“I believe in deeply ordered chaos.”
Francis Bacon
I don’t quite remember it but I must’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo almost three years ago. Well, their website says so. I’m not going to argue with those people. However, when I signed up, I didn’t register a novel. At the time, I just had an idea. Today, that idea is slightly more developed into a brief and unfinished outline, parts of the locations are researched and about eight characters are developed to a degree that I’m even pissed off with one of them already! So I decided that this year is the time to register my novel. See my participant banner below.
Of course, I will have to prepare for this, right? First thing I did was to paste this sign on my door.
Second, I read No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty (the founder of NaNoWriMo), printed out my own notes to go over and really prepare for the upcoming torture of writing 50.000 words in 30 days.
At the same time, I ordered our Christmas cards to be printed. They arrived and according to my address list, they are almost ready to be posted. I know that when I come out of NaNoWriMo, there won’t be enough time to post the international ones —we have a lot friends who live outside Australia.
I have just finished a course on Udemy. It’s called How to Plan and Outline Novels Using Scrivener by Sean Platt. I read books about outlining and structuring before. However, Sean’s “synopsis to outline” style really speaks to me. I totally get him. He takes you through the outlining process of their own novel Axis of Aaron and shows you how it’s done. I must admit, I do like the way Sean explains things. Well, I’ve just finished the course yesterday although I went back and watched certain parts every now and then so that I could shape “my” story accordingly. And I know that I will do the same thing over and over again until I’m happy with my own outline, characters and locations. It’s a process, Peoples.
I tidied up my desk, put away potential dust-gathering items, leaving out only what I need for my novel writing month, everything else should find a temporary home for themselves.
I ordered a DVD and a book, relating to my novel. I checked to see if the DVD is working and it is. I’m just saving it for a dry day in the hope that it might help when the time comes. I know that day will come.
I cast my characters and not everyone is good-looking. I even have photos of their homes. I struggled to find the right name for one of my characters who is a shaman/healer/psychic woman from Dayak community in Kalimantan. Who wouldn’t? Anyway, in the end I found one from an obscure book about healers from that part of the world. Sweet!
And that’s where I’m at right now. One last thing though… I just need to warn everybody that I’ll be quite neurotic during this time. Until I finish my shitty first draft, that is. Wish me Happy NaNoWriMo Peoples. If you don’t, I might have to kill you as a character in my book and you may not even be one of the darlings.
For significant celebrations, my husband and I normally ask for a vegetarian degustation menu with wine pairing. As vegetarians, we hate to turn up and announce that we’re vegetarians at the last minute. So instead we ring ahead of time and ask if they can put together a vegetarian tasting menu for us and most upscale restaurants are quite happy to do that for you if you let them know upfront. Aria Restaurant is no exception.
After having suffered from the latest and the trendiest virus through our birthdays, we finally managed to keep our booking with Aria last Saturday. Our birthdays are only a day apart so we celebrate them together. We knew Aria is usually booked out so we made our booking one and a half months before our birthdays, not knowing that we were going to change it twice until we were finally well enough to enjoy our experience.
The Place
If you live in Sydney, Aria doesn’t need an introduction. If you don’t, here’s how the story goes… Aria is elegantly located at one end of Circular Quay. Therefore, the dining room has one of the most spectacular views that Sydney offers. It is owned by Matt Moran whom you may remember from MasterChef Australia series or may have already had one of his creations on your Singapore Airline flight. Aria is an award winning restaurant and holds two highly regarded Chef’s Hats as well.
The Service
I believe most restaurants give you a hint about your upcoming experience at the time of booking. I’m happy to say that Aria excels in that department. The first time we tried to book a table, they put us on their waiting list. We didn’t get the table in the end but when we rang for the second time to book for our birthdays, we didn’t have to go through the whole name and phone number process again because our details were already on their system. Now, that’s a good start.
We were given a copy of our menu including the wine – it’s called chef’s seasonal tasting menu. This is something you do not get everywhere because most places do not have an established vegetarian tasting menu. They usually serve your food and explain. Those are the places that I struggle to write review for because when it’s time to write the review everything I ate is digested and gone so is the memory of it. At Aria, I was even allowed to keep mine.
Service was well paced over four hours and seven courses. We even had the General Manager serving us at some stage and every other staff member we encountered was highly efficient and polite. The highlight of the service was the head sommelier, Paul Beaton. Mr Beaton has an elegant way of explaining various elements of every glass of wine and why they are paired with certain dishes.
