Keto friendly recipe: Tuna ceviche

This is one of the easiest recipes in my repertoire - the secret here is to get the freshest Tuna you can and prepare this immediately before serving.

Tuna Ceviche

250g raw tuna
1/2 red onion
1/4 cup fresh coriander
1 avocado
2 lemons
1 lime
3 tbspns olive oil

Method

Cut the tuna steaks into pieces to marinade, I like to leave this enough to cut into sashimi style slices. 

Juice the lemons and the lime, add more if necessary ideally you want the juice to just cover the tuna in marinade

Cover and leave the tuna to marinade to your taste. If you like the tuna raw you should leave for 15 minutes or less, if you want the acid to cook through the meat you should leave for up to 4 hours or cut into smaller pieces.

When you take the fish out of the fridge it will have discoloured due to the cooking process, this is normal. 

Keep this in mind if serving to a dinner party since the fish can turn grey and unappealing if allowed to sit in the acid for too long. 

Dice the tuna into small cubes, I like to put some slices aside to have on their own.

Dice the vegetables and put in a mixing bowl.

Add the olive oil to the marinading mixture, making sure to remove any citrus seeds. Add to the ceviche mix to taste, about half the liquid should be enough. 

Garnish with one or two sprigs of the coriander, I like to serve it with slices of the marinated raw tuna like so.

Snapshot: Katana-ya, San Francisco

So the good thing about moving cities is a plethora of new restaurants to try out! Feeling a little down and homesick one day I treated myself to a "girly day" of movies, nail salons and what better comfort food but ramen?

A quick review of the local eateries online recommended Katana-ya and it turned out to be just around the corner from where I was staying. So I dashed out just as they were opening.

Any restaurant that has a line out the door waiting for it to open is usually worth a look, the fact that they were Japanese grandmas made it all the more promising. 

Like a real noodle bar in Japan the place is low on seats and high on shouts in Japanese, there's sushi and noodles and not a lot else on the menu. Mostly the place is packed with single eaters and couples wolfing down food. Like many popular ramen joints staying to talk is not encouraged. 

Mapo Tofu Ramen

I spotted a mapo tofu ramen on the menu and ordered it since it's not easy to find. The result? The noodles are not made fresh, but they're pretty good. Sadly there's no tonkotsu broths on the menu so I order this with a miso base. The meat and tofu are nice, and it looks as though they make their tofu on site. All in all it was pretty damn good, not up their with the best ramen I've ever had but definitely better than I was expecting to find in the US. I'll be going again. 

Katana Ya

Casual noodle dining

Very few seats, no reservations, expect to wait and eat fast

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Keto friendly recipes: Souvlaki with Tzatziki and Greek Salad

Tzatziki

1/2 a lebanese cucumber

1 clove of garlic

250g pot of plain yoghurt

• Tzatziki is best made the day before as the raw garlic needs time to mature in the yoghurt
• Dice the garlic as finely as you can, place in a bowl with the yoghurt and mix thoroughly
• Dice the cucumbers into small pieces and add to the yoghurt mix, stir thoroughly to coat
• Place in the fridge overnight, before the meal drain off any excess water that has come from the cucumbers and stir again
• Serve in a small bowl or on the side of your meal
• Many yoghurts in the US are non fat, I recommend Brown Cow Plain Creamtop yoghurt which is whole milk and free of Bovine growth hormone, it is also low lactose and I can digest this without lactase

Greek Salad

1 cup of green leaves

1/4 a lebanese cucumber

1/2 a red onion

8 grape tomatoes

10 kalamata olives

100g of herbed goats cheese

• Place the leaves on the base of your plate or bowl
• Cut the cucumber into rounds 
• Dice the onion and slice the tomatoes
• Drain pitted olives
• Place all the vegetables in your bowl 
• Crumble the cheese on top
• If desired dress with a balsamic/olive oil dressing

Souvlaki

500g leg of lamb
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
3 tbspns of extra virgin olive oil
Salt for seasoning

