I'm so hungree

Drugstore Espresso

2012-01-25T15:04:00.003+11:00

You may not believe this now, but I was an incredibly introverted kid. Through highschool and even through university. I was the sort to keep to my corner, hide in the library at lunchtime and read high fantasy novels on my own. And, oh my god, can you imagine trying to meet new people? What a crazy idea! I was so socially awkward. Maybe still am a little I guess!

Fortunately, those days are (somewhat) behind me. I love being a part of the food blogging community and as a result of that, enjoy meeting lots of like-minded people and of course, eating and drinking merrily!

I remember the first time I was to meet Bryan, I was quite nervous…but now we're out brunching quite regularly! I've always found I've had good encounters with other food bloggers, as it's so easy to connect over food, the joys and concerns of blogging...so I am always keen to meet more!

And with this mindset, I decided to approach the ever cheery Wince and see if he would be interested in brunching with Bryan and I. I don't think I had ever seen someone who could exude so much excitement and energy in 140 characters on twitter and thought we would all get along quite well!

So we squeezed in a very last minute brunch, before Wince headed off to Malaysia for a month, at the fairly new Drugstore Espresso in South Yarra.

The cafe is quite small, but quite cute, with the counter downstairs kept fairly open for takeaway orders and those eating in, tucked away upstairs in a little (slightly dark) mezzanine. I loved the shelves on the wall, stocked with coffee beans and dotted with little retro memorabilia.

My usual chai latte, good, nothing to complain about!

Unfortunately since we were visiting shortly after Christmas, the kitchen was not open and we could only order from the fridge at the front next to the counter. Ah well, will just have to visit again I suppose!

The fridge was filled with a lovely colourful assortment of options, so we weren't too restricted at least!

Bryan picked out the bircher muesli, which was sticky and quite sweet. It was deliciously like dessert! I personally quite liked the nibble I had!

For me, the Asian style chicken salad, which was so fresh and vibrant. It was so nice to have a fairly light brunch for a change, eggs do get quite heavy! The chicken was also, a little surprisingly, lovely too, it wasn't dry at all.

Smoked salmon bagel, partnered with a cheery salad for Wince. Bagel's are something I'm not at all familiar with, but to me, this was really tasty! Makes me think I should have tried more bagels (even if my body would not have liked me so much) when I was in New York!

Jo's choice of the pork belly sandwich though was an absolute winner. With a bit of apple, a bit of mayo and some lettuce, I was swooning over the mix of flavours. The apple came through really lovely and sweet and I was quite amazed at how everything just melted into my mouth (yes, I did steal bites of everyone's dish. Can't help but be a piggy!). I'm used to the bread usually being quite a bit harder, but this was not the case here. Delish!

So although we didn't get to have any hot dishes this day, I was pleasantly surprised at how yummy and satisfying our meal was, and will certainly be back to try some of the hot dishes, as I already have friends asking for a visit...!

Drugstore Espresso

194 Toorak Road
South Yarra, VIC 3141

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The Brix - Degustation

2012-01-23T09:52:00.002+11:00

You know I've all been here for breakfast already, so if you'd like a little romantic tale of the vibe and the atmosphere, just pop by here.

But I'm going to try to keep introductions short. I was back. With Bryan and Fakegf/Jo. Our mission? To indulge in the $80, 5 course degustation menu. 5 courses for $80? Not a bad deal if you ask me.

To replace our usual chai lattes and coffees, a glass of the Keller Trocken Riesling for me and bottle of Knappstein (which I am personally quite fond of myself) for Bryan.

I don't often do oysters when I go out, but we figured we'd add a course to our degustation and get the Duck Bay oysters with a red wine and shallot vinaigrette to start our night. They were sweet, they tasted so fresh. Not an expert on oysters, but still fully enjoyed. Love the little 'sand' bases they are sitting on as well!

Soft, soft butter. Mmmhmmm. And they had gluten free bread for me as well!

The whole dinner that night was a food-blogger-wielding-SLR's dream. You will just have to envisage Bryan and I avidly flailing with excitement as each dish was presented, accompanied by a very brief and vague description from the waiter. On one hand, this description is a little annoying, because you really want to know what EVERYTHING is on the plate. And there's a lot of stuff. At the same time though, you end up eating everything a little more carefully to try and suss it all out!

The first dish, smoked tuna, avruga and seaweed.

I don't think any of us breathed as we admired how elegantly everything had been tweezer-ed into perfection. It also was incredibly aromatic, and smelt like you were standing with the sand between your toes, eyes cast out over the big blue.

Delving into it, we found enoki mushrooms, crispy fish and puffed rice. We quizzed whether the jelly had miso in it. I loved the fantastic play on textures, which always gets me, the crispy, the soft, the slightly chewy.

We really had the perfect vantage point to check out the chefs (Joel Anderson and Daniel Dobra) as they constructed our dishes. It was like watching an artist work, a little bit here, a little bit there, a smear of sauce as well.

Beef and oyster. From the ocean, we move to where it meats the land. Again, on a warm plate, the food smelt amazing. A cooked oyster, a raw oyster, an oyster mushroom, beef, both raw and slow-cooked, all added their own flavours. I personally loved the addition of the raw oyster, as it really added a lovely sweet contrast. Oh and the bone marrow. Buttery, buttery bone marrow!

Anyone have any idea what the ribbony stuff is? It delighted the three of us, with it's smokey smell, yet it's seaweed flavour.

The knives came out. We knew we were getting more meat.

From the darker wintery beef, we moved onto a dish that just sung of spring. The dish came across as bright, light and airy, I was smitten with the colours! Venison, roast onion and cloves, the latter which could be detected in the white powder. The venison was gorgeously tender, cooked perfectly!

Peas, lamb, lettuce and mace. After all the elegance and hints of richness, this came as a bold statement in the meal. The lamb was near impossible to fault, it fell apart beautifully and was gorgeously rich and fatty. My mouth waters to think of it! I also enjoyed the lamb sweetbreads, which reminded me of chicken a little bit funnily enough!

However, I did find the brown 'powder' a little overwhelming, it tasted of aniseed and was quite potent to me!

Surprisingly after just 4 courses, I was feeling fairly full. Of course though, dessert was next.

Blackberry, beetroot and basil. As we were in the holiday month, I loved how much the dessert tasted like Christmas. Yes, because I've held Christmas in my hands and taken a huge chunk out of it. All jests aside though, the wafer scrolls on top were gingerbread, which to me, is Christmas. I also loved the addition of the yoghurt foam, as it was so light and fluffy. It added the perfect amount of tartness to counter much sweetness. Such a unique dessert and although I tend to like my desserts rich and decadent, I really enjoyed this fresh take.

A couple of hours later, plenty of laughs and too many pictures taken, we got our bill with a side of cheeky madeleines, to finish us up.

I personally loved our dinner. It was really a bit of a flavour playground, with the waiters leaving us to our own devices to try and pick apart the different elements. And of course, the meal itself is an absolute visual spectacle. I'm personally super excited to come back maybe in another month or two when the menu changes up a little bit so that we can try something new...

