Good Eatings

On Hiatus....

2010-08-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post this for ages...sorry about the delay.I still love food and I do still in fact eat food but life has thrown a big old serving of crazy at me and time is just too short at the moment for me to snoop bloggy blog it

I hope everyone is doing well and hopefully when things calm down I'll be back...peace out party people keep eating tasty food...winters almost over get all the calorie laden comfort food in that you can!

Melbourne...

2010-05-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

So we are heading off for a "mini break" as they say to Melb. It basically just consists of eating so far so I guess we will have to find something to do with the in between meal times...

I think I will go to the casino one night. Compared to Sydney's craptastic casino it is like the Bellagio....you lose money all the same either way but at least it's vaguely more attractive to do it at Crown.

I have a personal food attache in the form of my most awesome friend ever so i'm in luck!

Going for a casual vibe this time around...it's cold!no-one can be bothered dressing up when it's cold.

So the Food list so far:

-Press Club (I like the call it press gang as a throwback to 5pm abc tv)

-Cumulus Inc

-Il Solito Posto for lunch

-Hu Tong dumplings

-KoKo Black hot chocolate

-Brunetti hot chocolate...I keep hearing so much about it!

The maybe baby list:

-Bistro Vue

-Movida

-Bistro Guillaume

-Gingerboy

-The infamous bratwurst

May Food Buys...

2010-05-17T21:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a food buys in a while because i'm lazy. No for reals' I had a stack of serious stuff to deal with the last few months so life has been busy! but alas i'm here now with a half assed food buys...

- Philadelphia "cream". So I just saw this at the supermarket the other day and thought egh looks suss I'LL BUY IT. I had little to no expectations with it's whole 60% less phat than real cream business but it was actually pretty good! I tried it in a potato bake type affair and it was barely even identifiable as not being real cream and certainly didn't have that cream cheese type flavour you would expect. I would say it gets a bonus point for being friendly to the waistline but a minus point for having a bunch of additives and stuff I can't pronounce on the label making it's final position coming in at neutral. I have no idea what that means....buy it?or don't.

-Quinces. I have forever been a quince hater grouping it with oxtail and suss organ meats and other parental type food purchases but give it a couple of hours in the oven with some sugar, water and a vanilla bean and my position was eternally changed! I think quince (which has a very short little season so get some!) with a nice dollop of double cream may just be my true baked fruit love.

-Haighs faux-maltesers. I was looking to branch out from the haigh's freckle diet and decided to try some of their maltesers otherwise known as "malted chocolate balls" and goooood grief they are insane in the membrane. You would think s0omething as perfect as a malteser can't really be improved upon but it really can.

-Bluefin Sushi being back open in Chatswood! I have a little Chatswood program being that i'm getting on a bit now and have to adopt routines. I go to borders, I go have bluefin sushi, maybe go to the movies but the point is it's all in the same little section of Westfield and Bluefin was IMPERATIVE to the system. It was closed for some sort of renovations (that it didn't need). It's back though and i'm pleased to report apart from some new unstable chairs, odd dessert concoctions that just keep eternally revolving and a country western vibe uniform it is as amazing, and cheap, as it has always been. I love you Bluefin. Makoto you are ok but only when I can be bothered waiting and paying for you...I'll stop talking to inanimate sushi establishments via a blog now.

-Hugos at Manly. I've previously discussed my issues with Peter Evans so no need to rehash but I will say that I love love love his lazy lunch looking out onto the water in big couches vibe at Hugo's. There is more to love now though....HUGO'S JUGS! thats not me being dirty but rather the awesome jugs of cocktails they have. They are around the $35-$40 mark so not super cheap but they are super delicous and i'd say alot cheaper than doing individual drinks. Go down for Sunday arvos after 4 with the frikka frikka fresh dj spinning it up and get crunk. We are particularly enamored by the Jet LI concoction. Here's us with our calamari, wagyu carpaccio and ninja drinks.

- Gold kiwis. They are back and leaving green kiwi's in the dust. Team gold!!

Favourite salad right now...

2010-05-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

I have impeccable timing....it's freezing cold outside which must mean it's salad post time!

I came across this somewhere in the magic interwebs world..not sure where or why but all I know is that i'm glad I did! It's healthy and tasty and gives you the I-ate-sprouts-so-this-family-block-of-chocolate-won't-matter vibe.

It's super easy and your eyes aren't deceiving you and seeing double....I made two when I took the photo. It's not all that filling so you might want to think about making a big batch, or adding carbs or something...

It is basically just alfalfa, snow pea sprouts (which aren't always easy to find so watercress or even just mix lettuce would all be fine) as your big bed. To that just add some steamed brocolli, blanched snow peas, chopped avo, cucumber and feta. Dress the whole shebang with evoo (I really can't explain how much I hate racheal ray so much for infecting my brain with her abreevs) and lemon juice and it's good to go.

Eat it every so often and it will totally offset the calories of all the other bad stuff you end up consuming...wait.....what? that doesn't work?

Baroque, The Rocks

2010-04-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to go here for ages for a few reasons...one is their patisserie (La Rennaisance) is amazing and has the best raspberry mousse cake in existence. Another is that they are doing classic, simple french bistro fare which is always one of my favourite styles of food.

I remember reading a review in Time Out too which made it out to be great but only really gave it 3 stars out of 5 so I was curious.

The place itself is gorgeous...nice big outdoor seating area and inside it's all schmick polished concrete, ghost-ish pink chairs and a nice modern look. Lots of tables too so I would say there's a pretty decent chance of getting a table for lunch sans reservation.

To begin with there is limitless free bread from their bakery (free tastes better) with olive oil which is an odd call for a french bistro instead of butter but go with it. The specials board is full of promising sounding things (which I didn't go for this time round) such as whole ocean trout gribiche style sauce which looked amazing and seemed pretty popular judging by the surrounding tables ordering it!

We all shared a few entrees starting with the Charcuterie platter which is pictured above. It was good but nothing to write home about..2 pork based terrines and some pickled tongue (which they told me was beef cheek!tongue needs a warning...good rule of life) and few cornichons etc...

The next entree was fairly middle of the road too. Sauteed snails (my first snails..they tasted like mushrooms?) with citrus and lots of foam. Good description...the dish was a bit too creamy, not garlicky enough for snails my Ma the snail afficionado assured me me but nice enough.

The standout entree was the goats cheese cigar and beetroot salad for sure...I could eat it all day. Candied nuts and mystery dust and the whole dish was completely worth the way too cheap price they charged for it..

Main wise was when I realised holy shiz this place is amazing...simple steak frites. Stupidly I didn't get a decent photo but the beef was gorgeously moist, perfectly cooked which is no meat feat for meat served slice which usually dries out. It came with proper, handcut and double fried chips and a silky dijon sauce...A grade steak frites.

Dessert was also absolutely amazing...passionfruit souffle with passionfruit ice cream and an odd but welcome little banana milkshake shot. The souffle was absolute perfection.

The service was great, they do a monday through friday daily special including a thursday "nose to tail day". It is an absolute bargain too and the perfect place to grab a weekday lunch! If I was time out I would have given 4 stars fo' sure :)

Make sure you walk a block down the road and take home some tasty cakes from their patisserie too!

Baroque Bistro
88 George st
Sydney
(02) 9241 4811

The best muffins ever...

2010-04-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

To be calling these muffins is actually a bit of a misnomer (good word) for they are technically referred to by magnolia as "breakfast buns".

They sort of look like muffins, taste like cupcakes of a sort but are nothing like buns. I first got obsessed with making them because overseas I kept eating these tasty raspberry cheese crossaints from au bon pain (you won't regret it) and got addicted to the cream cheese raspberry combo...I soon found out the crossaints were basically satan's gift to your cardiovascular health but eh..they were good.

These were super easy to make, perfectly light and fluffy. My only addition would be wayy more jam than the recipe calls for OR small amount of baked jam and large amount of jam to eat with it.

MAGNOLIA BAKERY RASPBERRY CHEESE BREAKFAST "BUNS"

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
tub (250g) cream cheese, softened
115g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 180
Grease and lightly flour a 12 hole muffin pan
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and sugar until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the dry ingredients in two parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling them about two-thirds full. Drop 3 small dollops (about a teaspoonful each) of raspberry preserves onto the top of each bun and, using the tip of a sharp knife, swirl the preserves into the batter, forming a decorative pattern. Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the bun comes out clean.
Allow the buns to cool for about 30 minutes before sprinkling with confectioners’ sugar and serving.

bonus points for me cause I did them at 7 am so it was all stepford like....D woke up to fresh bun/muffin/cupcake thingys!

It's Gone!

2010-04-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

The complaints division tells me the black background was not loved so it got the sads, had a bit of a sook and left....bet you feel bad now!? poor little background...it never did anything to you!

Garlic Prawns...

2010-04-01T23:53:00.001-07:00

As a nice little throwback to the past we cook garlic prawns kind of often...and they always go down a treat as a quick, satisfying meal. Trick is relationship wise you eat them together so you both reek like industrial strength garlic for the next 24 hours....

It is the easiest recipe ever. My mum does it with white wine and shallots which is cool and all but sounds too time consuming. We just peel and devein the green prawns (only labour intensive and kind of gross bit). Rinse them and let them drain. I normally don't buy the giants for this either...I just personally prefer med kingie's than the monsters for cooking.

Few good glugs of olive oil, saute the garlic (your call on what you can handle! I normally do 4 thinly sliced godfather style per kg prawns but that's strong..also depends if you have good aus garlic or the el cheapo asian bleached stuff which you need a ton of). Give the garlic a minute headstart then add the prawns...trick here is they don't need long at all. Once they start losing their transparency add a handful of breadcrumbs (good old krummies are fine) and some chopped cont parsley and give that another minute or two to crispy up nicely. And donezo!

Serve them with stacks of lemon, salt to taste and some salad and bread. Easy peasy prawn-a-neasy.

I serve it on my overdone theme shell platter. As a sidenote, that I don't think i've mentioned, being that both my mum and dad are second generation seafood people (dad family was hot food mum's was cold..met in the markets at 4am over a truckload of prawns awwwww) my ma has the craziest collection of seafood themed kitchenware and tableware that I always add to everytime I go away and she gets a huge thrill from whatever I manage to find. It is one massive collection...will have to photograph it sometime soon!

Back in da hooooouse and best BBQ ever

2010-03-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

So we made it back in one piece except we returned to a missing window in our bedroom. Yep..a window. It's long and complicated but it really does make you realise how much you take windows for granted..we have a blanket crackhouse style arrangement going on for the moment and are drowning our windowless sorrows in the 10kg of ghiardelli (does anyone actually know how to say that?) chocolate I lugged back...it's working so far. Above is a creepy picture of chitown's greatest for you...areaghhhh he's watching you!

It's so so very good to be back to the world of homecooked food..tonight is roast night!! overseas we pretty much existed on a diet of sausage pizza, weird molecular gastronomy and cupcakes. I think even i'm over cupcakes right now (I really don't mean that). It's nice to have proper feta, which is one of my major food groups, and not the funny crumbly tasteless stuff.

In non food related news we saw Winston from Ghostbusters or Warden Glynn as I know him and we had a moment waiting for the plane bathroom and Neil Young on the way back who was very grumpy, old and totally rock.

So one of our very fave things from Chitown was our chauffered adventure (Stan's the man) to a popular little place called Smoque BBQ.

It wasn't all that easily accessible to crazy foreigners such as ourselves and we knew it was popular when advised to get their at opening time. So this was effectively breakfast....yeeeeeeeah why not.

D picked well with his Brisket. Brisket usually screams out to us on a bbq menu because it's just so rare here (philosophical beef sidenote... why though? the cows are the same...give us the brisket!) and this was pretty much best ever blows everything else out of the water mouth watering. It just fell apart...no cutlery even required. Smoque tends to do things with a dry rub then gives you a few pots of sauce to go alongside should you choose to accept it...which we did.

I, being the lady of the table, got 2 giant racks of ribs. One of the baby back, which were beautifully tender, and one of the St Loius which is a meatier rib. I absolutely would go the St Louis again next time... meatier, juicier and more bone to meat satisfaction. The best ribs i've ever encountered bar none and this whole meal was basically the foundation for all my BBQ aspirations. Speaking of which did anyone used to watch that guy on foxtel who was some sort a bbq master guru and had like 10 bbq's out on his patio all going at once..it was so good. I made a brocolli salad once from the show. It was super tasty but kind of a pathetic choice of recipe from a bbq themed show if I say so myself..

So sides were good...I had mac n cheese with a nice baked crunchy top. There was nice vinegary coleslaw and the piece de resistance..proper freshly made peach cobbler. I made Paula Deen y'all's peach cobbler recipe once and it was ok but didn't make the keeper list but this was OUT OF THIS WORLD GOOD. Fresh huge chunks of peaches with a sweet buttery crust that now has made cobbler one of my favourite desserts ever.

Chicago is always good to us foodwise...we had some other great meals worthy of mention. The Publican, which is a pork and beer house and we got to sit in little pig stall booths (double points for awesome themeness) was really, really great. But judging by how busy it was it's not exactly a secret! Following our pork theme (we are over pork for a a while!) was a new place called the purple pig which was amazing too and had so many unusual but they actually all worked dishes. Stuff like mortadella smear which was effectively smushed mortadella, crushed pistachio's and caramelised balsamic on chunky ciabatta. So so so good. Graham Elliot, as TC Masters lovers will recognise, was great too. Caesar salad twinkies, cream cheese ice cream, loud indie music (that I may or may not have had on my ipod) and chuck taylors as far as the eye can see. It all really worked though. I even got addicted to some truffle popcorn that was sprinkled with crack there too and truffle oil is never my style...but this was magical.

If you are heading to chi-chi anytime soon you can't go wrong at any of these places!! but I must say that first bite of vegemite toast really puts things back in perspective...good to be home!

Greetings from Chitown...

2010-03-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

I'm so sorry about the lack of posts...life has been crazy for the last month and before I knew it I was sitting on a plane picking at a very suspicious looking "salmon" salad. Please plane people...I am reluctant enough to consume the vegetarian pasta option there's no way I'm brave enough to eat the salmon!

So I am at present being a lady of luxury in Chitown which given the quality of shopping here can't be maintained for much longer unless I want to eat baked beans for the next year.I do actually have a few assessments to get a headstart on...Huxley's epiphenomenalism here I come....yay? It's kind of chilly here but not nearly as cold as we expected!

Back to the food....people here are really great and always give us (and sometimes even chauffering us!) to top notch food experiences. So far we have had the best BBQ of our life on arrival day, an amazing goats cheese salad (I know..salad in america!), an evening at Xoco complete with Mr Bayless and his charming self in the flesh and plenty more...as time allows I'll be sure to be posting about it all!

The food here is seriously amazing quality and a super diverse mix of cultures...which is ironic because i'm being incredibly creative and investing alot of time into the cupcake diet. It's really as complex as it sounds. And even Irish themed cupcakes....they are st paddys day crazed over here and kiss me i'm Irish pops up everywhere.I strongly suspect 99.9999% of everyone dressed in top to toe green have nothing to do with anything irish except maybe their second cousin went to ireland once and it's just an excuse to get trashed! Tonight there will be guiness and some sort of corned beef type dinner thingy and drunkard green people falling over everywhere....

Also adventuring this arvo to the mothership that is Williams Sonoma, checking out a new cupcake shop that people are raving about and having a "slice" (serious size understatement) of the sausage pizza at wholefoods which have become somewhat of a weak point...and as my suspiciously healthy non vegan looking checkout hipster friend guy assured me they really are "freaking awesome".

Fleury: Come Dine With Me Night!!!

2010-02-18T13:14:00.000-08:00

So obviously it being my family and all I couldn't expect real scores with the same level of criticism as the real show....but I dove in first and Dale is coming up next. there has been furious research conducted to knock me off the leaderboard ( I like that i'm winning..being the only contestant so far haha)

I lovelovelove english CDWM and have been addicted for soo long and am kind of digging the new Aussie one but feel like it's maybe a bit staged and people are on it for attention or whatever eg b grade celebrities feigning intoxication. I've seen enough of the british show to know what real sloshed is.

Speaking of the English show I will share with you my very favourite sequence I have ever seen which might be something to do with valerie and her awesome method of speech haha. Dale and I say a closed mouth suppppperb pheasant on an almost daily basis...you wouldn't think the occasion pops up that often to say it but we work it in there. I also like attention seeking whiny bitch Bernard and it all comes to a climax with dawn who self medicates before her main course of old el paso burritos and literally, passes out. I feel so bad for the normal guy stuck in it all. It was basically the best CDWM there has ever been ever....but back to Valerie cause it's all about her!!!!she looks pretty much exactly like the little bulldog above hahhaha made it millions of taimes in the porst

I don't know how to embed or do any fancyschmansy interweb stuff but here's the linky: watch it whenever you need a little valerie pick me up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfV9zQQvjAk

ok now moving onto the main event!!!

My first course scored me some serious "balls" points as d put it and I tried my first ever cheese souffle with a goats cheese mache salad. This is actually breaking a CDWM rule because you really shouldn't be hitting the first time recipes. I was kind of scared because my recipe has 19 freaking steps but then I realised most of the steps were fluff...but it was still full on!!! I did have second (first is with the dessert) little cdwm meltdown which would have been so good for tv of me swearing because my beater heads weren't quite right on my KA so when I put the last of my fluffy egg whites in I had a bit of unmixed white's hiding that slipped in..ergh it was bad! but I recovered nicely.

I was quite impressed they rose so nicely..not exactly even rising but that's ok! they deflated super fast though so that was my only problem. By the time it's cooled enough to eat it it's well on it's way down...not sure if that was my fault or not but oh well..I'll keep trying! They were really nice and cheesy and the recipe I used called for breadcrumbs around the rammekin sides which was really tasty and gave a bit of textural difference to them. As always feel free to email for recipes!

Main wise I did the tried and tested (stuck to the CDWM rule this time) Coq Au Vin which was amazing as always and also scored well. Really lovely, rich flavours and such a great recipe.

For dessert I did a simple lemon tart but cue my first disaster of the day..I filled my tart tin with biscuit base and patted it down all perfectly and everything without once thinking ummm there kind of isn't any room left for the actual filling. Anyway it finally dawned on me 5 minutes later and I had to swap it all to a larger tin with higher sides which was a tad too big so I didn't have perfect sides..but no-one seemed to notice.

The finished product was delicous..so much so that d gave me a full 10/10. I personally thought the filling needed a little more time to set but apparently that's what people liked about it..that the filling and base melted into one bite. maybe I should take that on board for the future.

So the final scores were a 9/10 from my brother who was always going to be the easist points because he eats virtually anything human vacuum style, Dale gave me a 8.5/10 which was actually surprising...he assures me he genuinely wanted to give me less but really thought it was that good! Mum performed the classic CDWM move and gave me a mumlike 9/10 on the night and in the morning performed a retraction to an 8 so there's "room to move" on the remaining nights. She is obviously feeling the heat.

So there's no way in hell I will ever be on the show...$2000 isn't worth the loss of dignity haha but I do like our little home healthy competition and can't wait to see what the remaining nights pull out!I think we will do the nights weekly rather than straight in a row so I will keep you updated...kind of worried about dale's know he can do macaron's! dark horse.

Valentines Day Awwwwwwwww...

2010-02-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

So this Valentines I told Dale to organise the whole shebang (meaning book somewhere) but he went allout and decided to MAKE me dinner! let's just preface this whole thing saying he doesn't have a whole lot of time to spare most days and has only cooked for me a few times over the last decade..so I figured he would choose some approachable recipes with those facts in mind.

But noooooooooo he harnessed his freakish determination instead. It was all a big mystery except for the fact it effectively took up his entire weekend grocery shopping, preparing etc and that kind of tipped me off that something big was going down.

So wait for it....HE MADE MACARONS!!! White chocolate and raspberry pink macarons at that!!!

Ignoring just the physical difficulties of macaron making I was soo impressed he chose the such an aspirational (word? I thought wisdomal was a word for years so i'm ok with it either way) recipe just because it is my favourite thing ever!

Dale mid prep...

The finished product was in fact PERFECT and i'm even going to say better than a zumbo macaron..yeah I said it!and i'm a harsh critic so i'm seriously not fibbing for his ego. They were absolutely amazing....chewy, melting and perfect. he even got both a skin and a foot in the process..it sounds gross but these are "macaron terms"....

For the other course we started with a sexy fig, proscuitto and mozza salad with was super tasty.

We then moved onto a roast butternut pumpkin, sage and pancetta risotto which was super labour intensive and has a bit of a story behind it. I am not a lover of rice. I'll eat it, it and I have no major issues with eachother I just don't love it..and the wetter it is the less I love it if that makes sense. So Risotto isn't really my thang. So D, the risotto activist, decided to make me a real blood sweat and tears type risotto with all the stirring and palava and...drumroll...it was still gross. The crunchy piece of pancetta was nice and I could appreciate that it was tasty but it still had that wet sloppy rice thing that just isn't for me!

