Oh Delish!: October 2010

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Aloi Na

Went to Aloi Na for an impromptu Thai Birthday Dinner. I ordered the "Gado Gado", which was recommended by the Birthday girl, and which turned out to be chicken in peanut satay sauce with coconut rice.

The sauce was rich and sweet so I was very happy :)

Vietnamese Sweets

I have no idea what this Vietnamese dessert is called, but my grandmother used to make it and it was freaking awesome. The green stuff is some sort of jelly, which is dipped in a sugary coconut sauce. So delicious.

Home made: Banana Cake

I had 3 bananas that were getting far too ripe. Surprisingly, I had all the ingredients needed for banana cake (according to a quick google search) - butter, sugar, self raising flour and vanilla essence, and bananas of course :)

An hr later I got this:

It was very moist. I was very happy with my first attempt, but the cake was huge. I took most of it to work where it was promptly consumed. Everyone showed up to work the next day so I consider this a success :)

Friday, October 15, 2010

Home Made: Risotto

I have meaning to try cooking risotto for quite some time now. I knew that it was a lengthy cooking process, so what better than to attempt this during my holidays.

I used half a cup of arborio rice, and about 3 cups of chicken stock. It took almost an hour to get the rice to the correct texture. All recipes seem to think it only takes half an hr so maybe there was something I didn't do right. This is definately a very rich dish. I had onions and mushroom sauteed in butter, and topped the finish product with parmesan. Very filling and tasty! I will need to cook this again (next holidays perhaps) :)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Food Safari - High Tea

Well lar dee dar, for our latest food safari we decided to go all schmancy and have high tea at the Langham Hotel. We ordered the tiffen afternoon tea as well as the chocolate afternoon tea. Both were delicious, and beautifully presented.

Sandwiches were very yummy, but the standouts were the salmon, egg and chicken pate ones.

But enough of that. Lets check out the desserts!

For October, high tea came with extra macaroons (for the normal tiffin afternoon tea) and chocolate soufflé for the chocolate one. Macaroons were quite disappointing as they were rock hard, but the soufflé was amazing. It was so light and fluffy, and the chocolate pouring sauce was not overbearingly sweet. It was perfect.

Oh, and of course we had tea :)

Although it was supposed to be afternoon tea, we made this our first point of call for the day. Good thing we did, as it took us 3 hours to finish everything. We were absolutely full afterwards. As usual.

Party

Open buffet for a one year old birthday party? Yes please!

Turkish Delight

Turkish delight from Brunswick never fails to dissapoint. So soft and sweet.

Snack

Afternoon snack platter. Some soft room temperature camembert cheese, garlic chilli olives, hot salami and crackers. Yum!

Home Made: Fried Rice

We had some leftover roast chicken from dinner the other night, so I shredded up the leftovers and made some yummy fried rice with it. Topped with kimchi, it was a very tasty meal :)

Trunk Diner

I quite like the burgers at Trunk Dinner. Made of wagyu beef, each burger is medium rare with pickles, tomato, lettuce and onion on the side. Build your own burger!

Needless to say, I have been there a few times. I tried the Vietnamese inspired chicken salad which had a LOT of nuoc nam. It was actually quite sour!

The place does seem to be quite popular. They have a limited number of baguettes and quesadillas (with various fillings) so first in best dressed. I had a late lunch one day, and had to settle for a ham quesadilla when all the baguettes were gone.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Food Safari - EXTREME

After a surprising announcement that one of the pioneers of the food safari team will be leaving the group to pursue adventures (and food I assume) overseas, the remaining members decided to organize a farewell fit for a foodie. Hence Food Safari Extreme Edition was born.

So how extreme can a food safari be? How about waking up at 7AM on a SATURDAY for food? Unheard of!

First stop - Parisian Patisserie in Moonee Valley. In true food safari fashion, we went a little overboard with the food:

We started with a light breakfast donut...

followed by some chocolate filled pastry...

then devoured the delicious almond croissant...

Had a piece of the egg brioche...

then some other savoury brioche

but saved room for the blueberry...thing

and finally a traditional croissant.

So that was breakfast. All of the above. We made multiple trips to the counter to order, despite the bemused glances of the other patrons. We really like our pastries okay??

Oh, and of course we had to try each and every mini macaroon there as well.

Breakfast ended up being somewhat expensive, and not to mention fattening. We had a brief break before we headed off to trusty Curry Laksa King for lunch. With such a large breakfast, you'd think we would tone it down for lunch. Not a chance.

The infamous curry laksa

Curry Chicken with Roti.

Not pictured but definitely consumed: Beef Rendang Curry with more roti, and Char Kuey Tiew. Perfect!

So that was lunch. We then headed off into the city to check out the food festival that was apparently going on in Chinatown. This turned out to be about 5 stalls selling overpriced Chinese food, which was not something our already full stomachs were in the mood for.

Next came dinner. Those still 'hungry' decided to go check out a wood fire pizza place called Urbany:

We shared a pizza. It was alright.

The duck salad, on the other hand, was delicious.

Even better though? The chocolate fudge pot dessert we shared in the end. So rich and moist.

That was enough for one day. We didn't want to go overboard :)

Next morning, after waking up at a more reasonable hour, we headed off to Yarraville for brunch at a German cafe - Hausfrau Bakery. We didn't bother keeping track of what was what. We just pointed to anything that looked yummy. That turned out to be a lot: