Surrounded by deliciousness at Signorelli Gastronoma

With a tag line of: Eat. Drink. Shop. Cook. We had to go to: Signorelli Gastronoma!

Some of the girls checking out the amazing deli section. I wanted to buy EVERYTHING!

Miss B had also been here before and has been raving about it ever since. Overlooking Barangaroo, it's situated in Google building in Pyrmont in an eerily quite area (despite the casino being around the corner). We all get there ridiculously early as our stomachs were all eagerly awaiting the meal, so we thought we would go in to see if our table was ready. There had been some "miscommunication" on the phone, wherein they had no understood Miss B confirming our booking the day before and cancelled the booking. Both C - words. This is my only gripe with the entire restaurant/ deli that is Signorelli Gastronoma. Miss B was not impressed by this as we were now on a table in the weird outside part, rather than in the fabulousness that is the main section. Make sure you request an inside table in you book. Otherwise, you'll get a view of industrial pipes if you look up and white walls.

View from the centre of the building from our table. I'd recommend an inside table if I were you!

I love my knife that can stand up, or on it's side!

Wine room. Drooll...

Walk in and you're greeted by the delicatessan, the walls and walls of amazing foods, the cheese room, the wine room, the open kitchen, the demonstration bench, the pizza kitchen and dinner tables scattered amongst everything. Pure heaven. We all had to have a stroll amongst it all. Even the dinner table are great wide, long tables on wheels. This is serious eating. We had already pre-booked the Long table Menu, which is more than 8 dishes for $59 each (technically 3 courses, but actually a lot more). You will need to select which dishes you want before when you make the booking.

Looking down our table for 8

The demonstration table

Old till as decoration

baked Italian bread selection with extra virgin olive oil

The baked Italian bread selection with extra virgin olive oil was nice and crusty and made waiting for everyone to arrive just that little bit easier. The “Signorelli Gastronomia” Antipasto, Selection of Salumi  / Olives /  Parmigiano  / Grissini  (normally $24) mocked us while we kept on waiting (not that anyone was late, we were just so early!) There was a great selection of green and brown firm olives, great crumbly cheese and cold meats. I'm not a fan of bread sticks but I could appreciate what they added to the presentation. The sweet ricotta didn't quite work with the sharper cheeses and meats for me.

“Signorelli Gastronomia” Antipasto, Selection of Salumi  / Olives /  Parmigiano  / Grissini

"amusement"

Vine Tomato Salad / Local Burrata / Basil / Vincotto / Wild Cherries

We were given an extra "amusement" with grapes, sultanas, a yellow cheery tomato, and some other bits and pieces, which disappeared in one mouthful. It was full of interesting flavours and a mouthful with the perfect amount. The cheese in the Vine Tomato Salad / Local Burrata / Basil / Vincotto / Wild Cherries (normally $20) melted in your mouth with the classic combination of tomatoes, basil and balsamic vinegar reduction.

Italian Sausage / Rosemary/ White Onion/ Provolone

Prosciutto di Parma / Wild Rocket / Provolone / Ricotta

Margherita / Fior di Latte / Tomato / Basil

Next up were the pizzas. Margherita / Fior di Latte / Tomato / Basil (normally $19), Italian Sausage / Rosemary/ White Onion/ Provolone (normally $23) and Prosciutto di Parma / Wild Rocket / Provolone / Ricotta (normally $22). I feel that Margherita pizza, alike too much bread to start off with, is a waste of food points, so I passed up on this one. The Italian sausage was more like a deconstructed sausage and was extremely moorish, as was the prosciutto di parma. I always enjoy wild rocket on my pizza, as it makes it feel like a more balanced meal that you're eating, rather than just delicious cheese and dough. The pizza crusts were thin and we could watch them being made at the pizza table, before they were placed into the pizza oven with its large flames.

Mixed Leaf Insalata

 
The meat of the scampi in the Scampi Risotto / Tomato / Seafood Essence (normally $29/34) was delicious, but the risotto was a little too buttery. The Penne ragu- fresh herbs didn't score many points for presentation, however, judged purely on taste alone was simple, but perfect. We were given a Mixed Leaf Insalata ($9) to counteract the heaviness of the mains. Just what the palate needed.

