What's Been on the Menu No 33

It's not easy being green...but we don't mind about that.

The food we've been having shows that the vegetable garden is producing lots of greens for us to eat.
Below: Chicken & cashews with home grown broccoli and coriander.

Below: Green Salad with homegrown lettuce and rocket ( the pear of course is not home grown)
Below: Tuna and salad with Yes you guessed homegrown coriander and rocket.

Below: Cutlets with peas and fetta none of which is home grown.

Sunday Yum Cha

Sunday brunch at a Traditional Chinese Restaurant saw us at The Teapot in Springvale.
Yum Cha littorally means tea drinking and so we did drink Chinese tea.
But for those of you who haven't partaken, Yum Cha has also come to mean the eating of a variety of small dishes, steamed or fried in bamboo baskets and these are presented on wheeled trolleys from which you can choose what you want. Its sort of a 'ceremony' if you like.

Below: The Teapot


Below: Interior. You can see the girls with one of the steam trolleys.
Below: Eel wrapped in puff pastry and tied with a spinach ribbon...Yuk and I could still taste the oily fishy flavour hours later

Below: Prawn dumplings

Below: Stuffed Sticky rice wrapped in leaves (not sure what sort of leaf)

We did have other dishes such as the char su (pork) buns which were very nice but on the whole it wasn't one of my favourite dining experiences. Hardly anything green or vegetable like to eat, And I missed out on trying the lotus root.

What's been on the Menu 29

Had a quick lunch with middle son N. who was in Melbourne on business. We went to Laurent in South Yarra and I didn't see that they had macaroons until we were leaving. Next time.
Below: Window of delicious sweets things.

Below: Interior Laurent

Some further ordinary meals we have been having.

Below: Cheese omelette

Below: Roast Lamb with potatoes and mushrooms with onions or mushroom pate as it can be called.

What's Been on the Menu 27

Below: An afternoon spent wandering around Melbourne's shops, saw my need for a coffee.
At Roost in Glenferrie Road East Malvern.
Below: Dinner at Wild Fish Restaurant. Stuffed and rolled chicken breast with a camembert cheese sauce.

Below: Dinner out for B's farewell from work. A Middle Eastern banquet dinner. These were lamb meat patties with garlic yoghurt.

What's Been on the Menu No 26

I know it's well out of date but I finally got with the Christmas photos so I thought you might like to see our Christmas Table setting with Iceberg roses from the garden. The following food photos are the entree/nibbles we had before the Christmas lunch but unfortunately there are no photos of the actual Turkey meal.

Below: Spanish White fish (not anchovies) my favourite tapas. They are pickled and taste vinegary.

Below: Oysters with wasabi and cranberry jelly

Below: Duck pancakes with hoisin sauce and cranberry sauce.

What's Been on the Menu 25

I do apologise for being off line for so long.

Below: Great tasting but weird looking tomatoes.


Below: Seafood thingy

Below: Yummy snack...slice of spinach & fetta pie, French cheeses and the first fig of the season.

Below: Eaten at the Manly Ocean Beach House, right on the sand and shady in the afternoon..... bliss. Thai fish cakes

Below: At the same restaurant Fettucine with various good things.

An Interesting Restaurant Part 1

NOBU

We went to the Robert De Niro Restaurant at the Crown Casino the other evening, and I am afraid to say , for me, it was an underwelming experience.

It serves contempory Japanese food which I must say lives up to the reputation Chef Nobu Matshisa has created...deliciously exotic.

The Food, yes the food was great, however at the risk of sounding whiney, I do not particularly enjoy "a share the plate" sort of degustation menu where you only get one slice of albeit the most beautifully delicate flavoured raw tuna you could ever imagine. You can order a personal meal but we went with the waiter's suggestion of 6 courses and a dessert.

Below: Outside Nobu from the walk along the Yarra River.




Below: Inside the restaurant. The restaurant is in the basement and therefore has a very low ceiling...could I imagine Robert de Niro walking amongst the tables smiling at the customers....No.


and the noise, I know, I know I've been in noisy restaurants before and can shout comments to my fellow diners with the best of them.....but this took noise to a whole other level. The wall of hanging river stones was intriguing.



Below: The tables do not have a table cloth and while I am sure the wood is a wonderful and rare Japanese Fir, still it is a polymer finished surface on which the food is served. This decor has met with approval in 20 or so restaurants worldwide, so I guess it is just a quirk of mine that I like a crisp white table cloth.



Below: Raw Salmon.




See Post below for more dishes.

An interesting Restaurant. Part 2

NOBU

(Continued)

Below: Sliced Wagyu beef with a Wasabi sauce. Magnificent.




Below: One member of our party, darling B. is 7 months pregnant and so the faultless service provided that when the main meal was a raw fish meal, she was given her own serving of a cooked fish version of the dish.


Below: Blacken Cod, the most delicious fish I have ever had.


Below: Dessert for Four. Chocolate filled buns, green tea ice cream and chocolate puddings.




Next door is this restaurant which caught my eye. I could see beautiful white table clothes and the ambiance was perhaps more to my liking. I would like to visit Bistro Guillaume below.

What's Been on the Menu 24

Below: Seafood linguine


Below: Ian' s speciality ...Beef curry, beans, rice, yoghurt and papadoms

Below: There are no other words for it ...it's Chicken Stew

Below: Lamb cutlets crumbed with crushed hazelnuts

What's Been on the Menu 23

Chicken coated with crushed hazelnuts.

Pork chop with apple mustard sauce and gnocchi


Sausage and Salad

What's been on the Menu 22

After a visit to the fish market last week I was interested in cooking fish.

The below baked snapper turned out a little dry but the fishcakes I made from the coral trout were OK. ( but no photos )

The snapper were not the usual hump back sort of snapper and I'm not sure the correct name of this species.

Below Coral Trout showing the amazing colours

What's Been on the Menu 21

Roast Chicken with sweet corn and Salad (below)


Lamb Steak with Couscous (below)

Below: Fish with rice noodles, snap peas, fresh baby corn, with corinander, lemon grass and lime juice...note that there's no coconut milk. This indicates our efforts to eat less rich food.

What's been on the Menu 20

Risotto with chicken and two sorts of mushrooms...ordinary fresh & shitake

Lamb Shanks with mashed carrot/parsnip and leek.

Roast Pork and Peas