Wood Spoon Kitchen

Well, peeps, I am heading back to uni this year to become a Master of Teachering. I'm very excited about this - particularly as I now have a student card! - and Essie wanted for us to go out to celebrate my success and we ended up at Wood Spoon. It was a bit of a surprise as I had been mentioning wanting to go there but wasn't expecting a sms from her the day I found out about uni telling me we had a booking - she's sneaky!

Anyway, together with the boys we headed off to try this place I have heard so much about.

We shared a bunch of nibbley things to start - edamame, seaweed salad, agedashi tofu and okonoimyaki - and I chose to have umeshu while everyone else had various sake. The umeshu was one of the nicest plum wines I've had (which, admittedly, isn't hard as I've only had one other plum wine in my life) and the pear sake I sampled was amazing.



The edamame was salty and delicious and we were so frickin' hungry that they were gone in a flash.



I loved the seaweed salad - I loved the tomato and cucumber in it.



It was a tasty okonomiyaki - it has 'nom' in the name so it must be good - and I can't remember any thing else about it but it being tasty. This is the downside of writing up two weeks late!



I REMEMBER THINGS ABOUT THIS. This agedashi tofu was by far the highlight of the meal and was so fucking amazing. OMG PEEPS. Nix and I were sharing this as the omnis had the pork gyoza but we convinced Dan and Esther to try some too and then regretted our decision as it meant less tofu for us. If you eat one thing this year, make it this!



The vego miso was tasty if not quite what I expected. If I'd read the menu, I would have noticed the mention of pumpkin and sweet potato. It wasn't what I was expecting but it is tasty and full of surprise sustenance!



We shared the Dengaku Don which I loved but J found the texture a bit strange - it was a bit like tahini-coated eggplant. Which makes it sound terrible but I loved the softness of the eggplant and the sesame flavour. I can see that it might not be to everyone's cup of tea.



After our monster effort, we thought it best to go the whole way by having dessert. The sesame icecream was an intense trip to sesame land - no sugary fluff here. It went really well with our other dessert choice . . .




pumpkin dango! This was very very sweet but also fairly amazing. Anyone who has had the pleasure of going to The Dumpling House with us knows our love of the pumpkin cakes. This dish was like the insides of pumpkin cake in sweet soup. WINNER.

At this point we rolled ourselves out to my car (A+ parking spot in front of the restaurant) and went home to rub our bellies.

This was an amazing evening - the food, company and occasion - and I feel like I've already had my best meal of 2010 in the first half of January. We had excellent service all night and even though it is a small space (though, apparently, it used to be smaller), it didn't feel like we were eating on top of the other patrons. Wood Spoon also get a huge thumbs up for their clearly marked vego, vegan and gluten-free options on their menu. It makes everything less stressful when you know exactly what everyone can eat.

GO THERE AND HAVE THE TOFU! IT IS AMAZING.

Wood Spoon Kitchen
88 Smith Street
Collingwood
web

Borsch, Vodka and Tears

You've got to love a work day that is interrupted with an invite to dinner somewhere you've been meaning to go for years and years. Tash smsed me an invite to dinner at Borsch Vodka & Tears last week and I spent the entire week excited by the prospect of pierogi and borsch.



Tash was particularly impressed with the care and attention that had be put into the sign reserving her table; so much so that she demanded photographic evidence of the colouring in. A+ colouring there - gold star!



Tash, Anton, Esther and I all went for various vodka based drinks - I had the best Moscow Mule of my life - and John decided on an OK Beer and a shot of one of the many, many, many, many types of vodka. I love the label on this beer - it would be wrong to get it as a tattoo, yes?

When it came to ordering, Esther and I decided to share a couple of things and then get our own mains (so to speak) and leave the rest of the table to their business.
We ended up sharing the blintzes and cheese & potato pierogi to start and we did sample some of the saganaki which was super delicious.



The blintzes were amazing - very simple, obviously, but exactly what a potato blintz should be. One of my favourite things of the evening.



Delicious saganaki and some sort of fritter in the background which I didn't sample. I did steal the pickled veg off the plate later though as they were just going to leave it! NO NO NO - pickles veg is an always food!



The pierogi were, again, simple hearty deliciousness. Tash, Anton and John raved about the meaty ones they shared for a main and, whilst these were delicious, I think that pierogi are really best at their meatiest. There are other vego pierogi that I didn't sample so I know what I'm ordering next time I go back for cocktails.



