It was a fairly chilly night, some of us were really hungry, and we were walking down Bay St to find somewhere to eat. Corte was an interesting looking place on a corner, which had big signs up advertising Portuguese nights, and Argentinean nights, but we weren’t really sure what the general cuisine was. Nevertheless, we decided the place looked good, and so decided to give it a go.

It was a busy night, so the only table we could get was outside, but this ended up being great. The outside was set up with tables and chairs, candles, lots of patio heaters, and looked to be the perfect place to catch up with friends over drinks and a few nibbles. It was however a horrible light to take photos in, especially since I didn't have my DSLR and was relying on an iPhone and an S4.

The menu also conveyed this intent, with most of the options focused around sharing. The cuisine would best be described as tapas, with limited vegetarian options, but we had a 50% vegetarian ratio at the table, so we ordered everything vegetarian on the menu, plus a few meaty options for the others. We were informed the food would arrive in stages as it was prepared, and this worked well, given that that was all designed to be eaten in small portions rather than as a whole meal.

We started with a couple of serves of sourdough bread, which were served with Spanish olive oil and rock salt. I am a bit of a bread connoisseur and this bread definitely passed my test. It had a solid crust, and a soft bread texture which was just how I liked it. The rock salt was very strong though, so I had to be careful to have no more than just a touch on each mouthful. It was a solid start to the meal.



We then had Pimientos de Padron, which were little peppers sautéed in lemon and salt. It may sound simple but these were delicious. Apparently the heat of the peppers wasn’t consistent though, and whilst I didn’t get lucky enough to get a really hot one, others did. I suppose that can’t be avoided...

Another vegetarian option was the Gringa. This was a soft tortilla, filled with sweet corn puree, and topped with tomato salsa and sour cream. The others around the table deemed this dish to be one of their favourites, however for me, it was the dish I least liked. The corn puree didn’t seem to be seasoned enough, and so tasted a bit bland. Perhaps I’m just used to much stronger flavours.

We also ordered a quinoa salad which had quinoa (obviously!), fetta, chilli, limes and grapes scattered through it. This dish was definitely one of my favourites. The mild heat of the chilli, the tang of the lime, and the freshness of the grapes all combined to provide an amazing flavour explosion. It also tasted great with the above mentioned peppers.



This was the end of our original order, however we decided we were still a little hungry, so we decided to get another serve of the tortillas and also try the remaining vegetarian option on the menu, which was a Queso Fundido, or baked camembert. I had never had baked cheese before and boy was I in for a treat! The cheese was seasoned with cracked pepper and spring onion, and baking it resulted in a gooey, fondue like mess which was delicious. It was served with a few slices of bread, which was no where near enough, and in the end I ended up spooning the gooey cheese onto my place and eating it by itself, because it would be a sin to let it go to waste!

Corte turned out to be a pretty good place that we stumbled upon. It's definitely a place that caters to large groups, and casual dining, but the food is pretty decent, and the atmosphere is lovely.

 

Yesterday I woke up to a Facebook photo post from a friend, who’d just received what looked like a random box of groceries from a company called Redpawpaw. Intrigued, I decided to investigate a little further and came across the Redpawpaw website.

The concept is as follows: You order a box of groceries and household items worth $30 for as little as $5 a month. The catch is that you don’t know what you are going to get, so it’s like a lucky dip! In return, you get to sample a whole heaps of products you may not have previously tried, and provide feedback on a survey that is sent to you! Sounds good? Well it gets even better. One of my closet passions is to try and support small and local industries so I was very glad when I read that Redpawpaw try and place an emphasis on Australian made products.

I signed up for Redpawpaw that morning when I got into work where I was asked to come up with a profile for my household and provide information on my preferences. I assume this is what helps determine which products will be in my box, after all giving me pet food or baby products would be useless! The only question it didn’t ask me was about dietary restrictions, but I’m sure if I get something non vegetarian, the other half will be more than happy to take it off my hands.

There are two options for the box, you can either select a $30 box of groceries and pay $10 a month, or you can pay $5 a month for the same box of groceries plus the added fun of filling in a survey with your feedback on the products. I love surveys, so naturally I went with the latter option.

I got myself an annual subscription, which allows to get two boxes for free, so I only had to pay $50 for the year. The boxes are sent out after the second week of every month, which meant I was too late to receive the May box, but photos indicate that the box was great!

Few of the items that caught my eye included some Green’s pancake mix, some Kellogs’ cereal and Saxa salt flakes. All the items come in an actual cardboard box, which could be used for so many purposes. I have my eye on it as a shoe storage box, but we’ll have to see!

For now, I just have to sit tight, and wait until the end of June when the next boxes get sent out... can’t wait!

