Lambs fry | Yummy Lummy

The last week and a bit has been huge. On Thursday and Friday 25 and 26 October I was at Mt Macedon at a Disaster Intelligence Master Class run by the Australian Emergency Management Institute (AEMI). This was an excellent two days meeting new colleagues and networking.

On Sunday 28 October I flew back to Melbourne for another three nights stay. For the last few months I’ve been involved in the preparation for a week of meetings with international colleagues covering a week of meetings in Melbourne and Canberra. On Thursday I hosted a full day meeting with international visitors. I am so grateful to a small cadre of work mates who behind the scenes got all the logistics sorted out in quick time.

So my week has been full on and my eating has been atrocious. The only day when it approached okay was Thursday when I had some control over the food at the breaks and lunch. We served fruit platters and sandwiches with “healthful” fillings. On the other days when other agencies were in charge we enjoyed cream filled biscuits, cream filled pastries, doughnuts, cakes and slices. The lunches were also very filling.

To top off a very full and mentally stressful week I had arranged to visit my kids in Brisbane this weekend. That has meant a lot of fun and really very little time for rest and sleep. The other benefit has been a rebalance of my twitter statistics. Last week saw very little social media activity so I’ve made up for it over the weekend, especially on Twitter and Instagram.

Anyway, so here I am in Brisbane this weekend. What I had not realised was that my two younger brothers would also be in town. They were sorting some things out for my parents. To give you some context. I’m the eldest of three sons. Brother 2 is two years younger than me and Brother 3 is six years younger than me. Brother 2 is a medical practitioner based in Cairns and Brother 3 is in Brisbane’s building and construction industry.

At lunch Brother 2 sent me an iMessage asking if I wanted wonton for dinner. Earlier in the day we had discussed having dinner at Eatons Hill Hotel where Miss17 was doing work experience. They didn’t have a table so we elected to go to our tried and true Kedron-Wavell RSL. My guess is that Brother 2 and Brother 3 had a chat between themselves and cooked up a scheme, a scheme that would suit me just fine.

Brother 3 has become a master of wonton making. He has friends who ask him to make wonton for them. Brother 3 essentially follows Mum’s recipe. Brother 2 however, prefers a variation on Mum’s recipe. Brother 2 like me enjoys adding texture to our food. We’re also fans of coriander (cilantro) while Mum isn’t. Brother 2 tends to add raw finely sliced ginger and bamboo shoots to augment the crunch of the water chestnuts.

In the end we stayed with Mum’s recipe given we were eating with Mum and Dad.

While we were out Miss 17 needed to my a birthday card. I saw one that caught my eye.

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We also enjoyed a high carbohydrate lunch from a local Japanese Bakery.

Japanese bacon wrap

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Custard platypus

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After lunch we were in need of Ice Cream so we went to Cold Rock Ice Creamery at Chermside.

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I asked Miss15 to capture an image of me buying ice cream.

When we arrived back at my parent’s place you could smell the food preparation from the corridor.

As we entered we were confronted with a tower of wonton wrapper.

I wondered if they had bought enough. Eight packets of fifty wrappers.

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Brother 2 had bought some pork mince but it was too lean so he got some pork belly and hand minced it in the traditional family way. With two meat cleavers. This is the BEST way to mince meat. It also builds muscles and annoys neighbours and tests the sturdiness of kitchen tables.

Meat cleavers used to mince the pork belly.

The final filling. Go to my Mum’s recipe for the details.

As the team were getting into making the wonton Miss11 and Miss15 wanted to have a go.

Then the experts showed them how.

We had tray upon tray and made about 400 wonton

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The masters at work

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Before I drove Miss17 to work experienced she and I were given a tasting bowl at about 1500 AEST.

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When I got back dinner was ready and this is my first serving. So much better than restaurant portions.

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I also needed a second serve at about 1900 AEST.

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Did I mention the pork bones? They were fall off the bone tasty.

There were some wonton left over and my brothers and daughters have a liking for cold freshly made and cooked wonton from the refrigerator. Whenever I do it I get visions of Nigella Lawson going back to her refrigerator late at night.

Needless to say we slept well and still feel full. Mum and Dad though thought I needed a big breakfast.

Mum had been planning this for a little while. She grinned as she brought food from the refrigerator and was pretty happy when she saw my smile. She’d been to the butcher and got some lamb’s fry. As many readers know I like my offal and nice lamb’s fry is hard to come by. Mum has seasoned some flour with salt and pepper and coated the liver and then kept it in the refrigerator overnight. This morning she gently pan fried it and served it with bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs and a grilled tomato. It was delicious.

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Needless to say my daughters are not great fans of offal. I pondered whether Dr Offal should post this on his blog, but figured it was better suited to this post.

