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Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine

We were excited about eating out in Melbourne. For food and wine lovers, the chance to spend 12 days eating in Melbourne was thrilling. Melbourne’s food scene is considered by many to be the best in Australia and its restaurants are serving up some of the finest contemporary Australian cuisine.

Being lapsed Sydneysiders, having not lived in Sydney full-time since 1998 when we left Australia to move to the Middle East, we felt that we had enough physical and emotional distance from our former hometown to even-handedly evaluate Melbourne’s food scene. The verdict? We’re very, very impressed.

We’ve put this first batch of reviews of the top-tier restaurants we dined at under the umbrella ‘contemporary Australian cuisine‘. What does that mean?

Well, it means that what these restaurants are doing is distinctly Australian and very now – whether it’s a David Blackmore full blood Wagyu rib eye that’s been grilled on a wood fire at Rockpool Bar and Grill, where it’s all about premium quality produce and its careful and considered preparation, or a vibrant plate of creatively combined ingredients strewn with bright colourful flowers, where it’s about innovative technique and artful presentation (the rest of the restaurants below).

Contemporary Australian Cuisine is not post-modern and it’s not modernist (a term that’s mostly misunderstood and misused in the world of gastronomy), it’s not classical, and it’s not traditional – not even when there’s pavlova on the menu.

Contemporary Australian Cuisine is based on fresh, seasonal, and often organic Australian produce, taken wherever possible straight from the farm to table, paddock to plate, ocean to fork. It could mean applying French techniques, incorporating Asian ingredients or using Mediterranean flavours, but the outcome is uniquely Australian.

It’s not ‘fusion’ as most of you would know it, because the flavours, ingredients and techniques are applied in subtle, nuanced and organic ways that make sense because of Australia’s multicultural heritage.

If a chef grew up as a kid eating pasta one night, Chinese the next, and Thai the night after, it’s only natural that as an adult he’d reach for ingredients from any of those kitchens. Hopefully that goes some way to explaining contemporary Australian cuisine. Here’s a taste of eating out in Melbourne…

Contemporary Australian Cuisine in Melbourne

Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne

Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne is what Australia’s most famous chef, Neil Perry, calls a “modern steakhouse” and “a grand dining experience”. Chef Perry, who also has restaurants in Sydney and Perth, was in Melbourne to cook at another of his restaurants, Spice Temple, when we caught up with him.

“The flavour of the produce is the most important thing,” he told us. “We’re driven by fresh produce – especially Australian produce – from great aged meat to fresh line-caught fish.”

We sampled that aged meat in what must be the most dramatic dining space in Melbourne. It’s a splendid-looking restaurant with a dark sexy wine bar, handsome dining area furnished with plenty of wood, leather and warm colours (tangerine, chocolate), and a huge open kitchen that was a hive of activity.

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

Our meal began with a crudo of Hiramasa kingfish, ocean trout, yellow fin tuna and rock flathead, with horseradish, coriander, and lemon-infused olive oil that was as divine as any sashimi we tasted at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. We had ricotta tortellini, burnt butter, pine nuts, raisins, and king prawns that took us back to our time in Northern Italy (and Neil’s Rockpool restaurant in Sydney back in the day).

The highlight of the meal, however, was clearly the steak – an intensely-flavoured rib-eye, dry aged for 49 days, from Cape Grim in Tasmania. There was a subtle smokiness to the meat, which our waiter told us was from Blue Mountains iron bark that had been sprinkled over the coals.

Somehow we made room for dessert – an old-fashioned passionfruit pavlova, the kind our Nannas used to make. This was food that inspired a recollection of as many Aussie memories as it made.

Cutler & Co.

It was a short hike up the hill from our digs at the Windsor Hotel where we were staying to Gertrude Street, Fitzroy and Cutler & Co. Designed by owner-chef Andrew McConnell’s architect wife, Pascale Gomes-McNabb, the striking décor is modern European brasserie meets contemporary Australian industrial-chic.

