Celebrations 24

Having a curry cook off.

Watching how paw paws grow from flower bud to fruit.

Enjoying authentic Cantonese cuisine on a winter's night.

Getting real hand written letters in the slow mail.

Drinking a well made cuppa from a mate you have known for so long.

Walking down a charming street in Melbourne.

Watching the sun rise gloriously with several colours along the ocean front north of Wollongong.

Putting nice toiletries beside a rain shower in a restored house.

Returning to Sydney city centre as a working lifestyle.

Relaxing with mates who inspire me.

Embracing change and breaking through from a comfort zone.

Letting go of and culling stuff I no longer require for a long time now.

Sharing the joy, especially after breaking whatever perceived barriers with a special someone.

Returning to a place where almost everybody knows you - and your name.

Resting for the night where you can wake up to see the ocean.

Meeting someone who has inner happiness no matter what.

Sharing an overnight train cabin in an unknown country and making friends anyway.

Feeling a unique joy when someone makes effort to cook for you in their home.

Realising an ultimate sense of proportion, perspective and patience.

Having flexibility and freedom to achieve the same outcomes.

Knowing you can rely on a very special circle of mates to chat on anything and mutually enhance our mindsets.

Being introduced to people who are also important in the lives of our closest and most important.

Observe the dynamic energy and enthusiasm of wild life in their natural state.

Eating comfort food in the place of our childhood.

Crown Dragon Chinese Restaurant - St George Leagues Club, Kogarah NSW

Deep fried calamari that goes well with Tsingtao beer. In the background are spring rolls, a basket with steamed dumplings and prawn crackers.

Andy was going to Hawaii, Rob was changing work roles and I had not seen Tez in so many months. There was a suggestion to go Chinese some where in a Sydney suburb and we did not venture too far beyond the Shire. We chose the home of the NRL Dragons team, an unassuming complex on the way to the Sydney airport and illustrative of many similar clubs dotted across the Australian residential landscape.  There was the bar to gather in first, with already live singing by a couple on stage and the influx of Friday evening revellers on a nippy July start of the weekend. I enjoyed my Crown lager and soon we entered the den of the Crown Dragon upstairs.  Seven of us booked at 7pm, but with no Kevin07 in sight.

Beer glasses, tea cups and waiting bowls all at the commencement of the group dinner.

There is much trendy innovation in Cantonese cooking back in the homeland above the Equator, with Guangzhou and Hong Kong still leading the pack in such culinary developments. Cantonese cooking emphasises on the fresh, the quick stir and the blending of aromatic stuff without the use of spices and chili.  At times what we encounter dotted across many overseas Chinese communities are remnants of a glorious and traditional past, whist the Motherland has transformed in culinary approaches and methods.  Some well known dishes were made for overseas audiences and never arose in China itself.  These include the deep fried ice cream batter, the chop suey, the fortune cookie, the deep fried calamari and some versions of the fried rice.  On this occasion, we consciously chose the steamed Jasmine rice, which would go down better with the several dishes ordered.

They look oily but the pork spare ribs were well done having a marinade of pepper and honey.

Good company is essential to have while partaking in a  Chinese dinner.  Such meals are essentially communal affairs, gatherings to celebrate or recover after much effort doing business or work and occasions to catch up on small chat and bigger agendas. I enjoyed catching up with my mostly university sector crowd, though Dave could not make it that night. Wills had driven most of us up and Murph had come in from the city centre.  We had made a pitch stop at Franco's house, where we made a point to touch the box containing the remains of beloved Bullet, the four legged character who had himself touched lives from Figtree to the Shire, and then we went to chill out for the end of week.

The Beijing duck waits, now whole, but soon to be carved up for their skin and then the meat.

Beijing duck is one creation that I love, and the ducks in Australia are now fattened in Victoria for supply to the nation's Asian restaurants. They are fed a special formula, their skins are ensured crispy dry by hanging up to best benefit from the cold and dry winter air and good servings must minimise the content of fat and maximise the proportion of succulent meat.  The crispy bite on the tongue skins are served with hoi sin sauce and wrapped with shallot cuts in front of you  in small dough packets before you dive in to them.  Most of the meat is then shredded to serve in a second dish for the same diners.
Good Beijing duck is not confined to China's capital city.