And The Food
Truth to be told, Aria had some large shoes to fill as we recently had a 5 week European holiday and experienced incredibly well composed as well as interesting tasting menus. However, I personally appreciate the fact that they cater for vegetarians and the quality of the produce is high, I mean very high.
Now, here’s how our experience went…
We started off with complimentary smoked eggplant puree on chickpea crackers and some home baked bread with incredibly tasty butter.
Chef’s seasonal tasting menu continued with…
Salad of Australian green asparagus with cashew nuts and lemon (below) paired with 2008 Michel Arnould Grand Cru Reserve Brut, Champagne France. Those drops you see in the photo are full of delicate lemon and they were quite fluffy and buttery without being fatty. I believe adding lemon is the best way to freshen up greens.
Fennel jam with heirloom tomatoes and flowering chives (below) paired with 2012 Lowe Nullo Mountain Riesling, Mudgee New South Wales. My husband doesn’t like fennel very much but we both appreciated the way it is used in this dish. Fennel’s aniseedy flavour is balanced with fleshy heirloom tomatoes and lightly blanched flowering chives.
Confit egg yolk, kale, eshallots and baked potato (below) paired with 2014 Petit Chablis Christophe & Fills, Burgundy France. This is one of the most interesting dishes I have ever had in my life. There is an egg yolk under that coat which is slow cooked to perfection. The sharpness of kale is balanced with kipfler potatoes which are quite nutty and creamy and fried eshallots add some unexpected crunchiness to the dish.
Warm smoked beetroot with pickled rhubarb and black pepper (below) paired with 2013 Trofeo Estate Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsular Victoria. This was an interesting ensemble with its continuous beetroot slices and pickled rhubard. Rhubard is something I haven’t been brought up with so I appreciate every variation of it.
Charred artichokes with caramelised onions, toasted brioche and parmesan (below) paired with 2013 Langhe Cascina Ghercina Dedicato Nebiolo, Piemonte Italy. What I really liked about this dish is dryness/moisture balance. Usually, grilled vegetables are dry. So is toasted brioche. However, you get moisture from caramelised onions and parmesan water. Brilliant!
Miso baked eggplant with hazelnuts, braised mushrooms and green shallots (below) paired with 2013 Caillard Mataro, Barossa Valley South Australia. I am well aware of the fact that miso baked eggplant has been done before. However, complementing it with hazelnuts is quite something different. You also don’t see in the photo but there are two slices of king mushrooms there as well. Mushrooms and eggplant: that actually doesn’t work in my mind but my taste buds certainly appreciated it.
Strawberries and champagne with macerated berries and watermelon (below) paired with 2014 Dindima Moscato, Orange New South Wales. This was quite a refreshing dessert. I must admit, I do like watermelon desserts so I’ll say no more other than “Thanks to Aria Restaurant for making our (belated) birthdays special.”
We also had a selection of house made petit fours which I do not have a photo of but they were also very nice.
Finally, my favourite wines of the night are:
• Petit Chablis from Burgundy in whites (actually Riesling was nice too)
• Nebbiolo from Italy in reds
We have always liked Aria’s wine list. Even if you don’t have dinner there, you could still have a glass of wine at the bar which is highly recommended -try a glass of white Burgundy and thank me later.
I discovered The Elephant during the last week of my stay in Ubud because we moved hotels for my friend’s yoga retreat. It was just down the road basically. One day I popped in to have pad thai and on one of the nights we, as a group, had dinner there.
The whole restaurant with its bar on one wall seem like it is a wide balcony overlooking a lush ravine with a river and a rice field in the vicinity. The view is spectacular.
Everything on the menu is either vegan or vegetarian although most of the vegetarian dishes can be made vegan if you ask. The style of food is somewhat international, including vegetarian versions of some local Indonesian dishes.
I personally picked Ottolenghi’s Sweet Potato Fritters which was served with a yoghurt sauce and mango and radicchio slaw. Yes, the name caught my eye. It was nice and I passed down the information to one of Yotam Ottolenghi’s waiters at his Islington restaurant in London that a vegetarian restaurant in Bali has Ottolenghi’s dish on their menu. Small world, right?
The service is slow but not too slow and everything is fresh so you don’t mind waiting a bit. The staff is incredibly polite even if you have someone rude in your group like we did. I must say, they handled it really well and I am not friends with that person anymore for many other reasons.
The Elephant has its website and related accounts like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. However, their Instagram account is the owner’s personal account and is sometimes full of personal stuff like the photo of his pregnant wife wearing a bikini. I personally think that it is not professional and totally irrelevant. Especially when most of the food photos –which is supposed to be their main focus—are blurry.