But I <3 you bubblicious and thankyou for the bestest valent9's ever. LOLROFLYTTYL!

Feb Food Buys!

2010-02-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

Wooooo feb....I like feb as far as months go. Valentines day, the final endurance leg of summer (not a summerlover). Here's what I've been loving this month...

-The possibility of going to Chitown in March and eating cupcakes and felafel and farmers market goodness and red vines and everything else that awesome foodie epicentre holds

-Riverview butcher. The lovely Veronica actually put me onto this butcher and now I kinda alternate between here and Hudson's depending on whats convenient but they are really amazing. So friendly, lovely flavour and quality, even better prices and wait for the clincher... they cryovac!!!!So you can go once a week or whatever and literally get all your meat for the whole week (even more if you want) and keep it in your fridge till you are ready! I can't even get over how enthusiastic I am about this...completely revolutionises the idea of having to go to the butchers every 2 days...

- Sugar Plums. They are soo cute and cheap right now (they have them at Harris Farm for $5 a kg) and the most adorable little tasty plums ever. Dale is trying to convince me they become prunes which totally grosses me out because i'm not a prune lover. Just the word prune really..ugh.

-On the fruit topic we are reaching the final leg of seasonal fruit awesomeness...get peaches, nectarines and apricots while you can!the grapes and mangoes are pretty much on the way out already boo

-I think this was on my last food buys but Ryo's Noodles....the addiction is in full force. Can't. Stop. Tokyo style with corn is where it's at.

- Come Dine with Me nights.....being the party planner I have forced dale and family into CDWM nights. I went first to break the ice and pretty much hit a home run so now everyone is feeling a little apprehensive about taking me on but I have high expectations for dale's night..there's been alot of secret squirrel research going on. Will def post and take photo's when all is said and done!

- The raspberry mousse cake down at Baroque in the Rocks. It is sooooooo good it hurts. And bonus points cause when you eat it you just know that you can never and will never create anything even close to this masterpiece.

-Cadbury mini eggs....since my last rant about creme eggs I have since decided I speak truth...they are new and unimproved!!! so i've moved on to the little crunchy shelled eggs for my easter fix. They are the best and I challenge you not to eat the whole bag in one sitting! speaking of easter I walked past the $2 shop and saw all kinda of cute easter baskets and bunny ears and everything...now to find a victim to dress up....hmmm...like maybe, I don't know....dale!!!???

and a new addition to the food buys (or maybe just a special occasion addition) is Feb food NON BUYS!!!

There is really only one. As anyone who knows me is aware i'm the biggest zumbo groupie ever and in my eyes he can do no wrong..until now my friends. I have been scarred by the latest collection! There are many (as previously blogged) excellent choices atm but several of the most disgusting flavours I have ever encountered in my life lurking in there too.

Both items are so disgusting that they are equally ranked in the foul stakes. One is the cauliflower upside down cloud...sounds nice, even looks nice but there is this liquid smoke burnt flavour that is simply the worst thing I have ever come across and literally made me want to gag. Then we have a corn and mango concoction which is pretty much equal with eating chunky, slimy dirt. It was revolting with a capital R. Seriously...i'm sure this whole post is actually making you want to try them out of curiosity but seriously...don't do it!!!!!

These are the offenders:

Etch (the redux)

2010-02-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

Ok so no pics for this one but I kinda have to take back my original A+++ would deal with again review of Etch after this last visit. They have really changed stuff up (so much so that i'm sure there is ALOT of letdown people visiting expecting something that no longer exists).

They have changed up their menu so there is no longer the little appetiser's bit goodbye goats cheese balls, skate knobs etc. Now it's just a straightup entree, main and dessert restaurant. the sweetcorn soup (at least for now) has no crab and is way frothy compared to previously....major letdown. It's just blended up corn really.

The worst thing is that the portion sizes are absolutely riciculously small. We even saw several other people saying the same thing...after 3 courses we were starrrrrving. When I say small I mean for $30 way smaller than one plate in a degust menu. My pork belly, which was quite nice just not amazing, was maybe 2 or 3 bites at best.

Service was still nice and polite and I do really like the decor in there. The food itself wasn't bad at all, just very small and seemed cheap on ingredients and not really mind blowing at all. For example the famed lobster omelette had really no definable lobster in it. $40 for what is effectively just egg and a bit of cheese...

So when you do the math you realise that 3 courses at Etch on this whole new menu regime add's up to preeeeetty much dinner at Becasse you have to think to yourself maybe it's not such a good plan!

I'm probably just being a bit of a whiny bitch because it was meant to be a nice night out for my Ma but ended up such a letdown.....boo hoo.

Amici, Cammeray

2010-02-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

I've thought soo many times about going to Amici in Cammeray but was always lured by the mussels and frittersaus just a few doors up down the road. I read their quite glowing review in the smh guide and thought it's finally time. Normally Italian I just cook at home rather than go out for it. I do remember having some of their pizza a long time ago and thinking how good it was but never actually been there to sit down...

I'm really glad I did though because Amici was a serious goldmine...just really simple, not complicated and overwhelming menu and amazing top notch quality. The service was lovely too, professional and welcoming and felt truly genuine which is more than you can say about alot of places! Inside it is quite small and I imagine it would get crazy packed on weekend nights though.

We didn't feel super hungry which was good for both the bill and waistlines so shared a few dishes. To begin we had the revered octopus with sicilian olives, chilli and garlic. It was absolute perfection. They really know what they are doing the the ocotopus and there wasn't an ounce of bite to it..it was so tender it virtually melted away. I love the steaming hot, braised style of octopus. Dale was hoping for a tiny it of crispyness but really there's not a whole lot of talent in bbq octopus..even I can do that! the braised is where it's at. I loved the fact the chilli was whole too so you could opt in or out. If I HAD to find a fault the sicilian olives, as they always do, didn't pack much punch in the flavour department and the whole dish could have maybe done with a bit of acid (how top chef does that sound) but was really so amazing it would be a serious crime not to order it!

We also got some evoo (goddamn you rachael ray) and woodfired bread which was nicely grassy and a quite a large serve of oil. None of that tiny little dipping bowl stuff. It kind of looks small in the pic though...but it's not!

The rest of the menu sounded like it had some winners too...other tables were getting what looked like meltingly perfect mushroom risotto's, seafood linguine's complete with foil duck (or goose? the artistic representation is tricky sometimes). Really nice simple italian fare that hit the spot. There was a little too much truffle oil rearing it's fug, gross head on the menu though...

For the main we knew what we were there for and didn't stray. Pizza! almost every table was also doing pizza which is served on those cool silver stand thingys...bonus points for accoutrements. The pizza was seriously good. Super crispy woodfired thin bases with just the right amount of toppings so not overdo it. Our choice was the Filetto (sounds like meat non?) which was the eternal combo of proscuitto, roasted cherry tomatos, rocket, parmesan and moz. It was pure perfection and we fought over the last piece which is saying something cause I normally relent (awwwwww).

The pizza menu is interesting actually because there are your normal pizza's then your pizza's without mozarella which is so bizarre to me because the moz was actually very sparing on ours and light (in a good way)...i'm assuming they are popular if there's a whole section on the menu so I might give them a shot next time!

Finally we debated the idea of dessert with none of them screaming out my name (affogato, pannacotta, brulee and tiramisu). Dale ended up caving and going with the tiramisu which even I as a hater can admit was amazing. Super big serve, perfect balance of flavours and nothing too strong and just a nice slice of decadence.

As a sidenote if you ever go out with dale and I and we say timasu it isn't because we are foodtarded (even though I did previously admit I said nick-oise until late in my teenage years) but rather because of a eddie game show we were watching once-maybe that ONE MOREEEE one- where the cute little postal worker bush country contestant guy was answering some question and said my answer is timasuuuuu. He was awesome and now it is timasu forever.

The best part of the meal is yet to come though...we were full to the brim and it was seriously sooo well priced. $60 for all that food! such a bargain.

So if you have heard good things about Amici it is everything you heard and more..it is soo good to have a nice little Italian place close by rather than the stockstandard Crows Nest ones of Gino's, Pino's , Ezzelinos (does anyone else find that rhyming sequence weird?). We will def be hitting up Amici all the time...especially when the cold weather hits. Glass of vino and a nice, creamy , steaming risotto anyone?

Apologies the photo's are a little dark...the place filled up super quickly and it's so closeknit didn't want to freak anyone out with random flashes.

Yayyyyy Australia

2010-01-26T01:19:00.000-08:00

So there's the age old debate of pavlova being aussie vs kiwi but I refuse to acknowledge NZ as producing anything other than the mighty delectable pinky bar..

Early this morning I did a pav for today and this being the first year with my new kitchenaid baby the whole thing was just soooo easy it was almost dangerous. The more access I have to pav the worse it is!!

So super easy recipe of 4 egg whites and a pinch of salt beaten till soft peaks then gradually add a cup of sugar (recipe actually calls for a cup and a half but it's up to you really) beat till it's super glossy and thick. Don't mix it much past adding the sugar though. Then fold a tsp and half white vinegar and tsp of vanilla and dollop it out into a circle on baking paper lined tray.

Oven wise you want to crank it quite high to preheat (around 220) then bring it down to 150 once you add the pav and cook it for an hour. The real trick to the perect crunchy chewy soft in the middle pav is to leave it in the oven after the hour (obv with it turned off) till completely cool..will probably take a few hours.

Here's aobscured photo of the finished product from the oven with dale's message of peace and my prize piggy oven mitt.

Then decorate etc

I did vanilla cream with white and yellow nectarines and it was delish!

Also a sidenote discovery I found these lamington's in Thomas Dux for like $6 or so and they are amaaaaaaazingly good. Best lamington's ever! super thick choc coating and light as air cake. The brand is Kyton's Bakery. They are from SA and claim to have won some sort of national lamington competition....

Hope everyone has had a great, chilled Australia Day!

Kitchen Hero's

2010-01-24T14:34:00.001-08:00

So you might think by the title of this i'm talking about chefs but nooooo it's all about the equipment. I think too often people don't invest their $$ into the right areas of their kitchen and i'm always worried someone is going to lose a finger or something because of it! I am in absolutely no way the aficionado on any of this and everyone's different....just sharing what I have put priorities in.

The photo above by the way is of the homewares mecca Williams- Sonoma which contains every single one of my kitchenware dreams and aspirations.

First up we have knives. I don't think there is any getting around this one...knives are expensive but absolutely my number one use item. if you work it down to a cost per use basis (c'mon girls you know you justify things on cost per wear...knives are the same!) they really aren't too pricey and last for many years. I still like Global's..can't handle wusthof's and mundials as they have that heavy handle that throws me way off. I prefer the lightweight knives...the short chef's knife is actually the one I use most of the time. A water sharpener is a handy addition to these and I can't help but think the block actually dulls them quicker so a magnetic strip wouldn't go astray either. I don't have a good place for a strip but if I did I would be all over it.

Dale like's Shun's and Japanese knives. These babies are way pricier than the Globals so for a change i'm actually budget friendly. They are scary sharp too and need much less regular sharpening than the global's do.

As a interesting sidenote if you are ever heading to Kyoto you mustmustmust go the the knife shop..it is pretty popular but amazing quality...unfortunately prices to match and you are looking at a few hundred aud per knife but they are brilliant. You can also get them engraved with whatever characters you like which is such a great gift (smaller paring knives start at about $100).

Second up is my most used pan in the kitchen bar none. It's a Circulon commercial saute pan. It was quite pricey back in the day when i got it but I think you can pick one up for around $140 from Victoria's Basement and it is really worth every cent. I have used this almost everyday for the past 4 years and it's like brand new...it is fantastic quality and so diverse I use it as a frypan, braising pan, fried rice.. you name it. It is an absolutely brilliant pan.

My other fave kitchen thing are stainless steel bowls. You might notice alot of s/s around our kitchen in photos and that's cause I use alot of ex-stuff from my dad's restaurants...some of these bowls (the huge ones) were his and others i've bought. They are quite cheap but when you are cooking a bunch they are absolutely the most useful things. They aren't actually as easy to find as one might hope so keep an eye out for them...they shouldn't be expensive.

So then there's the dream items such as these mauviel copper pans which will one day be mine. I'm also lemming a copper mixing bowl for my KA to make perfect egg whites (which I could really do with right now for Aus day tomorrow!).

I'll do another post sometime about gadgets and utensils cause there's some pretty cool stuff hiding around in the kitchen :)

Tao Las Vegas

2010-01-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

So Tao has that whole cool factor down...it's a monster business too. There's the nightclub (only open fri/sat nights), restaurant, bar and even a tao pool which i'm not really sure what the story is with. It's all in The Venetian and super easy to find right at the entryway to the canal shops. I only went to the restaurant which was a fun experience..it was PACKED. I couldn't help but think if this is what a hotspot is then i'll be right haha you wait in the big ole line with everyone else who is dressed in their trendoid sunday best but when you get to the front of the line you will be glad you have a booking ( make sure!). They say right this way ma'm while everyone else get's times to come back which are usually in the hours. So a drink at the bar with the super cool dj spinning tunes and off you go to your table.

We got an awesome table on the second floor right next to the giant buddha and I must say the decor is pretty swish. Buddhas and carp and all that relaxing stuff as far as the eye can see.

Food wise it's all very asian fusion and maybe a little too blanket asian for my taste...i'm convinced to americans asia is just one place instead of a bunch of countries! I started with the crispy tuna sashimi roll which was quote a serious dose of tuna....massive chunks but it was absolutely mouth watering with a wasabi based dipping sauce. Super tasty crunchy outside too.

Very generous serve as you can see.

My lovely friend got herself some peanut satay (there goes that asian blanket theme) which was quizzical red colour but was only noticed when looking back on photos later. The place is so dark you really could be eating anything! The satay itself was pretty nice and the sauce really was that chunky homemade style. Quite cheap at less than $10 too.

I then hit the wasabi rusted fillet of beef with tempura onion rings. This wasn't great. The beef was a little dry and the even dryer crusted topping didn't help..it did have that good hit you between the eyes wasabi hit though. The onion rings were a little too chunky to be tasty too.

Other main was the kung pao chicken which again was a tiny letdown. We were expecting the NY style kung pao which is effectively just tasty, saucy fried chicken but they fancied it up a little and it turned out somewhat of a fusion of sweet and sour and normal kung pao. It still does have the advantage if you wanting to say kung paoooooo complete with kung fu move though (especially after the cocktails. Joke time...what's bruce lee's favourite drink?wataaaaaaah. gettit? water? thankyou thankyou.

The cocktails were a serious highlight! absolutely lethal and overpriced.... everything you want in a trendoid cocktail. We hit the classic tao-tini and the tiger lily both of which are seriously tasty. Voss water too which equals bonus points.

So all in all it's good for that trendy dining experience and the decor is amazing but really the food is a little dull. They could do so much better with their blanket asian theme than this...but the menu is quite big so maybe I just chose wrong!?

Either way it's vegas and it far trumps the 24 hour casino cafe's!!

California Love...

2010-01-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

Yeah I quoted 2pac.Thug life.

So Twitter really is the most apt name ever because I am absoluteeeeely twitterpated by my tweethearts (I can keep going) and with so much talk of USA hols coming up I thought I would share a few good food experiences!

1) First pick of Cali is In n Out Burger. This is obviously no big secret as i've been told by about a trillion people that this is the best burger I will ever encounter. Even crazytown Tom Cruise gets it specially brought on film set's so he can feed his scientology buddies and throw a spare chip to poor Joey Potter. Free Joey! I went in SF because it was just right at fishermans wharf (which is lame btw) and convenient but they are around LA and even one in vegas. Sidetrack tangent of on dales birthday few years ago we had a limo and was causing all kinda if trouble when our part time limo driver part time strip club operator said he could really hit some in n out right now and by the time we got there it had closed 5 minutes before!we were sad, drunk and hungry all at the same time....I actually cried.cool story hansel.

Anyway the burger itself is amazing and really does taste made to order. There's even the not so secret "secret menu" items including animal style, double meat and protein style (wrapping in lettuce no bun..stupid atkins!). I just go the cheeseburger which is on the normal menu and more than enough for me! great crispy chips too. It really is worth going the extra mile for.

2) Moving right along travellers to the famed Funnel Cake of SM Pier. It is basically a giant doughnut batter thing of sorts, fried and covered in icing sugar. It really is probably one of the worst things for you that you could ever even conceive of eating but it somewhat of a rite of passage and I was determined. I made it halfway through...I challenge you to a duel! There's a couple of places on the pier that sell them and always a bit of a line..somewhere around $5 and make sure you share! It will be one of those things that you will be glad isn't easily accessible to you on a daily basis.

3) Pinkberry! I have made no secret of my love for pinkberry and even happily eat the second rate sydney substiutes just to get a hit but it's never the same. They are scattered around LA and have a cool alessi/starck ghost chairs vibe and basically are the tastiest frozen yoghurt known to man covered in tastyness. Choose your flavours and enjoy..I highly recc oreo's and strawbs but you really can't go wrong! The funny thing is the few times i've been there i've always come across some loud person dragging someone else along to "convert" them to the way of the pinkberry...it really is a religious experience.

4) This is a bit of an obscure one but Disneyland sourdough salad's and soup bowls! This is in the sourdough bakery (you can do a little tour of the bakery but it's pretty lame) over in Disney California but seriously hands down this is the best food to be found within Disneyland and maybe even Anaheim...except IHOP pancakes that it. You can choose soup or tasty salads like nicoise (I called that nick-oise till only a few years ago..true confession) and they are served in the tasiest, freshly baked sourdough bowl. I tried to recreate it at home once but it wasn't as good. Disneyland Churro's are pretty damn good too! most of the eateries are a little average though.

5) Lucky number 5 is Lawrys! Lawrys is a super old school prime rib house. The whole place just reeks of that rich 1960's style and is such a great experience. The waitresses all wear these adorable "sensible" brown and white smock thingys and have super cute traditions like the spinning salad. They have a salad bowl on ice and mix it up from a big height and spin it all around. Then the main man comes around with his trolley of meat and you choose what you are after...believe it or not mine was the smaller size serve! Everyone leaves clutching their little leftovers box and it's absolutely expected not to make it through though. Included in your meal is yorkshire puddings, spinning salad with the most amazing Lawry's trademark dressing and creamed spinach. Dessert was also gorgeous.. a lemon tart with a crispy crunchy creme brulee sugar type shell.. I've never seen it before or again and it's really so simple but amazing. The only thing with Lawry's is that recently they had a whole kefuffle about being sued because all their waitresses are female. It was so stupid..they are middle aged ladies! it's not exactly hooters. It's an absolute man meal too...no man can resist the subtle charms of prime rib.

Honourable Cali mentions of course include Johnny Rockets for that old school peach pit style dining and awesome shakes, Zuni chicken in SF which is simply the best and most famous (you sure have to wait for it!) roast chicken in the land, good old california pizza kitchen and their BLT pizza, Sprinkles red velvet cupcakes and the LA farmers market (shown below)

And remember when in doubt.....eat fried cheese!!!!!

Mr Zumbo's Mousse cake..

2010-01-21T14:42:00.000-08:00

The other day my best friend aka zumbo fangirl called to say we are going to get little mini versions of the famed masterchef mousse cake. They are $9.50 and there for a limited time only (might even be worth calling before you go to check it's around..)

I scoffed the whole freaking thing pretty quickly while watching millionaire matchmaker ( did anyone see that stupid woman that was the ex "star" of destinys child?pffffft as if! after much googling it turns out she was in it for like 1.3 minutes...she's lame) so really how quickly you eat something really does explain how good it is.

My only slight criticism if I had to come up with one would be that the layer's don't seem nearly as defined as on masterchef...I can taste all the flavours but they just all sosrt of smoosh together in one bite..one good bite that is.

As far as his other masterful creations at the moment. The through the looking glass jessica rabbit tart (looks like a friend egg) with pandan and coconut was nice and summery...very much on the coconut side rather than the pandan. I think the consensus was the shortcrust pastry shell was a teeny bit overpowering for the delicate flavours.

The your frund in the fridge toasted tomato/ cheese sandwich was interesting...not quite as cheesy as one would hope for and they didn't capture that toast taste nearly as much as the buttered toast macaron did. Having said that though it is amazing to look at and has the impressive factor..and making tomato work in a dessert is pretty cool in itself.

My pick would be the ed and son's first day at school..apart from the fact it's adorable in a little lunchbox setting the whole thing is just a flavour sensation. Soon as we poured the juice over it the whole thing just changed completely and became the perfectly balance of fruity and creamy.

The bellini macaron they have at the moment though is easily the pick of the bunch!!!

Jelly Cakes!

