The whole of Australia is Perigord truffle crazy right now. In the past few weeks alone I’ve eaten some of the best and most aromatic truffle dishes that I have ever come across. Chefs report they have never seen so many from Australia summer ones imported from France.

Today, one hour out of Melbourne about ten minutes the other side of some McBungalows I was part of a group hunting for truffles led by Spice (aka Mazasuka Star Struck), who is two weeks away from giving birth to pups, and her owner Sue Brimacombe.

We are on Drago and Ivka Javor’s five year old plantation of some 210 saplings which yielded its first truffle last year.

Digging out the truffle with a spoon.

Spice, a two and a half year-old Australian Sheperd, was trained with truffle oil on a piece of cotton wool for a month or so. She snuffles at the base of the tree and will scrape the ground where there may be a truffle.

Ivka Javor sniffs her prized truffle

Ivka then sniffs the ground folowed by a few of the chefs on the Australian Culinary Federation outing.

A couple of Perigord truffles the size of marbles are snuffled out and this giant one, about 140 grams dirty. Drago says that the ideal size is about 70 or 80 grams.

Spice is rewarded and on to the next tree.

The whopper.

Look around you. There is probably one similar near you right now. This is the New Zealand Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc ( the most popular and ubiqitous white wine in Australia) of cafe chairs.
I keep tripping up over it everywhere. This picture was taken in Hamilton (worth avoiding). I’ve seen it in the Yarra Valley. It’s spread like a rash through my home suburb St Kilda - Mirka at Tolarno, Banff, Spuntino etc.
Are we doomed to sit on generic chairs while we enjoy the sunshine outside our favourite boutique restaurants and cafes?
Does anybody know where it comes from or what it’s background is?
Could it be an alien life form colonising this planet? Or perhaps a communist plot?
Any sightings outside of Victoria or Australia?

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt writing about the opening of restaurants is that it rarely goes to plan. As a writer it is easy to be caught out. Openings can be delayed by months or even years. And so it was that on Thursday the 26th I rocked up to Cumulus Inc (45 Flinders Lane +61 3 9650 1445) for supper to find the chef (Andrew McConnell of Three, One , Two and formerly Circa The Prince) and architect, his wife Pascale Gomes-McNabb, and the smell of drying varnish.

Luckily I had my mate James, my construction consultant, to sniff out the joint. The level of detail impressed him especially the rubber knobs under the chairs and bar stools protecting the wooden floor (which was itself damaged in construction delaying the launch before the last minute delay). There’s the two bars flanking the main space, marble beside the open kitchen and an impressive specially processed steel bar by the, um, bar, which is lit by the large metal warehouse windows.

The next night the Martini Monster found it closed also while I was still crammed into the space the size of a matchbox in a tram. It left us to score two lucky bar seats at Movida (although the MM wasn’t so lucky with the maitre d’ she handed her mobile number to; we’ll never be able to return).
As I write this Cumulus still hasn’t got its liquor license but at least it is open for breakfast and lunch (although not supper) and some pretty good coffee.
I managed to find the joint open for Saturday breakfast on a recent scouting expedition in search of the perfect all-terrain underpants. To appreciate Cumulus Inc you need to appreciate what is known as moderation. I’m fed up with breakfasts in Melbourne because most cafes show no restraint. The portions are huge and I usually leave half of what’s on my plate. I’d pay the same for half the food and my betting is that a few others would two.
What I want is not one huge bowl of gunk but a proper breakfast, which usually means three courses.
This is exactly the sort of breakfast McConnell provides. I start with some fruit, melon and strawberries (okay, I know it’s not the season but they were good).

I then move onto sardines, five trimmed fillets on a square of toast, the seasoning and garnish restrained. Jak has a perfectly cooked eggwith smoked salmon, dill and the interesting addition of sorrel which has a lemony zing.

At this point a work colleague of Jak’s arrives sometime before noon. It turns out Cumulus has a similar breakfast demarkation to McDonald’s and they have to wait until midday to order lunch (quail nicely presented on a skewer and some great looking pork belly) which like everywhere else nowadays is to share.
The food appears to be good value and you’d shouldn’t expect trencherman-sized portions. What you get is food prepared with the kind of attention to detail that you’d expect from the chef.