It was an exciting night, I was off to see Michael Buble's first Melbourne show for his 2014 tour! I'd bought these tickets about eight months ago, so needless to say, I was glad the day had finally arrived! But first things first, we needed to have dinner.

Optic Kitchen + Bar was the venue chosen, mainly because of it's proximity to Rod Laver Arena, plus the reviews online made it seem like it was reasonable.

Located in Federation Square and attached to ACMI, Optic is a rather cute restaurant. There are American diner style booths, and also regular tables which surround a bar. There is a small wine list, and a reasonable beer selection, including Mountain Goat on tap.

I chose to have the one vegetarian main they had which was an eggplant and portabello mushroom stack served with warm green lentil and spinach salad, Persian feta, smoked capsicum purée, smoked cherry tomatoes and a few pieces of crispy lavosh. What I didn't realise was that the eggplant and mushroom was stacked horizontally, rather the vertically, but this proved to be a stroke of genius, because it made the whole thing easier to eat! The smokiness of both the cherry tomatoes and the capsicum purée added a loved flavour to the dish, and the freshness of the spinach provided a clean taste to cut through the other flavours.

There were other smaller vegetarian options on the menu, including a pumpkin, broad bean and sage risotto which looked delicious.

Over all it was a great meal, and a great prelude to a night with Michael Buble!

For almost my whole life we've had a fig tree in the backyard that produced ridiculous amounts of figs each year. For about the first fifteen years, I ignored it completely, then when I started working, my colleagues were amazed that I had such easy access to figs and requested that I bring them in some. We had so many, that I started bringing kilos and kilos to them, from which they made jams, and tried to convince me to taste them. I always refused. Then this year, I suddenly had a change of heart and decided I needed to try these figs that everyone raved about. Last year my instagram feed was filled with photos of fig tarts that Thanh from I Eat Therefore I Am fame made, and so I decided to try and replicate his success.  This recipe is almost the same as his, with a few tips and tricks that I discovered along the way.

Ingredients:

Pastry:
1 and 1/2 cups plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
125g butter, room temperature, cut into small squares
1/4 cup ice cold water

Pistachio Frangipane:
125g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup pistachios, ground finely
1/2 cup plain flour

Method:

Pastry:
1. Put the flour and the salt in a food processor, with the dough attachment and wizz them up for a few seconds.

2. Add the butter, and wizz up again, until the mixtures resembles a breadcrumb texture. This can take a minute or so, depending on the temperature of the butter.

3. Slowly add the water. It is important that the water is cold as this helps the texture of the pastry.

4. Keep processing until the dough forms a ball and then remove from the food processor. It is important not to overwork the dough.

5. Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap in cling wrap and place in the fridge for 20 mins to firm up.

6. After 20 minutes, remove the pastry from the fridge, and roll out. You can flour the bench if you feel the pastry is too sticky, but usually I haven't needed to.

7. Transfer the pastry into a tart tin. I've found the best way to do this is to loosely roll the pastry onto the rolling pin, and then unroll it into the tin. Then place the tin in the fridge for another 20 minutes, to let the pastry firm up again. Now is also a good time to preheat the oven to 200C.

8. After 20 minutes, remove the tart shell from the fridge, line it with foil, and blind bake for 25 minutes using rice or beans.

Pistachio Frangipane:

Generally I complete this step while the tart shell is blind baking.

1. Cream the butter and sugar together. I usually prefer to do this with the back of the fork, but depending on how soft your butter is, you could do with with the beaters.

2. Add the whole egg, additional yolk and vanilla extract and continue beating until you have a gooey paste.

3. Add the flour and ground pistachios and beat some more. Ideally, the pistachios should be ground to a fine powder, in a coffee grinder or a small food processor. The texture should be similar to almond meal. The more finely ground the pistachios, the lighter your frangipane will be. Keep beating the mixture until it is well combined. Don't be afraid of overworking it, the more you beat, the better.

Assembling The Tart:

To assemble the tart you need:

1 blind baked tart shell
1 portion of the pistachio frangipane
As many figs as you can get your hands on!

1. Spoon and spread the pistachio frangipane into the tart shell evenly.

2. Arrange the figs in any pattern you like over the top of the frangipane. Because I always have so many figs, I tend to quarter them, and arrange them tightly. The more figs you use, the stronger the flavour.

3. Bake in a 180C oven for 35 minutes or until you are satisfied with the consistency of the frangipane. I prefer my frangipane gooey, so 35 minutes works well for me. If you prefer the frangipane to be more 'baked' then just leave it in the oven for an extra five to ten minutes.

