The twelve days of Christmas leftovers

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Alley

Christmas day is, amongst a lot of things, a day of feasting. Boxing day is also a day of feasting…. on leftovers! As is the next day, and the next, until all you have leftover is the last bit of ham in the ham bag. Maybe not really twelve days of leftovers, but you get the idea.

We have had plenty of ham sandwiches, pasta with ham, ham and salad, ham in omelets, the list goes on! The other morning I was contemplating ham for breakfast when I had a tasty idea. In the fridge I still had a bit of buttermilk leftover from recent baking exploits so I thought I would treat myself to a breakfast of buttermilk pancakes with banana, real maple syrup and you guessed it, leftover Christmas ham. Yum!

Step 1 for my brekky treat was to make breakfast well after the kids (and husband) had eaten and had disappeared into another room to play (although when quizzed by my daughter on what I was making, I told her I was making ham and batter which deflected all interest and thus I had a nice quiet breakfast :) ). I looked up my ever faithful copy of Stephanie Alexander’s ‘A Cook’s Companion’ and used her recipe for buttermilk pancakes. I only made a 1/4 batch, but I did use one egg (working out 1/4 of three eggs was too hard and I was hungry!) and it made three delicious pancakes. I fried up a bit of ham in the pan, chopped up a banana, put it altogether with some maple syrup and voilà! a great breakfast with a Christmas twist.  

mmm.... breakfast

  

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Chocolate Avocado Icing

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Alley

As it is approaching the end of the year there has been a multitude of end of year parties in which one needs to bring a plate of offerings for the masses. Hence, I have been baking up a storm and my kitchen has been given a dusting of sugar, flour and cocoa on several occasions. One of the end of year parties we went to was for, as my children call it, ‘old playgroup’ (as we have been going there the longest of the two playgroups we attend). Often when I get itchy baking fingers, I can remedy this problem with baking something to bring to old playgroup to share with the other mums over a coffee or a tea. Unfortunately though, one of my friends at playgroup, Li’l Red’s mum can’t eat most of my creations due to food intolerances, so I was determined to make something that she could enjoy with the rest of us.

Macarons ticked all of the boxes, they were devoid of the things Li’l Red’s mum couldn’t eat, but what to fill them with? Buttercream was out, as was ganache. So I was a bit stuck. Then I remembered something I read on Not Quite Nigella’s blog once, a chocolate avocado icing that was made with agave syrup. Agave syrup was not something I had in my cupboard, but icing sugar, however, was. So I did more research, then some (tasty) experimenting and came up with a chocolate avocado icing, which was not only perfect for filling macaron shells, but also great for anything that needs chocolate icing – and you cannot taste the avocado, so perfect for getting some extra nutrients into non fruit and vegetable eating children.

I am not going include here a recipe for making macarons, there are many websites, blogs and books with recipes and advice on making these fiddly creations. My macaron baking is still a work in progress, I need more practice, but I think my friends and family can put up with this :)

This recipe for chocolate and avocado icing makes a lot, enough for filling 25 macarons with a few spoonfuls leftover, so plenty if you wanted to use it instead for a cake,

Chocolate and Avocado Icing

1 large, ripe avocado, peeled and cut into bite size pieces

2 cups of pure icing sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

1/2 – 2/3 of a cup of cocoa powder, sifted

  1. Put your avocado into a small bowl and beat it with an electric mixer on medium speed. Do not be gentle here, the avocado needs to be a smooth as you can get it.
  2. Add the vanilla and the icing sugar and beat it until combined.
  3. Add the cocoa – half a cup first, beat it in with the mixer until combined and then have a taste. If you are not happy with the consistency or think it needs a bit more cocoa, then add some more until you are happy with it.

