Thursday, October 18, 2007

Making the most of Good Food Month

Its Good Food Month and I have an excuse to go out and make a pig of myself! A bunch of us at work decided to do the "Lets do lunch" at Forty One located at Chifley Tower. We managed to book the second seating meaning we wouldn't be rushed out of the restaurant. To make things better, all the Managers were out of the office today, so we could really enjoy our lunch.

The service at Forty One was really good and attentive, but not overbearing. Drinks were offered the moment we sat down, and plates of warm and crusty sourdough bread rolls were brought out some olive oil. Now I've always been against dipping bread into olive oil. I just don't find it that tasty! Even all the gourmet olive oils at the Farmers Markets don't really cut it for me. Yes I can taste a HINT of the fruitiness/pepperiness etc etc, but it just didn't jump out at me. That is until today. The olive oil they served with the bread was like nothing I've ever had before. The fruitiness of the olive oil was unmistakable! I couldn't help myself but rip of chunks of crusty bread and dunking it into the olive oil and slowly savouring the taste!

Once we had settled in, our mains came out. For the Good Food Month, Forty one was offering a dish of Slow Cooked Ocean Trout, Sweet English Peas crushed with Prosciutto, Peccorino, Basil, Mint & Lemon.


This was unbelievable. It looked like a big slab of sashimi, but instead of the cold slipperiness I was expecting, it was warm and unbelievably melting in your mouth. All you had to do was nudge it with a knife, and it'll slide through the trout like soft butter. A nice squeeze of lemon juice went perfectly with this decadent fish. The peas had the fresh sweetness that you don't get from frozen peas and the potato cubes! Crispy and fluffy! I can't be good for you!

We also ordered a few sides of cooked spinach with flaked almonds and a green salad to share. After our meal, we ordered a few coffees and teas and relaxed before we had to go back to work. Since I had to stay back late at work last night, I ended up leaving on time even though I had a long lunch. I met up with a few friends and headed off to the Night Noodle Markets at Hyde Park for round 2.

We managed to score one of the last tables and immediately starting hitting the stands. Now I made the same mistake that I did last year. We were so early, we ended up getting the precooked cold food they had prepared earlier. The wind chill factor didn't help either. But we still had a few nice dishes to share. By the way, I'm trying out my brand spanking new lenses, so the photo quality ain't that great. I haven't fully gotten a hang of how to use it yet:

Cold and windy

Tom Yum Prawn Noodle Soup from Yai's

Thai stuff chicken wings from Sussex Thai

Prawn cakes with sweet chilli sauce from Sussex Thai

Salt and pepper calamari

Japanese Spicy pork fried rice with fried Dim Sims

We were surprisingly full by this stage and completely frozen from head to toe. We ended up giving our table to some late running friends and got out of there for something indoors.

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