Leave a little light on for me: Red Lantern, Surry Hills

You know how people say that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive? Well, they’re wrong.

Welcome to Sydney

I travelled hopefully to Sydney a few weeks ago and arrived with the chance to visit Red Lantern, the Vietnamese Restaurant in Surry Hills which is co-owned by Pauline Nguyen, author of “Secrets of the Red Lantern”, her partner, Mark Jensen, and her brother, Luke Nguyen, who are the chefs. 

Many of you will know Luke Nguyen from his television appearances and certainly Red Lantern has its fair share of buzz in the foodie community. However, it was hearing Mark Jensen speak at the Perth Writers’ Festival back in February that my reason for booking a table. Mark was part of panel discussing food (of course!) and his book “The Urban Cook: Cooking and Eating for a Sustainable Future” which focuses on producing, sourcing and eating food ethically. I was impressed by his commitment to provenance and sustainability so when I got the go-ahead for my Sydney trip, I was determined to get a chance to sample the Red Lantern fare for myself.

The Red Lantern website, however, offers the daunting comment that there is about a 2 month waiting list for a table at the weekend. That being said, I reasoned they might possibly have a place early on a Monday for a lonesome Perth girl. (Insert violin music here…) I filled out the online reservation form, hit send then was completely elated when called me on my work phone the next day to confirm my booking. That evening I settled down to do some research. For the most part, Red Lantern has a great reputation – customers usually rave about the food. However, some of the reviews on UrbanSpoon were less than flattering, complaining about the quality of the service and the food. When you are a long way away, you do wonder if you've made the right decision.There was no way to know what it would be like unless I found out for myself. A-quiver with anticipation didn’t even begin to cover my state of mind.

I was staying in Surry Hills so the restaurant was only a five minute walk from my lodgings. I arrived there right on 6pm hoping that I didn’t look too eager. I was hungry (I had only got off the plane from Perth at 4pm) and I was ready for whatever deliciousness they could put in front of me.

I climbed the steep steps at the front of the restaurant to the front porch where a line of red lanterns glowed in the dusk. After the pleasant buzz of seeing my name on the reservation list, I was shown through to a table in the front area of the dining room. I was sitting near a bricked-in fireplace, an old Chinese radio was on the mantle and so was a jar containing a preserved snake! The bookshelves had copies of “Stories from the Red Lantern”, “Tales of Sa Pa”, “Indochine” and “The Urban Cook”

The waiters were all just lovely, can I say that right away? There I was, Nigel (Nigella?) No-Mates, taking up a perfectly good table for two all by myself, but they were so welcoming and didn't make me feel awkward for being a solo diner.  I ordered a glass of Lowe 2006 Cabernet Franc and checked out the menu. There was so much that I wanted to try!  Friends had made recommendations about the pork ribs and the squid and other Red Lantern specialities. How could I possibly limit myself to just one of two dishes? Then one of the waiters told me that as I was dining alone, they could devise a ‘menu for one’ using half-serves and entrees as mains so that I could try a few things. I almost cried with happiness, placing my choices in her hands and knowing that she would take care of me.

She put copies of "Indochine" and "Stories of the Red Lantern"on my table for me to read while I waited. I didn't have to spend long browsing the beautiful photographs and recipes before she came back with my first course – a half serve of prawn and perilla rice paper rolls with dipping sauce (Goi Cuon). What a wake-up call for my jaded traveller’s palate! The minty perilla hit first, super-fresh and filling my whole mouth with vapours that were quickly followed by a wave of ocean as I chewed through the juicy prawn. The dipping sauce was a nutty balance of sweet, salty, tart, mellow. It was a great way to start.

Next came the chili salt squid (Muc Rang Muoi). At the time, I said it was going to ruin me for salt and pepper squid forever, because nothing could be as good as that ever again. I think I was right. When I think of squid now, I just think of this dish. It was so light in colour and texture, a delicate golden mass on a bed of shredded cabbage. There was nothing oily or cloying about it, each piece was dainty and crisp, the chili providing warmth and the lemon-pepper dipping sauce adding tang and zest. Now if I could get a paper cone of this glorious stuff at the Perth Royal Show, I would be a happy camper indeed!

