Assiette, Surry Hills... again!

I confess that I have most definitely overindulged in the delicious food served at Assiette.

Menu for Friday 10th July

A mere 2 weeks after my first visit to Assiette, I went there again for another $30 lunch - this time with family. Since I forgot to take a picture of the freshly baked sourdough last time, I made sure that I photographed it this time =)

Complimentary sourdough

Again Sir D and I did a plate swap for each course except for the dessert because we both could not resist getting the Strawberry Eton Mess! But first onto the entrees - the sweetcorn veloute was deliciously creamy with pieces of crab scattered throughout the soup. Even though Sir D saved me a bit of the soup (he doesn't like risotto so he had most of the veloute to himself), I loved it so much that wish that I could have a neverending pot of the stuff!

Sweetcorn veloute with spanner crab veloute and basil oil

I wanted to try the mushroom risotto mainly because the idea of parmesan ice cream intrigued me. I had heard much about savoury ice creams before, like olive oil and Heston Blumenthal's famous bacon and egg ice cream, but I'd never tried any myself. It tasted very strongly of parmesan but the texture was icy and cold! Quite a strange experience. The risotto again was cooked perfectly and the subtle flavours complimented the bitey parmesan nicely.

Mushroom risotto with parmesan ice cream

Ton Ton Regent, Sydney

On chilly winter days, there's nothing more comforting than a piping hot bowl of noodles in soup. This is how Sir D and I ended up at Ton Ton Regent - a primarily take-away noodle joint which also offers hand roll sushi, rice bowls and other dishes. There is some seating around the counter but when we arrived at 12.30pm on a Friday, almost all of the seats were taken. But we got lucky =)


At the counter they have a glass cabinet with some salads and sushi rolls, and around it are pictures of their menu items with shout outs of "New!", "Popular!" and "Try Me!". You can pick up a laminated menu from the counter or go for the noodle set which is written on the red board. The noodle set allows you to select one noodle bowl from the menu plus either a small curry, gyoza or sushi roll for $12.50. I was feeling quite hungry so I ordered the noodle set with their special Ton Ton Ramen, while Sir D ordered the Sukiyaki Beef Udon.

Ton Ton Ramen: A special 'tonkotsu' soup - mildly spiced thick pork broth topped with BBQ pork - $9.80

Viet Cuisine, Chatswood

Some of the menu items at Viet Cuisine

Living on the North Shore, Chatswood is a regular haunt for me and although there are some great places to eat in Chatswood, one soon gets tired of eating the same food at the same places. So when Captain Awesome told me about a new Vietnamese place on Victoria Avenue, I got really excited at the prospect of eating new food :)

More menu items

Sir D and I rocked up to Viet Cuisine on a Wednesday lunchtime and despite having heard that they were getting quite a lot of business, the place was empty save for one person waiting for take-away. Not a good sign. We went in anyway and were given menus and water by the waitress. They had quite a large selection of dishes (complete with pictures) and also a whiteboard which had some specials on it. Interestingly, pho (vietnamese noodle soup) is not on the regular menu but on the whiteboard specials. There is the option of getting beef, chicken or combination pho. We order the combination pho as well as the combination lunch special (chicken, beef or pork chop with shredded pork, egg, vegetables and rice).

Combination Pho - $8.00

Strawberry Clafoutis

After eating a hearty dinner of roast chicken and vegetables, a warm comforting dessert was in order. We picked up some divine smelling strawberries from the supermarket and decided to use them in our dessert. I had read about a strawberry clafoutis on Citrus and Candy only the night before, and after salivating over pictures of a baked custardy dessert I knew I had to give it a go. It's a great recipe because I don't often have cream in the fridge and whilst most clafoutis recipes require cream, this one uses butter which I pretty much always have on hand.


It turned out to be a great hit - BLT loved the custard mixture so much she practically licked the bowl clean! Make sure you eat it while it's still warm out of the oven as a great remedy for the winter blues.

Roast Chicken #1

The title of this post isn't implying that this roast chicken is the best or "number 1", but that it is my first ever roast chicken. I don't usually cook with meat (that's not to say I'm vegetarian - I'm just more of a dessert-cooking person!). If I do, it's usually something simple with bite-sized pieces of meat or minced meat. Never before have I cooked with a giant leg of lamb or a large piece of beef or even a whole chicken.


After watching so many MasterChef successes in the kitchen on TV, it's definitely inspired me to be more adventurous in the kitchen and explore outside the realm of desserts and other sweet things. So with the help of a few friends, I set out to roast my first ever chicken!

Queen Chu's sweet potato mash

We roasted two small chickens with some root vegetables and Queen Chu also made mashed sweet potato. The aroma of the roasting chicken was amazing, and the flavour of the lemon and herbs shone through. The chicken was quite moist and succulent, with only a few dry bits around the breast and the drumstick. Evidently I still need more practice but for the first time I thought it turned out pretty well!