• Marinate the lamb as long as you can, either over night or from lunchtime for a dinner meal
• Dice the lamb into evenly sized bite sized morsels and place in a bowl
• Season liberally with salt, break the leaves off the rosemary and place in the bowl
• Drizzle the oil on the meat, no need to be precise with the amount just ensuring that the meat is well coated
• Mix through to ensure that the salt, herbs and oil are coated onto each piece
• Place the bowl in the fridge well covered to seal

• The oil may have turned cloudy or solidified due to the cooling, this is normal
• At the time you're ready to cook take the meat out of the fridge and thread the pieces onto skewers
• Leave the meat out to reach room temperature before cooking

• Souvlaki can be cooked in any means you choose, over a wood barbecue is best 
• In my case I'm frying because I've recently moved countries and have limited cooking equipment
• Place flat on one edge of the meat and turn the skewers every 2-3 minutes until the meat is cooked

• Once cooked be sure to leave the meat to rest before serving for around 5 mins
• If you're a bay area local I recommend organic lamb from the Haight St Market

• Whether you're low carb eating or not this is a delicious family meal just perfect on summer evenings. 
• This recipe will serve 2 heartily. 
• If you need your carbs back then serve with Pita and hummus for a delicious do it yourself wrap.

Comics for food lovers

It's Comic Con this weekend, so this is a great time to talk about comics for food lovers. First of all let's start with the fact that Anthony Bourdain food writer and television personality extraordinaire has released a graphic novel Get Jiro! G4 did a great interview with him about the book and how the project came into being.

Video Games - E3 2012

Of course Japan has a comic book for just about everything and as a food loving nation there are many options for great food oriented manga. Here are some of my favourites.


Yakitate!! Japan follows Azuma Kazuma a sort of 'bread genius' who's intent on finding a bread suitable for the Japanese palette and making Japan as famous for bread as France or Germany.

Azuma enters competitions looking to gain a job at the main branch of the Pantasia bread chain, a prestigious job with Iron Chef style battles. Along the way he makes some friends, invents amazing recipes and solves family problems for the Pantasia owners. Watch out for the recipe on how to make bread in a rice cooker.

Oishinbo is probably my favourite comic of all time. It follows Tozai Shimbun a food writer for a Japanese newspaper searching for the Ultimate Meal. The comic focusses on different types and regions of food in Japan, each episode talks about how to find the most amazing ingredients for a dish, or how to improve a dish that doesn't hit the mark. It goes into huge depth on how to prepare foods including filetting fish, polishing rice and how best to store live animals prior to cooking.

For the Japanese food lover this goes into extreme detail on regional specialties, seasonal foods and unusual delicacies in Japanese cuisine. My only sadness is that you can currently only buy 6 collected 'best of' books rather than the 120 or so books that were released in Japanese. There's also an anime TV series based on the manga. I cannot recommend this book enough.


If you're thinking that the title of Iron Wok Jan invokes thoughts of Iron Chef you'd be right, though the Japanese title is Tetsunobe no Jan I assume the translaters were trying to carry on the Iron Chef obsession in America.

The comic follows Akiyama Jan an arrogant young chef with an excellent command of the Chinese cuisine. He heads to Gonbanchou a family owned Chinese restaurant in Ginza to show off his skills. Rivalries and cooking competitions follow of course!




Gokudo Meshi is 'gangster food' a story of a group of gangsters and criminals put away in South Naniwa prison who are obsessed with food. Each year they battle it out for the prized parts of the new years meal by telling stories of the best food they ever ate. Like many great food manga sadly there is no English translation for sale in print however one can easily find copies on Scanlation sites, armed with an eBook reader this presents no problems for keeping up with your favourite food manga. Gokudo Meshi was turned into the live action Japanese movie Sukiyaki in 2011.


Hungry for more? Check out Wikipedia's list of Cooking Anime and Manga for more.

Keto friendly recipes: Caprese Salad

Over the last couple of years I've gained what could affectionately be called "happy relationship weight" along with the Google 15 (who brought some friends) and in an attempt to curb this I've been trying the low carb/Keto approach to weight loss.