I ordered another glass of wine. Then my main courses came – Asian greens with mushrooms (Cai Xanh Xao) and deep-fried rice cakes with tiger prawns, caramelised pork strips and pork floss (Banh Tom). Up until this moment, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed meat floss, either pork or chicken. When I was a child, I knew it from the plastic packets that our Singapore relatives brought with them when they visited the UK. Of course, the Red Lantern pork floss was a far-superior version to the highly-preserved one that I knew from the past. It melted over the prawns which themselves offered a textural counterpoint to the deep fried rice cakes which were divine – crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. The whole dish was lifted by drizzles of shallot oil. Of everything I ate that evening, this was my absolute favourite. I know this because when it was all gone, I was very sorry that there hadn’t been more.

The Asian greens were tasty – I gave up counting how many varieties of mushroom were concealed among the oyster-sauce-drenched leaves. I had as much of this as I could before I abandoned it, believing myself full. I had eaten well – there had also been a fluffy bowl of white rice. Four courses were more than I had ever hoped for! I was done.

But then I was asked if I would like to see the dessert menu.

Well, I’d come a long away (over 4000 kilometres!) so I thought I’d better just take a little look. To be polite, you know? And that was when I saw the Vietnamese Espresso Martini and the Banh Cam Mang Cau – otherwise known as sesame and rice flour dumplings with soursop and served with black sesame ice cream. Sesame! Soursop! I would have been crazy not to.

What makes a Vietnamese Espresso Martini Vietnamese, is the fact that the martini-glass has been coated with condensed milk. If you’ve ever lived and worked in Asia, you’ll have memories of tea time with a tin of condensed milk and a spoon there on the table ready to stir into your beverage. Or you might even have been lucky enough to be treated to condensed milk sandwiches. At any rate, condensed milk can and should be considered an Asian cooking staple and it was a delightful moment to find it incorporated into a cocktail that I love.

The dumplings arrived hot, straight from the deep fryer – three blond spheres speckled with white and black sesame seeds sitting in a puddle of soursop juice as the black ice cream melted over the top. Me, full? Ha. I ate ever last bit. And I scraped the plate. Perhaps I even skimmed it with a finger-tip to get that last little drop of ice cream… The memory of the warm glutinous dumplings and heady sesame fragrance is making my mouth water as I type (not good for the keyboard but you get the idea).

At the end of the meal, I was asked if I would like to buy any of the books. I seriously considered this as I don’t own any of them. Alas, they are big, heavy books and I had a baggage allowance of 23kg only, so I had to say no. Now that I am home, I will definitely be finding copies for my kitchen.

I don’t normally post about the cost of food but I think it needs mentioning that my five-course meal including rice, two glasses of wine and a cocktail only set me back $119. You’d be hard-pressed here in the West to get a meal for this amount at a restaurant with a similar reputation.

I travelled hopefully to Red Lantern, I arrived, and all my expectations were not only met but surpassed. Any worries that had been generated by my reading of UrbanSpoon comments quickly disappeared. I could not work out why some people had been so critical - I found everything to be of an extremely high standard.I cannot recommend the food and the service highly enough and strongly suggest that you check out the option of an early weekday booking if you can’t wait 2 months for a table. A second Red Lantern is opening in Sydney soon, so there will be more chances for people to try this amazing cuisine and be offered this excellent service.


I'll be back in January - travelling with certainty and arriving with an appetite. I will definitely be booking ahead.

Easter - who said it was just for kids?

Who doesn’t love a Cadbury Crème Egg? Well, loads of people as it turns out, but I am not one of them. When I was a child, the whole idea of a CCE was made even sweeter (if that is possible) because of the parental disapproval that accompanied their consumption. Not just chocolate, but oozing fondant as well, it was a parent’s and dentist’s and nutritionist’s nightmare. Nightmare or not, the CCE Wikipedia entry tells me that they are produced at the rate of 1.5 million per day in Cadbury’s Bournville factory. I am not the only one, it seems, who delights in this sweet treat.

So when a challenge was put forward to create a recipe involving a CCE, I thought it would be fun to get involved. The symbolism of Easter also worked well for me – time to resurrect the ol’ blog – especially as one of the criteria was that the recipe needed to be posted by Easter Sunday.