2010-01-21T14:34:00.001-08:00

Whenever I say jelly cakes I always want to do some kiwi jilly cakes voice type thing...kind of like chelly bin for an esky. It's really weird and I cant explain it.

If you ever watched kylie kwongs super abstract vaselined lense trips down memory lane cooking show in the lifestyle channel you probably saw her making the jelly cakes with her mum and I was instant drawn in..it's like a lamington but coated in jelly? After a bit of research it turns out it's like an iconic Australian childhood thing that I obviously missed out on...

They were super easy, reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally tasty and worth making for big or little kids.

here's the Kwongster's recipe:

1 cup boiling water
1 x 85 g (3 oz) packet strawberry or raspberry jelly crystals
3/4 cup cold water
125 g (4 oz) butter
1/2 cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups self-raising (self-rising) flour, sifted
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 1/2 cups desiccated coconut

Pour boiling water into a large heatproof jug. Sprinkle jelly crystals into jug, stir until crystals are dissolved, then stir in cold water.

Pour jelly mixture into a large, shallow dish, about 20 x 25 cm (8 x 10 in), cover and refrigerate for 2-2 1/2 hours, or until jelly is just starting to set. (It is important that the jelly is used at the right consistency; if it is too firm it will not stick to the cakes.)

Meanwhile, lightly grease 3 x 12-hole shallow patty-pan tins (1 1/2-tablespoon capacity) and preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until just combined. Add flour, milk and vanilla and mix until smooth.

Spoon tablespoons of the mixture into prepared tins. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. They're ready when a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove cakes from tins and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Remove jelly from refrigerator and quickly roll a cake in the jelly, coating it evenly. Toss the jelly-covered cake in coconut until it's coated all over. Repeat with remaining cakes and arrange on a platter to serve.

You know I totally copy pasted that....lazy to the max!

Jan food buys...

2010-01-18T15:28:00.000-08:00

I missed December! just to let you know it was really only pannetone and christmas related goods that are now all a distant memory for another year...

This one is more eats than buys!

- The goats cheese, onion and rosemary oil pizza at Firefly. I go to the one in Lane Cove but hit up Neutral Bay or Walsh Bay or wherever is near you because it is just that worth it. Sounds dull and I wasn't all that excited to be honest but it is a flavour sensation! super crispy paper thin bases and there is a real complexity in the topping somehow..tastes like alot more than onion thats fo' sure.

-Mangoes! They are sooo cheap right now and really, really good. I even made a big batch of mango sorbet the other day which wen't down a treat on those scorchingly hot days. They will be gone before you know it.

- Fratelli Fresh evoo. It's pretty much my fave olive oil right now,,super fresh and grassy and really good for salads and fancy artistic drizzling. At $16 for 750ml or $55 for 4L it's pretty well priced compared to some of it's overpriced buddies and they deliver for $10 (you may as well get your vegetables while you are at it!). On my birthday my lovely friend and I overdosed on the balsamic vinegar tasting cart while waiting for a table at sopra..lunch didn't sit all that well on what equated to like a solid glass of mixed vinegars though!

- A notebook. Not food obviously but new year is organisation time..it's very food nerd but I live by a notebook that is filled with all the places I want to eat and recipes I come across and want to make otherwise I will just forget it all with my elderly frail memory

- Ryos Ramen! I finally had it and i'm now a believer. My god it is good. You really can't go wrong on the menu but get in line early! next up i'll try the famed gumshara and the gummy bear mouth attack...we were there the other day but they were closed to we just ate mamak like usual. So close but yet so far!

-Creme Eggs. This one is only a half recc because i'm conflicted...every year this is like THE omfg they have arrived moment for me. Dale finds them absolutely disgusting but I pretty much live off a steady diet of them now through easter when I search frantically for the last remaining creme eggs and battle with myself to not buy the suss half unwrapped ones on the shelf. Usually hygiene wins. So why the apprehension you ask?

THEY HAVE CHANGED!

I need someone to back me up on this so I don't think i'm losing it. The "yolk" seems different and the fondanty part is just weird and sort of gritty. It's still good...just not as good. This better not be some stupid attempt to make them slightly healthier because seriously..they are bad juju. They are meant to be unhealthy... everyone knows that! I'm kind of hoping it's just teething problems of the first eggs of the new year and soon they will come good but I have a bad feeling the manufacturing business doesn't work that way.

Summer Salads...

2010-01-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

I sometimes get sucked into the taste.com.au recipe of the day (ok sometimes=alot) because I'm not great at meal planning and it when it just appears it makes life easier. Last night's dinner (and it was soooooooo horribly hot yesterday..refer to my previously mentioned plan of chasing winter around the world) was this easy balsamic lamb, beetroot and feta salad.

So I tweaked the recipe quite a bit cause it sounded a bit dull. First change is no rocket....I am not a lover of the rocket. I'll eat it but I just feel really meh towards it. Second up is addition of olives because olives make everything better in life. Thirdly I used lamb backstrap instead of steaks cause they are tastier.

Basically it's just marinate lamb in a bit of balsamic and garlic. Assemble salad of letti, baby beetroots, red onion, olives, red capsicum and feta. Cook lamb, rest, put ontop of salad, drizzle balsamic and evoo. This is probably a recipe that calls for good balsamic rather than the mutton dressed as lamb haha getit? (white wine vinegar dressed as balsamic) as you do taste it alot.

In hindsight I think I would go for roasted red capsicum rather than raw too and maybe some of that tasty overpriced meredith goats cheese instead of feta. I'm really only posting this to show off the exceptional lamb cooking skills....I know you're impressed! I feel the admiration.

So bring on the summer salad I say...the weather being how it is though it might be winter again next week? Non lo so?

Coca Cola Cake!

2010-01-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

We first had this cake- having never heard of it before- at a American style cooking class at the Chopping Block in Chicago. The classes themselves were really fun..they weren't exactly led by food guru's but they knew the dishes they were making well and made sure everyone got a chance to do stuff etc. I'd hate to do one of the demonstration only classes though..boring! It was fun to sit down afterwards and eat a giant meal of all the fun stuff you have created too.

So out of nowhere the other day came the coke cake craving..being the scatterbrain I am I lost the recipe they gave us and had to look one up. This is the closest I managed to find to the cake we made and I don't think it was quite as good..but still tasty.Cooking wise this is a fairly good recipe..the buttermilk will keep it nice and moist in the middle but this cake has a major tendency to dry out around the edges to keep an eye on it. It sort of turns out like a sweet caramel chocolate cake. The nuts aren't essential..I scatter mine ontop instead of through the icing but it's all the same really..they do add a nice texture difference though...it's a nice rustic looking cake too which is quite forgiving on those attention to detail challenged peeps like myself.

http://southernfood.about.com/od/chocolatecakes/r/bln274.htm

There is only one problem with this cake..it will at some point lead to certain death. I can't even begin to imagine how unhealthy this is for you and it is suuuper sweet (maybe even too much so..I would go with a half batch of icing from the recipe above). The coke really just turns to caramel so that's another sugar flavour hit right there. So let's work it out..not only do we have coke we have marshmallows and caster sugar...triple hit sugar!then a massive amount of butter ontop of that. I'm actually really surprised this isn't Paula Deen's recipe y'all.

Having said that and issued health warnings etc.....it is incredibly satisfying.

Merry Happy Holiday Time Wishes!

2010-01-07T01:40:00.000-08:00

ok so enough being lazy for me! christmas was good...lot's of family chillness and I did well in the foodie present stakes!

some of the highlights included:

-Cuisinart brulee torch and an ice cream maker

-Tons of cookbooks (but no room left on the shelf!) inc Fratelli Fresh which is amazing, French Lessons signed by Mr North himself, Vefa's kitchen and Ginette Mathiot's big ole cooking bible. Haven't made anything yet from any but there is a greek feast in the pipeline.

-More chocolate than I have ever had in my hot little hands and i'm incredibly committed to finishing...someones gotta do it

-Big ole Joseph evoo...i'm seriously that much of a food nerd that I want that for xmas!

So I way overcatered for christmas and did a buffet style type arrangement because I was on the veuve early and got progressivly lazier as time marched on...people can sort out their own plates..this is only 1/80th of the food but I was putting it out in small amounts to keep it cold!

I actually made a gingerbread house too.....I got really lazy and didn't make a door or windows so it's like a gingerbread house of horrors no escape type thing...but it tasted good!

Xmas also brought the best pannetone we have EVER encountered into our life...a sour cherry one we found at hudsons butchers and my god I want it everyday. I need to find it again!

Moving onto NYE! Hope everyone has a great night!

We went to my favourite friend's (no doubt many of you have seen some circa 1974 facebook photos floating around) 70's party. There was much drunkeness and pineapple destruction involved..and possible river-borne infestations. Mucho fun!

The 70's menu was the best part though! again we had way too much food and took on a few dishes each. Of course your own dishes didn't sound like much but put it all together and whoa...stomach stretching stuff. I was so busy taking photo's of people though I forgot to document the actual food! Here's a nice summary of the boy's though...best photo of the night!

The menu included such winners as devils on horseback, realdeal french onion soup, prawn cocktails, oysters kilpatrick and a main of veal schnitzel and creamed spinach. All very authentic 70's! not a bad effort considering only 1 of us were even alive in the 70's. There was the most amazingly good black forrest trifle floating round much later in the night that was seriously one of the better desserts i've ever had and i'm stealing the recipe for. It involved all kinds of good stuff like cherries sioaked in chocolate port and marscapone with melted chocolate.

So hope everyone has had a nice relaxing break and have eased their way back into the real world :)

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-22T23:18:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas gorgeous peoples :)

Sorry i've been a bit MIA lately! The Universe has been throwing some challenges at me...car died, fridge died, quit smoking (this one's good I know but it's hard!). So ignoring the whole debbie downern vibe of it all 2009 has decided to end with a bang...here's to my nice uneventful boring life coming back to me in 2010!

I give you a photo of only the best christmas album to ever exist. Mariah is only a sad second to this one.

See if I could only have my two front teeth then I could wish you Merry Chrithmathhhhhh :D

Fave NY eats...

2009-12-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

Maybe some of you (my imaginary friends) are lucky enough to be going to NY sometime soon? I wiiiiiish I was coughsantaPLEASSSSEcough

We've been to NY a handful of times which I think is enough to escape the tourist trap Carnegie deli type food but still nowhere near enough to actually know what we are doing! there is sooooo much good food on that concrete slab of a place.

NY is winter is where it's at...it's so freezing outside you can't even process thoughts properly and when you finally get to your food destination it's all warm and cozy and welcoming. You get that surge of freezing cold brain fog lifting and you realise how freaking starving you are just as food is coming your way...it is seriously one of my fave places in the whole world. Summer is nice too with it's breezy central park days vibe but it does have that eua de garbage smell about it.

We've done big chain hotel times square hotel holiday (do NOT do it), upper west side fancypants hotel holiday (nice but not worth the $$ at all in hindsight), waldorf astoria old school midtown holiday (I got so freaked out in there....if there were ever ghosts anywhere it's there!), trendy chelsea b and b holiday but the winner for suuuuure is the edgy lower east side apartment holiday. We had a full 2 weeks of winter to do nothing except watch deal or no deal and eat food. We don't even wear hipster skinny jeans and we were welcomed into the heart of the LES. I have a good recc for a well priced apartment if anyone needs one and you are ok with a unknown dead body in the backyard and a crackhead living in a van outside. He's friendly and even shovels your path. But don't go hunting on cragislist and taking risks..alot of scammers out there!

So back to the food rather than the travel stuff. I'll do my picks of NY food in order first being the best most awesomest food ever.

1. Mama's Food Shop. I have no words for the greatness of this. It's just off Houston towards the East Village and it is just the most perfect little haven of happiness. Super cheap ( much more than you could eat for $10). You choose a main (I'm fried chicken dale is meatloaf..they are in the foil) and your sides out of the seemingly endless options. The mac n cheese is hiiiiighly advised. It is cheap, the food quality is bang on( bang on?) but it's really not that much of a secret. The hipsters are in there in droves...but they get the salmon for some reason.gross. We usually got takeaway hence the photos..

2. Les Halles. I'm a big Bourdain lover...any guy who can smoke and eat at exactly the same time is the real deal . I prefer the downtown Les Halles (only about 2 mins from C21 and ground zero) it is smaller but has alot more french bistro vibe. His cookbook really is worth the $$ as a interim Les Halles and his words of wisdom are priceless. Such as if you haven't made bearnaise sauce before you will surely fuck this up. I appreciate his honesty. The real thing is amazing though..the standouts are their french onion soup covered in the thickest, most meltingly perfect slab of gruyere. They also do my favourite salad in the world which is the frisee and lardon...tried to make it from the book one time but it tasted like shit. They do amazing steaks too. Desserts are a little on the wah side though

3. Billy's Bakery. This is my absolute number one ranked in the world cupcake. Think pastel coloured kitchenaids and polkadots. It's the cutest little retro bakery and it's number one feature is cupcakes but they do an amazing selection of other stuff too...old school pie's and refrigerator cakes etc. I go the vanilla on vanilla and never stray..i'm loyal like that. Dale goes chocolate on vanilla and even he get's ridiculously excited at the idea of a billy's cupcake (emasculating hah). Don't even get sidetracked by stupid magnolia...this is where its at! I'm one of those people that always tap out early from a big meal but my stomach space for cupcakes seems to be endless.

4. Marys Fish Camp. This place is somewhat confusing because on the website it seems to literally be a camp in Florida somewhere? I can't work out if that's their schtick or it really is a camp but either way...this place is awesome. It's in Greenwich Village (little tricky to find) and you have to go for lunch fairly early if you hope to have a lobster roll...which is really the main event here. It is the most perfectly soft and mouthwatering lobster roll with old bay seasoned chips (fries?) that you will ever encounter.

5. Katz Deli. Forget what you have heard about Carnegie...it's really not that great. They are nice and personable there (much more so than Katz which has soup nazi like "rules") but it just isn't of the same quality. Katz serves you the most amazing, warm, thickly sliced pastrami that will rock your world. They have egg creams too which sound disgusting but are strangely satisfying..it's like a mineral water milkshake. It's on Houston just near the Lower East Side and super easy to get to on the subway from anywhere.

6. Kossar's Bialy's! This is serious Lower East Side bagel territory here. You can grab a decent bagel from almost anywhere in NY but if you want a omfg bagel you have to do the hard yards to find it. It's more on the chinatown end of the LES and really is nothing to look at but the bagels are out of this world...everyone else seems to know it too. Choose your bagels, grab the whipped cream cheese from the fridge and don't ask questions. I tried and was shot down. Have no doubt than in your hot little hand are the best bagels in NY.

I could probably go on for ages...lot's of other places worth mentioning like the Eldridge st Dumpling House (lunch for $1!), Daisy May's BBQ, Wholefoods (oh how I love you Wholefoods...Columbus Circle is good but Bowery is better!), Bouchon sticky buns, Murray's cheese shop....it's virtually endless. But this list is more than enough to eat your way around NY...if you are going anytime soon do try to incorporate one or two of these places.I promise it will be worth it!

OPERATION COOKBOOKS!

2009-12-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

People collect all kinds of crazy stuff and I've never been all that much of a collector. My one big vice is cookbooks..and I never set out for it to be a collection but the addiction just sort of grew and grew until bam..one day I had myself a hefty collection.

It's actually genetic...my Mum is 20 times worse than me . She has had to allocate an entire room to leaning towers of books with no structural integrity. I actually saw myself heading down that same road with piles everywhere, some in the kitchen and some in my bedroom. it was all over the place. I had been meaning to put them all on one shelf for ages but it just seemed like such a huge job I procrastinated to the best of my ability..which is impressive. I am master of procrastination.

Yesterday I woke up and decided...ergh today's the day! Here is a progress shot.

I have serious jelly legs from carrying giant stacks of books down precarious spiral stair's today. So the finished products is my most loved books..turns out I will have to set up a second shelf for some of the lesser books that I don't use very often. The new shelf is at pretty much max capacity except for the "little shelf" in the middle which I need to buy "little books" for. There is also at least half a dozen high priority books under the xmas tree right now (maybe more seeing as virtually my whole santa list was books!) incluuuuuding the new Stephanie Alexander one. As a sidenote goddman that book is expensive... I've heard of wiser people than myself finding a good price at big dub but of course I went and paid RRP for it. Also under the tree is the new Vogue Fratelli Fresh cookbook (at newsagents now and only cheap...get thee there!) and it has their BANOFFEE PIE! Danger. Another xmas tree fave is for my Mum, French Lessons by Justin North signed by the man himself.

Basically there is alot of stuff under there I will need to make more space for but this is my tentatively finished product... There's also a lot of missing books I can't even begin to think where they might be. Like Bill's books...I have a stack of them but nfi where they have got to. And River cafe books. The more I think about it the more I can't find actually...also note there's quite a few doubles that nice people have given us as gifts.

If I had to choose my fave's from the lot I think it would have to be (in order)

Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros
Les Halles by Anthony Bourdain
Jamie's America (fuels my obsession with American food)
Jamie's Dinners (so many good, easy dinner recipes out of this!)
The Lady and Sons by Paula Deen y'all

Marque

2009-12-03T14:26:00.001-08:00

So this review is sans photos....a combination of it being anniversary dinner and a copious amount of matching wine would have led to crappy photos anyway.

I've been wanting to go to Marque for ages having heard it is the bomb diggity, restaurant of the year blah blah so we finally took the plunge!

It wasn't toooo pricey ($145) if you avoid the wines...which you probably won't. It was surprisingly small in there so i'm not surprised their Friday lunch deal sells out so quickly with such a small amount of tables. It was nice and understated too.

The food itself was all wiggidywhack molecular gastronomy and I've heard the menu changes almost every night so it's pretty unlikely you would even eat the same stuff I did. Standout's were the cured kingfish with celery, vanilla, lime and green tea. Also really enjoyed the white asparagus with toast, dehydrated potato shard thingys and fried wheat sprouts.

What we didn't like so much is the repeated appearances of BITTER. Mr Best seems to love his bitter...bitter turnip cubes with scampi were literally mouth distorting. Then we got bittered again with the campari bonbons (actually listen to them when they say that it's liquid inside instead of being like me and "testing" for yourself and ending up with a sticky mess everywhere).

I liked the way they don't actually tell you whats on the degustation beforehand and you just find out as you go along. It's a nice journey.

It was an excellent meal but I don't know if I rate it as highly as some of the reviews have been. I think it's pretty much one of the first molecular gastronomy restaurants Sydney has seen and if you are yet to try wiggidywhack food it really would be eye opening and we are lucky to have it.

When it is following in the footsteps of Moto and Alinea in Chicago and WD50 in NY it's hard to impress though. Not to sound like a snob but this was fairly elementary in the crazy food stakes. obviously never tried Fat Duck and El Bulli but they are doing a similar molecular vibe.

As an example Moto's big thing is paper...flavoured paper with almost everything that really is out of this world. Alinea served smouldering bits of cinnamon with dessert and dishes on inflated "lavender air" pillows. There is some very odd food out there in the world and it's nice to see Sydney is bringing some of it to the table.

So all in all a really interesting, tasty night but not quite Tet's standards.

Marque
355 Crown St
Surry Hills
9332 2225

Christmas Time!

2009-11-30T04:27:00.001-08:00

With Santa fast approaching I've been thinking about what i'm going to cook this year! Dale likes to pretend christmas isn't actually here until 2 days before and even then he just wears his bah humbug santa hat (that's not actually a metaphor..he really does) .I think he's still scarred from the year of the 10 doz oysters boxes. That's how we roll.

I'm already done with the christmas cake which i'm not even a fan of but my Mum looooves. I use the neverfail xmas cake recipe from Nigella's feast book and it's fairly labour intensive but always works out. If you are planning on making xmas cake though get on it asap because they need a few weeks to do their thing.

Also on the xmas baking agenda this year are some cupcakes in the cutest little santa cupcake papers ever from POK, sugar snowman cookies and some fresh gingerbread with lime icing from Nigella's domestic goddess book..she seems to be my christmas baking muse!

For the adventurous baker this months Gourmet Traveller has a big article from Zumbo and his wiggidywhack christmas recipes..including candy cane macaron's!

As far as the main event goes I don't actually cook so much as I assemble. I do the salad's I always do and the seafood ham etc all speaks for itself. I have been doing roast turkey and trimmings on xmas eve last few years and using the leftover as cold cuts for xmas day which seems to work well. Christmas at our house is a 48 hour feeding frenzy...i'll try and document as much as I can before I drink too much and fall asleep!

November Food Buys..

2009-11-30T03:32:00.000-08:00

With a few hours to spare!

