. There also wasn't much substantial meat, so if you're used to chewy octopus inside, you might want to pass on this one.

Takoyaki ($4.00)

 We also ordered a marinated squid, the sauce of which moistened the rice perfectly. The squid was nice and springy - just be careful when eating this one because they leave the tough membrane inside which can lead you into temptation to choke!

Marinated squid ($9.80)

Verdict: Great prices, friendly staff, nice food.

The Forresters, Surry Hills

About a month ago I decided to check out The Forresters (having done the opposite thing to what everyone else has done and visited Queenies first). To my dismay, the entire premises was swamped with people and I thought that getting a table (even for 2) would be hard. However, we grabbed drinks and hovered around a particular spot until a table cleared. This method was successful as we only had to wait for about 10 minutes. Due to how busy it was, the cutlery and serviettes weren't replaced so we picked some up from the kitchen when we retrieved our food.

And I know the photo below suggests that there's a castle/ dungeon vibe going on, I would have to say it's not really themed - just a casual bar with good food and plants.

The popcorn squid was salty and lightly battered. The squid was nicely tenderised and the green peppercorn mayo helped to lessen the impact of the squid being deep fried.

Popcorn squid ($14.00)

 There was a lot of chicken nugget - pretty much battered chicken, much like with the popcorn squid. The chicken wasn't overly dry like I expected, but it was incredibly salty. I don't think I would order it again. Portions are really generous - the both of us were really struggling to finish this and the squid.

Chicken nuggets ($10.00)

 The pulled pork slider contained peanut mayo and Korean slaw. The pulled pork was a little dry and I was disappointed by the dryness of the miniature burger buns - it's the same texture you get from leaving white bread out for a day.

Pulled pork slider ($5.50)

 The fish tacos were the highlight of the visit - the corn, slaw, guacamole and wedge of lime provided enough juice to make this truly enjoyable to eat. The fish didn't taste too much of seafood - in fact, it integrated so well amongst the other ingredients that it was hard to tell it tasted of fish.

Fish taco ($5.50)

I also had a ginger beer based cocktail. Loved it.

Chicky babe ($10.00 a glass)

I personally prefer the dining at Queenies because of the greater variety of dishes to choose from - as well as the fact that much of the food at the Forresters is too strong - in salt, oil and dryness. I guess they appeal to different crowds. The Forresters is good for those mainly there to drink and mingle with groups of friends with a bit of food on the side.

Selah, Circular Quay

Selah is situated about a minute's walk away from the high-tourist-density part of Circular Quay. It comes across as providing business-casual dining at a decent price, and if I were to go by the photos on the website alone, I would wholeheartedly agree and wonder why they aren't hatted. Upon visiting, I felt let down by the flavours - the portions are reasonable and the food is tasty, but the dishes lack that special something which makes you excited about the prospect of returning. I did, however, have a really nice glass of pinot noir, which makes me want to go back to sample more of the wines on their list.

The word 'selah' is used frequently in the Old Testament book of Psalms. It indicates a pause which one should use for reflection and deep thought. Selah the restaurant indeed cultivates a relaxed atmosphere, with its gentle lighting and simple furniture. As I visited at dinner time, we were amongst the non-corporate patrons, who filled the place with a gentle buzz. The waitresses were friendly enough... Just not as polished as the other higher-end restaurants I've visited recently (I do appreciate my constant refills of water).

First, the wine. I hadn't had a good red in quite a while and I settled on the 2011 Holm Oak pinot noir. A rich, bright red in colour, it was smooth on the palate and had a light fruity scent. Delicious and pleasant to drink.

Pinot noir ($11.00 a glass)

The soft and dense bread that arrived next was not bad. We were served organic sourdough, served with parmesan oil (cheese steeped in olive oil for a lengthy period of time) and little bits of rosemary.

Sourdough ($4.00)

I have started to refrain from eating all my bread before the entrees and mains in order to better utilise precious stomach space and any tasty leftover sauces from my mains. Which is why I am glad I could eat some of it with my entree. My friend and I shared an entree because we were scared we wouldn't be able to stomach 3 courses each. We were nearly right - 2.5 courses sufficed to make me really full. The entree that arrived was large and made us glad we decided to share - we had also mentioned our intention to do so to the waitress, so I'm not sure if they had thoughtfully adapted the entree to suit sharing or if it already comes like this. In any case, I think this was a highlight of the evening.

Trio of tuna ($22.00)

The spring roll pastry was not like the conventional deep fried vietnamese skin - it was crisper, breadier and thicker. It would have made quite a nice canape with the pairing of the skin with the threadlike meat of tuna. The spring rolls were served with a mayo-like rouille sauce.

Spring roll

I next tried the tuna tartare with cucumber. The tuna was fresh and similar to sashimi, except sliced into cubes and compacted into a little slab.

Tuna tartare

Finally was the seared tuna. The tuna itself was, as with the tartare, fresh. However, the tuna slices were a bit dry, which I thought was a pity.

Seared tuna with sesame & herb crust

My main was pan-baked saffron snapper with scallop stuffed zucchini flowers, quinoa and fennel salad, and vanilla bean shellfish bouillon (a broth). The fennel & quinoa salad were served at room temperature and quite refreshing for a warm night. The stuffed zucchini flowers were by far the highlights of the dish, crisp and lightly battered. The snapper itself was cooked well, but the bouillon sauce tasted slightly strange at first. I got used to the flavour quickly and found it enjoyable eventually, but that relates to my first paragraph about the flavours not being fantastic. At the risk of sounding like a certain judge on MKR, I enjoyed the generosity of the sauce on the plate. You can guess what the rest of my bread was soaking up!

Saffron snapper

For dessert, I ordered the hazelnut baklava, crunchy filo pastry with nuts inside. It was accompanied by slices of fig, vanilla bean ice cream, and Pedro Ximenez syrup. I loved the syrup, the baklava was crunchy and mouthwatering, and the figs helped to balance off the high amount of sugar I was enjoying. I have no complaints about the vanilla bean ice cream.

Hazelnut baklava ($15.00)

I also ordered tea - gunpowder tea! For a type of green tea, it was pretty thick and strong, but it went surprisingly well with the dessert.

China gunpowder tea ($4.00)

For completeness, these are my friend's dishes:

Spatchcock ($34.00)

Apple caramel custard, apple gel, butterscotch mousse & oatmeal ($15.00)

Verdict? It's alright.