The Brix Cafe & Bristot

Rear 412 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy, VIC 3065

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My Mexican Cousin - A Crash Course in Creole

2012-01-21T09:06:00.004+11:00

It was a rather balmy 33 degree day. The sun was still beaming at 6pm and I-Hua and I warmed up with a glass of wine (actually served in a latte glass) at Ponyfish Island before getting slightly lost on the way over to My Mexican Cousin. What for? A crash course in Creole of course!

My last visit to My Mexican Cousin was on it's launch night, when food was sparse, Maurice Esposito was still the head chef and alcohol was flowing like blood through veins. It was of course, an excellent night, but more food to at least sample would have been very much appreciated.

But then, before I could manage a second trip to actually try out the food, if you were in the twitter-sphere, an outcry from Burger Mary/Jess was heard. MMC was just capitalising on trends and their menu was not authentic or properly considered.

And with that, they brought her on to consult the menu and a menu change was made…pretty quickly!

It's so interesting how social media affects the way feedback is received, considered and turned over these days isn't it? Or just how instantaneous the whole feedback system has become in general!

Regardless, I was excited to see a Fringe Food Festival dinner, 'A Crash Course in Creole' come out of this and keen to see what this was all about. Or maybe, I just saw praline bacon on the menu and no other word existed in my vocabulary for a while.

So when I-Hua and I did get to My Mexican Cousin, we were greeted with a rather delightful gin cocktail, a Southside, with West WInds gin, fennel and blackberry jam (!), fresh mint, gin and citrus. I loved that it wasn't an overly sweet cocktail, but still a bright and refreshing start to the evening.

I'll say it first, openly. I don't know Creole food. I don't know what's considered 'authentic'. I'm not going to pretend I do. So my thoughts on the dishes, are what I thought of them, as they were put in front of me, although I did try to keep in mind the history and the education we got from Jess as each dish came out. I kept my mind and my mouth open, to whatever came my way!

Popcorn excites me. It was on our table. That excited me. There is literally one night I think I dreamt about popcorn, woke up and bugged Brad all morning about wanting popcorn.

The package was labelled 'Creole popcorn. Spicy and sweet', I can vouch for it's flavour profile, having happily demolished the pack the next day. Loved the bitey spiciness that had me chasing for water and the subtle sweetness, apparently they will be serving this on the tables, in place of bread I assume?

Before we got our food, we got the lowdown of why, what and how the menu came about from Jess.

My notes are a bit rough on this, but what I got is that 'Creole' cuisine is a bit of an umbrella term and within that umbrella, there are lots of different styles of Creole cuisine.

With Jess being most knowledgable about New Orleans Creole, that is now what shines on the My Mexican Cousin menu. New Orleans Creole was typically more inspired by the fine French dishes and flavours, but nowadays, it has been mixed with cajun style cooking, coming from the 'country bumpkins' which is how the fatty sausages and spices came about. And this mix between the two cuisine styles, is what we were going to be served. All the dishes we were informed, are all from the menu too, so if you like what you see here, you know where to go!

And with that, the night was off to a roaring start with the highly, highly anticipated praline bacon that I-Hua and I had been babbling about all night in the lead up to dinner. I mean, it's bacon strips, candied with brown sugar and pecans. What's not to get hyped about about? The very neatly portioned (one strip per person!) bacon reminded I-Hua and I a lot of the Chinese 'bakkwa', which is a salty-sweet dried meat, similar to jerky (but that's for another post…maybe…).

It honestly was not as sweet as I was anticipating, but I did enjoy the pure sinful crispness of it, just like a wafer! So crunchy and fun to munch on and the sweet subtleness did come through over all the salt.

With barely the last nibble of bacon sweetness, licked off our lips, the Boudin fritters came out. A deep fried pork and rice sausage mix seasoned with Creole spices. I really enjoyed these, could have come out a bit hotter, but great flavours. I found them to be quite herbaceous and not as meaty as I expected. Was quietly hoping to have 'Boudin Noir' and have some blood thrown into the mix, but I suppose that's not everybody's cup of tea…

I've now discovered something that's just as hard to photograph as curry.

Gumbo.

I tried. Really I did. Damn brown saucy things!

Gumbo is a roux-based soup with sausage, chicken and rice. I've never had gumbo before, but in my mind, gumbo just makes me think of something hearty and stewy. New Orleans gumbo is also supposedly generally 'stewier', whilst outside of the city, it tends to be a bit more like a broth.

I thought the gumbo was a bit thinner, and a little oilier than I expected it to be, but it was quite nice when had over the 'dirty rice', with ground seasoned pork. Another dish with a peasant background, the 'dirty' just comes from the meat breaking down in the rice and creating the colour. I quite enjoyed the rice, nice and fluffy, something a little different. I would have liked it a little hotter, although I do understand that serving so many tables all at the same time is quite an effort though!

Oh ho! PoBoy's ahead! With deep fried prawns, mayo, cos lettuce, creole seasoning all on a baguette. Whilst it is apparently impossible to get the exact same bread that they would use for PoBoy's in New Oreleans, with a very distinct and particular texture to it, they've opted to use baguettes used for banh mi in Melbourne. Which is as close as we're going to get apparently.

I really enjoyed the flavour of the PoBoy, but I found the texture of the prawn a bit bizarre. The batter I really loved, light and crispy, but I thought the texture of the prawn itself, a touch soft for my tastes, it made me think I was eating fried fish, rather than fried prawns!

After a good dose of deep fried goodness, the green beans were a refreshing reprise. Seriously. Perfectly cooked, crunchy and…just yummy.

Our last savoury, the pulled pork and cornbread skillet was…well, a bit of a beast. It's a huge portion! Pork in dark roux gravy served with a baked cornbread crust, this probably was my least favourite dish of the night. I didn't mind the cornbread, but the pork I found a touch vinegary. But by this point, I was getting so full anyway, I don't think I could have finished all they served us!

There's always room for dessert though. ALWAYS.

And at My Mexican Cousin, it came in the form of a bourbon pecan pie with vanilla bean ice-cream. Nice and nutty, I quite liked the crunchy texture of it.

Although I would like to say more about the pecan pie, dessert number two, kind of stole my (and many other's I'm sure) heart.

The 'Beignet', fancy name for a traditional Louisiana "French" yeast doughnut, covered in powdered sugar and served with a salted caramel dipping sauce.

Salted Caramel dipping sauce.

As always we all thought we were full, but once that came out…well, second wind! Haha! The beignet itself was lovely and fluffy, I loved how light it was. This made it the perfect thing to slop up the caramel sauce with…although we didn't have enough beignet's for the amount of caramel sauce we had! Was tempted to bust open the popcorn and start dipping it…or take a spoonful, but decided against it….this time…

Yeah. After all that, I was rolling home. Was still full the next day until I met Bryan for lunch at 10am!

