It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I started a new job three months ago and it took over pretty much my entire life. I’ve avoided talking about it because I’m superstitious enough to believe that if I talk about my new job before my probation period is over, I’d get fired the next day for whatever reason. I’ve just passed my probation period so I get to say that I kind of like it. Well, it has its moments. Some of those moments even involve me not being stressed as fuck.

The downside of this craziness is that my digital camera has shitloads of photos just sitting there, congealing like yesterday’s oatmeal. I’ll get around to them eventually, but let’s start with my most recent adventure.

A few weeks ago the SO and I took off to Melbourne for a weekend away. It was a much needed break away from everything shitty in Sydney (including the weather, what the fuck Sydney?). It was a very indulgent weekend and I ate too much. I’m just going to jump straight into the food, because I can’t really say too much about the weekend without it being gross TMI. I’ll make do with lots of nudging and winking.

My visit to Melbourne is never complete without a trip to Koko Black. We had the Belgian Spoil, a selection of deliciousness that includes ice cream, chocolate mousse, two filled chocolates, shortbread and a cakey thing.

I also had the hot chocolate. You know what guys, I don’t know. I was slightly disappointed. The hot chocolate was way too sweet, the cake was dry and I didn’t like the chocolates they gave us (everything else was delicious). Maybe I’m just getting older and the taste buds can’t handle sweet things anymore. It’s only a matter of time before I hunch over, age a hundred years overnight and start wearing leopard print capri pants. Not gonna lie, I’m looking forward to my concession bus fares.

For dinner we went to Campari House on Hardware Lane. I randomly found the place through Twitter and thought that I’ll live dangerously and just try it out. Did my gamble pay off? Well.

Entree #1 – eggplant croquette with green chilli and mint relish. The croquettes weren’t hot enough (temperature wise) to taste like it was freshly fried. That’s a minor quibble though, can’t complain about the flavours – it was v delicious.

Entree #2 – cinnamon smoked duck breast with cauliflower puree, “baby onion rings” and curry vinaigrette. I’m the sort who gets terribly grossed out by undercooked poultry and this is the first rare duck I’ve tried that I liked. That said, I couldn’t taste the cinnamon.

The SO’s main – blue eye fillet with fennel and lemon puree, shaved potatoes, herb and citrus salad. Flavours worked well, fennel tasted gorgeous and the salad was zingy and zesty and made sweet music with the other bits on the plate. You’d think that after all of that the dish will be perfect, but no. Fish was overcooked and dry. Not the sort of overcooked that’s “oh it’s just a bit crispy on the end bits”. Just overcooked. Not impressed, guys.

My main, thankfully, was awesome. Spinach and ricotta gnocchi with pickled zucchini, roasted pepper puree and porcini cream. Pickled zucchini is genius and I want more of it in my life.

The star of the meal was surprisingly the side dish – broccolini with gorgonzola sauce. I want to marry this dish then eat it, like newlywed praying mantis..es. Mantii?

Dessert was cinnamon creme brulee with berry semifreddo, orange crostoli and chambord jelly. Didn’t like the crostoli, which had the texture of cold Maccas fries. Loved the brulee (had all the cinnamon flavour the duck didn’t) and jelly. The end.

I also wanted to get shitfaced and had several cocktails. This one came with edible flower:

The menu promised edible flowers (plural), which – while I was drunk – seemed like a really big deal. When I sobered up I realised that I was being a giant wanker and punched myself in the face. Or I would have, but I didn’t want to have to explain the black eye. I’m in enough trouble already because I kept joking to people that my SO keeps my passport so I have to stay home and wash the dishes for him (disclaimer: I have my own passport. The SO’s a very nice man who’s capable of washing his own dishes).

In summary: Food was kind of overpriced but tasted good except for the fish. Did I mention it was overcooked yet?

The next morning we went out, got lost and eventually ended up in Brunswick St., where we tried out Madame Sousou for the first time. I had the baked eggs with creamed spinach and gruyere which is basically made up of butter, cream and cheese – breakfast of champions. I figured that because the cafe made a big deal about being French and chic and everything, the baked egg dish will be more Audrey Tautou than Jean Reno in size.

Again, I was wrong. It was as big as your mom.

