Latest news with #DaniValent
Sydney Morning Herald
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The May 24 Edition
I'm always mildly amused when food critics – usually the overseas kind – airily dismiss the notion of an Australian cuisine. It's such a Euro-centric criticism. Apart from the fact Indigenous people developed their own richly varied cuisine here for more than 50,000 years, modern Australian cuisine has evolved into one of the most diverse in the world, reflecting our rich cultural mix – although it wouldn't hurt if we took more creative and commercial risks with our abundance of native foods. For quality of produce, for variety of high-calibre restaurants and truly brilliant wines, you can't go past Australia. Our food and wine edition this year is jam-packed with features. My favourites? Andrew Hornery's story on Australia's queen of pickles, and Dani Valent's ode to wheat and the joy of fresh bread. But you won't want to miss Huon Hooke's and The Real Review's list of the 20 Best Wineries in Australia and our Six Best Wines – something to keep for future weekends away. – Greg Callaghan, acting editor
The Age
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The May 24 Edition
I'm always mildly amused when food critics – usually the overseas kind – airily dismiss the notion of an Australian cuisine. It's such a Euro-centric criticism. Apart from the fact Indigenous people developed their own richly varied cuisine here for more than 50,000 years, modern Australian cuisine has evolved into one of the most diverse in the world, reflecting our rich cultural mix – although it wouldn't hurt if we took more creative and commercial risks with our abundance of native foods. For quality of produce, for variety of high-calibre restaurants and truly brilliant wines, you can't go past Australia. Our food and wine edition this year is jam-packed with features. My favourites? Andrew Hornery's story on Australia's queen of pickles, and Dani Valent's ode to wheat and the joy of fresh bread. But you won't want to miss Huon Hooke's and The Real Review's list of the 20 Best Wineries in Australia and our Six Best Wines – something to keep for future weekends away. – Greg Callaghan, acting editor
The Age
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Finger-licking late-night fun: An expert's guide to eating (and drinking) in Koreatown
In this Good Food series, Dani Valent explores Melbourne's best Eat Streets. See all stories. Hankering for spicy fried chicken and beer? Want a seafood pancake and soju? Need it all at midnight? For more than a decade, the north-western pocket of the city in and around Healeys Lane has been a good spot for casual, affordable Korean food, especially late at night. Restaurants have come and gone, but the K-quotient has gradually risen, leading to the nickname Kimchi Street, and since last September, an official City of Melbourne designation as Koreatown. Last weekend, Lord Mayor Nick Reece unveiled Korean totem poles on Little Lonsdale Street to oversee the entrance to cobblestoned Healeys Lane. The three-metre-tall, carved-timber 'jang seung' are similar to those that guard the entrances of villages in Korea. There are more than 20 Korean businesses here already (mostly restaurants but also karaoke, photo booths and skincare stores) and the rubber-stamping of the precinct is boosting momentum. Hong Kim, owner of Healeys Lane fixture, Seven Star Pocha, will soon turn a Japanese restaurant he owns on the street into a Korean grill. 'We're looking forward to expanding the Korean food offerings and giving more options for the customer,' he says. Good Food explored Healeys Lane with Korean chef Mika Chae, who owns contemporary restaurant Doju nearby on Flinders Lane. 'I would come here for cheap food and drinking games when I was a student,' says Chae. 'Now I come after work late at night to unwind and get something to eat. It's a fun precinct with good energy and a great place for Korean food.' Seven Star Pocha 'Pocha' means outdoor food carts and this eight-year-old mainstay brings street-food energy to its casual, sometimes raucous dining room. If you're here after 7pm, you'll probably need to queue, but don't worry about missing out: the place is open till at least 2am. Army stew (budae jjigae) is a key dish, set on the table in a huge tureen over a butane burner for you to cook yourself. As the broth starts to burble, ladle the liquid over the noodles on top to soften them, then stir them in with a jam-packed array of sausages, beans, tofu and kimchi. 