The week in brief: 12 March – 18 March

This week: MFWF express lunches, cocktails, and yum cha.


On Monday it was Labour Day in Melbourne, so we took the opportunity to do another Melbourne Food & Wine Festival express lunch with the usual eating crew.

After an annoyingly indecisive email chain, we eventually decided on No. 35 in the Sofitel. This is the view from the restaurant – not too shabby, huh?

The food was also rather good. This pork croquette was my entree.

Alastair had the lamb shoulder for his main. My main (the fish) isn’t pictured, because it’s not as pretty as Alastair’s.

We both had dessert (I know!). Mine was the coconut, pickled pineapple, lime tapioca and granita, which was really good.

I was pleasantly surprised by the food there. I hadn’t been expecting much. Service was terribly slow at the end though.

After lunch at No. 35 we rested for a couple of hours (actually, I think I may have made us go for a run) before heading out to Brunetti for their Sweet and Sticky event (disclosure – we were invited).

All the tables were already laid out when we arrived. OMG. It was a pretty full on sugary filled evening.

Over several hours, the winemaker from Buller Wines and the Brunetti chocolatier talked us through the eight pairings of fortified wines and chocolates (actually, seven chocolates and one ice cream). I found it quite an interesting event – not everything matched well to my palate, but some did work really well together.

Blog post to come, but check out Eat Play Shop‘s post, who I ended up sitting next to. She figured out who I was when she saw me post on Instagram – hehee.

Wednesday night saw me catch up with Mazzie at Der Raum for Cocktails envelop the senses. More details next week – I’ve already written it up. 🙂

Yesterday, I met up with Haz and Gazman for another express lunch, this time at Matteo’s. This was the best express lunch so far. Everything was delicious and all the portion sizes were very generous. Pictured here is Haz’s entree of salmon, kingfish and tuna tartare.

For dessert, they had a mini tasting plate which consisted of a berry tartlet, chocolate fondant, and nougat parfait (which didn’t really make it into the photo…).

Despite the lack of photos, particularly of the mains (they didn’t look pretty enough to post yet), it was a really good lunch. It was a shame that we couldn’t linger, but we had to leave so they could set up for the next sitting.

And finally, today I went to yum cha at Tao Tao House with Bro and his gf. We ate so much. After we got the bill, I added up all the dishes – we ate fifteen dishes between the three of us. Erm…

What did we eat? Lots of dumplings, chicken feet, tripe, more dumplings. I liked the tripe, but they didn’t have the awesome tendon that I really loved the first time. Disappointment.

We even had (several) desserts. Like the mango pancakes. And custard buns.

And of course, we had an egg tart before we left. 🙂 Check out my previous post on Tao Tao House here.

Notice the lack of cooking this week? Yep, the only cooking I did was today – when I made a big batch of bolognaise sauce for birthday lasagne next week. Oh yes, it’s birthday lasagne time again! Hooray!

Also – the competition to win a signed copy of Bill Granger’s latest cookbook will close next Saturday. Gotta be in it to win it. 🙂