| Melbourne, Australia always seems to remind me of London, England, especially during its cold and rainy winter season. I'm reminded of London by Melbourne's elegant theaters, dark church bell towers and leaves from Chinese parasol trees dancing across the ground. Workers wear dark blue raincoats and old ladies talk among themselves in a friendly manner. It just makes me think of London but the chief difference is that London is foggy, dark and the atmosphere is heavy, while Melbourne is lighter and happier than that. The rain in Melbourne appears to be just like London rain but then it suddenly stops and the clouds break up, exposing a bright blue sky above. The air after the rain in Melbourne is super fresh and clean.
Cable cars sound their bells as they go through the street. But this isn't London because the food is far better than London's food. Classic old Queen Victoria Market has thousands of food stalls that sell all kinds of fish, meat, vegetables and fruit, so you can find everything there from enticing tiger shrimp to dry and spicy African beef jerky. All manner of Asian, European and African food are on offer there and, for the past 120 years, Queen Victoria Market has remained the biggest market in the southern hemisphere. There are restaurants wherever you look in Melbourne. The city has a population of 3.6 million and it's got 4,000 restaurants with 70 kinds of ethnic cuisine.
Melbourne is the top gourmet city of Australia and the reason why Melbournians have good taste is because of their unique background. Since gold was discovered there in 1850, Melbourne has grown into a rich city. At the end of the 19th century, it had street lights, cable cars, tall buildings and running water. At that time, Chinese people called Melbourne the “new gold mountain,” as compared with the “old gold mountain” of San Francisco. People want to go to both cities to find gold and make their dreams come true. After 150 years, Melbourne is still rich and all along it has maintained its refined style. Fortune has brought civilization and time has changed many things, which is visible through its architecture and urban lifestyle.
Long ago, I heard about the Flower Drum restaurant in Melbourne, especially from people in banking and finance. Some even say it's the best restaurant in the southern hemisphere and others call it the best Chinese restaurant outside of Hong Kong.
To tell the truth, I was a little suspicious because Chinese restaurants that have won praise from Western people may not necessarily be authentic. When I communicated via e-mail with Flower Drum to discuss their menu, I saw the names of their dishes, such as Crab Baked in the Shell, Braised Abalone in Oyster Sauce, and Peking Duck. I wondered to myself-- aren't these all very common kinds of Cantonese dishes? Would it really be worth all the trouble for me to travel for ten hours by plane to Melbourne to eat such a meal?
The answer was truly a big and beautiful surprise.
I went through the red and green arches that mark the entrance to Melbourne's Chinatown and turned onto Market Lane. At Number 17, there was the Flower Drum restaurant, peacefully standing before my eyes with a burgundy curtain veiling the front door. This restaurant appeared much different from other Chinatown restaurants because it didn't have an aggressive waitress out front beckoning customers to come in and eat. That's because there are no vacant seats here. To dine at Flower Drum, you need make reservations at least eight weeks in advance. If it's during Chinese New Year's, Christmas, the Melbourne Cup horse races or a big rugby game, then there is an even longer wait for seats.
I opened the red-curtained door and walked up the steps. The building with its high ceiling coated in black lacquer appeared somewhat mysterious, like a modern theater. In fact, this 7,500 square foot building actually used to be a movie theater. In 1985, Flower Drum moved here and renovated it, making the space even more beautiful and elegant than it once was. They transformed a movie theater into a gourmet dining palace which has since attracted many magazine food critics to write articles about them and take photographs of the restaurant.
Going upstairs, I went through the lobby and saw a large vase with magnolias and Asian lily flowers-- real blossoms and their fragrance. One of the owners of Flower Drum, Patricia Fung, pointed out a plate-shaped award they had won on a wall full of awards. I couldn't count how many awards they had and each represented the best of that year. As Flower Drum began in 1975, this year marks their 30th anniversary. In 1980, they won an award from Melbourne newspaper's The Age as the best gourmet restaurant of the year.
Australia's famous magazine, Gourmet Traveller, has also given Flower Drum their highest award. For 30 years, through word-of-mouth and famous reputation, this kind of praise has spread. In 2003, The New York Times even came from across the world to see what their cuisine was like and declared it as a “Chinese pearl in Melbourne.” Every year, England's Restaurant Magazine chooses the top 50 restaurants around the globe. In 2005, Flower Drum was part of this exclusive group, perhaps the only Chinese restaurant on the list.
I walked into the wide dining room with its red wood Chinese windows and traditional red wood chairs, Chinese vases and paintings of birds, flowers and Chinese calligraphy. Flower Drum is just like a Ch'ing dynasty mansion for wealthy people, the height of classical elegance. High ceilings, bright lights and big bunches of flowers add to it a modern, Western touch. The well-experienced restaurant manager Barney brought me the wine list. He's been working there for 25 years and he told me that the restaurant has over 40 full-time workers, most of them having worked there for ten to twenty years.
At the Flower Drum, not only are the dishes famous but their tea and wine are also renowned for their wide variety and excellence. The wine list is 19 pages long with 250 types of wine. Half of the wine list is made up of Australian wines and the others, such as French cognac, cocktails and sweet after-dinner wines, are represented in the hundreds.
