Tag Archives: Wonton

Pacific Fair

Today is 2013/01/01 (YYYY/MM/DD this is the way I shorthand dates), the first day of 2013. It was also the last day we spent on the Gold Coast. I promised Miss11 and Miss15 a shopping trip in the tourist shopping centre, viz., Pacific Fair.

Pacific Fair Website http://www.pacificfair.com.au/

Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/wafZ4

View Larger Map

To start though we needed breakfast. We walked across the road to Bistro Blanc on Surf Parade on Broadbeach.

Bistro Blanc Website http://www.bistroblanc.com.au/

Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/2YeKg

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First things first.

Coffee

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Miss11 and Miss15 both had bacon and egg on a muffin with a hash brown.

It was served “gourmet” style with barbecue sauce.

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I couldn’t go past the Eggs Benedict with bacon.

This was done on a Turkish bread which was very nice.

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Having spent more than a week away from home, I planned my 3G data usage to perfection.

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Okay Pacific Fair with Miss11 and Miss15 meant lots and lots and lots of dress and shoe shops. It also meant looking at some novelties.

I never knew you could buy Plants v Zombies plush toys

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I haven’t posted pictures of everything they looked at. I am fortunate that my daughters like looking and are careful when choosing to spend money, even my money. In the end everyone came away happy.

For morning tea, you guessed it, it had to be another vanilla slice.

This one I shared with Miss15 who reminded me that when we lived in Darwin every Saturday or Sunday morning I’d walk to the local pastry shop and buy them caramel tartlets and buy myself a vanilla slice or bee sting.

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After more than half a day of shopping we needed some food before the drive back to Brisbane. We opted for a mall Chinese takeaway. This was a $10 plate of self service. It was awful. Truly disgusting. The worst I’ve ever had. The place is called Cathay Oriental at Pacific Fair shopping centre. Don’t do it is my advice. McDonald’s or KFC would be better.

It looks nasty. Tasted worse.

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Miss15 and Miss17 needed new wrist watches. I bought them some very nice looking watches.

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As we were driving home Mum and Dad were cooking dinner. Basically it was wonton soup without the wonton wrappers. Instead it was served with noodles.

Check it out. This was beyond awesome.

For previous entries on wonton take a look at this search query http://garydavidlum.com/?s=wonton&submit=Search

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For my last night in Brisbane with my parents and two of my daughters, Mum made her “world famous” pavlova. One of the greatest Australian inventions ever (I write this to deliberately stir up my friends and family from New Zealand*).

This one had passion fruit, pitted cherries, banana and mango topping.

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Okay, tomorrow, I return to Canberra. I have had a great little break in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

*For all I care, New Zealand can keep Russel Crowe and Richard Wilkins as their own. Pavlova is ALL AUSTRALIAN.

Wanton Wonton Wonderfulness (garydavidlum.com)
Another week in Instagram and schoolies week (garydavidlum.com)
Instagram loses 25% of Daily Active Users (venturebeat.com)
Sharapova withdraws from Brisbane International (thehindu.com)

Wanton Wonton Wonderfulness

28 Replies

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.

(Instagram)

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

Japanese bacon wrap

(Instagram)

Custard platypus

(Instagram)

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

(Instagram)

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.

(Instagram)

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

(Instagram)

The masters at work

(Instagram)

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

(Instagram)

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

(Instagram)

I also needed a second serve at about 1900 AEST.

(Instagram)

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.

(Instagram)

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)

The Wild Duck is the duck’s guts

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The term the “ducks guts” is a piece of Australian slang.
From the Urban Dictionary an Australian expression—if you think something is awesome, brilliant etc. then it is said to be the duck’s guts.
Synonyms (see below) include the bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas, or, strangely enough, the cat’s arse.
My new cricket bat is the duck’s guts.
Look at that pony-tailed wanker in his BMW. He thinks he’s the ducks guts.
I remember first hearing the expression when watching one of my all time favourite movies, viz., Mad Max. I think in the US it was retitled The Road Warrior.
Here is the scene when Goose uses the phrase. Clearly this is one of the best scenes in the movie and the reason I love Mad Max and Mad Max II.

IMDB also has some great quotes.

