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Melbourne Restaurant Review - Maha 21 Bond St Melbourne

A typical chilly winter Melbourne night, a 7pm reservation made 6 weeks ago, my husband and 2 closest friends plus one birthday (mine) is how we come to be at celebrity chef Shane Delia's restaurant last night.
So like all finer restaurants the waiter takes our coats ...and seats us at our table. I look around and am immediately drawn to the simplicity of the decor that made is so elegant.
Our waitress arrives with a Turkish tea tray with a special Lebanese tea (was cold) and i cant remember what was in it. It was sweet and sour and the purpose was to cleanse our palettes. Was really lovely. She then handed us the drinks menu. Wow, i didn't make it past the 2nd page. Let me tell you not once have i ever seen 6 different varieties of Turkish Raki on a menu and of course there were about the same in lebanese Arak. Not a Raki drinker i wondered why i was still stuck on that page so i moved to the cocktails. The sumac martini just leapt off the page so i had to order it.
The waitress arrived with our drinks and progressed to tell us about the Maha experience and let us know about our sofra (banquet) or single dishes options. The menu looked divine and as i got particularly overwhelmed by dishes such as duck breast with quince or the Atlantic salmon and mussel doughnut so i opted we should all do the 4 course sofra for $85 per person and leave it up to the chef.
So while waiting for our first course to arrive, i quietly sipped that sumac martini. It looked good but something was lost in the taste. It seemed like it needed a little more sumac molasses as I truly felt like i was drinking really strong straight vodka. I could see in the kitchen and kept trying to get a glimpse to see if Shane was working but had to conclude tonight was not the night. bummer!
Our first course arrives and the waitress takes us through the gorgeous 1 serve portions on the tray of each little dish. There was a warm pea soup in a shot glass with a mussel sesame ball over the top, eggplant, potato and carrot salad, parsley crusted labne balls and a beetroot dip. It was all lovely but only 2 of those 5 dishes made me wow. One was the pea soup and the other was the labne. The rest was pretty stock standard. 2nd course arrived pretty quickly and it was a char grilled chicken breast on a bed of roasted humus and a puff pastry covered oyster. Now this course was interesting and intimidating. I've never liked the look of oysters before and because we eat with our eyes first i never had eaten one. But i looked at them and my mind went straight to Michelin star chef Jean Christophe Novellis version of puff pastry scallop i had seen him prepare on TV once so i had to try it. It looked so pretty sitting on this massive bed of damp salt to hold it up in place. So i got straight into it. Crunch into the pastry and whatever they did to that oyster my eyes closed as my taste buds had a little party with sheer delight and surprise. Not only were my taste buds surprised but my husband looked at me in sheer shock that i had consumed an oyster and LOVED it. While i was taking in the oyster all i could hear was my husband saying wow thats good, ahhh thats good, ohhhh hmmm thats good. All of this was directed to the chicken with baked humus. The concept of baked humus seemed so bizarre to me but when i got a fork full of baked humus into my mouth i was delighted. The humus was crunchy on the outside but so soft and creamy underneath and with a little tender char grilled chicken breast it was a combination to tell the world about. By this stage i was feeling VERY full and wondering how i was too get through another two courses. Thankfully there was a little time gap between 2nd and 3rd course as i needed to give my tummy a rest. The staff were very professional yet still showed they had personality and a sense of humour. They were awesome. The 3rd course arrived with a slow cooked lamb, safron pilav, seared tuna and a pomegranate, fried chick pea and spinach salad. The slow cooked lamb and the tuna were cooked to perfection. Tuna is quite difficult to cook as its all about timing. A little over cooked and its ruined but it was perfectly soft and slightly pink inside and served with mandarin. I love the fish and citrus fruit combination. The pilav was AWFUL!!!! I was in sheer shock at just how bad the pilav was. It seemed to have been made from an short grain rice maybe arborio that is perfect for a risotto. Whatever the rice was it wasn't a long grain rice and for that reason it was too starchy and turned out glugy. The safron and butter was way too heavy. I was completely disappointed that a restaurant of that standard could get the pilav so wrong. Maybe they had an off night.
Desert arrived with a sparkler in it. My husband had told the waitress in passing that it was my birthday when we first arrived and she remembered so i got the sparkler. Now that kind of attention to detail goes a long way and will always win customers. I had read about these Turkish delight doughnuts in an issue of Gourmet Traveller magazine a few months back and there they were in front of me. Along side the doughnuts was a cum-quot semolina cake and some bizarre mixture of pudding with baked oats and pop corn. Ertan was distraught and disappointed with all the deserts especially as he is all about desert. I was not happy with 2 of the 3 deserts and yes my long awaited Turkish delight doughnut was really thick fried dough. It really didn't do it for all 4 of us on the table. The semolina cake had sooooo much honey in it, it was way too heavy and the bizarre popcorn, pudding with baked oats was quite a lovely combination.
The experience was wonderful and very authentic, the staff were exceptional and deserved every cent of the tip they were given, the food that was great was really exceptional but the consistency was not there. Pricing, its a special occasion restaurant but for the experience, the service and the food its still worth it.
I will defiantly go back and suggest if you can to experience it but i think next time ill give the banquet a miss and choose my own dishes.