We received a warm welcome and staff were superb all night, some of the most knowledgeable and engaged in Melbourne. The room was packed, the atmosphere buzzy, and the vibe casual. Tables were bare, the only signs of ‘fine dining’ being the white linen napkins, good glassware, and an eight-course degustation menu.

Our meal began with an intriguing assortment of nibbles: Batemans Bay Claire de Lune oysters, olives, pumpkin seeds, fine toast crisps with foie gras whip, prune puree, crisp trout skin, and caviar.

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

What followed was a visual feast: an array of delightful dishes, artfully strewn with minuscule flowers and miniature greens. It was ‘nature to table’ cuisine in the true sense of the term, the ingredients on the pretty plates looking like they’d just been picked from the garden.

While a dish of duck cooked two ways, smoked and fried, with crumbed morcilla, golden raisins, and yellow beetroot was divine, unfortunately the other dishes, while they were an absolute delight to the eyes, were a tad under-seasoned to our taste. A little salt made all the difference. Australian salt of course.

The Atlantic

The Atlantic is located at Southbank, a riverside promenade that’s home to a handful of superb restaurants, several with some of Australia’s most celebrated chefs at the helm. While it’s not exactly an organically grown ‘eat street’, this complex shows how these artificial spaces can work with the right names over the doors.

The Atlantic is sleek, shiny and light. It’s a colossal restaurant, cleverly split into smaller and more intimate dining spaces, with a subtle seafaring theme – boat rope lights, net-like curtains, crab-pot lampshades – specializing, naturally, in the freshest of seasonal Australian seafood.

The menu details where the seafood has been caught – rock flathead from the Mornington Peninsula, live crayfish from Stanley, yellow fin tuna from Mooloolaba.

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

Passionate about fresh produce and driven by an ocean-to-plate philosophy, Chef Donovan Cooke is also a master of slow cooking. A dish of paprika-marinated octopus cooked sous vide we ate had a sashimi-like quality.

Artfully presented on the plate with Ligurian olives, caper berries, Ortiz anchovies, and bright smears of red pepper coulis and rocket pesto, it was packed full of Mediterranean flavour.

The pan-seared scallops with blood orange done three ways, on a bed of green and white asparagus, were just as stunningly presented, the bold colours leaping from the black slate slab it was served on. The flavours of every dish were as exuberant as they looked. This might be eating out in Melbourne, but this restaurant is a showcase of great Australian seafood.

Circa, The Prince

In the dark, sexy bar at Circa, The Prince, St Kilda, where we dined later the same evening, we ate more oysters – the best oysters we would eat in Melbourne.

“They’re from Jedd Routledge at Coffin Bay,” restaurant manager Jeff told us as he showed us to our table in the intimate, dimly lit dining space. More of the same enthusiasm for fresh Aussie produce was evident at Circa – in conversations with staff, as well as on the plates – where we had yet another truly memorable meal.

Warm miso-glazed eel, dancing wasabi, pickled kohlrabi, avocado, apple, and prawn crackers. Rabbit tortellini, morels, broad beans, green peas, Jerusalem artichoke puree, and thyme sauce. John Dory fish, mussels, clams, and spiga pasta with sea urchin butter. Suckling pig, salsify, ham beignet, and spring garlic.

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

It was all sophisticated, thoughtful cooking, but completely unpretentious on the plate. I commented to Jeff during the night that if the plates just had a few more tiny flowers and fussier presentation, the food would have been up there on that top tier with the serious fine dining elite. He smiled, knowingly.

Now it must be said that chef Jake Nicolson who cooked the night we dined is no longer at the helm and a change in hotel ownership has seen the restaurant change focus. We’ll be back to try the new Circa very soon and we’ll update you once we do.

Taxi Dining Room*

Taxi Dining Room at Federation Square is a dazzling space with its soaring ceilings, banquette seating and disco ball lighting, while the vistas of Flinders Railway Station and the trams trundling along St Kilda Road from the floor to ceiling windows are stunning.

It’s one of those restaurants with views that are so special and so glam that even if the food hadn’t been sublime we would probably recommend it to visitors for the experience of dining in the place.

