the court house, north melbourne

the age melbourne magazine recently featured a write-up about pub food venues in melbourne. while i’ve had some great dining experiences at pub food places – the first one that springs to mind is a yummy garlic prawn dish at the lorne hotel – pub food normally conjures up mental images of a pie and chips, or an overdone steak. so when k decided that he wanted to try the court house (86-90 errol street, north melbourne 03 9329 5394) i must admit i wasn’t THAT excited about the meal. however, the confit pork belly and saganaki that the writer mentioned sounded pretty good, and when i realised that the place had actually been featured in the age’s good food guide my curiosity was piqued further.

we were allocated a table upstairs which was nice and roomy, and started off sharing a really nice bottle of wine (for my inexperienced wine palate, anyway!) chestnut hill pinot noir i think it was. went down wayyy too easily.

i was disappointed when we realised that neither the pork belly or saganaki was on the night’s menu and with the limited number of mains available i was sorely tempted to get two entrees for the night. but we ended up sharing the two entrees i was leaning towards instead. the first was a confit pork cheek, spiced apple salad and black pudding.

as soon as the dish arrived k and i were both instantly reminded of our dinner at circa. (documented here, here and here). while i was still pining for the pork belly a little the pork cheek was lovely, as was the spiced apple salad and yes, even the black pudding!

we also shared a serve of tamarind cured kingfish accompanied by pickled shallots, orange and crisp garlic. i’m sorry for the bad photo!

oh, this was good too! the only thing i wish they’d done was distribute the ingredients evenly across each slice so there would be a mixture of flavours and textures in each bite, but that’s just me.

i decided on the lamb rump with panfried sweetbreads, eggplant puree and something else i couldn’t remember. our dining area was filled up and i didn’t want my flash to distract/irritate other diners, so i have to apologise for the night-vision style photo.

my lamb was done perfectly, and went really well with the eggplant puree. even the sweetbreads – which i was a bit hesitant about – were lovely! the sauce was incredible, i wish i had a piece of bread to mop it all up.

xm ordered a medium rare wagyu cut which was one of the night’s specials. i believe it was served with crushed peas but i’m not sure what the puree was, the menu on the website is different to what we had on the night so i can’t be more specific!

the wagyu was incredibly tender, but apart from that i still can’t really see what the fuss is about. maybe because i’m used to a decent non-wagyu steak melting in my mouth, i don’t know.

trent had a pan-roasted hapuka with lobster, what i think was carrot puree. my snapshot turned out to be abysmal so i haven’t included it. and finally k had a wild hare dish with braised red cabbage.

i found a number of maraschino cherries in the dish which i suppose would have gone well with the meat, but i was expecting a fresh cherry flavour when i bit into it so i was unpleasantly surprised by the taste. but again, that was just me!

on to desserts. unfortunately i can’t tell you what this was either, all i know was that it was accompanied by vanilla ice cream, was tangy (so either passionfruit or citrus based) and it was yummy! yes, i know i should be a little bit more accurate in my description. sorry!

we also had a milk chocolate ‘delice’ (which we wrongly assumed to be a macaroon but was in fact a type of chocolate parfait!) that came with the best chocolate sorbet and a jelly thing. (i’m really doing well here, aren’t i???)

we rounded the meal off with a selection of cheese served with quince paste, muscatels, pear slices and a variety of crackers and bread.

i definitely need to start factoring cheese platters into my meals! i actually found this cheese platter to be better than both the desserts. there was a normal-ish hard cheddar, a much stronger sheep’s cheese and a goats cheese which took a while to get used to but once i did, i couldn’t get enough.

all this and a second bottle of pinot noir set us back about $80 each, which i thought was decent value although certainly not what you’d expect to spend at a pub restaurant. then again, this was no ordinary pub restaurant.

phad thai food elsternwick, again

after my yummy takeout experience with phad thai food, i decided to try the delivery option, which is free within 2km for orders above $25. k was game, so we ordered a couple of dishes to share. the lady on the phone told us it would be 30-40 minutes so we were pleasantly surprised when the doorbell rang 25 minutes after we called.