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Turkish food for vegetarian teenagers - finger licking success

This year Santa surprised me with a visit by my 13 year old niece from Sydney. I couldn't hold in my excitement. There was one thing i really needed to know though. She had become a vegetarian.

The stereotype of 13 year old girls can be a bit daunting and my mind began to wonder of what could go wrong. Thankfully, my 13 year old niece is a true delight.

13. Its a funny age really. No longer a kid, but not yet an adult. They no longer eat off the kids menu in a cafe but are not quite at the stage of decrypting cafe menus with fancy meal descriptions such as:
Turkish Anatolian Lamb: Succulent lamb, slow cooked for 16 hours, with char grilled vegetables, pearl cous cous and a fig and date jus.

So what do you cook for these "in between" teens with the added vegetarian twist. As all people including teens are different, let me share with you what this teen loved as the only thing she didnt want after her first day was the Special K cereal out of the box.

Breakfast: Home made jams with fresh fat free Turkish bread - Apple, pear and cinnamon jam was the favorite. So much so, I had to make a fresh batch and send her back to Sydney with a jar full to eat at home. She even requested the recipe to have her mum make it for her. My poor sis, I've created work for her.

Salads: Turkish Cokelek cheese salad. Cokelek is a salty cheese and I wasn't quite sure if she would like it. This salad was another she requested the recipe for so she could have her mum make it. :) One day at the supermarket we were thinking about dinner when she said to me, "can you make the salad you made 2 days ago".. Bingo! So we had Cokelek again that night and I had a satisfied teen.

Kisir - Turkish tabouli

Kisir - Turkish Tabouli. The kisir I make is my mother in laws recipe and is quite spicy. Its filled with pimento, all spice, isot (Turkish black pepper with kick) and turkish pepper paste which also has kick. I warned her it was spicy and if she didn't like it, I'd make her an omelet. I never made the omelet. :) Bingo again.

Lentil kofte & pomegranate salad

Borek: She ate a lot of borek. Feta and leek triangles, ricotta and spinach cigars and pumpkin and cinnamon rolls. Add salad and you have lunch or dinner. Also a great order when out in a cafe that is a healthier option than a burger and chips.


Kofte: We all think of kofte as meat. Try the red lentil version with a pomegranate and parsley salad... Lentils are a high source of protein for vegetarians and can often be used in place of meat. Its also a quick easy dish to make. Serve the kofte with a green salad for a healthy, quick and easy meal with a gourmet feel that will keep your whole family happy.


So next time your teen asks "whats for dinner?" try some of the Turkish recipes that were a hit with my niece.