Hello weekend! it is a bit grey and cold here today, but I am not going to let that put a dampener on my happiness at making it to the end of a long, stressful and crazy week, and NOT having to travel this weekend - hooray!
I know that Kayte likes my out and about posts, and I have been collecting photos of random food that I have eaten for a while, so I thought that today, just for fun, I would post about some of the gastronomic delights that I have enjoyed recently in and around Melbourne.
First up and most recent, a branch of the Vietnamese street food chain, Roll'd, sprung up near my office in Flinders Lane. I originally thought I'd be keen to try the traditional pork banh mi, but then when I realised it contained cold meat, I went instead for the BBQ chicken "bun mee" (as Roll'd dubs it):
This is pure deliciousness - hot BBQ chicken, coriander, cucumber, carrot and shallot in the softest baguette I have ever had., for the bargain price of $6.60 I hate hard chewy bread, so this baguette was a revelation. The only downside to this roll was the shallot, which stayed with me for the rest of the afternoon. Next time, I think I will cut up the shallot and halve its size so I am not eating shallot for the rest of the day.
Next up are some gorgeous chocolates from Koko Black in the City:
This particular selection, given to me by Tim, is the Picnic Box especially for Valentines Day, but they sell these chocolate separately all year round. Devine - my favourite was the heart filled with raspberry flavoured cream.
Staying on a sugar high, isn't this box of cupcakes from The Cupcake Queens in Kings Arcade, Armadale adorable:
Their base cupcakes (apart from the chocolate and red velvet ones) are all vanilla, with the flavours coming from the icing on top. For dinner with some friends, I bought one each of chocolate oreo, red velvet and musk:
The musk one was for me - I am a huge fan of musk lifesavers and musk sticks, so this cupcake just ramps up the musk to another level - yum.
Veering way off left of field, here is the tasty lunch I ate at Crossways, the Hare Krishna restaurant, in Swanston St, the City:
For the tiny price of $7.50, I got a huge serve of curry of the day, the pudding of the day (spotted dick and custard, I think) and a drink. It is all vegetarian. Sure, it isn't the fanciest food you will ever have, but it is tasty and filling.
Revisiting my bent for Asian food, below are the cheapest and tastiest prawn rice paper rolls I have ever had:
They are from a little shop just off the Little Collins Street side of Equitable Place, heading towards Elizabeth Street, but the name of the establishment unfortunately escapes me. These rice paper rolls cost $5.90 for 3, and come with your choice of sweet chilli or teriyaki dipping sauce. It's sweet chilli all the way for me!
Turning to a weekend excursion venue, Tim and I took the train to Spotswood one weekend, where we dined at the Spotiswoode Hotel for Sunday lunch:
It's right across from the train station, so you can't miss it. For a mere $10, we got all of this food with the Sunday roast special:
On the day we were there, it was turkey, complete with a dollop of cranberry sauce, and a mix of roasted and steamed veges. It was really, really, good, but there was so much food that Tim had to help me out with mine. I recommend booking, as this place is pumping at lunch time.
Before lunch, we stopped off at Candied Bakery in Spotswood:
It is just a short stroll up the road from the railway station. Tim ordered Candied's famed lamington, filled with raspberry jam:
It was a massive lamington, and Tim highly recommends it.
I went for the crème brulee tartlet:
It was OK, but I think I would have liked Tim's lamington more.
Outside, these two little dogs waited patiently for their owners to emerge with some treats:
Aren't they gorgeous?
I hope you have enjoyed this gastronomic trip through Melbourne with me. Have a great weekend!
It's Friday again, and I am rather glad, as I have lost my Mojo this week. I am hoping a restful weekend will bring it back.
For French Fridays with Dorie this week, our recipe is financiers, so called because when made in their traditional rectangular shape, they resemble gold bars. The difference between this financier recipe and others I have tried.
I didn't have financier moulds, so I used ordinary muffin tins, which yielded 9 financiers. I almost wrecked my financiers completely, as for some reason, instead of 175g of butter, I added 275g - then wondered why I was having trouble getting the butter to mix in. Once I realised my mistake, I poured off the excess butter, and luckily, everything seemed to come together.
I did not change the recipe a jot (except perhaps by having more butter!), and I liked these financiers very much. The browned butter made the financiers smell devine as they were baking.
To see what the other Doristas thought of these financiers, visit the LYL section of the website.
This week's Wednesday with Donna Hay recipe was chosen by Kayte. It is Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni from Modern Classics Book I, and can also be found online.
I have never made cannelloni before, so I found this to be an interesting recipe. It ended up being fairly easy to make, as Donna stipulates the use of fresh lasagne sheets into which the spinach and cheese filling is rolled up before being topped with bottled tomato pasta sauce.
Here is a peek at the insides:
This cannelloni is very tasty but quite rich - I couldn't eat the entire serving of two pieces, so divided the cannelloni up into one and half piece lots. I served my cannelloni with frozen veges dolloped with aubergine and chilli jam.
