All the blood oranges!
So I have just completed 6 days of no coffee, just cause. Turns out day 2 is when the body suffers some crazy withdrawal - I had a pounding headache for most of the day.And of course, here is my obligatory post of coffee:
Bar 9 Central also recently opened in the city, so now I can get my baby Bar 9 fix easily! Instead of trekking or bussing to the super crowded cafe. This was a beetroot, fennel, blood orange salad with radish, rocket, and some other things. The rocket and radish burned me, as always, but it was tasty!
I also managed to finally visit Jack Ruby, this restaurant/bar place which has an American theme to it, so ceviche, tacos and actual Amercian food galore. I loved my food, but some other people didn't - apparently the philly cheesesteak was average. I loved all that I ordered, though the ceviche was not what I had expected since in America I had some amazing cheap ceviche, plus I am great at making my own. This one was creamy, partially due to the avocado, but it was still nice, and the corn chips were tasty. The deep fried shrimp was fun and delicious but too spicy, even without the sauce! Only because I have no chilli tolerance.
Mac and cheese balls. Super yummy! So I have had mac and cheese toastie, mac and cheese balls, mac and cheese fingers, but I have not had mac and cheese by itself!
And a lamb taco in the background, fried chicken taco in the foreground. The fried chicken one was spicy but oh so good! I love tacos like these! Lots of exclamation marks!
Apart from eating out, yes, I have been doing more of my own cooking. It's just been mostly ordinary stuff though. This is a new experiment of mine, chicken breast with sea salt, pepper, rosemary, lemon and olive oil. I will throw it in the oven for who knows how long, then put it in things, like salad or quinoa or a sandwich, whatever it is that I actually have in my pantry tomorrow.
Now for the blood oranges! I bought 3 kilos of blood oranges cause they were cheap ($2.50kg) and I've been meaning to make blood orange jellies for a few weeks now, but never could be bothered. I tried taking pictures of them but it doesn't work at night, so here is a random "bespoke" cocktail I made - blood orange, strawberry, mint. I love blood orange juice!
And here it is again in a martini glass :)
Yay for pretty things!
Death by caffeine, Cronut Jenga
My friend visited Adelaide, and being foodies and all, plus the fact that I wanted to experience death by caffeine, lead to us going on a grand adventure of all things tasty.
Friday was super epic and involved trying to consume as many coffees as possible, so here was my list for the day, assuming one filter has more caffeine than espresso and therefore is more than "one coffee":
Exchange Specialty Coffee: 1.5 filters
Please Say Please: 1 espresso
Coffee Branch: 1 espresso
Little Seeds Pop Up: 1 espresso
Argo on the Square: 1 piccolo
Hey Jupiter: 1 flat white
Total count in 1 day: approx 7 coffees! Woohoo!
We had an awesome moment of cronut jenga and kind of spilt sugar everywhere when our tower fell (twice!) but it was so fun, and the fallen cronut was still within the 3 second rule PLUS it ended up on my umbrella so it was still good. Very tasty, loved the texture because donut dough is too heavy, so croissant dough to make donuts is genius!
Argo on the Square, macchiato and piccolo. I didn't expect the piccolo to be in a cup with handle, as I thought they all came in mini latte glasses.
Hey Jupiter, a somewhat popular cafe, so we ordered some food including a flat white that was served on doilies, plus cauliflower soup.
Apothecary 1878. I love this place and have plenty of pictures of it already. I had my good ol' 75mL'ers with my regular choices of olives, prosciutto, goat curd on toast, salmon and lamb backstrap.
Clever Little Tailor is an interesting little bar and freaked me out because they only had a wine list and 3 food options; to order cocktails they said to just ask! So I freaked out and have figured I am not posh enough to come here again :)
East End Providore and its awesome pate. On toast. Pate addiction. Nuff said. YUM.
Proof, my new favourite hangout, complete with super dapper waiters. They have an AMAZING "Ruby Root" cocktail which is all kinds of earthy with lemon as it has beetroot in it. Their house pickles are super gorgeous and tasty, though it was a little bit too peppery. And who could resist LOBSTER BUN WITH KEWPIE. Not only that, they do TOASTIES. Not just any kind of toasties either - one is a morcilla and hen's egg toastie! Why is everything here so tasty that I end up using the same words again and again!!! This is a godly place, and now I have to come back all the time to sample their chocolate desserts which are unmatched; I can now never have chocolate desserts from anywhere else :(, so much so that I almost cried eating chocolate mousse from a popular chocolate bar and finding it not good enough. I must become a regular! THEY CAN TAKE ALL OF MY MONIES.
Now I also have to go to Press* as they have beef tartare. And because the waiters said that Press* has more chocolate desserts. Not having been there yet is driving me crazy and making me cry.
I love Adelaide!
Granite Island, The Wind, and the Beginning of Proof
I love things that are packed full of jam, pickles, and other kinds of action. So this weekend I took a trip down to Victor Harbour and Granite Island.Everyone told me it'd be cold, but for all the 10°C - 14°C, it wasn't all that cold. I attribute this to my Rhodes and Beckett attire and the fact that Sydney has worse winters by far.It was wet, cold and windy but I didn't mind at all - I was loving it! However the farmer's markets weren't faring as well - I saw a few tents tip over - so they had to shut down early. I didn't get my chance to spend money here, which was a good and bad thing, since I probably won't visit again... ever?It also meant the horse drawn tram wasn't in action to Granite Island, but that was okay as I discovered it wasn't a horse-drawn carriage. I was anticipating some good old, old fashioned horse carriages, but the picture advertising it depicted a giant bus-like thing drawn by horses, so I was disappointed without actually being disappointed. Instead I got to walk along the giant bridge-thing to the small island with big rocks and penguins that didn't show!
So there were a bunch of giant rocks at the top/one side of the island, and I really wanted to climb on the highest one but it was too slippery and I'm a chicken. So I stood on a mini-rock and had a fight and an argument with the wind - which was really, really strong. And I lost both! It stole my voice when I tried to shout at it, then it almost succeeded in toppling me multiple times. So I shouted "HELLO TO THE END OF THE WORLD" with the direction the wind was blowing, and I think it liked that. It was very exciting! So now I know why I like the sun: it's powerful and makes fun of me, but at least it's not a big meanie like the wind.
Aaaand an obligatory food post of a cute little bar called Proof which I have to go back to, mainly because they have lobster rolls with kewpie (!!!), snails, blood sausage + egg toasties, jamon iberico, house pickles and other assorted goodies! So all I have to show on my first visit is this mind-blowing chocolate mousse. It was extra dark chocolate mousse, topped with liquidy custardy stuff (I forgot what they called it), served in a cocktail glass. AMAZING. Well worth the $9!
It is a very classy bar. That Eleven card is what they gave me in exchange for holding my credit card ransom as I opted to open a tab for myself :D It was exciting because I've never done that before!!!
Black Winter Luxury
Welcome to truffle!Tasmanian, black, winter, fragrant, beautiful goodness!