Fortunately, the six dishes on our degustation menu were even more attention-grabbing (I don’t think we glanced out the window again after the first plate was placed in front of us), from the snapper sashimi with pear, ginger and pomegranates to a desert of Campari soaked citrus fruit with guava ice cream and basil foam.

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

The meal was another playfully elegant example of contemporary Australian cuisine, and with brilliant wine pairings too. The most notable aspect of the food was that it is very precise cooking – as you’d expect from a menu taking a deep bow to Japan.

Yet it still manages to be distinctly Australian, and that’s partly because of the lack of pretension and simply beautiful presentation that we have come to appreciate is one of the things that distinguishes contemporary Australian cuisine.

Jacques Reymond**

Our arrival for lunch at the restaurant of iconic French-Australian chef Jacques Reymond coincided with the arrival of a delivery of marron, a black crustacean unique to Western Australia, which we were invited into the kitchen to see.

We don’t get to try the marron (it was on the evening degustation menu), but we did get to taste seven other exquisite dishes in the elegant dining room of one of Melbourne’s finest restaurants. Jacques Reymond’s feels like a Michelin-starred European restaurant, yet the chef is adamant he’s not cooking French food.

“This is contemporary Australian cuisine,” he told us, as we chatted before the meal. “We use 100% fresh Australian produce. What we’re creating here is Australian.”

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

From the house-made bread and butter churned on the premises each day – which were easily the best of both we had in Melbourne during our stay – to each of the seven courses we savoured, Jacques Reymond is doing highly creative, meticulously prepared cuisine that’s uniquely Australian.

He is using French technique, but it’s Australian flavours with a distinct nod to Australia’s place in Asia. For instance, the delicious saddle of kangaroo with a light dressing of soy and ginger, with tofu and sweet chilli jam, that we sampled simply wouldn’t work anywhere else in the world. In Australia, it makes perfect sense.

Vue de Monde

Up in the clouds on the 55th floor of the Rialto at Chef Shannon Bennett’s newish location for his Vue de Monde restaurant, considered one of Melbourne’s best, we sat on leather chairs covered in kangaroo skins at a black leather table featuring a rock collection (concealing salt and pepper among other things) and Christofle cutlery resting on twigs.

Partly due to a tightly packed scheduled (including a shoot scheduled that afternoon and a restaurant that evening) we ate the one-hour three-course lunch at a restaurant famed for its hours-long degustation menus, punctuated by delicious surprises. In hindsight we realised it’s most certainly more of a dinner destination. The dishes were some of the most delightful-looking we had, artfully presented once again, with the beauteous miniature spring flowers that are in culinary fashion.

Unfortunately, the visual feast didn’t fully translate to exciting eating and the dishes didn’t really excite. The service was also disappointing. When inquiring how the two different pieces of Wagyu beef placed in front of us were cooked, the waiter replied with a smirk, “very well”. If only it was true. One piece, which we assumed was slow-roasted was overcooked and dry. The other piece which we guessed was sous vide was sublime.

Eating Out In Melbourne – Contemporary Australian Cuisine. Copyright © 2022 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

The aloof and condescending service by waiters who appeared to double as landscape gardeners, constantly rearranging the rocks on the table and taking little interest in whether we enjoyed our food, didn’t really endear us to the place, regardless of its lofty reputation.

Nor the pressure for guests doing the one-hour lunch to leave the moment their time was up. Asking ourselves the classic question “would we go back?”, we’d answer a qualified yes, but only for dinner. Yes, we’re still intrigued. Fortunately, Vue de Monde wasn’t our last meal in Melbourne. Eating out in Melbourne should not end in disappointment.

More on our experiences eating out in Melbourne in our posts on Eating Out in Melbourne, ‘Ethnic’ Cuisine; Eating Out in Melbourne, Contemporary Asian Cuisine; and Eating Out in Melbourne, from European to Asian and Back Again.

*Taxi Dining Room is now Taxi Kitchen. We will endeavour to update this on our next Melbourne trip.