The SO had the big breakfast but felt sick halfway through his breakfast from all the butter. I finished my baked eggs. Obviously I am made of stronger stuff. Let’s not worry about the self loathing afterwards.

Here is a shout out to a couple more places in Melbourne I got to try out and loved:

Creperie Le Triskel on Hardware Lane. It was so good that I don’t think I can ever try another crepe place in Australia without being disappointed. I had a crepe with bechamel sauce, mushrooms and spinach. No photos because I was seated inside and felt kind of self conscious.

Tony Starr’s Kitten Club on Little Collins St. The last time I went here a couple years back it smelled like pee due to a malfunctioning bathroom. Now it just smells like a girls’ night out – a heady mixture of sweet alcohol and celebrity perfume. Despite all of that, the staff are absolutely lovely, the atmosphere great and I love the cocktail menu. Food wise, I’ve only been to the cocktail lounge so I can’t say much about the restaurant food, but SO reports that their tapas are brilliant.

I was lucky enough to score an invite to Chocolatesuze’s birthday party/blogger’s meetup a while back and meant to write something about it. Except my camera ran out of batteries after the first photo. Fuck. My. Life. Regardless, it was brill seeing familiar faces and some new ones. Hi guys, hope I didn’t freak you out too much. On that note… I haven’t had much time to read blogs lately but I’ve been very much enjoying The Creamy Middles when I do read it. Not just because Rachel has a mind blowingly awesome coat that I will covet forevermore.  As a personal shout out, I want to thank Rita, Grace and Cathy for putting up with my nonsense that evening as I got progressively tipsy.

Now I’m off to sleep and gird my loins for tomorrow, whatever that means.

Look at these goddamn deep fried zucchini flowers. They’re stuffed with ricotta and goat’s cheese and chives and fancy shit your B-grade celebrity chefs get their pants wet over. You know you want to eat the shit out of these fuckers goddamn

(Props)

Awesome, but I don’t reckon I’ll be mentioned in any publications anytime soon.

The category sponsor was Australian Pork who kindly gave out prizes and goodie bags of pork loin and rosemary pancetta (both of which were delicious). Liam Silk, the brand manager for Australian Pork gave us a preview of their new advert which should have started showing early this month. In case you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here.

You can read better writeups on the event here, here and here.

Also from my inbox:

As some of you may already know, the seasonal/we’ll bring it out whenever KFC Tower Burger is back on KFC menus across the nation. It’s an artery clogging combination of chicken breast fillet, hash brown (what), cheese, barbecue sauce and what looks like mayonnaise and obligatory green bit so you can delude yourself into thinking that it’s actually not that bad for you. Though when you’re pissed enough who gives a shit about fibre amirite.

As part of the Tower Burger marketing campaign, KFC has teamed up with Melbourne-based clothing label Travisty for a limited edition range of tees. Behold:

Now all you need to do after a night on the piss is to stumble into a KFC, point to your shirt and empty your wallet on the counter. SIMPLE.

To celebrate my SO’s birthday we booked a table at Braza Churrascaria in Leichhardt. They do all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbeque and my SO, being a big fan of flesh, was very keen on the idea.

I started with alcohol. This counts as bread.

They give you a thingy what’s in the picture above. If you want to keep eating, place the thingy so the green bit is on top. You lay it down on its side if you want to take a break, and place the red bit on top if you want to stop eating and want them to clear your plate. They only give you one of these things per two people so make sure you sit across someone who shares the size of your appetite.

The all-you-can-eat menu includes all the sides. Above is a plate of deep fried cassava, polenta and banana. The fried bananas were absolutely amazing. The insides were pleasantly squidgy and sweet, which is like my perfect texture for banana fritters. The cassava is good, dunno about the polenta. It’s okay but I didn’t eat it again after tasting one – it was bland and I’m not a big fan of the texture.

Delicious potato salad topped with heaps of crispy deep fried shallots. I love the contrast between the creamy potatoes and the crunchy shallots. Pimento reckons his mum makes better potato salad (I agree, but it’s still yummy).

Garlic breadcrumbs (not sure what it was for so I just added them on everything) and a very flavourful tomato salsa. There was also a green salad but I didn’t bother taking a picture of it. The salad tasted like leaf vegetables.

