specials – Gourmanda

Review: Vidlicky A Noze, Prague, Czech Republic

You guys know about my love for Hong Kong-style diners right? The food is never that great, but it’s always cheap and plentiful. The ambiance and service might not be fantastic, but it’s always efficient and designed to get you in and out as fast as possible. Most importantly, they always evoke a sense of nostalgia for me, and I tend to reflect back to primary school days when my father used to pick me up from school and take me to a diner for afternoon tea. Special daddy-daughter time as it were.

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I always thought the Hong Kong diner was a unique concept – at least until we visited Vidlicky A Noze in Prague. While it’s technically a ‘proper’ restaurant offering a full menu of traditional Czech dishes, most of the locals who visit order off their menu of five or six daily specials, all priced under $6 AUD a dish.

Like in a Honky diner, we watched groups and individuals all enter, order quickly after a quick glance at the specials, get served their meal in under five minutes, eat in under ten minutes, and then pay and leave. Done and dusted in under half an hour. Quick and efficient, the Cantonese way.

Home-made lemonade with mint and with elderflower, 40 Czech Koruna each

We took a bit longer though, and lingered for a while over the menu as we needed the waitress to translate the specials (written in Czech only) into English for us! While we perused the menu, we had some drinks to start – a Homemade Lemonade with Mint for me, and Homemade Lemonade with Elderflower for K. For some reason, K’s lemonade was carbonated and subsequently more refreshing, while mine was particularly flat and a bit too sweet on the palate. I’m not sure why they were made differently!

Grilled pork steak with caramelised onions and french fries, 92 Czech Koruna

We decided to ignore the main menu and copied the locals in ordering off the specials. I chose the Grilled Pork Steak, served with caramelised onions, gravy and french fries for only $5 AUD. A real bargain, and surprisingly delicious though not particularly nutritious. The pork was nice and tender with a smoky grilled flavour, the onions were sweet and the crunchy fries were delicious dipped in the salty gravy. A real comfort meal.

Chicken cooked in paprika with pasta, 85 Czech Koruna

K’s was a little less inspiring – Chicken in Paprika with Pasta. The chicken pieces were a little dry and overdone, and the sauce lacked that true paprika heat. Not quite the dish he hoped for, but that’s the risk you run with the cheap daily specials! He should have figured it out from looking at what the locals were eating though. Plenty of them had chosen my dish, but no one else seemed to have chosen the pasta. When in doubt, follow the local choices!

Feeling guilty about the number of carbs and rich sauces we had consumed with our meals, we ordered some Grilled Vegetables to share to vary our diet slightly. Not quite as nice as the ones that K had ordered at Atmosphere Cafe Pub, these vegetables hadn’t been grilled quite enough. For example, the sweetness hadn’t really come out of the capsicum properly – an extra minute on the grill could have brought it out!

Traditional homemade strawberry dumplings with cottage cheese and strawberry dip, 69 Czech Koruna

We finished off our meal by sharing the Homemade Strawberry Dumplings, served with cottage cheese, strawberry coulis and powdered sugar on top. It was a surprisingly large serve – definitely a dessert best shared between two people. These dumplings were delicious though, kind of like a cross between delicious soft but dense brioche, but with the syrupy goodness of Greek loukamades. With a poached strawberry inside each dumpling simply oozing sweet syrup, you really can’t go wrong!

While you can order typical Czech dishes like duck confit, goulash or roast pork at Vidlicky A Noze, you shouldn’t. If you want to eat like the locals, you need to order from their simple daily specials menu. Food is cheap and plentiful, and if you order by referring to what others are ordering, you can’t go wrong! Not one to rush to when in Prague, but worth dropping in if you like cheap and cheerful meals.

Vidlicky A Noze is located at 93/11 Vodni in Prague, Czech Republic.