Overall, it was a good night, the food was well paced, the company was excellent and the atmosphere was lively. There were certainly a few things that I really liked and a few things I didn't enjoy as much, but you can't please everybody all the time right? I still find the location of My Mexican Cousin a bit of an odd choice, but I think it's an interesting move and curious addition to the Melbourne dining scene.

My Mexican Cousin

Corner Sturt St And Southbank Boulevard
Southbank, VIC 3006

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Le Flaneur

2012-01-18T09:03:00.003+11:00

Take a break from that excel document, and come down the rabbit hole with me…

And on the way let's stop by the rather whimsical little cafe, Le Flaneur!

I do like that word whimsical. I don't think it can be applied to enough things or places or beings these days, where most are trying to be slick and 'cool'. Or ironic, whatever your calling may be.

But I adore the playfulness of the interior of Le Flaneur and was very glad that I had asked Bryan, one of my partners in crime, to come along with me.

Oh how we squealed and swooned and swaned over everything in the cafe. I love the mismatched wallpaper. The benches that are secretly camouflaging as individual chairs (they're out to get us!). The anthropomorphic motifs and imagery that flowed through the restaurant, the overall…genteel and gentlemanly feel to the place, amongst all the colours and softness. It harks back to a cuter time, when gentlemen wore suits and had hats, which they off tipped off to greet ladies that sauntered by.

Brad and I were just at the museum the other day where they were showing films of Melbourne in the 1920's and 1940's...oh it was so cute! Everyone wearing hats, looking quite demure, men in suits on the beach! Hilarious yet adorable at the same time.

I digress (as usual), but I suppose my observations reflect the sentiment in the name, as Charles Baudelaire, a French poet in the 1800's, defined 'flâneur' as a 'gentleman stroller of city streets'. How quaint!

So Bryan and I didn't order for ages, as we were too busy snapping pictures and pointing out details to each other, that the other may have missed. "Oh I didn't even see those pictures!", "Ooh, there's a clock projected on the wall!", so on and so forth....

In time though, coffees were ordered, my usual chai was lovely, quite sweet, but lots of flavour. Lots of cinnamon, mmhmm! It was a touch hot for me and I couldn't hold the glass straight off the bat, but I tend to prefer my drinks to be ready to gulp down the hatch. So that's just personal preference.

Bryan has now moved from magic's to piccolo's these days! You'll have to visit his blog though to get a better idea for the coffee, he didn't seem to mind it too much though!

After fawning over the menu for a bit, we finally (FINALLY) settled on our breakfast dishes. I've really developed a thing for smashed avocado, and went with the smashed avocado with lemon infused danish feta, with soft poached kangaroo island free range eggs, with sourdough. Bit of a mouthful to say, but absolutely delicious to eat.

Eggs were beautifully poached and I loved the lemon infused feta. Gave it a really interesting tang that really cut through the richness of the avocado. The feta was also gorgeously creamy and surprisingly quite mild, I suppose it might need to be to infuse with the lemon. Perfect companion to the avocado though!

My only downside, would be that although the bread was beautiful, it was a bit hard to cut through!

Against my fairly minimalist and neat looking dish, Bryan's Atlantic eggs, wilted spinach and butter scrambled kangaroo island free range eggs, smoked salmon, hollandaise sauce and sourdough, was an absolute smorgasbord on the eyes…and well, mouth too!

The eggs looked so incredibly creamy and luscious, along with the beautifully pink salmon.

Our clamouring, laughter and vigorous camera snapping, obviously attracted a bit of attention. If you hang out with Bryan and I…you'll learn we're not particularly subtle. Not really. But through our meal, our waitress, who was absolutely lovely came over and chatted us up and talked about the food, the drink and well, Melbourne's odd weather. She also had the cutest British accent and was all smiles, which well, makes you all smiles too really doesn't it?

After our plates had been cleared, and Bryan was considering a second cup of coffee, she came over to try and convert us all to cold drip. Even me. Who doesn't drink coffee.

But of course, I couldn't resist taking a sip when she brought over a tiny little sample for us to try. How cute are the cups?!

My gosh. If I had to drink coffee. This would have been it. Whilst I may not be the best person to describe coffee, this is marvellously refreshing, with an absolutely beautiful and very elegant aroma. It honestly tasted like a beautiful bouquet of flowers, subtle, light and sweet.

I very almost ordered a cold drip. But even after the tiniest sip I could feel the caffeine in me. So weak.

Instead I ordered a French breakfast tea (from Mariage Frères) and just hovered over Bryan's cold drip set and swooned over his coffee ice cubes which I thought were just the cutest things ever.

Isn't it just a dream to look at poured as well? In the light, against the glass, reflecting off the spoon, the coffee was a beautiful pool of amber.

I love how both drinks were presented on elegant little trays with delicate glassware. All very pretty, quaint and rather…gentlemanly stroller like I guess.

Oh, and no brunch is complete with Bryan until you've had dessert. When I saw the earl grey macarons, I knew immediately that the macarons were by Josephine, so despite Bryan not being a huge fan of macarons…well we needed them. End of story.

Earl grey, salted caramel and pistachio. Salted caramel took the cake, but it's hard to be disappointed by Josphine!

I love that Le Flaneur is so close to me and I certainly hope to be back more for quiet brunches and a break from the concrete jungle once in a while. With good food, good drinks, delightful staff, what's not to like really?

Le Flaneur

5 Church St
Hawthorn, VIC 3122

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Chocolate Cheesecake Truffles

2012-01-16T18:32:00.004+11:00

I went to google.

I typed: "define chocolate". Being a rebel. Not using capitals, etc. etc.

So according to google the definition of chocolate is this:

choc·o·late/ˈCHäk(ə)lit/

Noun:

1. A food preparation in the form of a paste or solid block made from roasted and ground cacao seeds, typically sweetened.

2. A candy made of or covered in this.

Well. I think a movement should be made, because the definition of chocolate should be a lot simpler.

YUMMY. YUMMY. YUMMY.

That or: PMS CONTROL DEVICE.

In all seriousness though, I don't think one day goes by when I don't have chocolate. Which is just going to creep up on me when I'm in my forties or fifties and just hang around my hips and tummy.

Oh well. Chocolate will probably be the death of me, but that's okay. If I am to die, it better be in the most delicious way possible right?

Which is why I'm so glad that I am able to contribute to the Sweet Adventures, "Death By Chocolate", blog hop! At first I was worried I wouldn't have time, just because the past few weeks have been choc-a-block full with work and socialising!

Although I am cheating a little bit and using a recipe my mum and I made in December that I just haven't gotten around to posting up. But don't worry, it fits the theme to a chocola-tee!

I also cheat a bit with my recipes in that, I don't usually try many new recipes on my own. My mum is the adventurous one in the kitchen, so she'll try something, make some edits, it'll be awesome and delicious and I just steal the finished recipe and product. But y'know, if I don't share, no one else will be able to get to all her goodies, since she's quite technically illiterate. Although I do hope to change this a bit more this year. More cooking, I swear!