“prominent Melbourne nightclub owner Peter Iwaniuk labelled the meeting “deceptive and biased” and said he was angry that no hospitality industry representatives were asked to speak.

He argued that many of the suggestions were ridiculous and said licensed venues were not to blame for the city’s social problems. He accused the speakers of provoking trouble rather than working productively to address concerns.

“Encouraging a lynch mob mentality in residents who wish to turn entertainment precincts into sleepy hollows is hardly about restoring the balance, the theme of the Government’s new alcohol action plan,” he said.”

From the Saturday Age

11.09 Sunday 29 June. My Sony- Ericcson is buggered and I want to take a picture. There is blood splattered on the street outside Area 61 on Fitzroy Street and down towards the Seven Eleven. Pretty much any Sunday or Monday morning there will be blood splattered on the pavement somewhere on the street.

7.45 Saturday 28th June. Grey Street, corner of Clyde Street. Ten men in dinner suits are pissing against a wall in the street. Their executive bus is stopped on Grey Street.

Peter Iwaniuk you are biased and have no fucking idea what you are talking about.

I suppose London has a similar thing happening with its traditional Gentlemen’s Clubs. Then there is the more modern Milk and Honey in New York, and now London (and opening the less exclusive Match Bar in QV fairly soon once a few liquor licensing problems are overcome).

Anyway, last week I was talking to Masako Fukui from Kei’s Kitchen (you may have read about their classes on Grab Your Fork) about kaiseki and she was telling me about the culture of restaurants in Japan - and the biscuits too.

“There is a very exclusive biscuit company in Japan called Kaishindo and they even have a website but you can’t buy biscuits from them. You have to have an introduction.”

Masako has eaten some that her mother Kei, a kaiseki chef of over 20 years experience, got through a friend. On her website she says:

“This practice of turning back first timer is known as “ichigensan”, and for example, Kaishindo, a most exquisite handmade biscuit company, will only accept orders from people who have had a personal introduction into the clientele circle. This is the 10th year of my desperate search for an introduction”

Masako says that there are lots of restaurants in Japanese that would not even be considered in Australia as a restaurant. Many may be in dark dingy places that are difficult to find. “They do not have toilets. There are also a lot or restaurants that just won’t allow anybody off the street come in.”

“It’s very exclusive. Somebody who knows the restaurant has to take you there. Sometimes they serve the most exquisite food. But as a food critic or a regular punter they won’t allow in.”

For somewhere that is so difficult to find, Gills Diner is awfully busy. Blink or become distracted for even a moment and you’ll have missed the skinny Gills Alley.
And two of the three people I have met there did just that, arriving late after circling the Elizabeth St end of Little Collins St.
Perhaps all these people who make it on time to Gills have hacked iPhones, which even without GPS can triangulate your position and guide you to a destination with Google Maps. It wouldn’t surprise me as Gill’s is a very cool place, the valve amplified Vinyl (Morissey!) being the first clue. The lack of website the second.
With the windowed division between dining room and kitchen it puts me in mind of some Bauhaus inspired refectory, with plain wood tables and the sort of chairs that would have once been at home in a down at heel college.
What it lacks in sound absorbing paneling it has in character and charm not to forget an excellent bitter herbed vermouth on the wine list. I wasn’t really paying attention so I can’t give you the name.
On my first visit I was with somebody who from now on will only be known as “Big Red” for his rapacious taste for reds and the unreasonably voilence, mostly Shiraz, he forces on me. We ate a whole pig I think.
On my second visit I was lucky enough to be with my pouting personal sommelier, who all of a sudden has developed the conscience of a locavore which is at odds with her palate of a Burgundy (Barolo or Rioja for that matter) whore.
I’m taking it as given that the list will be fashionably quirky when I eventually come to read it properly.
The food is a squint away on a Blackboard.
Oysters, freshly shucked natch. The rustic terrine is the size of a doorstep, garnished with miniature gherkins and enough for three or four.
The mains are meaty, plenty of pig, and corned beef is a fixture. There is one fish dish.
Like I said I wasn’t really paying attention. The food is good but doesn’t photograph well. Have you ever noticed that about rustic food? Lasagne especially (which isn’t on the menu here) always turns out looking like a cow pat.
Anyway, if you haven’t already, get an iPhone (or put your name down for one) and visit.