Scampi Risotto / Tomato / Seafood Essence (normally $29/34)

Penne ragu- fresh herbs

To finish off we had the Signorelli gastronomia cheese selection and the Chocolate almond torta – crème fraiche – choc earth. The blue cheese on the platter was one of my favourites, which was places beside other cheeses, sun ripened sultanas on the vine, a jelly like slice of something (?) and truffle honey. I'm not quite sure about truffle honey personally. It's extremely rich and I'm not sure that it worked with the cheeses. The chocolate torta was of course, deliciously chocolatey. It was firm chocolate on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside. I had to finish it (as well as the cheeses), despite the pain coming from my stomach telling me to stop eating. I quite liked the term choc earth, which was crumbled bits of chocolate torta on the side.

Signorelli gastronomia cheese selection

torta – crème fraiche – choc earth

Overall, despite the initial confusion about our booking, we had an amazing meal and experience at Signorelli Gastronoma. You can tell that the ingredients are all extremely fresh and only the best of quality, that they seriously love food and take it as seriously as I do here. The fact that they have a cheese and wine room, as well as a deli makes it a really interesting dining experience. I'm looking forward to coming back for a cooking class with Miss B here. Time to waddle home and walk off the food a little.

I'll have to come back for one of these!

Sydney Festival First Night & dinner at Giardinetto

Idea: Head to a Festival Event that's free

So, I have a confession to make. I've never been to the Sydney Festival First Night. Bringing the girls and the boy along with our picnic rugs we were ready to head to Hyde Park. Even though the Domain is a much better venue for events with stages, all of the acts that we wanted to see were at the Hyde Park Palm Stage. Most acts were at this stage actually. When we arrived some very strange act Alice & Alice by Cocoloco were on. We managed to get quite close to the stage, but we had a group of people standing up right in front of us. I'm not sure if the Alice & Alice act was any good, as we couldn't see it. But the glimpses that we got, and judging by what we could hear, it was a little bit weird and almost scary. And not in a good way. 

We decided that maybe some beverages would make this a bit more enjoyable, so we relocated into the over 18's area where they served alcohol and had food stalls. We found a much better spot, slightly away from the crowds. There we had some picnic ettiquette issues, which  Miss B's clears up in her blog. 

We had a view of a small section of the stage (from quite a distance) and could see the whole large screen. My recommendations would be that more speakers and screens are required. There were so many people there and I doubt that more than a handful of people could see, as well as hear, the acts going on. We decided to get some over-priced ($7.50) extremely small plastic cups of red and white wine, and the boy got a big sausage roll.

What I could see of Circa's 21 acts in 20 minutes looked good, although to be fair, I couldn't really see it. There was a Burlesque performer: Imogen Kelly, but again, I couldn't really see it. We were going to stay for Smoke and Mirrors, but by this time we were all quite hungry and looking forward to a proper bathroom. We decided (especially seeing as I have tickets to see Smoke and Mirrors) that heading down Stanley Street might be a good idea. 

We settled on the first restaurant that we could see. It was Giardinetto. It looked kind of cute and quirky, had white linen table cloth on the outside tables and was packed. We thought we had chosen well. We were placed at an inside table. The look that the restaurant is going for is old fashioned kitsch I think. Gold cupids hanging from lights, Granny-like place-mats, and very interesting painted flowers on the walls. The lamp on the table was another tacky highlight (which we found out can also double as a hat...). All of the decorations would not have looked out of place at St Vinnys.

We ordered the Nangara Shiraz ($29), which was the cheapest red wine by the bottle, with some of the other options being quite over priced. It went well with our meals, but wasn't anything mind blowing. We all had the Bruschetta ($11.50), which was a nice start. The tomatoes were freshly cut and the parmesan worked well. We discovered that it wasn't the easiest to cut (if you're sharing 6 pieces between 5 people).

Two friends ordered the entree size of the Smoked Salmon Linguine, Linguine with a mix of capers, black olives, Spanish onion and smoked salmon ($16 entree size/ $23 main size). It was extremely creamy. Neither could finish their meals because it was that rich and heart attack inducingly creamy. There just wasn't enough rocket to contrast in texture to the creamy, gluggy rest of the meal. There also weren't enough olives or salmon (as it was all on top, more as a garnish than anything else). I had a few mouthfuls, but realised that that was enough for me.

I ordered the Salmon Fillet Mediterranean, ($27) Fillet of salmon with capers, olives, cherry tomatoes and mixed herbs in white wine sauce, which I was pleasantly surprised by the presentation of. As soon as I started to eat it however, I was proven oh so very wrong. The salmon was horribly overcooked, loosing a lot of it's natural flavour in the process. The potatoes were quite nice (mainly due to a lot of butter/ and or cream) but overall I was extremely disappointed. Salmon is one of my favourite meals to cook, and this was very dry on the inside. It's why I ended up helping everyone else to eat their meals.