-Huon Smoked Salmon. I'm seriously obsessed with this stuff especially when the weather has been has disgustingly offensively hot as it has been recently (be gone with you summer). Whenever it's this hot I do this strange little imaginary dream sequence of my grand plan to live overseas for winter and only return home once winter hits again..winter all year round! and that's about as detailed as the plan gets. It's pretty solid. Back to the salmon...Huon previously was Springs which was also awesome. It's not around everywhere and kind of hard to track down (Thomas Dux seems to have it and a couple of places in the markets) and it's a bit steeper than the good old Tassel. It is sen-bloody-sational. Kn' oath.

- Victoire bakery Rustic Olive Bread. A girl smarter than myself would keep this one on the downlow because it's ALWAYS sold out but goddamn this is the best carb overdose you will find around. Don't get tempted by the other rustic's..plain is ok, semi dried tomato is good but olive is new level of greatness. It's a complete rip off in typical french fancy bakery manner at $5.40 for a not even full breadstick and considering you will probably eat the whole thing before you even get home it's really not that budget friendly. I still strongly advise it.

- Lemonade Icy Poles. This is obviously far from gourmet and is about as base of the food chain as you can get but they are even better than you remember. When it's stiffingly hot and the thought of food seems stomach turning who is there for you...icy poles are! Try not to read the back of the box because they are going for some new oooztralyan down under vibe and have all this random shit that makes no sense all over it. It's very confusing. Zooper Doopers are also a good substitute with the exception of the banana.

- Stone Fruit! It's pretty much here. It's kind of worth making a trip out to Flemington markets (I think they call them Sydney markets now?) because you can get STACKS of bang for your buck. Tray's of big fat mangoes are less than $20....and you can go to Ikea at the same time and eat suss underpriced meatballs.

- Pink Guava in Chatswood Chase. It's opposite coles and sells frozen yoghurts covered in whatever toppings you want. It's basically a rip off of PinkBerry from America (they replaced the word berry with guava..clever!) but not quite as good. Still highly satisfying though. It's just opposite Coles and I advise the original with oreo's and strawberries (a lady I keep seeing get's honey and sultanas erghhghgghh). They have a loyalty card too and i'm eligible for a freebie!woooo

- Come Dine With Me. This obviously isn't a buy but if you have Foxtel and you don't watch come dine with me you are missing out big time. You will become addicted and base your social events around it. Dale and I do CDWM (yeah we abbreviate ) marathon's and judge everyone on their houses, food and creepy mannerisms's. It's a fun time.

Pino's Dolce Vita

2009-11-11T14:56:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most of you guys have heard of Pino Foresti and his housemade cured meats. I have never personally been until recently but my mum has brought home goods from time to time. I also loved the antipasto plate Bird Cow Fish brought forward at the taste festival of his stuff so thought I would give it a shot!

It's on President avn in Kogarah just next to Sugarloaf bakery so you can get some caramel churro's at the same time :) The whole place is a shrine to cured meats with them hanging in every possible space looking alluring.

So I basically think they have absolutely awesome cured meats....but prices to match. They also have a butchery counter which seemed pretty decent, nice collection of housemade sausages and meatballs etc. I noticed people getting made to order sandwiches which looked amazing too!

There's pancetta was gorgeous and salty but kind of funny? tiny little strips but they worked all the same!

This was the Italian lunch we made of it and there's a few inclusions worth mentioning.....one mainly. Caramelised semi-dried tomatoes from Fourth Village in Mosman. They end up being about $1 per one but you won't regret it. You have never tasted anything as amazing.

My only really gripe was the price...and it's more of a major gripe than I would like. it was crazy expensive...at least 3 or 4 times the price of salami's at IGA Lamonica. When you pick something out just know it's going to be pricey and you can't go wrong. No visible prices on any of the cured meats either. Is the price worth it? not for me and I like to think of myself as a major smallgoods lover (yes you can call me that). Just wish it was a bit cheaper and they wouldn't be able to get rid of me!

Pino's Dolve Vita
45 President Avn
Kogarah

Blame Vic Mackey..

2009-11-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

So I have to apologise that i've been a sporadic blogger. I have a giant list of places to go out to dinner and things to cook and have just been staying at home watching the shield. It's a serious problem. We have lost like 6 months of our life obsessed with this show and we are finally reaching the last few episodes EVER.

There is much depression in our household. What will we do with ourselves? We can't remember a life before Vic Mackey.

We do have a IQ full of come dine with me to help ease us through it though. If that isn't the second best show ever then I just don't know what is.

So here's the places we are keen to go when the shield induced brain fog breaks...if you have any recc's to add to the list please do!

Kazbah
Marque (this ones locked in for 2 weeks yayyy)
Ryo's Ramen
Flying Fish
Bistro Moncur
Yoshii
Ottoman (pref the Canberra one)
Azuma Kushiyaki
Bird Cow Fish

Beef and Mushroom Mummy Pie!

2009-11-10T21:29:00.000-08:00

I thought I would share this AWESOME..if I say so myself..pie that I made for halloween. I'm not really all that keen on the artistic flair (hey points for effort) of the pie but it tasted ridonkulously good and is really worth doing...

I did it freeform as i'm lazy with just the puff pastry top but do the shortcrust base if you want..go all out! it's the filling that was so tasty :)

I browned a kg of chopped gravy beef (fairly lean) in a few batches. Then sauteed a couple of handfuls sliced button mushrooms with a diced onion and crushed clove of garlic. Once it was nice and soft I added the browned beef, 1 1/2 cups beef stock and a spoonful of tomato paste and cooked it covered for 1 hour then uncovered for another half hour. It needed quite a bit of stirring so don't leave it too long!

Then comes all these tricky pie rules like it has to be completely cool before you bake your pie (fridge cool) and you have to cut slits or a pie funnel thingy in there before you bang it in the oven.

It is a really tasty pie filling though!

Here's some other photos of some of the Halloween desserts. I love a theme. There's of course brain jelly and a chocolate "Medusa" cake. This is the neverfail choc cake I pull out at almost every event and covered in what's basically just snakes alive dipped in chocolate. I saw them at Sweet William choc shop in Paddington...they are incredibly good!

Chilli...

2009-11-06T15:28:00.000-08:00

Now i'm no chilli pro. People take their chilli veeeeeeeeeeeerry seriously and I just do the elementary, stock standard, easy chilli. But it tastes good and is perfect for a lazy dinner..freezes really well too!

So basically I just fry up diced onion, garlic and red capsicum for a few mins. Then add a kg of beef mince (the good stuff..don't be cheap! you will taste it!) and brown it up. Then comes the liquids...anywhere between 1 or 2 cans of chopped tomatoes and small a bottle of beer. Any beer will do but go with Corona if you like a theme...which I do! then a tsp of cumin and a dash of chilli powder. Even better would be the Herbie's Mexican spice blend which is only a few dollars and eliminates the need for a pantry full of taco mix, burrito mix etc...it's way nicer too. Also throw in a can of drained kidney beans.

Cook it for about an hour on low heat until you are happy with it...some like it soupy but I do it more like bol. Serve it either on nachos or just with avocado and sour cream. It's really nice just in a bowl with sharp cheddar ontop too. This time I served it up with corn savoury muffins. This is for a pretty big batch with the intention of freezing some (which never happens cause we eat it!). If it's not hot enough for you just add chilli sauce...Dale always does cause i'm a wimpyburger!

Adriano Zumbo Macaron Day!

2009-11-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

I've been completely immersed in a spawn of satan assessment all week and was totally out of the loop...thank god for my favourite foodie friend telling me about Zumbo's macaron day!

Soon as I heard there was no way I was missing out so the assessment went into overdrive and voila..done with a macaron overdose as a reward.We trundled off to Balmain at what we considered a pretty early start but turns out diehards were already lining up at 7.30am!! There was no need for panic though as we got everything we wanted from our printed/highlighted (nerdalert) list...

Basically it was an all day Macaron event with a (optimistic) 60 flavours including almost everything you can imagine. It was intense. I'd be pretty much happy to not see a Macaron in a very long time after how I felt last night..I have zero restraint.

So Dale being the daredevil had all the wiggidywhack requests. vegemite sourdough (which was actually the best of them all!), chocolate fois gras, evoo and rosemary, maple syrup bacon pancake....you name it.

He actually managed to get one of the best of the day....cheeseburger! I love the enthusiasm of the guys serving everytime someone got a cheeseburger there was a somewhat confidence wavering "good on you!"...but it turned out amazing! First of all the whole thing was so cute with the cheese, gherkin detail and sesame seeds on top. Then there was the flavour....it really tasted like a cheeseburger. Quite strong on the sweet tomato sauce which worked well but because of it's moisture content kind of messed with the structural integrity of the macaron. This is one better eaten straightaway!

Another highlight was the super special $10 black truffle macaron. It was incredibly decadent and the filling on it's own was pretty hardcore...maybe too truffley? put it together with the chocolate though and it really toned down the flavour and made it amazingly smooth and subtle. Worth $10? maybe. If you love your truffles. And this was real deal truffle..not that nasty oil that ironically tastes nothing like truffle at all!

Me and my sweet tooth had a few different standouts. The iced vovo was pick of the bunch. Loved the burnt toast and butter which really tasted like a buttery bit of crispy toast. The carrot cake was another standout and tasted identical to a moist, perfect carrot cake. The avocado was tops too...almost savoury and had a strong avocado/cucumber flavour towards the end. My least fave is the bright aqua toasted marshmallow. It kind of tasted like plastic and wood mixed together..weird in a gross way.

The tiny little shop was absolutely packed with all typed...mums and kids, hardcore food bloggers with their chunky cameras, food nerd's you name it. I noticed a few people getting one of everything which was mighty ambitious!

We got stacks between us...around 20 each plus our big bag fancypants truffle ones and that was way more than enough. As I said happy to not see a Macaron in a very long time! So I would hope that some of the highest sellers might make it back to Zumbo sometime...please come back sourdough vegemite macaron! I love you!

October Food Buys....

2009-10-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

This month has been a bit of a slow one...we have officially lost our strawbs and the good summer fruit is yet to properly hit but there's still been a ton of good stuff to buy!I've made a few foodie discoveries this month too.

-Blueberries!! Harris Farm is doing these babies 2 for $7 at the moment and you usually don't find much better than that so bring on the blueberry pancakes! They are really lovely and sweet too.

-Ibrahim Pastry.It's back open and looking schmick. Plus you have to admit it's a tiny bit cool to have your baklawa with a side of underworld badass. It's as cheap and tasty as ever.

-The new Thomas Dux is Crows Nest. This one is more just handy than anything else..us nestians have always been forced to have woolworths vegetables or go elsewhere and it's good to have a nice range of high quality stuff so close by. They have also been doing a decent discount on the Brasserie garlic bread which is spec-tac-ular. Def worth a visit while they are new and out to impress.

- Sugarloaf Bakery in Kogarah. This place's sole intention is to send you into a dulce de leche induced coma and i'm not complaining. My picks are def the caramel churro's and the dozen for $11 crossaints which come in a bunch of flavours... the best being dulce de leche, sugar and chocolate. They do pretty tasty empanada's too.

-Rhubarb!we might just have enough cold weather left (wtf sydney weather?) so make use of the good, cheap rhubarb around right now. I'm biased but my mums rhubarb is the absolute bomb diggity so I usually just stick with that but it's good in rhubarb crumbles, cheesecakes...you name it.

-Ben and Jerry's ice cream. It has landed people! They have only given us a small selection of flavours but it's a good one (we got the strawberry cheesecake yayyyy) and they are selling them in a few spots around town. My nearest would be Accoutremont is Mosman but here's the locator so you can find your own dealer!

http://www.benandjerry.com.au/flavours/flavour-locator/

-Finally we have the Smiths do us a flavour comp final 4 contenders out at the supermarket. I got ridiculously excited and ran around stalking at at supermarkets and finally found all 4 (they are pretty out there now though so you shouldn't have a prob) and set up my own little Smith's buffet tasting centre. My professional opinion is they are all gross. Aline's Caesar is probably the closest to decent but I like Steve's face better so i'm conflicted. Decide for yourself! but don't you dare sms to vote..it costs cashmoney and you don't even get anything? they should at least have a comp for voters or something.

Best Breakfast in Sydney!!!!

2009-10-23T15:56:00.000-07:00

So I have to apologise for my crapola iphone photos but i'm confident when I provide you with the best breakfast experience of your life you will forgive me. I'm a scatterbrain and ALWAYS seem to forget my camera.

Without further ado....best breakfast in Sydney is..... BITTON CAFE!

I ignored it. I've bought the jars a few times and thought hmm yeah pretty nice and completely diregarded going out of my way to the cafe but no longer. I already have and am planning to spend so much time here I will have my own seat like those cool old italian dudes in Haberfield.

So where to begin? The service is out of this world amazing. Andy and all the servers will go above and beyond with their super witty banter and help you out with anything you need. Mr Bitton himself comes around to schmooze as a bonus. Heres a perfect example of Bitton's awesome service...Dale was being a little piggy and spilt half his plate over the table and as the waitress came to clean it up he said sorry i'm such a mess. Most waitresses nod politely, maybe a little obligatory keep the crazy customer happy laugh but not this girl...she was all over it! she laughed and said don't worry... I've got issues too! who doesn't love a good psychological baggage joke!

I was highly impressed. She and every other person in the place is absolutely lovely.

Moving onto the food. It is out of this world. All day breakfast everday (thankyou god), really good prices and surrounded by an outstanding collection of best-of ingredients from around town and his own jarred products. Speaking of his products...no more pay the inflated essential ingredient and dj's food hall prices! at the store any jar is a flat $10. Which if you have ever bought a Bitton product you know is absolutely a bargain.

As if the whole experience hasn't been good enough we move onto the food. We had their smh food month special last weekend which is an absolute steal at 3 courses plus drink for $25 per head. I didn't document it only because the last 2 days you can get it will be this weekend (if you are anywhere near there from 10am-2pm runrunrun) and I thought it would be mean. Previously i've only given a few things on the menu a try and they have all been outstanding.

The one pan bacon and egg's is an absolute winner. Everything is cooked to perfection in your little (sooo cute) mini pan and served with the most delicous, melt in your mouth woodfired bread and Bitton's spicy tomato relish. It's def my pick of the breakfast menu.

The (insert francy fresh name here) poached eggs with smoked salmon are also outstanding. You can substitute the salmon for bacon or ham if salmon isn't your thing...nothing is too much trouble for these peeps! never in our lives have we had an egg poached so perfectly. The second you cut it and that yolk just oozes out you know you have struck gold (yellow?)...

If you listen to nothing else in this review...please listen to this. POTATO ROSTI. You must order. It is insane. perfectly crispy and crunchy and loaded with flavour.

Other standouts include the bircher muesli with orange jelly..and if you are like me and when you go out for breakfast every little brain neuron is screaming the words BACON and you completely disregard muesli..give it a shot! it's nutty and rich and the orange jelly is absolute perfection. You will want to buy it for sure. The crepes with his strawberry vanilla jam (also available for purchase..loved so much by Dale he nursed it home and when we made a pitstop he brought it with him for "security reasons") are also absolutely amazing. I really like the sound of the french toast with coconut milk jelly too but am yet to try!

So you can see Bitton has it all breakfast wise. It's packed on weekends and super kid friendly..it even has a little kid room where you just drop them off and can sit closeby while they lord of the flies over the toys. Parking is pretty good and we haven't had a problem so far....They take bookings for breakfast too if you want to minimise disappointment.

They even have little recipe cards for using their products which are fantastic quality....and free!

5 million thumbs up from me!

Bitton Cafe and Grocer
36 Copeland st
Alexandria
ph-9519 5111

Mamak...

2009-10-19T21:46:00.001-07:00

I know I am about the 1324795th person to blog about Mamak and I wasn't going to but seeing as I've been spending so much time there lately I feel a duty!

It's cheap. It's tasty. There's always a bit of a line but it moves fast. It's basically everything that's good about life...

So at this point i've eaten most of the things that interest me on the menu but the menu is pretty extensive and has something for everyone...provided you can hack a bit of spice. I used to be a hardcore wimpyburger but my spice tolerance seems to have dramatically and mysteriously increased this year!

Some of the things def worth a try include the Nasi Lemak which is basically a deconstructed malaysian fried rice which has a whole heap of tasty bits inc fried white anchovies, peanuts, cucumber, egg etc and you choose your proteins. The chicken curry and sambal prawns are a mighty fine addition. Total bargain at $7.50 and you could easily share and fill the meal out with some roti's etc....more on roti's later!

Other good mains is the lamb curry which is not for the faint-hearted heat wise. It's freaking scorching....but incredibly tasty and the lamb chunks are beautifully tender. They have the usual fare like Nasi and Mee Goreng too which are more than enough to share.

What I probably wouldn't do again is the fried chicken. Whenever I hear fried chicken I think i'm subconciously trying to channel the colonel and feel let down almost every time. It was just waaaaaay too greasy and the serve of 4 pieces was huge too. Maybe you could grab just one piece (they sell them as a meal or individ) if the idea of fried chicken is just too tempting.

Their satay sticks are on my medium list so far too. They are pretty pricey compared to everything else at $8 for 6 or $14 per doz. You actually would need a doz between 2 because they are soooo teeny tiny and not all that amazing but their satay sauce is pretty spesh. It's not your run of the mill everyday ground up peanuts and is instead chunky and super fragrant...I poured it all over my somewhat flavourless fried chicken and it became awesome. I am indeed a pioneer.

So Let's talk Roti's. That's what everyone's here for...that's what they are staring longily at through the window and basically the bottom line of Mamak. $5 buys you a savoury roti and 2 different curry sauces all served up in a camping style tin plate thingy. All the roti's are perfectly light and fluffy and taste amazing. The plain is served as a scrunched up ball and is pretty nice but I think the one with egg which is more quesadilla style is probably the pick. The red onion one was just slightly too strong for me. There's 6 on the menu and really you can go no wrong.

Then we move onto dessert roti which if i'm just going to keep it real is the main reason I keep obsessing over this place. The "special" dessert Roti Bom was ok..but nothing great. Not worth the 20 minute wait.
What you want is the Roti Kaya which is the most amazingly perfect dessert roti filled with pandan and coconut paste (and some sort of happy drugs that will make you want it everyday)

Drinks are their thing too. I love the Teh Tarik stretched tea which is basically just sweet, milky and frothy tea. I found the lime drinks just WAY too sweet. Lot's of coffee drinks on the menu and even an appearance by good old milo.

Mamak is hot to trot but at this point it's not exactly a secret...try and get there early to avoid the line!oh and they close at 2.30 for lunch which is maximum annoyance so you have to be somewhat organised!

Mamak 15 Goulburn st ph-9211 1668

Ju Ge Mu and Shimbashi Neutral Bay..

2009-09-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

So I have been keen to check out our very own little lower north shore housemade soba noodle spot for ages and finally decided to take the plunge.

It's a very japanese type concept to have two individual shops (one specialising in soba noodles and one in tempura/okonomiyaki ) that have two distinct vibes and shopfronts but are all one place inside. Wherever you end up sitting you get the choice of both menu's and all the goodness inside them.

Service was adorable. Japanese service is something like a hello kitty toaster on the cuteness scale. I was even looking at the menu's because Eric Bana signed one and the guy ran over to show me the Ken Done signed one...hahhahahcute. If it's good enough for Pwoiter it's good enough for us.

Ok so to the food. Dale went with the real deal cold Soba's with stock a la dipping style and thought they were absolutely amazing. I do have to preface this whole soba experience by saying Dale dragged me around Kyoto on the most horrible humid day ever to find a 540 year old soba restaurant called Owariya and might I say....they were some pretty perfect soba noodles. So Ju Ge Mu can't quite compare...but the fact we have someone so close that is doing housemade soba is pretty special.

I had the hot soba in duck and spring onion broth. Bad choice. Fairly decent, duck was nice and pink but just didn't compare to the cold noodles. The broth was a little too watery for my taste.

Then what I consider to be the grand finale of awesomeness. The Wagyu Okonomiyaki. This baby was absolutely amazing and I seriously cannot recc it enough. It is well worth coming out of your way for. Perfectly fluffy pancake jampacked with flavour and topped with crispy, crunchy garlic chips. Maybe not the best date material though.They had a fairly extensive Okonomiyaki menu too so something for everyone.

As another little detour down memory lane (god i'm turning into my mum) Dale and I always associate Okonomiyaki with a late night on the Dotombori in Osaka. Stright off the plane where we performed a epic 10 hour hunger strike against Jetstar's questionable pie's, dragging overpacked (my bad) suitcases through the most bizarre land we had ever seen and trying to find even one identifiable feature to tell us where the hell we were. The Okonomiyaki was EVERYWHERE around us screaming our name.

The fact that we can go a few suburbs away and have what is a authentic japan experience is pretty damn cool. Dinner menu features STACKS more stuff too and all the japanese fave's..it really is worth a visit!