It's early days yet but to be honest, it's working. I'm not hungry and I've lost more weight in a week than I did in a month of low calorie low fat dieting. As a foodie though there's no way that I can eat steak for dinner every night or replace bread with grated cauliflower and lettuce. So I thought I'd post some of the keto/Atkins friendly food I've been eating starting with a simple one.

Caprese Salad

1 handful of basil leaves
1/2 cup fresh mozzarella bocconcini
1/2 cup grape or baby tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil

Method

• Wash and tear up the basil leaves
• Cut the tomatos and the bocconcini
• Combine in a bowl and toss thoroughly
• Season to taste and drizzle with olive oil
• Less than 5g of carbohydrates

Review: Gordon Ramsay at The London, Los Angeles

As a foodie one can't help but be curious about the ventures of celebrity chefs and so it was that I found myself in Los Angeles and took a detour to the restaurant at The London whose executive chef is none other than Gordon Ramsay.

With a laundry list of food television shows and a history littered with Michelin stars one might expect a lot of things from a restaurant owned by such a man but I'll say that I was sorely disappointed with this venture and thinks Mister Ramsay is better suited to consulting on restaurants than designing them.

To be fair we found ourselves in Los Angeles during Restaurant week and so rather than the tasting menu we were hoping for we were instead treated to an economy 'taster' menu with very limited choices for each course.  The restaurant was accordingly packed to the gills with curious foodies and one very obvious table of wealthy regulars who were given the luxury of ordering off menu. I wonder that had we been able to order the normal menu at reflective prices we wouldn't have been so disappointed and the packed restaurant can't have helped the service. It's a shame because as someone who isn't afraid of a hefty dinner bill particularly when travelling I wonder that I wasn't left with a tainted image of the venue.

It must be said though at $44USD for 3 courses this was a real bargain for a food tourist on a limited budget and if your budget is more limited than my own this would make an excellent way to see champagne dining on a beer budget.

The hotel itself has been recently renovated and is very classy if you subscribe to the Trump ideal of white marble and shiney gold fittings as far as the eye can see.

To start with we were whistled away to a bar to wait for our seating and enjoyed a snack and a cocktail while boggling at the Size 0 starlet wannabes being bought $30 cocktails by men twice their age. For people watching there are few better places than posh restaurants in LA, though I pity the dates purchasing food for their darlings that I can only imagine they pushed around their plate to stay fitting in their dresses.

Charred octopus salad, pee wee potatoes, celery hearts and parmesan

Endive Salad with Candied Walnuts, Baked Goats Cheese

Very unfortunately for me there was a runaway insect in my greens, leaving me to worry heftily about the washing of the ingredients. To add insult to injury it took far too long to get the attention of a server to replace my dish and their attitude as they did was less than ideal. Perhaps diners use this as an excuse to have items taken off the bill but frankly I found this incident alone very jarring. To make matters worse they took some time to replace my dish forcing my partner to eat alone while we waited for another. Very disappointing.

Braised American Wagyu Beef Brisket, grain mustard, eggplant and mizuna

Points given for failing to use the American misnomer "Kobe beef" but otherwise a fairly standard beef dish and nothing exciting.

Roasted Organic Chicken Breast with Sweet Corn Succotash

This at least felt new and interesting to me because of the American splash of succotash, but I do feel let down when I am forced to order a chicken dish in a fine dining restaurant; but there were only 3 choices of mains and the other was a vegetarian risotto which appealed even less.

Valhrona Chocolate Fondant with Salted Caramel

Again this was a well executed dessert but hardly an inspired menu choice, I felt this could have been ordered in any quality restaurant the world over.

Lemon Raspberry Millefeuille

Now this was an item I could admire, smooth lemon custard and fresh ripe raspberries with the usual plate dotting that is all the rage at the moment. 

Coffee and Macarons at additional cost

The Macarons were okay, but I'll take a Zumbo Macaron over these items any day. Again I would have been happier with a higher cost and better service, these take aways were $14USD on top of my meal whereas diners at the likes of Craft are afforded free delights to take home. 

