Taiwan, Italy and Ireland may be strange (culinary) bedfellows, yet all three nations feel – and taste – right at home at this spirited pop-up kitchen.
Australian$
You can do a lot of things with a good red curry paste.
You can use it to turn out scene-stealing fried rice. You can bake it into pies. You can, as Korean-born Steven Ryu of Cottesloe’s freshly hatted Tigerfish does, mix it through cooked jasmine rice that you then press into squares, cut into fingers and grill over charcoal like the best crunchy-chewy examples of the yaki onigiri genre.
This week, I added a new entry to my things-you-can-do-with-red-curry-paste checklist: casting it as a sauce for flat, crinkly egg noodles known in Chinese food circles as mee pok. While the other two members of Thailand’s famous “traffic light curry” trio are regularly found in the company of noodles – khanom jeen (fermented rice noodles) served alongside yellow curry is a cornerstone of Southern Thai cookery; while green curry is a popular flavour for Thai instant noodle brands – noods slicked with red curry are a new one, at least to me.
But just in case showing red curry one alternative career path wasn’t enough, the thick slabs of roasted pork collar sitting atop the noodles were also marinated in the good stuff, bringing a suggestion of earthy spice to the party. As I was saying earlier, this isn’t a dish that I’ve seen served at any local Thai restaurant. (And, I’d wager, neither will you). Instead, it’s the sort of cosmopolitan creation that you might spy on the weekly chalkboard menus at the Doubleview Bowling Club. As long as it’s a Wednesday or Friday night, when Glenn McCue’s Jujube Dining pop-up takes over the club’s kitchen.
Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox.
This bowlo, as you might recall, was the home of Special Delivery, Anisha Halik and Jacob D’Vauz’s pop-up that served spirited Asian cooking alongside nostalgic Australian classics. Following Halik and D’Vauz’s departure to reboot Gwelup Fish and Chips, McCue – a former member of the Special Delivery kitchen team – has been running the kitchen since September. And while McCue follows a similar bowerbird approach as his predecessors, his menus are shaped by a more specific set of countries and cuisines.
Some influences are easy to identify. Roast beef with potato, cabbage and onions braised in Guinness speaks to our man’s Irish heritage, ditto the curry mayo flavoured with Keen’s mustard powder.
You’ll find it served with golden panko-crumbed barramundi, great chips and finely blitzed mushy peas doctored with wasabi: a slick, reassuring post-globalisation riff on British fish and chips. Kids meals and a double-patty burger, meanwhile, are crowd-pleasers retained from the kitchen’s Special Delivery era.
For mine though, it’s how McCue showcases Taiwanese cookery that makes him a kitchen talent to watch. (His wife Li Ping Lin, is Taiwanese, while the pop-up is sweetly named after the couple’s eldest daughter Isabel: or at least an ultrasound scan of Isabel when she was, as hospital staff noted, as big as a jujube.)
Sometimes, McCue can crank the Taiwanese flavour dial right up. Until this week, the bespoke focaccia baked by Tuart Hill’s Strollio’s Luncheonette was sharpened with bitey spring onion in homage to Taiwan’s breakfast favourite, shaobing. (Its pizza-inspired replacement, however, is still a glorious, billowy good time.) Previous offerings have included lamb ribs finished with three-cup sauce: the island nation’s all-purpose, all-conquering trinity of soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil.
But if my visit was anything to go by, the McCue way seems to favour quietly slipping Taiwanese flourishes into his food not out of slavish obligation, but in pursuit of flavour. Jujube Dining isn’t about faithfully Taiwan’s greatest food hits, but producing new, Taiwanese-inspired compositions with mass appeal. (It’s telling that Jujube Dining’s Instagram describes itself as “Kinda Mediterranean, with a load of Taiwanese influence.“)
Remember those red curry noodles? They also star pebbles of coarse sausage mince that, in a nod to Taiwan’s cherished lu rou fan (braised pork rice bowl) and night market revelry, have been roasted in lots of chilli and beer. Black sesame, an important cultural ingredient, adds a cool graininess to airy crème brulee. If stuffing supple wontons with a mix of shredded lamb, ricotta and stinky tofu isn’t sacrilegious enough to enrage food purists from both east and west – are these Italian-inspired dumplings or ravioli with an identity crisis? – dressing the lot with a soothing Japanese curry should send the gatekeepers over the edge. Eaters with stomachs unencumbered by tradition, meanwhile, can simply continue enjoying themselves.
“Here in Taiwan, we mind our own business,” writes American-Taiwanese author Clarissa Wei in Made in Taiwan, a wonderful cookbook documenting the food culture of Wei’s homeland. Although McCue has valid reasons for exploring Taiwanese cooking, his quiet demeanour reminds me of Wei’s observations about the Taiwanese mindset.
He strikes me as a grafter who finds quiet satisfaction in doing his job well and serving affordable food this is straight-up delicious yet also personally meaningful. (I won’t lie, most of these low-key Taiwanese elements revealed themselves during fact-checking phone calls: my palate sure as heck isn’t surgical enough to pin-point specific elements and memories.)
I just hope that, in our current Age of Spectacle where the loudest voices tend to rule, the Doubleview Bowling Club realises what an asset the softly spoken McCue is. While I was caught off-guard by how much the bar offering had changed compared to previous visits – a smaller drinks range, well-meaning but green staff – the real shock was learning that management had put on a sausage sizzle for the Wednesday night social bowlers.
Someone politely asked us to clear our table by 7.30pm so that they could put out a small bowl of packet potato chips ahead of the crowds that were about to descend on the room. McCue and Co, meanwhile, quietly pulled down the roller door to the kitchen. Surely any food operator would love an opportunity to serve hungry guests?
Here’s hoping it was a one-off misunderstanding and McCue and co get to do what they’re great at. Otherwise, I reckon there are a few bowlos around town that would love it if team Jujube moved in, including a couple of south of the river addresses closer to my neck of the woods. A good chef can do a lot of things for a community.
The low-down
Atmosphere: a chef that understands Irish, Italian and Taiwanese cuisine very well walks into a bowling club bar and strikes blows for cosmopolitan deliciousness.
Go-to dishes: pork collar Thai red curry noodles ($29), crumbed barramundi and chips ($24).
Drinks: a range of popular tap beers and wines; bring your bowling club social membership card if you have one.
Cost: about $60 for two people, excluding drinks.
Good Food reviews are booked anonymously and paid independently. A restaurant can’t pay for a review or inclusion in the Good Food Guide.
Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