After a wait filled with delicious anticipation, my dream meal arrived. The first dish was a cold appetizer called King Dragon's Colorful Clothing. Actually, it was a lobster fruit salad. The process of making it is simple but the result is amazing, a royal treat to behold. Whole lobster is displayed on the long plate. The lobster's eyes are represented by two shiny cherries. Lying underneath that are mashed potatoes and green bamboo leaves, which appear like bamboo standing in snow. Dry ice surrounds the plate, creating a misty drama, as if the red dragon were about to fly up into the sky.
The lobster had been boiled and cut into pieces, then combined with melon and kiwi fruit. Purple cabbage was nestled under the meat, topped with a sweet mayonnaise dressing. In Australia, famous lobster dishes are white from the meat with an oily richness inside. They cut the lobster in thick pieces, so when you eat it, you feel a wonderful sensation. But combined with a sweet sauce and sweet fruit, you are unable to taste the original flavor of the lobster. Luckily, after sipping the house champagne, Mumm Cordon Rouge NV, my taste returned and I was refreshed. The champagne was honey-sweet and delightful.
The next dishes were both made of abalone. The first was steamed abalone and the second was an abalone stew. The steamed baby abalone in its shell came from Port Fairy in southern Australia. After three and a half years of growing, the abalones are ready to be taken to the kitchens of Flower Drum. They are pearl grey and quite round in shape, with a long white soft chest when coming out of their shells. Being only 4-5 cm. in circumference, a baby abalone provides just enough meat for one bite. It comes to your table on a pure white plate like a real pearl for you to enjoy with its stunning aroma.
Flower Drum takes great care with their ingredients, always using the best they can find. Seafood is their specialty and they buy their abalone from local growers. Murray River cod is an Australian classic, only found in eastern Australian rivers but the wild kind is already near extinction. Due to this fact, many restaurants rely on farmed fish which doesn't have much flavor. But Flower Drum insists on using only wild Murray River cod.
I didn't have the good fortune of getting to try the Murray River cod but the farmed baby abalone was brilliant enough. The baby abalone arrived face up, with splashes of oil and chopped scallions on it, and it was steamed quickly under a high heat. It doesn't sound special but once you put it in your mouth, you know it's something else. It has the clean, fresh fragrance of the sea, with a softness and crunchiness that satisfies. Baby abalone by itself is a gourmet wonder, so adding the chef's cooking skills make this dish even more sublime. The sauce was out of this world, like a veil covering the abalone, complimenting its salty nature. Later, I asked the chef Anthony Lui about which sauce he used on the baby abalone. He said it was only Kikkoman soy sauce, to which he adds boiled coriander and then broth and some bouillon is added to that for fragrance. No wonder the sauce was so special.
Green-lipped empire abalone with oyster sauce is the perfect combination of cooking skills and food. In my humble opinion, abalone stew is always one of the best dishes in Cantonese cuisine. The fat gourmet Australian abalone I was served was so flavorful. I carefully looked at the green-lipped abalone, which was smooth, reddish and light. It smelled wonderful and in the middle of the abalone was a curve like a boiled egg. Regular abalone is flat but this one was like a superb hill. I took a knife and sliced off a piece to enjoy. It was soft and rich in my mouth. The lipped part was crispy and tender, while the middle meat was soft and chewy, whose lovely memory lasted long after it left my teeth and mouth.
Australia is the biggest producer of abalone in the world. Each year, over 5,000 tons of abalones are exported. Green-lipped abalone has a strong flavor and they are big and tender, so this flavor is favored by the Chinese and the most popular way to cook it is by braising the abalone in oyster sauce. This dish takes a lot of energy to prepare. Meat from an old hen and fresh pork spare ribs are put in a pot together with the abalone, cooked for half a day under a low flame, and all the flavors are absorbed by the abalone. That's how the abalone gets its fresh, strong flavor. Then, just before serving, some oyster sauce is added on top. A long time ago, while eating this dish at a restaurant in Hong Kong, I felt that they'd used too much oyster sauce. This dry saltiness seemed to disturb the freshness of the abalone, as if the chef was covering up some weakness with too much heavy sauce.
But at the Flower Drum, this isn't a problem. The abalone is fresh, not frozen. The meat's quality is naturally sweet and soft. Adding many ingredients to the abalone and cooking it for over 13 hours will turn it into an incredible stew. It is already a masterpiece which only needs the finishing touch of a few drops of pinkish, burgundy oyster sauce. You can smell the aroma of the sauce but it isn't too overpowering. Chef Anthony says he adds a little bit of Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce to the abalone stew. It makes the abalone come alive, like Parma ham that seems dry and old but really is waiting to be tasted.
Baby abalone is lighter tasting and fresh, while empire abalone has a stronger flavor and is more mature, just like two singers singing a great duet together. A bottle of Corton-Charlemagne, Domaine Bonneau du Martray 2001 will bring out the best in these dishes, the fruit and mint flavors of the wine blissfully complimenting the meal.
