Christmas Day 2012

This will be my last post for this year and I thought to myself, why not end on a good note?!? Let's talk about the lovely day I had on Christmas.

I had lunch at E and N's place this year, and N's side of the family joined us for the celebrations. It was a strange weather day. Normally Christmas is warm, sunny and hot. This year it was cold, grey and wet. How bizarre! It wasn't a day to be out in the backyard pool or horse around playing cricket.

But we still had a lovely lunch filled with a few salads, glazed ham, chicken rolls stuffed with apricots and herbs, roast potatoes, home grown cherry tomatoes. Of the salads, there were 2 new types that I had not seen or tried before. There was the mango, avocado, rocket leaves salad served with caramelised balsamic vinegar. And there was a kale salad which was finely chopped and served with a balsamic vinegar dressing, shaved almonds and grated cheese. Both were delicious.

Tomislav

It's the time of the year again for my Christmas catch up with DD. We racked our brains for dining options and chose Tomislav. It was such a last minute decision but we managed to get a booking for a Saturday dinner. I was looking forward to an interesting dining experience and based on the reviews I have read, I didn't think I would be disappointed.

Firstly I must say that it is located at a very convenient spot, literally walking distance from Kings Cross station. From where we were sitting, I could see the traffic on Darlinghurst road and I could also see snippets of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We chose an outdoor table as it was quite a humid evening, and it was lovely to sit outside and feel the breeze.

I was surprised at how much smaller in size the restaurant was than I anticipated. We had two menu options, the 4 course meal or the 8 course degustation. We opted for the 4 course meal. The next challenge was to decide which of each dish we wanted for each course. There were some interesting dishes and we wanted to be a little left centre with our choices.

Before the dishes were served, we had some beautiful bread which were presented with a Wattleseed burnt toffee butter. The butter was beautifully presented on a stone block. The bread, by the way, was from Iggy's.

Course 1:
Venison tartare with a poached yolk, mustard crumbs served with poppyseed toast.

Fried chicken wings with cauliflower cream, anchovy juice and raw cauliflower.

Verdict: The venison tartare was so smooth and creamy. It did not taste like raw meat. DD had not had steak tartare before so this was a first time for him. It was surprisingly good, but for DD a smaller serving would have sufficed. The presentation of the venison tartare was a work of art, really lovely plating.

My chicken wings were deboned, it had some interesting flavours but I felt the anchovy juice was just a tad too strong and the other flavours got lost in the midst of the the savouriness of the anchovy.

Christmas 2012 Greetings

Merry Christmas everyone! As you enjoy the food, the fellowship and the chill out, let us remember that today is Jesus' birthday!

Image sourced from Dryicons

Hope you have fun times, and may the new year be one of many positives.

God bless.

Cindy :)

Early Christmas Lunch 2012

This year, EF's side of her family is hosting the lunch. As it is the year that the lunch is to be on a non Christmas Day, it was decided that the lunch would be held in early mid December.

We all congregated at L and P's lovely home. A long, long table was already prepared at the patio. I have been to their home before, it was 2 years ago but that time it was on Christmas Day itself.

We started with a cheese platter which comprised of a French brie (Fromager D'Affinois), a New Zealand mature cheddar and Cambozola. The cheese went down quite well, good sign!

Then we eventually adjourned to sit down for the spread. There were salads, beautifully cooked ham, sausages on the barbie (very Aussie indeed!), and bread rolls. There were also lots of conversation going on with the annual catch up with other family members.

Jackie M Malaysian Cuisine

I read about a rather good Malaysian restaurant called Jackie M located in Concord. I recall it was in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, about a year ago. It piqued my interest and has been on my mental 'to dine' list since then.

Well, I finally got there. Firstly I must say how surprised I am at how busy Majors Bay Road is in Concord. Wow, I couldn't believe how many restaurants there were and how many people were out there having a good evening. Sorry if this sounds slightly pompous, but it just shows me how little I know about the suburbs that I don't frequent. How much more is there for me to explore in this diverse city!!!

I was excited to be at Jackie M. The thought of getting a chance to meet the renowned Jackie M herself was quite exciting plus I have heard good things about her cooking and how busy her restaurant gets during the weekend.