'When I was a student, five of us would share one of these,' says Chae. Other must-try dishes here are the pizza-sized seafood pancake stuffed with calamari, shrimp and mussels, and boneless fried chicken: try a double plate with sweet chilli glaze on one side and creamy onion on the other. This trending combo sees chicken pieces covered in sliced raw onions and smothered in a bechamel-like sauce. Shop H, 535 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Dong Dae Moon One of the newer restaurants in the precinct, Dong Dae Mun brings the energy of its namesake neighbourhood to Melbourne. 'Dongdaemun in Seoul is the place for having a bite, walking around and enjoying authentic street food in a crowded setting,' says restaurant manager Min Kyo Choo. The specialty here is kimbap rice rolls filled with cooked meats, seafood and pickles. Try the bulgogi beef version with perilla leaves and eat it alongside tteokbokki, chewy rice cakes tossed with a sweet-spicy sauce that also works as a tasty dip for your kimbap. Also try handmade pork dumplings and the winter-friendly guksu, a spicy broth with handcut noodles. 466 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Jang Gun The street's old stager, Jang Gun has been here since 2013. At the time, they were the third Korean restaurant to open here but Gami, the fried chicken franchise next door, is the only remaining shop that predates Jang Gun. We love this place for its cosy timber booths, which you can (and should) book. Put on supplied gloves to eat soy-marinated raw crab and ju-meokbap, a DIY rice bowl which is a recommended crab pairing. To make ju-meokbap, use your fingers like chopsticks to mix rice with mayonnaise, seaweed flakes, pickled radish and sesame seeds. Form the mixture into bite-sized balls for your crew to enjoy. Another great dish here is the beef pancake (jeon), meat slices dipped in egg wash and fried like an omelette. If you love egg dishes, also try the fluffy, sauce-striped cheesy egg roll. 3/21 Healeys Lane, Melbourne, Pizza Monster Here's a bold statement: South Korea is the world capital of fusion cuisine. Here's a place to debate the assertion: Pizza Monster, an Italian-Korean mash-up that serves pizzas with, say, bulgogi beef, corn, sweet potato mousse and almond flakes on a black rice dough base, and carbonara with oyster sauce and spring onion. Crazy? No. Crazy-good. Pizza Monster is small, cute and chic, perfect for a pizza date with a difference. Try the Shark Attack cocktail for some pour-your-own theatre. Mr Lee's Foods Soondae is sometimes spelled 'sundae' on Korean menus, which can get confusing if you don't know that this Korean delicacy is a sausage made with blood and glass noodles steamed inside pig intestines. Bouncy in texture and gentle in flavour, it's the specialty at Mr Lee's, served steamed on a platter with other (less mild) offal such as liver and ear. Dip it into the spiced salt on the table and enjoy with beer. Mr Lee's is also famous for pork soups, most of which include soondae. 1/535 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Seoul Toast Bong Most of Koreatown stays up late but this sandwich shop is a weekday-only daytime place catering for city workers who need something comforting around midday. (A lunchtime fried chicken tray meal is only $12.90.) There are hundreds of branches of this franchise in South Korea and this is the first one outside its home base. The bulgogi cheese toastie with fried kimchi is an easy win, and there's DIY instant ramen with a choice of toppings. Shop 6, Healeys Lane, Melbourne, How to drink Korean While Good Food is an advocate of the responsible use of alcohol, it's impossible to ignore the fact that drinking is a huge part of Korean dining culture. Beer and soju (a distilled alcohol similar to vodka) are consumed liberally, separately and together. The combination of both is called 'somaek'. Start by pouring a shot of soju into a tumbler and topping it off with beer. Shove a spoon into the glass to create bubbles and make the drink smoother. You can also pour half-tumblers of beer, line them up in a row, and balance shot glasses on the rims, straddling two glasses. Fill the shot glasses with soju and tip the first one into a beer glass, creating a domino fall-down of tumbling soju glasses. It's messy stuff. You won't see tablecloths in any of these restaurants.