Very mushed up avocado

Chocolate avocado icing, ready to use

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Veggie Garden Ramblings

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Alley

There is nothing better than picking your own dinner from your own garden and it is good for kids to know where veggies really come from as opposed from the supermarket. Last summer, my vegetable garden was my gardening pride and joy, it was also the only bit of my garden that was not taken over by weeds! I grew silverbeet, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, lettuce and a lot of herbs. In pots I had some strawberries and a cherry tomato plant which the fruit unfortunately came to grief all too often as the smaller of my two children loved to pick the still green strawberries and tomatoes off the plants! This year will be no different (the snow peas are already in and fruiting), although I am changing tact slightly. Last week, the little one and I upended the compost bin and spread it all over the veggie garden. We dug it all over and watered it (and since then it has been even more watered in with over 50 mm of rain – thank-you Melbourne weather!) and now we will play a waiting game to see what grows.  

p.s. great posts Lady C!

some of last summer's bounty

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Eating our way…through the Mornington Peninsula MasterChef Challenge

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Lady Cardigan

This had been a year in the making and we wish it had not taken so long.  Mrs S and Mrs P had planned the MasterChef event to be held at Mrs S’ home back in 2010 but due to illness this had been postponed.

Fast forward to over a year later, Gypsy advised us that her folks’ holiday house in Rye was available for us to use for our MasterChef event.  We were all giddy with the prospect of this girls’ weekend.  Originally the plan was to enact one of our favourite MasterChef challenge, that is, to split into teams and run around Mornington Peninsula, ok drive around, picking up local produce and cooking a three course meal.

In the end we decided on a more collegiate model where we all cooked together instead and I think we were better for that rather than competing.  Mrs P, with a big list of places to hit in Red Hill, lead the team, though Gypsie had to be the taskmaster and get the ladies in line by dragging them out of the shops else we’d never get started on cooking.

Alley and I joined the ladies a bit later in the morning.  We were directed to get the proteins  for the event and after a bit of a wild goose chase had found that the specialist butcher had moved to the industrial end of Rosebud.  The staff were super friendly and gave us some great advice about how to defrost our whole duck quickly enough to cook that day. (In case you wondered put the duck in tepid water and change the water every 30 minutes).

By the time we got to Rye the whole crew was there including one of our newest members to a GDO, young Shack who is Mrs C’s little boy.  That poor kid got man-handled by the ladies more than the duck did!  We had a lovely spread for lunch, much needed fuel before our whole day of cooking and definitely needed after all that driving around Red Hill, Rosebud and Rye.  Red Hill cheeses, cold meats and ciders, some lovely dips and anti-pasto from the Rosebud deli and beautiful breads including a red wine bread!  Gypsie’s holiday house was a lovely setting for all of this.  Homely, kitschy and most importantly housed a home made outdoor oven!!!

Red Hill lunch

What a surprise too.  Mrs P bravely volunteered to start the fire having read about how to do it on the internet.  I sent several photos to my beloved, an expert fire starter, to get his opinion on our progress.  All in all a super impressive fire was built, and we got that baby set at just the right temperature to cook half of our dishes!!!

Outdoor oven

The best thing of the weekend was the amount of crap we all brought along.  We had literally brought half our kitchen and most of our food book libraries (along with Alley’s liquor cabinet). At one point Mrs S’ husband got a bit worried and wondered if she was moving out.

We spread ourselves out on the lawn with most of our cook books to decided on the menu.  In the end we opted for:

Salmon rillettes (smoked salmon, sour cream, dill all on toast)

Potato, eggplant, garlic and rosemary pizza

Mussels cooked in champagne, with garlic, shallots and parsley

Pan fried stuffed cumin squid (pork mince, prawns, shallots, chili)

Sides: Watermelon salad with Vietnamese fish sauce dressing

Char-grilled eggplants and red capsicum salad

Roast duck with stuffing of rye bread, large cous cous, shallot, thyme & rosemary, juniper berries and smoked bacon, and heirloom roasted carrots

Zumbo cherry cherry (raspberry) – macaroons filled with raspberry jelly, chocolate cream, coconut and cherry crust.

Salmon rillettes

Potato, eggplant, garlic and rosemary pizza

Mussels in champagne

Singapore slings

Roast duck and heirloom carrots

Zumbo cherry cherry (raspberry)

The char-grilled veggies, pizza and duck were cooked in the outdoor oven and they worked a treat.  There was a lot of watching and prodding but we couldn’t have been more chuffed with the outcome. The duck had a lovely brown glaze, better than my oven at home, and with proper resting it still felt moist.  The other highlight for me was Alley’s attempt at the Zumbo dessert which did take most of the day to make and working with a foreign oven she still managed to make an amazing dessert!  We did a great job eating (and washing up).  Gypsy kept us fueled with her awesome cocktails and sparkling wines.  The two mums in the group did a great job staying up past their bed time.  And Shack too was surprisingly good though out of his routine.

