Category Archives: Food porn

Steak, crabs, flowers and sweets, lots of sweets

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Okay where to start? This last week has been pretty good for food. Too much really but who can say no. I mean when it’s good it’s good.

On Monday night crusted some salmon with herbs. I’m still doing towers with my food tube.

Tuesday morning late in September, you know Spring, it was still –2 °C. Yikes. Canberra weather sucks.

On my morning walk I came across a possum. This tree is right in front of a shopping mall. He/she was fat. I bet he/she had been plundering rubbish bins.

Halfway through the walk I pass the Owl Statue and say hello. You can see it has started to warm up.

On Tuesday night Bron made three different sorts of pizza. they were delicious. I haven’t eaten pizza for so long. These were mouth watering. Each type of pizza, even the vegetarian versions were delicious.

You may recall from my Daydream Island post I had my first dessert pizza there. Bron has broken me now for dessert pizzas. This is the uncooked stage. Notice the milk and white chocolate, the banana and the marshmallows.

This is the cooked stage. This was unbelievably good. the marshmallows were perfectly cooked and not too hot. I had marshmallow all over my lips and cheeks and chin. It was so good.

This was a weird weather week. On Wednesday morning, it was a much warmer 9.2 °C. The Owl was happier.

On Thursday night Bron made her David Lebovitz inspired meatball hoagie or grinder or sandwich. It was fantastic. So tasty and so full of flavour. Much better than my effort from Saturday night.

On Friday morning it felt tropical. Do you see the temperature? It’s 17.2 °C. I was in heaven. If it had rained it would have been perfect. Mr Owl was very happy.

On Friday we said goodbye to a friend who was going on maternity leave. One of my work mates made this vanilla slice with sweet lattice biscuits. My Mum used to make vanilla slices like this. The custard was so light and smooth and just the right amount of sweetness.

On Friday night Bron and I went to a Hog’s Breath cafe and we enjoyed a prime rib steak. Mine had curly fries and mushroom sauce. I like mine rare.

I had dessert with Bron at her place and we had a chocolate self saucing Gü

For breakfast on Saturday Bron made me a poached egg. As always, perfect! :-) The parsley was the only vegetable matter I had all weekend (not something I’m proud of).

On Saturday night we went to Kingley’s steak and crab house for a friend’s birthday. Bron and I wanted Alaskan King Crab. Here are the tools which I didn’t really use.

We planned to make crab sandwiches. This is a sourdough cob with lots of butter.

We also added thick cut hot chips to our sandwiches.

I asked for 400 grams of crab.

This is me eating a crab and hot chip sandwich. Notice the bib I made for myself from the serviette. Yes I wear reading glasses sometimes when I eat so I can see the food better.

This is my first ever Affogato. It was nice.

I’ve had this dessert before and it’s always good. Cheesecake with peanut brittle.

For breakfast on Sunday Bron made her scrumptious scrambled eggs. As always they were gorgeous. We were still a little full from the crab dinner, but there was no way I wasn’t eating this delightful dish.

On Sunday afternoon we went to Ricardo’s and I chose a chocolate raspberry meringue. It was very good.

Today is a public holiday in Canberra. We went to Floriade. This is a black swan. They’re common in Australia. I have been told they are a rare sight in the northern hemisphere.

For breakfast this morning we had a bacon and egg roll with barbecue sauce.

Floriade is great. A sea of bulbs. I liked the composition of this image.

At Floriade there is always a gnome contest.

Beautiful flowers.

Walking through the crane forest at Floriade.

This is the route we took this morning. http://runkeeper.com/user/garydlum/activity/121791194

For lunch today we went to Grazing at Gundaroo. For a main we had the beef (rare). It was accompanied by crumbed bubble and squeak. It was pretty good. I would happily go back for more.


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For dessert I had the poached pear with honeycomb and ice cream. It was okay but afterwards I thought I should have chosen the cheese platter.

It’s been a good week in food.

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Grand final footy food

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This week has seen a good few days in food but tonight was the NRL grand final. It required something special. Something inspired. In terms of inspiring meals, we’ve already seen this week how Bron was inspired by David Lebovitz. I took my inspiration from Bron’s inspiration.