The Elephant can be found at this address:
Hotel Taman Indrakila
Jalan Raya Sanggingan
Ubud
Bali, Indonesia
Website
Macéo was one of the greatest culinary experiences we had in Europe. It is a place I would go back in a heartbeat. Although it is not a fully vegetarian restaurant, they have many interesting vegetarian starters as well as main dishes on their menu. But first –Willi’s Wine Bar.
Here, we had the best wine before dinner. Willi’s Wine Bar is Macéo’s sister place. Apparently it is the hip and edgy thing to do although Macéo have one of the best wine lists. Actually, I’m hoping that one day John will write about wine in general here. Is that too subtle?
When we arrived it was quiet but soon it started to fill up. Parisians are like Sydneysiders; they eat late. We had the nicest waitress, Dana, who is studying hospitality and doing her apprenticeship at Macéo at the same time. She was just lovely. I wish I took a photo of her.
And the food… Mind-Blowing in a very classy way. Here’s what we had:
Starters:
Green Asparagus
Asparagus were in season at the time and they are nothing like what we get here in Australia. John has become a huge fan. I personally like the wild asparagus which are more delicate both in shape and taste department. Here’s a grocery store scene for you from Montmartre (below).
As a starter I had Caviar of Smoked Baby Broad Beans, Seasonal Vegetables Bouquet. I love the artistic presentation.
Mains:
Berlingots meuniere caramelised in Xeres, pears, roquette and radish. This was basically pan-fried gnocchi with lightly cooked pears and fresh wild roquette (arugula) and radish.
Desserts:
Poached Pear Façon
Guanaja Mousse & Coco Snap, Pistachio Ice Cream
Macéo
15 rue des Petits Champs
75001, Paris
Website
This place was recommended by two girls (really nice girls) we met on the train from Paris to Munich. We thought it was worth checking out. We did drop in for a late lunch after taking a few photos around Altstadt and doing some shopping but we didn’t get lunch because we were late. Their pedantic waiter said they stopped serving lunch although they had plenty of food in their buffet. It was weird not being able to get lunch while they had so much food on display (photo below).
In the end, we decided to have a slice of cake to keep us going and book a table for dinner while we were there. Well, the cakes were nice but the attitude wasn’t.
We thought we might have better luck when we came back for dinner, hoping that Mr Pedantic wouldn’t be there but he was. He gave us the menu in English with a slimy smirk on his face as if to say “I remember you” but luckily we had someone else to serve us for the night. And she was nicer. After we deliberately broke the ice, though.
Here’s what we had, considering:
I had Nansei (stir-fried vegetables with oyster mushrooms, bamboo shoots, carrots, scallions, broccoli and smoked tofu in teriyaki sauce)
John had Koh Samui (wok-roasted peppers, mushrooms, scallions, bean sprouts, snow peas, pineapple and banana in a Thai coconut-curry-lemongrass sauce)
These two mains we ordered are served with either white or brown Basmati rice but we weren’t told that. So, we ended up with white rice (below).
I didn’t have a dessert but John had Crème Brulee (below).
We had high hopes for this place as it is one of the best vegetarian restaurants of Munich. The food was OK; nothing special but the service was unfriendly and a little hostile.
We were at Le Potager du Marais in 2007 and it was a tiny little, long and narrow place back then. They seem to have moved next door which is bigger. It is still recommended to book before you go though.
For those of you who didn’t read my 2007 review, Le Potager du Marias is a Parisian vegan restaurant located on Rambuteau Street in an area called Marais. It was a vegetarian restaurant back when we were in Paris in 2007, now it is fully vegan. They do vegan versions of French dishes however, they have other international ones on their menu too. And yes Peoples, this is the place where Anne Hathaway was seen in 2013.
Now, let’s talk about food, shall we?
Starters
Pate Forestier (mushroom pate)
Tartare d’algues (seaweed tartare)
Main
As for the main, we both had Bourguignon de Seitan which is seitan stew with red wine and mushrooms served with mashed potatoes and garlic olive oil.
Main courses are served with a choice of:
Bourguignon de Seitan (seitan stew with red wine and mushrooms with mashed potatoes and garlic olive oil)
Desserts
Crumble aux Fruits Rouge (red berry crumble with chestnut flour)
Crème Brulee au Gingembre (crème brulee with ginger)
Wine
We a small flask of their house wine and I must admit, it wasn’t all that memorable.
One thing that hasn’t changed here is you still wind up talking to people sitting next to you. We ended up talking to a really nice guy, Reginald, from the US and exchanged a few words with a teacher and her student too.