For my main, I went with the vegetarian borsch as it seemed fitting. From my understanding (and very quick wikipedia-ing), this borsch was a clear broth as it is a Polish borsch and if I had been in a Russian or Ukrainian restaurant the borscht would have been a bit chunkier - please correct me if I'm wrong. The broth was delicious and surprisingly light and very beetrooty. The highlight for me was the mushroom uszka. Wow - I could probably have eaten a hundred of these little dumplings of tastiness. Yum.



Even though we were stuffed to the gills, we decided to do dessert. We did have to have a fairly significant break in proceedings so that we weren't all automatically ill so we used that to have more cocktails. It was a this point that Esther had the best cocktail of her entire life - the Honey On Toast. Honey vodka, creme de cacao, cream and cinnamon in a honey drizzled glass. Wow. I went with a Starry Starry Night which was champagne and quince and whilst it was good, I should not have strayed from the vodka drinks as they were all outstanding.

Anyway, dessert. Esther and I had apple strudel and it was strudelicious. Probably not the best strudel I've ever eaten but an excellent end to a hearty meal.

I really enjoyed Borsch, Vodka & Tears and will probably go back with the view to sample more of the drinks list than for a meal. If I get to eat some excellent blintzes and pierogi on the way . . . well, that's just a positive.


Borsch Vodka & Tears
173 Chapel Street, Windsor
03 9530 2694

Tin Pot Cafe

Tin Pot is a bit of an old faithful - not my most favourite place but always there and always with an extensive breakfast menu. Service is always friendly but a bit hit and miss with remembering things or meals coming out together. This most recent visit was odd because there were plenty of tables when we arrived but we had to stand around for ten minutes while they cleared off a particular table for us. Don't get me wrong, it was a good table but it would have been easier for everyone to let us sit somewhere else.

So, combine odd loitering in the doorway with screaming children and a strange all-white renovation, it was a very strange start to breakfast.



I went with the vego beans - they were good but fairly one note and when I got a bit of feta in a mouthful, it totally changed the whole meal. Overall, it needed a nice squeeze of lemon but it appears that there is some sort of lemon crisis happening in Melbourne at the moment. So, good beans but not a patch on the Tre Espresso beans.



Es went with porridge with banana and, despite the "NO CHANGES TO DISHES" claim at the top of the menu, she was able to sub the maple syrup for brown sugar. I tasted it and it was good. Esther said that it was nice and creamy and not too sticky or stodgy. High praise indeed.

J&D had various things that I can't remember now so . . .

Tin Pot - nice, reliable, needs more lemon.


Tin Pot Cafe
248-250 St Georges Rd, Fitzroy North
(03) 9481 5312‎

Quick Post: A Minor Place

Here's the Banh Mi (or, as the menu insisted, "Vietnamese Salad Roll") I had at A Minor Place last week - delicious but, ultimately, not as good as the one I could get in Footscray for half the price. Also, the roll was toasted making it ridiculously hard to eat without cutlery. I think I provided entertainment for Esther at least.

In my opinion, it need more coriander and the carrot was fresh, not pickled. I love the pickled carrot in Banh Mi so it was a bit disappointing.

That said, still love A Minor Place, still want them to put The Omlette on the menu.

Lentil as Anything @ Abbotsford Convent

Take two peeps, the Sunday after Christmas and the desire for breakfast. And, thus, you have Steph and I at Lentil as Anything for breakfast.

Much like Steph, I was surprised at how few breakfast things were vegan (i.e. one option) but I was keen to try the Sri Lankan Breakfast - a dosa-esque pancake filled with potato and egg curry.



It was tasty, if a bit one note - I think it needed some more acid - and I'm not entirely sure why or where the eggs was. I mean, I know it was smushed up in the curry but seemed fairly superflous to me. The crepe was a bit thicker than I expected it to be but tasty.

Steph's mushrooms were good and it was a nice change to try somewhere new for breakfast. I was very sad that I didn't get a chance to try any of Pip's amazing baking so I'll just have to go back again soon.

Lentil As Anything
1 St Heliers Street
Abbotsford

Bay Road Pantry, Claremont

Now, some surprise Perth blogging!

