RESTAURANT REVIEW:  THAINAMIC, CANLEY VALE

Last Monday I caught up with a friend I haven't seen for 7 years. Yes, its' been that long.  We had to rearrange seeing each other twice so even though I was sick that day, I managed to make my way to Canley Vale to have some Thai food.  One Friday when I ate at Red Sichuan next door to Thainamic, the restaurant was packed.  For a Monday the restaurant wasn't empty so food was assumed to be pretty good.  Compared to Thai Paragon though, I think it lacks taste.  The red duck curry I had seemed hotter than I'm used to.  It wasn't that creamy and didn't smell great.  My friend however loved her Penang Chicken Curry as it wasn't as hot and she thought it tasted good.

Red duck curry

Chicken penang curry

We had desserts after our meal.  The servings look small but was definitely filling.  They had more duck pieces than usual in my curry so it made me full but I wanted to try and compare the fried ice-cream to Holy Basil.  I must say I prefer the ice-cream at Holy Basil and the sides with the coconut was a lot better at Holy Basil too but it's not too bad and is a great alternative say if you don't want to wait in line for too long as Holy Basil is always busy.

Chocolate icecream

Fried icecream

Overall I think there's better Thai restaurants I've tried in the past but nevertheless, was just a good meal on a winters cold day so a bit of spice is always welcome.

Summary Review of Thainamic


Food rating: 6.5/10


Ambience rating: 7/10


Service rating: 6.5/10


Price: $$ (affordable)


Overall rating: 6.5/10




Thainamic
Shop 4-5, 47-49 Canley Vale Road
Canley Vale  NSW  2166
PH: (02) 9727 7798
Opening Hours:
Sun to Thurs 5-10pm
Fri to Sat 5-11pm

SEAFOOD COOKING SCHOOL REVIEW: WITH GULLIAUME BRAHIMI

Today is Bastille Day - the French public holiday and I get the pleasure to watch a French chef, Gulliaume Brahimi from Gulliaume at Bennelong.  Gulliaume is a real charmer with a sense of humour who can definitely entertain the audience during his cooking demonstrations.  Sometimes you can get bored just watching and learning someone cooking but you get to learn new techniques and ask away questions so for $155 for three meals, it was worth it.

Seafood cooking school with Gulliaume and Kristy the assistant

We made three dishes that are on the entree menu at the restaurant.   The easiest of them all is the scallops with herb butter.  Cooking and preparation probably takes about 10 minutes.  6 minutes to melt butter and chop up the herbs to mix with the butter and then baking them in the oven for about 4 minutes.  The herbs used were chives, chervil, french tarragon (Gulliaume emphasised that french tarragon is better than the ordinary ones because of the texture and smell), flat-leaf parsley.  Garlic and butter were also essential ingredients.   The herbs are finely chopped and not processed through the blender.  I found that baking it in the oven for 4 minutes was a little bit too raw for my liking, maybe just another minute would be perfect as suggested by the recipe by my cooking group decided to do 4 minutes at 200 degrees celcius instead.  Gulliaume suggested to allow the scallops to be translucent not overcooked so timing of when you take it out of the oven is important.  With the extra herb butter that is left, you can wrap it like a sausage using glad wrap and re-use for steaks or as garlic bread.

Scallops with herb butter

Scallops with herb butter

Next we made the red mullet with cavolo nero, chestnuts, olives, grapes, anchovy oil.  I never tried cavolo nero before.  It is an Italian cabbage and can be found in Leichardt.  Can probably substitute this with cabbage if you can't find it at the grocery stores.  This dish requires a bit of effort because you need to roast the chestnuts and almonds and blanch grapes and cavolo nero.  You also need to chop brussel sprouts, chives, anchovies and bake ligurian olives.   My team believes that if you don't have the dressing the red mullet would have been bland.  The red mullet was just seasoned with salt, nothing else.  When it comes to cooking the red mullet, you would need to press hard against the pan as the fish starts to shrivel when you cook it, and it won't lay flat.  Cook the skin side first until it goes golden brown then you can flip over to the other side but only for about 10 secs or so because the fish will be overcooked otherwise.  I kind of left it too late but the fish was cooked overall.  Red Mullet has quite a profound taste and its best to cook it the day that you bought it.  A fresh one will have a firm translucent texture.

Red mullet with cavolo nero, chestnuts, olives, grapes and anchovy oil.

