Fujiya, Sydney CBD

Fujiya is one of the first places The BFF and I frequented when we started going out to dinner together on a weekly basis.  I'd just moved back to Sydney from Broken Hill and I was desperate to eat as much Japanese as my stomach would allow.  We'd go here for weeks in a row and I'd never get sick of the place. Fujiya was the first place where I tried Soft Shell Crab - it was love at first bite and I've been addicted ever since.  It's also located right above Baskin and Robins...doesn't hurt to finish things off with some Peanut Butter Chocolate ice-cream. Does it? No.

It's been YEARS since The BFF visited Fujiya however.  I guess we just got caught up in visiting all the new places...but if you don't revisit the old ones occasionally you'll turn around one day and they'll be gone. 

Each time I've visited Fujiya I've been seated on one of the tiny little booths that surround the edge of the restaurant...the booths are great for two or three people, but boy those wooden benches are hard, even for a well-padded bottom like mine.  The view over bustling George Street takes my mind of my derriere however, and some Green Tea ($3.80) warms us both up quite nicely.

We kick things off with one of our old-time favourites Eel Rice ($12.80) - fried rice studded with meaty pieces of flaked eel. At first it's not as good as we remembered...it tasted kinda grassy (weird I know). We left it for awhile and moved onto the Miso Eggplant ($9.80) and when we revisited the Eel Rice later on it was great - just as I remember it. Very odd indeed.  I ended dropping my brand new camera into the Miso Eggplant, smooshing some of it beyond recognition (the eggplant, not the camera), but it still tasted OK - so no harm done (to the eggplant anyway).  I've tried making Miso Eggplant at home a few times but it's nowhere as good as this - charged eggplant that is melt-in-the mouth soft with just the right amount of Miso giving it a slight saltiness.

The BFF orders a Gyuniku Maki ($6.90) - grilled beef wrapped around pieces of green shallot.  I've had this before and it's GOOD, the seared beef partners really well with the shallot.  I decided on the Grilled Shitake Mushrooms with Shallots ($4.80). WOW - this was FANTASTIC, so fantastic I ordered another serve all to myself. The mushrooms were so meaty, yet tender at the same time and the shallots were cooked through but still firm to the bite. I think the seasoning really set this dish apart - I think it was white pepper with salt, but The BFF swears it's MSG (such a cynic)!

Being a chip fiend I find it hard to go past Renkon Chips at a Japanese restaurant these days. We decided to make it healthy by adding it to a salad ($9.80).  That works right? All of a sudden junk food becomes health food. I love the dressing that they put on Japanese salads - it's tangy, and just a bit sweet.  We also order a Spinach Salad with Sesame Dressing ($5.30) - more healthy food.

Ah, hello Soft Shell Crab Roll ($9.80), my old friend.  Our Soft Shell Crab roll was perfect, wrapped tightly so the rice didn't fall apart as I wrangled it with my non-existent chopstick skills. When you can't use chopsticks a tightly wrapped roll makes all the difference - as does perfectly crispy pieces of Soft Shell Crab.

Fujiya is at 609 George Street, Sydney.  Phone them on 9283 2268.

Mahjong Room, Surry Hills

There is something really special about The Mahjong Room in Surry Hills. It's not your stock standard Chinese restaurant.

The decor is thoughtful and warm.  There are no laminex tables or tissue boxes on the table. The dining room feels modern yet has a traditional "oriental feel" to it.  The food is GREAT - traditional Chinese food (says the Aussie gal from the country town up North) with a clean, modern twist. It's 100% better than anything you'd ever eat at your local Chinese. For me it had that elusive "thing" that makes a restaurant feel welcoming...and wonderful (plus a meal deal voucher and you KNOW how much I love them).

Our meal kicks off with a never ending cup of tea, which is lovely on what has turned out to be a rather wet, and not-so-warm night.

The voucher deal includes four entrees of the restaurants choosing.  They happily whip up some non-red meat/lamb/chicken options for us - I forget to mention my quirky eating habits when I made the booking. My Bad.  I thought The Boy would be unhappy that his San Choi Bao come sans meat, but he loved the mix of finely diced vegetables, topped with crunchy noodles. The Steamed Scallops were lovely, fresh and light - and I loved the addition of enoki mushrooms to the garnish.

The poached Blue Swimmer Crab Gow Gee were sublime. Really meaty and flavoursome, and I loved the light broth the dumplings came submerged in (not a drop was left when the waiter came to collect the bowl).

