Hungry Hinch

I thought this place was called Mr. Hyde. Which I considered appropriate because it’s taken over the space formerly occupied by Dr.Jekyll. Mr Hive is where Gordon Ramsay opened his much-vaunted but short-lived restaurant called Maze as part of the Crown complex.

In June 2012, I plan to fly to New York, go straight to the Oyster Bar in the bowels of Grand Central station and slowly pick out a few dozen oysters. Maybe, half a dozen Cape Breton from Nova Scotia, definitely Kumamoto from California, some Shigoku from Washington [state that is] and some Cuttyhunk from Massachusetts.

I guess the word ‘jail’ must have been lurking in the back of my mind when I was deciding where to go for a Friday lunch with my lawyers. Maybe that’s why I chose the Flower Drum, a former favourite eatery where I hadn’t been much in recent years.

It’s a conversation we have almost every week as we head out on our Saturday dinner date.

About 40 years ago a new culinary buzz went around New York – which is pretty big news in a place where it is not easy to impress. A revolutionary new restaurant had opened on 2nd Avenue and it was packing them in.

To steal from TW3 David Frost’s satirical TV show from the 1960s: That Was The Year That Was. It’s time to make some foodie observations on 2010.

Just realised that it’s been a long time since I posted a Hungry Hinch review. Not that I haven’t been eating a lot in that time. Far from it. And from around the world: from the Rockpool in Melbourne to the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills and the Oyster Bar at Grand Central in New York,

The 35th floor of the Sofitel Hotel at the ‘Paris end of Collins Street’ has always had a touch of This is Your Life for me.

The culinary memory invoked by the dinner menu here had been cobwebbing in the Hinch brain for decades. Close to fifty years.

It was almost enough to drive a man to drink. And to add to the frustration it was all because I wanted to drink some non-alcoholic wine in some unfamiliar American restaurants. On a recent trip to Los Angeles and New York I took along a few bottles of my trusty Edenvale sparkling cuvee and Shiraz.

It started with a gloating trans-Tasman phone call from my sister, Barbara, on her birthday earlier in the same week as mine. ‘Guess what I had for my birthday? Whitebait fritters’.

Strange place to find your culinary nirvana: In the bowels of Grand Central Station. To be pedantic, it was actually in a curved ceilinged cavern in Grand Central Terminal. Grand Central Station – despite what they say in the movies -- is actually a post office. But nirvana it certainly was.

She ordered scrambled eggs on toast. We were dining at one of New York’s most famous restaurants –with a menu that featured everything from steak tartar, made at the table, to oysters from Prince Edward Island and a roasted prime rib of beef. And she ordered scrambled eggs on toast. At Sardi’s

When I was a young BB&B Police reporter in Sydney, brash (I thought brilliant) boozy and broke I shared a huge old house at Fairlight, near Manly, with other BB & B journos.

Super chef Shannon Bennett is a bit like some of his signature dishes: exciting, visionary, unpredictable and not easy to slot into a category.

Time to come the raw prawn because prawns are in the news right now. Or at least one giant one is. The Big Prawn that looms over the Pacific Highway in Ballina, New South Wales. Apparently The Big Prawn is on the nose. The owner wants to get rid of the prawn that spawned all those other kitsch monsters like the Big Banana, and the Big Pineapple and the Big Russ Hinze ( no, I made that one up).

It must be tough when you’re the owner or chef at a popular restaurant and you are best known for one thing when you know your establishment is much more than that. In the theatre world it’s called type casting.

Eureka! I have found it. The perfect diet. Would you believe, an idyllic diet? In Hawaii? It’s gonna cost ya (as they say in the USA) but it is worth it. The expense is actually not in the food itself. This is a paradise for fresh, cheap, seafood. It’s just getting here that bruises the bank balance.

About 25 years ago, being such an expert at trendspotting and social mores, I decided that Albert Park was going to be the next South Yarra. I bought an Architectural award-winning modern palace in Merton Street – the only three-storeyed building in the area -- and awaited the gentrification.

On the same day I heard the sad culinary news that a fine, new restaurant called Seagrass had closed for Easter, but had failed to emulate a Christ-like resurrection on Easter Monday, I re-discovered a great restaurant still flourishing in the same Melbourne wining and dining complex.

I last mentioned Nobu, the four-letter word synonymous around the world with exquisite Japanese food, after a dinner prepared there last year by Nobuyuki Matsuhisa himself.

The last place on earth I would want to have dinner is at Attica. The last time I was there, there were 43 dead bodies around the place which was a smouldering ruin and the joint was crawling with cops.

It’s a nice touch when a menu says: ‘Boat berth available. Booking essential’. But that’s the sort of place Otto is. Sticking out into the harbour on Cowper Wharf. As one observer noted, Otto is the place to see the 'in' people whether it be media moguls, film stars, politicians or the latest bankrupt.

It was an innocent question –despite the ever-present but stupid internecine rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Which city started pub dining?

I know I have bored table guests witless – especially Mrs. Nosebag – whenever the subject of oysters comes up. She is especially tolerant seeing that she doesn’t eat oysters. She has tried. In fact is fascinated by the raptures of the true oyster lover. Just doesn’t like them. I put her in the same category as the ‘professional virgin’. Tried it once and didn’t like it.

About 25 years ago I had a Hinch Hunch. Albert Park was about to become the new South Yarra. Real estate prices would zoom, restaurants would blossom and people would flock to the great fruit and vegie shop, the real butcher, and the bread shop.

Have you ever seen those middle-aged men in restaurants, usually dim ones (I mean the restaurants), and they are holding the menu at arm’s length?

Every veteran crime reporter in Melbourne knows the location of the Water Rat even if they haven’t kept up with its myriad of name changes.

When a place serves you a simple appetiser – a bowl of olives – and you think ‘these are the best olives that I have ever eaten in my life’ then you know you are in for a helluva Italian meal.