So, my tribute is a grown-up spin on the taste of my childhood; still sticky and sweet, still a tooth-shocking mouthful, still an indulgence, still bad for you but still so good. Here is the Cadbury Crème Egg shooter:

I was concerned to get the flavours as close to a real CCE as possible. There had to be chocolate, there had to be something approximating fondant. It had to look like a CCE as well as taste like one.

The advocaat was a no-brainer for the yolk. The colour and consistency of the scented egg liqueur was just what I needed. There had to be chocolate too. I knew the Cadburys actually does its own liqueur – Cadbury Crème Liqueur, and I did have a good hunt around for that. However, it was not to be found which was disappointing as it would have been so perfect. I ended up buying some Crème de Cacao instead. 

This left just the ‘egg white’ to find. I had thought at first that I would use white Crème de Cacao, but when I got to the bottle shop, my eye was immediately drawn to the bottle of Sheridans and the pure white of the ‘cream’ side. It was too good a match to go past.

At home, a bit of experimenting proved that the Crème de Cacao had to go first, then the advocaat, then the white cream. I didn’t have any shot glasses in the house (I know! What is wrong with me???) but an old-fashioned sherry glass yielded a pleasing egg-like shape and I was delighted with the result.

And what did it taste like? It tasted  like a CCE - with a kick. It was just a rich and sweet - more genuinely eggy because of the advocaat but still as gooey and sinful, perhaps more so because of the booze.

 Flash on. It's crude, I know, but it shows the layers more clearly.

However, I was aware that I hadn’t actually used a Cadbury Crème Egg in my recipe so just to take it one step further, I hollowed out a CCE that I had to hand, and filled it with the same 3 liqueurs. I have to admit that this idea was inspired by recent photographs I had seen of a “Bunny Alexander” cocktail ( a brandy Alexander served up in a Lindt Gold Bunny). The result was a much smaller shooter but with the reward of eating the chocolate shell afterwards.

 Almost indistinguishable from the real thing...until you drink it!

If you would like to check out some other interpretations on the theme, then there's a savoury option offered by Blue Apocalypse on her blog and a sweeter-than-sweet CCE pavlova made by Eatmeetswest on hers.

 It was a fun challenge and, with luck, the start of a new life for this blog. I'm all about coming back from the dead. Let's hope it lasts! Happy Easter, everyone!

Everything in the garden is lovely.

Well, right now it isn’t. Right now, it’s a blistering 36 centigrade at just half past eleven in the morning. Summer, true summer, is finally here and out in the garden, the yellowing leaves and drooping stalks attest to the unrelenting Western Australian heat.

But I’m not writing about my garden today. 

There’s a little corner of Fremantle where I like to go because I have friends there and because their gardens are that happy mix of form and function that I can only dream about. I have every admiration for people whose gardens are full of little crops and fruiting trees; where the water from the laundry goes straight onto the banana plants and where the happy ranks of nodding sunflowers are destined to become chicken feed eventually.

Such a garden is Katy’s garden in South Fremantle where we went for a truly memorable meal the other day. I have been privileged to watch this garden transform since Katy bought the house just under a year ago and am even luckier to have been able to be on the receiving end of the goodies it is now producing.

A shady veranda is a good place to drink a cold glass of sparkling wine on a hot day. Home-grown cumquats, preserved in vodka and spices, gave a great marmalade taste when the fruit and the liquor were added to improvise a cocktail as well as providing a golden Christmassy colour. It is the season to be jolly and after six or so glasses of marmalady fizz, jolly is all that you can be.

 Drunken cumquats

 Cumquat & liqueur in a glass (and a bit of free promotion for Happs Winery in Margaret River...)

 Golden cocktail

Once the sun is down, however, the back garden, a wide space, flanked by eucalypt and Norfolk pine, and with brick-edged beds of veggies, was also pleasant as the Fremantle Doctor rolled in off the ocean.

Our meal came from the veggie beds in front of us and from the chicken coop at the side of the house. A fluffy frittata was the tasty combination of heirloom tromboncino and the eggs which Kay, Effie and Celia (the names are a chicken joke, you work it out) had laid.

 Curly tromboncino

The cherry tomatoes were superb. Pulled from a vine outside the kitchen door and slow-roasted in herbs and olive oil, they were sweet and flavoursome and my favourite part of the whole meal.