**Note that Jacques Reymond has closed. The chef handed over the restaurant to his sou-schefs and it has been renamed. We will try to update this on our next trip back to Australia.

We dined at these restaurants on a magazine assignment for a story on ‘Mouthwatering Melbourne’. You can watch the tantalising time-lapse of all images shot during that research trip here.

Support our Cambodia Cookbook & Culinary History Book with a donation or monthly pledge on Patreon.

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About Lara Dunston

A travel and food writer who has experienced over 70 countries and written for The Guardian, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Feast, Delicious, National Geographic Traveller, Conde Nast Traveller, Travel+Leisure Southeast Asia, DestinAsian, TIME, CNN, The Independent, The Telegraph, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, AFAR, Wanderlust, International Traveller, Get Lost, Four Seasons Magazine, Fah Thai, Sawasdee, and more, as well as authored more than 40 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, DK, Footprint, Rough Guides, Fodors, Thomas Cook, and AA Guides.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. fotoeins | Henry says

    March 8, 2012 at 1:22 pm

    All noted, especially the Rockpool, for my return to Melbourne in a few months’ time. Thanks for your post, L&T!

  2. Lara Dunston says

    March 8, 2012 at 7:30 pm

    Thanks, Henry! Make sure you come back and tell us how you found Rockpool B&G, and wherever else you get to try. And share some new discoveries too :)

  3. Amer says

    March 9, 2012 at 2:49 am

    These photos looks very tempting indeed! Am saving this post in case I finally visit Australia (Melbourne) one day!

  4. Lara Dunston says

    March 17, 2012 at 10:54 am

    Hi Amer – thanks! We’ve got lots more Melbourne stories to come so check back in over coming days for more posts to save :)

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About Grantourismo

Lara and Terence are an Australian-born, Southeast Asia-based travel and food writers and photographers who have authored scores of guidebooks, produced countless travel and food stories, are currently developing cookbooks and guidebooks, and host culinary tours and writing and photography retreats in Southeast Asia.
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Still looking for Christmas cooking inspo? Check o Still looking for Christmas cooking inspo? Check out our seafood recipe collection, especially if you celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve with a fish focused meal in the Southern Italian tradition, transformed by Italian-Americans into the Feast of the Seven Fishes, or like Australians, who celebrate Christmas in the sweltering summer, feast on seafood for Christmas Day lunch, we’ve got lots of easy seafood recipes for you.

Our recipes include a classic prawn cocktail, blini with smoked salmon, a ceviche-style appetiser, and devilled eggs with caviar. We’ve also got recipes for fish soup, seafood pies and pastas, salmon tray bake, and crispy salmon with creamy mashed potatoes.

You’ll find the recipes here: https://grantourismotravels.com/seafood-recipes-for-christmas-eve-and-christmas-day-menus/
(Link in bio if you’re seeing this on IG)

Merry Christmas if you’re celebrating!! 

#christmas #christmasfood #seafood #fish #recipes #christmasrecipes #foodstagram #foodblogger #food #foodlover #igfood #picoftheday #igfood #igfoodie #cooking #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #grantourismo #grantourismotravels #xmas #merrychristmas #happychristmas
If you’re still looking for food inspo for Chris If you’re still looking for food inspo for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day meals, my smoked salmon ‘carpaccio’ recipe is one of dozens of recipes in this compilation of our best Christmas recipes (link below). 

The Christmas recipe compilation includes collections of our best Christmas breakfast recipes, best Christmas brunch recipes, best Christmas starter recipes, best Christmas cocktails, best Christmas dessert recipes, and homemade edible Christmas gifts and more.

My smoked salmon carpaccio recipe makes an easy elegant appetiser that’s made in minutes. If you’re having guests over, you can make the dish ahead by assembling the salmon, capers and pickled onions, and refrigerate it, then pour on the dressing just before serving. 

Provide toasted baguette slices and bowls of additional capers, pickles and dressing, so guests can customise their carpaccio. And open the bubbly!

