A sort of bucket list.

Happy Labour Day to all! Many of you may have enjoyed Melbourne's most meaningless public holiday at home, relaxing. Perhaps you even ventured into the CBD to watch the Moomba parade (I wouldn't have recommended it due to the overload of lower class scum that seemed to be filling all of the pathways and building entrances with their sad eyes and cigarette smoke odour) apart from my own personal negativity surrounding the public holiday... purely based upon the fact that I have two options: either work or attend Deakin University (like many other universities which decide to remain open). 


All of these things have now led me to write a sort of bucket list, taking one out of Karl Pilkington's book I seek to do all of the things on my own personal itinerary. I have now written a list of eateries across Melbourne that I have to go to before the end of the year... unless I die before then. I will soon enchant all of you with my tales of foreign lands, but first I need to make a plan. This plan is to try as much as possible and not become lazy when it comes to the most important thing in the world: eating.


So here is the list. I would love to have some company across my travels, so if anyone is interested feel free to join me.

Breakfast: 

The Hardware Societe: 118-120 Hardware St 

Melbourne, VIC 3000

Sally’s Kitchen: 295 Exhibition St 

Melbourne, VIC 3000

Birdman Eating: 238 Gertrude St 

Fitzroy, VIC 3065

Lunch:

Banque: 189 Nelson Pl 

Williamstown, VIC 3016

Colonel Tans: 229 Chapel St 

Prahran, VIC 3181

Dinner:

The Post Office Hotel: 231 Sydney Rd 

Coburg, VIC 3058

Josie Bones : 8 Smith Street 

Collingwood, VIC 3066

Hellenic Republic: 434 Lygon St 

Brunswick East, VIC 305

The Royston Hotel: 12 River St 

Richmond, VIC 3121

Rockpool: Crown Casino 8 Whiteman St  

Southbank, VIC 3006

Drinks: 

Atticus Finch: 29 Lygon Street 

Brunswick East, VIC 3057

Time to start eating!

8 months later...

...and I'm back.  Hello 2012! After an 8 month absence I am back with stories to tell, recipes to distribute and kilos to lose. Time has been very kind being spent quite leisurely, eating, drinking, writing and baking.

London. Manchester. Dublin. Paris.



All the secrets and details of my 5 week food travels will be revealed and hopefully some ideas that will help us all feel as though we are experiencing something worth while in the way we consume food and alcohol.

Watch this space.

The Fitz Cafe

Location: 347 Brunswick Street Fitzroy, 3065
Hours: Breakfast/Lunch and Dinner (7am-11pm)
Guests: Nicole, Richard
http://www.thefitz.com.au/gallery.html

The 'Fitz Cafe' is misleading in many ways, the name sounds as though it should be a grungy pub, with a large outside seating area filled with scum puffing their lives away near the entrance... This could not be further from the truth. The Fitz has a slight cafe atmosphere, with bustling waitresses and the smell of coffee filling the small dining room.

When we walked in we were welcomed by an open fire and large wooden tables with dark leather seats. Chalk boards are scattered on the walls, large white chalk letters stating the decadent menu for the Friday evening. The prices were in the $18-30 for a main meal, but all of the fresh and italian inspired ingredients seemed worth it. As a started we all shared a bread selection, with a rosemary and caramelised onion topping. It was delicious, and perfect for three people.


The mains we ordered were Pork belly on a bed of mash and red cabbage soaked in cider, Lamb shanks with a carrot puree' and winter vegetables and a Harissa lamb fillet served on seasonal veg with a minted yoghurt. Can I just say... Yum! All of the food was rustic and visually enticing. We all loved our meals and left holding our stomachs from the large portion sizes. The Fitz had to be some of the best food I have eaten in a really long time!

Yong Green Food

So let's start from the beginning...

Location: 421 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy 3065
Hours: Open for lunch/dinner
Guests: Dan, Jonathan, Richard

Yong Green Food is a small little cafe style restaurant that has an eco-friendly mentality, providing vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and raw organic meals. The menu is split into two parts (raw, and cooked). At first glance the menu seems slightly overwhelming with the amount of ingredients in each of the dishes, lists of vegetables and soy products filling the page.

I think the best approach for people who eat meat and are not used to such "sustainable" food is to choose something that you would ordinarily like for example: Lasagne, then pick the raw vegan interpretation. I really enjoyed the venue and all of our meals were very tasty and reasonably priced.

