Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Food Porn, My New Wallet & My Wang.

Hi Readers,


It's been a while so I snapped a picture of myself in my farm clothes haha!
My friends and I recently went up to our mate's farm for our usual bonfire and bbq.

It's also been a while since my last blog but this is a pretty exciting one so that should make up for my long absence. 

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So check out my Wang!
It's not what you think....I just finally bought myself my very own Alexander Wang bag. I got the cute little Rockie bag. It felt so awesome after all the working and saving I did to finally hold it in my hands.




I love the pale gold studs on the bag.

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In addition to my new bag, I had to get a new wallet as well because my current one was broken.
I got a black patent Dior one and I love it! It's so shiny!



It also comes with a little gold keychain to hang off the wallet as well. It's perfect.

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So now back to business as usual, it's time for the food porn!


Best burger and Beer battered chips I've had in ages. It had soft cheese!


Cheese sausage


Bulgogi Lunchbox from SU:T


Takoyaki


Spicy seafood casserole


A nice cuppa tea



Japanese Curry


Assorted Sashimi Platter from Samurai


Chocolate Pudding


Steak and Potatoes made by my masterchef boyfriend.


Chicken and Leak pie from Pearl


Roasted Quail


Scrambled eggs, Garlic and herb sausages and bacon made by my boyfriend and his friend.

That's all for now! If I haven't mentioned it previously on my blog yet, I'll be going to Japan and China in about 3 weeks so hopefully there'll be lots of fun things to blog about in the coming month. I just made a reservation for Les Creation de Narisawa in Tokyo so expect even more foodporn!

Thanks for reading!

Until the next blog~


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Black Toro and Food Porn


Hello again,

The boyfriend and I tried out a new restaurant that opened up in Glen Waverely called Black Toro.
I would call it modern mexican/spanish food. I don't really eat this type of food very often so I was excited to try it out.

We went for a set menu where the chef decides what we eat and these are the dishes we got.


After some oysters with tequila and lime we had Grilled corn with chipotle mayonnaise and toasted masa. The sauce was really nice.


Next was a Scallop ceviche, radish and citrus oil. We ate all the scallop and left a lot of the radish. haha


Crispy cuttlefish and Spicy aioli. I really like aioli so I liked this dish a lot.


These are really adorable Wagyu Sliders with a tomato relish. So tasty and cute.


The main was slow cooked Pork Belly, Chickpeas, Chorizo and Tomato.


and finally for dessert, Creme catalan with a almond and cocoa-nib crum. I guess it's like a spanish creme brulee with a crumb over the top.

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The Black Toro had some really good food, we got quite a feed with their set menu and it was VERY good value for money. If we had ordered those dishes separately it would've been MUCH more expensive. 
The restaurant's interior is very nice but the service could do with some improvement. Everyone was very friendly but you can't help but feel that the staff were quite young and inexperienced, fresh faced waiters and waitresses who just got their RSA. Despite all this i'd be happy to come back for a good meal, definitely try it out if you love this kind of food.

Until next time~ 

Sushi Adventures. - The Unkown Fire in the Red Lantern.


Hello again,

Today's blog will be about one of the greatest things in the world......Sushi! 
I've recently been to Shira Nui (which I've been to before) and a new place in South Yarra called Akachochin. Shira Nui means unknown fire and Akachochin means red lantern, so I got a bit creative with this post's title. haha


This time at Shira Nui they let us sit on the side so we could see all the chefs at work. I didn't take pictures of everything because the set menu hasn't changed TOO much but here were some of the favourites.


Kingfish, as usual a delicious whitefish..


The most incredibly tender beef.


Tuna steak, you can't go wrong with Tuna. We ordered seconds of this!


This is swordfish. It was my first time eating it and it DEFINITELY won't be my last. It was amazing, it melted in my mouth like butter.


Some lovely Ocean trout belly, I loved the look of this sushi. It reminds me of a beautiful mermaid's tail.


We were also given a little surprise treat from the chef, it was some fried and seasoned fish skin. It was really tasty and crispy.