4. Allow the tart to cool in the tin, and then serve with ice cream.

Once fig season was over, I made this tart with peaches which also tasted great. I suspect most stone fruit will pair well with the pistachio.

So late one sunny morning, after we had just decided to run 15km through the Citylink tunnel and the Bolte Bridge (Run For The Kids of course!), my body told me that I urgently needed to fill it with food, preferably greasy junk food. So off we went home to have a shower, because no one appreciates a couple of wannabe runners that are all sweaty and stinky, and decided to finally start tackling the Herald Sun Melbourne's best burger list.

First on the list, and closest to home was Fat Bob, in Moorabbin. Fat Bob was a little bit tricky to find whilst driving down Cochranes Rd, and in the end we decided to park the car and try and find it on foot.

We came across a little laneway, where we were greeted by a placard of a big fat man (Bob, I presume) holding a burger, and also quite a few American muscle cars parked out the front. We were definitely in for an American diner experience! We walked down the alley which was filled with tables and hungry diners, and entered the restaurant through some big doors.

Once inside, we were in a space that was engulfed by neon lights, and in line with the names of the burgers, various American automotive paraphernalia. We were quickly seated, given menus and instructed to order at the bar.

All good American diners have spiders, and the other half couldn't go past this. Apparently he hadn't had a coke spider in fifteen years, and this one was every bit as good as he remembered.

The Herald Sun article had recommended the Jackie O burger (which the other half had), and zucchini fries. These were a little steep, at $8 for a small cup, but boy where they delicious! The zucchinis were cut into small pieces, coated in batter, deep fried and become crunchy bits of heaven. I had never thought of deep frying zucchini, but then when we thought about it, eggplant chips are not uncommon, and the texture is somewhat similar.

There was one vegetarian burger on the menu called the Goodrich, so obviously this is what I went for! After a fairly long wait, which was reasonably justified given how busy they were, my burger arrived. The burgers come wrapped in foil, which is great for burger integrity, heat retention and to minimise mess. Who would have thought a humble piece of foil could serve so many purposes!

The Goodrich contained portebello mushrooms, gooey Swiss cheese, carmelised onion, beetroot (because all brilliant burgers have beetroot!), and lettuce and tomato. The mushroom was cooked beautifully, and there was mushroom juice dripping everywhere whilst I tried to eat it! As we jokingly commented, no one ever looks hot trying to eat a burger!

For me the one downfall of the burger was the bread. The roll is a milk bun style, and it had too much sugar for my liking. Pair this with the sweetness of the beetroot and the caramelised onion and it was a little too sweet. Nevertheless, all the other elements were delicious, and you could really taste the quality of the ingredients.

All in all, it was definitely a successful start to the burger adventures!

Last Saturday I had the privilege of joining a group of other bloggers for a tour of the South Melbourne Market. The South Melbourne market is the oldest market in Melbourne, and one of my favourites for fresh produce, but I had little idea of all the other amazing shops there. 

We met up outside the LG Kitchen which is host to some great cooking classes with top chefs, where we were greeted by Janet our guide for the morning. Janet gave us a brief overview of the market and its history, and then off we went to explore!

The owner of The Brow Bar with Janet

Our first stop was The Brow Bar. This stall is a relative newcomer to the market, and focuses on the Middle Eastern and Subcontinental technique of threading for hair removal. We were also surprised to learn that a large percentage of the clientèle here are male!

Henrietta from Sleep Couture

We then headed to SO:ME Space, which is an area created to showcase small designers and their pop up stalls. On the day we were there, there was Henrietta who specialises in some gorgeous sleepwear. You can see her uber cool leopard skin ugg boots in the background!

John from Pardon My French

We kept moving along to our next stop which was a crepe stall called Pardon My French. John, the crepe master was flat out trying to keep up with demand, and apparently his speciality is the Nutella crepe! I definitely need to come back and try it!

Our next stop was a shop called A Story By Another Name. We learnt that this shop has been a fixture of the market for 50 years, run by the same family over 3 generations! They stock Bonds apparel, mainly hoodies and t-shirts, and Converse shoes. Their point of difference is however, that they only stock items in black, grey white, navy, and the odd bit of khaki, and allow the wearer to create their own look with the base colours. A novel concept which has obviously worked!

These are Rollie shoes, which are stocked at Creatures Of Comfort. How bloody cute are they?!

The next shop we stopped at was Klopper. This was a gorgeous store with the most amazing ceiling piece, but for me, the highlight was the Kester Black nail polish that they stock. Kester Black is a brand started by a Melbourne based lady who creates cruelty free nail polishes! I will definitely be back here to get some!