The dinner was definitely a slow meandering one but just a treat.  And we ate it all.  Mrs S, ever the trooper, even prepared the brioche to be made for breakfast the next day, even though it meant she had to get up at 4am (only 2 hours after we had gone to bed) to knock the dough around.

You would not believe it but up we all got (with me being the last one up, but gee I love my sleep ins) early Sunday and ate that brioche with jam.  Gypsy had optimistically believed she was going to make pancakes but our full tummies (yes still) said no.

We soothed our heads and bodies at the Peninsula Spas and then decided to cook a late lunch.  Yep, cook.  I had made a short crust pastry the night before for our second dessert which we aptly decided did not need to be made.  Instead we made a tart using our left overs and some veggies we did not use.  The tart would have been fine if we’d stopped at the leftover duck, asparagus and goat’s cheese.  But no, Mrs S threw in the calamari stuffing.  A crazy fusion of Maggie Beer and Christine Mansfield inspired savoury tart. It actually tasted ok, but I don’t think this will end up on any menu of ours in the future (at least not on purpose).  We couldn’t come up with a name for a pie except for the ‘morning after tart’.  No matching cocktail though.

Morning after tart

The success of this first Girls’ Weekend has lead us to make sure we do not leave it so long for the next one!!!

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Seamstress

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Lady Cardigan

Gypsy and I make sure that any catch up involves good food and definitely a good cocktail or two in hand.  After getting back from a recent trip to Brisbane for work Gypsie drove straight from the airport to meet me at Seamstress.

We had tasty cocktail or two as we lounged around the fantastically kitschy top bar.  I felt like I was in a scene of a 1940’s Hollywood movie set in a Chinese laundry.  There were Chinese tops hanging from washing lines in the ceiling, cute lanterns and large Chesterfields chairs.  The cocktail list was a lovely combination of classics (check the Martini list) and moderns.  Always of a fan of fruity cocktails I had the Rum Floradora (white rum, raspberry syrup, lime juice and ginger beer) and followed that up with the Charlie Chaplin Fizz (Sloe gin, apricot brandy, lime juice and whites and topped with soda water).

We took our drinks down to the dining room which was more organic modern rather than kitschy.  The service was lovely but we had been told that we had to leave within the next hour as our tables were needed for a big booking.  We could live with that.  But one should only make that comment if it’s followed up by similarly fast service.  We found it took a while to get the attention of our waiters.

We made quick decisions on our orders.  Seamstress follows the small tasting plate mantra, not quite Asian tapas or yum cha, but more the Melbourne darling of ‘shared plates’.  First up was the scallops in XO sauce.  The scallops were cooked beautifully but we were really hoping for that hit of chili that never quite got there.  This soon became the theme of the night.

Next were the soft poached wontons of beans, sweet potato in a pea and coriander soup and tobiko foam which was all a bit bland, pan fried king fish with tamarind dressed herb salad and soba noodles, also bland.  For the next two dishes we finally got some true strong flavours as one would expect from an Asian meal.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of subtle flavours within the Asian palate but the dishes being brought out so far lacked a true Asian sensibility to their flavours though cooked so well.

Our meat dishes included a tender plum sauce glazed duck with sweet pickled candy lemon zest which was the closest to being punchy of all our dishes.  Our last dish was the 12 hour cooked pork belly with drunken potatoes, bok choy and red wine jus.  It’s hard to ruin pork belly and they did a great job cooking it.

Bean and sweet potato wontons

Scallops in XO sauce

Pan fried king fish and soba noodles

Plum sauce glazed duck

Pork belly and drunken potatoes

Unfortunately towards the end they were moving tables whilst we were still eating and that sealed off an average eating experience.  No dessert for us though we would have loved to.  Not the fault of the staff that we had to be moved but if you are going to try to fit one more table in, I think just be aware of how you go about treating the customers throughout so that at least the dining experience is memorable (in a good way).