A note about this post. I’ve used a new WordPress.com feature. WordPress.com users can now embed Instagram images into their blog posts. This seems to work well. If you want to comment on an image in Instagram click on the image and if it’s been inserted through instagram you’ll soon see

Cream Cheese and Shrimp Wontons (spoonful.com)
Wonton Soup (spoonful.com)
WONTON (this is not your mother’s) MEATLOAF CUPS (tamaraleighauthor.wordpress.com)
Fall Baking Series: Apple Cinnamon Wontons (themidwestmaven.wordpress.com)
Making fried wontons with KRAFT pourable anything dressing #anythingdressing (behindthestudio.com)
Wonton Taco Cups (glitzgirlzglamourguide.com)
Making Wontons with Grandma (4mothers1blog.com)
Deep-fried Wonton (waiyukkennedy.wordpress.com)

Regular readers will know that I have a liking for all sorts of food. Fine dining and bulked up comfort and truck stop food. One day I will write about my grand parents and their Chinese restaurant at one of the biggest truck stops in Australia.

On Wednesday night Bron and I went to Onred Restaurant. This is regarded as one of the finest eating places in Canberra. Today we had lunch at Central Cafe in Queanbeyan. This is regarded more broadly as the place with the amazing mixed grill challenge. I don’t think it’s in the league of Man v Food but it’s pretty sizable and it certainly takes a good attitude to eating to finish the plate, or at least in my case, complete the meat eating.

The philosophy at Onred is many small serves to enjoy the flavours. At Onred they recommend choosing three or four entrée sized dishes from their menu and then enjoying a dessert each. The way the meals are served, sharing between diners is encouraged.

Onred Restaurant on Red Hill

I think many readers will be surprised that I did not capture any images of food. The ambience of the restaurant was not conducive to me pulling out my iPhone with each course. Given we had seven dishes and then two desserts I would have spent the whole night with my iPhone out. I can describe what we ate.

Polenta fried calamari w cauliflower and almond puree and eggplant chips [8/10]
Pan fried sweetbreads w bread sauce, celery, parsley, hazelnut and sultanas [9/10, I really enjoyed the sweetbreads]
Baked parmesan scallops and scallop ceviche [10/10]
Chicken, sage and bacon crepinette w parsley puree, roast cherry tomato and fried capers [7.5/10, it was okay but a little bland compared with everything else]
Salted pork belly w bacon dusted grapes and radish salad [8/10, pork belly is now ubiquitous and it's not as special as it once was]
Char grilled sirloin w black pudding, smoked onion puree and pickled onion rings [8.5/10, the sirloin was a little tough, the black pudding was spectacular with the onion]
Szechuan glazed duck breast w confit duck, confit orange and lemon and coriander buckwheat [9/10, the duck was superb, I'm not a fan of the buckwheat]

Caramelised pineapple w ginger cream, sable crumbs and lemon myrtle ice cream [9/10, the flavours were fresh and tropically sweet. I loved it]
Crushed flourless chocolate cake w liquid chocolate, orange and mandarin puree, honeycomb and orange ice cream [Bron had this. It was a generous dessert and it look luxurious and comforting. It looked like a loving hug on a plate]

The restaurant is on the second story in a building on top of Red Hill. The views of Canberra are very good and the room itself was relatively quiet given the harshness of the glass surfaces. The service was good. It was attentive but unobtrusive. It was a very nice evening. I would definitely return for another meal. My favourite dish was the scallops. They were near perfect and the one dish I’d want to come back for for a larger serving to enjoy myself.

Today we had lunch at Central Cafe in Queanbeyan. This is an institution in Queanbeyan and well known in Canberra. When I first started working in Canberra a work colleague mentioned the place to me and the mixed grill challenge. He was a power lifter and said it was one of the few substantial meals for a reasonable price anywhere in the Canberra/Queanbeyan district. So after four years of thinking about it I finally tried it.

It’s situated on the main drag in Queanbeyan and pretty obvious as you drive down the street.

Central Cafe from the street

Okay, so no surprise I went with the mixed grill. If you read the menu you will see Mixed Grill – A serious Challenge for $29.50. Famous around Australia for its size, weight and quality, our Mixed Grill is NOT FOR THE FEINT HEARTED! Have you got what it takes?

The famous Central Cafe Mixed grill. Pork chop, steaks, snags, ham, bacon, lambs fry (liver), crumbed veal, roast potato, chips, cauliflower and broccoli cheese and carrots

The plate is a full dinner plate and it is covered in food. I was disappointed there wasn’t a lamb chop or cutlet. There were two steaks, two sausages, two pieces of ham, a bacon rasher, four pieces of liver, and a piece of crumbed veal. I started well and felt confident I’d finish the meat in terms of a high protein low carbohydrate challenge. I ate a few chips and all the cauliflower and broccoli.

Me eating the Cantral Cafe mixed grill. The pepper sauce was pretty good too.

It wasn’t until the end, towards the piece of veal which I was keeping for last that I started feeling full and my brain was giving me signals to think about slowing down.

Only about a third of the way through

I didn’t eat all the chips and carrots. I was feeling a little full. Rather than make myself feel full or force myself to eat I felt comfortable stopping after eating all the meat.

All the meat is gone.

This was a good meal. It was worth going to Central Cafe and enjoying lunch. It’s another milestone in my Canberra bucket list.

Well I wouldn’t think of Onred and Central Cafe as chalk and cheese. That suggests one is bad while the other better. Both of these places is good. Both of these places serves a purpose. I’d return to both places. If you’re new to Canberra and want to take someone out to a nice dinner in a pleasant environment with a good view, Onred is a good start. If you’re new and you like big hearty meals, try Central Cafe, you won’t be disappointed.

Central Cafe menu