Golden Fields just opened just a few months back, earlier this year I think in about March or May?



But wow, say what you want - I am pretty much addicted to A-Mac's (Chef Andrew McConnell) new establishment in the middle of St Kilda. Is there anything that A-Mac CAN'T DO? The guy is like a magician with all this gastronomic wizardly up his fucking sleeve.

This review of Golden Fields that is appearing before your very eyes is actually a compilation of my last three visits to A-Mac's St Kilda hideout. I can keep going to this place and seriously, I hope it never closes. Right now, it is up there in my top 10 favorite places to eat.

First time I went, was with my younger brother, second one, was with three friends, S, C & I (who happens to live in St Kilda). Third was with a female friend who really wanted to check the place out but had already eaten a very late brekky so we didn't order much...



Golden Fields seems to be a reflection of who A-Mac is. The dude seems pretty quiet and private - when I spotted him speaking with his staff at Cumulus Inc and Cutler & Co, and also when he went onto Masterchef to get the contestants Rachel Finch and Eamon Sullivan to replicate his salt-dough-crust roasted chicken with hay (yes HAY!) dish. Like Cutler & Co, you can just walk past it without knowing it was there for faaaaark's sake. Just glass windows (like Cutler & Co and Cumulus Inc) and a couple of benches out the front. A small black logo sign is on the front glass door (which is very very difficult to see hahahaha) that says Golden Fields. And yes, this joint planted firmly in Fitzroy St in St Kilda really is gold.



On the first occasion, my brother and I were led to our seats at the bar counter, in full view of the kitchen staff - just like Cumulus Inc. The breakfast session was wrapping up and all personnel were prepping up for the busy lunch period. We ordered some powerful Espresso shots, which gave us quite a bit of a nasty kick to stay awake. I'd gotten home at 3am, after an "interesting" night out at KBox karaoke - but that's another story.


The staff were quite knowledgeable, polite and professional - I recognised a couple from my trips to Cumulus Inc, and now they'd crossed south of the Yarra river to help their boss on his new Asian-influenced adventure. They knew what dishes Golden Fields served back to front, like A+ students with their knowledge of the periodic table in Chemistry class.

With Golden Fields having an Asian influence - Japan, China, Hong Kong, Korea, and possibly Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, we had sake! They have quite a few Asian drinks on offer with the various beers, rice wines, plum wines etc. Go for it you alcoholics!



As an appetiser, we were given roasted soy bean seeds. These were salty, nutty and came with a smoky fragrance. And they were fresh off a roasting pan too - warm they were bitch!



The first thing we requested, was the fresh sea urchin, flat bread, crisp lardo and escabeche. The flat bread tasted like a less saltier version of the Dorito Corn Chip, whilst the fresh sea urchin brought a taste of the ocean in a grainy puree form to my frigging tastebuds. Delicious damn it!



For a bit of beef, we fucking demanded (hahaha ok, we were polite really) the Grass fed black Angus, Egg Yolk, Kimchi puree, Crudite dish. This was A-Mac's Korean take on the steak tartare and boy was it awesome!



You mixed up the crudite, Angus-beef, egg and popped it onto a bit of cabbage or cucumber, which made for a refreshingly lovely taste. The cabbage or cucumber sticks neutralised the spiciness of the Kim-chee marinated angus beef. Look at the pic below to see how it's eaten you pricks! Hahaha.



We had the school prawns with pork scratchings straight after the kim-cheed beef. Wow, the prawns were like deep fried soft-shell crab. You popped the deep fried prawns shell and all into you mouth and start munching on the prickly and sharp sons of bitches. Like soft shell crab, crunchy - yes for the final time you can eat the shell! But be careful, SHARP! The pork scratchings were similar to as if you got a strip of bacon, fried it, and then dried it and stuck it in the oven and dehydrated it. Mmm mmm heart attack food! Want some sourness? Then squeeze some lemon over it you dodos!



Each time I came here, my companions and I would order the New England Lobster Roll. Sweet buttered up bread rolls with a squirt of Japanese Kewpie (type of Japanese Mayonnaise but better) sandwiching a small chunk of fresh lobster. It basically tastes like the McDonald's Filet O Fish asked a sweet bun from Breadtop (Chinese bakery and sweets franchise you can find in any suburb in Melbourne) and a lobster to have a quick fuck and voila bitch - the New England Lobster Roll. It was something that was raved about in the Melbourne Food Blogging world - nice, but to me it was alright. Just a Filet O Fish/Breadtop Roll with slightly more luxurious ingredients.