And then we came to my absolute favourite shop, The Soap Shop. This was definitely one of the highlights of the day for me. As you can see, and as the name tells you, The Soap Shop obviously stocks soap, and all of it is natural, organic, and fantastic for people who have sensitive skin. But for me, the best part was the huge range of liquid soaps and cleaning products available. They have everything from body wash and shampoo, to laundry detergent, dish washing liquid and even dog shampoo! They run an environmentally friendly program where you bring in your own bottle and they fill it up for you. Such a brilliant concept, and one I will definitely take advantage of now that I know about it!

Being a vegetarian, nut shops are high on my priority list, and Rita's Coffee and Nut Shop was fabulous! I think what made it so special was Rita herself! She was a great character, full of laughs, and so passionate about her store and the products. We were invited to taste so delicious walnuts, and also sample some of her many mixes, including the now infamous virility mix!

Cheese is an absolute staple in my diet, in fact one of the first things I have bought for my new kitchen is a cheese board! At Vangeli's Deli were were treated to samples of some delicious brie and cheddar.

Elle of Cherry and Me with a rather unique bodysuit!

Frankie's story is a subsidiary of the previously mentioned A Story By Another Name, which focuses on Kids wear. The little Converse shoes were a particular hit with us, and we only wished they made larger sizes of the giraffe chucks!

One of the last stores we visited was Georgie's Harvest Potatoes and Herbs. I never realised there were so many different varieties of potatoes! Georgie takes great pride in the produce she sells, all of which is sourced from niche growers.

The interior of the store smells gorgeous, mainly due to the dried eucalyptus that is hanging from the roof. Below that is many cords of garlic and chilli, all hung to dry.

One of the highlights from Georgie was the shitaki mushroom tree that they have in the store! It was amazing and I have never seen anything like it before!

Overall, it was a fantastic day! I've always loved markets, and this was no exception! It was also lovely to meet some other bloggers, and for once we didn't feel ridiculous walking around with our DSLRs, iPhone cameras, and taking a ridiculous number of pictures! I'm sure people thought we were tourists!

A huge thankyou to Nuffnang and the South Melbourne Market for hosting us! I will definitely be back!

There have been so many restaurant vouchers available on various voucher sites like Our Deal, or Group On, but I always feel that the quality of the food or the service is compromised when you are a diner with a voucher. Nevertheless, when we saw a voucher for a great dinner deal at Gurkhas, we decided to take the risk, and it proved to be well worth it.

The Gurkhas Express branch, on the King St end of Flinders St has an unassuming shop front and we really weren't sure what to expect when we walked in. The interior is decorated with Nepalese Buddhist prayer flags, photos of the Buddhist eyes symbol which you see on their stupas, and the soft hum of Nepalese music fills the room. I felt like I was back in Kathmandu and I was instantly at ease.

The voucher we had entitled us to two entrées, two mains and a dessert to shared so whilst we munched on our complimentary papads, we quickly perused the menu to make some quick choices. For entrée we decided on a plate of momos, and a vegetarian dish called Gurkha's Special.

The momos were self explanatory; Nepalese dumplings, filled with meat (there is a vegetarian option too, but when eating with a non vegetarian, it's only fair that there is some meat on the table!), which were served with a tangy dipping sauce and a garden salad. I was informed that the momos tasted great, and the sauce was a particular hit.

Momos

My entrée, the Gurkha's Special, had little information about it on the menu, other than the fact that it was vegetarian, so I had no idea what to expect. When it came out, I was delighted to discover that it was a Nepalese version of an Indian chaat. Served in a papad and covered with yogurt, was a mixture or spicy potatoes and peas and crunchy chickpea crisps, or sao as us Bengalis call them. It was delicious, and such a clever idea to serve chaat in a papad!

Gurkha's Special

We then moved onto mains where we both opted for a thali type option. I went for the vegetarian thali called Dal Bhat, which consisted of a thick chickpea curry garnished with tomatoes and spring onion, a simple lentil soup, or dhal, and a Chinese style mixed veg with a strong pepper flavour. These curries were complimented with rice and a flaky paratha. The chickpea curry and the Chinese mixed veg were both full of flavour, but by comparison, the dhal seemed fairly bland. A slight blemish on an otherwise delicious main!

Dal Bhat

By this time we were already extremely full, and so sharing a dessert didn't seem like such a bad idea. We chose to have the rice pudding, which was similar to an Indian kheer. Unfortunately it wasn't nearly sweet enough and had way too much cardamom which mean the flavour was rather unbalanced.

Overall though, it was a great meal and gave us renewed faith in the websites which offer restaurant vouchers. Obviously you have to pick your restaurants well, and Gurkhas is definitely one of those restaurants!