we ordered a single serve of tom yum goong with chicken which came in a fancy container…

and looked pretty good when we removed the lid.

unfortunately, it was a major letdown. way too sweet and nowhere near spicy enough. we barely finished half of it.

next up was a prawn pad thai…

which was much better than the tom yum. the noodles tasted great and there were generous amounts of prawns, peanuts and beansprouts.

we also shared an eggnet salad with minced chicken, which longrain is famous for.

i was expecting this to be similar to the longrain version (obviously i would be quite surprised if it was better because longrain’s version is spectacular) but the dressing is not as tangy due to the addition of coconut cream. this is a personal thing but i would have preferred a dressing with a little more zing.

i’m still impressed with the overall standard of the food here and will continue to take advantage of the free delivery system especially during freezing melbourne nights. in fact, i might just call them now!

crabapple cupcakes v2, prahran

so i blogged about my obsession with crabapple last year, and then it went into liquidation so we had to look for other options. recently we headed back there after hearing it had reopened to see whether it was still up to scratch.

i had lemon and k went for the caramel…

one word… blergh. that’s it. blergh. instead of the light fluffy cupcakes we were used to from crabapple, these were dense and dry. the lemon icing was sugar with barely a tinge of citrus, boo. boo, i tell you. and we got it at about 11am so it’s not as if it would have been sitting there for the whole day, unless they weren’t fresh.

safe to say we won’t head back there again, now i need to see if the qv shop do decent ones otherwise i’ll have to rely on let them eat cake.

nudels n wraps, again

k managed to persuade me to head to nudels n wraps again despite my less-than-stellar visit the last time. i did remember that i wanted to try the nasi lemak though so i figured i’d give it another go before completely writing it off.

surprise, surprise, k ordered singapore fried noodles. sigh. it looked exactly the same as it did the last time and this time round i managed to try a bit. it looks like it tastes – bland bland bland.

i took great care to double and triple check the specials board and the nasi campur (mixed rice) looked pretty tempting but in the end i decided to go for a serve of popiah, a fresh spring roll (malaysian style).

popiah is a wheat flour crepe that is filled with tofu, chinese sausage, shredded omelette, beansprouts, cucumber hoisin sauce, chilli sauce and a shredded turnip mix. i asked for extra chilli with mine.

must say that this was a pretty good popiah. almost comparable to the hawkers in KL, which is saying something! my godmother actually ran popiah parties when i was young, with plates and plates of each ingredient on the dining table, and everyone would be in charge of making and rolling their own. i wish i knew how to do this well, i’d be pretty impressed with myself if i could organise a popiah party for my friends! but all that dicing, chopping and shredding is a bit daunting.

the popiah on it’s own wasn’t enough so i finished off with a serve of tau foo fah, a soy bean custard.

i was fiddling with my camera settings and didn’t have time to set it back to macro as we were in a rush so i apologise for the photo quality. the key to tau foo fah is the smoothness of the custard, and while this wasn’t bad it wasn’t as smooth as i would have liked. i’m sooooooo happy i’m heading back to KL soon, so i can stuff myself with the real deal!

the popiah was definitely a plus point for nudels n wraps, and i’ll go back to sample some other dishes in the future. not the singaporean fried noodles though.

fun in the kitchen – butter cake

my bananas haven’t ripened as much as i wanted so i decided on a simple butter cake this weekend. probably not the smoothest batter you’ve ever seen…

and i’m starting to think my cake tin is just a little bit too big. flat cake, again.

but you can’t really go wrong with a butter cake i guess, since i’ve already eaten 3 slices

ichi ni, st kilda

k’s a big fan of japanese food, and has wanted to go to ichi ni (12 the esplanade, st kilda 03 9531 1212) for a while now. we tried a month or so ago but couldn’t get a reservation, so he was pretty excited this time around. i’d read mellie’s review prior to going to check if there were any must-have dishes.