Anyway. Mum made these chocolate cheesecake truffles for the first time in 2010 for Christmas and they were such a hit, we busted them out again for 2011. And I might've eaten all of them. But y'know. It's Christmas. You're allowed to surely?

I love this recipe because it is really easy and so easy to adapt depending on your tastes. Whilst the original recipe coats the truffles in a packet of crushed tim tams, we decided to make our truffles sleeker and a little more elegant and coated them with cocoa and crushed (read: blitzed up) almonds. The original recipe also suggests to melt the chocolate in a microwave, but I still like to put it over the stove. Up to you really.

I also love this recipe because it's like…just having a bite of cheesecake. You know how you can feel a tiny bit guilty if you have a big slice of cake? Well what's one little truffle ball? Or 4..? Or 6…? Hmm. Maybe not such a good idea after all.

I could imagine changing this up with white chocolate, or maybe coating these with sprinkles if you want something colourful for the kids, you could even use two types of chocolate and have a marble effect! Oh the options! Just going to have to make this more and more…

Chocolate Cheesecake Truffles

INGREDIENTS

200g dark chocolate, chopped

250g cream cheese

1/4 cup icing sugar, sifted

(I do actually recommend sifting it)

1 tablespoon dark rum

(although the original recipe asks for Irish cream liqueur…pick your poison!)

dark cocoa for coating

almonds crushed/blitzed/blended/get-them-as-fine-as-you-can for coating

(again do note you can change your coating, original recipe asks for 1 packet of crushed tim tams)

METHOD

Melt the dark chocolate. You can do this in a bowl over a pot of hot water over the stove. Stir to make sure all the chocolate has melted. Or you can use the microwave. If you're doing it in the microwave, cook on high power for 40 seconds, stir, and cook for another 30 seconds, then stir until chocolate has fully melted.

Let your chocolate cool.

Beat cream cheese and icing sugar until combined and stir in your alcohol of choice.

Stir in your cool and melted chocolate.

Pop the mixture in the fridge to chill until it's firm enough to handle. Hard to say exactly how long, it definitely takes longer on hotter days as we've discovered. A couple of hours should definitely be enough though!

Once the mixture is firm enough, roll them into small balls (teaspoonfuls are usually a good size) and roll them in the cocoa or almonds, depending on what you feel like. My mum liked to just pop the balls onto small plates with the covering and use the plate to roll them around so that you don't actually have to touch the pretty little chocolate balls and get fingerprints on them.

Use a fork to lift the now coated truffle balls and put them on to wire racks (if possible, a plate would probably suffice too) and pop into the fridge again to firm up and have the cocoa or almond stick to the truffle better. Overnight to be sure, but you can also get away with just leaving them in for a couple of hours.

Then enjoy! Over a week, or in one night...it's all up to you...

Want more deathly chocolate recipes? Visit the other recipes as part of the blog hop!

Mixed Business

2012-01-13T09:00:00.000+11:00

I'm getting to the point where I've visited most cafes in my local area, and in the other areas I do like to frequent. Which is a little bit sad, as I am a bit lazy to get Brad to drive too far on weekends for food.

Although it is possible to still mix it up a bit and visit neighbourhoods that are close by, yet I never go to. Which is how we ended up at Mixed Business in Clifton Hill.

It's so convenient from where I live too! Turn at the lights, zip down the freeway, peer out the window to make sure we don't miss it and end up driving off into the distance and there we are!

It's also great when parking isn't too difficult.

The cute little cafe, at the end of a strip of shops, a little bit on it's lonesome, was bursting at the seams! We managed to steal a seat outside, with the little table/bench/counter coming out of the wall.

I love the handwritten menu, it's so easy to get caught up in shiny, neatly kerned typography, that sometimes just keeping it simple can be so appealing. And it's quite frugal too!

Sitting outside was so pleasant, with a garden that threatened to take over the wall, it was refreshing and relaxing. Kind of secret garden-esque.

The usual mix of latte and soy chai. I've been trying to get Brad to try cold drips so I can steal a sip, but with no gains so far. Sigh!

Oops. A fail pour there from me…

I found the chai had no flavour for me, yes I might have had a small cold whilst visiting, but there was no hint of spices and I felt like I was just drinking warm milk. This tends to be an issue for places that serve their chai latte's/teas in a pot like this.

Fortunately, breakfast has saved Mixed Business, and would have me coming back for their simple but delicious meals.

Brad ordered poached eggs with a potato and rosemary rosti, avocado and salsa. Oh my lord, the rosti was just so aromatic. The rosemary really filling your nose with lovely smells, it makes me think of winter and a big fat roast. And to eat as well, it was super crisp and light on the outside but soft and almost like mashed potatoes on the inside! Um. Lots of yum. Although when it came out I was worried it wouldn't fill up Brad enough. Haha!

For me, poached eggs, pancetta, parmesan and slow roasted tomato. I loved how generous they were with the parmesan, with big fat slices scattered over. The pancetta was just delicious as well. WIth the salty pancetta, it was all a bit of a party in my mouth.

Whilst it can be hard to take initiative to travel to unknown places, when you know there's goodness to be found nearby, sometimes mixing it up a bit does pay off. I really enjoyed Mixed Business, not so much for the chai latte maybe, but definitely for the food, whilst a bit on the smaller side portion-wise, the food is delectably fresh and well cooked.

Mixed Business

486 Queens Pde
Clifton Hill, VIC 3068

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Hong Kong - Ta Pantry

2012-01-11T09:00:00.004+11:00

In my last post about Hong Kong, you may have noticed I did not mention dinner on my last night.

That's because for our last night in Hong Kong, my friends had managed to book a 'private kitchen' at fairly short notice and I thought it deserved it's own post. As it was really an amazing meal.

Private kitchen's, which are essentially the same as a speakeasy, are becoming really popular in Hong Kong, where they are also most common, and to be able to book one with less than 3 weeks notice is a rare occurrence.

Tonight we were dining at 'Ta Pantry' and getting there…was a bit of an adventure. It was really, the speakeasy experience. We got taxi's to somewhere on Star Street (such a cool street name!), where it looked absolutely dead, with barely a sign in sight and wandered around a bit until we found the building.

When we got to the building, I was getting a bit worried. It was literally a grey, slightly depressed looking, apartment building with no signage, that looked a little run down, with the tiniest of tiny entryways.

Nevermind. In we go.

Through the security grate, up the narrow, fluorescent lit, white concrete emergency stairs we went. It felt incredibly seedy and I was half worried that the 7 of us trooping up the stairs, would make so much noise that a resident would stick their head out of the door, abuse us in Chinese and have me scream apologetically and run back out.

We got up to the floor, and even there, we weren't sure which door it was. It was a small residential hallway, all 4 doors looked the same. What hole in the wall place had we been taken to? What if we accidentally knocked on the wrong door? How would we explain that we were looking for a restaurant that had no sign?

Fortunately we knocked on the right door.