Sydney Morning Herald
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Finger-licking late-night fun: An expert's guide to eating (and drinking) in Koreatown
In this Good Food series, Dani Valent explores Melbourne's best Eat Streets. See all stories. Hankering for spicy fried chicken and beer? Want a seafood pancake and soju? Need it all at midnight? For more than a decade, the north-western pocket of the city in and around Healeys Lane has been a good spot for casual, affordable Korean food, especially late at night. Restaurants have come and gone, but the K-quotient has gradually risen, leading to the nickname Kimchi Street, and since last September, an official City of Melbourne designation as Koreatown. Last weekend, Lord Mayor Nick Reece unveiled Korean totem poles on Little Lonsdale Street to oversee the entrance to cobblestoned Healeys Lane. The three-metre-tall, carved-timber 'jang seung' are similar to those that guard the entrances of villages in Korea. There are more than 20 Korean businesses here already (mostly restaurants but also karaoke, photo booths and skincare stores) and the rubber-stamping of the precinct is boosting momentum. Hong Kim, owner of Healeys Lane fixture, Seven Star Pocha, will soon turn a Japanese restaurant he owns on the street into a Korean grill. 'We're looking forward to expanding the Korean food offerings and giving more options for the customer,' he says. Good Food explored Healeys Lane with Korean chef Mika Chae, who owns contemporary restaurant Doju nearby on Flinders Lane. 'I would come here for cheap food and drinking games when I was a student,' says Chae. 'Now I come after work late at night to unwind and get something to eat. It's a fun precinct with good energy and a great place for Korean food.' Seven Star Pocha 'Pocha' means outdoor food carts and this eight-year-old mainstay brings street-food energy to its casual, sometimes raucous dining room. If you're here after 7pm, you'll probably need to queue, but don't worry about missing out: the place is open till at least 2am. Army stew (budae jjigae) is a key dish, set on the table in a huge tureen over a butane burner for you to cook yourself. As the broth starts to burble, ladle the liquid over the noodles on top to soften them, then stir them in with a jam-packed array of sausages, beans, tofu and kimchi. 'When I was a student, five of us would share one of these,' says Chae. Other must-try dishes here are the pizza-sized seafood pancake stuffed with calamari, shrimp and mussels, and boneless fried chicken: try a double plate with sweet chilli glaze on one side and creamy onion on the other. This trending combo sees chicken pieces covered in sliced raw onions and smothered in a bechamel-like sauce. Shop H, 535 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Dong Dae Moon One of the newer restaurants in the precinct, Dong Dae Mun brings the energy of its namesake neighbourhood to Melbourne. 'Dongdaemun in Seoul is the place for having a bite, walking around and enjoying authentic street food in a crowded setting,' says restaurant manager Min Kyo Choo. The specialty here is kimbap rice rolls filled with cooked meats, seafood and pickles. Try the bulgogi beef version with perilla leaves and eat it alongside tteokbokki, chewy rice cakes tossed with a sweet-spicy sauce that also works as a tasty dip for your kimbap. Also try handmade pork dumplings and the winter-friendly guksu, a spicy broth with handcut noodles. 466 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Jang Gun The street's old stager, Jang Gun has been here since 2013. At the time, they were the third Korean restaurant to open here but Gami, the fried chicken franchise next door, is the only remaining shop that predates Jang Gun. We love this place for its cosy timber booths, which you can (and should) book. Put on supplied gloves to eat soy-marinated raw crab and ju-meokbap, a DIY rice bowl which is a recommended crab pairing. To make ju-meokbap, use your fingers like chopsticks to mix rice with mayonnaise, seaweed flakes, pickled radish and sesame seeds. Form the mixture into bite-sized balls for your crew to enjoy. Another great dish here is the beef pancake (jeon), meat slices dipped in egg wash and fried like an omelette. If you love egg dishes, also try the fluffy, sauce-striped cheesy egg roll. 3/21 Healeys Lane, Melbourne, Pizza Monster Here's a bold statement: South Korea is the world capital of fusion cuisine. Here's a place to debate the assertion: Pizza Monster, an Italian-Korean mash-up that serves pizzas with, say, bulgogi beef, corn, sweet potato mousse and almond flakes on a black rice dough base, and carbonara with oyster sauce and spring onion. Crazy? No. Crazy-good. Pizza Monster is small, cute and chic, perfect for a pizza date with a difference. Try the Shark Attack cocktail for some pour-your-own theatre. Mr Lee's Foods Soondae is sometimes spelled 'sundae' on Korean menus, which can get confusing if you don't know that this Korean delicacy is a sausage made with blood and glass noodles steamed inside pig intestines. Bouncy in texture and gentle in flavour, it's the specialty at Mr Lee's, served steamed on a platter with other (less mild) offal such as liver and ear. Dip it into the spiced salt on the table and enjoy with beer. Mr Lee's is also famous for pork soups, most of which include soondae. 1/535 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, Seoul Toast Bong Most of Koreatown stays up late but this sandwich shop is a weekday-only daytime place catering for city workers who need something comforting around midday. (A lunchtime fried chicken tray meal is only $12.90.) There are hundreds of branches of this franchise in South Korea and this is the first one outside its home base. The bulgogi cheese toastie with fried kimchi is an easy win, and there's DIY instant ramen with a choice of toppings. Shop 6, Healeys Lane, Melbourne, How to drink Korean While Good Food is an advocate of the responsible use of alcohol, it's impossible to ignore the fact that drinking is a huge part of Korean dining culture. Beer and soju (a distilled alcohol similar to vodka) are consumed liberally, separately and together. The combination of both is called 'somaek'. Start by pouring a shot of soju into a tumbler and topping it off with beer. Shove a spoon into the glass to create bubbles and make the drink smoother. You can also pour half-tumblers of beer, line them up in a row, and balance shot glasses on the rims, straddling two glasses. Fill the shot glasses with soju and tip the first one into a beer glass, creating a domino fall-down of tumbling soju glasses. It's messy stuff. You won't see tablecloths in any of these restaurants.