Ju Ge Mu/ Shimbashi
246 Military rd
Neutral Bay
ph-9904 3011

September Food Buys..

2009-09-14T17:02:00.001-07:00

So I was awake most of the night and found myself having a think about what the best food buys are right now. Ironically this morning Dale said he had an awesome sleep which must have been something to do with me being awake and therefore not doing amputee starfish sleeping position. He gets a relentless elbow to the face many a night.

Anyway back to the food buys...

-STRAWBERRIES! I'm sure this is no surprise to anyone but seriously get out there while these 3 for $5 specials vanish and crappy overpriced strawberries are back. The sweetest i've been finding are at Fratelli and Fourth Village.I eat a huge bowl with vanilla yoghurt or heap them onto a pavlova...the options are endless. One good bet is with a bit of cream and our next good buy...

-Pine Cone Oil. Sounds weird I know. So this stuff is used on the cheese plates down at Quay and is seriously hard to procure. Fourth Village in Mosman has a decent amount of bottles left (they retail for $30 but you only need a few drops) and bloody Peter Gilmore stole the rest. As I said try it on strawbs with some good double cream. Or on a soft cheese like Affinois... I heard to can use it with a sharp cheddar too but let me be a guinea pig before you quote me on that one.

- Not a buy but still worthy of a mention is Coles Chatswood. So Chatswood Chase has been messing with my head for a while...changing shit around on me and ruining my shopping productivity... The food level is actually starting to take shape though and I finally ventured into the huge coles the other day. This is no normal Coles! Someone has done their homework. Not only is the shelf section pretty awesome with every single supermarket product known to man (and a kosher section!) but the deli is where they really went above and beyond. We finally have a North Shore outlet for IGA Lamonica style produce! Bresaola, Bertocchi Mortadella, Decent Sopressa... you name it.

They have a very impressive (for a coles) cheese section too with Affinois, Papillon Roquefort and tons of the classics. I still prefer a cheese room though just cause you get to eat free cheese but still...this is coles! I'm impressed!

being a food snob I'm still not down with buying seafoods at supermarkets...but if I ever was to it would be here. Huge section of decent quality seafoods in market boxes everywhere...I even have a crappy iphone photo to prove it to you.

I have no idea when it happened but somehow Coles has turned into a little food mecca..

-Next food buy is Gold kiwi fruits. If you are still eating green then it's time for a changeover....gold are perfectly sweet and good value at the moment. As a somewhat interesting anecdote i've heard 2 kiwi fruits a day (i'm thinking the green ones) is equal to taking an aspirin everyday to thin your blood....and alot tastier!

-Finally it's the Growers Markets. Pyrmont on the first Sat of month and North Sydney on the third. Exercise caution for the next month though it being pimped out so heavily with good food month and all (or whatever it's called now). It is seriously the PERFECT weather though to get there early, pref with a better behaved dog than mine are, and get your coffee, bacon and egg sandwich and just sit in the sun. All the awesome food and produce surrounding you is just a bonus.

On a bit of a sad note those of you who have come to love and adore Cornucopia chickens and their eggs (which are used by almost every good restaurant in Sydney) are coming to an end. They may be around for a few more markets but Ray, who was the sweetest man to ever grace the growers markets with his presence, has passed away. As a nice little story about his sweetness I remember one very hot summer's day Mum was feeling a bit worse for wear and Ray put all our shopping in his refrigerated truck and let mum sit in the truck for a bit of a cooldown. He was really a lovely man.

So that's my best buys right now! I'm sure i'll think of a million more but I think that's enough to get the ball rolling :)

Oxtail Stew...

2009-09-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

So we somehow chose the hottest day of the last 6 months in Sydney to make oxtail stew...good work team. If you too are absolutely disgusted by the thought of consuming the tail of anything all I can say is...give it a shot! I reserved my judgement to have a taste and it was seriously tasty!

So we procured the Oxtail from the new fancypants butcher out in Woollahra, Victor Churchill. It's basically the butcher that has been there since back in the day combined with Vic's Meat...I know it sounds promising! We think it's pretty decent and def worth sussing out if you are in the area but i'm not sure I would go out of my way for it meat wise. According to my mum, the random bits of meat guru, the Oxtail was absolutely perfect. I have to judge a butcher on some of the more obvious features like steaks and yeah they looked good...but pricey! I mean reaaaaaaaaaaaally pricey...and not cut to order a la Hudson's so you have very little control over the giant hunks of meat you are serving up. They had a good counter full of every housemade terrine you can imagine if that's your thing (tasty fat and funny bits) and lot's of cool features like a himalayan rock salt wall and chicken rotisserie etc.

We are going to stick to Hudson's and Penny's...it's closer for us and we think better.

Ok so back to the oxtails! We got two whole tails (gross) chopped up at the joints. We were subconsciously having some sort of Woollhara theme and turned to the Damien Pignolet french book to guide us. We had several choices...Oxtail stew with a white wine, veal stock and brandy sauce, Jellied Oxtail (I'm having enough trouble dealing with tail already let alone jellied..god no) or a tomato based stew similar to what you would do with lamb shanks.

We opted for the classic frenchie white wine brandy one and it turned out pretty damn good!fairly labour intensive but produced some sticky, falling off the bone meaty goodness. The recipe is long so I won't post it but email me and I'll happily send it out if you are keen to go down the oxtail road...

We also served it with mash that we made in the Kitchenaid!! that was seriously awesome creamy mash with no effort at all. There's a bit of debate about if putting hot stuff in your Kitchenaid is a good idea but Martha says to do it..and I trust Martha. She's one hardcore bitch. So basically you boil your taters as usual for a few mins on the flat beater, add your goods like s&p, cream or milk or whatever then change to the whisk for another few mins. It's good!!!!!!!!

The Chicago Food Staples...

2009-08-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

So it is with great unhappiness that I report.... we weren't big fans of the Chicago staples!

The first let down came in the form of a Chicago hot dog. We had heard many an opinion of where to go including Portillo's (which dale had last time he was there and said wasn't great), Hot Doug's and Gold Coast. We went with gold Coast which was unfortunately attached to a Popeye's chicken (don't do it no matter how tempted you are!!!go to Harold's chicken shack!). So we got out no tomato sauce allowed dog and it was sort of salady for lack of a better word. The dog was nice and charred but really just tastes of suss processed meat. Then we had a bunch of crunchy pickley onion things ontop on a poppyseed white bun. It was pretty average..I would eat it if there was really nothing else but it def isn't worth going out of our way for.

Then came the deep dish pizza experience. This was the night after we went to Alinea and I had about 200 random ingredients in my body...probably not the best choice. So we were told by reputable sources you HAVE to go to Lou Malnati's. I had Giordano's in mind but what do I know?I'm no local. So off we trotted. It was absolutely paaaaaaaaaacked out the door and all led to us thinking man this is going to be good!we even had to place out order in advance (we got the Lou's) and wait 40 mins for our table.

So we sit.The anticipation of all the deliciousness on everyone elses tables coming our way is growing. We start with the "antipasto" salad and I have to throw it out there..one of the worst salads i'm yet to encounter in my young life. It was salami and cheese and all kinds of other stuff that doesn't belong in salad and the whole thing just wasn't nice at all. Barely any lettuce but if you found a bit it was soggy and old looking.Not cool.

Then came the pizza....it smelt good!I noticed everyone else pouring on the parmesan (green jar styles!) and chilli flakes and thought I would try first of all without. Little did I know they were searching for flavour.

So we have a bite and sort of look at eachother..it literally tastes like nothing. Truly nothing. We try salt, parmesan, copious amounts of chilli to get some flavour out of this thing but there's just nothing. the tomato sauce on top tastes watery and weak. The 54 kg of greasy cheese with the odd piece of spinach in the middle tastes purely like nothing. The crust is probably the best part and that just tastes like normal bread!it's all relative.

So we had to ditch it. After a piece or two the cheese starts forming a painful lead ball in your stomach anyway so i don't think I could have done it justice even if it had tastes like anything.Must be an Australian untrained stomach thing because everyone else was packing it away!

So we informed our sources of our disappointment and came to the conclusion that maybe we just caught them on a bad night...or someone left the flavour off our's.

I can't speak much about this one as it was a boy thing but i'm told by Dale that Manny's (which is a Chicago pastrami type katz institution) was out of this world. He had the Obama meal and the menu seems to have stacks of great old school lunch specials etc...I'll be forcing my way there next time!

By the way the main pic up the top is the cool fountain at Millenium Park...it spits at you!

Cupcakes!

2009-08-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

I have a little hobby of searching the globe for the perfect cupcakes. My cupcakes are alright but nothing like my top 3..I need to put in some serious hours to get anything even close to that perfection!

My top contender so far is Billy's Bakery in NY where the vanilla on vanilla are so supremely pefect there is barely any consistency difference between the cake and icing. The pastel colour's and cute retro kitchenaid vibe of the place adds to it's charm. The only time i've ever had a letdown cupcake from Billy's was when it was minus 5 degrees and by the time we got them back to our hotel they had frozen. No fault of Billy's!

So I did a bit of research into Chicago cupcakes and found some pretty impressive reviews for a loop cupcake shop called Sugar Bliss which was only one street over from our hotel. It was a gorgeous shiny stainless steel set up and the cupcakes looked amazing...but i've been fooled by appearances before!When I finally got to taste one of these babies they became an equal number one spot for worlds best cupcake. They were perfectly soft, not overly sweet and rich with vanilla. Neilsen-Massey vanilla at that...I can spot that anywhere! The Vanilla were my picks but the chocolate weren't all bad. They were dark chocolate style which meant a nice rich chocolatey cake. Less impressive were the muffin style "breakfast" cupcakes like raspberry lemonade. Their red velvet was a bit of a letdown too. The vanilla though...my god. There are no words for their greatness. They also sell frosting shots for a buck if you are desperate for a quick fix!

Speaking of red velvet cupcakes one of the best I've had is LA's Sprinkles cupcakes. With two stores in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica they run a seriously packed little cupcake business. The red velvet is so spectacular it keeps the crowds coming...the vanilla was (like magnolia's) just a little too much on the sweet side. To the point where you get that back of the throat sugar overload. Sprinkles also have their cupcake mixes in Williams-Sonoma but like most cupcake recipes they just don't turn out as perfect as the stores. For me a sprinkles red velvet cupcake is about the only redeeming feature of LA.

I tried to make them myself one time with the mix and they turned out pretty good...nice and red but not the perfection of the store.

So what about Sydney you ask? Unfortunately Sydney hasn't yet mastered the art of the cupcake. America seems to have it down but Sydney cupcake shops are producing this average hard, dry cake with that same over piped thick cream like icing.

Cupcakes on Pitt for example which constantly draws in the crowds based upon their cuteness is just dismal. Cake is average, icing is weird frothy cream based and barely has any flavour. Pass. Cupcake Bakery at the Ivy and in QVB is equally as bad. The cake there is super dry and hard and icing is over piped to within an inch of it's life. If you HAD to choose a cupcake here the sticky dates aren't all bad....but that's not really a cupcake, just a cake. Cupcakes must be judged on their vanillas!

Babycakes down on Erskine st is just as shit but has the fun novelty of them being tiny. You would be much better off just going across the road and grabbing something actually good at central baking depot. My little Cupcake in Neutral Bay doesn't have the worst cake in the world, it's quite soft and buttery. Their icing is the problem. It even forms a bit of an icing sugar "crust" which is never a good thing in a cupcake.

The best bet in Sydney would be Sparkle Cupcakery in Surry Hills. If there were ever an emergency PMS attack this is where I would head. It's not world quality per se but it is a nice soft cake with a decent buttercream vanilla icing. They are pretty cheap with the icing though everything from the "disc" on the top to flavour chart seems like a blatant rip off of Sprinkles in LA. Apparently they have quite a cool cafe with champagne and whatnot though. it's a pretty good vanilla, just not my ideal soft masses of icing style.

So Sydney cupcakes have alot of work to do...If you make a mean vanilla cupcake there's a serious market opening there! I'll buy them :)

Sunday Family Roast!

2009-08-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

So lately with the cold weather we have been doing Sunday family roast...Dale did last weeks and I did this this weeks!

Last week was typically boy style roast. Dale got this masssssssive 4kg bone in pork shoulder from Hudson's and roasted it for 10 hours. It was mouth wateringly magical and he even got some nice crackling going on! After 10 hours it was literally so tender you didn't even need a knife. He served it traditional style with some homemade pork fat gravy and roast veges.

Being that it was 4kg we had a stack of leftovers so I decided to get a little creative. I made a pork shepards pie...which is pretty weird I know. Beef shepard's pie is always awesome but pork?everyone was dubious. So I made it all up fairly standardly...fried up some onion, carrot, garlic in evoo. Added the shredded pork and some veg stock and simmered it all down and covered it with creamy mash. It turned out to be a hit!

My roast shift was a little different. I went with a nice big leg of lamb and did it greek style. Basically covered it in oregano, evoo, lemons s and p and put water around it.Roasted it fairly high for an hour then covered it with foil and roasted it for another 3 on low. It was absolutely gorgeous. We served it a la greek with tzatziki, taramsalata, haloumi salad and some nice olive bread.

Make a roast before summer it back into full swing!

Makoto Sushi Chatswood

2009-08-17T18:33:00.001-07:00

So I know I've posted in the past on the awesomeness of Makoto revolving sushi but a new dimension has been added. Takeaway!!!!

I always ignored the little brochures at the front but have now discovered they have a huge assortment of takeaway sushi platters. You just call and say what time you want to pick it up and voila...bypass the huge line and eat your sushi at home in front of top chef masters!

I usually get the rock n roll platter which is easily enough sushi for 4 people and only $39!really good value. Dale and I alone eat more than $39 in the restaurant..

Not sure if the city branch does takeaway but next time you feel the need for sushi give the platters a go!

Makoto Sushi
336 Victoria Avn Chatswood
ph- 9411 1838
http://www.masuya.com.au/en/makoto_chtswd/menu_takaway.html

Primehouse Chicago

2009-08-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

So I thought I would throw out a review of what we like to consider the best steakhouse on the planet!!!

Primehouse by David Burke in the James Hotel in Chicago just off the mag mile ( shopping and steak what more could you ask for?) and is absolutely out of this world. David Burke is fairly stereotypical amercian celebrity chef...he's on iron chef from time to time and has a trail of restaurants scattered all over but this steakhouse really redeems his sellout celeb chef status!

It certainly isn't a cheap night out with a 3 course meal for two coming out around $300us we really think its worth every cent..hence why we can't go to Chicago without going there!

The restaurant itself is pretty non-descript and has that american speakeasy vibe with red leather (pleather?) tablecloths and big comfy chairs made for serious steak devouring. Service is always impeccable too.

It all starts with the out of this world puffy souffle-ish cheese bread put down in front of you. This is hands down gold medal free restaurant bread material and actually worthy of the stomach space.

For entree's (appetisers or whatever...why Americans insist on calling mains entree's I just don't get!) Dale got the as-seen-on-iron-chef truffled beef sashimi served on a big old chunk of himalayan rock salt. I wanted to lick it but it would have just been weird. Awesome flavour and even better presentation.

I actually don't like caesar salad a la american sans bacon all that much. To me caesar is just an excuse to eat bacon and a bit of lettuce to wash it down but when I saw it was TABLESIDE caesar I was all in. I'm a sucker for a theme and tableside locked it down for me...and I'm really glad I did!The caesar designated waiter (cute=bonus point) brought over the cart and didn't just mix the salad but made the dressing right in front of me!topped with some gorgeous shaved padano and it really was an out of this world salad. Not too heavy on the anchovy and a really nice tangy flavour (i'm guessing the worster sauce). It was amazing.

As a little sidenote Dale and I have a pet peeve...going to steak restaurants and seeing people ordering chicken. It gives us the maximum shits and then we can't stop staring at them and it all becomes really awkward. So basically when you go to Primehouse...GET STEAK! I got a giant hunkachunk of bone in filet mignon (500grams!) and it was the most delicous, tender mouth experience of my life. Dale went for the bone in rib eye which was also massssssssive and i'm told spectacular. He didn't even try to eat ,ine which is saying something.

Sides wise they sure do have alot to choose from. Last few times we have been here we barely touched the sides due to limited stomach capacity and this time was no exception. We got some truffled parmesan fries which were fairly good on the fries scale but just that bit too truffley. It had that truffle oil taste which ironically tastes nothing at all like truffles. Also grabbed the brocolli with feta and red onion which was pretty standard but tasty...it was really just the token offering of health to the table.

So by this point the early stages of meat coma are setting in.Your stomach isn't yet in pain but it's well on it's way....but persevere my friends. Dessert is where they do their best!

Dale went for some sort of Elvis like invention based on my peer pressure. Bananas, chocolate and peanut butter...put it all together and voila.A nice dessert but pales in comparison to the beauty I have in front of me...but then again everything does.

I am in possession of what draws me to this restaurant time and time again. The famed cheesecake lollipop tree. There really aren't words that can do any justice to this. A silver tree complete with tree greenery (don't eat that!) and cheesecake lollipops in 3 chocolate flavours, raspberries and all served with a raspberry dipping cream. Everytime one leaves the kitchen the whole place stops and stares at it's magnificence. Apart from the obvious presentation points it taste's amazingly, heartbreakingly good. Some of the best cheesecake I've come across.

So basically if you go to Chicago go to Primehouse! that's the lesson here today people. It's good stuff. I also noticed they had a Sunday special that a few other tables were having. A family style Sunday roast at a very affordable $50 per person including appetiser's mains and dessert. It looked like a fantastic deal and might be worth asking about if you are in town on a Sunday!

David Burke Primehouse
616 N. Rush Street
(at Ontario)
312.660.6000

RUB BBQ- Vegas Branch...

2009-08-05T02:59:00.000-07:00

So I must say one of our favourite things about NY is RUB (Righteous Urban BBQ). They have a famous little thing called burnt brisket ends, that are usually sold out so get in early, that are beyond amazing.

It's a dry rub style bbq and served traditionally lukewarm but absolutely packed with out of this world flavour. There's plenty of sauces to choose from on the table as well which I always make good use of!

So I happened to notice a while back that the second branch opened in Rio at vegas!now I personally have absolutely no reason to go to Rio (unless I become an internationaly acclaimed poker star!) because it really is a bit of a dive....but they scored RUB! Say no more we're there!

So went went for lunch after a long day of queue waiting at the UFC expo and an early start so we were STARVING! We hopefully held our breath as Dale uttered the words "burnt ends" and lo and behold...they had them! It was our lucky day (but the slot machines made up for throwing that small stroke of luck our way later)...

So Dale got the burnt ends with sides of collard greens and corn bread. The corn bread actually tasted more like a corn cake and we would consider a dessert?pretty strange. The collard greens had nice big chunks of ham in them and were perfectly peppery. And the burnt ends don't even need mentioning...beautiful,soft,succulent, fatty little pieces of perfection.

Now I was feeling a little creative and I went for the St Lois pork ribs and the BBQ chicken!bad call...should have got burnt ends. They were perfectly good but nothing compares. The chicken was a tad dry but had a beautiful crispy flavourful skin from the dry rub. The ribs were falling off the bone but I felt they needed quite a hefty dose of sauce to flavour them up. My elected sides were the vinegar based slaw which was nice, fairly plain. I also went for the mac and cheese based on some 12 year old kid on our way in saying how awesome it was...I should have known 12 year old kids don't know what the hell they are talking about! It was a bit too full on for me, no baked cheesey crust as I hoped for and more like Kraft mac and cheese. You could potentially die of a heart attack within seconds of finishing it.

No desserts for us as we were full up! but seriously if in NY or Vegas do go out of your way for RUB...it's darn good BBQ!

RUB BBQ
2nd level Masquerade Village
Rio Hotel
Las Vegas

I'm back again!

2009-07-31T02:26:00.000-07:00

So i'm back from our adventure to vegas and chicago...I actually got back a little while ago but was feeling blah about food (crazy I know!) but after a big haul at peters of kensington today and lunch at sopra my love was reignited!

Lot's of highlights from the trip which I will be sharing (some photos good..some not so good!)

Major food highlights:

-Finding an AWESOME cupcake shop right in the loop and surviving on what I like the call the steady cupcake diet for a week

-The best and I mean best little felafel shop in Chitown

-A fancy night out at Alinea where I have no idea what the hell I ate..but it was all very cool and wiggidywhack!

-Garrett's caramel crunch popcorn...

Lowlights:

-The dirtiest baked soft pretzel thing ever at ufc in vegas

-Brace yourself for this one...horrible deep dish chicago pizza and an equally terrible chicago hot dawg...I for one happen to like my tomato sauce on a hot dog!

-The cheesecake factory and all it's shiny eat me i'm a tempting cheesecake glory being a major letdown.

-Popeyes chicken.I really had such high hopes for this one having heard about it for years and never getting my hands on it...but it was gros. I mean greasy, greyish suss looking gross.

