I wish I was on the lounge, too...

Here's today's ration of cake from the Adriano Zumbo collection. The nice cake boy at the shop had the description of this down pat, but I was too excited by the words 'licorice', 'mango' and 'raspberry' to remember what it was.
The discs of licorice around the cake are a soft jelly, with an intense aniseed flavour - bliss if you like licorice.

The name of the cake is 'on the lounge with Zumbo' - a reference to AZ's obsession with eating licorice over mango sorbet while sitting on the couch (as described in November's Gourmet Traveller blurb on Zumbo).

New Zumbo cakes - go for it!

Yes, the new Adriano Zumbo cake range is out, and it’s full of the summer hues of oranges, reds and browns. I need to pace myself, so I’m limiting my cake intake to one per day, max.

There are no name tags as yet, so I’ll call the first one Pointy[1]. It has a pistachio dacquoise base on which sits a wobbly mountain of creamy vanilla bavarois topped with an apple cider jelly summit. The jelly is studded with green apple pieces, and it’s quite alcoholic!

[1] O pointy birds, o pointy pointy,
Anoint my head, anointy-nointy

From The Man with 2 Brains


There are also some new macaron flavours – again, due to the self imposed limit, they will have to wait (although I think Raging Yoghurt has had a go).

PS: Calling all fans - see you at Zumbo next weekend!

Hey, the Donna Hay bandwagon rolls into town

It may be a bit unfashionable, but I’m into Donna Hay’s recipes, stylings and magazines. Sure, her instructions are getting brief to the point of being ‘cook ingredients’ and ‘serve on a plate’, but the recipes are good when you are out of ideas or time.

Which is the point of her latest book, ‘no time to cook’. DH was spruiking the book and launching a new range of cake/cookie mixes at David Jones and demo-ing some of the recipes. Surrounded by a posse of assistants, she was entertaining and efficient, whipping up 4 dishes from the new book and doing a good job of being a walking talking advert for all things DH. And it was all done in 3-inch heels and no apron (apparently, aprons are ‘so Mrs Doubtfire’).

She was ably assisted on stage by the dishy Steven, which prompted ladies in the audience to wonder if he came with a copy of the book (unfortunately, no).

We got a taste of the chocolate brownies at the end of the demo (‘it’s like I am in the kitchen with you’, DH kept saying). They were pretty good for a packet mix, so I bought a box, to be evaluated at a later date. I also got a copy of the signed book. Okay, so, I’ve fallen for the hype…

Not to let the inspiration go to waste, I made one of the recipes that night for dinner. It happened to be the one DH demoed as well, Shredded Rocket and Prawn Linguine. I have to say, it was not bad at all, though it took me longer to make because I didn’t have cute Steven to help peel the prawns. And as with all Donna Hay, it’s all in the presentation. Here is my take on it – what do you think?

So the cookbook gets a thumb up from me – a preponderance of chicken dishes, and mostly, they serve 2 (it’s easier to double the recipes, I suppose). I can’t wait to try the brownie mix next.

the 'I can't be bothered' salad

I don’t know about you, but with the warmer weather comes the ‘I can’t be bothered’ mantra. “I can’t be bothered making dinner, let’s eat out”, “I can’t be bothered eating out again, let’s get takeaway”, “Oh, not takeaway again, I may as well make something”.

This is the type of ‘something’ that usually ends up on the dinner table – light, not too many ingredients, and easily flung together on a warm day. It’s basically requires some shopping and chopping.

When making this, I modified the original recipe below to replace the capsicum with celery (as I didn’t have any capsicum), and I omitted the coriander and mint (as I hate coriander – some mint would have been nice, though). And the dressing is very tasty – make more!


Vietnamese noodle and smoked chicken salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

125g glass noodles (bean thread vermicelli or rice vermicelli)
2 skinless smoked chicken breast fillets (250g total), shredded
2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 red capsicum, cut into matchsticks
1 long red chilli, seeds removed, thinly sliced
1 ½ cups (90 g) bean sprouts
½ cup each coriander and mint leaves

Dressing
1/3 cup (80 ml) lime juice
2 tbs caster sugar
2 tbs fish sauce


Method

Soak the noodles in a bowl of boiling water for about 5 min. Drain, refresh under cold water and drain again.
Place noodles in a large bowl with the chicken, carrot, capsicum, chilli, bean sprouts and herbs.

