Argentinian down under at Gaucho's Argentinian Restaurant, Adelaide

Posted by Hendy

No trip to Adelaide would be complete without a visit to Gaucho's Argentinian Restaurant, which prides itself as being Australia's first Argentinian restaurant.

Established in 1985, Gaucho's offers many dishes that Argentinian cuisine is best known for: beef, pork and an elaborate selection of grilled meat dishes. The name Gaucho's comes from the original pioneers of Argentina who roamed the vast plains of the Patagonian grasslands, the pampas.

Ciabatta with extra virgin olive oil and house made dukkah at Gaucho's Argentinian Restaurant, Gouger Street, Adelaide

The restaurant has both indoor and outdoor seating and with the warm, beautiful Adelaide day, we opted for the great outdoors.

Starting with ciabatta bread with olive oil and dukkah, and warm, marinated mixed olives, we trawled through the extensive menu which is broken down into courses: entrada (entrée), primer plato (first course), segunda plato (second course) and firma plato (signature dishes).

Oliva - Warmed mixed olives with chilli, paprika, tequila and lime

What stood out in the signature dishes were all the asado barbecue or grill based dishes. There was everything from simple eye fillet, scotch fillet, porterhouse beef cuts and a number of wagyu cuts – including rump and striploin – to mixed grilled meats that can all be 'asado'ed.

Churrasco Grande - Wagyu rump

It was hard not to, so we all opted to order steaks or ribs from the mouth-watering asado menu and a number of side dishes.

The first plate to arrive was the Churrasco Grande; a 500-gram wagyu rump steak with a marble score of 8+, aged for over 42 days and sourced from Mayura Station in Limestone Coast, South Australia.

The rump was well cooked to medium-rare as ordered, delectable with just a pinch of salt and very, very tender with the wagyu marbling giving it a buttery texture. There was also the light chimmichurri marinade that Gaucho's put on all its steaks to give them their signature finishing.

Bife De Chorizo - New York style porterhouse

A number of us ordered the Bife De Chorizo grain-fed Riverine porterhouse, aged for a minimum of 42 days. Simply presented alone on the plate, the porterhouse was there to shine; similarly tender at medium-rare as with the wagyu rump.

Six-hour slow-cooked beef ribs coated with blue cheese sauce

The last protein to hit the table was the six-hour cooked beef ribs - one of three specials on the day. Giant as it seemed, the slow cooking meant the rib meat just fell straight off the bone.

The single rib was served with a blue cheese sauce that surprisingly wasn't overpowering but complemented the beef, providing it with a draping of flavour alongside colourful vegetables on the side of the wooden board.

Hand cut fried potatoes with rosemary and sea salt

Hand-cut, skin-on, fried potatoes, a fancy chunk of a chip if you will, come default with the main dishes.

With their mid-sized cuts, the potatoes were crunchy on the outside and wedges-fluffy on the inside, seasoned with rosemary, sea salt and paprika to finish.

Verduras verde - Seasonal greens sauteed with olive oil, lemon and fresh chilli

To topple the protein imbalances, we ordered greens from the ensaladas é verduras menu. The greens side of broccolini was simply sautéed with oil, lemon and chilli.

Pera ensalada - Salad of pear, witlof, radicchio, pecorino and roasted walnuts

The pear salad was a colourful and flavourful mix of sliced pear, radicchio and pecorino cheese, with toasted walnuts and some witlof greens.

I loved the balance of flavours of the salad, from the saltiness of the pecorino to the bitterness of the radicchio to the sweet slices of pear.

Being my second time at Gaucho's since few years ago, not much has changed. Gaucho's has retained its simplicity and ability to present good Argentinian dishes at its purest form - making it a worthwhile stop if you're ever down under in Adelaide.

Samosorn by Chat Thai – Thai for food hall

The Asian concepts of street food and hawker stalls are yet to develop in Australia but with the opening of Samosorn Thai Local Food Hall in the Myer food court in Pitt Street Mall last Saturday, we're a step closer.

Entry sign at Samosorn Thai Local Food Hall at Sydney Central Plaza food court
(beneath Myer), Pitt Street Mall, Sydney

The latest venue from the people behind Chat Thai, Samosorn – Thai for 'food hall' – brings a Thai street food vibe to one of the city's busiest food courts; or at least as much of that vibe as Sydney's relatively strict food safety regulations allow.