I wanted to make a sandwich that required both hands to hold. I also wanted to use a bread that wasn’t as crusty but not too soft. I wanted cheese too. But what to put inside. I had a mystery meal in the freezer. I knew it was a curry of some sort. I wouldn’t know until I thawed it out.

The ingredients for tonight’s Grand Final sandwich included Mozzarella cheese, Butter, Bread roll, and Mystery meat.

When I thawed the curry it looked like belly pork. I was winning already.

Before I get to the sandwich, the good news is the Melbourne Storm defeated the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs Rugby League Club. The final score was 14:4 and the triumvirate of amazing Queenslanders Cronk, Smith and Slater played superb games this evening. It was disappointing that the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys didn’t advance further this year. Such is life.

Now to the sandwich. I thawed the curry pork for a couple of minutes in the microwave oven. The roll was sliced to produce a butterflied length of bread. I smeared some butter on both sides and then cut the cheese lol. I warmed the roll for about 20 seconds in the microwave oven too. After laying on the meat I laid over it the sliced mozzarella cheese. I then grilled it until the cheese went a little brown. It felt good holding a sandwich that needed both hands to hold.

Mozzarella cheese for laying on the meat.

This is the bread I chose from Coles at Jamison.

It was a nice loaf.

Sliced open and laid flat.

Pork belly curry for the filling.

Meat laid on a buttered bread roll.

Laying on the sliced Mozzarella cheese.

After being under the grill.

Closed roll.

A close up :-)

So how did it taste? It was great. The curry and cheese worked well. The soft bread roll made all the difference. It was great holding a big sandwich in both hands and watching the footy. It was so big though I needed my own half time break to finish eating it. There was a degree of scepticism about this sandwich on Twitter. I can understand why it seems like an odd combination. In my mouth and on my taste buds this combination worked and worked well.

I hope all the Storm supporters are happy, and I hope the Bulldog supporters can be happy knowing they were the minor premiers this year and know on the night the better team won.

All the images captured with a Nikon D90 except the last one posted to Instagram with my iPhone 4

Herb crusted salmon

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Today was pretty busy and I ended up with a headache and didn’t feel too flash. Rather than preparing a lot of different things, I spent time crusting a piece of salmon and boiling a potato. I crusted the salmon with mixed dried herbs, spike, chili flakes and curry powder. I also wilted some baby spinach.

Click on the image for a higher resolution version

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My weekend in food was good

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This weekend I completed my income taxation return and caught up on some work. I also spent some time with Bron and managed to enjoy some delicious meals. If you follow me on instagram you can see how I ate this weekend as well as some of my other activities.

Thai salmon cakes

Bron’s fish cakes were really nice.

Sticky date pudding with homemade custard and butterscotch sauce

Bron makes the best sticky date pudding. Her homemade custard and butterscotch sauce are to die for.

Spring in Canberra

The deciduous trees are blooming and my allergic rhinitis is getting worse. I must be snoring like a train because every morning I wake up with a sore throat like razor blades are cutting it.

Lake Ginninderra

Before breakfast I went for a walk and captured some images. We had breakfast at Black Pepper which is on the corner on the left of the image.


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Dead carp

Fishing is popular in Canberra waterways. The lakes are full of carp. They are a pest and regarded as feral. If a carp is caught it is not allowed to be thrown back into the water. From what I’ve seen people go fishing, catch carp and then leave them anywhere they choose.

Green eggs and ham

Bron chose green eggs and ham. The scrambled eggs have avocado in them.

Poached eggs, Kransky and hollandaise sauce

I ate poached eggs, Kransky sausage, mushrooms and hollandaise sauce.

Pan seared salmon served with a tower of potato mash, wilted spinach, pine nuts, peas and corn along with asparagus and broccolini. The mash potato was made with blue cheese.

Tonight I cooked a light meal of salmon. Click on it if you want a larger resolution view.

Oh and if you’re interested, next weekend I want to see the Melbourne Storm defeat the Canterbury Bulldogs. I also want to see the Sydney Swans defeat the Hawthorn Hawks.