So many posts to do!

New Zumbo...

2009-06-16T21:55:00.000-07:00

Oh the irony of posting about health then going to Zumbo. I barely ate any of it though and donated most to the fam...but they just looked so good we had to!

The whole point of going in was to try Zumbo's new updated version of his upside down cloud which is basically a pavlova with lemon curd and sable dust (wtf is sable dust?)...and it was good. Crazy good. It had his trademark super zesty (but eggy as dale calls it...he no likey) lemon curd and matches perfectly to the sweet, crunchy pav.

A few of the names slipped my memory (it was packed in there I barely had time to process what was even in them!) but whatever the white tower is you HAVE TO GET IT. It was basically 3/4 coated in a powdery sugar and 1/4 sticky merengue icing and inside was 4 monstrous layers of goodness. Pretty much one of the best Zumbo cakes i've come across...

Also had a fantastic dome shaped cake that was effectively half chocolate mousse and half merengue but obviously such a simple description doesn't do it justice. Only thing is it really doesn't travel well and the top of the dome tends to slide off so eat it asap.

Unfortunately (damn) we have to go again because we NEED to fizzy coke can cake that was all sold out...so expect more updates!

and now he has been on masterchef (I so want one of those croquenbouche's!!) we can probably expect more sold out-ness so get in early!

Got some interesting food things coming up this weekend...heading into Marque for the gfc lunch on Friday then going to the winter festival over the weekend with the sole purpose of trying Poutine. Might be good but probably will be vile. Any broken limbs from the ice rink they are setting up will purely be a bonus.

It's Fishtime!

2009-06-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

So I have been the worlds worst blogger since starting this healthy food kick but thats cause everything healthy is so boring...nobody wants to read about my ham sandwich and yoghurt!

A few meals I've made lately have been winner ( a few failures too...never ever buy mission white corn tortillas and try to microwave them. Disgusting is far too nicer word)...

We've been having HEAPS of fish which is a bit of a pain trekking into the fish markets but it tastes so good it's worth it...there's a pretty decent new-ish fish market up near chatswood too which makes it a bit easier. Mostly we get flathead cause I hate bones but we got some nice mirror dory the other day on special..it's cheap right now too!

We bake it with a bit of baby spinach, olives, red onion , few cherry tomatoes and capers and man it's is the bomb diggity...and healthy. of course I put a whole heap of other shit on the plate that isn't healthy though. For eg here we have roast potatoes (bad juju),brocollini (good juju) and garlic bread from central baking depot which is so ridiculously good it get's a neutral juju rating. There have been a few good times where it was just raddichio salad though!

I haven't been cooking as much as i've just been soooo busy lately and everything I can think of to cook isn't the healthiest thing on the planet. Tonight i'm doing my first ever lasagne though with some lasagne sheets I got from SJ the other day so we will see how that turns out!

Healthy Eating...

2009-06-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

So basically for faaaaaaar too long I have avoided any sort of healthy eating plan and nutrition and basked in a beautiful paradise of affinois brie,haighs chocolate freckles and buttery,creamy mash*

No longer my friends!

I've embarked on a healthier eating plan and so far 2 days without sugar and minimal fat! I'm feeling a strange combination of liberated and just fucking kill me. It's long overdue and i'm completely aware of the stupidity of doing this is winter when there is nothing but a la boring apples to eat. Winter is the time for melted cheese and sticky date pudding and every other fatfilled fiesta my warped brain can think of but i'm starting to feel like shit. A change is needed so it's happening (hopefully it will all go that straightforward!)...

Expect some healthier homecooking recipes and a few less 3 course dinners coming up...but I promise it WILL still taste good. I made this "healthy" eggplant parm last night which was beyond disgusting and would rather chinese water torture than eat it again so i've learnt my lesson...if anyone has any good, healthy recipes send them my way!

The above miranda kerr pic is both for my motivation and dale's happiness.

* not all at the same time!

Masterchef Tarte Tatin

2009-06-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

So who else is addicted to masterchef?

I normally ignore the shit nights like the stupid skewer elimination but i'm loooooving masterclass, chef face off and the pressure cooker challenge! We have been meaning to make ALOT of the recipes we've come across and I have a little list thing going on but we did finally manage to make the Tarte Tatin.

After hearing it was a staple, basic dessert dish and never having tried one....it was on like donkey kong. I must say it was a bit of a letdown with the masterchef recipe using ready made puff pastry...very weak effort...but the point was to follow the recipe exactly so we went ahead and used it too. I really think it could have been so much better with some proper puff pastry.

It wasn't reaaaaally all that hard but a little bit stressfull trying to avoid burning the caramel and the suspense of what the hell was going to be found underneath that puff pastry top. At one point we even sat on kitchen chairs just staring it cooking away in the oven. Not sure what we were expecting there but yeah..we saw nothing.

So the time came to turn it out!there were nervous laughs and many the it's our first time it's fine if we messed it up comforts going around. Dale tried to spin it masterchef style and...it spun!we turned it onto the plate...it initially protested but before we knew it out it fell in a perfect circle.

And it looked good!!!!success!

So basically we ate it with double cream there and then and it was nice. I saw all the flavours Matt Preston the tight white pant hermes scarf slugman saw (but in a less gay way) the slightly burnts molasses flavour but without actual burning, the tartness of the apples and the satisfying crunch of the pastry. Strangely enough seeing as our oven is pretty psycho it actuslly maybe could have done with a few more minutes. I was pretty happy with it but ultimately it's just not really my style of dessert...not super sweet and the whole thing just tasted a little too healthy!

but give it a shot..surely you can do better than aaron..

recipe:

http://www.masterchef.com.au/apple-tarte-tatin.htm

Corned Beef...

2009-06-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

My mum has always been a huge fan of corned beef and I thought it was pretty wahhhhh but lately since the cold change i've been thinking darn I could demolish some corned beef right now. We came across out Hudson's (being the meat whores we are) a big old rolled corned beef and brisket studded with cloves and nabbed the last one. A lady came in asking for one two seconds later and because we are mean like that it made us love our victorious corned beef even more.

So we cooked it in a big old pot of water with 2 tbsp brown sugar, peppercorns, bay leaves and 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar for about an hour and a half. We may have had some tying issues halfway through but we worked it out!

Instead of doing the de rigeur mashed potatos and steamed veg we went with a roast veg medley of sweet and a la plain potatoes as well as some brown sugar pumpkin. We didn't really need it volume wise but steamed up some green beans just for health factor.And finally we went with a classic white wholegrain mustard and parsley sauce which reaaaally cuts some of the corned beef salt and makes it amazing.

We use a very simple roux recipe to make the sauce. Basically 60g or so of butter melted then add 2 tbsp of flour and cook it out for a minute stirring constantly. Then you add your 2 cups of milk bit at a time whisking in each ladlefull till absorbed. Once you have your nice smooth mix cook on med heat for around 5 mins till it thickens up but don't turn your back on this sauce for long...it sticks and is very prone to tantrums. No need to be constant but give it some regular stirring love. Once it's all thick and nice add few tbsp chopped parsley, a spoon of wholegrain mustard and season it carefully. You may want to go easy on salt if your corned beef is quite salty!

Sausage TV Dinner...

2009-06-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of our fave winter night dishes sitting in front of the tv wearing trackies. Now i've painted you that attractive picture it is honestly reeeeeeeeeeeeally ridonkulously good and so easy it's worth a try. It is pretty reliant upon good Italian sauages so go out to haberfield or a decent butcher and keep some in your freezer when you have no idea what to do for dinner!

It's all super simple. Thickly slice or halve however many sausages you want(we use about 6 thin ones) and throw them in a big baking pan with some wedged potatoes, whole garlic cloves with skin on,few slices of cubed ciabattta bread and toss it all around with a few good pinches paprika,olive oil s and p. Bake it all on 180 till it looks tasty (usually about 40 mins!) and serve it with some torn up basil ontop...

It's good the next day too if you manage to actually resist it all :)

Haberfield goodies...

2009-05-27T16:11:00.000-07:00

This was always a fairly typical type dinner for me growing up. With my dad and his greek side and my mum and her italian fisherman family background I never even had to think about eating that scary parmesan from the evil green tin.

Yesterday I realised the freezer needs stock (padano, fennel pork sausages, pancetta etc) so we trundled off to Haberfield and got ourselves the goods. I used to go quite often but these days theres too many calorie loaded temptations round that neck of the woods so we try to limit it best we can...hence the freezer supplies. I always head to IGA Lamonica (like everyone else) who has a deli counter that will put all others to shame.and man those ladies know how to slice!then you head on down to paesanella for cheese (you can go to their marrickville factory store for marginally cheaper) making pitstops along the way for bread, pasta and chocolate cannoli's. If you have any occasion that you can justify it with you have to drop into AP Sulfaro and grab the worlds best ricotta cheesecake. If you are really naughty,which I generally am, you can round out the walk with some colefax chocolates (who now have a cafe)...

I've always had this lifelong dream of going to Italy and pretty much eating my way around the country but it's still a little ways off yet. In the interim Haberfield makes a mighty fine substitute.

So this is pretty much last nights family dinner...it's so easy because everything is done and only really needs assembling. Pears with beautiful fresh ricotta, mountains of fresh bread, big antipasto plate of mortadella, della nonna salami and bresaola, rockmelon and proscuitto with a big raddichio salad. Dinner doesn't get any better than this.

So the reason I decided to post about it was actually a new-ish cheese that I've never seen before called Buratta. I have heard from a few people lately about this cheese which is basically a buffalo mozarella but filled with cream...I know it sounds like a heart attack but I had to try it. After spending a little time with google it turned out it's best eaten simply with some vine ripened tomatoes, proscuitto and fresh bread and my god was it amazing. The cutting was a little difficult as the cream filling was incredibly liquidy and spilt out everywhere. But the cheese was amazing. These things only have a 24 hour shelf life so next time you are around that way give it a shot...it's pretty special for lack of a beter word!

I also went and got some choc cannoli's from pasticceria papa (mezzapica is better if you can be bothered to drive there) which are always pretty good and noticed everyone in line in front of me was getting a pecan pie. Me being the eternal sheep I am I said hook me up with a slice of pie too. I think I was expecting some sort of molasses southern style sweet pie but instead got this dry, crumbly almost salty pecan pie. It was bad. Ignore the pie lovers. They are wiggidywhack.

So go out to Haberfield some time and stock your freezer and be italian for the day....it's fun!but double check your opening times..they can all be a bit funny.

Ramsay St
Haberfield

Jimbaran Bay, Bali...

2009-05-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

So we just got back from a whirlwind little trip to Bali for a wedding (which was absolutely beautiful) and had heard from a few people you HAVE to go to Jimabaran Bay for a seafood dinner. We really had no idea what to expect other than seafood and beach.

It was a pretty huge taxi ride from our villa (which came to something stupid like $8...taxis mucho cheap in Bali) and we decided to wander along the middle warung and suss out our choices before we sat down. Basically it's a huuuuuge expanse of seafood restaurants all with seating out on the sand which the most amazing view you have ever seen. We finally settled on one called Ganesha based on the fact the chairs looked comfy (they actually weren't but that's ok) and it seemed to be one of the most crowded which is always a good sign. We arrived just in time for sunset too which was absolutely magical and kicked off our shoes and settled in for our seafood extravanaganza.

We decided to go for pretty much everything and ended up ordering enough for about 8 people.I tapped out pretty early but luckily I had my human dale food vacuum who managed to finish it all up. After ordering our icy cold Bintang (did I mention it was HOT?) and aqua's we headed off inside to suss out the seafood selection which all looked absolutely amazing.

From the "dead" selection we went for squid, freshwater king prawns the size of a lobster and a big shiny red snapper. Then we headed over to the live tanks where our eyes were significantly bigger than our tummies and we got a giant crab, lobster (they were wierd lookin!) and more prawns. The grill was all over coconut husks and too hot to actually stand over to get a decent pic!but what we were seeing so far made us realise we were in for a seriously good meal. The choices for fried (no) or grilled (yes) with magic flavour basting.

Included with our meal was a fish soup (too hot for soup fools!) which got rejected, a green salad that we completely even forgot to taste when the main event came out and a selection of dipping sauces. the standout sauce was the "balinese sauce" which was fresh coconut mixed with random goodness.

Everything was grilled to absolute perfection with charry,crunchy bits and the freshest flavour we have ever come across in our life. Halfway through the meal the slightly suss head level homemade fireworks began and the little balinese people band came up to our table and played us songs. We asked for a happy song and got REM's losing my religion. haha. happy. Losing all perspective and foundation of who you really are...what's not happy about that?

The whole meal came to about $150aud inc drinks which is really veeeeeeery cheap considering the quality and volume of what we had. We would be back in a heartbeat.

Ultimately this was probably one of the best nights of our life and we owe all the people who told us we have to check it out a massive thankyou....it was the absolute food highlight of the whole trip.

You absolutely have to go at least once in your life!!

Etch...

2009-05-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to come here for sooooooo long and just before I went away I finally managed it. Becasse is cool and all but the idea of budget friendly Justin North goodness was just too tempting.

I can't actually remember what I did that day but it involved tons of food so we weren't all that hungry...hence decided to skip mains and go with some of the appetisers, entree each and desserts.

The room itself is a pretty sophisticated space with comfy padded seats and not actually inside the Intercontinental..has it's own special little entrance on Bridge st. The crowd was nice and diverse with a good mix of yungns and old timers....everyone was fairly dressed up though considering the "budget" vibe Etch has been pushing. I'm not sure I would call it cheap...cheaper than Becasse yes but it can still easily become an expensive night out. Especially with their good wine list.

We started with the proscuitto and manchego appetiser. Good not great. The problem was the lavosh thing it all rested on...dry,floury and just not cool at all. The combo of proscuitto and manchego was pretty magical though.

Then we gave the famed goats cheese balls a shot. The photo really showed up well! At first I was like jeeebus these look greasy but we soon worked out it's honey lavender (and not in that eating fabric softener type way). Perfectly crunchy and oozy these are absolutely one of the BEST appetisers around.

Also gave the skate knobs a shot which got full marks for it's presentation in a paper cone. I really wish the taste lived up to the sound of them though...sort of like little generic fish cocktails and nothing amazing. Lemon would have helped out immensely.

Now moving onto the main event (entree main event that is!)...

I went with the sweetcorn crab soup because I had just heard EVERYWHERE that this is to die for. I was getting sick of hearing it and really hoped to prove all the claims wrong being that it really is just a soup. Soup doesn't usually float my boat.

But my god. This is no soup. This is silky,creamy heaven in a plate and worth every single compliment that comes it's way. We are dying to go back just for the soup...Dale pretty much abandoned his quail entree to try and scavenge soup from me....there really aren't any words that can do it justice.

So Dale's quail (nice rhyme) was pretty decent. Had a five spice asian type vibe and a nice addition of acidity...very small though. not a good bet if you are hungry.

Moving onto dessert...of which there were so many choices that sounded like winners we had to get 3!

First off we went with the date tart with early grey syrup which was absolutely beautifully presented. It's pretty bold to even try and take on Sydney's beloved Rockpool/Lorraine Godsmark date tart and I think it was a bad call to even try. It was just nothing special and I even noticed the table next to us had a few bites and left it...that's never a good sign. The earl grey syrup was really interesting though and had a sticky toffee type consistency but did taste just like a cup of tea!

The standout dessert was the gels and sorbets. I imagine this dish changes with what fruit is around at the time but we happened to have good luck and get blood plum, white nectarine and pineapple. The plate is seriously gorgeous and could charm anyone. It's basically a collection of a "gel" (imagine jube style gelatin) with the sliced fresh fruit and a sorbet in each flavour. Seriously awesome.

Then with coffee we went for the Etch lolly tray which was both wierd and good at the same time! There was an assortment of stuff like chocolate frudge,honeycomb and the star of the show...homemade wizzfizz rock candy stuff!it was very...fizzy!

So all in all I would go back in a heartbeat. It's worth all the talk and you owe it to yourself to try that soup at least once in a lifetime.

Etch
62 Bridge st
Sydney
ph-9247 4777

I'm Back!

2009-05-02T18:11:00.000-07:00

So i'm back from holidays sans swine flu!yay me.

stacks of food highlights from the trip..mostly high calibre stuff like In n Out burger and Sprinkles cupcakes..

speaking of which I managed to nab (as in pay for at the counter) a do-it-yourself sprinkles red velvet cupcake mix from williams sonoma which I am about to undertake..will report on results but so far expectations are low!

hope everyone has been good :)

Byeeeee!

2009-04-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

so I'm audio5000 for a few weeks overseas!

I have a STACK of good blog posts in the making including etch and lots of homecooking recipes so soon as i'm back next month expect them all:)

everyone take care, eat a salad for me while I drown in an american pit of saturated fat and see you soon!

Not Bread Alone, Crows Nest

2009-04-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

This is our local little cafe and it just happens to be our luck that they do one of the best breakfasts in Sydney!

They aren't too shabby with their lunch and dinners either (amazing lamb shanks) but breakfast is where they do their best work. Friendly bunch of girls, great food and nice prices.

Be warned it's a small place and can get pretty crowded on weekends but they happily hold tables!

I always go the big breakfast...perfectly scrambled eggs, cumberland sausage, pile of crispy bacon, mushrooms and grilled tomatoes. Also 2 perfectly crispy slices of St Honore sourdough.All for $16.50 and every bite is just right.

Dale usually goes for the poached eggs on sourdough with a side of bacon and the eggs are always perfectly poached running all over the place.

Another major standout mention is the ricotta pancakes with banana and passionfruit...absolutely sublime and they aren't cheap with the maple syrup. Let's face it with many pancakes that can be a factor.

There's nothing quite as satisfying as a big breakfast after a massive sleep in and this is def the place to have it!

Not Bread Alone
shop 2 376 Pacific Highway
Crows Nest
ph- 9966 9788

2009-04-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

This is my absolute fave snack/dinner/whatever in the world. Its so simple and somehow so amazingly good.

Buy the best sourdough you can find (infinity!) slather on avocado add some tasty,ripe tomatoes salt/pepper/oil and eat...as rachael ray the crazy bitch would say YUMMO

It just doesn't get any better.

Grill'd Crows Nest

2009-04-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

It's absolutely scary how many times we have been here since it opened a couple of weeks ago. I know I did a previous review announcing the greatness of Counter Burger but they have officially been dethroned my friends.

No idea when our suburb turned into the burger epicentre of Sydney but it all happened in a month and I'm not going to complain.Grill'd I've now learnt is part of a fairly decent sized chain in VIC/QLD and this is our first NSW store..

They have a pretty decent sized menu but nothing like the options at counter burger. I actually prefer the menu here because they have magic grill'd relish and herb mayo that tops any sauce possible anywhere else.I personally think the panini rolls are best but the regular hamburger rolls are pretty darn good too.

My absolute fave so far is the Morrocan lamb(not very morroccan?) which is a lamb pattie,roasted red peppers,tzatziki,salad and magic relish.

Def worthy of a mention is the crispy bacon and cheese which is just an absolutely perfect good old bacon cheeseburger.

Dale is quite partial to the Caesars palace which is a chicken burger with bacon,egg,paresan,baby cos and caesar dressing. Since trying this though he has moved on to what he deem the greatness of the Almighty but with the addition of pineapple.It's the australian works burger style and pretty tasty even though I have a fundamental issue with hot pineapple in any dish.

The chips are crispy,handcut and seasoned with an oregano salt. They come with sauce options but do yourself a favour and get the herbed mayo.It's too good to summarise into words.We have actually been given free chips when they had an excess...nice little suprise but seriously you don't need a chips each.One to share is more than enough unless you are starving...the burgers are huuuuge. Really well priced too at around $12 each you can't go wrong.

Another really fun touch is the feedback books on the tables. You learn plenty of useful stuff in them...but seriously.

The decor is pretty cool with a red diner style theme...somewhat scandinavian style.Not sure where I get that from I just do. very kid friendly and all the kids seem to be having a great time with the mini me pack with mini burger,chips and juice for $7.90.I kind of want one.

Here is a photo of Dale protecting his anonymity.

Service is funkyfresh and friendly and it seems like it's going to be a keeper!The nest is embracing it already.

Grill'd
57 Willoughby road (next door to GJ's)
Crows Nest
ph- 94360699

Roast Chicken goodness...

2009-04-04T21:13:00.000-07:00

So for years I was terrified of cooking roast chicken.I always thought it would come out dry or I would kill the whole family with salmonella and it would just be a disaster.

Fear no more though family because I've somehow managed to master it! Thanks to a really simple Jamie recipe the chicken always comes out succulent, juicy and perfect.

