Where I Ate Last with Tony Astle: Bianca

This week Tony Astle ate at Bianca, a pasta shop and restaurant run by Hayden Phiskie. 

He sampled the perfectly executed cappelletti, the tortiglioni, the panna cotta, and gave the beef tartare four ticks. The service was excellent from start to finish, and every server knew their stuff. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

 

Recipe of the Week: Sauteed Black Pudding with Scallops and Green Peppercorn Beurre Blanc   

This week Tony’s serving up a recipe for Sauteed Black Pudding. 

 

Ingredients: Black Pudding and Scallops 

3 Tbsp oil 

12 Slices black pudding 

Dusting flour 

16 Scallops 

 

Ingredients: Beurre Blanc 

100 ml Chicken stock 

100 ml Dry white wine 

20 ml Lemon juice 

150 g Unsalted butter, cubed and chilled 

 

Method: Black Pudding and Scallops 

1. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a frying pan. 

2. Dust the black pudding in flour. 

3. Quickly sauté on both sides. Set aside. 

Then: 

1. Heat 2 Tbsp in a frying pan to smoking point. 

2. Dust scallops lightly in flour. 

3. Sauté scallops in the hot pan. Do not overcook. Set aside. 

 

Method: Beurre Blanc

1. Combine chicken stock, white wine, lemon juice in a thick bottomed frying pan.

2. Bring to a boil, and reduce the liquid by two-thirds. 

3. Without boiling, whisk in half of the butter, then whisk in the remaining butter. 

4. The sauce should be quite thick. 

5. Add peppercorns to taste. 

6. As an option add 1 Tbsp cream to the sauce just before serving. 

 

Assembly: 

1. Plate the black pudding and scallops. 

2. Spoon over the green peppercorn beurre blanc. 

3. Enjoy! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Finding the hidden gems at the hospitality scene where I
ate last with Tony Astell on Kerry WOODAM Mornings, and
a very good morning to you, Tony Estill you have
been to Biancha.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I have been very nice to talk to you, but
I can't see you.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
No, I'm not hiding from you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I thought, Oh, she's had enough, she's disappeared.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
No Bianca. My daughter took her friend Bianca to Bianca.
Loved it.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Unbelievable. It's in Robert Street and Allesley and it's so
good to find a little a suburban restaurant, you know,
a little bit out of the way, but unbelievable. And
I'll tell you what, this is my first five tick
restaurant this year. So I went there and I'd seen
quite a few people that had been there and they
said you must go, and I thought, oh, yeah, here
we go. Here we go another one. However, my friend

(00:51):
and I we arrived there and from the minute we
walked in till the minute we left, it was absolutely fantastic.
And I was looking for things wrong and you know what,
could not find one.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
So front of house, amazing, booking, amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
The only thing, of course I had to do it
online and I'm pretty useless of that sort of thing. However,
I did manage to do it, and you get ninety
minutes or whatever it was, and of course, you know,
a person like me that likes a couple of bottles
of wine, that's pushing it a little bit. But I
think then I noticed there were people much later, and
they had booked obviously, and so I would probably go
a little bit later. But I think if I had

(01:28):
asked to stay a little bit longer, they probably would
have let us. But they were so busy that you
really had to be out. But you know, the service
they weren't. And we're talking young people are older people.
But everyone knew their stuff and could explain everything on
the menu to you absolutely perfectly.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Didn't they come from somewhere else? Didn't the chefs have
a restaurant.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
And the chef and I think he was at Aida
and a copo.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Anyway, they all fuck it, papa back to someone. I mean,
you know they will come from somewhere. So what did
you have? What was the standouts?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, the most amazing dish was the capaletti prawn saffron
mascaponi anchov with anchovy crumbs and that was the pasta.
You know, you can go to so many restaurants and
they make all their own pastas, so this is amazingly fresh.
Some restaurants you go to this two El Dante, and
of course, you know when you say excuse me, it's
a bit hard. They think, you know, we'll go away.

