Faraja

- Alex 3 Comments

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date of visit: Friday 12 April 2013

A few years ago, a group of us headed to Mantra for a friend’s birthday. It was my sole outing to the restaurant and when I heard last year that it was changing hands and closing in one fell swoop I was disappointed that I had managed just the one visit.

But, fortunately, as Mantra closed, Faraja opened and the quiet, city end of King William Road remains host to some interesting dining. It’s taken me a while to get there but I’ve finally managed it in my own roundabout way. A friend owed me lunch as a result of wedding present buying. No sooner was lunch scheduled than it was unscheduled by someone kindly writing off my car. Before I knew it, I owed said friend lunch (yes, I need to have cheaper taste in wine) and three months later, he took a day off work and we managed to wander into Faraja at 1pm on a Friday.

Because I am that type of person I had booked. Unsurprisingly unnecessary but it was gratifying to see that a few tables were occupied and, as we ate, a few more customers wandered through the door.

We settled ourselves in and had a look over the menu. Unfortunately, Faraja sports only a Facebook page, and not a proper website, so I was hoping that the menu on Facebook was up to date (it’s not) because my toddler had been on and on about sausage as soon as I told him we were going out for lunch.

The menu is focussed on sharing, so there are “pots and plates” and “small” sections, with a brief regular main course section. We ordered whitebait (mainly for the toddler’s benefit), the pork and fennel sausages with a tomato, onion and capsicum sauce, roasted pumpkin with goats curd and crispy prosciutto, pork belly with a mustard glaze and orange and fennel salad, and duck fat roasted potatoes. We asked that the food come out as it was ready, which meant we were able to graze our way through lunch.

While we waited, we nibbled on some very good bread and olive oil. It’s always a good sign when a venue has paid some attention to the bread: this was lovely, chewy, sour, textural stuff – just how I like it!

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The whitebait were a massive hit with the toddler. I thought they could have been a bit hotter (thermally, not spice wise) but they weren’t at all greasy. The pork and fennel sausage was delicious and I’m sure that’s quite a crowd pleaser. The roast pumpkin with goat curd and crispy prosciutto was a great mix of flavours but I thought its presentation a little clumsy. The two large pieces of roast pumpkin, skin on (which I don’t like, so that’s just personal preference) seemed a bit like they’d been plonked on the plate, with the (delicious) goat curd and prosciutto added to pretty it up.

In contrast to the pumpkin’s presentation, the pork belly was very pretty: two neat squares of pork belly, with a mustard glaze and delicate orange and fennel salad. Perhaps a very safe dish but one that works deliciously: the anise and acidity of the salad working as a foil for the richness and unctuousness of the pork. Somewhat miraculously, I didn’t even have to share my piece of pork belly with the two year old eating machine.

All this was wrapped up with, or mopped up by, the duck fat potatoes, which did exactly what they said on the tin – especially once I’d given mine a good sprinkling of salt!

Drinks wise, the wine list was quite short. As it was lunch, I only looked at the by the glass selection which wasn’t particularly exciting: I settled on a Kilikanoon Riesling (which, to be honest, rather tasted like it had been open just a little too long). My lunch partner chose a Prancing Pony Pale Ale.

By the time we finished our spread, we were full enough to not need dessert, so we just wrapped up with coffee and tea.

While we ate, we were able to do some good spotting of other dishes, which all looked good. One of the main courses (from the grill) looked so impressive my dining companion suggest I ask the recipient if I could photograph it (rest assured, I did not do that!). And later in the meal a huge dessert appeared too.

Faraja has a spacious dining room, an area that can be used for private dining, a massive bar and a courtyard area. For a midweek lunch, the vibe is suitably relaxed, with very friendly service but I daresay that come Friday beer o’clock the ambience at Faraja picks up a notch.

The bottom line: lunch for two (& a bit), with drinks $85. A few small niggles but somewhere I’ll definitely head again.

Faraja on Urbanspoon

Exeter Hotel, Semaphore

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date of visit: Saturday 30 March 2013

The lovely long Easter weekend actually gave us some time to collect our thoughts and head out and about. A friend had mentioned the Kite Festival at Semaphore and while it’s a small hike from our place we made it down just in time to see a few kites before our toddler started demanding something to eat …

We had no real plan and we just started wandering up Semaphore Road. There is no shortage of places to choose from and we were tempted by quite a few. I was looking out for the Exeter purely on the ground that I had been there once about 15 years ago. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise quite how far away from the sea the pub is and by the time we reached it, the bleats of “eat, eat” from the pram were becoming more and more pitiful so we had no choice but to hope they could accommodate us.

We entered the bistro area to see what seemed like huge swathes of massive tables set up, every table with a reserved sign and seemingly every high chair in the state set out. It turns out that Easter Saturday and an international kite festival make for busy venues …

It’s a good thing we were so early (almost bang on 5pm) because we actually bagged the last free table in the house. We could have sat outside but firstly, it was cold and secondly, the Exeter has a play area* and we knew that meant we would have very little focus on actually eating, let alone leaving.

There were no free high chairs but fortunately our table was more like a booth and had high banquette seating so our little chap had no problem demolishing my dinner for me.

The menu at the Exeter is pub standard with pub standard prices. The pub offers various meal deals, as well as “kids eat free” from Monday through Thursday. We opted, as always, for pub standards. Andy chose the beef schnitzel with gravy and I went for the toddler’s current favourite, salt and pepper fried calamari.

