This week in brief
Spring, is that you?
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Spring, is that you?
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I’m starting off a new series – a weekly post that will collect up my twitter / instagram photos or little snippets from my week that don’t warrant a full post.
Merry Xmas! Cisco the Christmas cat says hello! He spent Xmas morning underneath the Xmas tree, guarding the presents.
I hope everyone had a lovely day, full of family, friends and fab food. We had our traditional Orphans’ Xmas, though it was an unofficial Orphans’ gathering this year since my parents are currently visiting. Here are some pics of our day!
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I know that I’m not the only food blogger who struggles with this. Basically, I eat more than I blog, which means I have a rather large amount of photos accumulated. In order to get through some of them, I’m going to cram several places into a couple of posts. After that maybe I’ll tackle the photos of food I’ve cooked but haven’t blogged?
Dead Man Espresso
Libertine – Suckling Pig Banquet
Auction Rooms
St Ali vs Vitasoy
We went to Dead Man Espresso with Maria and Daz a couple of months ago. They had a very short food menu on the weekend (I’m not sure if it’s different during the week) which was a shame. I suppose the focus is on the coffee? I thought my coffee was okay, but others weren’t that impressed with their coffees.
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This year, we had our usual Orphan’s Xmas with the Kiwi Kensington Crew – me and the Boys, plus Dany, Scott, Ben, Lisa and honorary member Nate.
Previous years have taught us we never have an appetite for a full meal, so everyone bought a selection of nibbles. As you’ll see, there was a fair amount of food, but considering the small amount of leftovers, we catered rather well.
There were ribs, smoked salmon on toasts, devils on horseback (prunes wrapped in bacon) and ham.
There were also chicken wings, chicken nuggets, cheese, olives, peperonata, roasted cherry tomatoes, marinated mushrooms, and leek and sundried tomato empanadas. PLUS, there were spicy koftas, a couple of dips, sweet & salty nuts, candied pecans and more cheese (most of which hasn’t been opened and will probably be eaten on NYE!).
Moving on to the sweet stuff – gingerbread cookies, cherry tarts, almond crescents, chocolate dipped strawberries, plus fruit (cherries, grapes) and pavlova (not pictured).
After a couple of rounds of eating, there was “cricket” in the park.
As well as some board games – Operation and Cranium.
The mess we created on the floor was VERY impressive. This wasn’t even half of it.
Hopefully everyone else had a great Xmas too! Recipes for some of our Xmas food to come.
It’s time for another round up of food I’ve eaten – mostly from my trip to Hobart with Mum and Dad.
Mures, Upper Deck
Victoria Dock,
Hobart, Tasmania
Phone: (03) 6231 1999
Our first night in Hobart, we wandered around acquainting ourselves with the city. For dinner, we walked down to the waterfront and decided to eat at a seafood restaurant.
I had blue eye fillets, marinated in soy, honey, garlic, and ginger, char grilled and served with stir fried vegetables and potatoes ($31.50). It was okay – not great, not bad.
Dad had fish and chips ($29.50), and choose to have his fish grilled. It was served with chips and salad. Mum had the baked blue eye served on borlotti beans, roast zucchini, eggplant and capscium with sweet corn puree and pappa di pomadoro sauce ($33.50).
Mako Seafood
Constitution Dock
Hobart, Tasmania
My Dad seemed to be obsessed with fish so the following night we had fish and chips. We went down to the waterfront again, and ate at Mako Seafood, which is actually a floating two level pontoon. Along with the fried stuff, you can also purchase fresh fish.
I had a mini fish basket – for $8.50 I got a piece of fish, which was trevalla, a prawn, scallop, calamari and small chips.
Mum and Dad shared a fish feast – fish, 2 prawns, 2 calamari, scallop, chips and salad.
Say Cheese
7 Salamanca Square
Hobart, Tasmania
Phone: (03) 6224 2888
On Saturday, after visiting the Salamanca Markets, we stopped for lunch at Say Cheese. I felt like eating bits and pieces, so I ordered an antipasto platter ($23). It was massive! The plate was loaded with cheese, smoked turkey kransky, button mushrooms, smoked octopus, eggplant, peppers, olives, sundried tomatoes, and dolmades.
I also received a large bread roll and crackers. It could’ve easily fed two people. Look how many crackers there were!
Fortunately, Mum and Dad had smaller meals so they were able to help me out with mine! Mum had a smoked chicken salad and Dad had a smoked salmon salad.