Le Potager du Marais
24 Rue Rambuteau
Paris
Website
There are three things I LOVE when it comes to Çiya; vegetarian kebab, mezes and pumpkin dessert. Although Çiya restaurants are specialised in kebabs, pide, lahmacun and every other Anatolian specialty, they have a vegetarian version of each one of those dishes.
There are three restaurants; two on one side of the road and one on the other side, Çiya Kebap, Çiya Kebap II, and Çiya Sofrası. They call it “memory kitchen” because they keep traditional dishes alive; the dishes us Turks have been brought up with, the dishes our mothers or grandmothers cooked for us when we were so young and therefore, our childhood memories come back to us when we have our first bite.
Meze buffet at Çiya Kebab
I have had great memories at Ciya before but this time around we tried a different branch and was really disappointed. I don’t normally say negative things about a restaurant, I choose silence over negativity, but this recent experience was appalling and I want to say something about it. Here, I’m saying it… I was downstairs, taking photos of starters (mezes) and wanted to let the lady know who was behind the counter that it was for my food blog. “I’ll make you famous,” I said smiling and her reply was “We’re famous enough!” That was really off-putting. Yes, they are quite famous, no doubt about that. They have been featured in Yotam Ottolenghi’s TV program called Mediterranean Feasts and in The New Yorker article by Elif Batuman. Does it get better than that? No, it doesn’t but, can you actually be famous enough when every customer is a brand new showcase for the restaurant? Here I am writing about this experience in my Sydney home for followers of VegFusion who are mainly from the US and Australia. Americans love to visit Istanbul and Australians go to Turkey at least once in their life to visit Gallipoli. I also wonder what Musa Dağdeviren (the owner) would think if he found out. I wasn’t impressed at all so I pinched their menu. However, my disappointment didn’t end there…
Examples of daily menu (below):
Sıkma Köfte (Bulghur, onion and yoghurt)
Enginar Tavası (Pan-fried artichokes with onion, garlic and olive oil)
Another disappointing situation related to this particular branch was the fact that they don’t serve alcohol! You could have it at Çiya Sofrası –we did 4 years ago!—but not at Çiya Kebab and you find out about it after you’ve already started to nibble on your mezes. Anyway, the waiter told us that they had a bottle left by a group of tourists and we could have it. Great! However, it was nothing what we would’ve ordered. It was a terrible wine with more vinegar qualities than actual fermentation of grapes which is unique to wine making. And on top of that, it was served in water glasses not to attract suspicion.
We have had many meals at Çiya before but this is the first time I have photos for you and be blogging about it. Let’s start with how things work at Çiya restaurants: You pick a table and go to the area downstairs and choose your starters whether it be mezes, salads or other cold dishes we call ‘zeytinyağlılar’. They weigh them up and then you sit down and order your kebab or other dishes from their daily menu at your table, and your drinks. And later on; your dessert, of course if you’re having any.
Here’s a combination of mezes I picked for everyone that night:
Çiya restaurants are specialised in kebabs but they have been doing a vegetarian one for years and that’s what we have every time as a main course. The kebab part is made of bulghur (cracked wheat), onion, mushroom, parsley, mint, olive oil and cheddar-like cheese and is served with onion and sumac salad, grilled tomato, fresh parsley, yoghurt and bread.
Vegetarian Kebab (above)
As for a dessert we always have Kabak Tatlısı (pumpkin dessert) drizzled with tahini and topped with crushed walnuts (below). They serve sherbets with desserts (2 different flavours: tamarind or sumac) if you ask. These sherbets are the Ottoman equivalent for dessert wine, I guess 🙂
Pumpkin in this dessert is marinated in quicklimey water (quicklime is calcium oxide actually) which sounds just as weird in English as it does in Turkish. It is a long process: quicklime is mixed with water overnight, solids sink down the bottom and the clear water on top is what’s being used. They call it “cream of quicklime” and the pumpkin is marinated for at least 5 hours in that water before it is cooked with sugar and lemon juice. For some reason, it turns out crunchy on the outside and soft and syrupy on the inside unlike your usual pumpkin dessert.
Pumpkin dessert before they are dressed and served (above).
The other unusual desserts (above) like raw walnut, eggplant (aubergine), tomato and olive.
Ciya Sofrasi can be found at this address:
Caferağa, Güneşli Bahçe Sk.
No:43
Turkey
Website
Four years ago, during one of my trips to Turkey, I was flying from Istanbul to Izmir and reading an in-flight magazine during take-off. In that particular issue there was an article about a shop at Spice Bazaar in Istanbul called Galeri Set. They sell hand-made Turkish coffee cups –among other porcelain objects. What’s so special about them is they are made using traditional methods which means it takes twenty-one days to make one coffee cup.
