Who doesn’t love crumbed calamari? When the calamari is fresh and soft, and the crumbs are delicate but crunchy, it makes a sensational lunch with some hand-cut potato chips or my favourite combination is with orange and fennel salad. It’s really quite easy to make. Just be sure to remove the skin from the squid tubes before crumbing them, otherwise they’ll turn out tough and chewy when cooked.

You’ll need:

Fresh squid tubes (ones that have already been cleaned)
Peanut oil
1 cup plain flour
2 eggs, beaten
Zest of 1 lemon
2 cups dried breadcrumbs (or panko breadcrumbs if you want more crunch)

Rinse the squid tubes under cold running water. Remove the thin film from the outside of the tube. To do this, make a break in the film and work you fingers up between the film and the flesh of the squid. This can take a bit of time to do but is worth the effort for soft, rather than chewy, calamari.

Cut the tubes into rings. Dust them in flour, then coat in egg that’s been seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon zest. Spread the breadcrumbs onto a flat tray and toss the calamari to coat it. This crumbing technique can also be used for prawns and scallops.

Heat the peanut oil in a deep saucepan to 180°C. The oil should be 6cm deep for frying. Add your calamari pieces in batches, depending on the size of your pot. Cook each batch of calamari for 1 minute, then remove and drain on paper towel. Make sure your oil is back up to 180°C before adding the next batch of calamari.

Arrange the calamari on a platter and squeeze lemon juice over the top to serve.

People have raved about this place since it opened in 2008. We just hadn’t gotten around to going because every time we’d tried we couldn’t get a booking. True to form, when we finally made it for dinner, it was very busy.

The premise of Jellyfish’s menu is simple – fresh fish and seafood cooked in the way best suited to the species and served with the perfect sauce to complement it. Sounds good, doesn’t it?!

We had tempura soft shell mud crab with green chilli, spring onion and wasabi mayonnaise, and crab roulade with coconut, chilli and lime in wasabi leaves for our entrées.

The tempura crab was rich and delicious comfort food with creamy mayonnaise, something that you could easily keep eating.

The crab roulade was totally different; it was fresh and cleansing, allowing the crab meat to be the star, with just a hint of bitterness from the wasabi leaf.

For mains, we chose whole baby barramundi, crispy fried, with Japanese soy and spring onion, and tempura Moreton Bay bugs with lemon, chilli ginger caramel.

The baby barra was impressive. One side of the fish had been scored so that when it was deep-fried it curled up. This allowed the fish to be served ‘standing up’, rather than flat on the plate. The fish was slightly over-cooked near the outside, however the flesh in the centre was moist and succulent. There is something rather elemental about eating cooked fresh fish off the bone. It reminds Jim of his teenage years, catching fish out of Mooloolah River on the Sunshine Coast and moments later, wrapping them in foil and cooking them on the BBQ. Happy days!!! (thanks Jamie!)

The Moreton Bay bugs were served in the shell and, well, it was a little disappointing. They were scrumptious. It’s just that bug medallions in tempura batter would have been better, so that we could enjoy more of that tasty crunchy batter. The sweet lemon, chilli, ginger caramel sauce, which accompanied the bugs, was divine.

The food, overall, was good; really good, in fact, but just not quite on the money. You could actually go so far as to say it was overpriced.

We’re not strangers to a hefty dinner bill but, to walk away feeling that it is money well spent, the total experience has to be worth it. Not just the food, which should be nothing short of perfect, but the service, setting and the ambience are all important parts too. There’s got to be some kind of wow factor, which Jellyfish didn’t quite have.

There is nothing wrong with Jellyfish. The food is good. But it’s a little too simple to justify the prices.