 Sweet scarlet tomatoes

The salad was home-grown peppery rocket with shaved parmesan. Once again, the freshness was so apparent in the crispness of the greens. 

 Homegrown deliciousness

As darkness fell, Katy got out a mosquito coil (it’s a West Australian summer – you have to keep things real) and some dessert wines. We had the choice between a Redgate white port and a Talijancich 10 year white liqueur. We decided on the latter because it smelled of Christmas pudding and it went down so well with coffee.

 A Tale of Two Stickies

 Vintage glasses

If there is anything better than good simple tasty food and plenty of good wine to drink, with friends, outside, in the summer, I have yet to find it.

I came away with a box of fresh eggs, a full tum and a wonderful sense of well-being. Yes, everything in the garden was indeed lovely - the food, the setting and the friends.

The Christmas Train - verse, images and good wishes.

It’s Christmas Eve and a goodly part of today will be spent in the kitchen. My plans include the butter chicken curry which the kids have requested for their dinner tomorrow as well as a cucumber sorbet that will form part of the dessert. It’s good to be at home, my family around me. It’s good to be able to afford to give everyone a splendid meal and gifts that will make them smile. All is good and that it as it should be. 

It’s Christmas Eve so indulge me while I get a little philosophical. 

Some Christmasses (is that how you make the plural? Spell check doesn’t seem to like it.) ago, I wrote a poem for my children. One was still a baby. The other was a toddler newly-diagnosed with an intellectual disability. The challenges that lay in the future seemed huge and insurmountable. I wasn’t sure if I was personally up to meeting those challenges but I did know that I was going to have to give it my best try. The poem was my way of trying to put into words what I wanted for them both. Material gifts I could manage, but the other things were going to be harder to achieve.

It’s Christmas Eve so please be kind. I play with words in the same way I play in the kitchen. Not a professional, just an enthusiastic amateur trying to find a way to express what I want for my kids and what we all should want for ourselves.

It’s Christmas Eve and my gift to you is my poem, The Christmas Train. 

Love & peace & happy times in the kitchen for 2012

From

The Strawberry Thief

THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN

For my children.


One Christmas evening
While you two were sleeping
I sat outside
In the warm summer breeze
Sat outside under
The old jacaranda
Watching the Southern Cross
Shine through the trees

All of a sudden
I spotted a movement
Perhaps a comet
More likely a plane.
So I looked harder
And, scarcely believing,
Gasped when I saw
In the starlight, a train.

I couldn’t move
As the engine chugged closer
Pulling two wagons along
In its wake
All I could do was sit,

Marvelling in silence.
The train thundered near,
The world started to shake

The glorious steam engine
Was dazzling, was golden
It lit up the night sky
As if it were day
The huge wheels revolved,
Sending out sparks of fire
They turned on the track
Of the wide Milky Way

I saw that a driver
Was steering the engine
He clanged the bell loudly and
Oh! What a sound!
The chimes seemed to echo
All over the heavens
The sky shook
The trees shook
The petals rained down.

I saw too, a stoker,
With sacks full of opals
And these he was shovelling
Into the fire
Out of the chimney
Came puffs of pure rainbow
Which glimmered and curled
And swirled higher and higher

I saw the first wagon -
A wagon of crystal
This wagon was loaded
With wonderful toys
All carefully chosen
(For I recognised them)
The gifts I had picked out
For my little boys

I saw the rope ladder,
The puzzles, the teddy,
The bicycle, tricycle,
Tiny toy cars
The picture books, crayons,
The hoop and the scooter
All on that train
Which was crossing the stars

I thought of the months I spent
Saving, selecting
To get what you wanted
To buy you the best
I’d dreamt of your smiles
As you unwrapped your presents
And blithely agreed to
Your every request

Then came the next wagon
All misty and pearly
Its shape pale and fragile
Against the black sky
And inside this wagon
I saw all the presents
I wanted to give you
But I couldn’t buy

Beautiful, ribbon-wrapped boxes of talent
Vials of intelligence
Flagons of wealth
Sackfuls of happiness and popularity
Heaps of humility, peace and good health.