And into a very cosy and intimate setup we tumbled into. With but a single dining table in a room, wall to wall with wine, and the room next door being the kitchen and also a relaxing place to kick back on the sofas, it was as private as you can get!

Ta Pantry was set up by the Chef, Esther Sham, who has the most curious background. From Hong Kong and originally a student of contemporary art in the US, she modelled professional for three years in Hong Kong before deciding that food was her passion. It's quite inspiring to see that one's life path is never set in stone!

She has worked and gained experience in a multitude of 2-star Michelin restaurants, including L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Amber of Landmark Mandarin and Relaid Louis XIII in Paris!

The concept of Ta Pantry started, as her brother, an avid wine collector, who used to spend a lot of time travelling between the US and Hong Kong, needed somewhere to store all his wine. So Ta Pantry became a place for the brother's wine to be stored (and he did have some very nice wines), and for Esther Sham to flex her culinary prowess. Be warned, they won't turn the air-con down as they need to keep the room cool enough for the wine!

At Ta Pantry, Esther has come up with several unique set menus, which guests must decide on before arriving…which is quite the challenge in itself as they all sound so amazing. Fortunately for me, my friend had made the decision for us two weeks prior, so all we had to do was show up with an empty stomach. I think I can manage that!

We had almonds and olives to nibble on, as well as a variety of breads including a sumptuous and buttery brioche and cornbread. Loved the cornbread. It was served warm, and just fell apart in your mouth with a really homely texture.

My friend had chosen Menu three…"L'Americain Nouveau". This excited me. I know this southern style, American food is all the trend in Melbourne at the moment, but no one's taken it to a fine dining level. Which Esther has dared to do.

Our first course, a giant prawn cream corn gelee, topped with salmon caviar, arrived in a martini glass. It was a very elegant twist to the 1960's prawn cocktail. I loved the bright colours and the translucency of the gelee. It was the perfect start to the meal, with light fresh flavours, I particularly loved the pairing with the sweet corn at the bottom of the glass.

Course two. Mushrooms medley soup served with foie gras croutons. I know I've been doing this a lot lately but…foie gras croutons. Foie gras croutons. FOIE GRAS CROUTONS.

Are you excited as I am now? Cause I certainly was when I read that. The warm bowls were placed in front of us and Esther came around and personally gave us a little dollop of cream each.

The foie gras crouton did not fail me. It was like a crouton that had just been injected with foie gras, crisp outside and intoxicatingly rich when you got to the centre. It was sad we only had two. The soup itself was a touch on the sweet side for me, being mushrooms I like earthier flavours, but it was still quite nice.

I think the next course sung to me, as it reminded me a lot of brunch. With it's joyfully bright colours and neat stacking. The sun dried tomato crab meat tatin topped with a sunny side egg was just arrestingly beautiful.

That is until you tucked in and broke it down. Tee hee.

But my goodness, the yolk of the egg was perfect, easily running down over the succulent and sew tomatoes. There as something crunchy at the bottom of the stack as well, which added a fun little texture contrast to the dish. It was a mix of rich yet refreshing.

The next dish also saw some tableside service. Melting onion duck, slow cooked and carved by the table. And also sauced by the table. Oh my lord, the duck was cooked beautifully, so tender and I just fell in love with the bed of caramelised onions that it was served on. So comforting!

We also got a little bite of a confit duck leg with mustard, served on bread to go with the main. As if there wasn't enough protein already….

When I first saw the 'Prosciutto BCT Macaroni', BCT standing for bacon, cream and tomato, I was not sure how that could be elegantly presented.

But hey, you can always be surprised right? I breathing a huge sigh of relief as this plate came to the table. I was half worried we would just be getting a giant bowl of macaroni, and after the richness of the duck? I don't know if I could have handled it, but this was just perfect. It was not as rich as I expected it to be either. I suppose as it's not in a cheese based sauce, the tomato gives it a bit more punch and tanginess.

A plate of cheese before dessert…although we were all struggling to get through it at this point. I loved the cute cheese knife!

Dessert was a brownie covered with melted marshmallows and Oreo crumbs…with a choice of chocolate or vanilla ice-cream. Although I would normally go for the double chocolate hit, I decided vanilla would be a wiser choice to make dessert a little less rich.

To be honest, I felt a little bit let down by the brownie. It was actually quite hard, and probably a little overcooked as I was really hoping for a soft, moist and gooey brownie to mix in together with the delicious marshmallow.

The ice-cream was surprisingly delicious though, with a really nice vanilla bean flavour. Wish I had a bigger scoop!

My friends and I really had a lovely time, we are normally quite a rambunctious group, so it was nice to have our own space and be as loud as we wanted really.

I think what I really enjoyed about this menu, was that the dishes all had a different twist to them and most of them, aren't things I have come across anywhere else. I do also love that some of the more classical style cooking comes through as well, and the table side service.

Ah, although I would love to be able to try all the menus, I don't know how often I could stomach a meal like this!

Ta Pantry

Star Street

Wan Chai, Hong Kong

+852 9403 7430

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Pillar Of Salt

2012-01-09T09:00:00.003+11:00

Did any of you guys see that episode of A Current Affair sometime last week or the week before that about salt therapy? Where sitting in wall to wall rooms of salt is supposed to be good for you? Or well, more so for people with asthma and respiratory problems I suppose.

It can be a bit hard to believe in alternative medicine at times, since there aren't often scientific roots and whilst I'm all 'Ooh salt, can I have that with potatoes please', others are far more cynical than I.

However you can believe me when I say, not because I'm scientific and stuff, but because I like good grub, that Pillar of Salt, a cafe in Richmond, is definitely good for you.

I was to meet a friend here, but then she ended up running into car troubles, so I got to have a quiet breakfast by myself. Something which I often long to do, but never get around to doing so.

To be honest though, I certainly was not smitten on first impression. Maybe it's because I sat myself down without any prompt from the waitstaff? Although I assume if somewhere isn't too busy, with quite a number of tables empty it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Initially I was served a bit more cooler than I am used to, a crude "Coffee?" from a slightly disgruntled, un-smiley waitress was all I got after I sat.

I am though quite forgiving, since while sitting in the lovely courtyard and as the sun filled, blue sky morning continued on, more smiles and cheery voices could be seen and heard. I think they were a little sympathetic that my friend hadn't showed up and stopped to chat with me as I sipped on my chai latte. Which was marvellously velvety and tasty. And how cute is the red cup? Want!

From a fairly short, but concise menu with some very tasty sounding options, I could not go past the corn fritters with smoked salmon, coriander and avocado salsa. Decided not to go with the poached egg today, so I could just concentrate on delicious corn fritter-ness.

And delicious it was, I found that the fritters were a bit 'wetter' inside than at other places I've had fritters. I really liked this though, as it's not as doughy and pancake-y. Which means less flour probably. Yey for me. And packed full of corn.

The smoked salmon was so luscious as well, it's not something I typically go for, often caving into the carnivore in me and going for a bacon option, but this was really tasty.