In a small bowl, combine the lime juice, sugar and fish sauce, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

Pour the dressing over the salad, then toss well to combine and serve immediately.


Recipe from delicious. November 2008.

Food and crowds - it’s the Glebe St Fair

It’s festival season in Sydney, and one of the most popular (and populous) is the Glebe St Fair. Part of Glebe Point Road is closed for this annual event (last Sunday) and it’s lined with stalls selling food, sunglasses, hats and earrings – there’s probably other stuff, too, but hats and sunglasses are at every second stall.


Like the Newtown Festival and Surry Hills Festival, the Glebe St Fair has a laid back inner city vibe about it, though not as hippy trippy as the other two. The stalls are pretty much the same at all of these events but there’s something about munching on a sausage in a roll that makes for a pretty good weekend. And Turkish Gozleme – what would a festival be without the ladies in headscarves turning over the gozleme (with a squeeze of lemon, mmmm!)

And dogs on leashes; can’t have a fair without cute doggies!

T minus 4 days and counting…

It seems like only yesterday that I was filled with excitement at the launch of the winter Adriano Zumbo range. Well, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun? The new range is due out this Saturday, according to the cake boy at the shop, so get in while you can for the wonderful Storm Cloud and co.

Today, I just got some ‘regular’ stuff. I’ve had the dulce de leche éclair before (omg, salted caramel chips on top!), though the Nutty Professor was a first for me. Paté sable, with hazelnuts and pistachios embedded in oozing vanilla caramel…bliss.

Tabitha cat just wishes yours truly would get over it already…

Another trendy Balmain restaurant

We’ve been trying to get into this new Balmain restaurant (Wase Japanese Dining) since it opened about 2 months ago and it’s been booked out every Friday and Saturday night since. Honestly, it put me off a bit, because it’s only popular because it’s new, I thought. We finally got in on the weekend by turning up late-ish (8.45pm) and got seats at the long communal table. I would have preferred one of the booths that line the place, as they’re a bit more private, but we were given table seats instead.

The crowd is mainly couples or young groups, and the noise level can get high, though when we got there, most people were finishing up. The waitstaff are fairly efficient given how busy they must get. Interestingly, the one and only sushi chef has a camera trained on his workstation so you can see him preparing on a big screen (nice touch if you run out of conversation with your dining partner!).

We started with Nasu Dengaku (grilled eggplant, $12) and tempura soft shell crab ($18), both of which were good, though oily, which is to be expected with such dishes. The crab was moist and meaty and dark shelled rather than orange. Tasty.

The sushi and sashimi platter took a bit longer to arrive because they were busy (said the waitress). And the plate was tiny! The bf actually asked if it was the large size that we ordered. I think it’s a bit rich charging $32 for 14 pieces. The fish was fresh and good, but the cost didn’t leave a very nice taste. Lucky I wasn’t that hungry after eating a Zumbo apricot Danish (brekky) and passionfruit tart (afternoon tea) beforehand.

Overall, the food here is not bad though the value for money is not the best. I’m not sure I’d visit again because of the cost and the crowding at the communal table (again maybe cos it’s new and trendy). And I think the name of restaurant is wanky (what type of ‘real’ Japanese place calls itself ‘Japanese Dining’?). And the wonton font they’ve used on their sign outside is such a cliché. Sugoi sushi train or Samurai (both down the road) are a better bet if you’re after Japanese in Balmain. Sorry for the rant, I just felt like a bit of a whinge. Moaning Myrtle…out.

bistro cbd followed by cupcakes

Spring is the best time of year, I think, because the weather is brighter, the birds are singing and the flowers are out (great if you don’t have hay fever). It’s also when lots of friends have birthdays, so there are lots of opportunities for birthday lunches.

Such as when C. and I celebrated her birthday at Bistro CBD, in King St (CBD). It’s one of those ‘business lunch’ places that are filled (mostly) with blokes in suits. An upside of this is that these places usually have good service and are pretty quick if you have to get back to work.

