Cross lunching at Concrete Blonde

I don't spend a great deal of time in the Cross these days which means I'm probably missing out on some of the dining options in the area, including restaurants in Kings Cross, Potts Point and Darlinghurst.

Right in the thick of things, up a short stairway on Bayswater Road underneath nightspot and cheap pizza haunt Hugos, Concrete Blonde is flying its modern Australian flag in an expansive space including a bar, some communal tables against an open kitchen and a large sheltered outdoor area.

Outdoor seating area at Concrete Blonde, Bayswater Road, Kings Cross

It's a great spot for casual but stylish lunching and in the evenings, people watching, I imagine.

And with a full bar incorporated into the restaurant, there was no reason to not start a weekend lunch with a signature Concrete Blonde cocktail.

The bar

Bayswater Breeze cocktail (front, right)

The Bayswater Breeze is a refreshing and fruit cocktail of vodka and elderflower liqueur, garnished with fresh passionfruit and overflowing with crushed ice. It was very easy to drink so a good choice with which to start the drinking day.

Seared scallops, wild prawn, asparagus, crisp bread

I love seeing new perspectives on a seared scallop dish and this was certainly not your average scallop entree. The three just cooked scallops sat amid asparagus spears, crisp bread and a fine dice of prawn and other raw, sashimi style seafood in a seafood salad of sorts. The scallop I sampled was sweet, succulent sea perfection.

Smoked ocean trout, slow cooked egg, apple and dill salad

My entree of thinly sliced smoked ocean trout with a gooey slow cooked egg was also accompanied by a thin, crunchy crisp, which came in handy for dipping into the egg.

The egg was nested by sprigs of dill and batons of granny smith apple which had a sweetness that was ideally matched with the smoky yet vibrant fish.

Communal table and kitchen

Inside the restaurant

Char grilled pork cutlet, celeriac remoulade, pear, blue cheese, hazelnuts

There were more than a few dishes I wanted to try from the brief mains menu but the pork cutlet won out - rewardingly so as I spied it coming to our table.

It was quite a large dish with a hunk of char grilled pork sitting on shredded celeriac - which cut through the richness of the meat as did the scattered salad of witlof, pear, blue cheese and roasted hazelnuts alongside.

And as if the juicy and tender pork wasn't enough, there was also golden, perfectly and audibly crunchy pork crackling that almost made the dish on its own.

Slow cooked NZ King salmon, prawn, avocado, fennel

The lighter salmon option featured a slow cooked (perhaps confit) fillet of the fish, which flaked easily into pieces to be eaten with an avocado puree and fennel and pea salad.

The prawn seemed to be an unusual addition but it was so fresh in taste and texture I could have had all prawns and no salmon.

Fennel salad, marinated goats cheese, blood orange, witlof, radish, chives

The mains at Concrete Blonde are quite complete meals with substantial sides, like salads, on the plate - a refreshingly value-oriented approach that's not nearly as common as it should be.

Nonetheless, we sampled the colourful and sprightly fennel, witlof and radish salad dotted with normal and blood orange segments and creamy, mild goat's cheese - covering off on bitter and sweet, creamy and crisp.

Bouillon chat potatoes, rosemary salt, aioli

The waitstaff also highly recommended the potato side dish and after just one bite, I understood why. Parboiled in, presumably, bouillon, these chat potatoes were then lightly smashed and roasted to a glistening, well-tanned state and seasoned with rosemary salt.

They were outstanding as they were, and just scraping in to be 'the naughty side' with the addition of aioli. French fries and pommes puree, eat your heart out - this is the champion of potato side dishes.

Seating indoors and wine cellar

Vanilla panna cotta, rhubarb, strawberry,basil sorbet

After scoffing as many potatoes as possible, as well as the sizable mains, the very enticing dessert menu nudged us into sweets territory too. First was the vanilla panna cotta which wobbled nicely with its strawberry jelly layer.

The basil sorbet was great on its own, weird with the vanilla flavours of the panna cotta, but made more sense with the little piles of stewed rhubarb and strawberry.

Caramelised banana tart, honeycomb, peanut butter ice cream

Not normally a banana dessert person, I was swayed by the banana tart's promised side of peanut butter ice cream and honeycomb.

The tart itself was fabulous: a thin, buttery, flaky pastry topped with banana slices and caramel that had been lightly torched for a hint of burnt toffee. It was also a surprisingly light dessert, though apt after all those potatoes really.

Caranel espresso martini

To top off the sweets, one of the dessert cocktails appealed with caramel and espresso meeting in a heavy hitting martini. It was more caramel than espresso but a fine note on which to conclude lunch in the Cross.

Outdoors, indoors, cocktails, food, casual or big night out: if you need a reason to visit Kings Cross, I think Concrete Blonde has a few.

Food, booze and shoes dined as a guest of Concrete Blonde, with thanks to Wasamedia.

Food styling with Kate Gibbs and Philly

I was losing the battle against an 'early' Saturday morning, drizzly grey skies and weekend public transport. But I was on my way to a food styling and photography session at Concrete Blonde in Kings Cross with Kate Gibbs; daughter of Suzanne Gibbs, granddaughter of Margaret Fulton, journalist, author, blogger and ambassador for Kraft Philidelphia. So I persisted, despite the downright weird Saturday morning loiterers around Kings Cross station.

Kate Gibbs (front) and Suzanne Gibbs (back) for Philly food styling and photography
session at Concrete Blonde, Bayswater Road, Kings Cross

In the session Kate, assisted in the kitchen by mother and 'sous chef' Suzanne Gibbs, was going to demonstrate three recipes and provide us with some tips and tricks on how to plate up dishes to entertain guests, as well as tips on food styling and photography.