The Boiled Vegetarian Dumplings held their own against the wonderful Crab Gow Gee.  Filled with choy sum, black fungus, and pressed doufu (aka Tofu) they were hearty and packed with simple, yet delightful flavours. Again I slurped up every last drop of the broth.

Our first main was the delectable Tiger Prawns with Sugar Peas. The prawns and snow peas were wok fried in XO sauce (is that Chinese for Kiss Hug Sauce)? Really REALLY good. The Snow Peas were so fresh that they still had a wonderful crunch to every mouthful.  The Steamed Fish of The Day (Barramundi) was cooked with ginger, shallot and chili came served on a bed of wonderfully soft, slippery (and really tasty) Tofu. Both of these mains were a winner in my book - and who knew Tofu could taste SO good?

Of course we have room for dessert. Who could say no to Chocolate Banana Spring Rolls - with lychee ice cream.  The Boy's eyes rolled back in his head when he bit into the Banana Spring Roll - that good huh Mister? I loved the lychee ice cream, slightly tart yet sweet at the same time. 

I haven't been to Billy Kwong's or Spice Temple yet, but I imagine that The Mahjong Rooms take on Chinese food is quite similar to theirs. Clean, simple, modern cooking techniques and ingredients that really highlight what good food is all about - just not quite as expensive as those places. It's a modern take on Chinese food and I loved it. LOVED it!

The Mahjong Room is at 312 Crown Street, Surry Hills, Sydney Telephone 02 9361 3985.

Poultry Masterclass at Chophouse, Sydney

Miss Piggy attend the Poultry Masterchef a guest of Chophouse.

I've been very lucky to attend two cooking classes recently, both in professional kitchens.  The first, a pork crackling masterclass, was held in an intimate kitchen at Restaurant Atelier - where two (sometimes three) chefs work closely to produce fine French food.  The cooking class at Chophouse, in Sydney's CBD, was a whole different kettle of...steak. Head Chef Eric Tan leads a kitchen team of 16 in a kitchen nearly big as my apartment! This team work under the pump every single service to turn out all things meat...along with some poultry!

I was very fortunate to be one of six bloggers invited to a Poultry Masterclass being held just for us at Chophouse - a cavernous and dark steakhouse nestled discreetly under an office building on Bligh Street in the city.  The main dining room sits under an huge arch of curved wood, making me feel a bit like I'm a player in Jonah in the Whale (or Jonah in the Great Big Cow).  It's a great space - large, but cosy at the same time and it feels a little French Provencal to me.

At the class Chef Eric Tan along with his two Sous Chefs, Elliott and Matt, are showing us "how to treat our birds right". The Chefs all think this play on words is hilarious.  Given these guys work around 17 hours each day their real life birds (ie their girlfriends) are often long-suffering and a little neglected. One of the Chefs has come up with the perfect solution to this - date a Chef!

From left: Sous Chef Elliot, Head Chef Eric Tan and Sous Chef Matt

All of the poultry served at Chophouse is Free Range, mostly from Thirlmere Poultry and during the beginning of our class Urban Food Market arrive dropping off our birds in a cardboard box (not recommended treatment for your real-life "birds", fellas). As well as the free-range birds, the pork at Chophouse is free-range, all the eggs used are free-range and there is a good selection of pasture fed beef. Why have I not been here before?

To kick things off we are shown how to debone a chicken.  Not sure I'd be able to manage this unsupervised at home - it seems easier for the novice cook like me just to leave the bones in and eat around them! If I doubt my technical abilities at deboning a chook, then the poor quail that is the next-bird to receive the deboning treatment by these expert chefs would stand no chance in my kitchen.

Chook and quail...both deboned.

The quail is poached in the most divine smelling master-stock (twice) before it is given the deep-fry treatment in readiness of our lunch.  The finished product is a truly wonderful piece of quail - delicate, full of wonderful flavours from the Masterstock and super crunchy from it's stint in the deep-fryer.

The deboned chicken is stuffed with a sourdough crumb - the stuffing goes under the skin and chicken is tender, moist with a crispy skin. Sublime.

Something I CANNOT wait to try at home is a poached chicken in a simple stock that Chef Eric showed us (AND this particular chook goes in bones and all)!  The dish is fairly simple to prepare yet is so full of flavour. The chicken is SO moist and I love the simple salad of Coriander with a Shitake Mushroom dressing that accompanies it.