Aside from the a la carte menu, they also have a ‘fixed rate feast’ where you can have 2 courses for $30 or 3 courses for $40 (available only at lunch). It’s excellent value, though naturally the course sizes are a bit smaller than the norm.

We both went for the ocean trout for starters. It was beautifully marinated with bits of cornichon and a piquant fennel and radicchio salad. My pork belly main was just right – right size, right crunchy skin, right moist meat. For dessert, we both had the tamarillo, which consisted of a poached fruit with matching sorbet. I thought the serving sizes were perfect, considering you probably wouldn’t want too much food before that afternoon meeting back at the office.

However…on the way back to said office, I passed by the Cupcake Bakery outlet underneath the Ivy complex in George St. So I thought I’d get some cakes to motivate my team. Well, everyone was certainly motivated! I (greedily) snaffled the red velvet cake mainly due to the little red icing love heart. The cake itself was a wonderful deep shade of red, but a bit dry. The overall voted winner was the tiramisu.

The Perfect Weekend (part 2)

Here is the craft and cards part of last weekend, when we visited the Sydney Paper Crafts Festival, held at Canterbury Racecourse. Obviously, all the horses were resting up for the Melbourne Cup, so the track was deserted. Not so inside the function centre where the usual crowd of ladies and their fed up men were milling around the paper crafting stalls.

This was a smaller fair than, say, the craft fair at Darling Harbour, which was a good thing, since I only had limited time to visit all the stalls before getting back on the bus to the Zumbo café. I also wanted to see my friend Lin Mei, who doing demos was at the Stampin’ Up! stand. The SU! stand was the most enticing, with the demonstrators’ creations adorning the wall. It looked really good. LM also did a great job showing off her wonderful stamping and colouring skills.

My highlight was finding some of the new KI Memories Sheer Delights transparencies, which are semi-opaque thick plastic sheets in modern prints with die cut edges. They are lovely enough to use as placemats. I think I should have bought more. I also got some Doodlebug Designs flocked paper (red design in the photo) which will work well on Christmas cards, and a Hambly Screen Print transparency.

And then we topped it off with hot chocolate and dessert at Zumbo. What more could I ask for? (Maybe a win in the office Cup sweep, but that was not to be).

The Perfect Weekend

Craft, cards and chocolate – that’s my idea of the perfect weekend.

The chocolate part came courtesy of a foodblogger meetup at the new Zumbo café, which has now been open for 3 days. Time for another visit, naturally. This time, chocolatesuze, Lorraine, Christina and Tim, and Richard gathered in the lounge area of the café to try the goods.

I don’t want to drool on the keyboard as I’m writing this, so I’ll give a brief writeup of the afternoon (and I’m sure my fellow chocolate lovers will also provide their views):

1. We made ourselves comfy under the stunning red chandelier. Thanks to Lorraine and Suze for getting there early to bags the best area.
2. The hot cherry ripe chocolate was soooo rich and delicious, just like a melted cherry ripe.
3. The waitstaff are really charming and efficient.
4. There were some savoury rolls available, but we were there for the sweets
5. The deconstructed Miss Marple was like the original from the cake shop, and came with balls of tangy orange jelly and strawberries (and a hair). We ate around it (the hair) and gave it a thumbs up, especially the Grand Marnier-scented filling.
6. ‘I am not a hamburger’ is the name given to a macaron-topped dessert that is the complete opposite of a Big Mac (in a good way)
7. The special was a fondant and peanut butter ice cream creation that is injected with a syringe of raspberry crème. It is served in a kidney-shaped bowl. Hello, Nurse, indeed!
8. Apparently syringes can be purchased from medical supply or possibly cake supply stores. It also helps if you have a relative who is a doctor.
9. The red wine chocolate that I tried (and enjoyed) on my first visit has a quite alarming name that I won’t repeat here. It caused some degree of mirth/amazement, however, when its name was confirmed.
10. We all agreed that there should be more places like this, where you can enjoy dessert after a meal. Bring it on.

Gosh, that was a bit longer than I’d planned. But we had a great time. Thanks, guys, for being so entertaining! Hope we can meet up for some more sweetness and light soon.

Oh, and where do the craft and cards, come into it? That will have to wait till the next post…