Deathly Brisbane

Australia is known for its many dangers. Notably the naturally occurring ones, like snakes, sharks, spiders, jellyfish, waves, rocks, dingoes, kangaroos, koalas, and large expanses of land without water.
I was lucky enough to place myself in the hazard zone that is Brisbane recently.
You'd think it was a friendly place, wouldn't you? Midwinter, midtwenties, sunny.
Same goes for this chair. Looks welcoming. Wasn't.

Who planned that? Honestly. There's a big metal nose just where your head goes.

Beautiful Mt Tamborine...
...with, like Lamington National Park, the giant stinging tree. Well, these aren't stinging trees, obviously, but we saw some.
And seeing as we're on the cream blog, just as deadly, this cocktail at Sling on Boundary St, West End would have done well with some coconut cream in it.
It was like the hottest green curry you've ever tasted, in a glass. And no, the blurriness isn't that it was my third cocktail (first and only, thankyou, and I didn't even drink it, too much effort when it was so hot), it was just hard to hold the camera still for the 20 seconds or so of exposure in the night.
Flavours: Chilli. And kaffir lime infused vodka, Malibu, lime, death, and may have been topped up with lemonade. I didn't notice any sweetness, too busy dying. Everyone at the table tasted it and was completely gobsmacked.

I also hit my head on the metal supports for a car headrest, got lost in the wilderness, sugar overloaded at the Three Monkeys, sunburnt (should have gone with cream!) and my friend fell off her bike and damaged her knee, elbow and clothes.

One of the best weeks of my life.

Yarra Valley Saturday

A couple of weeks ago, a few of us went day tripping out to the Yarra Valley. Again, I was largely the tour guide, which again proved to be much fun. We went to...
Helen's Hill, which I think is also known as Ingrams Rd. Some odd scents, they reminded some of us of cheese. Their chardonnay was beaut.

Yering Station, where there was a fantastic cellar door assistant telling us lots of information in a knowledgeable, passionate and still down-to-earth way, who also looked a bit like David Wenham, to the enjoyment of at least two of the girls on the trip. Oh, and some delicious wines. David Wenham guy took us through all of the 20 or so wines on the list, and then a couple that weren't! I remember really liking their rosé, and an Italian-style red: think the Sangiovese was good. And a sparkling pink that exploded in your mouth, it was fantastic.

Yarra Valley Dairy, where we were going to get lunch, but the dining part was downscaled from what it had previously been, so we did a quick cheese tasting, or wine for some, and moved on.

Coldstream Brewery was where we did get lunch. Their cider was delightful! Subtle, small bubbles, and almost colourless. Beautiful.
Dad and I shared some smoked trout and potato cakes with a horseradish sauce, and this pizza: Caesar salad with calamari. Crazy, and really good.Dominique Portet, a smaller winery, was really French and quaint, straight from Provence. We met the man himself, Dominique, and all had a go at throwing a boot into a barrel to win a crepe (none of us made it). Though I wasn't blown away by the wine, I adored the place anyway. And to be honest, by this point, my tastebuds had had many many winey flavours through them and probably weren't at their most.. astute.Coldstream Hills (where the top photo is from) was our last stop before heading home, and I found pretty much the same thing as at the previous place: just wasn't appreciating the wine as much. There was a nice toasty smelling chardonnay again, though.

You can find a map of Yarra Valley's cellar door places (where you can do tastings!) here.

And that night, when we all got back, I was due to head out for dinner with two friends, one of whom was visiting from Perth. It had been rather a big day, so I declined the pre-food cocktail at Murmur and the with-food wine, and not being hungry yet, ordered a salad. We were at +39, that new trendy pizza place everyone has been writing about (oh, look it up if you want, I can't be bothered), but my salad was (excepting their exceptional tiramisu) by far the best thing we got!
Radicchio, pear, parmesan, walnut, and truffle honey dressing.
It was a very good day.

gâteau de l'amie de la mamy de Clotilde

Just made le Gâteau de Mamy from my increasingly beloved C & Z book. Adorable. My camera's at my other abode, so I can't take a photo, but it's beautiful, even more than the ingredient list would lead you to predict.

Only the pear version is listed online, but I'm willing to bet it's just as delicious.
Have I ever mentioned that Chocolate and Zucchini was the first food blog I ever saw?
I was looking for, probably just googled, a recipe for zucchini cake, I think. And to my disappointment, because it wasn't the recipe and then delight, for obvious reasons, I stumbled upon Clotilde's blog.