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Press Club

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Lady Cardigan

My beloved and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this year at the Press Club.  I had mixed feelings about it.  I’m a huge fan of MasterChef and love watching George on the tellie and seeing his masterpieces being created during Master Class Fridays.  He’s an awarded chef for a reason.  I was also very worried about hype.  Having seen him preach about good service and food I knew I’d be judging the whole place rather than enjoying my night.   I of course said nothing to my beloved about my apprehension.

We were warmly greeted into the venue which was classically styled (very old school suits affair, dark wood and table cloths, which I did not expect from a young chef).  Our Maitre De was a bubbly young woman.  We were presented with a card from the restaurant staff wishing us a happy anniversary (when I made the booking they had asked specifically if it was a special occasion and I particularly liked that – though a free glass of bubbly would have been more appreciated).

I made the classic mistake of agreeing to the still water instead of specifically asking for tap water (I know this stuff) and that immediately put me off side.  People just shouldn’t buy bottled water unless there is no way of getting clean water to drink when you’re away from home.   The environment people!  Think about the environment!!!  Ok rant over.

Perhaps it was because we had said we weren’t drinking much but our sommelier was a grumpy arse.  He dropped the drinks list on our table and walked off and did not make any chit chat let alone recommendations.  He was like that the whole night as he also doubled as a waiter.  The first time he bothered to talk and even smile at us was when bringing out a plate with home made fudge with ‘Happy Anniversary’ written in chocolate on the plate.  I think he must have realised then that perhaps good customer service would be appreciated (seriously though, two tiny pieces of fudge?  Not even a petit four plate?).

Putting the grumpy sommelier out of our heads, we proceeded to enjoy our scrumptious menu.   My beloved and I had prepped ourselves up to go the degustation menu.  We had a procession of beautiful and respectable dishes.  But no particular dish jumped out at us as outstanding or memorable.

The Symposium menu that night read as follows:

  • Tamara & Chips, which was wafer thin, placed on the second dish of sweetbreads.  Though they were listed as separate dishes they were served as one.   My beloved was a little freaked out about the sweetbread dish but neither of us realised it was even there or that we had received two dishes, we had thought it was one.  The Tamara & Chips was literally one slice of chip with a dollop of the tamara.  The sweetbread dish was divine.  In a shot glass the sweetbread had been pureed and was indeed sweet.  A few pieces of crispy pork skin was put in for crunch and saltiness.  Delicious

Tara & Chips, sweetbreads

  • Next came the only vegetable dish of the night, the Asparagus dish, lovely young green and white asparagus with goats curd and hazelnuts and light herby salad.  This was a bit bland for us and disappointing as it did not seem to reflect the flavours well.  Where was the seasoning?

Asparagus

  • The next dish was my favourite.  One guess, pork.  This was a 12 hour slow cooked pork neck with ouzo cucumber, rhubarb and eel skordalia which along with the pork had a a lovely saltiness and the crunchy vegetables added the right amount of acidity and crunch.

Pork

  • The snapper was tasty but ho-hum.  It had a lovely foam and zucchini puree.  Also there was a bit of spanner crab which added much needed flavour.
  • The duck dish was very nice and surprisingly light.  Well cooked duck breast with a star anise broth.

Duck

  • The last meat dish of the night was lamb, very juicy, with a spicy capsicum sauce and a ‘chiko roll’ of cured meats which added a lovely saltiness to the dish.

Lamb

  • The two final dishes were lovely dessert dishes.  First was more of a palate cleanser, called ‘refreshing’ on the menu.  It was possibly my favourite of the night.  A raspberry meringue with lychee ice-creams and freeze dried lychee.  The dessert was called ‘pineapple’.  This was a beautiful dish but not as spectacular in flavour as the cleanser.  It consisted of pickled pineapple, very much an acquired taste even though it had a real Asian flavour to it which should have been a bonus for me, a gingery marshmallow like pudding and coconut ice-cream with tart little pineapple jellies (I think).

Refresher

Pineapple

What my beloved and I found truly amazing was that we were not ridiculously full by the end of all those courses.  We felt just right and the meal was surprisingly quite lean.  We expected lots of fat and oil but everything was tasty and light. We didn’t feel the flavours were punchy, and except for the Greek names of the food, we couldn’t discern much that felt Greek through out the meal.  But maybe that’s because we’ve only ever been exposed to ‘taverna’ food and what Press Club offers is a more modern interpretation of classic Greek flavours in a more classic French style.