For a quick catchup session I had with a lady friend who'd had a big-arsed breakfast, we went light and ordered the Kingfish Sashimi with Seaweed, Wasabi and Avocado. The waitress said they didn't have any Duckfish on the day, so they brought some Kingfish as substitute, but nevertheless, this was an awesome dish bitch! The citrus marinated Kingfish, light soy and mirin dressing, seaweed sprinkles and avocado and wasabi puree was a fantastic feeling on my touch - sour, sweet and some saltiness from the soy and mirin dressing. Man another one of those dishes I can eat for the rest of my fucking life!






For one of the mains when I was with my friend's S, I & C, we ordered the Roasted Pork Strap. The skin was absolutely astonishingly brilliantly crunchy and also salty. And the pork flesh succulently tasty. Enough said biatch. Oh and there was some left over, which we took home in doggy bags hahahaha.



Now here's the dish that will divide those who are of Chinese or Vietnamese descent like myself. It is A-Mac's Rustic Pork dumplings. It's similar to those Roast Pork Buns that they sell out in the suburbs with a large Asian populaton, except better ingredients, and the bun isn't as soggy. The pork is definitely pork belly and you dip in it a moderately sour and mildly spicy red vinegar and chilli oil sauce. Beautiful. Most of my friends and my friends would be what the titty fuck? I can make that! Bullshit *cough cough* I think you mean you can buy it for a cheaper price in Springvale or Footscray or Chinatown you criticising jackarse! Hahaha. Oh well, to each their own.



Here's one of my personal faves - the Chicken and Cucumber Salad with House-made rice noodles and Szechuan Chilli Oil. What is it that A-Mac does to his chicken? It tastes so fantastically yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy!!!!!! And combined with the Szechuan Chilli Oil, flat-as-a-pancake-house-made rice noodles and finely julienned cucumber salad it made for a spicy, yet succulently, yummy, delicious (OK all the fucking adjectives that represent great taste in a Thesaurus damn it!) experience. Mix the ingredients all together and stick the motherfuckers into your mouth and enjoy bitch!



Dessert on one occasion was baked Meringue with Lychee, Vanilla and Rose sorbet and aloe vera. Fantastic, refreshing and fruitty! Mmmmmmmmm.

My friend, I, ordered fresh Mangosteens - Sweet and tangy - they tasted like lychees but with the sting of a lemon or lime. Beautiful.



And lastly, on my most recent visit here with the friend who pretty much just had the Kingfish and only a tiny bit of the Chicken Cucumber salad - we both had the Peanut Butter Parfait with Chocolate Ice Cream and Salted Caramel.


Don't be fooled, it's actually a small dish. The dish is the size of those similar to the little restaurant plates that hold butter. As tiny and petite as it is, this dish packs quite a chocolatey punch for dessert. I think I shall call it the Mr T Snickers dessert - because it tastes almost exactly like they reverse engineered the Mars Snickers bar, turned the nougat and chocolate into a cube of peanuty nougat ice cream and a blob of chocolate icream and dripping down to the bottom of the dish is a salted caramel river-slash-waterfall. Hrmmm talking about it makes me crave a Snickers bar mmmmmmm. For those who missed out on Phillipa Sibley's "Snickers" dessert - which was sold at her then Cafe/Patisserie Il Fornaio and appeared on Masterchef (I am one of those poor souls who missed out - Sibley left the Cafe for her own thing) - fear not, because apparently A-Mac's Snickers shown above is pretty similar according to those who've tried both!!!!

Golden Fields - there you have it. Go go go!

Anthony Bourdain you bastard.

You know my hometown better than I do.

Fuck!




Having seen Bourdain's "No Reservations" episode of Melbourne's food, I got the fucking urge to go to the Queen Victoria Market's Bratwurst stand.



Son of a bitch, Tony Bourdain got it right. It was beautiful.

For $7.50, you get a Bratwurst sausage and roll. Extra stuff like sauerkraut and onions cost $1 more. Sauces such as mustard and ketchup are free, just walk over to where the sauce tanks and napkin dispensers are and squirt all the sauce you want onto your bratwurst roll. Then shove the grainy meaty bastard into your mouth and enjoy the tangy sauerkraut and spicy juicy meaty sensations jump up and down on your tongue.