I bought the book. It's the only thing I've ever bought online.
Everything I make from it is wonderful. It is where I discovered one or two of my favourite sandwich combinations, and that you can eat gingerbread the cake with pear without any butter and it's lovely.

Anyway, this is a sweet, friendly, buttery, melting step in my apple teacake quest.
Make it. Remember that fresh fruit means the cake will take longer to cook through, and when you tip it out, tip it onto a plate, just in case. Don't use a cake rack, especially if you ran out of space and stuck the extra apple on top of the cake, because you might lose some of it and trust me, you don't want that.
Mmmouth watering!

Bakery Hopping, Part 2

Man, it's been a busy week or two.
So!
Third stop on our bakery tour was Dench, where there was no room for us to sit down and I was the only one to buy anything, so no photos. The loaf of raisin bread I got is interesting. It's like.. densish white bread with raisins in it and a lemon scent (no spices, I'm pretty sure, and little, if any, sugar). And taste. I think it's got a lemon glaze too, and the top is rather dark, kind of burnt tasting. Having had it for breakfast a couple of times so far, I can say it takes a bit of toasting and is quite chewy.
It makes wonderful French toast with butter and cinnamon. And a chopped up pear chucked in the pan too.
Mmm.
I was too lazy to photograph mon pain perdu. But back on the visually documented track...

4. Loafer Bread, Scotchmer St (just across St Georges' Rd from Dench):
Sandwich, I shared it with S. Beetroot, feta, leaves, some spicy chutney. Pretty standard. Nice subtly sour bread, chewy enough but not too much.
M had a quiche that disappeared before I could get a photo, and she said it was the best one she'd ever had. Was going to buy another one for lunch the next day, but then forgot.
And the savoury brioche that I longed for (thought between the other pastries, the sandwich was more virtuous) and tasted C's. What was on it? I can hardly remember now. But I recommend.
The cakes looked lovely, too. Let me know if you go and try their chocolate beetroot cake. I've been wanting to taste chocolate and beetroot cake for quite a while. They have a big list of coffees, which I approve of (when I wanted coffee in the good old days, I never knew what to ask for. I knew people had all sorts of different coffees but didn't know what there was. So this is good) and S had her first dandelion latte, which she liked.

5. Babka.
We waited patiently and then less so, for more than half an hour to be seated, while groups of 2 and 3 came, ate and left. Sigh.
Then we had coffee and the 4 of us shared two $7 wedges from the cake fridge, which was the right amount.

The chocolate fiends among us required that mud cake be one of the two. It was good mud cake and not overwhelmingly chocolatey. Kind of subtle. I dunno, it might have been fantastic if I'd really wanted it. As it was, I might have rathered pecan pie or a dried apricot and fig cake with some tea. Either way, mud cake was completely upstaged...Highlight of the day: caramelised pear and custard tart. My words and this photo are inadequate. Let's just say it was our favourite.

Bakery Hopping, Part 1

It's been a great couple of weekends. A trip down the Great Ocean Road, and then a tour of some of the bakery cafes of Melbourne's north. And the residential streets. Anyone know what this plant is? There were a few .
Where I'm living is a residential college, but people don't necessarily stay for the whole year. Maybe days, weeks or a couple of months.. most of the residents are from overseas. Generally we're all busy during the week (some more than others: we coursework students are on holidays at the moment.) and on the weekend, well, there's the whole of Victoria to see.
Having heard complaint of a lack of bakeries in the area (compared to Germany), I wanted to show my friends Babka and Dench at least, but with limited time, when were we going to fit in all the lunches required?
Thus was born the bakery tour. Five of my favourite bakeries in an afternoon made for a very enjoyable Sunday of looking, smelling, eating, walking, sitting on the tram and of course, taking (and posing for) photos. Singing Beethoven's 5th shamelessly, to the amusement/embarrassment/annoyance of the other patrons. Whatever. We waited ages for that table, and by TART was it worth it.

Here we go.
First stop, Lygon St, opposite the cemetery. I first came here in 2002 with my aunt and very young cousin and had hot chocolate, and it was hot!, spilt on my lap, and my jeans smelt like sour milk for months. But that wasn't Filou's fault. They have beautiful breads, pastries, and especially quiches and the like. Their spinach pie, with poppy seeds on top, is really good.