A lovely night but I think after my high expectations I felt a little deflated having expected a much more magnificent dining experience than what I had.   This is definitely a venue for suits more than young(ish) couple wanting to celebrate their anniversary but having said that, it feels weird to even say anything bad about the place because essentially there was nothing wrong with it.  It just didn’t leave us feeling that ‘wow factor’.  Oh yes, I said it.

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A Brekky Trio

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Lady Cardigan

A am a Sunday breakfast junky.  I’m not very good at spending time in the morning eating the most important meal of the day, but I always make time for it on a lazy (or not so lazy) Sunday morning.  This post, for the aim of efficiency, lists out three recent breakfast jaunts.  I admit to always eating at the same places (Lux now being our new local), but I thought I’d write about some of these lovely recent finds.  And in the mix is an old friend.  We returned to a venue we had not gone to for a long time.

Brunswick Food Store

So, post my night at Kumo my beloved and I decided that a morning after brekkie was needed.  I had been told by my friend Caz at Kumo to go to the Brunswick Food Store.  After she described the location I realised she was talking about the venue for Toby’s Estate which is across from my local shopping centre.

I’m always up for giving anything a go.  Toby’s is in an industrial bit of Brunswick and funnily on the opposite side of Barkley’s Square from Wide Open Road.  The Brunswick Food store serves the lovely Toby’s Estate coffee and also doubles as a small food shop (selling mostly middle eastern foods and pre-prepared foods to take home to eat including items for a mezze plate) and cafe.  It was not decorated as you’d expect.  That is, classic Brunswick industrial chic.  The space was a lovely mint green and felt like  a country Devonshire tea place, thanks to the vinyl rose patterned table covers.  But you know it’s a serious coffee venue as Toby’s Estate roasts nearby.  In one corner was an old school coffee roaster and in a separate room was a room filled with coffee machines.

Brunswick Food Store

The menu was small but a real treat.  I was in one of those rare moods to have a sweet breakfast.  I had the pancakes with raspberries, a syrup with pistachios and ice-cream.  It was a perfect fluffy sweet treat balanced nicely with the tart raspberries.  But I had breakfast envy.

My beloved had the ‘breakfast bake’.  It was essentially a baclava.  Layers of eggplant and haloumi and peas, with a spicy tomatoe sauce baked till it was hot and gooey.  It came with toasted turkish bread.  It was amazing and my beloved’s willingness to share was rightfully low.  But share he did and I really, really wished I had ordered that.

Pancakes

Eggplant bake

It’s always a delight to find something new.  This place was a little bit more off the beaten track than some other Brunswick stalwarts, it’s not as busy as your Minor Place or Wide Open Road but deserves a visit because of its charm, wholesome food and great coffee.

Auction Rooms

For a while there I think my beloved and I were going to Auction Rooms every second week.  It deserves all the rave reviews it gets.  Great venue (airy and light with lots of room to move and plenty of tables), great coffees (you can try to tastings or if adventurous go for  they syphon coffee), awesome food with funky names (plus) and efficient service.

But we stopped.  Even with all those tables this place is busy.  I mean, 30 minutes to wait for a table on a Sunday morning busy.  So we stopped.  But like all good things, we felt a yearning to go back.  How long was the wait?  I think it was about 40 minutes actually, after the young waiter had said 15 minutes.  My friend, it’s not cricket to say 15 minutes if you know its not in any way possible for this to happen.

Luckily it was a lovely day and now with the time waster that is the iPhone, my beloved and I found ourselves browsing social media crap to our hearts content whilst we waiting leisurely for our table.

We sat outside on the street and perused the menu.  I had hoped my favourite dish would come back on the menu.  Sardines.  But alas, no.  Auction Rooms keeps a few stalwarts on the menu and had the balls to change a few dishes too, which I respect.  Many places get too scared to do so but cafes which are so food and coffee based like Auction Rooms show that you can do it (just please bring back a sardine dish!).

