Red Spice Road to ruin

Venue: Red Spice Road
Style: Thai, Vietnamese, South East Asian
Address: 27 McKillop Street, Melbourne [Google Maps]
Phone: (03) 9603 1601
Hours: Lunch Mon-Sat 12:00pm-3:00pm / Dinner Mon-Fri 5:00pm-late, Sat 6:00pm-late
Prices: Set Lunch $25 / Banquets $45-$75 / E $4.50-13.50, M $26-38, D $13-15
Bookings: Necessary, telephone or online
Website: http://www.redspiceroad.com/



GLUTTON, n. A person who escapes the evils of moderation by committing dyspepsia.

~ The Devil's Dictionary (C) 1911

Between the dim lighting, red accents and walls lined with comely maidens who've misplaced their shirts, Red Spice Road has the look of a den of iniquity. The sexy and raucous atmosphere coupled with the diverse scents emanating from the kitchen lulled me into a sense of abandonment I've not felt in some time (the 2010 Balgownie pinor noir probably played a part, cheap drunk that I am) and I gave my lustful appetite free reign. While the meal didn't qualify as a 10, our table discerning a number of missteps, you certainly wouldn't kick this one out of bed (perhaps my mixing of metaphors should cease here).





A starter of lamb ribs crumbed in chilli salt and cumin meets with universal acclaim. Will expresses a desire to forgo the rest of the menu in favour of MORE RIBS, as the meat is so soft and perfectly seasoned. I look forward to enjoying this dish in summer with a Belgian white ale.

Lamb ribs with chilli salt, cumin and coriander

..no morsel left behind

Our three shared mains along with fragrant rice arrived shortly thereafter, including a Panaeng (sic) curry of venison shank, soft shell crab salad and Red Spice Road's lauded signature dish of pork belly with apple slaw, chilli caramel and black vinegar.

 

Soft-shell crab salad of green papaya, peanut and tomato

I fail to detect much papaya in the accompanying salad but the soft-shell crab is beautifully crisp on the outside, tender on the inside and quickly annihilated.

We move on to the pork belly, divided into neatly-sized mouthfuls that are entirely deserving of rave reviews. Despite being partially immersed in the slaw dressing, the pork retains firmness and has a luscious mouthfeel, offset by the sweet and sour of the apple and vinegar, respectively.

Venison shank Panaeng curry with kipfler potatoes

However, it was the venison shank curry that proved to be my undoing. Unorthodox spelling aside (Panaeng?), this plate of food was so comprehensively pleasing that I ignored the fact that I was full and forged on. Like the ribs, the venison had been cooked until it was almost slipping from the bone. A mouthful of meat, curry sauce, potato, nuts and coriander was rich, crunchy and fresh-tasting, with the gentle flavour of coconut also coming through.

At this point, the only disappointment was that our second serve of rice was overcooked - tragically mushy.

The guys insisted upon ordering dessert, which I was receptive to provided we were sharing. I hiccuped and thought ruefully of the 'gluttony' scene in Seven...

Lemongrass pannacotta, watermelon jelly, mango marshmallow and peanut praline / Lychee-filled doughnuts with palm sugar and coconut ice-cream

Sadly, the lemongrass pannacotta was a bimbo of a dessert: pretty as a picture and bland, with no lemongrass registering. Both watermelon constituents also lacked taste and the peanut praline was of such negligible quantity as to be worthless.

Fortunately for our tastebuds (and unfortunately for my stomach), the lychee-filled doughnuts made for an inspired dessert. I've never before seen doughnuts stuffed with whole fruit; the dough had obviously been fried rapidly, leaving a light outer layer that gave way to the bright juiciness within. Additional fresh lychees flanked quenelles of coconut ice-cream.

There is a great deal to like about Red Spice Road, not least of all the generosity of flavour and serving sizes. I should also mention that most seating is communal, which is a set-up I quite enjoy, although in this instance, I suspect the party atmosphere contributed to my excesses.

So it was that I ate with alacrity and lost my head...and my appetite for the next 16 hours.

And I, for one, welcome our new zombie overlords

Rose and vanilla infused pannacotta with pomegranate sauce

The popular consciousness' preferred symbol of terror, the vampire, has been challenged in recent years by the spectre of the zombie. No longer a relic of genre films or a stock character in an Ed Wood production, the zombie can now be relied upon as a true agent of horror, in the wake of the vampire's softening up. Nowadays, however, zombies are not merely the preoccupation of film studio executives; between Carleton University's mathematical analysis of a zombie infection outbreak and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's suggestions around how to be prepared for a zombie-related emergency, serious thought is being devoted to the idea of a zombie apocalypse.