Review: Phx Bistro, Dublin Ireland

Ireland isn’t a cheap country to visit. When we met K’s Irish second cousins for the first time, we spent some time talking about travel and one of them said, “When you’re Irish, everywhere else is cheap for you!” There’s definitely some truth to that – however if you’re a bit clever in planning your days out, you can still dine out on a budget. Many cafes will do a sandwich and a drink for a fiver at lunch and pubs will do a 10 Euro lunch deal. Some greasy spoon diners will even do a 6 Euro full Irish breakfast if you want to go out for brunch, and many places will do early bird specials (dine before 6pm for half the price!).

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Other places will offer set dinner deals, and the cosy PHX Bistro is one example. We went there for dinner on our first night and took advantage of their dinner deal – two courses for 20.95 Euro, or three courses for 23.95 Euro. You’re not limited in your menu choices either, as you pick each course from their regular a la carte menu. Some dishes will incur an additional charge (steak for example), but otherwise, you’re saving at least 5-10 Euro per person, depending on what you choose.

Pork Rillette with onion puree, walnuts, sourdough and truffle oil

K chose the Starter special of the day, a Pork Rillette. He’d been missing eating processed meats since his gout diagnosis – no more prosciutto, pates or salamis for him! A rillette was a nice compromise, salted well and cooked slowly but without all the bas stuff that goes into more processed smoked meats. This dish was well thought out, with a strong porky paste, a sweeter onion puree and crunchy walnuts for texture, all spread on top of aromatic truffle-infused sourdough toast.

Soup of the Day (creamy roasted garlic and potato) with home-made Guinness bread

I chose the Soup special of the day as my starter, a Creamy Roasted Garlic and Potato soup served with home-made Guinness bread on the side. What I liked about this soup was the fact that the creaminess didn’t actually seem to come from the use of dairy – it came almost entirely from the potato itself, as the starchiness had already helped to thicken up the soup. I loved the healthy use of garlic as well, which just made the soup really fragrant. The perfect meal for a cold Irish winter’s night.

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The best part of my meal was the home-made Guinness bread though – rich, tasty and yeasty without being overly beery. This is something I’d like to try making at home…which excited K when I mentioned it, as it will naturally mean buying a six pack or more of Guinness which he loves!

Confit Annaghmore Duck Leg with beetroot infused Pommes Anna potato, savoy cabbage with cherry & Port jus

For his main K had the Duck Confit, served with a beetroot potato gratin and cabbage on the side. The cherry jus served with the meal was a particularly nice touch, as the strong fruity jus went well not only with the drier duckmeat and crispy duck skin, but also with the sweeter potato gratin and the wilted cabbage. It’s a dish where all the elements work together well, creating a hearty and satisfying meal.

Baked Fillet of Irish Hake topped with homemade herb crumb, served with sauteed potatoes, green beans & lemon cream sauce

My main was the Baked Irish Hake, served with potatoes, green beans and a delicious citrus cream. I really enjoyed my dish, especially with the citrus cream which went particularly well with the creamy white flesh of the baked hake fillet. With the crispiest potatoes and fresh green beans, the fish was really topped off with the fragrant herb crumbs. A simple dish that could be recreated at home for a healthy and balanced dinner.

To finish off our meal, K ordered a cleansing Green Tea – nothing too special, though it was nice to see that PHX Bistro care enough about good tea to offer proper tea leaves instead of a tea bag. Some places don’t even go to those lengths!

Spiced pear and wild berry crumble served with vanilla ice-cream

As we were quite full from our starters and mains already, we chose to share a dessert rather than ordering one each – a Spiced Pear and Wild Berry Crumble topped with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice-cream. For future reference, pear and berries are a fantastic combination, with the sweetness of the pear helping to counter the tartness of the berries – and the great mixed nut and oat crumble really rounded it off, adding both texture and flavour.

After we finished our meal, I remarked to K that it was a simple meal. He disagreed, until I explained that I meant no disrespect by calling it simple. On the contrary, I think any restaurant that can serve up simple classics like duck confit and baked fish in a satisfying and satiating dish where all the elements work well together is harder to find than most people would think. PHX Bistro is definitely one of those restaurants – they’re not hitting it out of the park with innovative uses of seaweed foam or freeze-dried rare jungle moss, but they are serving up delicious classic dishes at a great price. Well worth a visit.