As usual we ended our meal with dessert, a green tea creme brulee with a little complimentary sorbet served in a shot glass. So cute.

I really love this place. The chef is so ridiculously friendly! He's always so nice to chat with. I learnt more about him this time around.....He's been learning about sushi WAY before I was even born, about 40 years and deep down he's a country boy who likes open spaces over the city. 

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The second restaurant came highly recommended from the Age for the best sushi. It's a new place in the South Wharf called Akachochin. It's a lot more modern and stylish and some of the food is pretty amazing. We sat at the bar and I had a cute mini bottle of Choya Umeshu.


I was most impressed by their sushi. Just by looking at the photos, you can see how fresh and high quality the sushi is. I didn't even know salmon could be that amazing and fresh. We also had kingfish, tuna and ocean trout. Yum yum!


We also ordered some Pork Belly.


Wagyu Tataki, which was tender and delicious especially with that sauce.


Some grilled Chicken.


And a Black Sesame Panacotta with Green tea Ice cream. The consistency of the Panacotta was perfect, I ended up eating most of it even though I was supposed to share. 

As usual, I have a habit of  making friends with the Sushi chef, it's really good practice for my Japanese. They always turn out to be SO friendly though, despite their appearance. I think he was from Kanagawa and has been in Melbourne for a couple of years. He was really animated and had a great sense of humour. He gave us a few tips for our Japan trip later this year and said with my level of Japanese we would be okay.

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I definitely plan on returning once the weather warms up even more, it'll be really good to go there on a hot day to relax with some fresh sushi and umeshu by the river. 
When I think about it though, I much prefer Shira Nui.... the variety of sushi just trumps any place and I like that it's not all cold. A lot of people are under the impression sushi is ALWAYS cold but at Shira Nui a lot of them are served warm. Shira Nui will destroy any Sushi Sushi roll anyday. haha

Bistro Vue for the Birthday Boy.


Hello Readers,

If you're still out there, I'm back with an exciting blogpost today!

It was my boyfriend's birthday on the 18th and so to celebrate I decided to take him to Bistro Vue. I'd recently been there for a tea class and we both love french food so I thought it'd be great for him to try their food. Chef Chris was apparently very excited that we came back! 



We started off with half a dozen Garlic snails with a parsley crust and some oysters. The waitress remembered me from my tea class and she was SO helpful and clever. We were trying to decide which oysters to order, when she suggested to just have one of each!

So the oysters are Label Rouge, Clair de lune & Rusty Wire. I liked the Clair de lune.



Next was Foie Gras baked in Brioche and a Steak Tartare. The Foie Gras was of course, incredibly rich but delicious and the tartare was perfect. It was so tasty, you don't even notice that you're eating raw beef.


Whilst we were waiting for our mains, we were surprised by a complimentary mushroom risotto from Chef Chris, he's such a nice guy! Risotto's never look very appetizing in photos but if you could taste and smell it, you'd wish you had a gigantic bowl of it all to yourself! The flavour was so incredible! 



My boyfriend had the Rotisserie Pork for his main, whilst I had the Lamb rump, pipĂ©rade and pommes fondant.



After the mains we were getting pretty full but there's ALWAYS room for dessert. Especially when it's a Souffle au Chocolat with a gorgeous cup of green tea (of course). 


Just when we'd thought the surprises were over, the waitress brought us out this lovely plate! It was so nice and considerate of them to do such a thing for my boyfriend, I really appreciated the extra effort. 

We were one of the last ones to leave the restaurant so after the dinner service was over, Chef Chris came out to say Hi and chat for a bit. He introduced himself to my boyfriend and wished him a happy birthday. I couldn't thank him enough for his generosity that night! Absolutely wonderful, I must go back soon!


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Bistro Vue is a gorgeously decorated restaurant, it feels as if you've been transported to Paris after walking through their doors. The accordion music played by a lovely gentlemen in the background really adds to the Parisian atmosphere, you just can't help but feel like you're in a romantic french film. hehe

That's all for now, the next blog promises even more food porn!