Kate's collection of food styling props

After a perfect macchiato (thanks Concrete Blonde), I was ready to go and a little amused as I've never really played with styling props before, though I have tried to nicely plate up a couple of dishes in my kitchen (perhaps twice in my entire cooking life).

Seared tuna loin

For the first of the recipes, a tuna nicoise crostini, Kate started by searing a flawless piece of yellow fin tuna loin, simply seasoned on the surface with salt, pepper and olive oil. About 10 seconds on each side in a hot pan ensures that the centre remains pink and raw, which goes towards looks and texture.

Tuna nicoise crostini

The crostini are fairly straightforward to construct: rub a garlic clove on thin, toasted slices of baguette. Slather on some spreadable cream cheese and top with diced olives and a squeeze of lemon (the acid of the lemon directly on the tuna would start to cook it).

Tuna nicoise crostini made with Philidelphia Spreadable Cream Cheese

Then, lay on a nice thick slice of the seared tuna and garnish with chopped chives and perhaps a drizzle of olive oil. Something so simple to put together almost shouldn't be allowed to taste so good - but it does.

Back light - how I detest thee

This was by far my favourite thing I had to eat all day - the explosion of flavours was just awe-inspiring. First, the soft, raw tuna backed up by the crunchy toast. And then acidity from the lemon juice followed by the big punch of the salty olives, all soothed by the creamy cheese.

Tuna nicoise crostini with Philidelphia Spreadable Cream Cheese

I honestly can't wait to make this at home for some very, verylucky dinner guests. In this shot above, it shows the tuna slice almost falling apart as Kate had cut across the grain of the flesh - as should be done with all meat for greater tenderness, and flavour too.

Tuna nicoise crostini as appetisers

From the number of shots of the tuna nicoise crostini, one might be able to tell that we played around a fair bit before eating them.

Lighting (artificial, then natural, from front and back), plating, angles - I'm not sure my dinner party guests would have the same patience to go through all that, but I'm a firm believer of "practice makes perfect". And I also believe that photography and styling are very subjective matters.

Boiled, peeled and chopped beetroot

I've recently discovered a love for beetroot, mostly in salads. Fresh baby beetroots, usually with an acidic dressing, are the most gorgeous things as long as you don't drop them on white clothing.

Here, Suzanne has boiled them in their skins (with a dash of white vinegar to stop them colour bleeding out; salt does the opposite) and skinned them, which is apparently very easy to do post boiling.

Kate was next demonstrating a baby beetroot salad with broad beans, walnuts and Philly cream cheese, which reads like a list of my favourite salad ingredients.

Baby beetroot salad with broad beans, walnuts and Philly cream cheese

Kate talked about preparing food the way you would like to eat it; for example, would you want a tiny dice of beetroot or thick chunks that you can cut into? I must admit I'd never thought about that before, but can think back to Greek salads topped with whole tiles of feta cheese - and now I wonder what the point is.

For the salad, along with the thick sticks of beetroot, Kate added peeled broad beans, crumbled whole walnuts and pinched nubbins of cream cheese from the block, rather than cut it into cubes. And indeed, with the cream cheese being quite rich compared to the other salad ingredients, I thought the smaller the piece of cheese the better.

Mussels with speck and cream

For the final recipe - mussels with speck and cream - Kate thoroughly cooked onion, garlic and bay leaf before adding diced speck (bacon for me at home), browning them all well before adding liquids which would essentially stop the browning process.

Using supremely fresh South Australian mussels (the open ones would close up if you pressed on them!), the molluscs went into the pot of onion and speck with a healthy helping of white wine and at the very end, Philidelphia's Cream for Cooking, which I'd never actually seen before.

My serve of hiding-from-me mussels with speck and cream

The smell from the pot of mussels was quite seriously making a few mouths water, although the pesky mussels were one of the more difficult things to photograph (they're dark, don't reveal their insides all that well, fall awkwardly on the plate, and so on).

Mussels with speck and cream and Philidelphia Cream for Cooking

Fresh parsley helped on the styling front, as did a a magazine-esque setting with bread and a glass of wine. The looks were catching up with the aromas and starting to look good enough to eat.

Lunch is served (at Concrete Blonde, food cooked by Kate Gibbs)

Lunch was looking pretty darn good, but there was always time for more photos, more styling - and wine, of course. In a matter of a few hours and three recipes, I'd picked up a number of tips for the kitchen and food styling - a significantly more productive Saturday morning than usual.

Many thanks to the gorgeous Kate Gibbs and Suzanne Gibbs for their time and patience in the Concrete Blonde kitchens, and thanks to Peta and Louise too for the fun, filling and fruitful session.

P.S. With the Philly sample pack, I've attempted a few recipes from the Simply Heaven volume 2 cookbook by Philidelphia (somewhat following the recipes - sorry Kate), though clearly need better lighting and props in the home kitchen.

Ham and vegetable crostata
(I halved the recipe for a smaller pie and used whatever vegies I had in the fridge at
the time. And I accidentally broke the pastry so egg leaked out the bottom of the
crostata. Looked rather average but tasted delicious!)

Cherry berry cake
(Without cherries nor blueberries; replaced with dried cranberries and diced dried
mango as this was all I had in the pantry. A very moist, yet crumbly, cake in which
the cream cheese is not noticeable. Would most likely be improved with fresh berries.)

Food, booze and shoes attended the session with Kate Gibbs and received a Philidelphia sample pack plus cookbook courtesy of Kraft Philidelphia, with thanks to Liquid Ideas.