All in all I feel like eating at a Ramsay restaurant was a required part of my foodie career but I think I'll stick to watching him on television. 

Gordon Ramsay at The London, West Hollywood

http://www.thelondonwesthollywood.com

Formal dining

Book well in advance through Open Table 

Great for people watching

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The Equality Dinner at Quay Restaurant, Sydney

With marriage equality and Quay desserts hot on TV this evening it seems to be a fitting time to showcase The Equality Dinner that I attended at Quay Restaurant as part of the Sydney LGBT Mardi Gras festival. Gender and sexual equity is a huge part of my ethical landscape and as a member of my company's LGBT support group I was lucky enough to attend this Black Tie event complete with divine dishes and inspiring speakers. 

As well as an important event to discuss Marriage Equality in Australia it happened to be at the Iconic Quay Restaurant. For those not acquainted Quay is one of the most prestigious and well celebrated restaurants in Sydney. Currently home to Sydney's Chef of the Year Peter Gilmore, holder of 3 SMH Hats and recently celebrated in San Pellegrino's list of the 50 Best Restaurants in the world. Imagine my delight at a dinner at this notoriously difficult to book venue!

While we hear wonderful speeches by the likes of equality advocates Mia Freedman and Dr Kerryn Phelps we were served a series of dishes far elevated from the usual "chicken or beef" so lets take some time to review the deliciousness.

Sashimi of Hiramasa Kingfish, horseradish cream, smoked eel tapioca, horseradish cream, cherry bell radishes, nasturtiums.

Loin of Riverina Lamb with artichoke emulsion, fennel, leek, confit tomato and Arbequina olives.

Roasted Mulloway, stone ground semolina, heirloom carrots, buckwheat, farro and brown butter. 

Petit Fours 

White Nectarine Fool, Moscato d'Asti Grania and White Nectarine Ice Cream

Quay's Seven Texture Chocolate Cake

For those who are fans of foodie television you may recognise this dessert as the recent 'pressure test' menu item featured on the 2012 season of MasterChef Australia

For extra fun a number of charity auctions and raffles were held throughout the evening and as a ticket buyer I walked off with a number of beautiful Becker Minty luxury goods for my trouble.

Quay Restaurant

http://www.quay.com.au/

Formal dining

Expect to book several weeks in advance

Though this was an event ticket without menu prices please expect to pay $300+ per head for food and wine

Upper Level

Overseas Passenger Terminal

5 Hickson Road

The Rocks NSW 2000

Phone: +61 2 9251 5600 

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Snapshot: A Fish Called Coogee

Lets face it I like the good things in life and I focus more in this blog on expensive Tuna and Champagne than down home old fashioned food. Sometimes, even a posh girl just wants to have something fried by the seaside and when you get that feeling, head straight to A Fish Called Coogee and do not pass Go!

When we arrive it's around 4pm on a warm public holiday. The crowds are thinning but the tired sandy swimmers are starting to come out of the surf and the early dinner crowd is also starting to come in. This is a place with no airs and graces, half the people ordering have no shirt or shoes on (and still get service!)

There's the usual Traditional Fish and Chips ($11) and some potato scallops ($3) but the real star here is great seafood in delicious marinades. This is no hefty spices to cover dodgy seafood, everything is fresh, delicious and the highest quality. Also it must be mentioned how damn clean the place is all I can smell is the marinades and not the oil or the fish, impressive to say the least. 

What you don't do with Fish and Chips is eat them in the store! We picked this cliff overlooking Coogee Beach, grabbed some soft drinks and some sauce and sat in the fading sunlight chatting and enjoying our haul. 

The fish and chips themselves were just excellent. The Fish was fresh as fresh can be and excellent quality, the batter light and not greasy. The chips the right mix of soft and crisp, the aioli ($3) and home made tartare sauce ($3) just delightful. 