we were greeted by a bespectacled man who, to be perfectly honest, had ZERO enthusiasm (i was going to go for zero personality but that wouldn’t be fair.) and when i say greeted that’s probably not the right word, it took us a good 30 seconds of looking at him expectantly at the entrance while he wrote notes on his pad before he acknowledged us. NOT impressed. i mean, dude. why did you think we were standing there? we were booked in for 6.30pm, if that was his attitude at that time i’d be afraid to see what he was like later on a saturday night.

anyway. on to the food. we started with a couple of scallop skewers seasoned with salt.

the scallops were done perfectly. i sprinkled a generous helping of chilli powder that we had on the table which added a great kick.

on to the pork belly skewers with yakitori sauce.

i think this was the best dish of the meal. the pork belly was deliciously fatty and went so well with the sweet sauce. again, the chilli powder was a fantastic accompaniment.

needing some greens, we ordered the ebi mayo salad = prawns covered with spicy mayo dressing and served with fresh greens, cherry tomatoes, carrot and spanish onion.

for me, this was definitely the worst dish (especially after the pork belly!) i don’t know if this was meant to be the case but the dressing for the salad was incredibly salty, like “hmm i wonder if they were meant to put sugar and accidentally added salt” salty. the prawns and greens were fresh and the spicy mayonnaise was average, but the dressing ruined it all. i’d love to know if anyone reading this had the same experience, or whether our dish was just… wrong???

next up was a small serve of sashimi.

looked lovely, but wasn’t anything to shout about.

we rounded off the mains with one of the daily specials, an inside-out sushi roll with salmon belly, lobster and avocado.

i quite enjoyed this dish, but at $25 it wasn’t cheap!

onto the desserts. mellie’s review had prepared me for the wacky ice cream flavours on hand (balsamic vinegar, lemon cheesecake, pumpkin and edamame) but k freaked out a little bit with this one. luckily there was a more… normal dessert special available, chocolate cigars with a vanilla ice cream topped with almonds and toffee along with a citrus cream cheese mixture.

we enjoyed this dessert, especially the citrus cream cheese mixture combined with the warm chocolate and filo pastry.

we couldn’t leave without trying one of the strange ice creams, so we went with the balsamic vinegar option.

the first taste definitely generates a squish-mouth reaction, like you’ve eaten something that just ISN’T right. that said, once you get used to the oh-so-strange combination it has a good cleansing effect on the palate. not something i would order again though!

i didn’t mind the food, i thought that the yakitori definitely had some promise but the inconsistency of the dishes coupled with the average service standard let the place down. yoshi does much better standard japanese fare for a much better price, and if it’s yakitori you’re after maedaya has the best i’ve had.

delice at lindt, melbourne

we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to chocolates and cakes in melbourne. you’ve got the wonder that is let them eat cake, if you’re a milk chocolate person then max brenner should do it for you, if you favour dark chocolate like me then koko black is the way to go. i’d go to haigh’s for truffles (and dark mint peppermint frogs!) and i wouldn’t go further than ganache chocolate for the best brownie cake ever. not to mention all the small cafes and amazing restaurants with fabulous desserts. you get the picture.

this seemingly endless array of choices meant that when people talk about lindt cafe in sydney, first thought that runs through my head is “mehh”. i can’t really think of anything i’d find at lindt that would blow my socks off, and the whole “lindt supermarket chocolate has the highest fat content of all” thing kinda puts me off. but when i was at work in sydney a couple of weeks ago, i happened to walk past a lindt kiosk and was taken by surprise at how good their delice (macarons)looked. so when xm told me that lindt had opened next to tiffany’s on collins street i had to go and give it a try.

the first time we went there was a line literally out the door and they’d sold out of delice, but the second time i was in luck and managed to snag 3 (vanilla, champagne and passionfruit). k was mortified when he turned around to take my hand as we were walking out the door only to see me with vanilla crumbs on my face. p/s: vanilla was great, but a bit too sweet from me. a completely different standard if compared to laurent’s macaroons though which i found to be a bit too… sticky?

i snapped a picture of the champagne and passionfruit delice when i got home…

the champagne flavour was a bit too overpowering for me, but i adored the passionfruit version filled with milk chocolate. now i can’t wait to try the peach delice! and the chocolate ones of course which had sold out by the time i got there.