We are also shown the best way to pan-fried Duck Breast - something I'm also very keen to try at home.  Duck is something that has always scared me - in terms of cooking it at home, though I've also met some pretty scary Ducks so lets just say that Ducks can be a bit freaky both in and out of the kitchen.  The pan-fried Duck Breast, along with some Confit Duck that was prepared earlier, both go into a beautiful salad of leaves, candies pecans and blue cheese. Wow!

Spending time in a working restaurant kitchen is a real privilege - especially for an office drone like me.  It's a peak into the world of the professional chef, a chance to see their passion for their careers and the produce they work with.  It's a chance to appreciate how much hard work, effort, blood, sweat and tears goes into the food I enjoy so much when dining out.

Chophouse is at 25 Bligh Street, Sydney. Phone them on 13 0024 6748.

Cafe Ish, Surry Hills

A few months ago The Boy and I become parents.  Foster parents...for the Cat Protection Society in Enmore.

One of our first kittens "Blackie" who was handed into CPS as a stray. She was 500 grams when we got her.

Since March we've had a parade of cute, furry, fluffy, mischievous, playful, sweet little kittens come through our house.

When you have kittens blogging becomes a bit...hard!

They've chewed the books on our bookshelf, broken antique crystal bowls, chomped on power cables, shredded our lounge, pooped on the floor, peed on the lounge and given us no end of joy. We get them at a young age, fatten them up, get them used to being around pesky humans who want to pat them, play with them and cuddle them non-stop as they try and wriggle from our clutches. When they reach 1kg we return them to Cat Protection so they can be desexed and adopted out to their furr-ever home (CPS is a no-kill shelter so everyone finds a home eventually).  Most of the kittens are found as strays so they are shy and a bit freaked out. By the end of their stay they've made themselves quite a home. It's hard to say good-bye.

This is one of our first kittens "Bobble Head" who was found dumped in a garbage bin. Yes, really! Who could do such a cruel thing is beyond me.

Needless to say "the drop-off day" is a sad affair. There are tears (mine, which then sets off The Boy). This time I decided we needed to have something great to look forward to after the drop off rather than returning to our sad kitten-less home.

Our latest bundles of mischief joy...Omo, Spot, B1 and B2.

Enter brunch at Cafe Ish. I've been to Cafe Ish quite a few times for dinner, so I thought it was high time we returned during daylight hours.  This Surry Hills cafe blends Japanese cuisine with native Australia elements and it's a truly unique dining experience.

Chef Josh Nichols used to serve up the most delicious Crispy School Prawns at dinner which I don't think are on the menu anymore. A quick (begging) tweet to Josh a few days before our brunch sees a hot, crunchy bowl of the Crispy School Prawns land on our table (and he wouldn't let us pay for these - so thanks VERY much Josh). The prawns are delicious. Fried to perfection, rendering the entire prawn edible: head, tail, shell and all. They take my mind of our four bundles of joy that won't be waiting at home for us later.  Sigh.

I was having a serious dilemma on what to order. I really wanted the 8 Hour Roast Saltbush Lamb Sandwich ($9.50), but I also REALLY wanted Ai's Freaking Awesome Fried Chicken.  The Boy and I struck a deal and went halves in each dish.  The Lamb Sandwich was ENORMOUS! The door-stop sized house-made bread was delicious - soft and fluffy bread with a crunchy, almost sweet crust. The sandwich housed a generous serving of shredded lamb, dengaku eggplant puree, mizuna, organic fetta and red onion.  For $9.50 this is a bargain.

Ai's Freaking Awesome Fried Chicken ($14.50) is exactly that - freaking awesome!!!  The chicken is super crispy, but deliciously moist at the same time.  It has a great balance of sweet and sour and comes served with Japanese rice and miso soup.  It is seriously good and seriously addictive - I need to go back from more ASAP!

Niecy Poo has joined us for brunch which is great as it stops The Boy and I feeling quite so melancholy about our kitten loss.  She chooses the Kara-age Soft Shell Crab Omelette which is the dish that has really put Cafe Ish on the map as a "must eat" brucnh/lunch destination in Sydney. It's such a creative, left of center dish and it's fantastic.  Deep-fried soft shell crab is nestled up against avocado - both hide within a thin omlette. The omlette is topped with a sweetdressing of shallots, garlic, chilli, soy and ginger dressing and is served with rice and miso soup ($16.50).