So, even after not so awesome first impressions, and having to eat breakfast alone unexpectedly, I left with a little spring in my step.

I therefore conclude, that visiting Pillar of Salt has positive effects on one's mood, palate and tummy and that everyone should go have corn fritters and sit in the courtyard, especially since it's summer now!

Pillar of Salt

541 Church St

Richmond 3121

9421 1550

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Hong Kong - Macarons, Zuma and hanging out on boats

2012-01-07T09:22:00.003+11:00

Deja-vu…it's Hong Kong again!

Wait…yes…yes. I know. I was in Hong Kong in September. I'm back already?

I didn't actually expect to be in Hong Kong again, anytime soon, but a last minute change in plans meant, instead of meeting some people in Melbourne, we would be meeting in Hong Kong.

Well who's complaining really?

Unfortunately though, I could only afford a very short 4 days away, since my parents were also overseas and someone has to watch the little brother. Oh and the dog. I swear. With having just brought Chai into the house, I was paranoid the whole weekend I was gone that he was going to destroy the house.

Fortunately this didn't happen.

And I still had a lovely few days in Hong Kong.

My first night was spent in Causeway Bay, hunting down Uniqlo and H&M store for basics, eating roast goose in random roast shops, where I sat in a booth with another guy and was embarrassed I had to order in English and therefore was also embarrassed to take pictures and look like a massive tourist (massive fail Asian!), and getting lost in Times Square in a Christmas Barbie land.

Life size cupcakes! Or not quite….

Shortly after, I trotted along to Le Salon De The de Joel Robuchon and had cake.

More specifically, a beautiful chestnut cake. I can't resist anything sweet with chestnut in it. I'm still convinced I can't find chestnut goodness often enough in Melbourne, so I pounce on it with the vigour of a cheetah on it's prey, when I get the chance!

I was a little surprised at the tiny little cafe, they didn't ask if I wanted to order tea or anything with my cake, which I wouldn't have minded, and they were even lazy enough to not take the plastic around the sides! Honestly! Service could be kicked up a notch!

That aside, the cake was delicious. Nothing I didn't like. A hint of sour raspberry, which just gave a tiny bit of tartness amongst the sweet which enhanced the flavours.

Day two I woke up, got lots of work done in the morning, then shuffled out to find some lunch. Which didn't really happen until a lot later than planned because for all the eating places in Hong Kong, there are still queues everywhere and I hate lining up.

I ended up in Lane Crawford spending way too much on two pieces from T by Alexander Wang (but the dress was sooo worth it). Whoopsies!

Before my time alone ended, and I was to meet up with some of my friends, I decided to be a bit plush and sample macarons in my hotel room with Elton John on the iPod dock and a mug of peppermint tea.

So the macaron-off? It was between de Joel Robuchon (who's macarons I had bought the day before) and La Maison du Chocolat (who wouldn't let me take a photo of the cute shop in the mall. Baww.).

The macarons from Robuchon, although they looked a bit smaller, had more consistency to their look, with very neat little feet, and the La Maison shells having started to crack a little bit.

I decided for fair comparison, I would sample and compare the chocolate macarons.

La Maison first.

Oh my god! So much ganache! Whilst it certainly appealed to the side of me that is constantly reaching out to the pantry in search for chocolate, as a macaron, I found the ratio was quite a bit off. All cream and not much else! It wasn't too sweet though, as the chocolate was really lovely and dark.

Robuchon's macarons, although smaller, are much, much better proportioned. The shell is also quite deceiving as it was really lovingly crisp when you first bite into it, but is not too airy overall. The deep cocoa flavours also surprised me, as it appeared a little more red than brown and I think I overall enjoyed the flavour of this macaron better!

Hong Kong is easily one of my favourite cities at night. As unhealthy as light pollution probably is for the environment, it still is gorgeous. View courtesy of our hotel rooftop.

For dinner, my friends had booked us in for dinner at the very swank and trendy Zuma. My friends said it was in the same market as Nobu, but in Hong Kong, Zuma was regarded higher than Nobu!

Naturally, being trendy and cool, and the place to be seen….you couldn't see anything. It was dark. So I didn't take that many pictures. The food though, was surprisingly pretty good.

Sake was had, along with chicken skewers, and my favourite of the night, (I think it was) unagi with uni. Um yum!

Day three saw us with perfect weather, a bit of a hectic morning and a long lazy day on a boat out in the bay. I forgot to mention the day before when I was in the mall I had picked up some truffled gouda to have on the boat. Oh my god. Again. Truffled gouda. Truffled gouda. It was heaven. I forgot to take a picture. Although you could see specks of truffle all through the cheese, every bite was absolutely infused with the truffle-y goodness. Need to find in Melbourne.

Oh and we had Oscar the grouch cupcakes. Although he looks a bit happy there. Win!

Le Salon De The de Joel Robuchon

Shop 315 & 401

The Landmark, Central

Hong Kong

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Zuma

The Landmark

Level 5&6

15 Queen's Rd

Central, Hong Kong

(852) 3657 6389

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La Maison Du Chocolat

ifc Mall

Shop 2006

Hong Kong

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Some of my favourite chai's....and Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T22:50:00.002+11:00

Most people I know tend to be running amok the week or two leading up to Christmas, amassed with parties and dinners and who else knows what to attend.

I've found I've been the exact opposite and that whilst I had all purposes and intentions to work between Christmas and New Year, and of course blog, I found I really did not have the time. I was out all day and almost all night the entire week almost! Yeek!

(Although I do admit a few nights could have been spent drafting instead of playing Skyrim....)

So this post comes a bit late, but I have been wanting to do it for a while. (Also because everyone's been doing these awesome list posts and I want in!)

As many of you might know, I for whatever reason, am not a coffee drinker. I've never had a full cup of coffee in my life! I'm not entirely sure why I don't drink it, as I never had a taste for coffee or wine when I was younger, but I've definetly come to love wine....and come to not have an interest in coffee.

This does not mean I don't care for coffee, and I certainly admire the work baristas do and love to hear what people think of different coffees and what flavours and aromas they can deduce.

I figure I'm just already naturally full of energy and am concerned I may bring down a house if I have coffee. This is because I will literally be bouncing off walls and screeching like a baboon. Or so I would imagine. At least I'd be a fairly pretty baboon, unless coffee also has the power to make me grow horns or something. Although admittedly that'd be kind of cool too.

Getting off track here. Back to my point.

Without a love for coffee, what was I to do in the very much coffee-loving-brunch-going-Melbourne? Fortunately there is an option, which I am incredibly fond of, which is the humble chai latte. My staple at brunch and is never missing from a cafe post. There's just something warming and comforting about the sweet cinnamon-y flavour. I have really grown to love my chai latte, especially in the past year, making not just the chai latte, but the soy chai latte my brunch staple.

I certainly don't tout to be a connoisseur and I feel as though I should know more than I do. I do know though, that I like really well frothed milk, so that it's velvety and smooth. I also like a cinnamon kick, the taste of tea, the flavour of spices. I also need a hint of sweetness without being too sweet and overwhelming all other flavours.