Complimentary fruit, with watermelon slices and an interesting way to serve Mandarins on their skins.

Chinese culture treasures orange coloured Mandarins and these fruits are described as gold in the often symbolic Chinese dialects.   It is interesting to note that Chinese practice still dictates the consumption of fruits after a meal, although some perspectives in the past few years may suggest better digestion when we take fruits before the mains.  Smoked tea is usually an effective way of washing down some of the rich food in Chinese cooking, but we did not have any tea this evening, so fruits will do!

My Apple  IPhone camera may not have done justice to capturing the essence of the beef hotpot.

Beef is rarely provided in single serve steak portions in Chinese restaurants and what comes out are often small sliced portions.  This particular meat is popularly cooked with green peppers, black bean sauce, stews, snow peas, braised hot pots, noodles, ginger, string beans, hot soups and in skewers, depending from which province the dish originates.  Buddhist vegetarianism also discourages beef consumption.

A stir fried combination of seafood with bean sprouts, but some thing was not so uplifting in this dish.

Sesame seed coated baked biscuits (centre) which are harder on the bite than those without.

Mild curry with prawns, pumpkin slices and onion garnishing.

Chicken hot pot - appetising though dark.

My favourite dishes that evening were the marinated chicken hot pot and the surprisingly satisfactory prawn curry.  This curry is more of what you get in Macau and Nagasaki.

The second serving from the two part order of the Beijing duck dish - the sliced up meat is wok stir fried with ginger, shallots and carrots. Another  variation of this serving is to have the meat in the sang choy bow.

Tim was the person in charge of our dining table and he did a consistently good job at it. The restaurant Manager also dropped by.  The Crown Dragon has a spacious feel and there was  a birthday singing session in the middle of it all when we were there.  St George Leagues Club has ample parking. The Cantonese-styled cuisine there may hark back to old fashioned in one opinion, but they still do a relatively good outcome in several standard dishes.  For my group, Wills had ordered well balanced combinations in the main dishes of savoury, sweet, sour and hot.  The lazy Susan had kept swivelling frantically at times.  The servings from the Crown Dragon were wholesome.

A Chinese Singaporean original but now adopted by Chinese restaurants from Frisco to Auckland - the deep fried battered ice cream.  The wine we had that night was McGuigan's.

The Lagoon, Stuart Park, North Wollongong, NSW

The Lagoon Restaurant has a name befitting its location, ambiance and cuisine. Tucked away in a corner of Stuart Park, with its own dedicated car park and surrounding stroll grounds, the open glass window panels of most of its surrounding wall tempt any diner to panoramic views of the Tasman Sea, a perfect horizon with real deep blue ocean water and even the apparently stuck long container ships waiting for their turn to unload cargo into Port Kembla, although a decent distance away from it all.
On a recent visit in the so-called winter of the Illawarra region, it looked and felt like a summer's day in London.  We were there early for lunch, although the crowds packed the place in especially after 1pm.

The menu was extensive, primarily concentrating on seafood, not just sourced from the NSW South Coast but also from other parts of Australia.  My group of three pondered over the cold and cooked platters - these offered  a sampling of crustacean sea produce like Balmain Bugs, fish grills and prawns.
Then there were the farm and ocean  or surf and turf combinations which provided both beef or lamb cuts with a smaller serve of seafood. We chose the third option, all seafood produce but at least offering two choices on one plate. I was more than happy with my selection of John Dory with scampi from the Indian Ocean off Western Australian state.  One of my fellow lunchers chose king prawns with barramundi, always a reliable tasty sample of what it means to partake in Australian seafood. We did observe a young man at a neighbouring table with a feast inspiring sizable dish of lobster and crab, whilst his young female companion had a more modest dish.

The Lagoon is a civilised place with white table cloths, well dressed and trained wait staff and provides a mood of being in a well organised function.   Even the garlic bread was especially aromatic that day.
There are strong hints and touches of Mediterranean influences in the dishes available, especially in the gravies and sauces blended into most of the seafood.  Sauces can be a tricky part, for I recall on an earlier visit, how my mate and I found that the rather brash and heavy stuff given to us did spoil the overall charm of the seafood platter.  This time around there was no such discouragement.