Before I left Sydney, I watched videos about the shop, history of Turkish coffee and these particular cups as well. When in Istanbul, we had to track down Galeri Set in Spice Bazaar –thank God, Spice Bazaar is not as big as Grand Bazaar. I must admit, I still find that part of Istanbul quite confusing but anyway we found the place and bought a set of two for us and a set of two for our dear friends in Sydney (as promised). While talking to their sales person, one of the owners started chatting with me. He turned out to be Uğur Atik –the very person in the videos I watched on YouTube before the holiday! He is an incredibly polite and soft spoken person just like he is in the videos. He offered us a special cologne –produced only for the Sultans, not for common folks like us. It was different to straight forward lemon cologne which is widely used in Turkey. Mr Atik then told us a little story about a Sultan who used this cologne and the story came with a demonstration too. In the end, he gave us a pack of Turkish coffee as present, a pack of rose flavoured Turkish delight and a DVD of his TV appearances. We are also invited to have coffee with him next time we’re in Istanbul.
OK, let’s talk about the shop. Galeri Set was established in 1972 and it’s at number 78 in the heart of Spice Bazaar (Mısır Çarşısı). Every object they sell there is hand-made and produced with the same techniques used 650 years ago. You could safely say that there is a long history behind everything. Obama, Queen Elizabeth, George W. Bush, Fidel Castro, King and Queen of Jordan, President of the Republic of Austria, Beşar Esad, President of Syria, Zeid Al Suderi, Prince of Saudi Arabia, and Kevin Costner are among their clientele.
Now, let’s talk about the coffee cups or ‘fincan’ as we call them in Turkish. The ones I have are 17th century, coral red ones. I was going to get yellow fincans but a friend of mine from Turkey gave me a beautiful yellow set as a present (the one in the photo above) so, I decided to get the red ones instead (as in the photo below).
Colour
Colours represent a certain era or century in Ottoman history. For example:
Turquoise and pink: 16th century
Coral and midnight blue: 17th century
Yellow and green: 18th century
Shape
A good quality Turkish coffee fincan (cup) should be wide down the bottom and narrow at the top. This way, the foam will not disperse easily. The handles have a special angle so whether you are left-handed or right-handed, this particular angle makes it easy for everyone.
How to make Turkish coffee
First of all, you need to know how everyone has their coffee which means how much sugar you will need to use as there is no add-sugar-later-on kind of thing in the making of Turkish coffee. There are four sugar levels:
• Şekersiz or sade: no sugar at all
• Az şekerli: with little sugar (½ Turkish teaspoon)
• Orta şekerli: medium (1 Turkish teaspoon)
• Şekerli: 2 Turkish teaspoon
Note: 1 Turkish teaspoon equals 1 level teaspoon.
Second, you will need a ‘cezve’ to make Turkish coffee. Cezve is a narrow necked pot with a long handle. Usually made out of brass.
Turkish coffee should be quite fine and you can only achieve that by using a traditional grinder. Regular electric grinders don’t do the job properly. It’s better if you have a brass one and do it yourself but you can buy your coffee already ground too. I have my grandmother’s antique coffee grinder (photo below) in case you’re wondering what it looks like. However, all of that is not practical; I can hear you. In that case, you can buy pre-packaged ones from Middle-Eastern stores.
Preparing Turkish coffee in a cezve:
Add coffee and sugar to the cezve (1 heaped teaspoon of coffee per person).
Top them up with cold water and stir. Always use your fincan as a measuring cup for water.
When stirring the mixture of coffee, sugar and water, the spoon should be held with an angle to create finer foam, not bubbles. If you hold the spoon in a 90 degree angle, you get bubbles.
Bring it to a boil, quickly remove from heat and pour the foam into your coffee cup. Return the cezve to the heat. Boil again and quickly pour more coffee into your fincan but not all of it. Boil the coffee one more time and pour the rest of it into cup. Do not, under any circumstances cook your coffee.
How to Drink Turkish Coffee
First of all, you start by drinking water which is served with your coffee to cleanse your palate. Then, wait for the sediment to settle to the bottom of your cup which should take about 30 seconds. I remember the first time my husband tried Turkish coffee. Of course, he didn’t know and thought he was drinking mud. He still hasn’t recovered from that memory.
Afiyet olsun Peoples!
So, if you ever find yourself in Istanbul, go to Galeri Set and get yourself some Turkish coffee fincans. Next time, I’ll get a tray too!
Galeri Set
Mısır Çarşısı İçi No: 78
Eminönü – Istanbul