Pickled chillies arranged in order of heat. The gourd-like red ones are the least hot, then you go counter-clockwise until you get to the tiny ones. I was a wimp and cut up my green chillies into at least 5 sections before eating them.

For mains, we had:

Meat

Meat

Meat

Mea Fish

The highlight for me was definitely the beef ribs (3rd photo). It was nice and fatty and had a crispy exterior, man I can feel my arteries clogging as I’m writing this. The above is of course a very small sample of the stuff that we had oh god it just kept coming. Below is a full list of meats available for the traditional churrasco, which was what we went for:

Picanha – Rump Cap
Costela – Beef Rib
Fraldinha – Thick Flank
Maminha – Tri-Tip
Cupim – Hump
Scoth Fillet – Noix
Picanha c/ Alho – Garlic Rump Cap

Linguiça – Sausage

Coração de Frango – Chicken Hearts
Coxinha da Asa – Chicken Drumettes
Sobre Coxa – Chicken Thigh
Frango c/ bacon – C. Breast w/ Bacon

Costelinha de Porco – Pork Ribs
Paleta de Porco – Pork Neck
Pernil de Porco – Pork Leg

Pernil de Carneiro – Lamb Leg
Alcatra de Carneiro – Lamb Rump
Costela de Carneiro – Lamb Ribs

Camarão – Prawns
Peixe do Dia – Fish of the day

Availability of the above varies from night to night. It does feel a bit like they keep bringing the same things out for the first half of the night and only got the more unusual things (ribs, prawns) much later, which is a shame because by then most people are too full to try them. The meat tends to be on the salty side as well, but servings are generous and the meat are of decent quality. I found that a couple of the cuts of beef were overcooked (they tend to vary in doneness as they come out of the grill), but everything else is nice and juicy.

Service was good – if you want one of the skewers that’s going around you might need to wait a little while. I’m not sure if the people taking the skewers around have like a predetermined route they need to take for all the tables or what, because certain things don’t seem to reach us unless we ask for them. They’re v. friendly though and are patient with requests for more than a slice of meat at a time.

I had a 100% vegetarian day today because my stomach feels like someone’s placed a brick in it. Fibre is highly recommended for the morning after.

Braza Churrascaria
13 Norton St, Leichhardt
(02)9572 7921

Oh oh I gotta show you this cake I got for my SO’s birthday:

Custom (Mod-ded? Har har please tell me you got that joke) birthday cake by Valerie of Love and Cake. I ordered a carrot cake, which was nice and moist and not too sweet. She also threw in some free Christmas cookies because she’s awesome.

*** JOKE HERE, YOU CAN STOP SCROLLING NOW ***

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

(Courtesy of Pun of the Day)

Please note though that (a) I’m very bad at Maths despite Asian ethnicity and (b) I’ve been known to make shit up sometimes (a lot).

Some stuff what I’ve had this week:

My SO’s green eggs and ham from All About Romana’s, Balmain. Scrambled eggs with pesto and fetta, served with ham, toast and rocket leaves. The eggs are delicious, but my SO thinks it could use a bit more fetta.

My vegetarian big breakfast from All About Romana’s. Ehhhhhhh. The best bit of this breakfast was the spinach, eggs and toast. I don’t know, the rest of it tasted kind of gross to be honest. The texture of the mushrooms was pretty strange – very dense and a little bit like tinned champignons. The “hash browns” are the grossest bit though. When I got them I was like AWESOME FRIED POTATO PANCAKE-FRITTER LOVECHILD and well there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be awesome but when I bit into them all I tasted was raw batter, and the insides ooze out in a very unappetising way.

Delicious tofu ramen from Ichiban Boshi, Galeries Victoria. I’ve always loved the ramen there and I was stoked to see a vegetarian option. I’m doing this thing at the moment where I try and stay vegetarian (pescaterian occasionally) for breakfast and lunch. The tofu ramen has generous slices of tempura-battered tofu in a miso-based soup.

Maple latte from Vargas Bar Expresso, Newtown. I found out that day that the combination of maple syrup and coffee is a delightful taste sensation.

I also went to Redoak pub for dinner this weekend but that probably deserves its own post.