A Past Life
10 Things I Don’t Miss About Being a Restaurant Reviewer
1. The four out of five average (or worse) meals a restaurant reviewer has to eat.
2. Sitting in the toilet for suspicious amounts of time scribbling notes.
3. The struggle to write something, anything, about the mass of colourless, just acceptable restaurants out there. (So much easier to write either a scathing or a superlative review.)
4. Fuzzy memory syndrome: did Restaurant X have polished timber floorboards or carpet? What the hell was that garnish on the hand-picked crab and lobster salad with green mango foam? Were the waiters in Armani or Helmut Lang?
5. Ruining yet another restaurant’s crisp white tablecloth with pen marks by attempting to write notes covertly under the table without watching.
6. That morning-after-beached-whale feeling after what might be the third or fourth rich, three-course meal, with wine, in a week.
7. Being recognised and either a) having to put up with some gasbag proprietor pulling up a chair and turning a setting for two into one for three; b) getting sent out a procession of unordered dishes that ‘the chef thought you might like to try’ and then being told ‘the meal is on us’ and having to fight to pay the check as ethical reviewers do.
8. The impossibility of conducting a conversation with your guest on the other side of the table while simultaneously writing notes describing the angle the lamb fillet has been sliced at, the texture of the mushroom soy dressing, the flavour of the saffron pappardelle, the mood of the dining room, the degree of stubble on the waiter’s chin.
9. Never having a night in to cook my own food, with my own hands, with ingredients I have bought.
10. Never being invited to friends’ homes for a meal.
It came flooding back last night. Melbourne held its gala, much-hyped, anxiously awaited restaurant awards, which bounce off the contents of the influential annual Good Food Guide, sponsored by the city’s broadsheet newspaper, The Age. The egos, the strutting, the looking-over-shoulders, the drunks, the interminable speeches that no one listened to (or could hear anyway), the so-so sparkling wine, the back-stabbing, the gossip. And the old faces, like stepping into a dusty photo album.
I edited the book for three years until 2001, twice with co-editors and once on my own and it nearly killed me. Last night, two former colleagues, the Melbourne versions of Frank Bruni and Ruth Reichl, except recognisable, stood on the stage in their Sunday best and handed out the awards. I nibbled on canapés, and sipped my wine, and listened to the chefs and hangers-on around me carry on, and thought about restaurant reviewing, and reviewers, and the ethical minefields they trip through, and then my mind wandered off to more interesting things.
Such as how to improve my photography (and styling abilities). I’m often constrained by the need to photograph at night thanks to my day job, and I’ve quickly discovered that dishes that might not have a strong shape or a central focus point, such as a bowl of pasta, or a risotto, or a curry, need to acquire one. If I were to reshoot this dish, for example, I might consider leaving aside some of the trout, cutting it in larger pieces and splaying it across the top of the salad. Perhaps I might also add a handful of leaves such as cress, or rucola. Any other photography-improvement tips will be most gratefully received.
So to the salad. It’s incredibly simple and tasty and, after a couple of indulgent detours, brings me back on the course of exploring how I can eat well and eat wonderful flavours without increasing the number that shows on the scales.
I asked Greg, the chef who was once more than just a good friend, about burghul. He spat out the Arabic name for it that sounded something like “burrual” and said that it’s important to look out for “undesirables” such as weevils or clusters of eggs in your burghul before buying it. “Teta, my grandmother, would buy fresh wheat and cook it, and dry it outside on blankets in the sun,” he recalled. “Then she’d smash and thrash it in the mortar and pestle.” There are, I have belatedly discovered, two types of burghul: coarse and fine. The coarse variety is usually reserved for pilafs and stuffings – it needs to be cooked. The fine variety doesn’t need to be cooked and is used for tabbouleh or a salad such as this.
Cucumber, Ocean Trout Sashimi and Burghul Salad
Serves 4 (as an entrée or part of a meal)
½ cup fine burghul (cracked wheat)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 fresh birds-eye chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
400g piece ocean trout, skinned, pin-boned and cut into 1cm cubes
½ cucumber, seeded and cut into 1cm cubes
2 green onions, finely chopped
¼ cup flat-leafed parsley, finely chopped
¼ cup coriander, finely chopped
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Cover burghul with enough cold water to cover and leave for about 10 minutes. Drain and squeeze out as much extra water as you can. In a large bowl, combine burghul with remaining ingredients, adding more lemon juice if needed. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Divide salad among plates and serve immediately.