On Thursday night I went to dinner with Bron and another couple of dear friends. We ate at the Wild Duck. The Wild Duck is a relatively new restaurant in Canberra and found on the Kingston foreshore. [Map http://goo.gl/maps/6j4zV] If you want to hear a funny story about my arrival you’ll have to tweet Bron.

View Larger Map

The décor is very modern and inviting.

We ate at a booth table for four which was pretty comfortable. Our waiter for the evening was very friendly and very helpful with the menu and provided us with some insights into the restaurant.

The menu is pretty easy to follow. Not too much to select from and not too little that you feel manoeuvred into choosing just what the chef wants you to eat. That said, our waiter recommended a banquet and after some perusal and discussion we agreed on the “Chef’s signature” banquet. This banquet is reasonably expensive at $68 per person and didn’t include dessert. That said the choices where the Chef’s signature dishes and while not exactly degustation, there was an element of that with the starters.

I apologise for the poor photography. The restaurant is quite well lit however, the light casts a very yellow hue in photographs. I need to learn how to balance the colours in my iPhone.

The wonton soup was okay. No one’s wonton soup will ever be as good as my mother’s. No one should even try.

For higher resolution versions please click on the images

Shanghai Wonton Soup

The scallops in XO sauce were delicate and nicely balanced with the asparagus spear which was cooked perfectly.

Scallops with XO Conpoy Chilli

Next came the Lotus Root and Pork Parcels and Xinjang Lamb Skewers. The lotus root and pork was sublime. Crunchy, full of flavour and a nice firmness in terms of texture. Our waiter suggested the lamb may be a little spicy although for me while tasty, it wasn’t spicy. It was definitely not bland though. It was delicious.

Lotus Root and Pork Parcels and Xinjang Lamb Skewers

The next dish to arrive on its own was the restaurant’s special, its signature dish, the Lamb Shank in Golden Sands. I’ve copied the description from the menu: “Served in lettuce cups, slow roasted Lamb shank meat flaked off the bone and crispy fried, finished in a dune of baked golden coconut, garlic and whole black beans”. This was just amazing. I could eat an entire meal of this one dish. It is a must have.

Lamb Shank in Golden Sands

The three main dishes came out together with a bowl of steamed rice. We received the snapper that was delicately cut so when cooked it resembled a piece of coral; next came the Wild Mushroom Duck Breast which was just lovely; and the final dish was the Yu Xiang Pork. This was definitely a spicier dish although the flavour didn’t linger too long.

Coral Cut Snapper

Coral Cut Snapper on steamed rice

Wild Mushroom Duck Breast

Wild Mushroom Duck Breast [close up]

Yu Xiang Pork

For dessert our friends shared a Coconut Jelly and Papaya which was made up of Coconut jelly and sliced fresh pawpaw with warm black sticky rice and palm sugar syrup. Bron and I each had the Dark and White Angel Mousse. This was a martini of dark and white chocolate mousse, dressed with a layered strawberry and raspberry coulis shot. The waiter poured the coulis shot and with the sediment asked for a number between 1 and 9 and proceeded to write the number. Mine was a 9.

Coconut Jelly and Pawpaw

Dark and White Angel Mousse

Dark and White Angel Mousse [and the number 9]

I’d say the Wild Duck is worthwhile visiting. The website is pretty good and the menus are available as separate pdf documents.

Entrée, Mains, Desserts and Banquets

Christmas with my kids, parents and one of my brothers

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For the last few years I’ve visited my girls the week before Christmas to spend the weekend and have our own special Christmas. It also coincides with my Mum’s birthday so it’s a joint celebration.

This year my youngest brother, Mr40 decided to make wonton soup for an entrée. Mr40 prides himself on this wonton soup however, we discovered he doesn’t follow Mum’s recipe to the letter. He doesn’t slap the pork mince. For more information check out My Mum’s wonton recipe and read what I’m talking about.

Mr40's wonton soup for our Christmas lunch entrée

It was pretty good.

If you thought I limited myself to this one small bowl you'd be mistaken.

Lunch was pretty good. In the morning I went out and bought prawns (tigers and kings) and then peeled them. Mum roasted chickens, made a potato bake, coleslaw, devilled eggs and a fantastic stuffing.