Moreish Pandan Chiffon Cake

Patrick Food

Pandan ChiffonI was catching up with Suz and Al this weekend before heading off to the UK (thanks for the awesome BBQ!) and I had offered to bring dessert. Last time they came around for dinner, my attempts at dessert literally crumbled and I ended up making trifle out of it. This time, Saturday’s attempt in the form of a Pandan Chiffon cake went much better and was well received all around. Pandan flavour is used moreso in southern pacific and asian countries where the leaves sourced from the fragrant screwpine tree are much more readily available. Its subtle fragrance and flavour is then traditionally used to impart flavour when used to wrap various fillings or extracted when soaked in various liquids. Although Pandan leaves are available in Australia, it is typically easier and much more affordable to use the extract or essence sourced from stores in a Chinatown.

It is hard to describe the delicate flavour of Pandan, but is an unmistakable delight when joined with the delicate texture of a chiffon cake, combining both that is light and moreish in nature.

Two Weeks and Counting…

Patrick UK Life

Well it’s official. I have my ticket and I’m off to see the world (so to speak). The last two weeks have been super crazy with work all of a sudden saying that our UK office is full steam and ideally it would be great to get there as soon as possible.

I now have my work visa, my work permit, apparently a UK bank account (I have to still talk to the banker next week) and now my plane ticket! I finish off at my current client on Fri Aug 12, and am scheduled to fly out on Sat Aug 13 at 8:30pm! The current plan is to have a few days unwinding in another country before I arrive in London, so since I ended up getting a flight Emirates, I’ll be stopping at Dubai for a few days.

Verve Cafe

Patrick Restaurants

Last night I had dinner at this charismatic cafe nestled at the bottom of a staircase in a rather non-descript building you can find on your way down Edward Street towards the Botanical Gardens. This little gem seems appropriately located right next to the Metro Arts centre, an organisation that supports the (generally younger) up and coming talent of Brisbane’s art community. There are not many tables so booking in advance for a large group is advisable (at least on a Thursday night).

The placement of the tables gives the cafe an appearance of being larger than it really is, but it never feels like the cafe lacks character with the constant chatter from all the tables and the art for sale covering the walls all adding to the atmosphere. The menu is decently priced with filling meals averaging $15 and plenty of non-standard and sumptuous options for vegetarians. Even though the restaurant does not have an open kitchen, the number of flares you hear from the kitchen at least assure you that the food is being cooked as it is ordered.

The herb bread for $2.9 was a bargain that started the meal for the two of us, that was then followed by the Brandy Tortellini (Spinach & Fetta tortellini in a cream, pine nuts, sun-dried tomato & Brandy sauce) which I did not get around to finishing. A great little haunt tucked away in the middle of Brisvegas and highly recommended for when you want to try a cafe with a bit more character a lot less shine.

Details: Verve Cafe
Found on: The Basement of 109 Edward Street
Contactable via: 3221 5691
Highlights: A cosy, busy atmosphere that is hard to find in Brisbane, especially in the city.
Room for improvement: Finding the bathroom is straight forward once you navigate the maze of stairs that confront you.

Back to Basics: A Retrospective on Retrospectives

Patrick Agile, Work Related

Although I am not the iteration manager for our project, I like try to be our project’s conscience (or at least the conscience of whoever our current iteration manager is). Amongst the (many) things I have been reminding our current iteration manager of is the lack of retrospectives. One reason that agile software processes are better off than traditional long running ones is because feedback is a highly valued principle. Small iterations improve the regularity of this feedback which can then be fed back into the process to help the team stay agile with constant changes in the work environment. Retrospectives (post mortems, iteration reviews, etc) are a great way for the team to put together their views and devise strategies for processes that could be improved for the next iteration. The value of small iterations can diminish greatly if no one spends any reflection time to work out whether not things could be done better (and most things can always be done better).

Sailing is a great visual analogy that highlights the importance of retrospectives. On any sailing voyage it generally takes a while to get to its final destination. The navigator is the person whose responsibility is to keep the ship on course for its destination. They also understand the implications if the ship steers off course and is therefore constantly optimising the journey by considering all the questions that could affect the ship’s ability to get there. Are there enough supplies on board? Is there a storm lying ahead of us? Should we visit the exotic island that’s just a little within reach because our passengers would enjoy it? Even if the original journey is never altered, the navigator is constantly asking and reviewing the answers to these questions.

And just like in sailing, it only takes a little deviation over a long period of time to take a software team far from its original goal without someone (and preferably the team) stepping back and reflecting upon each significant league in the journey. An hour now with the team assuring that you are on track is better than an iteration making up lost ground. Performing reflective exercises more regularly will also improve the quality of the feedback as the team works out what sort of feedback is actually important.