You’ll find that recipe and many more Christmas recipes here: https://grantourismotravels.com/best-christmas-recipes/ (link in bio if you’re seeing this on IG)

Merry Christmas!! X

#christmas #christmasfood #recipes #christmasrecipes #foodstagram #salmon #smokedsalmon #foodblogger #food #foodlover #igfood #picoftheday #igfoodie #cooking #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #recipedeveloper #writingacookbook #grantourismo #grantourismotravels 
#xmas #merrychristmas #happychristmas
If you haven’t visited our site in a while, I sh If you haven’t visited our site in a while, I shared a collection of recipes for homemade edible Christmas gifts — for condiments, hot sauces, chilli oils, a whole array of pickles, spice blends, chilli salt, furakake seasoning, and spicy snacks, such as our Cambodian and Vietnamese roasted peanuts. 

I love giving homemade edibles as gifts as much as I love receiving them. Who wouldn’t appreciate jars filled with their favourite chilli oils, hot sauces, piquant pickles, and spicy peanuts that loved-ones have taken the time to make? 

Aside from the gesture and affordability of gifting homemade edibles, you’re minimising waste. You can use recycled jars or if buying new mason jars or clip-top Kilner jars, you know they’ll get repurposed.

No need for wrapping, just attach some Christmas baubles or tinsel to the lid. I used squares of Cambodian kramas (cotton scarves), which can be repurposed as napkins or drink coasters, and tied a ribbon or two around the lids, and attached last year’s Christmas tree decorations to some.

You’ll find the recipes here: https://grantourismotravels.com/homemade-edible-christmas-gifts/ (link in bio if you’re seeing this on IG)

Yes, that’s Pepper... every time there’s a camera around... 

#christmasgiftideas #ediblegifts ##christmasfoodgifts #foodgifts #giftideas #homemadegifts #christmasfood #ediblegiftideas #hotsauce #chillisauce #sriracha #pickles #homemadepickles #recipes #foodstagram #foodblogger #food #foodlover #igfood 
#blackcat #blackcatsofinstagram #picoftheday 
#christmas #christmastree #xmas #merrychristmas #happychristmas #cambodia #siemreap
This crab omelette is a decadent eggs dish that’ This crab omelette is a decadent eggs dish that’s perfect if you’re just back from the fish markets armed with luxurious fresh crab meat. It’s a little sweet, a little spicy, and very, very moreish.

Our crab omelette recipe was one of our 22 most popular egg recipes of 2022 on our website Grantourismo and it’s no surprise. It’s appeared more times than any other egg recipes on our annual round-ups of most popular recipes since Terence launched Weekend Eggs when we launched Grantourismo in 2010.

If you’re an eggs lover, do check out the recipe collection. It includes egg recipes from right around the world, from recipes for classic kopitiam eggs from Singapore and Malaysia and egg curries from India and Myanmar to all kinds of egg recipes from Thailand, Japan, Korea, China, Mexico, USA, Australia, UK, and Ireland.

And do browse our Weekend Eggs archives for further eggspiration (sorry). We have hundreds of egg recipes from the 13 year-old series of recipes for quintessential egg dishes from around the world, which we started on our 2010 year-long global grand tour focused on slow, local and experiential travel. 

We’re hoping 2023 will be the year we can finally publish the Weekend Eggs cookbook we’ve talked about for years based on that series. After we can find a publisher for the Cambodia cookbook of course... :( 

Recipe collection here (and proper link to Grantourismo in our bio):
https://grantourismotravels.com/22-most-popular-egg-recipes-of-2022-from-weekend-eggs/

If you cook the recipe and enjoy it please let us know — we love to hear from you — either in the comments at the end of the recipe or share a pic with us here.

#recipe #recipes #eggs #eggslover #breakfasteggs #WeekendEggs #egg #breakfast #brunch #igfood #igfoodie #cooking #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood  #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #recipedeveloper #lookingforapublisher #writingacookbook  #grantourismo #grantourismotravels
I’m late to share this, but a few days ago Angko I’m late to share this, but a few days ago Angkor Archaeological Park, home to stupendous Angkor Wat, pictured, celebrated 30 years of its UNESCO World Heritage listing. 