New Sydney Hotel
87 Bathurst Street
Hobart, Tasmania
Nearing the end of our trip, we had dinner at a random pub. I had a MASSIVE peppered steak pot pie ($20). This thing was seriously gigantic, and it was all big chunks of meat. It was also quite salty, and I only managed half because I got rather tired of eating nothing but meat chunks. The chips were good though.
Mum had a small seafood and tomato pasta with rocket ($13) while Dad had fish AGAIN. He had the fish of the day ($28). Mum also ordered us a caesar salad ($10) to share – and thank goodness she did! I was grateful for the lettuce to break up the tedium of my pot pie.
Raupo Riverside Café
2 Symons St,
Blenheim, New Zealand
Phone: +64 3 577 8822
In November, Alastair and I also made a quick trip to Blenheim. Last time we were there, we had breakfast at Raupo. On this trip, we found ourselves at a loose end and went to Raupo again for cake and coffee. We had a chocolate torte with white chocolate mousse and raspberries ($7.50). It was a sponge like cake, so wasn’t too heavy, and it was yuuuuuuuum.
We returned again for breakfast on our last day. I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry (I’m not sure what was wrong with me – it’s very unusual!) and just had a couple of mini croissants with butter and jam (normal toast wasn’t on the menu).
Alastair had pancakes with fresh fruit and yoghurt.
That’s it for this edition! I have been a tad slack with posting recently, but I have a couple of half written posts that I will try and finish this weekend.
Yey! It’s time for another food round up post (aka I’ve got a backlog of photos).
So what have I been eating? Well, it appears that eggs have been featuring heavily.
There’s been boiled eggs with toast soldiers.
There’s been scrambled eggs topped with feta, cooked Gordon Ramsey style.
And served on toast, of course. I really like toast! If I lived by myself, I could see myself having cheese on toast for dinner most nights.
It’s a good thing I have people to cook for!
Check out the video for Gordon Ramsey’s explanation on how to make the perfect scrambled eggs.
More egg (and bread) – one weekend I made savoury French toast. I put some grated cheese in the middle of two slices of bread, squished the bread flat, and then dunked the sandwiches into an egg mixture before pan frying. Yum!
Speaking of French toast, I have a post coming up where I’ll tell you about the brunch where we had the most sublime French toast EVER. Also known as the brunch where I got blog outed!
Moving away from eggs, one weekend we had a beef pot roast for dinner. It looks strangely glossy, and I promise that I haven’t being doing strange things like varnishing my food to take photos. I think it’s glossy due to the gravy that I poured over.
I thought the meat was just okay – but the carrots and celery were super tasty!
With the pot roast we also had this potato thing. Sliced garlic was softened in butter in a frying pan, then I layered thinly sliced potatoes on top with more butter. After cooking on the stove for a while, the whole thing went under the grill to cook the top. Garlic, potato, butter… I would have to hang up my apron if it had turned out anything less than scrumptious. (Fortunately it was brilliant!)
This is oxtail ragu on brown pasta. The last time I cooked oxtail, Alastair decided that it weirded him out and didn’t want to eat it (even though he’s eaten it before). Next time I make it, I’m going to take the meat off the bone and tell him it’s normal beef!
And finally, this bowl was the last of the quinoa I had in the house. I know quinoa is very nutritious, and I’ve tried very hard to like it – but I just don’t. So no more quinoa – huzzah!
Jeepers. My entire weekend has been spent cleaning the house in anticipation of my parents’ arrival on Wednesday. Now, my house is not normally that unclean, considering we all work full time and we HAVE LIVES, but every time they visit they comment on how dirty it is. Obviously the house is clean enough to me, but not clean enough to them. Being Chinese, they have very high standards and nothing is ever good enough. Kidding! Kidding! That may be the stereotype, but fortunately my folks aren’t really like that. Just with cleanliness, apparently!
Since I haven’t had any time or energy for cooking this weekend, here’s a little showcase of meals other people have cooked! Y’all know by now that I love cooking, but it’s still nice when other people cook for me. 🙂
My Bro’s friend Derms visited at the beginning of this year. One night he made chicken curry for dinner (with some assistance from my Bro). I find curry terribly difficult to photograph, so I didn’t do the meal justice. We teamed the chicken curry with basmati rice, and it was fragrant, tangy and spicy. Visitors who cook are visitors worth having!
