melbourne pt.1

I spent most of the trip eating, or at least it felt that way. JY insisted on paying for every meal we ate together as her graduation gift to me. In return, I made pancakes. I know. Breakfast was mostly at her flat - coffee and whatever else was on hand but I couldn't not trip down to the QV markets for pastries (and coffee) at least twice.

Gill's Diner - gnochetti with tomato and calamari, duck confit with lentils

some Japanese place - sword tataki with ponzu, spicy prok mince ramen

QV - almond croissant (lovelovelove. it wasn't the type you find in KL with a sprinkle of almond flakes on top of a normal croissant - this had chunky marzipan running through the pastry and on top, with a thorough dusting of icing sugar to make sure everyone know you've been eating sweet stuff)

mussels in white wine (home cooked)

Cafe Vue - lunch box. Cafe Vue is a more casual branch of Vue de Monde and the lunch box we both ordered is a genius idea. The contents change daily so you don't know what you're going to get and it comes in a sturdy red cardboard box designed by someone or another (printed on top, did not register. preoccupied with contents). Perfect for the indecisive. Let the chef decide what you should eat. Inside, there's a little menu to tell you what you've gotten. We got a starter of pork rilette with fennel seed crackers (rather Asian), a salad of haricot blanc and chorizo, tuna nicoise roll, and a dessert of chocolate mousse with baked orange cream. How sweet is that? And the disposable cutlery they supplied with it was made of wood. It kinda reminded me of toy kitchen sets, you know those plywood forks and spoons. I liked. There's a picture of me admiring the cutlery (just because they were such a novelty. no splinters either)

Laksa me - Khao Sao Gai. Not sure if this was Thai but it was yummy - dry fried noodles with a chicken curry.

QV (again) - coffee scroll. I'd seen this the first time I went to QV and put it on my to eat list. It had coffee in its name, can't go past that. Turns out, it's like a coffee cake - it doesn't actually have any coffee in it but it goes perfectly with coffee. More like a giant cinnamon bun. Damn. Not coffee.

Hooked - grilled fish, salt and pepper calamari, a mountain of chips (I shit you not. a mole hill, at least)

Fritz gelato - ruby grapefruit and blood orange. Blood orange...

smoky bacon and spiced plum sausages with broccoli. We picked up these sausages at QV and baked them. Smoky bacon really tasted like smoky bacon. I kept trying to taste plum in the other one because it intrigued me but it was fairly subtle. You could taste a slight fruitiness in it but it didn't overpower the meat. Yummy, very yummy. By this point I wanted to up stakes and live in Melbourne just because it has QV. But then the weather is kind of shit and it was really the central location of the flat which got me.

lamb and cheese gozleme at the Sunday arts market. Like pide, but thinner bread and less filling.

Grill'd - Hot Mama burger. I know there's a place in Kl with the same name but it's not part of this chain I think. The Hot Mama had harissa (love harissa. want to smuggle a tub back to KL with me), roasted peppers (another love), tzatziki (love, but a bit less), pickle and cheese. Oh and some salad too. It was at least 3 inches thick. Squish squish squish and it fits! chomp.

Animal Orchestra (love the name) - Baked eggs with chorizo, black pudding and tomato. I need to get a baked eggs recipe. Also shared a sticky date pudding with vanilla bean ice cream (it rhymes. say it really fast now: vanillabeanicecream vanillabeanicecream) and caramel sauce. Should also find a good recipe for this. Dammit, why are all the things I love hard to find in KL.

Dainty Sichuan (I swear, I'm not making these names up) - so not dainty. This is real sichuan food (I've been told). Sichuan peppercorns do this strange thing to your tongue and lips where they have a numbing effect. So it doesn't sting the way spicy food usually does. Instead, you just lose sensation. Hmm.... I glanced in the mirror when we got back and my lips were fatter than usual. It looked strange. Sichuan food works better than lip plumpers and doesn't sting like lip plumpers. The peppercorns themselves look slightly alien. It's like someone took regular peppercorns and covered them in tiny white zits. Oh right, the food - beef on toothpick (that's what it said on the menu, don't scold me for not remembering!), chilli chicken, and leeks with tofu. Both meat dishes came in a mountain of dry fried tiny chillies. Not sure if they were cili padi but there were a hell of a lot of them. I think they reuse the chillies - we had to wait a really long time for the chicken to come out and it was only after another table which had ordered it had left. Tasty, spicy and fascinating.

Nobu - sashimi tacos (shared), lunch bento box and suntory whisky cappucino (shared). Ok, so you've probably heard of Nobu. If you haven't, google it. The sashimi tacos were delicious. They put cubed tuna, salmon, crabmeat, and prawns (separately) into mini crisp taco shells and plonked a little pot of salsa next to it for you to dab on. South America meets Japan. Loved the contrasting textures and the different flavours. The tacos were a bit too tasty (salty) but it's all good. The bento box was huge. Stacked oblong bento box with 5 compartments. It came with a portion of black cod with miso (signature dish), tuna sashimi with a sesame-black pepper-maybe a bit of ponzu but i'm not sure dressing, various sushi, mixed vegetables on rice, citrusy shrimp tempura. And miso soup. And I finished it all! (except for most of the rice under the veges). The whisky cappucino was the best bit of the meal. It's actually a layered dessert in a cap cup. bottoms up: chocolate covered coffee bean bits, coffee creme brulee (not really a creme brulee, just custard), milk ice cream, whisky foam. I want this every day for a month, Then maybe I'd get sick of it and not crave it.

gnocchi with shrimp and peas in a creamy white wine sauce (homecooked and bloody good. easy too)

enchiladas and meatballs from DJ's food hall.


there. now I'm hungry.