As an aside, any pub that has a toddler sized portion of that on its menu – please get in touch, because I’m sick of sharing my food!

The meals came out super fast, which you do expect and also, given the masses of large reserved tables, something for which we were extremely grateful.

Andy’s schnitzel actually wasn’t too bad – a very standard pub schnitzel and it was definitely a case of getting exactly what you expect. Unfortunately, the salt and pepper squid was an absolute masterclass in stuffing up. We could not fathom what had gone wrong.

The batter on the squid was squidgy, doughy and pappy. The squid itself was actually tender. Had everything been dramatically overcooked? Not likely, as that wouldn’t turn the batter doughy and the meals had come out really quickly. Had the fat been not hot enough? I didn’t think so because it didn’t seem greasy (although, in hindsight, maybe all the fat had been absorbed into that nasty batter …). Andy thought it was no mean achievement to mess it up so royally (although he did also say he felt incredibly sorry for the kitchen staff for the imminent onslaught of large parties).

Now I do have to confess that when the waiter came to collect our plates I didn’t complain. Firstly, thanks to the toddler there was nothing left on the plate and I think it’s pretty rude to complain about something you’ve demolished. Secondly, I had no real constructive criticism to offer: “it just wasn’t very good” is rather pathetic.

Everything else at the Exeter was as you’d expect: service was friendly and efficient, the wine list had a good selection of reasonably priced by the glass wines but was a bit boring and the menu offered all the pub favourites.

We used our Entertainment Book voucher and the meal cost us under $40 (2 main courses, a beer for Andy and a glass of Riesling for me). I think I am generally fair and set my expectations according to the venue, and I very much hope the squid was a one off issue. The problem the Exeter has is that it is far too close to a huge range of restaurants, so one small slip up will see us try somewhere else next time we head that way.

Where should we have eaten instead?

* Personally, as soon as I see a pub offering a “play area” it puts me off. I’d rather my child sat at the table and ate his dinner than think it’s acceptable to charge around like a lunatic. That’s the grumpy old lady in me …

Dan Lepard’s Sour Cream Chocolate Cake

- Alex 4 Comments

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake

Big lunch with the family at Easter and, as usual, I got to cook dessert. One day I will have to volunteer to cook something else!

My dad is quite partial to a bit of chocolate cake and I’ve had my eye on this sour cream chocolate cake for ages. I have plenty of chocolate cake recipes that are tried, tested and, indeed, popular, but there’s no harm in trying something new. And in the past I’ve found Dan Lepard’s recipes very reliable (see his tollhouse yoyos).

I received instructions from dad to make sure I used chilli chocolate. I ignored this and just followed the recipe.

The cake itself has a degree of novelty as it uses oil and sour cream rather than butter. And the icing is also based around sour cream. The cake also has less chocolate than I expected in the cake itself and, I thought, there was far too much vanilla in the whole thing.

Begin by making the cake. Prepare 2 18cm (or in my case I think they were 19cm) sponge tins: I used new silicon ones so I just gave them a slick of canola oil and base lined them with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).

Melt 75g dark chocolate. Beat together 75mL of sunflower oil, 75g of sour cream (I actually used light sour cream because if you shop at 4pm on Maundy Thursday you use what is on the shelf!), 125g caster sugar, 75g of runny honey, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and 3 eggs. Then add the slightly cooled melted chocolate.

Mix together 175g plain flour, 25g of chocolate and 2 tsp of baking powder and sift it into your cake mix.

Divide the mix between the two pans and bake until done – which in my case was just on 20 minutes. Lepard’s original recipe suggests 25 minutes but I knew my pans were potentially slightly larger than they should have been and I also know my oven is quick. You want the cake to be done but you also want a few crumbs sticking to the skewer.

Remove the cakes from the oven, stab all over with a skewer and dress with a simple syrup of 25g sifted icing sugar adn 25 mL boiling water. The original recipe suggests adding 2 tsp of vanilla extract, which I did, but the finished product was so overhelmingly vanilla-y that I’d definitely omit that at this step.

Cover the cakes (I used cling film) and allow to cool. In my case, this was overnight.

When ready to assemble I made the sour cream icing. Take 300g of dark chocolate and melt with 50g of unsalted butter. Add 50g of runny honey, a splash of rum (Bundaberg, of course!), 100g of sifted icing sugar and 125 g of the light sour cream. Mix until smooth.

Despite sieving the icing sugar, mixing until smooth involved putting it all in the KitchenAid and giving it a good beating with the paddle beater. It made quite a pale fluffy icing.

Sandwich the cakes together (pro tip – sandwich together the two flat sides – the bases) with the icing and cover the top and sides.

Serve at room temperature with plenty of cream.

The verdict?

Personally, I was massively underwhelmed by this. There was waaaay too much vanilla – I’d definitely drop the vanilla from the syrup, and probably also halve it in the cake (although I suspect the vanilla in the syrup was the main offender, not being cooked out). I’d probably also go for a straight chocolate ganache: I found the icing too sweet and would have to rework it to reuse it.

I was ho-hum about the cake. I’d prefer something darker and more chocolately and fudgy.

Andy liked the total package and loyally said he’d be happy to eat it all day.

Mum rated the cake highly but wasn’t sure about the icing. In fact, the icing seemed the most contentious part of the cake.

Dad? Well, he complained because I didn’t use chilli chocolate!