An amazing dining experience- nineteen23

It’s always nice to catch up with good friends over dinner and a glass of wine or two. So when we managed to get an invite up to the mountains, it also coincided with catching up with good friends and was a great excuse to check out nineteen23.

Entering the restaurant, it was already buzzing with laughter and conversations and appeared to be a full house. One big group in the centre of the room, a few couples and the 2 sets of parents sans baby and children- us.

Our hostess Pauline ushered us to our table and we decided on sharing so we opted for the chef-chooses-the-dishes-option. The service was fantastic, our wine glasses were topped and each course came at the right time and we found ourselves loving the food and were fighting over who was going to have the last spoonful.

We started with the braised tuna, cannellini and black cabbage crostini. I can’t describe how good it tasted and we couldn’t wait for the next flavour hit. The next course of fried cauliflower salad, chickpeas, labna and spices. I didn’t expect the sweetness from the labna and crunch of the spices, but the combination was fantastic and the reason why we were fighting over the last piece of cauliflower and labna.

Next course was the ocean trout tartare, horseradish and this dish was nice and light and gone in sixty seconds. That’s how good it was.

We finished our savoury with the grass fed veal flank, eschallot, watercress and fat chips. Those chips were DIVINE and the veal just melted in your mouth and it was at this stage we were getting full but had to try the cheese and squeeze in something sweet.

The cheese plate consisted of maddra aged cheddar, spiced carrot and cumin salad and house made lavosh. That lavosh was goooood and the salad went so well with the cheese.

I’m penchant for sweets so I couldn’t wait to try the pannacotta, poached pears, coffee and nuts. The pannacotta had the right amount of wobble, the pears with the coffee crumble and nuts were such an amazing pairing.

It was an incredible meal topped by good wine and good company. Can’t wait to come back and do it all over again. 

Nineteen23 details
Silvermere Guesthouse
1 Lake St
Wentworth Falls NSW 2782Phone (02) 4757 3311

Fri to Sat 6pm - 10pm

Cabramatta- Little Vietnam

Today we were off to catch up with our good friends TnC at Cabramatta. I was too excited as I love Vietnamese food. Walking down the main street, we saw that the queue for crispy chicken was rather long so Mrs C suggested we try broken rice. I had no idea what broken rice was but it sounded intriguing.

Apparently as some rice grains break in the transport and processing of rice from the field these are sorted out through machinery and is used for the dish Cơm tấm.

Tấm refers to the broken rice grains, while cơm refers to cooked rice. So the place that Mrs C took us to specialised in broken rice and it was served with grilled pork and bì (thinly shredded pork mixed with cooked and thinly shredded pork skin shreds of pork skin dusted with roasted rice powder) over broken rice.

The rice and pork were served with cucumbers, picked vegetables and a fried egg, along with a with a prawn paste cake, trứng hấp (steamed egg). This was also served with a small bowl of nước chấm, as well as a small bowl of soup broth (canh) to cleanse the throat. This place also had a queue but it was a lot shorter and they had high chairs, score!

 

Due to the different size and shape of the grains, the texture of the broken rice was really interesting and the food was divine! Jaeminkins loved the rice too. The kitchen is packed with women conversing in Vietnamese and I managed to get a quick picture whilst going out the back to use the bathroom.

We also had spring rolls which you wrapped in lettuce and dipped into the nước chấm. Sugar cane prawns -chao tom, are a Central Vietnamese specialty consisting of light and fluffy prawn paste wrapped around sticks of fresh sugar cane. We were told to dig in with your hands and wrap the paste into lettuce parcels with bean sprouts, perilla leaves and mint. Also to add vermicelli, stir-fried shallots and crushed peanuts. Dip into the sweet chilli, garlic and fish sauce dressing of nước chấm.

I’m also a massive fan of Vietnamese coffee so to top it off we had iced coffee; probably good that it was so strong to keep me awake after another late night of watching Tour de France.

We then went for a walk through the busy arcades and bought a bag of mangosteens and went halves in a durian. Pepe kept complaining about the smell but I still wanted it all the same. The difference between buying durian in a net is that its slightly cheaper but the fruit inside is drier as it has been kept in sdtorage for longer.

It was too busy to navigate a pram through the stores so I sent Pepe, can you spot the token white boy hahaha.

I also bought nước chấm nhi, which is the table dressing equivalent of extra virgin olive oil of fish sauce and is more viscous and lighter in colour. Pepe wanted to pickle vegetables and apparently palm vinegar is what we should use. I also bought green mangoes and tom yum paste to try making an octopus salad.

