Aroma Festival

Yesterday was a day of coffee and chocolate craze!

Hanging around The Rocks from 10AM when The Aroma Festival kicked off and back home around 2PM after sipping couple cups of coffee, mocha, chai latte and couldn't stop munching Italian pizza-like bread, corn, cheesy spiral spud, doughnuts... yet still stopped by a ramen shop in the city..well I still need to put on some weight though :)

Here are some snaps from The Rocks Aroma Festival..

The free event guide available around Circular Quay

a winter morning + hot coffee + spectacular harbour's view

Who doesn't love chocolate?

Coffee Sculpture, made from more than 5,000 cups! But I was too early and couldn't get the chance to see the whole image. Last year's incredible 3,604-cup Mona Lisa coffee sculpture achieved a Guinness World Record.

Cupcakes in the cage

Tempting Naked Berry

Somehow I put the wrong caption and link on those berries before, sorry for the mistake Naked berry :)

Some Italian ginger bread and pizza-like bakery

Green Tea Mochi

I've got a few posts about mochi from Shu Shin Bou, not that I am a big fan of this shop but I couldn't find another shop in the city selling Japanese mochi. So every time I crave for mochi I'd run to their shop and get myself some fresh and yummy mochi.

This time I got their blueberry mochi and green tea mochi, the blueberry filling is really nice but my favorite one is green tea for its strong green tea flavor.

(Green tea mochi and blueberry mochi)

Anglerfish battle

I just finished watching Iron Chef on SBS 1 and it was an anglerfish battle between the challenger Seiya Masahara and the Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, the famous Iron Chef for his unique style of cooking and presenting the food. The challenger, Seiya Masahara, lost three battles with Chef Morimoto before finally winning one in this anglerfish battle.

This anglerfish is so unique for me as I've never seen one before. This wide-mouth fish is famous in northern Japan such as Hokkaido as 'Ankoo'. The fish named for their characteristic method of predation. Anglerfishes typically have at least one long filament sprouting from the middle of the head; these are detached and modified three first spines of the anterior dorsal fin. This first spine protrudes above the fish's eyes, and terminates in an irregular growth of flesh (the esca) at the tip of the spine. The spine is movable in all directions, and the esca can be wiggled so as to resemble a prey animal, and thus to act as a bait to lure other predator close enough for the anglerfish to devour them whole.

(Source: Wikipedia)

And if you are an Iron Chef's fan, which Iron Chef do you think has the best win-loss records? I thought Morimoto-san would be on the top but I was wrong, here is the list of their records.

Iron Chef	Title	Win	Loss	Draw	Total	Win %
Chen Kenichi	Iron Chef Chinese	67	22	3	92	75.3%
Yutaka Ishinabe	Iron Chef French (I)	7	1	0	8	87.5%
Hiroyuki Sakai	Iron Chef French (II)	70	15	1	86	82.4%
Masahiko Kobe	Iron Chef Italian	15	7	1	23	68.2%
Rokusaburo Michiba	Iron Chef Japanese (I)	32	5	1	38	86.5%
Koumei Nakamura	Iron Chef Japanese (II)	24	11	1	36	68.6%
Masaharu Morimoto	Iron Chef Japanese(III)	16	7	1	24	69.6%

(Source: Wikipedia)

Fish Sushi Roll

It's not a real sushi but a product of Barby's bakery, one of my favorite bakeries in town. It's a bread rolled in nori (dried seaweed), filled with cucumber, corns, cream and covered with fish floss on the sides.

(Fish sushi roll from Barby's bakery)

Barby's bakery has one shop on level 2 of Market City and another one on corner of Goulbourn and Sussex street right in the heart of Chinatown strip. I love their breads since they are soft and they got lot of mouthwatering flavors.

Samurai Summit

I have been a fan of cosplay and any event related to this popular Japanese Pop culture, not that I'd like to dress in Inuyasha or Sesshomaru's costume but I do love watching people in fabulous attractive costumes. I wish I could fly to Nagoya end of this month to see the World Cosplay Summit 2010, this cosplay event begun in Osu, Nagoya in 2005 sponsored by TV Aichi. This year the WCS will be held on July 31 - August 1.

During the press conference held at the Central Japan International Airport, the president of the airport pictured in samurai costume to announce World Samurai Summit will be held in Nagoya, the capital of Aichi Prefecture, along with the World Cosplay Summit.

(picture courtesy of Mainichi News)

Kopi Luwak

Kopi Luwak is one of the rarest and most expensive coffees in the world. This Indonesian coffee made from beans of coffee berries which have been eaten by Asian palm civet, that's why it's called Kopi Luwak in Indonesian, Kopi means coffee and Luwak means civet. The civet eats the berries for their fleshly pulp, in its stomach, proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans, making shorter peptides and more free amino acids. Passing through a civet's intestines the beans are then defecated, having kept their shape. After gathering thorough washing, sun drying, light roasting and brewing, these beans yield an aromatic coffee with much less bitterness, widely noted as the most expensive coffee in the world.

I had been browsing around to find this coffee in Sydney, eventually found this Olio Cafe in St Leonards and couldn't resist to give it a try. For $9 you will get this coffee in a tiny mug served with a cookie and a small glass of water to clean up your palate before you finish this coffee in couple sips.