Seating in Samosorn

Display cabinets filled with vintage Thai packaging

But don't expect your average food court experience – Samosorn has gone all-out on recreating a Bangkok streetside styled with hawker stall signage, authentic wooden stools, vintage decorations and even a mock roadside sewer.

Mock sewer

Samosorn "food stalls"

Designed to take the rat racer out of the Sydney CBD, if only for an hour lunch break, Samosorn offers atmospheric, escape-from-a-food-court, in-restaurant seating that really is worlds away from the fluorescence of the rest of the food court, which seems to be slowly picking up its game.

Seating in Samosorn

The food hall concept focuses on fast, fresh Thai food prepared from a number of stations. Diners order from the front register, find a table and wait for food to be delivered to their upright spatula table numbers.

Noodle station

There are plenty of dishes that will be familiar to Chat Thai diners – there's no escaping from our national favourites of padt thai and chicken satay skewers, and Chat Thai crowd-pleasers like grapao mhu grob stir fried crisp pork belly with rice.

Items for the grill

Pork skewers on the grill

But with dedicated grill and salad sections in Samosorn's open kitchen, it's hard to go past dishes like the tender mhu bing grilled pork skewers or the north-east Thai Issan-style som dtum taardt; a Samosorn signature dish that you're unlikely to find anywhere else in Sydney at the moment.

Shredded green papaya

Som dtum salad station

A variation of the som dtum green papaya salad that the Thais like so fiery hot, the som dtum taardt is served to share, "family style" on a colourful round platter.

It features a freshly mortar-and-pestle mixed som dtum variety – ours a Thai favourite of som dtum thai-bpu with pungently pickled and fermented small whole black crabs – surrounded by an array of sides to be eaten with the salad.

Som dtum taardt

The pickled crab papaya salad comes with house made pork and fish skin crackling, thin rice noodles, a hard-boiled egg, blanched choy sum, raw cabbage, Thai basil, bean sprouts, peanuts and firm tofu.

It becomes a DIY salad that never loses interest, with the spicy, fishy som dtum thai-bpu playing star to a cast of supporting and contrasting ingredients, most of them pretty healthy.

Som dtum thai

We also had the normal som dtum thai salad, served without the fishy crabs and plenty of green beans, cherry tomatoes, peanuts, dried shrimp and fresh chilli in what was probably considered a "medium" level of heat for Thai diners, but a little painful for me.

The accompanying woven basket of warm sticky rice is ideal to temper the chilli heat of the som dtum.

Gai yaang - Char grilled marinated chicken

After the som dtum there was tender, moist relief in the whole char grilled chicken, served with a sweet dipping sauce of smoked chilli and tamarind.

The chopped pieces of the whole chicken had a delectable smokiness from the char grill and sweetly marinated, crisp caramelised skin.

Lodt Shong Singapore drink

Also helping me cope with the spice was a dessert-like drink of coconut milk and chewy green pandan noodles – much like Malaysian cendol – and some jackfruit or mango, I think, cooled down with loads of crushed ice in a giant glass mug.

There's also a range of quite traditional crushed ice drinks and herbal teas on offer, including the nahm buoy sweet pickled plum iced tea and the nahm krachiap iced hibiscus drink.

Condiments and seasonings

Deep fry station

With a pretty extensive menu of noodles – stir fried and in soup – grilled items, spicy salads and one-plate-rice dishes predominantly sub $14, food court lunches are taking on new meaning at Samosorn, which is taking on the streets of Bangkok in the heart of Sydney CBD.

Disclosure: Food, booze and shoes dined as a guest of Samosorn, and is acquainted with staff and owners of Samosorn and Chat Thai.

Seafood Lane at Red Spice Road for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival

Greeted with a stunning, blue-skied autumn's day, it was with a spring in our step that we bounded down Mackillop Lane – a Melbourne CBD laneway filled with long tables for the fifth annual Seafood Lane event at Red Spice Road for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival last month.

Table settings for Seafood Lane as part of Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, 9 March 2014, Red Spice Road, Mackillop Lane, Melbourne

Long white-clothed tables were positioned down the middle of the closed-off laneway, beneath shelters for both sun and rain, though we were lucky to have the former in buckets.

Orderly seating arrangements and drinks on arrival made for a convivial atmosphere of food lovers, tourists and food tourists – all happy to chat about the festival, the warm day and the impending south-east Asian seafood feast by Red Spice Road.

