Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

Why hello there. Life has been very hectic for me the past few weeks and will continue to be ridiculously so until I go off to a three-week stint in Thailand in November and December (I hope it’s still there and not entirely covered in water when we get there).

So as I mentioned on the Facebook Page (please like!), I’m going to be neglecting Spatula, Spoon and Saturday a bit.

But I don’t want to! I love this blog and I love finding a few minutes to actually work on it (and believe me it needs lots and lots of work)

So when Off the Spork came up with this genius idea of doing a weekly round ups / photo blog, I decided I’m going to jump on the bandwagon. You can’t call me a trendsetter, thank you very much.

Because I have been busy – I have been eating a lot of instant noodles for lunch. I know. Don’t judge me. I am Thai, after all. Mamaa (as instant noodles are coloquially known and also the actual name of the brand) is a favourite of, well, everyone. I particularly prefer silvery packet tom yum flavoured ones. I love to add lots of greens (choy sum, kai lan, bok choy, cabbge, any and all), coriander (essential), spring onions (not essential but preferrable), preserved cabbage (tung chai) and an egg. I don’t really eat Mamaa any other way though.

(La Belle Miette’s macarons)

On Monday, Kat came over for a catch up and dinner and I decided that I really wanted spinach and ricotta cannelloni for dinner. So we rushed off to Temple (also known as Leo’s Fine Food and Wine) to buy ingredients. Kat mixed up ricotta, fresh baby spinach she snipped into small pieces, eggs and a bit of nutmeg and she dutifully stuffed the cannellini (messy, hard work!) while I tried to make the bottled Dolmio’s pasta sauce (found it in the cupboard – horridly, nastily sweet) more palatable by adding onions, sage and lots of white wine. No photo but it turned out great served with a simple garden salad.

On Tuesday, having been disappointed with La Belle Miette on Church St. (Richmond) being closed on Mondays, I managed to get myself a few macarons. I will write more about each flavour I sampled soon.

(A lot of floorboards!)

One of the reasons I have been (and will continue to be) very busy is because we are renovating. So we ended up at Ikea one night. We bought 200kg of floorboards. Do you know how much of a bitch to carry all those floorboards around? Yes. Very much.

(Ikea meatballs)

Naturally, we went to the Ikea restaurant. Of course we had to get meatballs since I haven’t had them in forever.  They were okay but not as good as I remember them. I guess I haven’t had them in so long my taste had changed. AND THEY NO LONGER STICK A SWEDISH FLAG ON THE MEATBALLS! Disappointment.

(The Ikea $4.50 dinner special)

I was also curious on what the $4.50 special would get us – chicken and pasta was the answer. It was actually quite good (as far as $4.50 go anyway.) The chicken breast had lovely herby seasoning to it and the veggies in the pasta weren’t cooked to the buggery considering they were in a bain marie. Pasta was overcooked, of course, but this wasn’t Italian food and so forgivable.

Because we were starving we also got the ‘sandwich’. This was fairly average, really. The salmon was bland. The prawns were bland. The egg was, well, egg. The bread was a bit meh too. This bread doesn’t do well just sitting the fridge.

Friday was a bit more happening. Agnes, her husband Alastair, Thanh and I went to the Aylesbury for Penny‘s farewell drinks (she’s off to live in Sydney.) The rooftop was a bit packed after a while so we left for what we call ‘Secret Thai’. Whose proper name is Appetizer Kub Klam, which isn’t really a secret since a couple of bloggers blogged about it. I loved it for its Thainess. It managed to capture that essential Bangkok beer garden experience down to the tee with a beer tower, live singer with guitar music and a kub klam menu consisting mainly of deep fried salty foods to compliment its drinking hole atmosphere. A sort of a Thai pub food.

I will blog about this place separately but meanwhile here’s a picture of the deep fried pig’s intestine (‘How Bourdain of you,’ says @falican) We ate so much that when Agnes said she’s on Paleo diet we decided to we had to get on it.

Naturally, I fail at it. Hard. What can I say? I love carbs.

The weekend. Oh the weekend. Saturday we spent working on the reno. I went to Bunnings for the first time in years to buy paint (we went with the boring Grand Piano). They gave us free jelly beans. And a stuffed dog. O..kay.

(Bunnings sausage sizzle)

Because I didn’t have time for breakfast, I had to have a sausage sizzle because it smelled so good. Also the first in years (last one was probably work’s barbecue in 2006). Josh had breakfast and so he had no excuse to have one as well. But he did. It was amazingly delicious. Either that or I was freaking starving.

I also managed to sneak to the Camberwell Market and look mah! They have purple asparagus. How cool are they? Didn’t buy them though. Bought lots of other veggies – including massive green asparagus which were so fresh and sweet, we had some raw in salads.

The florist also had the most gorgeous shade of roses ever. I would have bought them for my mum if she were in the country. They smelled divine. I love roses. I also saw the first peonies of the season (bloody expensive) – this can only mean our wedding anniversary is coming up.

On Sunday, Mini Me and I went to yum cha with a couple of girls from work while Josh painted the apartment. She and I had our first yum cha chicken claws. That’s right. I have never had chicken feet at yum cha. I know the term for this is ‘failsian.’ But obviously, Mini Me won’t have that problem.

She rather liked it too. The bone, that is. I didn’t mind it either. I was also made to try tendon. That experience will not be repeated.

