Between a Rock and a Hard Place

After 2 months of running My Little Restaurant, Noodle Cook sits between a rock and a hard place deciding on the future menu and the direction to take. Where does Noodle Cook's electronic restaurant go from here on?

As a general observation, classic Australian cuisine evolves with each wave of arrivals to Australia. Early British arrivals brought their fish and chips, banger (sausages) and mash, tough well-done steaks, and the good old Sunday roast of chicken, beef or lamb served with over-cooked vegetables. At the end of World War II, the Australian cuisine started to diversify with the arrivals of Italians, Greeks and displaced persons from Europe. From the 1970's onwards, the intake of refugees from China and Vietnam, and of business immigrants from nearby Asian countries, resulted in a rapid culinary transformation.

Many of today's Australian ethnic restaurants borrow ingredients and/or flavours from other cuisines to accommodate the changing tastes of the younger generations. Most modern or contemporary Australian restaurants however concentrate on balancing menu items with Asian, European and Middle Eastern flavours in dishes not derived from the original country, a culinary trend which reflects the embracement of multi-culturalism. A small, but increasing, number of restaurants utilises native bush ingredients to create a new culinary identity, a move in the direction of reconciliation of indigenous Australians, Australia's first arrivals.

Until the surprising discovery of a rich culinary goldmine in indigenous bush ingredients during Paper Chef #9, Noodle's knowledge of bush foods is what gets eaten in a field camp as a geologist. Two issues arise from bush foods: bush spices cost more than common spices of similar flavours, and diners often reject new tastes. To address these issues, Noodle plans to introduce a miniature degustation menu specifically for bush foods.