Esther and I headed over west for an amazing wedding and early Christmas with my family. My parents had literally moved into a new house the day we arrived and as opposed to it being in the Swan Valley (lovely part of the world - A+), it is in Nedlands (also lovely - A+). It is such a change for me in Perth - there are supermarkets five minutes away! Our picnic-ing spot on the foreshore was five minutes away! The beach is about ten minutes away! AMAZING!

Anywhoodle, Esther and I were up ready to have breakfast with one of my BFFs when plans changed and she couldn't make it. Es and I decided to venture out into the wilds of Nedlands to find somewhere to eat. We stumbled upon the Bay Road Pantry and thought it looked like a likely spot.



It was a quite a nice place - an old house, lots of tables, quiet street - and the breakfast was decent. The menu was small - from memory, there were only 6 things and the bruschetta with avocado I wanted wasn't available as they had no avocado yet so I ended up with poached eggs on toast with mushrooms on the side.



The eggs were pretty undercooked and if I weren't a more adventurous person, I would have sent them back (no side effects though! Yay!). The bread was delicious and sourdough-y and the mushrooms were good, if a bit salty. Esther has scrambled eggs and bacon and said that it was good, if a bit bland.

Our pre-breakfast dessert of danish was tasty but obviously not made on site. Yum - apple danish!



The coffee was fine - nothing special but par for the course for Perth coffee.

All in all, it was a fine breakfast but overpriced and nothing ground breaking.


29 Bay Rd
Claremont WA 6010
(08) 9386 1045

Factory

It has only taken a year or so for Esther and I to walk the 5 minutes down the road to try out Factory and we are very glad we did! We took the lovely Josie along with us to try it out and we spent a lovely couple of hours eating, drinking and playing scrabble.

The menu isn't huge but surprisingly varied! 11 vego options! 1 outright vegan option and other veganiseable (total word, ok) things! Nice looking omin things! Coriander features quite a bit - hooray!



I went with the Vegan Brekkie - scrambled tofu with mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach and coriander, finished with a soy & lime reduction. Verdict - a one-way ticket to delicioustown! I love these sorts of flavours at breakfast and it didn't disappoint! A little bit of chilli wouldn't have gone astray but, apart from that, the flavours were nicely balanced and the nice sourdoughy bread that came with it (no butter! they totally got the vegan!) was great to dip in the sauce bit that was left.
To be honest, just writing this up makes me want to nip around the corner for some more. Yum.



Josie and Esther both went with the French Toast with banana, maple syrup and bacon and it smelt amazing and looked great. Both said that it was delicious - good quality maple syrup, nice fresh banana and excellent flavours.

There are a bunch of other things on the menu that I want to try - the ricotta pancakes, the poached pears, the baked eggs with tomato and coriander salsa and haloumi - I could go on and on. The coffee with great, there's a nice courtyard and there are plenty of tables.

Hooray for our local!

Factory Cafe
453 Victoria Street
Brunswick West
T-S 8-4

Birdie Num Nums

Oh, Birdie Num Nums. I had such high hopes for you and in the end you gave me a very mixed bag.

Sunday morning, Esther and I picked up our bffs for breakfast. I had declared that I wanted to go somewhere new so we drove down Nicholson Street where the place I had sort of picked was. It was closed. Tip for Melbourne cafes – open for Sunday breakfast. Anyway, we continued down Nicholson Street and arrived at Birdie Num Nums. I loved the interior – it’s previous life as a butcher was very obvious with rails and meat hooks.

Unfortunately, breakfast went from delicious to fairly horrible. My breakfast (above) was delicious - eggs perfectly poached, hollandaise good, asparagus excellent. The only down side was the insubstantial, airy toast. As Esther said, the bread was like something from Baker's Delight.

J & D got the Egyptian Eggs - crispy fried poached eggs rolled in dukkah on a potato and pumpkin stack with mint and crispy onion. From what the guys said, they were good but lacking balance. It needed something fresh or some lemon to squeeze over it.

And now for the bad - Esther's breakfast. The bacon was undercooked but covered in burnt bits and oil. The sausage was cold. The spinach was overcooked and not seasoned. There was the same issue with the bread as with my breakfast. The hashbrowns were fine but nothing special and obviously from the freezer section. The eggs were meh. She felt queasy for the rest of the day after her breakfast which generally means that place is struck of the breakfast list forever.