The potato scallops had a similar light but crisp and slightly spiced batter, the potatoes were thinly cut and took on the batter perfectly. Sadly what isn't pictured was the thai fish cake ($3) which was so damn good I ate the damn thing with much eye rolling and thigh thumping before I could get a picture. Worth a drive to Coogee that's for sure! The fish cake was fresh fish pressed together with Thai spices, no milled steamed fish here just pressed sweet delicious seafood. In fact I could really go for one right now... 

Be aware we ordered way too much food, a serve of Fish and Chips without extras would be more than enough. If you want 'sides' then order 1 main meal between 2. 

A Fish Called Coogee

Fish and Chips takeaway and dine in

Super casual, no shirt, no shoes, straight from the Beach OK!

BYO if you eat in (but don't when there are such views to be had!)

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Recipe: Fresh Mexican Salsa

Fresh Mexican Salsa

1 red onion
1 ear of corn
1 red capsicum
1 large avocado
1 tomato
1 handful of coriander (cilantro)
1/2 a lemon
1/2 tspn chilli flakes

Method

• Dice the onion and capsicum and add to a bowl
• Cut the avocado roughly into cubes
• Cut the corn kernels from the cob and add to the bowl
• Dice the tomato and add to the bowl
• Dice the cilantro and add to the bowl with the chilli and lemon
• Mix thoroughly until the lemon juice coats the ingredients
• Serve with corn tortillas and refried beans for a complete vegan meal
• Great with my vegan chilli
• Serves 2

Review: The Tea Room, Queen Victoria Building

I belong to a women's professional interest group at work, we have regular off sites and recently went to The Tea Room at the top of the Queen Victoria Building in the Sydney CBD.

Quite frankly this was one of the best work events I've ever been to. It had the right air of elegance without feeling stuffy, the food was delicious and the environment fun... and just a bit girly.



If you're not from the Commonwealth then formal Afternoon Tea may be a bit of a mystery to you but it is generally a very formal affair, finger food and hot tea with elegant place settings.



Small sandwiches usually appear along with sweets and savouries such as hot pastries. Here you can see the tableau in all its glory complete with porcelain crockery and silver tea vessels.

Such a formal affair in a grand setting and with high quality place settings isn't the cheapest of trips out. A traditional afternoon tea is $43 per person, pricier options include alcohol such as cocktails or champagne; perfect for a wedding shower or other family celebration. The cost includes a choice of high quality blended teas brewed in the traditional fashion and 'all you can eat' food. We did not make it through what was served to us however they kept offering additional sandwiches or hot dishes if needed.

This is by no means a full showing of all the food but here's a sampling



Fruit tarts and chocolate opera slice bearing The Tea Room logo printed with edible ink on chocolate discs



Hot scones (with jam and clotted cream) with Spinach and Cheese pastries



Finger sandwiches with cucumber, chicken, tuna or egg salad and egg cream pastries



Custard tarts, macarons, orange almondines and passionfruit creams

Afternoon tea is delicious on its own and this was beautiful food and beautiful tea in a gorgeous setting but what made this so spectacular was how accomodating they were. For a large party (10+) they offered us a discount and pre-arranged preferences for tea and food. More impressively they catered to all the food requirements of a difficult group. With dairy free, gluten free and nut free all at the table they managed to feed all of us to bursting satisfaction. They even provided gluten free bread and pastries rather than just replacing with milk or fruit products as is so often the case. The fact that so many in the group had separate allergies was not so much as commented on, they just ensured that we had well marked well appointed stands that were separate for the allergy sufferers. Bravo.

All in all a fantastic experience and just wonderful for a celebration, particularly for those who are unable or uninterested in drinking alcohol. For a mixed group with so many food issues there are almost no better places to go in Sydney.

The Tea Room, Queen Victoria's Building

http://www.thetearoom.com.au/

Formal morning, afternoon and high teas
Not child friendly
Very accommodating to allergies and food restrictions


Level 3, North End, QVB
455 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
Tel: 02 9283 7279
Fax: 02 9283 7276
qvbinfo@thetearoom.com.au


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