Because this was our first stop of a tasting tour, it was only just after midday, we didn't want to fill up too much. So C got a mini strawberry tart, which S and I also tasted. They'd used perfect strawberries.

M said her mini white chocolate tart was good.

Aaaand northward bound.


Guess where?

But of course. No northern Melbourne bakery tour would be complete without Sugardough.
A little custard bombolono ($2.50) was different to what I'd expected. Not as sweet, not as rich. Kind of bready. Not as much filling.. the dough was actually a bit dry. I wasn't that blown away, but it was pleasant enough.
M had one of these little berry tartlet things, for which she asked for a knife and then to have it heated up. I'm not sure how much it was. It was nice, but not the best thing you can get at Sugardough.











What was really enjoyable this time, though, was S's Croque Monsieur. The mustard was yummm.. the white sauce creamy but not too much, balanced nicely by good ham.
To be continued...

Las Veganagain

It is a warm, sunny June afternoon in Melbourne, and all is well.

DELICIOUS... Las Vegan Nirvana Lentil Patty with gourmet salad.

Depending on the place, 'gourmet' is such a crap word. It's a crap word because the fact that it's used usually seems to mean the opposite of the word's supposed meaning. Like, 'we just like our meat + 3 veg, but we'll put some token other combination of ingredients on the menu and call it gourmet to please you weird hippy people who like raw spinach.'
I realise that this is a strong and somewhat angry statement blindly stereotyping any users of the word 'gourmet'.
But tell me anywhere you had a 'gourmet' pizza that was better than Bimbo's?
I guess I generally mean, if your food is good, it's good, and it will speak for itself.

But at Las Vegan, the 'gourmet' salad is different to the normal salad, and they've named it so because it's a green salad plus avocado and marinated stuff (little bit of eggplant and mushroom), oh and dried olives. Fair enough.

There was a decent whack of oil in this meal, to be sure. Might not be able to see it under all those beautiful bright colours. Deep fried patty with oil on the salad and oil-marinated eggplant and stuff. And avocado (oh, this was some good avocado). After some initial squeamishness -squeam?- I don't feel bothered, though. It was yum. And ohh, the crispy, sweet edges of the lentil patty! aaah. It was a monster thickness, too. What can I say about the flavour and the texture? Pleasing. Very.

Me mate had the TVP Calzone with gourmet salad and a cup of the bottomless Chai. The calzone was all right, but I won't bother with them when there is so much amazing stuff on the menu.

No chai for me, but I escaped having spent a total of $10.50 for my patty with gourmet salad and a crazy muffin that seems to be chocolate, walnut and cinnamon. Had a taste of the lemon and ginger too... crunchy sugar on top, fresh ginger.

More soon.

ummmmm

What am I doing again?

I have several assignments due soon, all in varying states of begunness. I don't know front from back anymore.
My inside out is head.

But I do know, I liked this cake.

Went to Arcadia on Gertrude St for breakfast this morning, not really hungry, and ate a savoury muffin that was good, but maybe would have made a better lunch. It was quite salty. But the texture - moist in the middle, chewier/crisper on the edges, oh the edges were gorgeous. A hint of cheese, which went nicely with the potato, rosemary, olives and capsicum. Could have done with a little bit more bits of capsicum, but it was good. Ah, I'm getting hungry thinking about it.
I remembered to take my camera, and then forgot to take it out of my bag.
No Bircher muesli on the menu, which disappointed me. Apparently the French toast was really good, but I wasn't in the mood. And the other breakfast stuff wasn't that appealing. Eggs with spinach/smoked salmon would have been nice, but again, I'm not a fan of eggs before midday, really.

The lunch stuff, however... looked good. The sandwiches looked like my kind of thing.
On the way out, I spotted this cake.
Want.
Asked what it was, for interest's sake: lemon and polenta.
Had to have.

Sorry I didn't take a picture when everything was all pretty in the cabinet.
Sorry I didn't take a picture when it was intact in its little brown paper bag.
Sorry it's all gone.

But I had to document this crumb!

So grainy, perfect amount of sweet, not that lemony. Lumps of it falling off as it came apart.

Researching. No, not cake. Uni.
Cake.
Uni.

Cake.
What a happy word.