Because we are in mourning we decide something sweet is justified as it will help cheer us up (ok, maybe I'm begin a little dramatic but it's a good excuse to eat dessert, right)?  We wanted something big enough to share amongst the three of us and Josh brings over a plump house-made brioche that is filled with jam and served toasty warm! YUM!

We finish this off with a Wattleseed Macchiato, a coffee I've heard a lot about and I'm glad I've finally gotten to try it. It's quite sweet and nutty (a bit like me)!

 Cafe Ish is at 82 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Phone them on 9281 1688.

Moo Gourmet Burgers, Newtown

Our meet up (or #burgerparty as we were calling it on twitter) all came about when @vegeTARAian put out the call for the best vegetarian burger in town. I suggested Moo...not because I'd been there, but because I'd heard really good things about them. Thanks to the power of Twitter before we knew it we had over 20 bloggers putting their hands up to join Tara and I for burgers. A big thanks to Detective Chow for being Organiser Extraordinaire.

Also MASSIVE thanks to Moo Gourmet Burgers in Newtown for letting 20 food-bloggers invade their restaurant with cameras blazing, take over their courtyard and eat them out of house and home. We were greeted with champers and goodie-bags - all totally unexpected and greatly appreciated. 

Looks like someone was pretty excited about the #burgerparty too!

As well as meeting a great bunch of new people, I was REALLY excited to be eating at MOO as all of their meat and eggs are free-range - AWESOME job.  There's not really too many restaurants in Sydney where you can choose just about anything on the menu and know that it's free-range (or at least not too many places that let it be known upfront on the menu which I think personally is a really important thing to do).  I hope one day this changes (the menu thing; and the meat thing too), but in the meantime GO MOO! And you know, their burgers aren't much more expensive than any other fancy burger joint.

Before I get to what I ate check out the BLACK and WHITE BURGER ($15.00) that @creamymiddles ordered.  Have you EVER seen mozzarella that is more oozy than this?  And look at that egg! 

I can't seem to go past a Cheeseburger these days.  I guess I'm trying to find an Aussie version of the AMAZING Cheeseburger I had at Shake Shack in NYC.  Moo's CLASSIC CHEESE BURGER ($12.00) was pretty close, quite messy (as all good burgers should be) and really tasty.  The beef is 100% Australian Angus Pure Natural Beef (grass fed) topped with cheddar cheese, tomato, mixed leaf lettuce, home-made mayonnaise and tomato relish.  The bun was nice and soft which I think is key to a good burger.  A side of crispy, fluffy hot chips will cost you $4.00. They are good. Get them!

I went halvies in my burger with @niccooks who choose the uber-decedant sounding DUCK and BACON BURGER ($16.50).  The patty is made from 100% free to roam Muscovy Duck (happy duck = happy Miss Piggy), delicious smokey tasting free range bacon (happy bacon = VERY happy Miss Piggy), tomato, mixed leaf lettuce, home-made mayonnaise and orange jam (I assume these oranges are happy too).  Nic order a side of beer-battered onion rings ($4.00) - man, these were AMAZING! Possibly the best onion rings that have ever passed these lips.

Full yet? We were all clutching our stomachs, but managed to squeeze in some CHEESY BACON CHIPS (Basket Only $8.95) that Moo brought out for us to try.  These were wonderful - chunky home style chips topped with cheese and crispy free-range bacon.  I loved that the chips weren't drowned in cheese or bacon...they were only "a little bit naughty".

All of this great food needs a great drink to help wash it down. Moo brought out some shot glasses of MOOteaser Milkshake for us to try, a heady concoction of Maltesers, chocolate syrup and malt.  In the end @creamymiddles and I decided to share a Strawberries and Cream Milkshake ($7.00) - a pretty mix of strawberries, malt and whipped cream.

As we all know food bloggers (and die hard piggies) have a separate dessert stomach. Even if you're busting outta your jeans and full to the brim there is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS room for dessert...especially if you find a dessert-buddy to share with (thanks @creamymiddles).  I loved this Banana Split ($7.50) - so retro, so yummy.  We choose Chocolate Topping and a sprinkle of crushed Tim Tams.

Moo Gourmet Burgers are at 232 King Street, Newtown. Phone them on (02) 9565 400.