I of course had the twice cooked pork belly (you know it) with spicy baked beans and corn toast.  The pork was a little dry for my liking but still tasty and the baked beans was given a bit of a mexican once over (corn kernels and coriander).  It hit the spot. My beloved had a more a middle eastern style dish, poached eggs a middle eastern version of ratatouille and flat bread.  I think he was less impressed having hopes for more of a spicy kick.

Pork belly and beans

Eggs and flat bread

We stuck to the coffee of the day, not quite it one of those syphon or clover moods and enjoyed the food, sunshine and pretentious conversation from our neighbouring tables (ah North Melbourne…more yuppie than yippie – that is hippy yuppie).  It was indeed lovely to go back to an old haunt.  It’s like catching up with a friend who has moved away but that you’re still close to.  You haven’t seen them for a while but you slip back into old conversations as if you’d just seen them last week.

De Clieu

Ok, the third in this trio of brekkie stories is a solo trip.  My beloved and gone away on a bit of a boys’ weekend and I had the luxury of having a quiet weekend to myself.  As per previous blogs, I was determined to make more of an effort to head to Fitzroy, in particular Gertrude st.  My regular breakfast haunt there was Bird Man Eating and as per usual it was full and I couldn’t be bothered.  Interestingly just East of that were a trio of lovely cafes (trendy, tick, busy but not too busy, tick, and awesome names, tick, me being superficial, tick tick).

I decided to go the one in the corner as the menu pasted on the window sounded intriguing.  Inside De Clieu, it had a lovely organic/industrial feel (all wood and concrete), super classy.  A nice mix of small tables, even some tables by the bar area, ok, not so much bar area as cake and pastry gawking area.  I was seated together with a gay couple planning a serious bit of mountain hiking.

The menu showed that they served 7 Seeds Coffee (after a bit of research found that it is indeed a 7 Seeds partner).  Already this was looking like a good breakfast.  The dishes, as you can expect from the title, were very French in both their ingredients and combinations.  There was a Croque Monsieur inspired dish, a very German style brekkie (cold meats, cheeses, preserves and mustard), but what drew me was the black pudding dish, the Boudin Noir.  Two pieces of crusty toasty sourgdough, shmeared with peppery black pudding (I’m a recent convert since my Yering Station dining experience), cherry tomatoes, asparagus and confit egg.  I have never seen nor tasted confit egg.  Its like a sticky, salty but sweet version of egg yolk and it was divine, especially when combined with the black pudding.

Boudin Noir

Awkwardly for me, the gay couple left and were replaced by two ladies, one of which was a recent client of mine.  We said hi and chit chatted for a bit and I tried to concentrate on my food and book whilst she spent the next hour telling her friend why she hated her job. Very very awkward.

The service was extremely mixed.  I would say for the most part the service was nice and professional.  But I had one waiter who was working my area who kept stuffing up my order and both of my table mates’ orders (he was more on the flaky end rather than the rude end of incompetent).  I was a bit worried but was quickly put at ease by seeing the food.

The day had started off swimmingly thanks to this breakfast venue and it fueled me along on my Collingwood shopping spree (yeah!)  I will have to return to try the rest of the extremely interesting menu.

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Kumo Izakaya

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Lady Cardigan

I had wondered what that corner shop next to Thai Nees on Lygon St in Brunswick East was going to become.  A colleague of mine who also lives in the area was certain it was going to be a store as he’d seen Japanese wares going in.  He was half right.  What used to be a cute children’s clothing and toy shop is now the home of Kumo, the newest izakaya to hit Melbourne.  Its part bar and restaurant and part store.  The owner is also the father of Robot located in the CBD.  I remember heading to Robot when I was still at uni, mostly because of the kitsch nature of the place and of course the saki, which I’ll admit to only being a slight fan of.

Ever a fan of a new watering hole in my area I decided to head there for birthday drinks (mine that is).  It had only been a week since it had opened and I had heard it was already quite popular (damn you word of mouth and Facebook/Twitter).

On arrival we were greeted by a friendly maitre de.  All the staff were very accommodating.  The venue was a cavernous space.  Huge factory ceilings with a beautiful mezzanine level.  On the ground most of the space was taken up by a communal table that took the length of the restaurant.  Booths could be found on one side and a long bar on the opposite side.  The mezzanine had couches with tables and tables for 2.