What I do is prick a lemon all over for a knife and stuff the lemon inside the chicken cavity with a big handful of fresh thyme. I'm completely convinced this is the secret to the awesome roast chicken. Ask me to do stuffing and it's all just way out of my league. For a 1.6kg chicken I cook it on 180 degrees for an hour and 20 minutes.

I flavour it up depending on what it's being served with...the other night it was with a nice big greek salad so I did garlic evoo/dried oregano/s and p and it worked a treat.

So don't fear the roast chicken... embrace it and all its awesomeness.

Cafe Sopra

2009-04-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

I'm a terrible blogger! I'm sorry I've been gone so long..had a crazy week and the places to post about have just been piling up... except lot's more posts to make up for it and make you love me again :)

So yesterday we decided to hit Cafe Sopra! It's all within Fratelli Fresh which makes it a really convenient place to grab lunch while we do our vegetable shopping.. and the food is awesome so why not!

So as far as I'm concerned Fratelli is the absolute bomb diggity produce wise... they have an Italian twist on things so you can be sure to get all your faves like big fat radicchio's for $2.50! As a serious vegetable shopping whore I can vouch for the fact it really is no more expensive here than anywhere else!

So Sopra is always pretty packed... but especially so on weekends. Expect about a 20 minute wait or so but they are always great communication wise letting you know how far along the line you are and you can always go have a browse through the store while you wait.

The menu is always jam packed with specials of the day and lots of assorted stuff. They have a few dishes, like the Vitello Tonato and some of the pasta's that are ALWAYS there but everything else is pretty much whats good at the time. The menu is one of the very few downpoints for me, cause it's a pain in the ass, is the fact the menu is on the big blackboard and they don't bother printing one out for the table. It really can't be seen from all the seats and every time I peer at it I end up catching some random's eye who thinks I'm staring at them and it just ends in all kinds of awkward.

We had a tagalong today so decided to get 2 antipasto platters for the table to share. I have a bit of a gripe with these two because I wish they had just one nice easy antipasto that had a mix of vegetarian stuff and the meats. Instead you have to get two to get a decent mix. And the bread situation... who does antipasto platters without bread!!!!!!!! Sopra. That's who.

We had the regular antipasto platter which is always varied and gorgeous. Today was beetroot with gorgonzola, tomato and peach salad, pesto green beans and caponata. It was absolutely spot on flavour wise... super fresh flavours. Serve is pretty damn small for $16.50 so would be better to share between 2.

We also had the cured meat plate which I think is one of my absolute fave dishes on the planet. Everything is sliced thinly and freshly and the serve is amazingly generous for the price ($17.50). The platter holds such delights as perfectly salty proscuitto, bresaola, carved leg smoked ham and an amazingly perfect thickly sliced pepperoni. Easily shared between 4.

Moving onto the main events... Dale is still raving on about his. He got the sardines on toast with cherry tomatoes and pesto. Sounds simple but I'm told was absolutely spectacular.. he is insisting it's his dish of the year so far (as a sidenote my dish of the millenium was out at dinner last night.. review to come!)

We also gave the vitello tonato a try... I had it once previously here and thought it was pretty good but this time it was absolutely amazing. For anyone that isn't too sure about it it's a pretty odd dish... poached thinly sliced chilled veal covered in a caper tuna mayonnaise based sauce. The whole dish is served cold and is beautifully fresh and light.

The other major standout was the Tallegio herb arancini's served with salad cream. The only slight controversial aspect of the dish was the salad cream dipping sauce... an aioli in my opinion would have been a bit nicer. The arancini's themselves were a heaped pile of freshly cooked perfect little risotto balls.. inside was meltingly perfect in contrast to the crispy outsides. Really great dish.

The desserts are enough of a reason to come to Sopra alone... they have a seriously massive dessert list. The only depressing thing is watching stuff being crossed off the list as it sells out and you are still eating your mains. It hurts.

Unfortunately the dessert special was sold out which was lemon mousse with lemon curd...looked/sounded pretty sensational but it just wasn't meant to be. I'm pretty uncreative and when I find something I like I stick to it so I went with my usual banoffee pie. This is just an absolute dream dessert to me. Thick, slightly salty brown sugar tart shell topped with creamy, smooth dulce de leche and topped with bananas and cream. There really are no words.

Mr Dale went with the tiramisu which was pretty much just a big old heap of smushed up flavour. Really nice though but not a very sweet dessert...

We also tried the cheesecake with peach and passionfruit salad which was absolutely gorgeous. Feather light and creamy without being too sweet and a really nice end to the meal.

Coffee is absolutely aaaaaaaaaaamazing and don't even think about leaving without it.

The service is pretty unobtrusive but yet still attentive.. I've always found it friendly without going over the top but some people have higher expectations and have found the service a little lackluster according to some reviews. I think it's pretty good though.

It really is a casual place so jeans and thongs all the way but the prices are creeping up above the casual mark.. $150 for a lunch for 3 isn't bad really but it's not a super cheap bargain lunch either.

Go to Sopra when you get a chance... do your vegetable shopping, take the kids and grandma get wired on good coffee.... it really is worth a visit!

Cafe Sopra
7 Danks st
Waterloo
From what I can see...no bookings.

Fish and Chips at Balmoral..

2009-03-24T03:52:00.000-07:00

Balmoral has always been a fave place for me as my Mum and Dad used to take me down there to play all through my childhood and it's always been my happy place.

These days we normally go down on a Sunday and it is paaaaaaaaacked but still a nice little break from the seemingly urban jungle of where we live.We do the whole walk along the beach and eat fish and chips thing and it's always nice and relaxing.

We go for the Bottom of the Harbour place which never used to be good but once they got a swanky makeover (and doubled their prices to pay for it) it has actually turned into a really good little takeaway place.They also have eat in seating but the menu is a bit lacklustre and not sure why you would bother sitting at their tables when right across the road is a million dollar view (or few million as the case may be)...

The menu is fairly extensive and ranges from the standard deep fried fare up to some healthier options such as grilled snapper and barramundi...whatevers good at the markets I imagine!

So I went with the fishermans basket aka heart attack waiting to happen. It is jam packed with 2 big bits of battered fish,calamari,crumbed prawns all on a giant serve of chips.I can seriously never finish it and would be enough for two fairly easily and at $16.50 would be a good budget option if sharing.It was nice and all freshly cooked..none of that precooking stuff.And suprisingly non-greasy.The calamari is the standout for sure.

Dale went the classier route with the salt and pepper squid. he enjoyed it alot as a bit lighter option but it was fairly heavy handed on the pepper. Which he loves so it worked out well.

So next weekend when you have nothing to do and are sitting around take a trip down to Balmoral for lunch!The fish and chips is good but the setting is AMAZING. It's also a way better bet than the bathers pavillion cafe which has pretty generic lunch food for alot more cashish.

Bottom of the Harbour
21 The Esplanade
Balmoral

The Essential Ingredient Cupcake Course...

2009-03-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

So I finally went along to the cupcake decorating course on the weekend and it was actually pretty good!The course cost $60 for a 2 hour class but you get to take home your 3 decorated cupcakes and piping bag/nozzles.

I haven't been a big fan of the new essential ingredient...I hate the new cnest space compared to the old warehouse vibe and the absence of their annual 30% off sales that were the highlight of my younger years!

The class was led by a supercute lady called Margaret Keeble who had the whole old school decoration stuff down.I also had an awesome group of friendly girls at my table which made the whole thing really fun.

I didn't actually *eat* the cupcakes so can't comment on if they tasted any good but they looked kind of cool!we basically learnt how to work with a piping bag,make leaves (which really just turned out as green blobs) and fondant flowers.

I would think it's a pretty good course for a bunch of girls to attend together and stacks of young teen girls were there getting into the world of cupcake decorating!

sorry boys but leave this one alone....you could come along but that would make you incredibly gay :)

The Essential Ingredient
477 Pacific Highway
Crows Nest
9439 9881

Bills

2009-03-23T01:18:00.000-07:00

So pretty much the first cookbook I ever purchased was a Bill's one.I have been cooking his recipes since the getgo and we have him and his sexually ambiguous ways to thank for many dinners in our household.

So after all these years of cooking his food I never actually made it to any of his cafe's but somehow in one weekend I made it to not one, but two. It never rains but it pours.

First up was a nice lazy weekend lunch at the Surry Hills Bills (or Bills number 2).It had that nice fresh,breezy type vibe and bonus points for being opposite Hudson's meats.As I was putting money in the parking meter I couldn't help but stare wistfully through the doors of Marque and wish I was eating in there though..

So I had the polenta crusted calamari with remoulade (fancy word for tartare sauce) and baby spinach. It was good,not great. First of all I was expecting something interesting when words like remoulade are thrown at me and when I get run of the mill tartare I get sad. the squid itself was nice but a little lacking in flavour...nowhere near as good as that Hugo's squid the other day. They set the bar high.

My mama ended up getting the prawn sandwich which was only one piece of bread..some would say more of a prawn bruschetta? It was on a bed of Fennel Slaw-which is one of his recipes we make often to go with pork and his was better- and rocket. Mum's dish was very, very nice. Really fresh flavours that all balanced out nicely but the squeeze of lemon was much needed to add a bit of acidity.

We also had the cos and padano salad with anchovy vinaigrette.I'm not sure it was a salad so much as half a cos lettuce but it was nice and fresh and the vinegar element of the dresser was much better than the traditional creamy caesar style.

So the following morning upon awakening Dale said he wants more than just museli for breakfast.He wants Bills.So off we go to Darlinghurst Bills this time, just to break it up a bit.

Breakfast was seriously amazing. You always here this talk of Bill's scrambled eggs and think pffft they are just eggs really but my god. Dude. Insane.

So I went with the traditional breaky of scrambled eggs (which my mum asked how I wanted done..har har) with bacon and mushrooms. Eggs were spectacular, mushrooms were buttery and perfect but the bacon lacked a little. Nice flavour just not crispy enough..more ham like.

Mr Dale went with the scrambled eggs and ocean trout gravalax on the side (strongly suspected as a salmon imposter) and he adored it all.

Another amazing choice on the menu was the signature Bills corncakes with bacon and tomato. They were an absolutely giant serve and beautifully sweet and crunchy all at the same time. Most of the restaurant seemed to be ordering them so it's obviously no secret this is a really great dish.

The sourdough toast deserves a special mention. This was seriously some of the best sourdough I've ever tasted in my life...after doing the eternal search of La Tartine, St Honore, Sonoma and finally settling on Victoire we have a new contender that blew everyone out of the water. Infinity Sourdough.

It's in Darlinghurst and we were seriously so impressed we went and iphone stalked them and purchased a couple of loaves straightaway after breakfast.Absolutely Grade A stuff.

I can't imagine Bills in a evening setting but will give it a try one day for sure. He has a small but carefully chosen menu which I think is a big part of his success.Instead of overwhelming people with choice he keeps it simple and the quality high. Personally I think breakfast maybe was a little better than lunch but both were really great.Very much worth the minimal investment.

Sean's Kitchen

2009-03-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

So Friday night we had a steak craving and decided to check out Sean's Kitchen at the casino. We used to really enjoy Astral back in the day so thought it would be a pretty safe bet for a good steak.

The restaurant itself was pretty cool with a giant cow statue to greet us.It was absolutely packed too so bookings would be a good idea!

Our server was awesome and very complimentary of my sparkley top which instantly set a nice tone...anyone who likes sequins is ok by me! There was a bit of action with an unruly customer causing a crazy yelling insert f words here scene over his girlfriend's undercooked steak and the servers handled it pretty well...but he was a grade A nutter.

I wasn't drinking that night and decided to go with a big fruity drink thing called a Matador. It was amazing! Blood peach puree with vanilla cinnamon syrup and topped up with cloudy apple and lime juice.You can see me in the photo grabbing it...mine bitch mine!

I started with the flavours of Jamon which really changed my previous opinions of Jamon. Before I was like ehhh it's ok... still a proscuitto girl at heart but this stuff was good! Quite decent sized serves of each too.

Dale's entree was the standout though which was orange and star anise ocean trout with bruschetta. This was no normal bruschetta though... it was a tasty buttery, soft perfect brioche topped with the chilled cubed ocean trout and dill. Didn't taste much of the star anise but it was spec-tac-ular.

So mains we went for steaks, which are served with homemade bearnaise (none of that packet shit here!) and an amazingly flavourful jus. I went with the dry aged on the bone sirloin which was a leeeeeetle overdone for my liking but still a beautiful bit of meat.

Dale picked the winner again and did the dry aged on the bone ribeye which was cooked perfectly and packed with juicy goodness.

Side wise we did the "infamous" duck fat chips and beans with almonds. Both were a bit meh... the chips tasted good and all but they were just chips really. The beans were way overdone and had no crunch. They pretty much stayed on the table.

We were seriously tossing up about dessert because we *really* didn't need it after all that food and nothing on the menu leapt out at us. Last minute decision was let's do it.... and my god are we glad we did. We shared both the duck egg cream catalan and a milk sorbet with berries and elderberry jelly, which had amazing presentation. Both of them were seriously the bomb.

The best of the two, if forced to choose, was the duck egg catalan which was effectively a creme brulee but instead of the traditional crunchy top had a brown sugar syrup soft top. It was silky, rich and tasted like heaven.

So ignoring the few little overcooked disasters it is a seriously good investment of your precious moolah (gfc and all!)... I noticed a lot of other peoples food looked amazing too and with such an extensive menu, it's really hard to go wrong here!

Seans Kitchen
Level 2, Star City
ph- 9777 9000

Crazy Foodie Saturday...

2009-03-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

So this Saturday (21st March) for some reason is turning into a food extravanganza!

It never rains but it pours.

First up we have the northside growers market, our monthly little ritual. I will do a nice bit fat post about all the available goodness.

Then I (alone this time..Dale would rather die) have The Essential Ingredient cupcake decorating course at 10.30. I don't have really high hopes for it as i'm not really a fondant cupcake person but we will see how it goes..$60 seems sort of excessive for a 2 hour course but it might be good!

Theeeeeeeeeeen we also have all day Saturday the SJ annual warehouse sale.Usually it's a bit on the downlow but seeing as it's taken out a giant ad in the good living this week expect a big turnout!if I didn't have so much stuff on I would def be there 8.00am on the dot but instead will have to do an afternoon trawl of the leftover dregs.Based on previous years expect to see stacks of Valrhona, Duchy originals condiments and SJ branded goodies. The one thing I can count on is that stock is dispersed throughout the day so you might end up nabbing some bargains later in the arvo..

Northside Produce Market
Miller st North Sydney
8am till 12noon

Simon Johnson Warehouse Sale
24A Ralph Street Alexandria
8am till 5pm

Tower Burger Goodness...

2009-03-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

So I have it on somewhat good authority that the beloved KFC Tower Burger is on it's way out soon..in no way is this culinary perfection but it seriously hits the spot.

So run don't walk and get your artery clogging awesomeness while you can!

I have officially tapped out.I've exceeded my quota and i'm done.I'm never one to get the KFC burgers...but for this I make the exception.

It's all about the hash brown addition and my god is it worth every calorific bite.

I pretty much just did this post so I could use the photo of Dale. I think it perfectly captures the shame yet undeniable satisfaction of the tower burger.

Hugo's Manly

2009-03-15T03:56:00.000-07:00

So this place seriously wins my vote for the lazy weekend lunch. Poor Dale is yet to visit as I was off galavanting without him but it will be his time soon.

First of all I really don't like Peter Evans.His lips always seem dry and this for some reason bothers me beyond belief...but the boy can cook!well he can own a good restaurant at least.

The ambiance and location is nothing short of spectacular.Right on manly ferry wharf with undisturbed all round ocean views with big cushy chocolate brown armchair style seating that begs to be sat in all day.

The food matches up to the setting too..which is more than I can say about the Bavarian beer cafe next door.Awesome beer but bad schnischnoo.Hugo's is def the best manly wharf choice!

The wine list was also great and a nice cocktail menu with jugs for $30.Nothing says weekend like a giant jug of alcohol.

I started with the Calamari which was perfectly crispy with a hint of spice. I will be back for this dish alone! It is also a massive serve-more than enough for lunch- for $18 which is actually a pretty good deal!

My gorgeous dining companion got the rock oysters with shallot vinegar which she assures me were perfect.

We shared a pizza for mains as looking around the empty giant boards on all the tables pizza seemed to be the done thing! We had the meatball and parmesan pizza with tomato salad.The base was nicely cooked and crispy but next time I might go for one of the more interesting pizza combinations such as mushroom with a giant hunk of meltingly delicous tallegio or pork belly and sweet onion pizza!

I didn't do desserts because with cold rock so close I couldn't bring myself to have anything but...I will peruse the menu for sure next time though.

So now for the only downfall of the otherwise glowing review. Service. It was mediumly polite and incredibly s-l-o-w.Like so slow that meal took 2 hours.It might be part of their long lunch thing or it might simply be lack of attention to the tables.

Might be more optimistic to assume it's the long lunch lazy beach days vibe.

The view is so amazing and the whole ambience though that spotty service may just be a small exception I'm willing to make..

Hugos Manly Shop 1
Manly Wharf
East Esplanade
Manly
ph: 8116 8555

Homemade Ribs!!

2009-03-15T03:34:00.000-07:00

So this is only THE BEST FREAKING RECIPE EVER!

Seriously..if you are a fan of ribs you will never want to go out again for them after trying the sheer awesomeness of these ribs.

They will only be as good as the base ingredient so head to Hudson's or Penny's or Hummerston's or whomever your bomb diggity meat retailer is and tell them you want some babyback ribs (insert Austin powers joke here)...

I seriously sometimes think that we could enter some serious Texan bbq competitions with these ribs (that's not true..we would be destroyed) but either way hotdamn they are good.

Rib's are never super filling so bulk the meal out with bbq sides of your choice..I normally do baked potato and slaw. Corn works well too.

Ok recipe time!marinate these babies overnight if you can but even a few hours will do the trick.

I'll assume you have a kg of ribs..double it or halve it as needed.

In a decent sized saute pan combine a reaaaaally finely diced brown onion in 60g butter till soft and golden. Add a cup of tomato sauce (the heinz stuff is good), 2tbsp apple cider vinegar, 2tbsp brown sugar, 2 tbsp worster sauce,1/3 cup honey, 1/3 cup lemon juice. Mix it all up till the colour is even then add a cup of h20. Simmer it all down for about 10 mins and it should be nice and thick.

Cool it down and pour it all over the ribs and whack them in the fridge overnight or as long as you have up your sleeve. When it comes to cooking time bbq is awesome but I usually do them pretty low in the oven for around an hour. You have two choices with the sauce...you could cook them up with stacks of sauce on them so they go super sticky but then you have to be on major burnalert. I usually boil the extra sauce left in the marinating bowl and serve it as a dipping sauce. You have to make sure you boil it though for a few mins...raw pork juice sauce isn't cool!

and voila!ribs!these are especially good for boys. No matter what I've bought Dale seems to instantly cheer up when these are put down in front of him.It's like the secret recipe for repercussion free shopping!

I went a little crazy with my southern belle theme and made a pumpkin pie to wash it down with.Nothing revolutionary, just the recipe on the back of the Libby's canned pumpkin. This pumpkin can be hard to get hold of in Sydney but it's around at sugarfix stores,usafoods and dj's food hall sporadically.

If you have never tried pumpkin pie it is seriously the best combo of sweet and savoury and makes a fantastic dessert.do eeeeeeet!

MuMu Grill

2009-03-15T03:04:00.000-07:00

This is one of our regular haunts where we always head for steak whenever the craving hits.

La Grillade is another good Crows Nest choice but its a bit fancier and the price is aloooot higher.

So MuMu is in the old red centre premises and his the restaurant as well as takeaway/delivery pizza next door. Not a huge fan of the pizza but one time was enough for me..it might have got better so if anyone has any good review's or recc's for it holler!as a sidenote it's all a vast improvement on New Orleans Cafe, the owner's other property.

They pride themselves on alot of their ingredients like sweet bangalow pork and saltbush lamb.I've only ever tried the pork once, which was a special, and it is one of my alltime fave dished i've tried.ever!

Service has always been the one downfall of MuMu.I've had repeated issues with the service being a bit rude and went off the place for a little while but have finally realised pffffft service schmervice.I just want my moocow!

The decor is nice, clean and modern with a big outdoor communal table area with tiki torches.The seats on the inside tables are might uncomfy and even spotted a byo pillow of a fellow diner last time!the booths are nice and comfy though.

They have an extensive tapas and jamon bar which gives the meal lots of options.You can go tapas style and share or just grab a couple to start with before moving onto steaks..the choice is yours!

Dale and I usually warm up with a couple of the tapas specials..whatever looks good!Today it was the meatballs with buffalo mozzarella and basil in a thick tomato sauce. I really liekd the service style in a scorchingly hot little pot but the taste just wasn't good enough. Tomato sauce wasn't nearly sweet enough and the meatballs were fairly blandorama.