Our last dish was prawn ravioli.  I think this has got to be my favourite mainly because I'm not a fan of brussels sprouts and I can't have too much butter from the scallops. The tomatoes were so rich and sweet and goes will with the cute cucumber balls.  The lemongrass oil is very fragrant and you can actually add more to enhance the flavours when making the oil.  The prawns were fresh and whipped cream was great.  When plated, the dish looks sensational.  The interesting part of this was that pasta was not used but wonton wrappers for the ravioli.  Gulliaume mentioned it lasts longer than pasta and the texture is a lot better than using pasta.  I'm definitely going to try and make this dish as some other couple in the team made this exquisite dish.

Prawn Ravoili with tomato,cucumber, finger lime, lemongrass vinaigrette

After a long two hour demonstration, it took us as a group two hours to complete the three entrees before we set up to dine.  At this point you can also purchase a signed copy of Guilliaume's book as well - one called Gulliaume for $75 or the French Safari with Mauve for $55.  I bought one for a friend who loves cooking and eating.  She's the one that introduced me to the love of food.  The French Safari is really easy to follow so thought I'd get the one for her as simply to follow is better than having complicated recipes to make.

Dining room

The Seafood Cooking school has daily classes.  You can find them on their Sydney Seafood School website.  Popular classes get booked out quickly so make sure you book in advance.  I wanted to do the Justin North class but given that his restaurant's last day was Saturday 14th of July, I don't think he'll be going to teach at the Seafood cooking class.  I'm kicking myself for not going to eat at Becasse before it shut down.  Oh well, at least I managed to eat at Quarter 21.   A lesson learnt, try and eat at the recommended restaurants before they close down.  You'd think that if it's good that it will continue to operate but some things do happen in life as it's not all rosy.

THAI PARAGON RESTAURANT REVIEW: MOSMAN, SYDNEY

Thai Paragon is located in the heart of Mosman near the main street of shops next to La Banette, a french bakery store owned by vietnamese people.  The service here was pretty mediocre.  They sit you down and bring out the food with no hassle.  The settings are very traditionally thai with elephant sculptures and Thai lamps.  The restaurant had a special with Groupon and my friend could buy Pad Thai or Green Curry for $5 and we also ordered more food from the menu.  Green curry is supposed to be hot but this green curry was more mild with creamy coconut and was sweeter than usual.  I prefer this dish but if you're into traditionally hot food, you won't like this at all.  It is described as assorted vegetables (mainly green beans and broccoli) with green chill paste, topping with lime leaf, fresh chilli and basil.

Chicken Green Curry - $16.90

The Pad Thai was sweet but also sour from the tamarind sauce.  I could keep eating this dish.    It is described as thai's famous Thai style rice noodle with tamarind puree, egg, fried tofu, bean spouts, garlic chives, crushed peanut, lemon and dried chilli, and chicken on the side.

Chicken Pad Thai - $16.90

Other two main dishes we chose were a plum duck and soft shell crab salad.  The menu had photos of the dishes which is great as you could see the lovely presentations especially from the plum duck.  It is a roast duck served with a blend of plum sauce spiced with garlic, cinnamon served with shitake mushrooms and bok choy stir fry (asian fat bum green).  The duck plum sauce was sweet and duck was not crispy but skin was really nicely cooked.

Plum roast duck - $26.90

The soft shell crab was amazingly soft and really tasty on the inside and very crispy on the outside.  It looks like it was baked and shrivelled but it was so delicious.  I didn't quite like the paw paw side salad as it was a bit too hot for my liking.  The crispy soft shell was dry cooked with salt smoked dried chilli, chopped shallot, dried red onion and garlic served with papaya salad.  No wonder it's so flavoursome and tasty with dried red onions, garlic, shallots and chilli.

Crispy soft shell crab with papaya salad - $15.90

Before our mains we also ordered an entree, Thai fish cake for $6.90 for 4 pieces. It was pretty nice but I think fish cakes are pretty standard across many restaurants.

Home made fish cakes with sweet chilli dipping sauce

The food at this place is one of my favourites for Thai so far.  Even though other restaurants boast and claim their Thai food is better but I like this place because the food is hot but bearable and I like their specialty dishes - such as the soft shell crab with papaya salad and roast duck plum.  They have other dishes that on chef's special such as lamb in garlic and pepper sauce, and sweet chilli deep fried barramundi.  However, I haven't been to Newtown for some time so there's probably better Thai food places out there.  Though the ambience is Thai and the food is really nicely presented and still pretty generous, it gets the thumbs up from me.