once the craze dies down a little i’ll be sure to head in to sample some of the desserts to see how they stack up against the competition!

the cupcake bakery, melbourne

the battle of the cupcakes continues. i’m setting out on a mini mission to find the best cupcakes in melbourne by flavour, and i’m starting with lemon! it’s been so long since i’ve had a lemon cupcake from crabapple what with the closure and all, so i can’t really remember what it tastes like apart from it being GOOD. i’ve heard rumors that they’ve reopened though so i might have to go and investigate.

meanwhile, there are three cupcake shops that have popped up in the city. little cupcakes – which we stumbled upon a couple months back, and the cupcake family which is due to open in QV soon. today i heard that the cupcake bakery had opened up in melbourne central so i decided to check it out. i must admit, they had a pretty fab display…

you can’t tell me that you’d walk past this window without stopping to check it out!

as you can see there was quite a large variety to choose from, and i went in to see what was on display by the counter they had a smaller cabinet dedicated to the deluxe cupcakes – a tiramisu and lemon meringue option caught my eye. but i was here on a lemon-directed mission, so i just left with one lemon and poppyseed cupcake. i know, willpower right???!!!

i also discovered that my car was cupcake-friendly

i enjoyed this cupcake much more than little cupcake’s offering, so score one for the cupcake bakery! the cake was nice and moist and the icing had just the right amount of tang. i found the icing at little cupcake a bit too sweet and not lemon-y enough. now all i have to do is wait for the other cupcake bakery in QV to open and i can round off the CBD trifecta

little cupcakes, melbourne

is it just me or are cupcake shops sprouting up left, right and centre in melbourne? k’s always been a fan of cupcakes. after our favourite cupcake store crabapple cupcakes went into liquidation we moved on to other sweets. but then all of a sudden k heard about little cupcakes (7 degraves street, melbourne 03 9077 0413), thus re-starting his obsession. i swear, we’ve been there about half a dozen times in the last couple of months! i’ve actually sampled quite a few, but i finally took a picture of what we bought today.

cookies and cream, mint, vanilla and belgian chocolate. none of these are mine.

i’m not 100% sold on this place yet. the lemon cupcake was not really lemon-y, and they don’t have an AWESOME chocolate cupcake nor do they have the to-die-for banana cupcakes that crabapple had. but k loves it… to each their own. give it a shot and see for yourself, my next blog post will be about the OTHER cupcake place!

auction rooms, north melbourne

xm had told me about auction rooms (103-107 errol street, north melbourne 03 9326 7749) a while back, and i’ve wanted to give it a go for a while now. sunday seemed like the perfect day for it, so we jumped into the car and took a drive out.

we were kept waiting for about 20-25 minutes, but i had expected as much and had actually warned the rest of our friends to expect a long wait so it wasn’t too bad. we were shown to our table and promptly ordered coffees. i have to say that my cappuccino was one of the best coffees i had in a while in terms of taste, however it was only lukewarm which was such a shame!

i wasn’t game enough to have the lamb brain and sweetbread dish for bunch – or ever, really – but the hash of chorizo, spicy potato and carrot with fried eggs, lemon, parsley and flatbread sounded interesting. to my surprise the food arrived pretty quickly, i had expected a much longer wait considering the place was packed.

and boy was it good! this should definitely be on top of your list if you’ve got a hangover. the grease from the many chunks of chorizo, tasty potato strips, fried egg with gooey yolk, it went down a treat! maybe a little bit too much oil, but i just used the flatbread to soak it up before continuing to hoover the meal down.

k had the pork belly with beans and a parmesan pastry thing (there was a fancy word for it that i can’t remember).

i would have actually ordered this myself except i’m not really a fan of beans. i did steal a mouthful from k and the pork belly actually melts in your mouth. amazing. and i actually assumed that there were 4 pieces the length of your pinky finger that had been arranged on the plate, but there were actually 2 huge strips of meat, a lot more generous than i first thought.

i was really impressed by the standard of the food and will definitely go back again to try some of the other dishes on offer!