Farewell forever, Birdie Num Nums.

Birdie Num Nums

745 Nicholson Street, Carlton North

Et in Arcadia ego . . .

I’m sorry for ridiculous overplayed title but I couldn’t resist! After months of studying Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia for Year 12 Lit, I have a fondness for all things Arcadian. And, in retrospect, I should have had rice pudding with jam which I could swirl through it and have delightful chaosy fun.

Anyway, our lovely friend AB has just arrived from Qld and it was time for some delicious breakfast, Melbourne-style. I sent her a list of cafe names and told her to choose without any research whatsoever. Without any hesitation, she chose Arcadia (mainly, I believe, because she is living around the corner) and I was very happy with her choice, having had the Most Delicious Savoury Muffin of my life there a few weeks earlier.

We got the last indoor table at about 9:30 or so and felt very smug about the whole situation. Coffee order was taken straightaway which always makes me happy and we perused the blackboard. My eye was immediately drawn to the mushrooms because whilst I love mushrooms, I don’t cook them at home because they are not Esther’s bag at all. I was also interested in the eggs with chilli – I can’t remember the details but it sounded a bit like the Hot Indonesian Eggs at CERES which is high up on my favourite breakfasts of all time.

Esther and AB both went with (and I quote) "pan-fried mash potato cake with spinach, bacon, poached eggs, mayo and pesto" and it looked fantastic – I don’t partake in meat anymore but that was some delicious looking bacon.

The mushrooms were great and the goats’ cheese was perfect – it’s classic for a reason, peeps.

Arcadia knock out a great breakfast but there are two downsides:

1. They only do breakfast from 8 to 11:30 (M-F) and 9 to 4 (S&S). I understand that limited kitchen space sometimes means you need to shut down breakfast so you can cook lunch but their breakfasts are so good that I would love to be able to eat them all day.

2. They are a bit pricier than a lot of other places. The quality is amazing though so the extra cost might be worth it.

Arcadia

193 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy

Rain, Rain.

I feel like the last person in Melbourne to make it to Hellenic Republic. I’ve also never eaten at the Press Club. *shame* And, after the whole George Calombaris hating on the bloggers, I wasn’t rushing out to try them. However, the promise of feta at breakfast time was enough to convince me and we finally made it there last weekend in the middle of the stormy weather that had our roof leaking and anxiety levels high.

Tash had been raving about breakfast at Hellenic Republic since she moved to Melbourne a couple of months ago; she and her housemate had gone one morning and all I’d heard since was “breakfast spanakopita”. Never one to shy away from filo at breakfast, I was intrigued and excited to check it out. Fast forward, two months and we had finally made a date to go and eat.



We hadn’t booked but it seemed easy enough to get a table as we were pretty early for Sunday morning breakfast (9:30). I felt strangely pleased to see that their roof was also leaking, even though it did result in Tash getting wet at the end of the meal. There were buckets set up in a couple of places over the dining room to catch the drips and the staff looked a little bit harried as well. That said, the service was great and our coffee order was taken very quickly. (One of tweeps was inspired by my early morning tweet about going to HR for breakfast and also decided to breakfast there that morning. I believe she had a 20 minute wait for her coffee order to be taken. Bad news.)

The menu isn’t huge and it is the usual breakfast stuff with an interesting spin on it. I had already decided I was having the spanakopita but I was also interested in the omelette with feta, leek and potato and, if I ate meat, I’d definitely try the breakfast souvlaki. Tash had tried the omelette before and loved it but one of her Perth friends had tried it the week before and found it a little bland. I will have to go back and try it myself soon.



The spankopita was outstanding – there was a lovely balance of flavours with the feta being nice and salty but perfectly matched by the mix of spinach and herbs, the filo was great with the bottom being particularly crispy and delicious and the eggs added a lovely element to the whole dish. This isn’t really ‘fancy’ food but it is pretty frickin’ ‘fancy’ on flavour. A+++++++++++++++++++++++

Tash also had the spanakopita because she’s an addict.

Esther had a very simple but very delicious breakfast of sourdough, spreadable feta, avocado and tomato. I’ll be honest and say that it didn’t look that exciting to me but Esther assures me that it was lovely – the avocado nice and ripe, the tomato well seasoned with good olive oil and pepper and the feta was outstanding. She was very happy with her choice and I think if I was in the mood for simple or light (for a certain value of light), this would be my choice.