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Pork cutlet an a tower of vegetables

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I’m really enjoying the food tube or ring or sleeve that Miss15 bought me for Fathers day. Eventually it will be used for rice and other things but so far it’s been potato and sweet potato along with some pan seared Atlantic salmon.

Tonight I breaded (crumbed here in Australia) a nice pork cutlet. Instead of combining the potato and sweet potato I kept them separate and separated them physically in the tower with wilted spinach, mushrooms and spring onions. I also topped the dish with a little asparagus and broccolini. I deglased the pan with a little white wine and reduced some honey and soy sauce to drizzle on the potato tower.

Sorry I didn’t quite have the cutlet completely covered. The image looks a bit untidy. It was incredibly delicious though. I loved it.

Oh and I forgot I checked out Hilah’s youtube channel on pork chops. I love her accent.

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Brisbane high rise and food glorious food

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The last few days have been fairly busy and on Thursday and Friday I had to be in Brisbane for an important meeting.

On Wednesday I forgot my lunch and after a frantic morning I was in a café and spied a Chiko roll. I haven’t had one in years. My maternal grandfather‘s brother told me many times when I was young that our family had somehow been involved in the invention of the Chiko roll. At the time they owned a Chinese café at a truck stop in Rocklea in Brisbane. They used to sell these super large spring rolls mostly composed of cabbage and chicken. They sold them as chicken rolls. Mum and her brother have confirmed this story for me. They claim someone got the idea for the Chiko roll from my grandparents chiekn rolls at the Golden Pagoda in Rocklea. The Golden Pagoda was destroyed in the great flood of 1974 and the loss destroyed my grandparents and immediate family. They never really recovered.

Later that afternoon a work mate said she was going out to get some chocolate and I asked her get me some. I love my work mates. They know me. Look at what came back :-)

Check out the size of the block.

That night I didn’t feel that hungry but had some chicken thigh meat thawing (and no I didn’t eat all that chocolate in one sitting).

The chicken burgers were tasty, you can see I used an English muffin for one and a hamburger roll for the other.

The next morning I woke up early for a 0620 AEST flight from Canberra to Brisbane. I like that the Qantas Club has breakfast.

On board the flight I had another breakfast.

I spent Thursday night in my hotel room working. The view of the Brisbane River from the twenty-fifth floor was pretty good.

I went and bought a couple of hot pies and an apple crumble to get me through the night.

In the morning the view was better. I left Brisbane in 1995 to live in Darwin until coming to Canberra in 2007. Brisbane city has certainly grown.

Look at the huge tree. they are amazing. I love them.

I indulged in a Starbucks breakfast of toast and a caramel mocha with cream.

So on the way back to Canberra I spent time chatting with a work mate and eating.

The pork buns here were crap. They are from the Sydney Qantas club and rubbish. You want to see a nice barbecue pork bun go to the Dumpling Inn. Check out the image here.

The soup was a spicy Mexican lentil dish.

On Saturday we went to Costco to buy some food. I hadn’t had lunch. I tried a Costco hot dog. It wasn’t that good.

For afternoon tea we went to Ricardo’s Cafe at Jamison and had a caramel praline mousse.

Last night Bron and I cooked dinner together. I cooked a steak with an onion dijon sauce and Bron cooked the cauliflower blue cheese gratin. The gratin was amazing. I ate two. I wanted more.

Bron cooked a caramel chocolate tart and a lemon tart for dessert. They were out of this world. Bron is amazing.

Caramel chocolate tart

Lemon tart

This morning we went light and had a poached egg before our big lunch.

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The Park Hyatt Buffet lunch

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Bron and I went to lunch today. We went to the Park Hyatt Hotel‘s buffet lunch in the Promenade Cafe. The buffet lunch is well known to residents of Canberra and is an institution at the Park Hyatt like their afternoon high tea is. Interestingly enough John-Bryan Hopkins of Foodimentarian has blogged that today is “I Love Food” day. It seemed fitting to enjoy a buffet lunch.

I’ll describe the lunch in pictures of each time I went up and came back to my chair.