Drinks served at the long tables

There was Tiger beer, Monteith's cider or even Jax Coco Coconut Water for the non-drinkers, but for me, long lunches start and go on with bubbles, like the Crittenden Estate Geppetto NV Brut.

We could see food arriving up the top of the long tables, with smells and appreciative noises quickly filtering down via an army of plate-clad waiters.

Banh mi with soft shell crab, cucumber, herbs and spicy turmeric mayo

The appetisers started off with a bang – perhaps even the biggest bang of the seafood-focused meal (though I'm sure excitement and initial hunger had something to do with that).

I'm not sure why I've never had a soft shell crab banh mi before because it's an excellent idea – a small, round burger bun holding a crisply deep fried soft shell crab, with spindly legs sticking out among cucumber and fresh green herbs like coriander and mint.

Banh mi with soft shell crab

The whole Vietnamese-styled slider was brought together by a creamy turmeric mayonnaise that paired with the crab perfectly. A crowd favourite, there were serious and justified concerns that the rest of the meal may not rise to the heights of the soft shell crab banh mi.

Scallop with poached chicken, jellyfish, shiso and green chili

It's hard to go wrong when you have beautiful produce like scallops, beautifully grilled and sat on a somewhat superfluous round of poached chicken breast. The shiso and green chilli dressing gave the plump mollusc a great lift, while I don’t recall the jellyfish at all.

Calamari stuffed with Issan pork sausage

The whole stuffed calamari was a modern presentation with north-east Thai Issan pork sausage; the sausage sweet and garlicky within the thin sheets of slightly chewy squid, doused with a sweet red sauce.

Spicy salmon, green onion and sesame tartare on crispy sticky rice

Another modern, fusion appetiser was the creamy tartare of salmon and green onion, flavoured with sesame and chilli and sat atop a brick of deep fried sticky rice.

The concept was fun and the diced and dressed raw salmon very moreish, but the overall texture of the crisp sticky rice meant it was of a tooth-sticking nature.

Wines were topped up and plates were cleared with efficiency and smiles; a pretty impressive logistical outcome given the length of the table and the waiters' walk back to the laneway restaurant in the hot sun.

Octopus, tomato, coriander and shallot salad

It was a little alarming that the after the plentiful appetisers, there was still the three mains to go, along with steamed jasmine rice.

We started with an eye-opening salad of tender octopus tentacles and tomato – a combination that I wouldn't have expected. Pimped up with loads of fresh coriander and sliced shallots, it was a surprisingly fresh salad where the seafood shone in a well-balanced pairing.

Laotian prawn green curry with potato and dill

My favourite dish after the banh mi would have been the Laotian prawn green curry – large whole prawns creamy with coconut and a mild manageable spice, and bulked up with potato chunks.

Most interestingly, beneath the generous coriander garnish, the dill addition to the curry sauce was outstanding – whether the match with potatoes or it being one of my favourite herbs, it really made the green curry unique and memorable.

Barramundi with snake bean sambal and crispy anchovies

We received the golden-hued barramundi last, and it probably suffered a little from our satiety.

The golden surface of the fish fillets hid a overcooked interior and even with the sambal sauce, it was a slightly dry experience. However, the sambal beans were a delight along with whole crispy anchovies entering Malaysian cuisine territory.

Long tables for Seafood Lane

As stuffed as we were, the gorgeously elaborate individual dessert pulled us back in, aided by a stroll and a glass of 2013 Pinocchio Moscato.

Pineapple panna cotta with coconut jelly, gula melaka caramelised pineapple, cashew praline and Sang Som ice cream

Creativity reigned in the Thai-inspired dessert of pineapple flavoured panna cotta – an excellent, appropriately wobbly rendition, served with chewy cubes of coconut jelly, fresh pineapple pieces in gula melaka palm sugar syrup, crushed cashew praline and ice cream of Thai Sang Som rum.

Pineapple panna cotta with Sang Som ice cream

All the components had their place in the dessert bowl – particularly the ice cream as the day warmed up – an achievement given the number of ingredients that all worked together exceptionally well to close the meal.

Red Spice Road restaurant interior

More wine came by, more neighbourly chatter ensued and the afternoon was whiled away in the collective south-east Asian seafood feast of a food coma that was Seafood Lane this year by Red Spice Road.

Food, booze and shoes attended Seafood Lane at Red Spice Road as a guest.