The boy had the Fillet Steak Giardinetto ($31) Tender eye fillet steak, 500 grams, with vegetables and a side salad. It was huge! Exactly what he was in the mood for. A huge lump of meat. But even for him, it was massive! The side salad was also huge, as it was the size of one of the other meals. I quickly helped him to eat all of it. It had a subtle olive oil and white balsamic vinegar dressing on top of tomatoes and salad leaves (mostly rocket). The boy said that the steak was good, even though it had a massive bone on it and would take a while to digest.

Another friend ordered the Duck Risotto ($20 entree size/ $26 main size), pieces of duck breast, sun-dried tomatoes and fetta in pink sauce. Again, she ordered the entree size, which also turned out to be quite large. She kept on asking her meal "hello! Flavour. Where are you?" I thought that she was being dramatic, but after tasting it, I had to agree. Even after she added copious amounts of cracked pepper and parmesan to it, is still didn't taste like very much. Where were the ingredients apart from risotto she wondered? I had a few mouthfull, but still couldn't work it out. Another disappointing meal. 

We were all quite full and underwhelmed, or as Miss B says "I'm whelmed." The dessert menu was given to us as a laminated sheet with also very underwhelming pictures. The highlight of which was the typo of "Pooched pears," that has been written over on most menus, but not all.

Top right hand side, "Pooched Pears"

It was time to leave. I can't think of any reason why I would be coming back to Giardinetto. It was all very average from the food to the service, and it was very very hot in the restaurant. There's much better Italian restaurants just around the corner from it, at a fraction of the cost.

Moltofino

Moltofino, Dee Why

So, there are a lot of restaurants/ cafes on the Dee Why beachfront. My friends and I often stroll down this patch. The location alone secures them a lot of customers. We were in the mood for a tasty lunch to have a great gossip over, while escaping from the horrible weather we've been having in Sydney in this month. We randomly picked Moltofino, as the rain made us dash into the closest building.

One friend ordered the Salt and Pepper Squid (Fried in Szechuan Pepper with Pear & Fennel Salad). This was the only meal that was plated well, but even for this meal I felt no desire to whip out a camera to take any photos. This meal was described as ok, but the batter wasn't very nice.

Another friend had the Vegetarian Risotto (Tomato Based with Shaved Parmesan). Similar to my meal, this was described as a bit bland and not very exciting. Not bad enough to complain about, but just very ordinary. I ordered from the specials menu. Friend number 3 and I ordered the same meal of rigatoni with olives, sardines and grilled capsicum in a tomato sauce. It came out of the kitchen and I have to say that I wasn't feeling very excited about eating it. There was no garnish. It looked like something you would whip up at home from leftovers from the fridge. However, if I had made it at home it would have a). tasted better and b). looked better. It was fine. Ok. Just. Although, I would also like to point out the difference between penne and rigatoni pasta to their chef. Maybe they ran out of rigatoni? I hate to be a food snob, but the food was just plain boring. Maybe we had come on a bad day? Maybe the Moltofino dinner menu is a lot better? Having great view of Dee Why Beach is a plus, but they need to work on the food to match the location. We decided the only thing to do was to go and grab an ice cream to forget about the whole experience.

Penne

Rigatoni

Reviews of foodie books

Idea: If you love your food, why not read about it and get some inspiration

One of the great things about having your Birthday and Christmas in the one month is the fantastic presents, the endless great food and the non-stop parties! Naturally, quite a few of my presents involved the theme of food. I was given some great cooking and food related books, and here they are:

Sushi & Beyond by Michael Booth (Vintage):

Every time I picked up this book to have a bit of a read, I became insanely hungry. And not just for any type of food. It was a hunger for Japanese food alone. I admit to going just a little bit crazy whilst reading this novel. The premise of the novel being that Booth sets off with his family to find out "what the Japanese know about cooking," and focuses on the health benefits of the traditional Japanese diet.

As I read this, I began to spurt interesting facts about the history of sushi, the deadly fugu fush, unami (two unami rich ingredients being konbu and katsuobushi, which are both in dashi), the production of miso, soy sauce, saki and more. I found out that it is almost impossible to find real wasabi (wasabia japonica) served outside of Japan. This means that most people will never know what real wasabi tastes like. It is a lot sweeter than that green stuff served in a tube here and does not produce that burn in your nose. I also discovered that chanko nabe is the traditional hotpot prepared and eaten by sumo wrestlers and Osaka is the home to the world's largest cooking school. By the end of reading this, I'm pretty sure that everyone around me was sick of these facts, but I couldn't get enough.