‘Too much service in my opinion is practically worse than none. You don’t have any opportunity to enjoy the company of the people who you are with.’

The words of Michelle Garnaut, the former Melbourne restaurateur who launched M on the Fringe in Hong Kong in 1989 and M on the Bund in Shanghai in 1999. (She hopes to have the 400-seater Capital M in Beijing open for the 2008 Olympics, building works around her permitting.)

I recently interviewed her for the business magazine In The Black together with Luke Stringer from Oyster Little Bourke St. Garnaut’s words haunted me as I was over serviced at The Flower Drum recently and nearly knocked a waiters glasses off as he topped up my water for the fifth time in as many minutes.

‘Good service — you don’t even know its there,’ says Garnaut. ‘It’s about anticipation. It’s not about the waiter. It’s not about the person servicing you.’

Booking a restaurant table is a contract for service. What a diner expects in a fine dining restaurant is very different from the medium or bottom end of the scale.

‘If you go to McDonald’s, service is not part of the deal. You can expect that the people serving you when you are in a queue are polite and efficient. That is as much as you can expect,’ says Garnaut.

The story was part of a series called In The Trenches which bring out the management lessons from different industries. The first one I wrote back in 1995 was about what we can learn from the pressure cooker of the restaurant kitchen. I’m currently going through the entire UK and US Kitchen Nightmares series to update this story with more fucking words from the genius management guru himself, Gordon Ramsay.

One aspect that has come to mind since that story is personal presentation and hygene after Gordon Ramsay told someone they had bad fucking breath.
If you are front of house you can’t afford to have BO, bad breath or sprinkle dandruff, as it were Parmesan cheese, on food (or guests for that matter).
But at a time when every waiter or waitress in all these new restaurant opening seems to be 12 years old, what about spots?
Is a spotty waiter appropriate?
It’s not fair to single out individuals but recently in a very expensive two hat restaurant a waitress had a giant spot with a head the colour of a pale yellow egg yolk. The only question was on which of us was it to burst. oh, and she had a bit of attitude.
I think when you are paying two hats prices you don’t expect to see spots, blackheads, chronic skin conditions, weeping sores or, dare I say, deformities.
There again in McDonald’s you’d be surprised not to see staff without spots or blackheads.
Should wait staff be stood down when they have spots?

Food fascist
What makes a successful restaurant? from Michael Bauer on SFGate.

What level of disability are you prepared to tolerate in restaurant service? Would Heather Mills be steady enough on her single natural foot not to spill gravy?

What about long hair and beards?

What about lepers in the kitchen?

Has anybody else noticed how young staff are now at all the new Crown restaurants, saying nothing of St Jude’s Cellars?

Where do we draw the line? Some people hold their knives and forks like apes - should they be thrown out of restaurants as all animals, save small dogs, should?

I’m surprised my score isn’t higher. Fuck it, I’ll have to try harder.

Via Dipping into the blog pond

I’ve always like dictatorships. Communism and fascism both share an idealism that when I was younger could have switched me either way.
Of course, now grown-up physically at least I abhor the human rights abuses in China although I wouldn’t be able to ejaculate over my shoulder if it wasn’t for bear bile on tap.
I think we can agree that we don’t like dictatorships, or at least lack of democracy.
We should have sent John Eales, a famous Australian rugby cap I believe, to tackle the Olympic Beijing 2008 torch bearers in their trip through Canberra.
I do find this strange that we didn’t protest.

When I arrived in Sydney in 1996 France was boycotted because of nuclear testing in the South Pacific. You couldn’t find French totty or decent croissants anywhere and I suffered four years without being able to buy a carbon steel Sabatier chef’s knife. All I ate was Yum Cha and Thai.
I suppose in Melbourne we are too comfortable in our safe little world of unaffordable houses, late model (whatever the heck that means) European cars, free air (frankly it would be a bit much if they didn’t pump-up the tyres) and an annual outing to the Flower Drum, allegedly the best Chinese restaurant in the world.
I’ve only been three times to the Drum in six years. Once for business. Once for an impromptu birthday lunch to celebrate some Tiffany Pearls (try E.G.Egetal, it’s much cooler) and my favourite tea cosey wearer’s birthday.