Plate 1

In the background is part of a whole cold salmon. It was the best dish of the day. It only came out once and I kept looking around for more, sadly there was only ever one tray. My tip is to get in early before 1230 to get some. It was later replaced with smoked salmon which was also very nice, but not as nice as the whole cold salmon. In the foreground is a small saucer of prawns and greens. This was very tasty. I’d have a whole salad plate of it if I could. The Moreton Bay bugs were fresh and full.

Plate 2

I got my share of salad with a Caesar salad, some sardines, octopus, and cold meats. The sardines were nice but a little bony. The bread was also amazing. Very tasty.

Plate 3

Here you can see fresh prawns, oysters, mussels, octopus and smoked salmon.

Plate 4

The hot food options were disappointing. I chose a chicken thigh and creamy mushroom dish with some potatoes and a warm baked salmon. The salmon was really disappointing. It was tough and smelt “fishy”.

Plate 5

I finished off with some more seafood.

Cheese and dried pear

One of the waiters told us the blue cheese was fantastic. It was.

Dessert 1

Okay the lighting was pretty poor for this. I’m sorry. This is a strawberry mousse cake with a lavender macaron plus a caramel cheesecake supported by whipped cream. The chocolate thing was tempered nicely.

Dessert 2

This is a creme caramel which looked better than it tasted. It was a little too firm. A fork went through and the dessert stuck to it tightly.

Ear Grey Tea

Like John Luc Picard, I like Earl Grey tea. It was a great relief after a large lunch. I was so tempted to loosen my belt. I waited until I got in the car.

So what is the verdict. It’s definitely worthwhile. It’s not the best buffet meal I’ve had, not even close, there are many other places that do it better in terms of quality and quantity. Certainly the Park Hyatt is not about quantity. That’s a good thing too. Can you image how much food is wasted every day, especially all the glorious seafood. Probably the best buffet I’ve enjoyed is the Sidewalk Cafe at the old Sheraton Hotel in Brisbane. That was amazing. The quality was always high and the quantity and variety out of this world. That was probably the disappointing thing about the Park Hyatt, the variety wasn’t huge, especially the hot offering. It was the usual stuff but nothing exotic and nothing like a big international hotel might have in Hong Kong for instance. Even the cheap and cheerful seafood buffets in Darwin would rate slightly better in terms of quality (freshness of seafood) and value for money. I apologise to the Park Hyatt if they think I didn’t enjoy myself. I did, it was a great lunch today, great company, good service and fabulous food. I would definitely recommend Canberra residents and visitors to enjoy a lunch at the Park Hyatt Canberra.

A little explosion of happiness in my mouth

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Maybe I’ve overplayed the title, but here goes…Oddly enough it’s not about chocolate or dessert.

Today was busy, not insanely busy and not crazy stupid make me angry busy. It was busy enough to give me a headache though.

I found myself this afternoon thinking about what to cook for dinner. I settled on some Atlantic salmon (from Tasmania), some mashed potato, broccolini, asparagus and carrot. There would also be parsley and spring onion and some honey soy deliciousness.

Okay so what caused the explosion of happiness? It resulted from laziness and some miscalculation. I made the mashed potato with my ricer and added spring onions, some grated ginger and parsley. I also added a little butter from the refrigerator. I used it as a bed for the salmon and roughly mashed it with a fork. I like my potatoes looking rustic so it wasn’t a thorough mashing. As I was eating the last of the salmon and mash, a few of the portions of mashed potato still had a little solid butter in them and when I put that with some salmon in my mouth there a small explosion of buttery goodness in my mouth. My headache went away and I felt at one with the universe. :-)

It’s the little things in life that keep me smiling.

My weekend in food | McDonald’s Lamb burger | Yum Cha at the Dumpling Inn

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It feels like it’s been weeks since I last posted on my blog. The last week has been busy at work and I needed to bring work back to my place this weekend to finish some of it off. I spent Friday at Queanbeyan for a meeting at the Australian Civil-Military Centre and was hanging out at lunch time to visit the Central Cafe and have the mixed grill again.


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In the end we had sandwiches with plates for vegetarians, piscatarians, halal, gluten-free and other. It’s a good thing I’m no longer doing a lower carbohydrate, higher protein approach to eating.

