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.

intruder

Okay, this isn't really about food. Because neither am I, any more. I'm widening.. er, broadening my horizons...

I love this blog. I wish it were mine. This is blog envy. Am I over a food blog phase?

Am I over a phase in my life where food was The main good thing, the only flame?
Where I had forgotten how to procrastinate, my other favourite thing?

Certainly I still enjoy reading food blogs. I just enjoy other things a lot too.

Such as Gotye. His album is going around and around in my head lately.

I'm feeling pride in my city, my country. Melbourne's cultural hipness and hapness. Fond disdain for the wankery around the arts, which is arrogant of me at 21. Self awareness of privilege too.

Thing is, I'm too lazy to take photos of food all the time. But a food blog without photos just isn't the same to read. And I have this other blog which I could switch back over to, and try to recover. Or should I just keep going at EGWC and write about a variety of things? I'll write the same old crap wherever I'm posting.

Enough of this, silly. Semantics time.

PS We had roast lamb today, with all the goods as done in our family. And steamed a plum pudding I made the other day, and ate it with custard, and of course cream.
I also may have made ginger nuts and digestive biscuits.. thankyou Matthew Evans, writing just for me, the weekend cook (I do miss the old title though. Anyone can cook).
Oh, and carrot and zucchini fritter/patty things, with cumin. They were good.

delicious ginger

This morning I went to a new place at uni whose sign for spicy, gingery chai I have been eyeing for the last couple of weeks. There was a smiling, charismatic person there with a laptop whom I sat next to with my laptop.

He had sitting in front of him a dirty mug and three-quarters of a muffin, and as we sat there tapping the people from behind the counter came over and took away his dirty mug, and smiling, he yelled something out to them as they returned to the coffee machine.

'Here's your change, man.' The coffee student held out more than two dollars, but had to convince him to take it, in the end winning on the grounds that the girl had charged him double for the previous thing.

I worked for a while, and he had gone, but the laptop was still there on the sunken seat. Then he came back, moved it and sat down again. I smiled, without looking up from my (very rudimentary) essay.

He had brought with him a clean mug and a steaming pot, and apologised he was going to stink the place out with ginger. I told him I was having the ginger chai, and it would do me good anyway with sinus issues.
And he poured it, and it smelled so good. It was ginger and lemongrass.
With honey, it's amazing, he told me.

My spicy chai was $4.50 with soy.

It was worth it.

Las Vegan Bakery

Just went there for lunch today.

OH MY WORD it was delicious.

No, I'm not vegan, but I have increasing numbers of friends who are.

My sister went with a vegan friend of hers and told me more than once about the tofu and tempeh with satay sauce, bean shoots and salad ($8.50), which I dutifully ordered, eyeing the rest of the menu with equal longing. I wasn't sure what to expect, having had tempeh only once before at Vegie Bar (I LOVE Vegie Bar, but don't get tempeh there, at least not with the House Salad. It's as dry and boring as 7:30 on a Sunday night with no food in the house). But S1 had said this would be nothing like that.

She Was Right.

My local lunchmate ordered the Rice Balls (also $8.50), also with satay sauce, bean shoots and salad. A girl at the next table had this - I asked about it and she said it was her favourite! - and it was inevitable that one of us was going to order it.
Not everything on the menu has bean shoots, or salad, or satay sauce - in fact, some things have none of them! - but I was exceptionally glad to have all of the above.
The salad was just good old salad, but with little semi-dried olives and this fantastic dressing. I can't quite describe it. Think it had garlic?
The rice balls, 2 plump mounds of rice with a little bit of corn and stuff, encased in a sticky, sweetish batter and deep fried, were gorgeously ugly.
The satay sauce is evil, it's so good.
But I was happy with my tofu, hard on the outside, soft in the middle, and meltingly good tempeh.

The place is really cute. Run, it seems, by this funny straight-faced man.. he was serving and this helpful woman was out the back cooking (to get to the toilet you have to go through the kitchen and they tell you how to use the basin with the foot pedal). I shall check out what has been written about them when I have more time coz I want the story.

Everything is a similarly cheap price. Nothing under $5 except a muffin ($2, today only, according to the sign... they ran out while we were there. They looked great.) or a $3 all-you-can-drink cup of chai with bonsoy, but I don't even care, it's still super value for the best meal I've had in weeks, that's how pleased I am with Las Vegan.

They do takeaway, too. It's worth noting that they're only open 11-3:30, Tues-Fri.

If you're reading my blog and you don't know where Las Vegan is, I am surprised. And pleased. Don't make them too busy to fit me in, but they're on Smith St Collingwood, right near Trippy Taco and Espresso 24 or whatever it's called... between Victoria Pde and Gertrude.

Shhh!

blueberries

go with cream, and are good for your brain. Good to know at this time of year, when assignments are due and there's reading and work to be done.
Incidentally, I read an article the other day about blueberry's lesser-known cousin, the bilberry. Apparently it can help with Raynaud's syndrome, which I hadn't realised officially existed, but which bothers me sometimes, like in winter. Perhaps baking tarts will keep the cold at bay this year.
We don't normally have blueberries, but someone at Mum's work had a relative with a berry farm who when the fires came, grabbed what they could and ran. So we were lucky enough to be able to relieve them of a kilo of blueberries... plump, sweet and bubbling with juice when you bake them in a tart and rescue it from the oven, albethey blanketed under a buttery, subtle almond filling.
I'd been eyeing off Clotilde's recipe in my beloved Chocolate & Zucchini book for some time now. Almonds, blueberries, butter and delicious shortbready pastry. What more could you want? Apart from some cream to go with it, of course.