I consider a chai latte a favourite when I wake up on a weekend, turn to Brad, say "I want to have a good chai latte today", and return to a cafe because I've wanted their chai latte. These are all places I have returned to more than once!

St. Ali

Need I say more? With perfectly frothed milk, there's nothing I don't like about what St. Ali does with it's chai lattes. I love pouring it out of the huge jug and seeing all the tea and spices get strained out. It's a little more on the sweeter side than the spicy side, but is still wholly delicious and not too sweet.

Lux Foundry

I remember the first time visiting, I was informed the chai latte would take a little bit of time to come out, as they steep the tea to make a concentrate before frothing it up with the milk. It made all the difference! I love how dark it came out, looks nice and strong.

Dukes Coffee

My only complaint here, is that the cups are quite small! I always wish I had more once I finish it!

Ora Cafe

I may be a little biased, since I would consider this my local, but I wouldn't go back for the chai if it wasn't any good. It's surprisingly got a lot of kick to it, even if it looks a tad anaemic!

Auction Rooms

A little more on the sweet than spicy side, but one needs to shake it up every now and again right? And I'm enamoured with it's shiny shiny teapot!

Percy's Aeroplane

I tend to be a bit of a fence sitter and find it incredibly difficult to have too strong an opinion over anything, as you never know if something better or worse may come along.

However, I have not been ashamed to claim Percy's Aeroplane as my favourite chai in Melbourne. It's just bursting with spices and flavour, without being too strong though. And since I visit at least once or twice a week, I can vouch that they are incredibly consistent.

Whilst this is not a 'do-or-die-list', this is my personal favourite list and I would love to hear if y'all have some other favourites that I should be aware of!

I would also love to hear how all your New Year's were! I had a lovely time with some close friends (from all over the world actually!) who I invited over to dinner and then to watch fireworks in a park near my place.

Happy New Year!

Wok + Wine

2011-12-27T20:00:00.000+11:00

I'm one of those sorts of people who likes sharing. One of those people who post loads of random links on Facebook. On any given day I'm sharing new restaurant websites, a pair of shoes I desperately need in my life (there are many) or sometimes a promo or warehouse sale that's going on.

For the most part though, nobody really pays much attention. I think everyone's just filtering me out.

However there was this one time. The Agenda Daily had a private sale for a special event in Melbourne called Wok and Wine.

The concept sounded simple and kind of fun.

40 people.

40 bottles of wine.

40 pounds of prawns.

So up to my Facebook wall it went and within the day, Caryn had called and texted me asking what it was about. "Prawns and wine?!" she exclaimed "My two favourite things, let's go!"

And with that we bought our spots for mass prawn murder on the 14th of December and eagerly anticipated the email on the 13th of December that would let us know where the secret location was.

At 7:30pm on the 14th, we therefore found ourselves at St. Ali. Upon arrival we were met with a single table in the centre of the room, lined with newspaper and some banana leaves and weighted down with healthy chunks of bread.

Oh and wine. From Chapel Hill in South Australia. 40 bottles of it. Oh hai!

At 7:45 a very hungry Caryn and I were hopping from foot to foot, quietly grumbling between that two of us that the food should have come out by now! We don't mean to be snarky. We're just hungry!

Peter from Wok and Wine didn't keep us waiting for too much longer, suddenly appearing with the biggest wok I think I have ever seen, pouring our prawns like a river over the banana leaves and then taking a moment to explain the situation.

The concept started in the US in 2008, as a unique networking event, a way for people to bond over food and wine and start interesting conversations. They don't pay for spaces and often pop up in the strangest of places, the second Melbourne event was held in a beauty salon in the city!

Look at all the people checking out the prawns rather than listening to Peter...

There are no chairs so that people can more easily move around and migle, and the table is intentionally made a little too small for everybody, so that people get up close to each other while eating and rubbing shoulders with everyone.

One type of food, one type of wine. We don't have to think, which leaves more brain space for conversation!

And with 90 events in over 10 cities, the formula definitely seems to be working, with some attendees having been to more than one event in different cities!

After a quick briefing on how to enjoy the prawn heads to their full extent….prawn carnage occurred.

I apologize for the photo quality. I'm not gonna pussyfoot around it. I was pretty drunk. Composing pictures when you're struggling to stay upright is a challenge.

Libby was the chef for the night, working hard to keep up with the swift hands of us prawn eaters...Caryn and I stalked her afterwards to get the secret recipe!

No prawn was spared...

45 minutes later, 3 wok full of prawns and Melbourne was officially the most gluttonous city of them all with no other city demolishing the prawns as fast as we do.

Yeaaah!

It was a really fun night in all, Caryn and I struck up conversations with all sorts of people, even some from the US and New Zealand. The prawns themselves were also absolutely stellar, everyone happily licking their lips and ripping chunks of bread to wipe up the sauce when all the prawns were gone. Finger licking good.

Thanks again to Agenda Daily for helping bring over Wok and Wine and of course Wok and Wine for providing the absolutely delicious prawns.

Be sure to sign up to Wok + Wine for future updates!

Merry Christmas! The bloggers picnic and have some cured salmon!

2011-12-25T10:00:00.003+11:00

Hey everyone!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope you all have a wonderful day, whether you're a big celebrator of the holiday and love that big man in the red suit, or prefer just to have a quiet one in with close friends and family.

Today I'm going to be busy shuttling between Brad's family celebrations and my family's celebrations which means...lots of food for all! I hope all your tummies will be as well fed as mine!

Overtime I've personally grown to enjoy the holiday more as a time to have an excuse to get together with friends and family and share lots of food and laughs. Sure when I was young, I was crazy about the presents and ripped them open with fervour and enthusiasm. It's not so much about that now, but I do love to give and if I can think of something that someone would really like, but maybe not go out of the way to buy themselves, I'm happy to add something under the tree (or 'Christmas Corner' in our case).

In a way, I was a little bit fortunate not to have too many Christmas parties to attend this season, after all there's only so much food one can eat and drink! It sounded like some people were having some very boozy weeks! But I was quite pleased to be invited along to a christmas picnic, with some of my favourite bloggers.

After all, I have now learnt there are two types of picnics that are always worth going to. Picnics with food bloggers…or picnics with gay friends. Dead serious. I went to an Australia day picnic two years ago, and was the only girl in a sea of gay men. Was one of the most delicious picnic's I had ever been on as beautiful cultural dishes, absolutely divine nibbles from the deli and even sweets were brought out!

This Christmas picnic though, was also outstanding, with content 'mmm's' and 'ooh' and 'yuuuum's', going around the table. What was also so nice was as a group, everyone was so intrigued by everyone else's dishes, asking how they were prepared, if recipes were going to be shared and a whole array of other tips and tricks!

So much sharing!

Although the weather threatened to blow all our cups and plates away and potentially pour down on us, it fortunately held out till we actually all finished eating!

