Another day, another tasting. You would be a genius to make me love a vegetarian dish so much! Sooo good! Porcini mushroom risotto cake with peperonata and cress salad. @nationalmuseum #canberra #cbr #food #foodie #foodblog
Day: April 10, 2014
Recipe: Fig and Persian fetta salad
I am currently loving pairing fig with Persian fetta! #canberra #cooking #cbr #food #foodie #foodblog #salad
Another dish that I loved from Podfood so much that I had to recreate it. Obviously not much to it, the main ingredients are in the title.
Ingredients~
- Persian fetta (I bought one that was marinated with lemon and capers)
- Salad green mix or rocket
- Fresh figs (currently available at both farmers markets for $5 a bag
Method~
- Wash the salad greens, dry in a salad spinner and arrange in a salad bowl.
- Wash figs and cut them in half and arrange evenly across the top.
- Using two teaspoons drop small chunks of Persian fetta in between figs. I usually dress the salad with some of the oil from the Persian fetta.
- Don’t bogart the salad
Chez Frederic
One particularly lazy Thursday, with my head being preoccupied with other thoughts (still food based of course), I felt particularly drained and thought it was the perfect time to try out Chez Frederic as they do gourmet take away (you can also dine in).
I wasn’t in any rush at all when I headed to Braddon around 6pm, I drove up and down the street three times but all the car parks were taken (even the dodgy ones) all along Lonsdale street and the perpendicular streets as well. I was forced into lots of U-turns and finally gave up and drove to the outside car park of the Canberra Centre across from the petrol station. It was a quick stroll just past the construction site next to the Civic pub before I walked to the front of the restaurant.
Simple clean decor with a nice concise menu.
It was empty when I got there but there were plenty of ‘reserved’ signs on the tables.
An easy to change specials board.
I adore their creative use of ladles and tea light candles.
I was greeted by a friendly face and made the very hard decisions of what to order and before I knew it, there was a packed bag ready for collection. I walked back to my car and when I looked at my car park ticket I was only gone for 18 minutes including travel/deciding time! I was home not long after and couldn’t wait to dig into my dinner! You may have noticed that I was tempted into two desserts as well.
Pork spare ribs marinated in a honey & plum sauce ($19.00). I couldn’t decide between the pork ribs or the duck ravioli (filled with duck, mushrooms and leek in a creamy mushroom sauce $18.50) but the waitress suggested if I was hungry to go with the ribs and she wasn’t kidding! When I went to pick up a rib to sample, the meat was so tender it tore away from the bone and I picked up nothing but a clean rib bone. The sauce was a bit overall sweet, I know there is a lot of sugar in BBQ sauce but this was the type of sweetness that comes from the plum/honey sauce. I thought this is was pretty cheap for ribs, the meat was ridiculously tender but I didn’t like the marinade too much. I really enjoyed the mix of vegetables and the different colours they have chosen.
Lasagna ($13.50). I had read on another blog that the lasagna was worth getting and TimmyC loves himself a good lasagna but unfortunately this was not. There wasn’t a rich béchamel sauce, the tomato sauce was a bit bland and even the cheesy top (which I usually save til last) wasn’t great. I kept on taking bites in hopes that I would like it but it wasn’t going to happen.
Tiramisu ($6.00). The tiramisu tasted very bland which is odd for a dessert that is supposed to be packed with coffee, masala and mascarpone. It was the coffee soaked biscuit portion was the main let down, it was extremely soggy with a watered down coffee. There was a pool of liquid built up and it was probably the coffee mixture but it tasted like brown water. The top just tasted like a subtly sweetened cream rather than of a rich mascarpone. I love tiramisu so it didn’t take much convincing to order this but I can easily say it was one of the worst ones I have eaten, even the Domino’s version of the tiramisu has more flavour than this.
This was the unexpected dessert. When I saw the sign for profiteroles with a salted caramel centre ($7.00), I thought the decadence of reading the description alone would give me diabetes. The profiteroles weren’t stale which gave me a big sigh of relief, there is nothing worse than stale choux pastry. The ‘cream’ in the middle could have been sweeter but it was whipped to a very light texture which gave the dessert an overall ‘light’ feeling.
Despite my disappointment in a lot of the food, I still think this place has potential and I would be excited to try more from the menu, if only I could get a park easily close by…
Venue: Chez Fredric
Address: 4/14 Lonsdale st, Braddon ACT 2612
Phone: 6248 0044
Opening hours: Open 7 days
Lunch 12 – 2pm
Dinner 5 – 9pm
Website: http://chezfrederic.com.au/
TALES OF A CONFECTIONIST 