Epic Mosaic

Epic has a new beer! It is fruity!  Almost overpoweringly so, on the first taste, with a mass of floral aroma and some sharp, fruity tones.  Settles down a bit after the first sip, but retains those same characters.  I don't think it wants to be too cold, either.  It isn't my favourite of their offerings, but its worth a try.

Also, I'm still loving the 'One Trick Pony' tag.  Embrace the hate, Epic!

Home Baking: LSA Cranberry Cookies

Home Cooking: Cauliflower Fritters

Fritter batter is easy.  You essentially make a thick, savoury pancake batter, and add your toppings. Here, they were cauliflower and feta.  Corn and coleslaw sides.

Fritters:

2 eggs
1 1/2 Cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
Milk until correct consistency (1/2-2/3 cup)
Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 brown onion, finely diced and cooked until soft.
1/3 head cauliflower, cut small, steamed for 3 minutes
150gm feta (although the amount doesn't matter much), in 1cm cubes

Mix batter ingredients together, whisk smooth.  Should be runny.  Add in the onion/feta/cauli, and stir to combine.  Place  a shallow frying pan on medium heat, with a good splash of oil and a knob of butter.  When hot, add spoonfuls of the fritter mix and cook until ready (3-4 minutes first side, 2 minutes the next)

Keep cooked fritters warm in oven while cooking the remainder.

Home Cooking: Ribs, cornbread, salsa.

More home cooking.  Cornbread, bbq pork spare ribs, corn salsa and some salad greens.

Cornbread recipe, for those interested:

3/4 c. yellow cornmeal
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar (This is apparently how it is done. It is too sweet for me, I knock it down to 1/3 cup)
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. buttermilk
3/4 c. (1 1/2 sticks) butter, melted (a stick is a USian term for 125gm)
3 eggs, beaten

In a large bowl measure cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and
salt. Blend well. Add buttermilk and butter slowly. Pour in eggs. Stir
only enough to blend the mixture thoroughly. Pour into 9 x 9 x 2,
baking pan (greased) and level with a spoon or spatula.

Bake in 400 degree preheated oven until the bread tests done when
pierced with a metal skewer, wooden toothpick, or the blade of a
knife. If it comes out clean and dry, the corn bread is done. Cut into
squares.

You can mix it up by making them in muffin trays, so they cook faster and are easier to separate.  Add jalapenos while cooking, or some cheese, if you want more flavour.

Wonder Horse

Nice, hip little bar down an alleyway off Victoria St.  Good beer selection, and some nice cocktails.  I had a bottle of the Lagunitas Little Sumpin'.  Very hoppy, very good.  I'll be back here.

Home Cooking

Quick meal outside on a pleasant Hamilton evening:  Miso baked fish, spice roasted kumara, and a japanese-ish Salsa.

The salsa, in particular, I was quite impressed with.  2 cobs of corn, cooked, cooled and cut from the cob.  1 diced avocado, 1 tomato, deseeded and cut in strips.  1/4 onion finely diced and stirred through a 1/2 tsp of wasabi, 1 tbsp vinegar, and 3 tbsp kewpie mayonnaise.  Served on rocket leaves.

Shinjuku

 Sometimes I really want Japanese food.  I am not in a position to bail to Japan on a whim, so must make do with local variants.  Shinjuku is not bad, and is especially good once you factor in how cheap it all is.  M and I tend to like to eat bitty food rather than getting a smaller number of large dishes.  This approach worked excellently at Shinjuku, where the selection of nibbling sized dishes was very cheap (7-12/dish), and contained a broad selection of tasty things to try.  It seemed also to be cheaper than ordering larger dishes, which came in at 22-27 (or thereabouts) for bento boxes.

Fried gyoza.  Not traditional pot-stickers, but the other option was just steamed, and that wouldn't be fun either.  Good, but not exactly what I am looking for in gyoza.

Mixed tempura.  Shrimp, assorted vegetables.  Not too oily, nice crispy batter, and the dipping sauce was excellent.

Agedashi Tofu.  Good.  Broth was perhaps a little light on flavour, but this wasn't a big issue.

Chicken Kara-age.  Smaller pieces than I was expecting, but with a nice flavour on them. Good.

Okonomyaki. Tasty as it always is, although perhaps a little thin?  Wasn't quite enough of it.  Oh well.

I failed to take any photos of the Takoyaki.  They arrived, we ate them, I remembered the camera (phone). Oh well.

We shared them all, for I think $48 total food spend.  We left full and happy.  Cheap and simple Japanese food, in a pleasant if utilitiarian fitout.  Beers were reasonable prices, although there were none o the interesting Japanese craft beers available, just offerings from the big breweries.  Oh well, too much to ask I guess.  I will happily go back here.

Shinjuku Japanese Restaurant

7 Anglesea St, Hamilton 3204

(07) 838 0064

Clarence Wine & Tapas

An expansion/side-project/diversion for the folk running the systematically excellent Mavis & Co, Clarence seems to already be a hit.  We fronted up on a Friday, without booking, and made do with seats outside. These were made bearably by it being a pleasant night, and the heaters being powerful.  Weren't after too much, just some things to nibble on and perhaps a glass or two of wine.

Warmed marinated olives, cracked pepper and sage.  Tasty.  

Tempura soft shell crab w/ mushroom ceviche and XO.  Mushroom ceviche is not just a thing, it is a wonderful thing.

Above and below are a tasting platter.  Highlights for me were the crumbed gurnard and the piquante peppers with baby corn, feta and paprika.  (In the top photo, those fried balls are peppers, in the photo below, the gurnard is front right)

Dessert! This was a blue cheese brulee, because why not?  Not sweet at all, and excellent.

A very dark chocolate tart, again not too sweet. Buttermilk and raspberry to take the edge off.

Not everything worked.  There was a pate with prunes on the tasting plate which I didn't think quite hit the right notes, but the things which did, were excellent.  Service was still more like a cafe than a restaurant, which I like, but I could imagine it putting some people off (especially when the food is this good).

http://www.mavis.co.nz/

Dogfish Head: 90 Minute IPA

From the Dogfish Head website: "Esquire Magazine calls our 90 Minute IPA "perhaps the best IPA in America.""  I can see why.  M had just finished telling me that she was a bit over IIPAs, but a sip of this was completely convincing.

Liberty Brewing: Yakima Scarlet

Do Liberty Brewing make a bad beer?  If so, I have yet to find it.  The Yakima Scarlet is, according to the brewers, something of a long term project, taking 7 iterations before release. It is a rich red colour, strong nose, good (US) hoppiness.

Volare French Toast

Volare make some nice breads.  We picked up a loaf of their Pain au Levain a while back, and finished it up one weekend morning with french toast.  The secret to sweet french toast mix is buttermilk + cinnamon, with just a little sugar.  I might have pan fried some bananas in butter to go with the rhubarb/boysenberry coulis, and the whole thing is topped with greek yoghurt for a little tart offset

http://www.volarebread.com/

Dogfish Head: Palo Santo Marron

Sometimes you age beer in special casks to make it extra delicious.  Dogfish head has this down.  Of course, they also did it to a sufficiently high alcohol content that the US requires them to call it a 'malt beverage' rather than a beer... because USians are weird about alcohol.  If you like the powerful beers, you should have a try of this.