The Age
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
This restaurant will write a menu to suit your whims. But how does that work in practice?
This gorgeous city venue promises each diner a bespoke menu, a bit like having a private chef. But with food this good, Dani Valent questions the need for such a gimmick. Previous SlideNext Slide What do you feel like for dinner? Three years after opening, this elegant city restaurant has reshaped its nighttime offering to meet your whims. Tell your waiter your deepest dining fantasies and they'll prepare a $99 set-price meal to suit. Maybe you're feeling extra-carnivorous. Perhaps you want to be surprised. Or, possibly, you feel as I did: 'Lots of vegetables, maybe seafood, I love pickles.' Freyja is in the Olderfleet Building, an 1890 beauty in the Venetian Gothic style with striking, pointed arches. As you enter, the open kitchen with woodfire is to the left and the dining room is to the right with tones in dark green, leather and exposed brick, and artwork that my notes describe as 'scary'. Please drink enough water that you need to visit the toilet in the new build at rear: the soaring atrium is heart-stopping. 'The food feels relaxed and generous. It's more 'My god, that's good' than 'Ooh, how clever!'' Chef Jae Bang is Korean, but when Freyja opened, he'd just spent three years leading Re-Naa in Norway, which earned its second Michelin star on his watch, and the Melbourne venue leaned into Norse mythology and cuisine. The goddess Freyja is associated with beauty, love and magic; the food was precise, using preserving techniques to layer flavour. Bang also brought influences from his stints in junior roles at game-changing Spanish restaurants El Bulli and Arzak, plus time in New York under fine-dining master Daniel Boulud. From the beginning, you could tell he was accomplished and thoughtful. Over time, Nordic notions have eased and the food feels relaxed and generous. It's more 'My god, that's good' than 'Ooh, how clever!' Oysters are dotted with a green oil that turns out to be lovage kombucha. Kohlrabi is pickled and served with goat curd, fermented blackcurrant and kelp powder. Beef tartare uses green strawberries for tart acid (instead of, say, cornichons). The Ramarro farm salad name-checks a producer in the Dandenong Ranges: Freyja takes what's growing and turns it into a micro-seasonal expression. Skate – a flat fish that comes away in long strands – is in a light broth with unripe blueberries that have been salted as though they were capers. They're cool, clean, juicy and one of many examples of marginal produce elevated through creativity and preservation. Cauliflower cheese is my favourite comfort meal. Freyja's version is the one I'd eat if a genie gave me a wish: it's a crazy-fun jumble of miso, butter, hazelnut and toasty roasted veg. Dessert is a joyful plaiting of the seasons: macadamia ice-cream, fig leaf oil, plum syrup, white chocolate and puffed grains are a melange of sour, sweet, creamy and caramelised. Freyja is owned by Florence Guild, a collective that includes WorkClub, a mostly Sydney-based, high-end, co-working company with speaker events and activities, including calligraphy and dream mapping. The company runs a few cafes and a bar, but Freyja is its only restaurant. The service here is keen and polished: our waiter chooses a great wine and does a lovely job of steering us through the choose-your-own-adventure concept which, let's be honest, is a stretch. After all, isn't a menu already a way to tell the kitchen what you feel like eating? The bespoke promise doesn't exactly play out, either. Nearby tables have many of the same dishes and they're also available at lunch, which is still a la carte. Having said that, everything is so delicious I don't care how it gets in front of me. Freyja was good from the get-go, but there was a slightly strained feeling. Now it has grown into one of the city's leading restaurants.