On the Friday night I went with Bron to the Canberra Southern Cross Club at Jamison for dinner. I was hungry and ordered some deep-fried crumbed calamari and a rare eye fillet. Afterwards Bron prepared a brownie with caramel and ice cream.

On Saturday we thought we’d succumb to the advertising and try a new burger McDonald’s has been advertising. The Lamb burger which is meant to be made with Australian lamb. It was okay. It was large and the pattie was a little on the dry side. The red onion lingered on the breath too.

For dinner last night Bron made pork rashers with hoisin sauce and a hazelnut mini-tortes, one with cherry jam and cream and the other with salted caramel.

This morning I woke up to fathers day and spoke with my father and received a call from my daughters. For a Spring morning it was pretty cold here in Canberra.

The frosty view from my apartment

The frosty view from my apartment

To keep warm I needed rolled oats, bran and brown sugar with some cinnamon

For lunch Bron took me to a Yum Cha lunch at the Dumpling Inn in Macquarie.


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We love Yum Cha at the Dumpling Inn. Today the service was a little slow but they were really busy. We ate and ate and ate and then were happy :-)

Sticky rice

Meat balls

Deep fried prawn goodness

Yummy chicken wing

Dim sim and prawn dumpling

Sesame prawn

Spring rolls

Duck pancake

Barbecue pork rice noodle

Pork bun

Custard tart

This afternoon I had to do some work and wanted something light for dinner.

I made a burger and then had one of Bron’s left over mini-tortes made of hazelnut meringue, chocolate, cherry jam and cream with a flake.

The burger was made with lean beef mince, jam, avocado, lettuce, cheese and barbecue sauce.

It’s been a good weekend :-)

I hope you had a good one too.

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Brisbane

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I’m currently in Brisbane to visit my kids. Brisbane is where I was born and spent 30 years learning skills in medicine, pathology and specifically clinical microbiology. I grew up here. I love Brisbane. I’m a Brisbane boy. I’m a Queenslander.

This year I didn’t get an opportunity to go to The Ekka with my daughters. Maybe next year. Miss15, ever thoughtful bought me a hat from one of her trips to The Show.

Me in a new hat from Miss15

Today we joined up with one of my brothers (Mr41) and his son (NephewMr6) to watch a junior rugby match.

Brisbane is beautiful in August. The sky is clear and the morning cool but not cold like Canberra (which has the skies but the trees aren’t all evergreen). Canberra’s deciduous trees remind me of death and the cycle of life. This picture says it all, great sky, beautiful trees and rugby posts. Only summer is better with a swimming pool or surf beach.

A perfect scene. A winter’s morning in Brisbane. Evergreen trees and rugby posts.

While Miss11 and Miss15 went to gymnastics training I took Miss17 shopping. She was hungry after missing breakfast because of a sleep in and an early start to the junior rugby match.

We both had the same idea. A crumbed chicken and coleslaw sandwich.

Crumbed chicken and coleslaw sandwich with pineapple drink

After gymnastics we had to attend the Clayfield College open day. Miss11 and Miss15 have scholarships to attend school here. Without the half scholarships I could not afford the fees.

I tried an ice cream treat I’d not heard of before, viz., drippin dots. I chose caramel and brownie. It was really very nice.

Caramel and brownie Drippin Dots

This afternoon Miss17 captured an image of me.

Me in shades

Tonight I took Dad, Mum and the girls out to dinner to Hog’s Breath Cafe for an early father’s day celebration. These restaurants have a great Aussie history. Many people assume an origin in the USA, the truth is they started in Queensland and have spread across Australia. Importantly, the franchise is a big supporter of motor sport and rugby league in Australia.

I had a steak and rib combination for a main meal.

Steak and rib combination with a side of calamari and Béarnaise sauce

For dessert the girls helped me share a sundae.

Hoggies Rocky Road Sundae which is enough for four

Mum and Dad had profiteroles which Miss15 informed us are made from choux pastry which resembles cabbages. Miss15 likes to pronounce choux as chucks just to make us laugh.

Profiteroles

I’ll be back in Canberra tomorrow.

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