We had chardonnay on our table in the middle of the hall, from which we could observe proceedings like birthday parties, the spectrum of well made dishes arranged carefully and spectacularly on the main counter near the bar and the energy of a rather elegant and smiling tall young man who paid attention to detail and assured the fullness of our wine glasses.

The fine dining continued with our summery option of three gelato flavours served in a boat like contraption.   Mango, raspberry and more.  The female staff were nice enough to change cold for hot espresso. The afternoon wore on but not the spirit and satisfaction at our table.  Kangaroo was available and fresh oysters captivated as entree. Apart from the food, I reckon there was also another positive X factor that day at this fine dining venue which can lower its formality to relax every visitor. And then Wollongong City centre beckoned as we left, going past the big live aquarium tanks, into a balmy 22 degrees Celsius outside.

Rocksalt Grill & Restaurant, Wollongong NSW

This restaurant has since ceased functioning.

A look alike smoking cigar adorns dessert - a cinnamon roll with an ash front!

Crispy salt soft shell crabs already heralded what the Rocksalt could do, an echo of the benchmark that this restaurant defines as their version of fine dining.   With a menu extensively covering both seafood and the farm, it was a delight to try to find our choices of mains for this occasion in late May.  Eventually we settled for the Wagyu Rostibiff from Darling Downs Queensland and the 

Moss Vale sirloin. Both lived up to their articulated descriptions and our built up expectations arising from the source of the ingredients.

Opened in 2012, the Rock salt at One Marine Drive is sited on a hillock near the iconic lighthouse at Wollongong Harbour.  It offers true blue Aussie items like the Bangalow sweet pork belly and Angus beef rump from Jondaryan in Queensland.  Yet there is handmade pappardelle, served with roasted butternut pumpkin, braised baby shallots, pine nuts and Persian feta, all garnished by a sauce vierge.

Seafood items that jump out of the page include the Tassie Storm Bay Atlantic salmon, offered with an Asian twist by accompanying kai lan and bok choy vegetables and garnished by caramelised palm sugar and Sichuan pepper - this is so South-east Asian!

Cognac, fortified wines (so appropriate for dinner time) and port litter across the drinks landscape. There are Galway Pipe and Grand Tawny choices from Ireland, plus Hollick the Nectar from South Australia, as illustrations of the carefully chosen list available at the Rocksalt.  My mate made an excellent selection in Shaw and Smith shiraz, so synchronised with our meaty mains.

The vanilla flavoured creme brûlée was garnished with flower petals and a crunchy biscuit.

It was a Monday evening and an apparently quiet one at that, but in the end that worked best for both of us, I reckon, having almost the whole restaurant shared with only a few others. The lighting was subdued and being early winter, the sunset had passed by the time we both made it to the venue after work. There were no parking hassles that evening unlike during summer days at this spot overlooking the main Wollongong ocean coastline.   Service was attentive and yet non-intrusive.  The food was good, the wine was flowing and I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation with a most appreciated friend.

Would I return to the Rocksalt?  An obvious yes. I have not tried this venue on more busy nights - and it is good that they are not closed on Monday and Tuesday evenings, as most dining places in the Illawarra tend to be.  I am impressed with their use of relatively fresh ingredients and efforts at presentation.  I liked the entree of scallops best.  I did notice the braised Cowra lamb shoulder done Moroccan style with poached saffron apricots and cous cous, but I did not feel the urge for Middle eastern fare that night.  I also appreciated the options of several types of sauces in Bordelaise, Cafe de Paris butter and mustards.  The kitchen responded to our medium rare requests for the grills with an almost perfect serve.  I would be interested to try the marinated melon salad at the  next opportunity.

Colours of Winter - Steamboat Sizzle

Lots of cutting and slicing ingredients for use in the steamboat - quail's eggs, mushrooms,tofu squares, meat balls and carrots.

The tang or vegetable (background) waits with the vermicelli  (foreground).

Shitakaes are popular in East Asian cuisine.

Seafood galore for flavour and making the ever evolving soup stock even better.

Deep fried shallots help to garnish the soup.

Eggs are on standby for poaching and add to choices.

The cauldron.

Ingredients for a steamboat session are cut to facilitate easier cooking.

Waiting for the steamboat to cook the stuff.

Freshness is everything.

Coconut milk sits atop a dessert made from black glutinous rice.

Upside down pineapple cake.