Har gau from Red Emperor, Melbourne I always thought that only tourists ate on Southbank. It’s the wrong side of the river for me; that strange cultural divide that bisects Melbourne wherein both sides can say that the other is the morally and culturally wrong side. Since the Casino that dominates the south bank of… Continue reading Red Emperor, Melbourne
Category: Cuisine
posts listed by national or regional cuisine
Cambodian food reviewing: You’re doing it right.
It turns out that with only three months left in 2008, Cambodian is not the new Thai. But what has changed over the year is the tone of reviewing. Reviewers are starting to understand how to eat Cambodian food. This week the NY Times revisits two Cambodian restaurants in New York. The results are mixed,… Continue reading Cambodian food reviewing: You’re doing it right.
Maintaining the spider rage
Ten miles out of town, my guide pulls up at a little shack on a winding roadside. This is real boondocks Cambodia. Little kids are staring at me like they’ve never seen a white man before, which they probably haven’t. From “Man bites frog” I miss the days when I used to rant about the… Continue reading Maintaining the spider rage
Mekong on Swanston St: The meaty taste of disappointment
I’m starting to become accustomed to the sense of betrayal that I feel after eating once again at old favourites in Melbourne. Most continue to please (or at least, meet expectations). But Mekong on Swanston Street in Melbourne, to use more common language, has gone to shit. Well before I left Australia for Cambodia, Mekong… Continue reading Mekong on Swanston St: The meaty taste of disappointment
“Fetal bovine serum, you say”
A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with bio-artist Oron Catts which probably rates as one of the strangest I’ve ever had. I used the words “fetal bovine serum” far too often for somebody who writes about food. He spoke of his work as “semi-living” where I might have used the term “undead”. His… Continue reading “Fetal bovine serum, you say”
One-plus-One Dumplings: Uyghur-licious
Chinese food in Australia is for the most part, awful, but it is an awfulness within which you can revel. Steak and black bean sauce, paint-liftingly acidic lemon chicken, your-meat-of-choice stir-fried with cashew nut and cornstarch. Fried rice with peas in it and those little prawns (jumbo krill?) from a can that only exist to… Continue reading One-plus-One Dumplings: Uyghur-licious
Bánh Mì Xiu Mai
Bánh mì xiu mai is the ultimate culinary mashup: a strange interpretation of Cantonese food in a French baguette via Saigon. The banh mi is your average baguette filled with a slap of pate, pickled carrot and stalks of coriander. The xiu mai part is utterly bewildering. Picking the xiu mai from the sauce The… Continue reading Bánh Mì Xiu Mai
French Fry Coated Hot Dog On a Stick: The Recipe
I shouldn’t be left unattended in the kitchen. One thing that struck me about finding the French fry coated hot dog on a stick in South Korea was that they were doing it wrong, the sort of cultural misunderstanding that happens when one culture cooks the food of an unrelated and unattached culture and then… Continue reading French Fry Coated Hot Dog On a Stick: The Recipe