Loi Loi, Richmond

Hi to all!  Hope you have been having a great weekend.  Mine has been pretty busy.  On Friday night, I went to see legend Burt Bacharach at the Regent Theatre, playing with Orchestra Victoria and his own Burt Bacharach Band.  In a word - brilliant.  The man is 83, and while I can't see him jumping about disco dancing any time soon, he is amazing for his age.  His three vocalists were superb, especially the ladies.  I couldn't pass up a chance to see Burt after seeing him in Austin Powers, and I had no idea he had written so many great musical standards that are a part of many people's musical consciences. 

The weather on Saturday (being Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's 86th birthday) was just gorgeous, and I popped into South Yarra to pick up my dry cleaning as an excuse to do a spot of shopping.  I bought a beautiful silk blouse in damson and a pair of black trousers from Jigsaw - it will be a perfect outfit for the chilly weather that is just around the corner.  I also learned through Facebook that the lovely Marian, a former work colleague, married her sweetheart on Saturday - congratulations Marian!

Saturday night, I moved onto comedy for the second last night of the Melbourne Comedy Festival, going to see Judith Lucy at The Comedy Theatre (we had seen Tim Ferguson a couple of weeks before.)  I laughed until I thought I would be ill during Judith's show. I love her shows - but don't be late or sit in the front row, m'k?  On the way in, I saw Magda Szubanski leaving the theatre from the previous show - I adore Magda, so it was exciting to see her so close (about 5m away!).  I didn't point her out to V out of a desire to be polite - although V told me afterwards that she wished that I had.

Today, I went with Tim to Loi Loi in Richmond for lunch.  We started with the spring rolls pictured at the top of this post, which came with sweet chilli dipping sauce.  Unusually, they also came with a mountain of iceberg lettuce leaves and mint:

The idea is to wrap a spring roll with some mint in a lettuce leaf, and dip it in the sauce, so that you get the contrast of hot and cold, crispy and soft.  It was delish, and definitely worth a repeat:

Tim ordered duck with barbecue sauce, which came with a lovely array of veges, including baby corn, snow peas, water chestnuts and spring onions:

I ordered the slightly less healthy chilli mango chicken, comprising fried chicken pieces in a chilli mango sauce and crunchy fried noodles, and tasting not unlike sweet and sour chicken:

We ordered steamed rice on the side to soak up the glorious sauces.  Both meals tasted very good, and the serves were very generous (I am not sure that I needed the entree).

We sat in the back room, which is not as salubrious as the brighter open part at the front of the restaurant, but is dressed up with some lovely art, including these shell peacock pictures:

Tonight, I made some fig and ginger jam with the last of the fruit man's figs - and let me tell you, it is da bomb!  I like it better than the plain fig jam that I made.  I will post about it soon.

As predicted, the glorious summery weather that we enjoyed this weekend is disintegrating into miserable, rainy weather in the teens this coming week, so I am grateful for the opportunity to have been out and about this weekend to enjoy what may well be the last of the warm weather.

I hope that you have had a good weekend too!

     Loi Loi
364 Victoria St
Richmond,VIC 3121
Ph: (03) 9429 7161