Summary Review of Thai Paragon:


Food rating: 7.5/10


Service rating: 7/10


Ambience rating: 8/10


Price: $$ (affordable)


Overall rating: 7.5/10



Thai Paragon - Mosman
143A Raglan Street
PH: (02) 9960 4247
Website: Mosman Thai Paragon website
Opening Hours:
Lunch Fri to Sun 11.00am to 3.00pm
Dinner Mon to Sun 5.00pm to 10.00pm

Note: There's also another chain of Thai Paragon in North Strathfield too.
 

PUMPKIN SOUP RECIPE: HOME MADE INSPIRED

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin soup is another simple winter warmer and given that it's also freezing these days, I thought I better get some made.  There's all kinds of pumpkins - the usual pumpkin, butternut but we opted for the Japanese cut ones.  I got a hand blender as well which comes in handy when you have a lot of soup.  It's also very nice with some sour dough.  I bought some from La Banette from Mosman and when it's toasted, it's so crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Pumpkin soup

PUMPKIN SOUP RECIPE

Ingredients:
250g of pumpkin
Small saucepan half filled with water.
1/2 brown diced onions
4 small mushrooms
2 carrots
Salt and pepper
Cream (optional)
Sour dough

Method:
1) Fill a small saucepan half filled with water and boil.  Cut the pumpkin into slices after peeling whilst waiting for water to boil.

2) Put the diced pumpkins into the boiling water.  Slice carrots, onions and mushrooms and place into the boiling water too.

3) Keep stirring until all vegetables are soft.  Add salt and stir.  Will take about 20 minutes.

4) Use the hand blender to blend evenly.

5) Serve with sour dough bread and add cream if you wish.  Garnish with coriander and sprinkle with pepper.

Pumpkin soup is really hearty and has got to be one of my favourite soups.  Simple and delicious again!

Pumpkin soup

BAKED PEAR WITH APPLE CINNAMON PUREE AND ACTIV YOGHURT RECIPE: HOME MADE INSPIRED

Baked pears are surprisingly very delicious and a popular winter dessert.  I didn't think that I'd end up making this but the french pears "Beurre Bosc" were on sale at Coles for $1.70 a kg.  I had a bit of indigestion and apparently these pairs aids digestion from being high in fibre.  I also bought some vanilla bean activ yoghurt to serve that also aid digestion.

Beurre Bosc Pears - in winter season

Baked pear with roasted walnuts, cinamom apple puree and vanilla bean yoghurt

This was made by reading a few recipes and I didn't have apple juice so I decided to make my own apple sauce which turned out better than expected.  I also didn't have vanilla bean to soak the pears in vanilla bean so I just baked the pears without any added flavours but it had its own natural sweetness.  Some cooks like to add wine to the baked pears but I kept it simple.  Because it was simple, I bought activ vanilla bean yoghurt for extra taste.  It turned out to be simply delicious and very healthy alternative to other desserts.

BAKED PEAR RECIPE:
Ingredients:
For Apple Sauce
2 Gala Apples
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 of filled water in a small saucepan (probably about 2 cups of water)
1-2 Cinnamon quills

2 French pears
1 tablespoon of walnuts
Activ Yoghurt or Icecream

Method:
1) Peel and dice the apples into small chunks so that you can place in a small saucepan filled with water.  Stir away until apples are soft and look like they become a puree (don't add too much water otherwise takes too long to make the puree).

2) Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Pour the puree into a baking dish and add cinnamon
quills (one or two depending on your preference).

3) Peel the pears and dice into two and then place onto the baking dish with the apple puree.  Place the dish in the pre-heated oven and bake for 20-30 minutes.  Then turn over, add walnuts and bake for a further 20-30 minutes.

4) Plate up and serve with yogurt.

For chocolate lovers, you can heat up a saucepan with boiling water and have a metal dish over it and melt some dark chocolate but this time do not cut the pears so that you can drizzle the pears with the dark chocolate and present it nicely.  I used Lindt Dark chocolate 70% cocoa and which is great for dark chocolate lovers.

Pears peeled and baked in the oven

Pears drizzled with chocolate and added yoghurt

I'm not a particular fan of dark chocolate so next time I'll make it with milk chocolate and add some raspberries with it to keep myself happy.  This has got to be one of the easiest recipes and it looks devine :)!