(02:26):
But I have been to Italy a lot of times
and I don't like it that it's dry and chewy,
but this was just absolutely just a little bite to it.
But the flavors were unbelievable. And my friend that was
with me, I call him lud direct do we go
to a lot of three star Michelins, and we both
agreed that this would actually get definitely get a Michelin star.

(02:50):
That is how good it was. It's one of the
better Italian restaurants I've been to for a long long time.
But of course they had things on like poorcock and
you know me, I just can't help myself with awful
and stuff. And that was melt in the mouth, and
that was with the salsa and pickled red onions, and
I most the other thing I had was the rattolo,

(03:11):
and that's ricotta and beef cheek ragou so of course
I love all those sort of gooey little things. But
once again, the past it was perfect. And then the desserts, Oh,
they make their own ficacia bread and of course that
was beautiful too. But the dessert, so I had a
panicotta brown butter salted caramel, which for me it was
too sweet, but was unbelievab. You know when you have

(03:32):
a panicotta and you just I'm not allowed to say
it anymore about I think of a woman's body part
that I quite liked to go. You know, yeah, something
you know, a little bit of a wobble.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
I know exactly what you Panicottas have to have that
wobbliness to them, and this was booby wobble, a booby wobble,
but it was perfect.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
And the terramasu, which is not one of my favorites,
so it was well the director said it was the
best had. So there you go, and we have a
beautiful barole.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
I will know that you have eaten everywhere. I'm loving
the look of the goats cheese dumplings with the burb
blanc and the schipes, and the celariat g remillard with
the pomegranate walnuts and baby Jemmy.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, well, you look at it, you know, if you
look at the menu there, and it's actually quite simple
and it's quite small, but it's and actually what I
could not believe was the pricing structure. I mean, if
you look at the pricing there, I mean, the daist
main course is actually the thirty six dollars, which in
these days is actually quite reasonable. But the start, as
you know, from twenty three, twenty fourteen, all sorts of things.

(04:35):
But I just think Elleslie very very lucky to have
this restaurant. And the interesting thing was there was another
food critic who I will not mention who he was,
and I tapped him on the shoulder and I said, well,
I think this might have been a twenty, but it'll
be interesting. I haven't seen what he said yet. But
if he doesn't give that a twenty, shouldn't be a
food critic.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh that's wonderful to hear. That's fantastic. So Bianca and too,
Robert Street and Alicelie and Auckland. So if you're coming
to Auckland, this is the place to book. And it
sounds like you have.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
To book I think totally.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Yeah, and all the recipe of the week I love
black pudding in scollops. Oh my god, cut black pudding
in scollops and green peppercorn.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
That that was a very early day Antoine's dish. But
the black pudding, you know, there's so many black puddings around.
But if I went online this morning to see because
I used to buy one from Balls and it was
absolutely beautiful. But if you go online there's some amazing
black pudding for sale rather than just the ones you
buy on the supermarket. Because I used to make my

(05:34):
own with venison blood, but it's quite messy because you
get up your elbows with blood, and you know, I've
got to like that sort of thing. But black pudding
is so amazing. It's textral if you put the right
things in it, but scollops and black pudding and then
just a light lemon beard blanc and I put little
green peppercorns in it just to give it a kick.
But you must buy decent scollops and just remember do

(05:56):
not overcook them.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
No, just a light seer on the oh yes, when
they're almost caramelized, and oh my goodness, plumps gorgeous, gorgeous
scallops with beautiful, beautiful black pudding. Honestly, I remember going
when we were going to we went to Van Morrison
in Ireland and having breakfasted Land with the porridge and

(06:18):
the cream and the whiskey and the brown sugar and
the honey and the crumpets, and then the cooked breakfast
with the black podding, the white pudding, the bake and this.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
You'd be you'd be sort of in the proverbial, wouldn't
you really, I mean those sort of things. My fee
would be going under the table like a little little troll, because.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Exactly so, the soatate black pudding, the scallops, green peppercorn,
burd blanc. Oh my god, that is a sensational recipe
that is a standout, and that is on our website
at Newstook said be dot co dot MZI. Thank you
so much, Tony. What a delicious, delicious review, A delight