The Australian Index - Food Blogs

One day we'll have sampled all the breakfast options in our surrounds. It might take a few more years given how long it takes us to visit places as highly recommended as Green Refectory. A few of our friends have spent months raving about their affordable and delicious muffins and the quality of their coffee, but we've been too lazy to make it all the way across to Sydney Road.

After some misse

I've always had a thing for Arnotts gingernut biscuits, so hard and toffee-like you had to dip them into your tea to soften them, or risk cracking a tooth.

There are no nuts in gingernuts, but apparently they're named as such (mainly in Australia and the UK) because of their specific hardness--they're hard as a nut to crack. Americans prefer to call them ginger snaps. I just call them delicious.

Monday - we grabbed lunches from Jaws Mint (323 Hay St, Corner of Hay and Hill Streets, East Perth, opposite the Perth Mint). Jaws Mint is open Mondays to Saturdays for dinner from 6pm, but they do takeaway lunches during the day. I'd recommend getting there early - we were there at around half past one and there was quite a crowd gathered around. There's an international college just up the str

Everytime I suggested pickled grapes to Jonas, he kept doubting that such a thing existed. He was sure I had just gone pickle-mad and was inventing pickles out of anything that would fit in a jar.

But I remembered reading about pickled grapes in Middle Eastern cookbooks, a classic example of the sweet-savoury balance the cuisine is so famous for.

Grapes seem like an odd thing to pickle, but they

Japan Festival in Melbourne
Sunday 18th May 2008 - Box Hill Town Hall & Tafe
http://www.jcv.org.au/japanfestival/

I'll take a little break from my Japan posts to report on...er...the Melbourne Japan Festival. Held last Sunday at the Box Hill Town Hall and TAFE, it is an annual celebration of all things Japanese. Amidst displays of bonsai, ikebana, taiko drumming, kimono contests, market stall

Always being the adventurous weeknight cook, wanting something simple, quick, but not boring and bland, my thoughts turned Italian tonight. I had all of the ingredients on hand to make a speedy Veal Saltimbocca. The sage in the garden is just beautiful right now, and begging to be picked to encourage tender new leaves to grow. I love the literal meaning of saltimbocca jumps in the mouth

Perhaps this will be the alternative?

Bob Jelly s Private Academy of Hospitality StudiesFinal examination paper.
What is a Souvlaki?
A) A type of severe botulism.
B) Fetid re-heated meat with hair & gristle rolled in greasy bread
C) A type of skewered & grilled meat

Who wrote Fast Food Nation?
A) Eric the Viking
B) Eric Banner
C) Eric Schlosser

Who invented Margarine?
A) Dr Fabrice di

May 20 ...
Viscount John Byng took to the English country road in the eighteenth century for a variety of reasons, and luckily for us he kept a meticulous record of his observations. We have met him a couple of times already - once to share his horrid meal of raw, rank mutton chops and some cold hard potatoes , and another time when he fared very sumptuously on Cold Beef, Cold Veal, and Go

Warhammer Online will (most likely) have local servers. As an existing WoW player this is very interesting. The online community in Australia is often upset about a lack of local servers, and Warhammer looks to set some up in an Asia Pacific area. Most excellent.However will this change Blizzard s approach to the Oceanic Realms? I doubt it. Given how focused Blizzard is on having the servers in

Yeah yeah, I know it should be "from whom". This is the web, baby. Where you write emails in smaller case without punctuation, don't start with the name of the person you're emailing (seems rude to me...sorta like addressing someone you know well with "Oi you!"), and don't put your name at the end (also [...]

The 2-hr combat was quite a riot yesterday. Barring the fact that you can't do a full side-kick, front and back kick, it was pretty fun.Totally knackered after the workout. Decided to skip my morning run just to rest a bit.

With the growing number of people trying to follow a healthier lifestyle, recent years has witnessed a massive surge in the use of artificial sugar as a plausible alternative to regular sugar.What are artificial sweeteners?Artificial sweeteners are chemicals providing the sweetness of sugar without the calories. Generally speaking they are much sweeter than sugar, and therefore it takes a smaller

Age of Conan has a few mate of mine pretty excited, and I'll admit to be pretty interested too. WoW still has me pretty hooked, and there are things that are still worth doing, but a new game has a shiny appeal that I expect a lot of WoW players won't be able to resist (at least trying). The buzz in the forums that I've been reading is that Conan is the "next gen" of MMORPG game in te

Today I'm posting a little early. By 'a little early,' I mean at least twelve hours early. This is because today is unbelievably busy and I really don't want to do what I normally do on an unbelievably busy day and post after midnight. Tomorrow, you see, is likewise frantic.Today I want to talk about persimmons and medlars. This is partly because I have both in the house. I have one sma

Deep-fried chicken in sweet and spicy sauce $17.99 (normally $28)

KFC is set for world domination. Long live KFC!

No we're not talking about the Colonel and his seven secret spices, but Korean Fried Chicken and boy, are we talking!