Steamed fish at the Flower Drum: bland and overcooked. Veggies were great though.

Our most recent to the Drum to catch up with five friends, three from out of town, started like this:
Me: “Why the fuck our we going to the Flower Drum?”
Tea cosey: “I think thingy from Perth booked it.”
Me “Why the fuck did she do that?”
Tea cosey: “Could you wipe that off your shoulder?”
We introduce ourselves to a man behind the counter (17 Market Lane +61 9662 3655), which together with a cloakroom and Melbourne’s slowest lift, is all the restaurant will fit downstairs because hidden away are tanks and tanks of fish and small bears.
Upstairs a couple of waitresses are doing good impersonations of Chinese tour guides (they all wear name tags) who guide us through a room that looks like it is set up for a wedding.
Our friends from Perth and Sydney arrive. We relived our four years in Sydney, swapping fags (cigarettes) and eating in what are now nameless restaurants. We popped downstairs to smoke on the Flower Drum’s doorstep returning upstairs in the impossibly slow lift.
The boring bit is the food which we just asked them to serve. Nobody orders off the menu here. Or so our local food dictatorship at Epicure would have us believe.

Soft shelled crab: greasy and not terribly good.

This was a Friday night. The room was packed. But with the tables spaced far apart it lacked the buzz of at least two other more casual places that serve very similar food - Asiana (181 Victoria Ave, Albert Park +61 9696 6688) and most important Lau’s Family Kitchen (4 Acland St, St Kilda, +61 8598 9880) run by Michael and James, the sons of Gilbert Lau who owned the Drum and built its reputation.
Of course, the service at The Flower Drum is much better than these places. My personal waiter was so attentive that every time I gesticulated he poured me water and I knocked his glasses off.
But. And with the prices charged it comes with an astonishingly large fiberglass B, popularly know as The Big B.
The steamed fish was bland and in more than one case overcooked. The soft shelled crab was greasy and probably just there for the sake of it rather than the quality of the product.
In retrospect we should have sent both back. Neither should have left the kitchen. But we weren’t there to posture over the food but to catch up.
I could tell you more about the food. It was all universally good, fresh ingredients served in the westernised without MSG way that good Chinese-style food is served here.
But next time it is to Lau’s Family Kitchen - if we can get a table - where we just ask them to serve us what is good and I’ve eaten better food. And if we can’t get in there it will be Asiana.
I’m not saying the Flower Drum is horrible. I just think it is an anachronism and should be doing better for the prices charged. Come to think of it just better in the case of steamed fish and soft shelled crab.

“As a rule, any tool that has only one use should be avoided: examples including the shrimp deveiner, cherry pitter, hand crank fruit peeler, special slicers for butter, eggs, avocado, mango et cetera. Also be wary of buying sets of anything: figure what you need, and buy that.A well-outfitted kitchen is defined by its efficiency and by the quality of those tools that make it efficient. The fanciest kitchens with the most beautiful pots, pans and appliances I’ve found to be the least used kitchens and therefore the worst kitchens. I hope the kitchen as a status symbol is a short-lived phenomenon.”

Food Fascist- The copper pan I bought in the David Jones sale. Embarrassed- Probably didn’t need the Auber-WS PID temperature controller that I’m rigging up to the Martini Monster’s rice cooker (thanks for that) for sous vide (boil in a bag) cooking.- I’ve caught a cold from somebody at The Age who apparently doesn’t have a venereal disease.- Last night going to the Emerald Hill Microbrewery (beer natch), The Clarendon (riesling, calamari), Giuseppe, Arnaldo & Sons (pig), Bistro Guillaume (the best lemon tarte known to humanity. Hendricks Martini), Nobu (saki), Borsch Vodka and Tears (vodka, martini, absinthe) and the Martin Monster’s for yet more booze (5am) was over the top.- John Lethlean you are too noisy. At least the lesbians sitting next to you in Dunkeld said so. Where was Michael Harden’s noise meter?- Bugger. I pitched that idea last week.- Dunkeld sommelier: I still haven’t forgotten the time you stole my Clarines while feeding the cat. But a returned email or phone call would be nice.- Ellie, keep your mouth shut.- A few of us are thinking the food at Attica has the edge on Dunkeld. Sorry.