We ended the day going to our favourite Laotian sweets place. The lady that makes the sweets only makes a certain amount so once it’s sold out, there’s no more.  It was crazy busy as usual and I bought steamed sticky rice and banana wrapped in banana leaf, cassava and mountain rice slice with coconut cream. These desserts are sooo good!!

After getting home, I managed to drop the bottle of palm vinegar twice and the second time it just shattered. What a bummer, oh well there is always the next trip to Cabramatta to look forward to.

   

Tuong Lai Vietnamese Restaurant

3 Belvedere Arcade Cabramatta

open 7 days 830am-6pm

 

Kaysone -Laotian sweet store
Shop 4 53 Park Rd Cabramatta

closed Wednesdays

Cookbook challenge 13- Steamed pudding with caramelised orange

 

As always the 'Delicious' Magazine never seems to fail and I was up for a quick simple dessert and this fitted the bill perfectly.

This is an amazing light pudding and orange just lifts to the next level. I halved the ingredients as I didn’t have a 1.25L pudding basin and had to make do with a 0.5L pudding basin.

It still turned out pretty good. I put it in the oven for 1hr but it could of possibly be in there for less but it tasted pretty good especially with the caramelised orange and a good dollop of double cream.

Ingredients serves 4

125g unsalted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 2/3 cups (250g) self raising flour sifted

Finely grated zest of ½ lemon

1/3 cup (80mL) milk

Caramelised orange

2 oranges unpeeled sliced into thin rounds

2 cups (440g) caster sugar

Thickened cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a 1.25L pudding basin.

Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer until thick and pale.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Fold in the flour and zest, followed by the milk until the mixture is a soft dropping consistency.

Pour the batter into the pudding basin. Layer a sheet of foil on top of a sheet of baking paper, then folk a pleat through the centre. Use to cover the pudding and tie with string. (I used a rubber band).

Place in a roasting pan then fill the pan with enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the basin.

Bake in the oven for 1 1/2hours or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes clean. Stand for 5 mins.

Meanwhile, place the orange slices in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat then drain. Repeat this blanching process twice. Place orange slices and sugar in a saucepan and add 2 cups of (500mL) water. Bring to a gentle simmer stirring to dissolve the sugar and then cook for 10-12 minutes or until the orange slices are tender and translucent. Set aside to cool in the syrup.

Turn the pudding out onto a platter and top with caramelised orange slices then drizzle with syrup and cream to serve.

 

Surry Hills Walkabout

Today we went discovering Surry Hills. It had been awhile since I traipsed about the area and I was on a task to find a present. Meandering through the busy areas of Darling Harbour, Chinatown, Hillsong conference at Entertainment Centre, I’d forgotten that it was school holidays so it was an obstacle course of people, prams and the mini train.

Once finally free of the crowded streets, we made our way up along Devonshire Street along Crown Street and popped into Vividshop which is a great little store with funky babywear, jewellery, homewares and fashion from India and the South east and Mushu which is another great bag , accessories and on Crown Street. Managed to pick up some great greeting cards from Vividshop.

Then onto

Bourke Street

where we stopped for lunch. There was already a line up at Bourke Street Bakery but the café opposite ‘The Book kitchen’ is where we stopped in. Roomy enough for prams I went for the breakfast special of haloumi, asparagus and poached eggs on toasted bread with lemon oil. Yum Yum. Jaeminkins had managed to sleep for half an hour and without fail as soon as the food came, he awoke.

Luckily I was prepared with an assortment of snacks. I had a tub of grapes, fruit salad, peanut butter sandwich, broccoli +apple+ tuna+ sweet potato mix. At the moment Jaeminkins loses interest in eating just one type of food so I’ve had to mix it up. So it may be the peanut sandwich and then the grapes, and then back to the peanut butter sandwich and just switching it around til he’s eaten enough.

We then went to the park and the bubs play around whilst enjoying the sweet tarts from Bourke Street Bakery. We tried the Ginger crème brulee, chocolate with marshmallow and raspberry and the rhubarb almond tart. Yum Yum.

 Oh I nearly forgot to mention, Jaeminkins discovered eating dirt and seemed to enjoy it quite thoroughly.

We had another wonder along

Crown Street

and popped into Paper2, a store with fine stationary, designer pens. This is where I found a great gift for my friend’s baby naming ceremony.

As we made our downhill descent on

Albion Street

with the prams, we giggled as we saw a guy pushing a pram uphill and he knew we laughing at him.

To end the day we stopped into Cloth and admired the screen printed textiles and then walked over to Shelf/Life. I loved this store it just had gorgeous pieces for the home, it reminded me of the funky stores in Fitzroy Melbourne.

It brought back a lot of memories walking around Surry Hills and I was amazed at how much has changed. Definitely coming back to check out the rest of the shops=)