And this is a lasagne that my Bro made one evening a while ago. He cooked up a rich meat sauce, and layered it with cheese sauce and lasagne sheets.
It’s hard to go wrong with lasagne, and despite my Bro’s grumbles about the cheese sauce, there was nothing wrong with this lasagne. It was pretty ace, actually.
When my mother in law, Annette, was here the previous week, she offered to cook dinner one evening. Alastair got to choose a meal, and he asked for a lamb roast. Poor lad, he only gets a few roasts a year from me! This is the roast lamb, perfectly cooked and tender.
Along with the lamb there were roast vegetables: pumpkin, kumara/sweet potato, parsnip and roast potatoes. The pumpkin and kumara had softened up and become sweet and slightly caramelised. A special mention must also be made of Annette’s roast potatoes, which were gorgeously crispy with a pillowy soft centre.
And she even made gravy! Proper gravy!
Ahh, it was a good meal.
But that wasn’t all! There was also dessert – yoghurt sweetened with honey and orange juice and layered with blueberries.
There was lots of lamb left over, so the following night we had the rest with some salad. The lamb was tender and garlicky, and the salad was thrown together from bits and pieces that has been hiding in the bottom of my fridge. Nom nom nom.
It’s time for another “What I’ve been eating” post!
Grand Asia
Target Centre Arcade
236 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Curry beef noodle soup ($7.80)
Haninese chicken rice ($7.50)
Cafe Bland
Noodle Kingdom
175 Russell St, Melbourne 3000
Phone: (03) 9654 2828
Lanzhou beef noodle soup ($7.50)
And finally, a few things I’ve been cooking.
Udon noodles
Vegie pattie roll
Soba noodles with enoki and oyster mushrooms
I’ve been trying to play catch up with things ever since we got back. It took me six weeks, but I have finally caught up with all my RSS feeds. I had 1000+ items when we returned, and finally they’re all gone! Gone!!
I have a few food images that don’t warrant a full post, so here’s a quick pictorial of things I’ve been eating in the past few weeks.
Piadina Slowfood
57 Lonsdale St
Melbourne 3000 VIC
Phone: (03) 9662 2277
I had a leisurely lunch at Piadina Slowfood. It was a warm day so I was able to snag a table outside. I had the pan seared yellowfin tuna with green bean salad.
The tuna was covered in sesame seeds and just seared so it was pink and moist in the middle. The beans and salad had just the right amount of a soy and ginger dressing. I finished off my meal with a caramelly flat white. What a lunch!
Grand BBQ
Target Centre Arcade
236 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Another lunch, not quite as leisurely, was yong tau foo from Grand BBQ. You can choose 6 pieces of yong tau foo, then make a choice between vermicelli, hor fun, hokkein or egg noodles. Finally there’s a decision on soup – clear, curry or tom yum. I choose eggplant, chilli, fish cake, fish ball, stuffed tofu and a dumpling. I didn’t realise that the chilli was a spicy one. What I actually wanted was a piece of capsicum but I had a moment of decision panic. Doh! I love chilli, but this was a bit much.
The only thing harder than deciding on the six items was finding a seat. They were busy!
Chillipadi
Shop OE7, Menzies Alley, Melbourne Central
211 La Trobe Street,, Melbourne
Phone: (03) 9663-5688
We had a late dinner at Chillipadi, where I couldn’t go past the nasi lemak. I loved the way it was presented, but it wasn’t quite as good as other ones I’ve had. The pickles weren’t as tangy as I like but the rendang was tasty and fragrant.
George Hotel
139 Cecil Street, South Melbourne
Phone: (03) 9686 5655
I had a massive pub burger from the George Hotel. The meat pattie could’ve used a bit more seasoning, but the chips were surprisingly good. I don’t usually like thin fries much, but these were crunchy and moreish. I couldn’t finish the burger because I was concentrating on the chips.
For dinner one evening I used left over brown rice to make rice fritters. I combined the rice with some grated vegetables, egg, a bit of flour and soy sauce, before shaping them into patties and rolling them in breadcrumbs. They were very tasty.
Another dinner was a stir fry of beef and cabbage with szechuan pepper. There was a bit too much szechan pepper and it numbed my tongue. Gak!
And finally, I’ve been really enjoying some summer fruits – cherries, lychees, and raspberries as well as blueberries and mangoes. Delicious!