During the recent Night Noodle Markets in Sydney, I was one of those queuing up at Jackie M's stall and that night I had the very delicious Nasi Lemak Istimewa. The beef rending was tender and oh so delicious.

This time we ordered Roti Canai with chicken curry, Char Koay Teow, Wan Tan Hor Fun with seafood combination, Otak Otak, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Chai Tao Koay and finished off with a large bowl of Ais Campur (or known as ice kachang) and a bowl of Cendol.

Otak otak

Char Koay Teow

What a feast! We thoroughly enjoyed every dish and if there was room in our tummies, we would have ordered more.

Hainanese chicken rice

Roti canai with curry - yummy!

Next time I will ask for more chilli in the Char Koay Teow but even without the kick of the chilli, the dish was well cooked. Loved the smokiness of the noodles or as the Cantonese say 'wok hei'. Jackie's roti is really good, there was a meatiness to the roti that I find lacking in other venues. This was the same comment from CW.

Brendan Dewar Patisserie - Take 2

Okay, I am back at Brendan Dewar Patisserie in St Ives. This time it was to pick up a White Chocolate Cheesecake I had pre-ordered for a double birthday celebration.

Brendan Dewar himself!

A few days before the pick up, when I placed the order over the phone, Brendan was the one who took my order. After I identified who I was speaking to, I expressed my desire to meet him.

When I arrived, I asked to speak to Brendan. It was lovely to finally meet him. I expressed my thanks to him as someone from his patisserie had put my initial blog post link  (Brendan Dewar Patisserie May 2012) on the Brendan Dewar Patisserie Facebook page back in June this year. My first post was in May and I started to notice how popular the post was. After a bit of googling, I finally figured out that the source of most of the traffic was from their Facebook page. I was chuffed!

Oki Oki

Sometimes when a friend wants to meet up in a suburb that I am not too familiar with, I start scrambling for ideas on where to meet for a meal. I also take it as an opportunity to check out local treasures and blog about them. Such fun, oh such fun!!!!

Well, this time it was to meet for lunch in Hornsby. The only thing I know about in Hornsby is the Westfield Shopping Centre. So I 'googled' and found a Japanese restaurant which caught my interest. It is called Oki Oki.

What a lovely find. It is located right across from the Hornsby Railway Station, a block away from the railway entrance. I met my friend LG at Westfield and we took a walk to Oki Oki.

We were both pleasantly surprised at the food. There was a very good range of Japanese food on the menu and I found it difficult to choose as there were so many dishes I wanted to try out!

So we settled with:

A small set of sashimi which had 12 pieces of a variety of fish. There was salmon, tuna, kingfish and another fish I failed to identify. It was fresh, light and just delicious!

Lunch box with spicy BBQ fish. The lunch box included a main, rice, miso soup, salad, deep fried spring rolls and dumpling, and sushi rolls.

Lunch box with chicken karaage.

Baroque Bistro

Just as I feel that I have recovered from my oh so marvellous weekend in Melbourne, I am off to have lunch with my friend AK at the Baroque Bistro at The Rocks.

I haven't been here before so I was looking forward to dining here. Baroque Bistro is very well known for it's macarons, especially since macarons became a hot trend a couple of years ago. It is a lovely French bistro and being located in the historic Rocks is a plus!!

Imagine walking into a restaurant and the first thing you see is the open kitchen and rows and rows of macarons and gorgeous looking desserts! Well, that was what greeted me when I walked through the doors! It set a good feeling which carried through the course of our meal.

I really liked the decor, there is a massive wall to wall retro mirror at the far end of the bistro and copper pots hanging high up at one of the archways. I could see the Harbour Bridge if I peeked out the window nearest to where I was sitting. Lovely!

We ended up having a 3 course meal and for entree, I chose the rabbit and chicken terrine, spring vegetables, verjuice and fennel pollen. AK chose the Boudin of scallops, mussels, leeks, asparagus and mussel emulsion.

Boudin of scallops, mussels and mussel emulsion

Rabbit and chicken terrine