PHX Bistro is located at 12 Ellis Quay, Dublin.

Review: High Tea at Crowne Plaza, Coogee Beach

When K and are got engaged early last year, we had already been living together for a number of years. We are also both in decent jobs and realistically, lack for nothing. With some concentrated saving, we can generally afford whatever we want…it also helps that we have relatively simple tastes and we’re both not materialistic! Basically with all those factors in mind, the last thing we wanted to do was to start a wedding registry and solicit wedding presents.

Instead we asked guests to contribute to either one of two chosen charities, or to consider providing a small contribution towards our honeymoon fund, for an extended overseas honeymoon in 2015. Most of our guests did that, but some guests provided something special as well. We’re known as the couple that eats out together a lot, and many of our guests gave us restaurant gift vouchers to ensure that we could have special dining experiences.

Our first dining experience was gifted by my friend Bobbi, who I went to university with. We really bonded when we both studied overseas in Shanghai for three months during a summer semester of intensive Mandarin language learning. She chose to give us a High Tea on the Beach voucher through Red Balloon, to be held at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Coogee.

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K and I arrive at the hotel on one of the hottest days of the summer – the streets and beaches are packed with chicks in bikinis and guys in boardshorts. I’m silently thankful that we’re inside in a cool air-conditioned room enjoying a nice meal, instead of sweating it out on the beach with everyone else! We’re sharing the space that afternoon with a hens party – three large tables full of women aged between 18 and 75, all laughing and giggling away.

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Service is prompt, if somewhat abrupt. Without much fanfare, we’re quickly seated, asked for our drink order (jasmine tea for me, peppermint tea for K), and our tea is delivered to our tables within five minutes. There’s benefits to this prompt service though – I’m decidedly hungry and it seems that while the hens party have been there for a while waiting for the food to arrive, we’re going to benefit from their wait and have our food delivered at the same time! It seems that the kitchen had been working on our high tea platter at the same time, so we barely have to wait ten minutes for our food to arrive.

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I always think a high tea service is a thing of beauty. While each tier of savoury snacks and sweet delights can stand on its own as something completely enjoyable, combined, the whole high tea service cannot be beaten. It’s a real indulgence in every sense of the word.

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The Crowne Plaza put a bit of an Australian multi-cultural twist onto high tea with the inclusion of mini meat pies, mini sausage rolls, deep-fried wontons and curry triangles as hot savoury items. The best item was probably the mini meat pie which went really well with the Beerenberg tomato chutney on the table – the other hot items seemed as though they had been reheated from frozen.

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There was a mix of finger sandwiches provided, but unfortunately none of what I generally expect to find at a high tea. Fillings like egg salad and cucumber were not to be seen. The turkey and cranberry was probably the best mix out of the sandwiches, but overall the sandwiches suffered from an excess of mayonnaise.

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The sweets were a huge improvement. I really enjoyed the sweet chocolate ganache tarts, topped off by mini macarons – they were sweet and creamy without leaving that cloying mouthfeel. No doubt it was aided by the little slice of plain dragonfruit I had which helped to cleanse the palate in-between trying different sweet snacks.

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I also really liked the little friand-style berry cakes on the sweet tier. They were simple with just a hint of fruity berry goodness, but were so buttery and rich that they felt absolutely sinful.

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To top everything off, there were some “still warm, fresh out of the oven” fruit scones to complete our high tea experience. Funnily enough, these two scones came with a full bowl of cream – I don’t know how others eat their scones, but there was absolutely no way we were going to be able to eat all the cream with only two scones! I enjoyed a range of the Beerenberg jams with the fruit scones – I think my favourite was the blackberry jam!

I always enjoy a high tea experience – it’s so completely novel to spend hours in the mid-afternoon leisurely eating your way through a variety of small savoury and sweet nibblies, sipping on tea. Thank you Bobbi for gifting us with this experience!