(Kopi Luwak from Olio Cafe)

The coffee has a real smooth taste with no after taste and if you'd like to buy the beans, the cafe sells a pack of 250 gram Kopi Luwak for $100.
And if you'd like to buy the coffee from the farmer in Sumatra here is the web from Pagaralam Sumatera, Indonesia: Kopi Luwak Sumatera.

You could call this coffee as 'cat poo coffee', so would you fancy a cup of 'cat poo coffee'?

Daiei Watermelon

Hokuei, a town of Tottori Prefecture in Japan is not only home to Detective Conan but also the famous Daiei watermelon or also called as Tottori watermelon. Madoka Ueno, the Tourism Ambassador for Tottori Prefecture described Daiei watermelon as being 'large, sweet and crisp' at the Mainichi Newspaper, promoting this famous watermelon of this year's harvest as it shipped across the country.

(Picture courtesy of Tottori Tourism)

Tottori watermelons have not been limited to Japan, either, making appearances overseas in Taiwan and Russia, and in June of 2008, being shipped to Dubai for the first time, where they sold for around 30,000 yen a piece (in Japan, a typical size Tottori watermelon sells for about 3,800 yen).

Talking about Tottori, the prefecture is also famous for Nijisseiki Pear, the king of all Japanese pears. Tottori Prefecture is the largest producer and exporter of these pears. While the Daiei watermelon is in season from late June to early August, the Nijisseiki Pear is in season from late August to September.

(source: Mainichi and Tottori Tourism)

Morimoto-san

Masaharu Morimoto is my favorite chef from Fuji TV's show Iron Chef. I was so surprised when I found one particular cooking book on the shelf of Sydney library, a book called "Morimoto - The New Art of Japanese cooking" published by DK publishing New York. It's really a great cooking book full of inspiration about Japanese fusion recipes and useful tips by Morimoto-san, the Iron Chef Japanese.

Almost 25 years before Morimoto became an Iron Chef, before he owned four widely acclaimed restaurants and released his own award-winning beers and splendid sake, he washed dishes at Ichiban sushi, a small restaurant in Hiroshima run by Ikuo Oyama, a kind but demanding chef who prepared a wide range of food, including sushi, sashimi, udon and Japanese curry rice.

At 25, he opened his own cafe in downtown Hiroshima. It was a tiny place with a few tables that dealt mainly in delivery to nearby medical offices and a police station. At night, he labored as a sushi chef in another restaurant, delivered newspaper and worked as an insurance agent at Morimoto agency, a makeshift outfit that he alone operated.

Morimoto and his wife landed in New York in March, 1985. He picked up more or less where he had left off in Japan, working afternoons at one sushi restaurant and nights at another. After six years of being underpaid and overworked, he began the search for new opportunities, and eventually worked as sushi chef at the Sony Club, an exclusive dining room that catered to Sony's executives and talents. Fortuitously, he got a position at Nobu Restaurant in New York where he was there from the beginning, surrounded by new flavors and working under a mandate not to be limited by the strictures of tradition.

Morimoto's big break came during a trip to Japan to see his friends and family. A Japanese customer at Nobu who adored his food had invited him to cook for a group of her friends in Tokyo. Although he didn't know it then, this group included a judge and a producer from Fuji TV's popular show "Iron Chef". Several months later, he got a call from someone from the show asking him to be Iron Chef Japanese. At first, he declined the offer but a number of his colleagues started lobbying him and a week later Morimoto reconsidered and signed on. Morimoto flew to Japan every month until the show ended, about a year after he started.

(Source and courtesy of: Morimoto, The New Art of Japanese Cooking)

Moffle

It was 7pm when I wandered around The Rock's market on the weekend and came across a Belgian waffle stand, when you are freezing and find a hot food with tantalizing aroma you wouldn't just walk pass without getting one. The chocolate Belgian waffle is so nice and it just reminds me of a waffle craze in Japan few years back then. The waffle craze in Japan didn't stop there, Sanyei Co. invented a moffle makers which set another trend of new kind of rice snack in Japan, moffle.

Moffle (mochi + waffle) has the waffle shape and while the outside is toasted and crispy, the inside contains a thin layer of glutinous mochi. Making a moffle is quite simple, just open the lid of the moffle maker, which looks very similar to a waffle iron, place the mochi inside and close the lid. After several minutes, a toasted waffle-looking mochi is ready. You can use instant mochi blocks available at supermarket.

It is also possible to make moffle sandwiches by combining ingredients with the mochi before cooking, alternatively you can add sweet or salty toppings as the plain taste of mochi goes well with either.

(Source: Japan Times)

(My chocolate waffle)

I haven't found any shop selling moffle in Sydney so far, and when I find one I'll update this post

Tetsuya's Pursuit of Excellence

Wanna win a meal for two at Tetsuya's ? Check this out!

Tetsuya Wakuda is one of the world's most famous chefs and his restaurant in Sydney is consistently rated as one of the top 50 in the world. To celebrate Tetsuya's Pursuit of Excellence, SBS is giving one lucky viewer the chance to win a meal for two at his famous restaurant.

For your chance to win this unique experience, watch Tetsuya's Pursuit of Excellence at 7.30pm on Thursday, 17 June 2010 on SBS One.

(Source: SBS)