From the mezzanine

Drinks at the izakaya

My beloved and I managed to grab a couch on the mezzanine level but we were waiting on a few more friends and wondered how we would do this.  Luckily for us people moved quite frequently so we were able to snare up a second couch before our mates came.  Note to self, this is not truly a bar.  Unlike Naked for Satan which is a bar with food, this is a restaurant with a bar.  It’s not the kind of place you stand in the corner and grab a drink with.  It is equal parts about the izakaya style food, which this time round we did not try, and amazing saki selection.

And indeed, the team at Kumo do treat the saki like wine.  They were served in stemless wine glasses which allowed the saki to breathe more and were not served hot (no tiny saki cups).  The selection was huge but luckily I had Mrs S ,who having worked for Japanese companies for some time, was fairly well versed with some of the sakis.  Mrs S being a whisky girl definitely enjoyed herself there.

The view from the mezzanine was fantastic.  I felt like I was in a scene of a Batman movie (the good ones). The venue was dark and very New York, slick and cozy at the same time and unlike many Melbourne locations, there is room to throw a cat (not that you would, you know, cause it wouldn’t be hygienic with all that food around).

I will admit, the prices were  on the high end.  I expected it from the sakis and whisky but even local beers were super marked up and the dishes, which are essentially snack size, were quite dear.  I shall look forward though to having a proper sit down meal soon.  Yeah to a funky new bar in Brunswick.

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Cafe Vue

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Lady Cardigan

Finally.  Finally!  A classic Cafe Vue lunch box.  I’d been dying to grab one for a while.  I recently changed jobs which happens to be a little closer to the original Cafe Vue and therefore had a reasonable excuse to go there for lunch.

Mrs S and I took the opportunity to have a leisurely lunch there.  Mrs S went the classic shepherds pie but I of course went for the magic of the special box.  If only I could steal the magnificent box it came in.

There was a teeny waldorf salad, some cheesy potato croquettes, a little beetroot flavoured ciabatta with roast beef and a little pastry (I think they are called Paris brest) with a delicious creamy filling.  Heaven and bargain!!!  Will need to make this a regular event (thought note Shannon Bennett, the service is slow!!!)

August 2011 lunch box

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Beat Box Kitchen

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Lady Cardigan

Food vans.  They rock.  Usually, you’d expect to see one only at a carnival or festival.    Usually what you expect to get are dagwood dogs and soggy chips.

Not the Beat Box Kitchen.  A familiar site for the last year around the inner northern suburbs. Following the huge movement (sorry for the pun) in the US west coast of gourmet food vans, a great local team in Brunswick decided, why not here?

I had first heard about the Beat Box Kitchen, which serves old school burgers and fries, from my local Leader of all things.  It talked about the bureaucracy of Moreland Council who couldn’t quite figure out if these guys needed a permit to operate.  But since they weren’t in the same spot all the time, how could you issue a permit?  Obviously things have worked out and the food on wheels enterprise is going strong.

I’d been sussing out their regular stops for a while and finally decided on one that was both closest to me and appears to be the best location.  The team often stop in front of Mr Wilkison on Lygon st, which itself is a great establishment.  The guys at Mr Wilkison are quite cool with you brining in your Beat Box burger and fries, as long as you’re planning on buying a drink or two off them.  This my friends is why this is the best stop on the Beat Box Kitchen route.  Quality burgers and chips made with love and an cold glass of boutique local beer.  Awesome?  Yes.

My beloved and I had the Ralph burger, quality beef, home made tomato sauce, gooey cheese and a crispy amount of cos lettuce.  And the chips my friends, are not soggy.  To keep with the whole retro feel, the food is placed in little baskets (reminiscent of American diners).  We felt like kids biting into the hot and oily (but the right amount) burgers whilst sipping our red wine and beer at Mr Wilkinson.

The Ralph

I only hope some other enterprising people take up the gourmet food van concept so that other Melbournites can also enjoy.  There is a sense of camaraderie as you chill out waiting for your burger on the street, its almost a social event in itself.  We’ll be hunting down the Taco van too!  Go fish tacos!

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