Cartons of friendliness,
Crates of good judgement
Stacks of longevity
Parcels of love.
Oh, how I wanted
To stop that pale wagon
And pull all those precious gifts
Down from above

The bell rang again
And the train puffed on upwards
Through clouds made of opals and stars
It steamed on
I looked and I listened
And watched it grow smaller
Then, just like the dawn star,
It gleamed and was gone.

I heard the bells ring
And I knew it was Christmas
I went back inside
You were both still asleep.
Neither of you had been
Disturbed by the engine
Your heads on your pillows,
Your slumber still deep.

I sat by your beds
And I made you a promise
That I’d do my best
As each Christmas goes by
To help you achieve for yourselves
All those gifts
That I saw in that wagon of mist
In the sky.

Notes that were written when I rediscovered the poem after a few years:

(copied October 2007)

I found these verses, incomplete – many lacunae, in a note book that was about 4 or 5 years old. I recognise it as having been written during a very unhappy Christmastime when I wasn’t sure what the future would bring and could only hope for the best. Interesting to note that I wrote this long before “The Polar Express” film hit movie theatres with a similar message about the intangible gifts that mothers want for their children. Perhaps it is a bit maudlin and sentimental but it did move me to tears when I re-read it after so long.

(recopied 2009 – fixed up the lacunae. It is not a million miles away from “The Night Before Christmas”, I see that now. I still hope that it bears more of a resemblance to W.H Auden’s “Here is the Night Train” because that was the metre I wanted to copy. There was a conscious effort to make it an Australian poem. The sentiments are still the same.)

Maple caramel slice

'Tis the season to be jolly. I guess.

I want to be upfront about this. If you love the kind of house where every surface is be-spangled with tinsel or hung with decorations, where the halls are really decked with holly, where there are cinnamon candles and spiced room sprays for those wonderful Christmassy smells, where the front of the house has enough fairy-lights to power a small European country and the kitchen is stocked with baked goodies for rosy-cheeked visitors and carolling urchins to feast on...don't come to my house.

 My favourite Tudor rose tree decoration

While I think that cinnamon candles and spiced room spray would be great fun (because by spraying one across the other, you could make a huge Christmas flare - WHOOMPH! and everything smells of roast cinnamon AND singed hair!), my Xmas prep mostly consists up getting our modest tree out of the shed, shaking off the redbacks and throwing on a few baubles.

Even in the kitchen, where I feel huge Suzy Homemaker pressure, the lack of air-conditioning and the summer heat conspire to keep me out unless I really have to be in there. Still, Christmas baked goodies are nice and, because I want the kids to look back one day and have fond memories of their mother  - every now and then I try to extend myself to a few treats.

So here is a super-quick recipe for you to use or, if you want to be really jolly, you can make with the kids - maple caramel slice.

You will need:

250 grams of plain biscuits (I used Arnotts Scotch Fingers)

250 grams butter

a 400g tin of sweetned condensed milk

3/4 cup of maple syrup (the real stuff, because it's Christmas. If you buy 'maple-flavoured syrup' then you're just a big ol' Scrooge, you will deserve the resulting nastiness you get and and bah, humbug to you too.)

2 blocks Lindt 70% chocolate (you can use cheaper chocolate if you like, but the 70% makes such a nice bitter contrast to the sweet caramel)

First up, crush the biscuits - in a plastic bag with a rolling pin or in a food processor, it's up to you.

Melt 125g of the butter and combine with the crushed biscuits.

Line a 28cm baking pan with baking paper (you must do this or you will never get the slice out of the tin at the end) and use a spatula to press the biscuit mixture evenly into the bottom of the tin. 

Put the tin in the fridge to cool.

Combine the condensed milk, maple syup and 100g of butter in a sauce-pan over a medium heat. When it simmers, stir continuously until the mixture thickens and it golden - about 10 minutes should do it. 

Pour the maple-caramel mixture over the chilled biscuit base and return to the fridge.

Break up the two blocks of chocolate. Place in a microwave-proof dish with the remaining 25g of butter and melt in the microwave for 1 minute on high. Remove from microwave, stir until all chocolate is dissolved and the mixture is glossy. 

Pour over caramel mixture and return to the fridge until set. 

Cut into small pieces with a sharp knife...

...and and serve to rosy-cheeked visitors or carolling urchins.