And then we shared breakfast dessert because that’s how we roll. Greek doughnuts with honey and walnuts. Amazing.

So, all in all, I really enjoyed it – the food and coffee were excellent, the service was great and the atmosphere was nice. It is a bit more expensive than our usual breakfast haunts but I think it was worth it.



Also, George, I’m sorry if my unsophisticated palate and amateur review isn’t good enough for you.

The Best Omelette I Have Ever Eaten. THE BEST.

We went to A Minor Place for breakfast on Friday and on the way there I was bemoaning the fact that I am, frankly, a bit over A Minor Place. I love it but I know the menu back to front and I was just feeling a little uninspired.

Then there was the Specials board and on the Specials board was The Omelette.

Asparagus, swiss cheese and herbs on sourdough. With relish.

PUT IT ON THE MENU, PLEASE.

A funny thing happened on the way to making a blog post . . .

Hi.

Yeah, it's been months and I have eaten delicious things and made delicious things in that time but haven't posted. Why? Who can say? My general laziness? A bunch of real-life non-food related things happening? My ongoing love for puff pastry?

So, consider this a brief round up of the last couple of months, complete with some photos and linking to other people's content!

Daring Bakers
Hasn't happened the last two challenges. You'll all be pleased to know that this month's challenge is in the bag (unless I end up having enough time to have another crack at it) and so there will be more DB content soon. I think I will try both recipes I missed (Dobos Torte & Vol-au-vents) at some stage. Stay tuned.

Enlightened Cuisine
In one of the many non-food related things (but actually quite food related), one of my Perth BFFs, Steph has moved to Melbourne. Steph is pretty much my food-blog-spiration so it is cool to actually be able to go out and eat with her a lot more. So, welcome, S & D - may the vegan noms be nommable.

ANYWAY, S&D organised for a group of Melb Veg bloggers to go out to Enlightened Cuisine for the Moon Festival which was amazing. Unfortunately, D had to go to the UK for work so we were down a person but, plus side, means we have to go again soon.

The photos can be found elsewhere: Steph and Miss T. I highly recommend Miss T's write up as the voting was both delicious and dramatic.

Would I go to Enlightened Cuisine again? In conclusion, yes. Somewhat trashy, yes but also delicious and fun and win.
Best dish: whilst I voted against the five-spice tofu when it was pitted against the mapo tofu, I think it was amazing and fully deserving of its win as OVERLORD OF ALL.

Sydney
The lovely Esther and I went up to Sydney to see my brother and sister-in-law and, frankly, it was all a front to get to Adriano Zumbo. There isn't really much to be added to everthing that's been said. It was lovely and the staff were all super-friendly and helpful and . . . just delicious.



Esther had La Vie En Rose. Never has there been a dish more fitting for a person.



My bro had the special - Croquembouche! YUM!



My sis-in-law had this which I can't remember the name of. (Basic fail. And it's not even on the website.) It was delicious and strange and exciting. Cucumber and chocolate is a surprisingly good combo.



And I had the Miss Marple Deconstructed. Mainly because I love Miss Marple. It was delicious and fresh and they were some good crepes, yo.

Friday night we had dinner at Papaya Thai in Cremorne where I had the best chili and basil tofu of my life. Please excuse the terrible photo - dark restaurant + shaky, tired hands = this.



They were very vego friendly on the surface of things - the menu marked all the vego stuff and noted that nearly everything could be made vego. Hooray. I say on the surface because I didn't ask about fish sauce so that is an unknown. However, A+++.

Saturday morning was breakfast at some cafe in North Avalon. I cannot for the life of my remember the name. (Again, basic fail.) It was pretty tasty but quite pricey - something I noticed about Sydney in general.



Essie's banana pancakes.



My vego breakfast.

In conclusion . . .



Rollerderby.

(There is going to be a post about the cakes and things at the Royal Melbourne Show but this post is ridiculously long as it is.)

Sugardough, Brunswick East

Sugardough Panificio & Patisserie
163 Lygon St, Brunswick East

Es and I had a quick afternoon tea at Sugardough whilst our little pup, Beatrice was getting a clip across the road.

There isn't really much to say about Sugardough that hasn't already been said. A++++++ as always.