The next course was Crab Baked in the Shell, which is made with King Island Crab. After the music of the abalones, another type of music arrives with the crab. Under the baked crab meat is a hand-sized Blue Swimmer Crab which is stuffed with a mountain of crab meat and oven-baked until brown and glistening. All the patrons smell the aroma of the dish as it makes its way to my table and that just whets the appetite for more. I used a small spoon to dig out the meat, which was crispy outside and tender and smooth on the inside. This is a Cantonese style of seafood and it's covered in a spicy yellow curry sauce with a bold flavor that is truly delicious.
This dish actually combines two kinds of crab meat together. The first is Blue Swimmer Crab, which is soft and smooth tasting, while King Island Crab is stronger and more toothsome. Also, King Island Crab meat is white and comes in long shiny silk-like pieces, a special Australian product from the deep cold ocean around King Island near Tasmania. An average King Island Crab weighs 6-7 kilos and its legs are like a little baby's arms. The shell is a marvel as well, orange and white with many sharp spikes on it. Its meat is sweet and light despite having such a rough shell. At the Flower Drum restaurant, they used King Crab for the Crab Baked in the Shell and also for crab dumplings.
Crab Baked in the Shell is a new take on a traditional Cantonese dish. It's originally from Macau and Portuguese cuisine. They usually use crab meat, mushrooms, minced pork, Chinese water chestnuts, green peas, and carrots, all chopped up into small pieces. Then they add a coconut curry sauce called Portuguese Sauce. All these ingredients are mixed together and put in the crab shell, covered with breadcrumbs on top and baked in an oven or deep fried. From time immemorial, this has been a common dish that most families make. But Chef Anthony has added his own changes, taking the dish from its humble roots and making it into a gourmet triumph. He got rid of the unnecessary ingredients and focused on the whole crab meat, adding curry sauce and onion, then he added some cheese and baked it at a high temperature in the oven. So it has become simple, fragrant and good-looking. At Flower Drum, there are so many famous dishes. Among the most popular ones that they serve are Crab Baked in the Shell and Peking Duck.
After I finished a huge Crab Baked in the Shell, out came another dish for me: Salt and Pepper King Island Crab. I looked at the big pieces with their full, rich flavor and thought I couldn't eat any more because my stomach wasn't big enough. And then I just had a little taste. The meat was white like snow and the shell had a simple flavor. It was all so fresh and elegant. So my tongue and stomach recovered after eating a second bite of crab. I became addicted to this dish and couldn't stop eating it until it was all gone.
Salt and pepper kind of dishes are deep fried, a regular type of Cantonese seafood cooking skill. But at Flower Drum, their deep fried crab displays a royal elegance through simple skills. The coating is light and flavor is fragrant, using five spices and ground hot pepper (just the right amounts). Then it's deep fried to perfection. You don't feel that the crab is oily at all. Compared with the complicated Crab Baked in the Shell, this Salt and Pepper King Island Crab is simple but maintains its natural, original flavor like a snack or dessert.
I'd been eating a lot of seafood and felt drunk with fullness. At this time, Barney the manager sent over a pot of Ti GuanYin Tea, with its strong green tea flavor, to cleanse my body and relax me. It ushered in the last dish, Peking Duck. It was crispy, red, shiny and oily, its honey-colored skin very tight and smooth. It seemed like if you touched the skin or even blew on it, it would break apart. Barney sliced the duck and the scallions and took pieces of duck, sliced scallions and duck sauce and wrapped them in pancakes as sandwiches for me. Then this was sent to my table. From the first bite, I felt the rich, sweet crispiness and fragrant fattiness and great pleasure surged from mouth right up to my head. I was so overjoyed by the experience! The duck skin was very crunchy and sweet and melted in my mouth like cr?me brulee. The most wonderful thing was under the dark skin there was no fatty oil. So Peking Duck at Flower Drum is at a much higher standard than anywhere else.
Not only does the chef have better cooking skills than others but the food is of the highest quality. Their ducks are raised on a special farm, eating special food so their skin becomes very fat and their meat is quite thin. The most important thing is they only use 2 kg. three-month old ducks as their oil hasn't yet spread throughout their bodies. When you cook them, the meat is still soft and fresh and the skin is crispy with a little oil in it.
Unlike other restaurants that serve Peking Duck in small slivers, Flower Drum gives you big generous slices of duck meat and skin. Even though I loved it, I only had room to eat one Peking Duck sandwich. Barney smiled and explained to me that in Australia, the eating style is different from the regular Chinese way. The customer has to eat the skin and the meat together, so that's why they feel so full and happy. But the duck meat is actually very tender, more so than young dove.
At the end of the whole meal, I only felt refreshed and elegant and my mouth and stomach were very comfortable. I finally understood how wonderful these dishes truly are. I discovered that Flower Drum's genius is that they choose fresh materials and use special cooking skills to keep the original flavor. They also serve their customers thoughtfully, maintaining a peaceful environment. Most importantly of all is that they have broken Chinatown's stereotype of chaotic carelessness. They keep the traditions but improve on them and make them much better. That's why they can become famous in the West and enable Chinese cuisine to join the ranks of the great foods of the world. So I felt a deep curiosity to find out what motivated Flower Drum to make such legendary food.
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