That’s as good an excuse as any to put this magnificent, sprawling archaeological site on your travel list this year.

While riverside Siem Reap, your base for exploring Angkor is bustling once more, there are still nowhere near the visitors of the last busy high season months of December-January 2018-2019 when there were 290,000 visitors. 

Last month there were just 55,000 visitors and December feels a little quieter. A tour guide friend said there were about 150 people at Angkor Wat for sunrise a few days ago.

If you’re looking for tips to visiting Angkor, Siem Reap and Cambodia, just ask us a question in the comments below or check Grantourismo as we’ve got loads of info on our site. Click through to the link in the bio and explore our Cambodia guide or search for ‘Angkor’. 

And please do let us know if you’re coming to Siem Reap. We’d love to see you here x

#siemreap #cambodia #asia #travel #instatravel #traveldeeper #slowtravel #localtravel #experientialtravel #exploremore #neverstopexploring #goexplore #igtravel #angkorwat #angkor #temple #temples #angkorwithoutcrowds #unesco #unescoworldheritagesite #unescoworldheritage #archaeology #archaeologicalsite #traveladdict #beautifuldestinations #beautifulplaces #travelgram #wanderlust #picoftheday📷 #grantourismotravels.
Our soy ginger chicken recipe will make you sticky Our soy ginger chicken recipe will make you sticky, flavourful and succulent chicken thighs that are fantastic with steamed rice, Chinese greens or a salad, such as a Southeast Asian slaw. 

The chicken can be marinated for up to 24 hours before cooking, which ensures it’s packed with flavour, then it can be cooked on a barbecue or in a pan.

Terence’s soy ginger chicken recipe is one of our favourite recipes for a quick and easy meal. I love the sound of the sizzling thighs in the pan, and the warming aromas wafting through the apartment. 

It’s amazing how such flavourful juicy chicken thighs come from such a quick and easy recipe.

Recipe here (and proper link to Grantourismo in our bio): https://grantourismotravels.com/soy-ginger-chicken-recipe/

If you cook it and enjoy it please let us know — we love to hear from you — either here or in the comments at the end of the recipe on the site or share a pic with us x 

#recipe #recipes #chicken #soygingerchicken #asianfood #southeastasianfood #igfood #igfoodie #cooking #cookingtime #recipe #recipes #comfortfood #foodblog #food #foodstagram #healthyfood #instafood #healthy #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #recipedeveloper #writingacookbook #grantourismo #grantourismotravels
Who can guess the ingredients and what we’re mak Who can guess the ingredients and what we’re making with my market haul from Psar Samaki in Siem Reap — all for a whopping 10,000 riel (US$2.50)?! 

Birds-eye chillies thrown in for free! They were on my list but the seller I spent most at (5,000 riel!) scooped up a handful and slipped them into my bag. She was my last stop and knew what I was making.

My Khmer is poor, even after all our years in Cambodia, as I don’t learn languages with the ease I did in my 20s, plus I’m mentally exhausted after researching and writing all day. I have a better vocabulary of Old and Middle Khmer than modern Khmer from studying the ancient inscriptions for the Cambodian culinary history component of our cookbook I’m writing.

So when one seller totalled my purchases I thought she said 5,000 riel but she handed back 4,500 riel! The sum total of two huge bunches of herbs and kaffir lime leaves was 500 riel.

Tip: if visiting Siem Reap, use Khmer riel for local shopping. We’ve mainly used riel since the pandemic started— rarely use US$ now as market sellers quote prices in riels, as do local shops and bakeries, and I tip tuk tuk drivers in riels. I find prices quoted in riels are lower.

Psar Samaki is cheaper than Psar Leu, which is cheaper than Psar Chas, as it’s a wholesale market, which means the produce is fresher. I see veggies arriving, piled high in the back of vehicles, with dirt still on them — as I did on this trip. 