I would make this again - it was delicious.
To see what Kayte, Margaret and Chaya thought of this dish, visit their websites.
One Friday evening, Tim and I decided to go for a treat and dine at MoVida Next Door, the little cousin to MoVida, the Spanish tapas restaurant right next door in Hosier Lane. We didn't have a booking (and I now know we can't book there) but were lucky to squeeze in when we arrived just after 5.30pm.
MoVida next door is also a tapas establishment, making it a perfect place to order a variety of dishes to share. The menu has a number of always available dishes off the menu, and a large and bewildering variety of dishes on the blackboards above the bar that you will need to discuss with your waiter.
We started off with an almond soup with grape granita (on menu when we visited but now removed):
This cold soup was an interesting concept, but it did not appeal to me taste-wise that much.
Next, we ordered bomba (pictured at the top of this post and below) ($4.80) - chorizo-filled, mashed potato "bombs" with spicy sauce, which resemble fried eggs in appearance:
These bomba were very good indeed, and I could have gone seconds quite easily.
We followed the bomba up with gambas - garlic prawns off the blackboard:
These prawns were sticky and very tasty, but were our most expensive pick at $24 for 4 prawns.
One of my favourite dishes was one of the regular menu items, the remolacha ($12.50):
This dish comprises a salad of beetroot, goats curd, pickled garlic and honey roasted walnuts. I adored each element of the dish, and both Tim and I thought that the honey roasted walnuts were devine - you could eat them by the handful on their own.
Our final dish was off the blackboard - sardines with heirloom tomatoes:
This was a light, tasty dish, and the sardines were not at all oily or cloying.
All up, our meal cost $94 for two with a glass of alcohol each. While that is a little too exxy for every day dining, it was nice for a treat, and I'd definitely go back again for the great food and the very friendly and knowledgeable staff.
After our early dinner at Movida Next Door, Tim and I strolled across the road to check out the Pop Up Patch behind Federation Square:
The pop up patch is an organic community garden where for the sum of $25 a week, you can grow your own veges in the special "no dig" patches:
Many people have kitted out their patches with scarecrows, garden ornaments and identity signs for the plants, so it really was a fun place to visit.
Hope you had a good weekend!
Movida Next Door
164 Flinders Street
Melbourne VIC 3000
Ph: 61 3 9663 3038
It's French Fridays with Dorie, and it is Friday, 5 April. First up, I wish a very happy birthday to two amazing women whom I admire greatly - Jane Asher and Agnetha Faltskog. I grew up wanting to be Agnetha during her heyday in ABBA, and Jane Asher is a more recent discovery through her time as a 60s icon (before my time - the Internet is a great research tool) and her more recent adventures in cake entrepreneurship. (Yes, I know she has done many other things, but these are the reasons that I think she's amazing.) Congratulations ladies, and I hope you both have a marvellous day.
OK, back to our FFwD challenge this week, which was Pierre Herme's Olive Sables.
I didn't know what to make of this recipe, which contains savoury olives and sweet icing sugar, and uses potato starch (a new to me flour). Even more weirdly, it contains the grated yolk of a hard boiled egg:
Yes, really:
Who knew?
I am not sure what contribution the egg yolk made to the biscuits, but they surprised me. They are really good - I thought that olives and icing sugar were a terrible match, but they somehow work in these cookies, which are just very slightly savoury.
I'd definitely make these again. To see what everyone else thought of these biscuits, visit the LYL section of the FFwD website.
For Wednesday with Donna Hay this week, I chose Indian Lamb Curry from p100 of Modern Classics I.
The recipe as Donna wrote it did not contain any vegetables, and lots of meat. I halved the meat and added 500g frozen veges to my curry so that it became a one pot dish. I served it over boiled rice to suck up all the juices.
When making this, I made the mistake of adding ground spices to the pan, not realising that Donna intended to use non-ground spices, make them pop in the pan and then grind them. As a result, a burned my spices a bit. However, I was still really happy with the finished curry and I would make this again. Note that it is a fairly mild curry, so if you like it hot, bump up the amount of chilli powder that you add.
To see what my fellow Donna devotees, Kayte, Margaret and Chaya, thought of this dish, visit their websites on Wednesday US time.
For Baking with Julia this week, our recipe was Rustic Potato Loaves. Our host for this week is Dawn of Simply Sweet. This bread involves the unusual technique of incorporating mashed potato into the dough.
Initially, I thought that the dough was never going to come together, but thanks to the patience of my stand mixer, it eventually did.
My loaf never rose particularly high - in fact, it seemed to deflate in the oven, despite the steam I created. However, it tasted really good - I am not a huge bread fan, so this is high praise. The taste was slightly nutty, perhaps because the potato skins are combined into the mix.
To see what the other Julia cooks thought, visit the LYL section of the Baking with Julia website.