We had roast lamb from Agnes, an antipasti plate (with some absolutely delicious sundered tomatoes) and rice paper rolls from Kat, an array of paleo inspired salads and cauliflower rice (which was deceptively simple and totally awesome) from I-Hua, a lovingly garlicky hummus and cheesy potatoes from Bianca, beautifully refreshing fruit jellies from Bryan, and a passionfruit and mango cheesecake from Thanh. Amongst other things. Too much food, too little time to take pictures. Must eat. All of it.

Oh and a trifle from Adrian. Not just a trifle though. A TRIFLE.

I-Hua and I kept buzzing over the trifle until everyone had finished their mains. She kept trying to fool me into thinking I was full so she could have my share! Aghast!

My contribution was one kilo of cured salmon, which to my surprise was completely eaten up and some chocolate banana bread, which I was quite pleased with, considering I haven't baked anything in ages!

And in the spirit of sharing, here's my 'instructions' (I don't know if I can really call it a recipe!) on how to make cured salmon. Which is surprisingly easier than you think. You just need to make sure you start preparing the fish a few days in advance, before you plan to eat it! It really is a great little appetiser to a dinner party, being a family favourite, or as I have shown, for taking out to a picnic!

And because I didn't take pictures of the process, I've decided to draw some crappy pictures for you guys, hope you guys get to try it out sometime! Next time maybe I'll do the recipe for the chocolate banana bread…with actual photos!

INGREDIENTS

Fillet of salmon, no skin, no bones etc. etc.

I bought mine from Tassals salmon shop in Kew (just down the road from me!), without the skin. My parents sometimes like to buy the fillet with the skin (which is cheaper) and use the skin to make crispy salmon skin to have on top or rice…or as a snack later. My piece was 1.1kgs, which fed about 15 people fairly comfortably, my parents often get a 1.4kg fillet though.

Salt

Sugar

Cucumber (for making pretty later)

For dressing:

Soy sauce

Sesame oil

Wasabi

METHOD

Day 1.

Get a big container that can preferably fit your whole fillet inside. If not you can cut your fish in two and layer them on top of each other.

Roughly cover the base of the container in sugar. Sweet sweet sugar. I reckon I probably used about a 3/4 cup? Maybe close to a cup even. Depends how sweet you like it I guess!

Pick up your fillet and dip the sides of it into the sugar so that they are lightly coated.

Rub the rest of the fish with the sugar, all over, and then cover and leave it for around 24 hours in the fridge.

Day 2.

You should find liquid in the bottom of the container now. Drain this out. No need to clean the container.

Salt your fish the same way you did with the sugar. Dip the sides, then rub the rest.

Leave in your fridge again for 24 hours or so.

Day 3 or 4.

Prepare your cucumber!

Mum likes to make thin ribbons by taking a peeler and just running it down the length of the cucumber.

Once ribboned, put in a sieve over a bowl with a few pinches of sugar lightly mixed through and let it drip for about half an hour.

In the mean time, take your fish out of the container and rub it down with a kitchen towel to get rid of as much salt as you can. If you have trouble getting rid of all the salt as I did, or you're finding your fish tastes too salty, get a clean kitchen cloth, wet it and then use that to rub it.

Get a super sharp knife and cut into thin slices. My parents like it super thin, I like it with a little more width. Personal preferences!

To serve, squeeze the cucumber so all the juices are out then put on a plate. Then it's up to you to decorate really, some personal suggestions would be to use the cucumber as a 'bed' and put the salmon on top as I have in the pictures. The salmon can be rolled up to look like little rosettes which are quite cute. I have also put the cucumber in the middle of a plate and put all the salmon around it.

To dress, mix a bit of sesame oil, a bit of soy sauce and some wasabi in a small bowl, then drizzle over salmon.

Shower with sesame seeds as you see fit.

Proceed to omnomnoms.

Thanks again to everyone at the picnic for a wonderful meal and for being such awesome company. Looking forward to the next one!

And again

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Brix Cafe and Bristot

2011-12-23T09:00:00.001+11:00

A few of my favourite things.

Rainy overcast days (but not windy days!).

Black pudding.

Black tea. No milk.

Going out for breakfast.

Spending time with Brad.

And I got all of this one lovely morning at The Brix.

After not being able to find Brix the weekend before, as it is very, very neatly tucked into the side of a building running perpendicular to Brunswick Street, I was quite promptly reprimanded by Essjay on twitter. I was glad she did despair at me though, as I really had a lovely breakfast with Brad the weekend after, when I decided I really would find it!

We were really both quite surprised how quiet it was on a Saturday morning, which suited us though. It's really only over meals when we go out, as I gulp down my French breakfast tea, which comes in the most adorable tea set, and Brad sips on his latte, that we get the opportunity to contemplate our lives, the world and what the future holds. Yes I had tea. No chai latte at Brix!

It's funny with Brad and I, as we're so alike, yet so unlike. I'm the yappy one, he's a little more quiet and contemplative. I love taking and being in photos, he hates posing. He's always up for a good intellectual debate, I'd much rather avoid any form of confrontation no matter how mild. Yet we can both lean back in our chairs and enjoy watching the rain gently navigate it's way down the windows. And nerd out over video games together.

I can only guess that Brad knew what I was going to order the second we got the breakfast menus. The breakfast menu is short, but if not for the option I had, I would have had trouble picking what I would want to have as everything sounded so delicious!

But when I see "Black pudding: apple, radish, duck egg" on the menu, I just know there's no two ways about it.

It's very much like Ora's black pudding offering, except that the black pudding at Brix appears less fatty and is much milder in the metallic blood taste. It was also more charred around the outside, which provided a slightly crisp outside and an absolutely lush and meaty inside. It also had a lovely kick of warmth to it, which I certainly savoured. Brad waited patiently as I had my 'moment' with my black pudding. He knows I need my space at certain times.

And my gosh, the bread! The perfectly buttery, perfectly toasted, kinda flaky bread! Words cannot describe, it reminded me a lot of the brioche I had back in Paris!

Brad needing something a little more substantial went for the pork cassoulet with a baked egg, persillade and rye bread. It was exactly what he needed.

With an oozy egg sitting in the middle, it was a deliciously rich dish. The beans in the cassoulet had absolutely absorbed all the porky sausage flavour, which basically equals: super yum. Brad quite enjoyed wiping up what was left with his bread.

After breakfast, I could have sat there all day by the window. Brix is the sort of place that looks really neat and slick, but there's always something catching your eye, whether it be the draped roped (which I thought kind of looked like rib cages), or the beautifully painted, but rather somber looking painting on the wall. I think the decorations, the mismatched walls, all sort of make me feel like I'm at home.

And so, with one visit, The Brix is easily set to be added to my list of favourite things. Hang tight for a photobomb of a post, when I recount what I had at the $80 fixed price, 5 course menu a few weeks later….

What are some of your favourite things? :)

The Brix Cafe & Bristot

Rear 412 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy, VIC 3065

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