Panchan side dishes

Figuro can't wait to show us his latest find - a hole-in-the-wall eatery that serves "fried chicken to die for!!" Like the jolly Pied Piper he l

The gracious Agnes, fellow Melbourne-based food blogger of the always very readable Off the Spork has passed onto Spot4Nosh the E for Excellent Blog award. Thanks Agnes! It is most gratifying to know that there are folks out there who enjoy the blog. I certainly enjoy adding to it since that means we've had yet another memorable (good or bad, no matter) food experience!

I would like to pass the E

Yeah, yeah. I know, I haven't posted in a while. Sorry.

Life has been hectic and somewhat mundane all at the same time. I was too busy to blog and didn't have anything interesting to blog about anyway. Add in dial-up, which has become my new bitch-fest topic, and it was just too frustrating. I did in fact try to blog a couple of times but got fed up with waiting for stuff to load so, again, sorry

A ghastly week behind me; a new (brighter...) one ahead in which my father s health improves (please ) and his doctor considers releasing him from hospital, and in which I write a rather fine, rather clever 2500-word profile on the rather appealing, rather clever Sydney actor-writer Brendan Cowell, get to the gym and take a healthy packed lunch to work every day, let nothing pass my lips stron

I was sent the following email today - thought you might get a giggle out if it if you haven't seen it before.....

Margaret Fulton's way: Stuff miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice-cream drips.
The Working Mum's way: Just suck the ice-cream out of the bottom of the cone for Pete's sake. You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it anyway!!

Margar

Professional chefs who write recipes in cups and tablespoons deserve to have chicken stock ladled down the back of their pants. No, not just chicken stock. The greasy, floating scum from the impurities rendered out of the bones in the chicken stock. How dare they fold to the ignorant yearning of the masses at the expense of perfection! It's so frustrating to see absolutely stunning, beautifully ph

for me, the macaron craze started with roboppy, the girl with crazy descriptions and drool inducing pics that make me want to travel the world in search of the perfect macaron and so i bring to you the best macarons in sydney! in the first corner of fight club (the third rule of fight club is) we have lindt:

ah shiny pretty packaging you must be the reason why everything at lindt is so expensive!

Still running behind with posts! Here's lunch from two Saturdays ago: we shared fried kway teow from Sun Sun at the Carousel Shopping Centre food hall. It seemed paler and less saucy than usual, and there was no fish cake or sliced beef in it. No fish cake! I was disappointed and dissatisfied. The chilli was hot as usual. I always find it too hot. Each time I decide I'll give it a go and alway

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Tetsuya's Signature Dish, originally uploaded by snapperwolf*.Transient beautyArt on a fork, perfectionBliss. Tetsuya's...done. More photos

On Saturday night we had a spontaneous meet-up with my aunt Carol and family friend Jens for dinner and a movie. We floated Thai, Vietnamese and Indian as options, but Jens had a hearty appetite and a preference for Italian so I suggested we try to get a table at Cafe Italia. Set in a laneway away from the spruikers on Lygon St, it still has no trouble attracting diners through its closed doors

No new drink tests today. I don't know whether this makes me very happy (return to normal posting!) or terribly sad (after all, watching other people get drunk at my behest isn't something that will happen often in my life) but I'm resigned. Expect more reports when they appear.Tonight's normal posting is a cook book. I wanted it to be a meme; there's a fun one going round asking everyone to sa

The dog swapped her slumbering position between patches of sun and shade, spotted belly bared, and the cat, newly svelte and much happier, had even dared to pad silently outside. Beautiful, companionable quietude. Bees buzzed around us and the tiny, tightly furled blossoms that cover the cumquat tree. Illuminated by gorgeous autumn light, they refused to open despite the industry. Surely they must

Cinnamon brings such a glowing warmth to any sweet dish and, in my opinion, goes really well with peaches and apricots in particular.

This simple preserve has chunky pieces of peaches, but it s really important to use flavoursome fruit as there s not much else but peach pulp and floury fruit certainly yields a less vibrant flavour.

Peach & Cinnamon Preserve
Anna s very own recipe. Made

shaved cabbage salad with parmigiano reggiano & aged balsamicIf it is true that imitation is the highest form of flattery, then chef Andy Bunn of Caf Sopra at Fratelli Fresh in the inner city Sydney suburb of Waterloo should consider himself well and truly flattered. You see it was Andy, or more specifically his to-die-for shaved cabbage salad that kick started my current cabbage obsession.

PerthNow is reporting that yesterday two men were men stopped for speeding at 160km/h in a 90km/h zone between North Dandalup and Dwellingup. Apparently they were leaving church and heading to Dwellingup for a coffee.

The report states their bikes were seized under the hoon legislation but fails to advise whether or not they got their coffee. If they were detained by WA Police the insant coffee t

That's right Melbourne. Stay Amazed. Naysayers might try to convince you that the toilet doors of squalid public bathrooms are not the place to get valuable life messages from, but they just haven't seen the light of grimey self discovery that waits on the other side of cubicle door.So this post is a little update while the other updates prepare themselves. The morning we arrived in Melbourne, w