And we ended the weekend with a meal that my uni housemate invented. I decided to make it because the Ikea meal sort of reminded me of this (and she is Scandinavian, maybe there’s something there). I seasoned the chicken breast strips and pan fried them. Made up a batch of packet pasta and sauce (one of those horrid Continental things which I surprisingly didn’t mind) and loaded up with tonnes of veggies.

Happy days.

Date visited: 19 June 2010

I have decided to declare a blogging amnesty on myself. Fact is: I eat a lot more than I blog. While recently, my eating out has slowed down dramatically due to Mini Me being, well, Mini Me, I still have piles of old photos of meals that I took a long time ago. So this blog post will be full of pictures but short of description.

This meal took place so long ago that I can barely remember the details. It was back when Ron O’Bryan was at the helm of the kitchen and, believe me, he cooks some damn good nosh.

(Some sort of salad involving beetroot)

However, here are some of the things I do remember about that night:

(Stuffed zucchini flower – so very good)

1. They churned their own butter – and it was the best damn butter I have ever tasted

(Croquette of some dsecription)

2. The local was small, dimly lit, inimate, casual and all around lovely. And cheap. For a little restaurant doing such outstanding food that had been ethically, sustainably and locally sourced, it was cheap.

(Mushroom gnocchi – totally in adequate description, sorry)

3. There were five of us: me, Josh, Jeroxie, her Mister and their friend (my silly memory insists that the ‘friend’ was actually Mister’s sister but I don’t think so.)

(I’m sure this was beef)

4. This was the night Jeroxie and Mister found out that I was pregnant and they both had exactly the same surprise gasp and priceless facial expression. Sort of like ‘omg-you-are-an-alien-afterall’ type surprise. Priceless.

(Pork belly and some sort of beans)

5. I loved the quince crumble so much that I attempted to lick to glass clean. And I’m not generally a dessert person.

(Duck)

6. I don’t even remember enough things to even have a line after each photo. Oh well.

And now I feel that when those critics of food blogs yammer on about food blogs are unprofessional, I am beginning to see their side after all.

Slow Down! @ Harley Court [ Website ]
Address: 56 Acland St., St Kilda VIC 3182
Phone: 03 8534 3030

‘How do you like your eggs in the morning? I like mine with a kiss.’

Strangely enough, Snow Pony’s website is the only website whose neverending autoplay music doesn’t piss me off. It’s such a great tune to get you in the mood to visit this awesome little cafe in Balwyn (or as their official address Deepene – seriously does anyone know what Deepene is?) for their brunch.

(Snow Pony Winter 2011 menu)

Because I am your regular Eastern suburb stay-at-home Mum, I find it really hard to battle into the inner suburbs for the awesome cafes frequented by the hip young crowd during brunch hours with a young baby, especially on the weekends. Snow Pony is the perfect answer. It’s not too far from home and I can always get parking just out front.

(Mini Me and her grandmother)

Snow Pony, whose name I can only guess has something to do with the fact that it’s situated on White Horse Road, is brought to you by the same folks who bring you Friends of Mine in Richmond and Porgie and Mr Jones in Hawthorn. They have similar menu with the similar flair in their food. But Snow Pony’s staff has been absolutely outstanding at accommodating Mini Me and just all around very very lovely. And they have been very consistent about it in all the visits we made.

(Giddy Up – Snow Pony’s big breakfast – $18.90)

On this particular occasion, I took Mini Me and her grandma out for a lunch treat. We both decided to share a couple of dishes. Lyn had opted for Giddy Up, which is Snow Pony’s version of big breakfast. It consisted of two poached eggs, bacon, roasted tomato, smashed avocadoes and herby mushrooms. There is nothing imperfect about this dish. The eggs were perfectly poached with the white just set and the yolks rich and runny. The bacon was smokey and crispy. The mushrooms were flavourful. Right down to the Noisette thick cut toast which Mini Me happily munched on (and absolutely refused to touch supermarket white bread for days after that).

(French lentil salad – $18?)

We also ordered the French lentil salad with rocket, walnut and goat’s cheese. It was a lovely salad – everything was perfectly dressed and the flavours were well balanced. Unfortunately, it was tiny and I was starving. So it wasn’t something I would order again (because let’s face it, I’m always starving.)

(Toasted banana bread with maple syrup mascarpone, fresh banana, berry compote & crushed pistachio – $14.9)

So to make up for the small lunch, I decided that I would have their lemonade scones with jam and cream which I have had a few times and are all kinds of awesome except they weren’t available*. So instead, we settled on sharing one of their very popular breakfast dish: toasted banana bread.

How supremely pretty is this dish? Thick chunks of toasted banana bread with generous amount of mascarpone, banana and berry filling drenched in syrup and berry coulis topped with green pistachio. It is such a good looking dish. And very satisfying. It was basically the opposite of the light lentil salad I had earlier but still with all the prettiness.

You can probably tell by the gushing that I will be there. Often. Please don’t stalk me.

Snow Pony [ Website ]
Address: 95 White Horse Rd., Balwyn VIC 3026
Phone:  03 9816 8911

* to this I had to send off a terse email complaining about the lack of ‘sconage’ (because it wasn’t the first time it had happened – they ran out of scones quite often from my experience) and received a promise that scone numbers will now be doubled in all of their cafes. Yay.