This novel reiterated the importance of colour in Japanese food, the use of the seasons and their desire to use the natural flavours of their ingredients. Booth's novel has only increased my desire to return to Japan and try out even more traditional Japanese food. In particular, there's a restaurant called Mibu that you can only visit on invitation (ie. somewhere I would never be able to get into). In this tiny restaurant the food served was "seasonal, fresh, local and simple." The food worked on "so many levels: visual, cerebral, in terms of flavour, and viscerally." I can still feel my stomach rumbling thinking about the food described in this novel.

I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who has a love for Japanese food. It's one of the few food related novels that I've read, which is well written, researched and makes you insanely hungry. You can tell that Booth has a great passion for food.

A little taste of... Japan recipes by Jane Lawson, photographs by Alan Benson and Gorazd Vilhar, additional text by Charlotte Anderson (Murdoch Books):

It seems only right to go to another Japanese themed book. A little taste of... Japan continues this idea ofJapanese food as seasonal food that is "prepared with a light hand" to emphasise their natural flavours and textures. The flavour being "delicate... and never overpowering." Each chapter begins with pictures and a brief history and explanation of food types in Japan, eg. noodles. Each recipe has one large image and a few smaller ones down the side of the page. The recipes are clearly set out and easy to follow. There is enough white space on the page and the photographs made me want to prepare everything in the book (as well as take another trip to Japan).

This cook book also mentions the origins of sushi, which "lie in the ancient Asian custom of preserving raw fish in fermenting rice." This type of sushi, or zushi, is called nare-zushi and can still be eaten today in Japan. Although there is always the East way of doing things in Japan or the West, this cookbook only claims to be a little taste of, which it is. It would be impossible to summarise the whole of Japanese cooking in such a slim book.

Lucio's, Ligurian Kitchen by Lucio Galletto and David Dale, Photography by Paul Green (A & U)

Lucio states that he draws his inspiration from both Australia and Liguria, drawing similarities between the two, such as "mellow climate, closeness to the sea, great produce and regular infusions of new ideas from other places" making for interesting eating. Some of the key ingredients of Ligurian cooking being olive oil, herbs, garlic, onions, mussles, cheeses, tomatoes and pasta. If you haven't been to Lucio's restaurant in Paddington yet, I would highly recommend doing so. You can taste the influences of Liguria, where he grew up and spent half his life, as well as these Australian influences.

I love the special touches in this book, such as the page titled "the equipment," which details all of the equipment in the kitchen that is needed for the recipes. This saves you time later on when you realise that you don't have some vital implement halfway through a recipe such as a mezzaluma, slotted spoons or a cooking thermometer.

I also enjoyed the section on wines, and the best ones for the recipes in the book. Being a wine lover, this section is a great addition to any cookbook. The photographs in this book are also amazing, both those of Liguria and of the food, making you want to both eat and travel at the same time. They make a great addition to the well researched book and fantastic recipes. I love the pesce al cartoccio (whole fish baked in parchment), an easy to make recipe that I've made versions of before. The presentation is always amazing and it's difficult to mess up this recipe. Another fun to make recipe is the ravioli di carciofi alle erbe (artichoke ravioli with herb sauce). This is partly because I find making ravioli so fun and partly because artichokes, herbs and parmesan taste fantastic together.

The contrast of Japanese to Italian cooking (although there are of course some similarities, such as their appreciation for fresh flavours) was quite intense, after my last two Japanese reads (and the food that I cooked from them). Next up was a cookbook (the name of which everyone in Australian is familiar with) that looked at food that is "fast, fresh, simple." Her name of course being Donna Hay.

Fast, fresh, simple by Donna Hay (4th)

For me, Donna Hay's book is one of those ones which you flip through for inspiration. I don't always follow these recipes ingredient for ingredient, and the photograph of the meal is always a starting point. Take the barbequed lamb, eggpant and haloumi for example. Essentially telling you to barbeque all of the ingredients. When I looked at this, I decided to look in my fridge and see what was in there that I could barbeque and applied a similar sauce. But this isn't exactly the type of cooking that is so difficult that it will fluster you in the kitchen.

The torn pasta with chorizo and peas was also a great starting point for a recipe, which tasted fresh and tangy, with the mint and lemon in the sauce contrasting nicely. I love the photos in this cookbook, many of them filling up the entire page, with beautifully positioned food and simple white plating. This is why everyone has at least one Donna Hay recipe book in their kitchen.

Now, I've really got to go and make something to eat. All of this talk of food is making me hungry again...