The other tapas that leapt off the menu was the cured smoked salmon with tzatziki..and this was really fantastic. perfectly chilled and flavourful with the tangy yoghurt..I never thought of this combo before but will def be doing it in the future.

For mains we tend to be fairly uncreative and it's all about the steakage.Bigger the better! Theres a really nice assorted steak menu including all the favourites. I usually get the Goulburn Valley(not as in the tinned fruit!) 280g sirloin and it's spectacular...

Just a quick word about steak.I don't want to come across as all judgemental but if you eat your steak well done we just can't be friends. It is such a shame to see beautiful meat cooked to death and butterflied and whatever else they have to do to get that shit cooked through.Med rare all the way!represent!

Another really nice thing to note is that MuMU do a nice mustard selection with their steaks.It includes dijon and english mustard...nothing special you say?wait for the house made roasted garlic mustard!it's amazing..we can seriously never have enough.

The steaks also come with steamed green veg and the option of new potatos or chips. Either are good!

Desserts are unfortunately nothing special.I've been fooled 3 times by them and no more.The brown sugar pavlova is probably the best bet of the bunch though..

All in all I think MuMu is doing one of the best steaks in Sydney right now. I love my prime and madcow (and can't wait to try chophouse!) but MuMu really has it going on.

MUMU GRILL
70 ALEXANDER ST,
CROWS NEST.
TEL: 9460 6877

Taste Festival Sydney

2009-03-14T00:02:00.001-07:00

So today I adventured off to the taste festival.I decided to do the day seating because of my freakish hatred for mosquitos but I forgot to factor in one little thing...the sun!man was it humid and sunny today and there was very little shade to be found!

So I won't spend too long bitching about the slightly crapola things about the festival seeing as it's only on for one more day and just concentrate on the food.Some of the issues were lack of public transport to the event so you could get adequately drunk and still make it home in one piece, major shortage of seating considering the amount of people and retarded ticket prices.

The food though was worth it alllllllll.

Dale and I being the little piggy's we are ate way too much. Uncomfortably much. We ended up doing around 15 dishes which seriously wasn't cheap but kind of a good deal when you consider how much it would cost to go to alot of these places individually.

First up we have the standout dishes of the day:

Strangely enough our numero uno pick was the goats cheese marshmallow with basil granita and strawberry salad from Centennial Parklands Dining.First thoughts was wtf and instant disregard because we had never really heard of the restaurant but we gave it a shot and my god was it amazing. You seriously couldn't make this at home. The jury is still out on if the goats cheese was just a slight layer ontop of marshamllow or it was all one thing. I like the use of the propane torch too...add's a fun pyromaniac touch.

Next standout was the Ottoman Burek with yoghurt pomegranate sauce. Crispy and perfect and tangy and everything you would hope for in a turkish dish. There was a bit of a wait so they sated us with turkish delight, which is always welcome.

Next majorly awesome contender was Buon Ricordo's Faggotini.Basically a sausage, nice sized serve too, bound with parmesan and truffle egg. The truffle flavour wasn't super strong but more than enough to make the dish amazing. I have alllllways wanted to go to Buon Ricordo and this really sealed the deal.Armando was being all smiley and cute too..and he was selling his olve oil which I stupidly didn't grab. Another reason to go to the restaurant!

Another great dish was the Assiette lamb. I seriously could have eaten this all day. Perfectly cooked med rare and mouth watering. I watched the taste kitchen demonstration of Assiette's chef Warren Turnbull doing his strawberry bellini and doughnuts (was hoping for lamb recipe!) and he was a seriously cool guy. They also mentioned he does degustation any night 10 courses for $90 which is dirt cheap and does a Friday special lunch of 3 courses for $30.$30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I will for sure be visiting Assiette.

Dales absolute fave..and def in my top 3 was the Flying Fish blue fin tuna, ruby grapefruit and crispy pork. Tuna was perfectly rare and the sauces zesty and the whole flavour was just interesting enough to standout in your memory. I've heard kind of mixed things about Flying Fish but thanks to this dish I HAVE to go there.

Then came alot of middle of the road (for me) type dishes. Sailors Thai betal leaf prawns were just ok, Civic Dining's scallop moussaka was pretty average and not what I hoped for. Scallop was cooked well but the dish really just felt like a scallop sitting on eggplant..not bound together well enough.Civic's yeeros was alot better though with nice little pomegranate bursts throughout.Really wasn't a fan of their fig and lemon baklava though...just really puff pastry and a fig!mucho bland.

Another middle of the roader was Berowra Waters Inn. The arancini, which was incredibly small for the price, was just ok.Not very truffley. Dale enjoyed their Ocean trout with tapenade alot more though.

Jonah's tuna dish was a bit bland just average..and it had sneaky UNMENTIONED coriander. I feel strongly about this. I'm willing to accept it exists but please warn me!

Balzac had hit and misses too...wagyu beef was gorgeous while pork was fatty, impossible to eat standing up and just tasted really plain.rsl roast type plain. Please pack your knives and go!

Now we have our uncool dish of the day. The one were I wish I could go back and get rid of it.Becasse Eton Mess...it was seriously bad. First of all 12 crowns ($12) and literally a huge cup of cream with a tiny bit of berry.I mean seriously who wants to finish their meal with like 300mls of cream!had to throw it...just couldn't handle it.

So all in all a very happy day out!There may actually be a part two tomorrow as after seeing the photos my Ma was like I want to go I want to go...so maybe baby! Could be a good chance to try what I haven't already...

I would say checkout the website but it's broken!they need new IT guys!

here it is just in case:
www.tastefestivals.com.au

Coconut Water!

2009-03-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

I only have 3 words to sum this up....DON'T DO IT!

I've seen it around a few times but finally succumb to a try at the jujitsu comps at Syd Uni (I was forced there but there was plenty of good 6packs around for entertainment...and not of lokococo!)

This stuff is absolutely vile.It's like salty,creamy water. Dale didn't mind it though.

Coconut Water has it's benefits..It's packed with a natural balance of sodium, calcium and magnesium. So it's pretty much a healthy electrolyte drink like gatorade.

Drink at your own risk.

Cevapcici Lunch....

2009-02-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

So as I was raving before...Hudson's Meats is the bomb diggity. They have these little cevapcici's (skinless sausages) for around $20 a kilo and you get STACKS. Easily enough for a family of 4.

I usually do a really quick lunch with them...get two pans going of the sausages so you don't overcrowd them (ergh stewed meat) and cook them to your liking. I usually go a bit pink in the centre, because I know it's good meat, but you wouldn't want to do that with the supermarket ones. While the little guys are cooking you make a quick salad (greek's good if you have fetta and olives on hand but anything will do) and a tzatiki.

Tzatiki can go a few ways. Theres the proper way and the lazy biatch way.

I am indeed the lazy biatch but i'll let you know both just in case. If you were were keen for a smoother tzatiki you would grate your lebanese cucumbers (about 2) then with a roll of paper towel and elbow grease get all that liquid out of them. Then you mix in your yoghurt, 2 crushed cloves garlic (or minced garlic if you dont like raw garlic heat), black pepper and squeeze lemon.

So I do all the same ingredients except I just roughly dice my cucumbers instead of doing the liquid straining thing. Bit lazier and chunkier but tastes good!

So serve your cevapcici's with some salad, nice crusty bread and tzatiki!eaaaaasy.if you wanted to go fancier you could make some spanikopita for starters...but thats pretty labour intensive in my opinion...easy is best!

Now I know technically the cepacici's are Croation...but the greek flavours work super well with them.

NOTE: I have been known to have a culinary disaster with this meal. make sure your yoghurt says continental or european not just plain...plain can be sweet!thats all I have to say about that.

now I want it for lunch!

USA is A-OK!

2009-02-22T14:33:00.001-08:00

So I'm heading off in April on a whirlwind little trip to LA, Vegas and San Fran!

I am losing my mind with excitement of all the food possibilities there!especially SF!

If anyone has any recc's please do let me know :)

but expect a few international posts when I return!

Stockland Cammeray...

2009-02-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

I tend to get a bit overexcited about food providores. For once though I think I might be justified with the shiny new Stockland Cammeray in my midst!

yes I agree Cammeray is a strange choice for a mini little food epicentre but it's only a few mins from my house so i'm going with it!

Inside the Stockland centre we have Simmone Logue, Harris Farm and the shining star Hudson Meats...seriously I could run myself into some serious debt at this butcher.

so Harris Farm is just regular old Harris Farm but I've never had one closeby so it's pretty exciting...fruit and veg is always top notch and it has a nice selection of cheese, evia yoghurts and bread.I have to warn you though..park IN THE CENTRE. I made the mistake of taking street parking and when you go to take your Harris Farm trolley to the car automatic wheel locks come on as you leave the centre!dangfangled new technology.

So Simmone Logue is doing her usual pretty good thing. lots of ready made lunch options and cakes available with a pretty cranking coffee shop. I personally came in for an appetiser of hers I have heard about several times...starting with a slice of nice sourdough you top that with her chicken liver pate and follow up with her blood orange marmalade.Finish with a sprig of thyme. This was seriously one of the best things i've ever eaten in my life and if it weren't so bad for me i'd be eating it everyday. It really is worth trying.

and finally duh duh duuuuuuh HUDSON MEATS! seriously I want to have its babies. Bring your credit card and get lots of in the beauty of it all...

Everything at Hudsons is cut to order, steaks, bacon the lot. So be sure about what size steaks you want! Dale and I somehow ended up getting 700gram each t bones (dont even ask the price!) which were just effing huuuuge.But amazing.

Some other standouts so far include the cut to order bacon, leg ham, housemade chevapcici's and beautiful stuffed organic chicken breasts. Prices aren't obscene for the quality it is.

I'll show you a really quick and easy meal with the cevapcici's later on!

so seriously run don't walk....if you take your food seriously (meat especially) this is the place to be right now!

Stockland Cammeray
cnr Miller and Amherst st
Cammeray

Valentines Day....

2009-02-22T14:05:00.000-08:00

I know i'm late but I made Dale dinner this Valentines...normally we go out but this time I decided to do the hard yards!

Everything worked out really well and I thought i'd share what I made. Recipes are always available!

We started with a fig, buffalo mozarella and spanish proscuitto salad. Was amazing and we had a whole dressing prepared but decided to just go with a drizzle of balsamic...simple is best!

Main course was coq au vin with mash...it was a super chilly rainy night in Syd so it was perfect weather for it. Dale adores mash so I knew it had to be incorporated in there somewhere...The coq au vin takes alot of time but is absolutely worth it at the end of the day.

For dessert I tried my very first red velvet cake. It was no Billy's Bakery but it worked out nicely...and tied in with the theme!I was so worried when we cut into it it would just be a browny red...

Hope you all had beautiful love filled vdays!

The Counter, Crows Nest

2009-02-22T13:41:00.000-08:00

I've been taken down by the dreaded lurgy for the past week!but i'm on the mend and can actually start to taste food again:)

Last night I visited the new kid on the block in Crows Nest called The Counter. It's actually part of a fairly large American chain with one of their International locations in the nest.hmmm. Strange but I wont question it.

First of all it's taken over the space that was once the Crows Nest Club...I hope for your own sake you have never been here as it was the dingiest, nastiest drinking hole in Crows Nest.Strangely comforting at the same time though. So every time I stare at it all I see is club crappy.

The place has been decked out nicely. The front windows open onto the street (and the lovely sign for the "relaxation" centre above read massage with a happy ending hmm) but it's a really nice airy, open space. With super cool stainless steel school type chairs and booths available.

Upon sitting they give you your custom built burger menu and whoa. The fierce look of concentration that comes across everyone's faces when trying to fill this out is hilarious. The choices are pretty much endless starting with beef,veg or chicken and moving onto size. Sizewise I went for the medium but in hindsight that is a BIG burger and small would be more than enough with a side. Then you move onto toppings and sauces, all of which theres stacks of choices. The burgers can also be on a normal or wholemeal bun..or even in salad form for the carb watchers (very american).

I went for the beef burger with american cheese, grilled onions, pickle chips, mix lettuce and thousand island sauce (which comes on the side). This may sound like a wierd choice of sauce but try it..it's the ultimate!some of the best thousand island ever.

Dale got completely overwhelmed by the choices and got a little crazy. He went with the beef, gruyere, grilled onions, honey smoked bacon ,baby greens and sweet bbq sauce. He wasn't a big fan of the sauce as it all turned out a bit sweet.

The burgers also come medium but they warn you of this and you can always request welldone.

For sides we got a fifty fifty!which is a huuuuuge serving of half onion straws and half sweet potato chips.This really was delicious and came with three dipping sauces..buttermilk ranch (bit watery but overall decent), horseradish sauce which was amazing and bbq.

The drinks as well were VERY american in size. They even had voss water for some of the cheapest prices I have seen around.The shakes looked amazing too.

This really is a fun place..awesome for kids and I noticed they had a fun kids puzzle sheet. The options on the menu are endless and theres a burger and shake of the month special. This month was a crab cake burger with bacon slaw and lemon tartare....sounds good! Service was also top notch..young, friendly and attentive.

Prices are really good for what it is. Burgers around the $15 mark which makes it a nice affordable night out. This place comes with my serious stamp of approval!

The Counter
118 Willoughby Road
Crows Nest NSW
2065 Australia
9436 2700
decent wine list...

Phuongs in Crows Nest

2009-02-11T00:52:00.000-08:00

I have been a bad blogger!but i'm back on board with a stack of food to update you with.i'll make it up to you I promise!

The other night I went to Phuong's with my gorgeous friend where we caught up on all manners of girlchat over sizzling beef. This place really is a Crows Nest legacy. Possibly the ugliest, kitchy-est green decor known to man (and lime green serviettes to match..where even sells these!?)

It is a guaranteed cheap but good night out of vietnamese food.I have had mixed experiences there..alot of people I know live for their beef pho but Dale and I's first experience there was a little lacklustre.The other night though completely redeemed itself for me and was a really great meal.

We shared the fried spring rolls to begin with.They were nice and crispy with a pork and vegetable filling.Nothing amazing but the dipping sauce of was a fantastic mix of sweet and spicy going on all at once.

We also shared a plate of the Bo Vi which came to the table dramatically sizzling and spitting.This is not the time to be wearing your best threads or you will have splatter all over you!The beef comes sizzling away with celery, onion and celery in a nice, thick and somewhat spicy sauce.It demands a nice big bowl of steamed rice to go alongside.

The chilli and lemongrass chicken was also amazing. Much lighter than the sizzling beef with a nice strong and zesty taste.

The service left a little to be desired.Could have been a language barrier thing but I think the waiter was confused by us most of the time and vice versa.Wasn't bad..just wasn't great.

For those on a budget and looking for a good vietnamese meal phuongs is a must do...even if it's just to see the massive greentheme decor for yourself!

note the chopsticks addition to the pictures. It's our artistic interpretation of action shots :D

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Phuong
87 Willoughby road
Crows Nest
94392621
BYO (bottleshop next door)

Asparagus Hokkien Noodle Stir Fry...

2009-02-01T20:36:00.000-08:00

This is one of the first recipes I ever really mastered so it holds a place near and dear to my heart. These days I use it as one of those backup easy meals to whip up in barely any time and whenever I see nice, juicy asparagus at the veg shop it always springs to mind.

What you will need for 4 (or 2 with leftovers for lunch!):

500g chicken breast
2 bunches asparagus(green don't even try and get fancy with the white..it's too hard!) each bunch chopped into 3's.
packet of hokkien noodles
1 tbsp chinese 5 spice
1 tbsp szechuan peppercorns ground
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp honey
1 sliced onion

So basically here's what you want to do....

In a a glug of peanut oil or whatever you have lying around cook your chicken in two batches.Pretty much cook it all the way as it won't have much of a chance later.Remove the chicken and set aside in a bowl.
Fry the onion and spices for about 2 mins until the really fragrant
Add the asparagus and chicken and fry for another minute or so.
Add the noodles (which you have already soaked in water or however you kick it in your house) and the sauces.
Stir fry it all around thai takeaway shop style for a few minutes and it's ready to go.

This is some seriously tasty stuff.

Makoto Sushi

2009-02-01T20:03:00.000-08:00

I live pretty close to Chatswood so Makoto is a staple for me!I'm usually there a couple of times a week and Makoto is easily one of Chatty's best food choices.

The thing about Makoto is it's pretty much just revolving sushi and a small menu selection but the sushi is amazing, fresh and perfect every time.It does looks a bit fancier than your average sushi train though.

I always grab the tuna sashimi whenever it comes into my line of sight..some of the best around.You could order the toro coming in at double the price but I've always thought it's a little too fatty here so I just stick to the good old classic.

Another superstar of the train is the fried prawn sashimi...it is seriously amazing and worth every calorie filled,crispy,golden bite.

Dale had a front row seat for one of the sushi chef's preparing a salmon dish which he took to with the blowtorch(boys can't resist the lure of powertools) and of course soon as that hit the conveyer belt, we nabbed it.

We ordered a couple of the menu standouts as sometimes at night the revolving selection can be a bit slim.We decided to try the deep fried soft shell crab which is amazingly sweet, crispy and salty.Everything good in one bite.

Also got the beef sashimi (really well priced at $6) which was perfectly cold and fresh.Raw beef is a fairly aquired taste but I know ALOT of people who were horrified at the thought but once it was laden up with tasty accoutrement's japanese style they have never looked back.

Pricewise Makoto doesn't come in at much more than other sushi trains...most dishes on the conveyer belt ranging from $3 up to $8 for the sashimi selections.I also noticed they were making some pretty awesome party style platters and have a new take away menu!

Only drawback is that this isn't exactly the world's best kept secret...you will spot it a mile away thanks to the big crowd hovering about outside.The queue actually vanishes deceptively fast and I've never waited more than 20 minutes.Once you are finally in there the wait is forgotton and it's all about the fantastic quality foodage that awaits!

I heard on the rumour mill there is also another branch in the big smoke...corner of Pitt and Liverpool st. Never visited but I would imagine it is the same great quality.

Makoto
336 Victoria Avn Chatswood
9411 1838

Cine at Fox Studios

2009-02-01T02:08:00.000-08:00

So this place is a fairly nondescript little Italian place within the entertainment quarter at Fox but whenever I am going to a concert at the hordern I always get overexcited about coming here...they have amaaaaaazing pizza!

It really is worth dropping into if you are round the area.

I am never actually clever enough to remember the random Italian names of the pizza's(bad blogger!) but I always go for the ham, mushroom,artichoke with extra olives pizza and it goes down a treat. Pizza's are around the $20 mark each but you could easily share with a salad and maybe a starter if you are hungry.

Seeing as Dale and I were little piggy's we went for a pizza each. He got the Italian sausage with capsicum and mushroom which was also fantastic with the trademark light,crispy base.

The Cine salad is also really nice.I always go for salad with pizza to lighten it up a bit..this is basically a greek salad with the addition of roasted artichokes.The dressing was a bit hardcore this time around though and was more pure vinegar than anything else!

Cine really is worth a visit though.Or steal my concert at the hordern/pizza tradition..it's good! Nice outdoor seating too..would be a great place for lunch while the fox markets are on as you would have a great view of all the action:)

As a bit of a sidenote I had a little time to kill before the show so went bowling @ fox.It was my first time and I was incedibly bad but a few of their potent overpriced cocktails later the shoes somehow become attractive.Went to see Girl talk afterwards which was AWESOME and if you have no idea what i'm talking about you mustmustmust download his album.it's free on his my space page and it's the bomb diggity!was an incredibly fun, sweaty and energetic show!

Cine
The Entertainment Quarter (Formerly Fox Studios) Shop211, G01 Driver Ave MOORE PARK NSW 2021
9332 1409

Fleur the Cheapass

2009-01-29T15:45:00.000-08:00

So at this point some of you guys might be thinking...why is this girl always going on about moolah and prices of things?
I thought I would explain where I'm coming from a bit.I'm basically what you call a chronic overspender destined to never have a healthy bank account and any assets beyond nice cheese in my fridge and Chanel bags.

But i'm trying to change!

This year is about being all round cheaper...really looking at things and thinking hm is that worth the cashish?There is no greater feeling in the world than financial security so I've put myself on a moderated spending ban (I can't spend nothing...its just not do-able!).

Another reason i'm always prattling on about the money route is that whenever I read food blogs it always irritates me when prices are never mentioned..if i'm going to go out somewhere I want to know at least roughly what type of price ranges i'm looking at so i'm doing my best on this blog to give a bit of financial perspective to places and if I feel like the meal was worth the bill.

Coming up i'll be doing some posts on how to lower the good old grocery bill(I just need to master how to do it myself between now and then!) because if you are like me and a terrible impulse spender Woolworths can turn into a fairly traumatic experience for the savings account!

so hopefully that explains i'm not actually THE cheapest person in the world....just trying to be:D