So in the interests of being ready and well fed (because you cannot be the former without the latter), our friend Cheryl marked her birthday with a gory bash consisting of:

- brain hemorrhage shots,
- brain-bowl soup of hollowed out rolls filled with 'grey matter' (potato and leek),
- eyeball arancini (firm mushroom risotto balls with a black olive 'eye'),
- bloodied (sauced) chicken fingers with melted cheese, and
- an appalling-looking rose and vanilla infused pannacotta lashed with pomegranate sauce.

I had my heart set on making gravesite-inspired cupcakes, with miniature plastic hands emerging from the surface, but alas, plastic hands eluded me and going all Ed Gein on a dozen Barbie dolls seemed like a lot of work for something you can't actually eat.

I settled on edible gravestones instead and made up the following, adapted from my mother's flourless chocolate cake recipe which makes for the sexiest, richest consistency, better than anything made with flour (although she is amenable to the living dead, Cheryl cannot tolerate gluten).

Added inspiration for this treat and some of the techniques are derived from the Cupcake Bakeshop blog, a testament to baked goods as both pornography and conduit for experimentation.

Flourless chocolate gravecakes w/ spiced pumpkin mousse

Makes 22 cupcakes




Ingredients:

Decoration
150g LSA mix (a ground mixture of linseed, sunflower seeds and almonds, find it in the Health Food section)
Biscuits suitable to make headstones (I used 11 of Eskal's gluten-free vanilla tea biscuits, with their little borders resembling funerary decoration, though I did have to scrape off the little coffee cup impressions with a knife)
Green food dye
1 cup pure icing sugar
90g softened unsalted butter
1 tbsp milk

Spiced pumpkin mousse
150g pumpkin, seeds and skin discarded and flesh grated, cooked, pureed and cooled
250g double cream
1 egg white
50g brown sugar
2 tsp ground allspice

Cupcakes
200g softened unsalted butter
8 eggs
200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300g hazlenut meal
1 cup caster sugar

Method:

Decoration
1) Beat butter with an electric mixer until pale and soft. Gradually add sugar and milk until combined.
2) Add a drop of green food dye and combine, adding more for colour, depending on how green you like your icing.
3) Refrigerate.
4) To make headstones, use a sharp knife to split biscuits in two; if you can be bothered, use the tip of the knife to inscribe "RIP" or little crucifixes - or the names of your friends if you want to be cute.

Spiced pumpkin mousse
1) Ensure pumpkin flesh has been reserved, grated, cooked until soft, pureed and cooled.
2) Beat egg white until glossy and stiff and gradually add sugar to form a meringue, set aside.
3) In another bowl, beat cream to whipped and gently stir pumpkin through with a spoon until combined - do not do this if the pumpkin is hot. Warm is ok; don't be alarmed if it looks entirely unappealing, remember, it's going to be hidden inside the cupcakes.
4) Stir allspice through, add more if desired.
5) Fold meringue through pumpkin mixture and chill in fridge.

Cupcakes
1) Preheat a fan-forced oven to 180°C / 356°F.
2) Melt chocolate and butter together over a double boiler, stirring with a wooden spoon and set aside to cool.
3) Separate the eggs into two metal bowls and beat whites to stiff peaks; set aside.
4) Beat sugar into yolks until pale and stir in cooled chocolate until combined - don't overmix.
5) Fold hazlenut meal and then egg whites into the chocolate mixture.
6) Distribute between cupcake liners and bake for about 20 minutes, depending on the efficiency of your oven - test that they're cooked by inserting a metal skewer and checking it comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

Assembly:

1) Take a cupcake and using a short, sharp knife, cut around the top of the cupcake at an angle, making an upside-down cone. Lift out and cut off the cone, so that you are left with a flat, round cupcake "lid".
2) Place a spoon of spiced pumpkin mousse inside the cupcake and replace lid.
3) Grease the top of the lid with a little butter or spray oil and sprinkle LSA mix to cover; pat LSA mix down as necessary.
4) Gently insert biscuit headstones; you may need to hold your lid down as you do this so that it does not become upended.
5) Green icing can be applied around the edging with a knife and blades of grass can be made using a fork; I used a piping kit with a star tip to make an edging of green rosettes.