Zucchini Flowers

Patrick Food

Tempura Zucchini FlowersThe food scene is coming along pretty well in Brisbane, with Jan’s Power’s farmer’s markets (at the Powerhouse and St Joseph’s school) supplying a veritable supply of quality ingredients almost every week. Even if you don’t have the immediate need to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, the markets still provide a great atmosphere for simply walking around and taking in all the other sorts of produce and food. The offerings are wide including freshly made food like crepes, omelletes, cakes and breads to the more traditional offerings of seafood, organic meats, fruits and vegetables. This morning I was surprised to stumble across something I have yet to see (at least at a decent price) anywhere else in Brisbane’s typical grocers. Zucchini flowers!

Zucchinis (also known as courgettes) are readily accessible at any supermarket and the zucchini flowers are just another part of the plant. Their delicate nature and tendency to quickly wilt make it a difficult product to handle in bulk so they are normally more expensive than the zucchini you see in stores. It is also this delicate nature and rarity that make this an enjoyable food to eat. Zucchini flowers are most commonly served stuffed and then fried in a light batter, although they can be used in any other way. Inspired by my lunch at the Teppanyaki Cafe, I decided that it might be nice to make a light tempura batter and introduce the family to this small but exquisite ingredient.

Affordable Teppanyaki on the Gold Coast

Patrick Restaurants

It had been a while since I caught up with Cherie and Matt so we headed out to have lunch at a place that we new to both of us down in Southport. Nestled at the back of a bunch of shops on the corner of Cotlew St and Bundall Road, the Teppanyaki Cafe is a great way to eat affordable teppanyaki down on the Coast.

Although this cafe is by no means large, they still have a decent number of tables but I still suggest that you book for larger parties, so you do not get disappointed. Lunch was fairly busy and the three of us ended up sitting up near the Teppanyaki grill where you could watch the (non Japanese and rather apathetic) chef prepare the teppan meals, an experience that you normally pay more for at the more spectacular and upmarket Japanese Teppanyaki bars.

Eleven dollars was enough to get us a full teppanyaki set, starting with a traditional Japanese salad, miso soup, then followed by the chicken and vegetable grill and rice, and finally finished off with a scoop of ice-cream. Their lunch menu also offers a wider range of Japanese food including your typical tempura, katsu curry and sushi. Food hot off the teppan grill is guaranteed to be great and we were definitely not disappointed there.

Details: Teppanyaki Cafe
Found on: Shop 8, 201 Ferry Road, Southport
Contactable via: 5591 7155
Highlights: Teppanyaki style Japanese at really affordable prices. The freshness of the food is obvious to all customers.
Room for improvement: You will probably never see the spectacular food throwing chefs you find at the more expensive Japanese restaurants, but for the price it’s still not a bad deal.

Jaz Restaurant and Bar

Patrick Restaurants

Tonight I caught up with Hamish and Kate for dinner at the relatively new Jaz Restaurant and Bar in Toowong. Situated where The Malaysian Experience used to be, Jaz reintroduces the unique stone grilling meals back to Brisbane all inside a fashionably modern setting (Hamish tells me of a place in The Ville near UQ that no longer exists that also served this). The novel stone grilling approach involves providing each diner with a heated stone block that continues to provide enough heat to cook a selected piece of meat throughout the entire meal. Although the stonegrill experience is what most people select when they go to Jaz, their menu still offers enough of a diverse range of meals to satiate any sort of appetite.

I started the meal with their garlic bread and was pleased to bite into the crisp bread pieces and encounter the sufficiently salty and strong flavour of their garlic butter. Soon enough I was cutting up pieces of prime rump to be seared on the stone grill in front of me that continually radiated with extreme heat throughout the meal. Each stone grill meal is accompanied with either roast vegetables or a salad and chips, and the consensus from all parties last night is the recommendation of the salad and chips as we were all surprised by Kate’s roast “vegetables”, consisting of a single roast potato chunk and a few small carrot and pumpkin pieces. Although you can get bigger steaks elsewhere, I was pretty satisfied by the quality and tenderness of the rump. It seems that the restaurant also expects this to be pretty consistent since the only utility they provide for slicing pieces off your meat is a butter knife.

Details: Jaz Restaurant and Bar
Found on: 80 Jephson St, Toowong
Contactable via: 3870 1111
Highlights of the place: Who wouldn’t want an individual sizzling platter where you can slice and sear your own bite sized chunks of meat? The menu seemed to have an affordable yet diverse range of dishes that should appease most people
Room for improvement: Though modern, the atmosphere still seemed a little excessively sterile but may improve as it becomes more popular.