The scent of a mountain of incredibly aromatic pineapples offloaded from the back of a dusty ute was so heady they smelt like they’d just been cut. More exotic European style veggies arrive by big trucks in boxes labelled in Vietnamese (from Dalat) and Mandarin (from China), such as beautiful snow-white cauliflower I spotted.

Note: the freshest produce is sold on the dirt road at the back of the market.

#cambodia #siemreap #foodwriter #foodblogger #foodphotography #igfood #foodstagram #instafood #instafoodie #foodie #instadaily #picoftheday #market #siemreapmarket #psarsamaki #marketfresh #vegetables #healthyfood #marketshopping #traveltips #foodtravel #culinarytravel #localtravel #cooking #cookingtime #curry #homemade #currypaste #grantourismotravels
My Vietnamese-ish meatballs and rice noodles recip My Vietnamese-ish meatballs and rice noodles recipe makes tender meatballs doused in a delightfully tangy-sweet sauce, sprinkled with crispy fried shallots, with carrot-daikon, crunchy cucumber and fragrant herbs. 

The dish is inspired by bún chả, a Hanoi specialty, but it’s not bún chả. No matter what Google or food bloggers tell you. Names are important, especially when cooking and writing about cuisines not our own.

This is an authentic bún chả recipe:  https://grantourismotravels.com/vietnamese-bun-cha-recipe/ You’ll need to get the outdoor BBQ/grill going to do proper smoky bún chả meat patties (not meatballs).

My meatball noodle bowl is perhaps more closely related to dishes such as a Central Vietnam cousin bún thịt nướng (pork skewers on rice noodles in a bowl) and a Southern relation bún bò Nam Bộ (beef atop rice noodles, sprinkled with fried shallots (Nam Bộ=Southern Vietnam) though neither include meatballs. 

Xíu mại= meatballs although they’re different in flavour to mine, which taste more like bún chả patties. Xíu mại remind me of Southern Italian meatballs in tomato sauce.

In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, home to millions of Khmer, there’s bánh tằm xíu mại. Bánh tằm=silk worm noodles. They’re topped with meatballs, cucumber, daikon, carrot, fresh herbs, crispy fried onions. Difference: cold noodles doused in a sauce of coconut cream and fish sauce. 

Remove the meatballs, add chopped fried spring rolls and it’s Cambodia’s banh sung, which is a rice noodle salad similar to Vietnam’s bún chả giò :) 

Recipe here: (link in bio) https://grantourismotravels.com/vietnamese-meatballs-and-rice-noodles-recipe/

For more on these culinary connections you’ll have to wait for our Cambodian cookbook and culinary history. In a hurry to know? Come support the project on Patreon. (link in bio)

#recipe #recipes #vietnamesefood #cambodianfood #asianfood #southeastasianfood #ricenoodles #rice #noodlebowl #meatballs #igfood #igfoodie #foodblog #food #foodstagram #instafood  #instafoodie #foodie #foodies #foodlover #foodpics #foodporn #foodphotography #foodwriter #foodblogger #writingacookbook #writingacambodiancookbook #patreon #patreoncreator #grantourismo
It is pure coincidence that Pepper’s eye colour It is pure coincidence that Pepper’s eye colour matches the furnishings of our rented apartment. So, no, I did not colour-coordinate the interiors to match our cat’s eyes. 

I keep getting DMs from pet clothing brands wanting to “partner” with Pepper and send her free cat clothes and cat accessories. Although she did wear a kerchief for a few years in her more adventurous fashion-forward teenage years, I cannot see this cat in clothes now, can you? 

#pepper #blackcat #blackcats #blackcatsofinstagram #blackcatsrule #blackcatsmatter #cat #cats #catsofinstagram #catstagram #catlover #catlovers #catlove #catoftheday #catphoto #catpic #catpics #cambodiancat #cambodiancatsofinstagram #catlife #catloversclub #catoftheday #catgram #catstagram #cats_of_instagram #catphotography #catsofig #catsoftheworld #catsofinsta #cats🐱 #siemreap #cambodia

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