I ordered a 'Lentil Hot Pot'... which on the freezing cold night was perfectly suited, afterwards I was extremely full, but could have continued eating out of curiosity of what things would taste like.

We all got raw cheesecakes to share, which seemed like a bizarre concept... How do you make a cheesecake without any dairy and no cooking at all? Our chocolate cheesecake tasted like a 'true' cacao bean and had an interesting mousse like texture.

Dan and Jonathan got a green tea raw cheesecake which was bright and sickly sweet in flavour. The desserts were quite delicious and the idea of all of the products being organically sourced made us feel good about what we were consuming.

 I would say that Young Green Food may be more suited as a lunch venue as you could order something fresh and light to keep you going throughout the day.

I believe you should all try it for something new!

Three weeks is far too long.

I do apologise for my lack of new material, but don't let my absence fool you... I have been using each spare moment to try something new. This month I have dined out in numerous places across Melbourne and over the next two days I shall share each experience with you!

Afghan Cookies

Source: http://www.grouprecipes.com/23374/afghan-cookies.html


Ingredients: 

• 200 grams butter
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 2 cups corn flakes
• Now this was not my first choice of recipe for these crunchy easy cookies. I browsed through many recipe books and websites and stumbled across this one. It seemed to be larger in quantity and had more ingredients; such as coconut and vanilla essence. There are many different versions of the 'Afghan cookie'; but as it is a know treat to our friends in New Zealand, I trusted the advice from a New Zealand woman who claims she has perfected the recipe. 
• Method: 
• Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Beat in the egg and vanilla essence.
  • Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt and using a metal spoon stir into the creamed mixture with the coconut and corn flakes. Spoon large tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto greased trays. Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes.Cool on a cake rack before icing with chocolate icing.
  • Icing: In a bowl sift 11/2 cups icing sugar and 2 tblsp cocoa. Blend in 1 tsp melted butter and 2-3 tblsp warm milk until you have a thick icing of spreadable consistency.
  • The only trouble I had during this whole process was beating the butter, sugar and egg mixture. It seemed once the egg was added it all sort of separated and refused to turn into a "light and creamy mixture". I used a combination of electric beater and a large metal spoon (which to my surprise, worked better). 
  • The cookies are very flavoursome and filling! Perfect with icing or without!

East Brunswick Club

 

Location: 280 Lygon Street, East Brunswick

Mon-Fri: 6pm – 9:30pm

Saturday: 12pm – 9.30pm

Sunday: 12pm – 9.30pm

Hooray for July! I felt three days into a new month was far too long to not have posted something. For further information this is not me scraping the barrel, I have still been cooking, eating, and dining, but the busy days before university begins again have claimed my state of mind (tragically). So as I sit here with smudged eyes and a latte that I made someone other then myself walk down to the nearest cafe to get, I realise the problem... This lethargic behaviour may partly be because of being tired, but perhaps it is partly from boredom. 

This 'review' or description of last nights dining experience is not a negative one, because I do enjoy going to 'The EBC'. It has a casual relaxed environment and there is something cosy about the dimly lit room that looks on to the rainy street. But, and here is the big change of pace; the food is okay. 

I do actually prefer things off the vegetarian menu. The first time I ever went to 'The EBC' I got the calamari salad which was surprisingly delicious (there was not a bread crumb in sight!). Last night I don't no what I was thinking... My hunger took all of my judgement and I ended up ordering the 'Nachos Parma'. It was beastly to say the least, as the huge slab of crumbed chicken sat upon a bed of chips, the top was gloriously covered in 'Mexican' themed condiments (sour cream, salsa, jalapenos, and corn chips). 

The meal was okay, not the best parma but certainly not the worst. The people I was with both ordered burgers (a variety of meats) which looks quite nice, the patty held between a turkish bread bun. 

Going to a place like this makes me wish I lived just around the corner so I could pop in for a drink after work or a quick meal, but in terms of it being a place that you say to your friends "ah, I am really craving one of their burgers" ... This is not the place for those type of fantasies. All I can say is that, if they made the menu smaller they may have a chance to improve on some of their stock standard pub meals. 

They basically serve three meals : Pizza, Parma, Burger, with different flavours etc. The meals just need a little more love and care when being prepared and then I think more people would feel good after leaving, not deep sighing and holding their "food babies".