On Wednesday evening I went out to dinner with a mate from Darwin. I’ve known Drapes for a long time. He worked out of Katherine, Nhulunbuy, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs while I was the Supervising Pathologist for the Northern Territory of Australia. He was down in Canberra for a meeting.
We’d arranged to catch up and thought a burger meal would be the way to go. I did a little on-line searching and thought it would be worth trying out Grease Monkey in Braddon.
Grease Monkey
The restaurant is at 19 Lonsdale Street in Braddon and it opens from 11 am to 10 pm.
They have chairs, stools and tables inside and outside. Drapes and I sat on moulded stools at the front window looking out onto the sidewalk. It was good for watching people walk by. Mostly young Canberrans, the blokes with beards and women in summer wear.
The menu can be downloaded from the website and I’ve made the current one available here.
What did I eat?
If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram you’ll see over the last couple of days I’ve been trying to be mindful of portion size. So I limited myself. I didn’t get fried chicken, mac and cheese, jalapeño poppers or hot wings. I had just one burger and that was the Double Deluxe.
The Double Deluxe
This burger consists of double beef, double cheese, bacon, grease monkey sauce, grease monkey relish, onion and pickles. The bread roll was pretty good. It wasn’t sweet and it wasn’t too much. It was just right. The burger itself was nice, I’d happily do it again. The burger is also served with chips. The chips were cooked really well and nicely salted but they come with extra seasoning. So now I’m going to sound like a food wanker but I reckon on their own the chips would be awesome, but coupled with a nice burger, they’re too much. There is too much competing flavour.
What else?
Check out the comment from Kate on Instagram. You need to click on the image and it will open the page in Instagram and you can scroll down to see Kate’s comment. Kate is a friend who avoids animal flesh, so I’m guessing the mushroom burger is really good.
For $20 the Double Deluxe is not cheap. Is it worth $20? Not really. You can make a similar burger for less. What about the experience? It’s a good experience and I reckon Canberrans should check out Grease Monkey and have a burger or two. I’ll go back but it’s not a place I’d go to regularly.
It’s been a quiet week. Last weekend I was down with a head cold, you know, ManFlu. I ended up working from home on Monday because I was really congested and coughing badly. I’m still coughing but at least I feel okay in my head.
Work was busy with a heap of small or medium sized tasks that just had to be done. Wednesday though was a bad one. Wednesday morning, I woke up at 1 am with something on my mind and I just couldn’t get back to sleep. Coupled with the head cold it meant I felt like a zombie while I was at work. I suppose it doesn’t matter in the scheme of things because Wednesday’s productivity across the globe was probably down slightly because it coincided with the US presidential election. Yummy Lummy isn’t a place for political commentary so all I’ll say is that I made sure I had a nice meal while I was watching the television reporting of the results including the victory and concession speeches.
The highlight for me this week was flying to Brisbane on Friday night and spending the weekend with my daughters and my parents.
The flight from Canberra to Brisbane started well. I got a seat in the exit row and had a meal of meatballs and mashed potato.
On landing the doors opened and a wave of humidity travelled backwards and hugged me like a child runs up to greet you at an airport and grabs you around your legs. Best feeling in the world!
Ms19 was working Friday night so after arriving at my parents’ place I suggested to Miss15 that we go see Ms19 and get ice cream. Ms21 couldn’t join us, so it was just me and Miss15.
I had a nice caramel condensed milk ice cream with a Ferrero Rocher crushed into it.
After a pretty crappy sleep (I don’t travel with my CPAP machine) we went and had breakfast at The Groove Train in Chermside.
I had a nice granola which I think did something to really stimulate my gastrocolic reflex because my irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) went crazy. It’s a good thing I was close to a clean toilet.
Now that Ms19 has retired from gymnastics we’re not totally bound to a sports schedule. Miss15 had a gymnastics evaluation from 2.30 to 5.30 pm and Ms21 was working so what to do between 11 and 1.30? We ended up taking a short drive to Sandgate and walking from the swimming pool to the big jetty and back. All up it’s about a 5 km walk. It was really warm and overcast and it was low tide. The sea breeze was really nice. The smell from the mudflats though wasn’t that good. In fact, it was pretty rank. That part of Sandgate with a view of the water and the sea breeze is really nice. The low tide smell though would make me think twice about living there unless I could keep the house fresh.
After a pretty good walk, we went to the Sandgate fishmonger and bought some potato scallops with crumbed squid. Like most good shops, especially in Queensland, when you ask for some potato scallops you inevitably get n+1 with n being the number of scallops you ask for. These potato scallops were really nice. The crumbed squid was also really good. If you’re visiting Sandgate and want a nice takeaway deep fried meal, I can recommend the Sandgate Fishmonger.
After taking Miss15 to gymnastics, Ms19 and I had been thinking about going out for a milkshake somewhere. As it turned out we were pretty full from lunch and the weather put on a show which made driving less than ideal. Brisbane was treated to a really nice thunderstorm. The rain was heavy, the thunder was loud and the sky almost went black. I love this sort of weather. The rain lasted about 45 minutes and afterwards the air freshened and the heat was gone. Perfect subtropical weather. You can’t ask for better.
For dinner, we went to Thr3e Restaurant in the Kedron-Wavell RSL club. This is a cheap and cheerful buffet affair with upgrades. I had a nice seafood platter and Mum and Dad had a bucket of prawns.
We all went to bed feeling fairly sated.
Sunday broke with a brilliant warm and moist morning. Mum and Dad had planned a big breakfast. We had bacon, sausages, pikelets, fried eggs and cooked tomatoes. It’s always good having breakfast with my daughters and parents.
I’m now back in Canberra where it is cold, windy and wet. I wish I was back with my daughters in Brisbane.
It’s been a little while since I last posted anything here. I wanted this post to be a shout out to some friends’ Facebook pages and a roundup of what has happened for me in the last week. If you have Facebook pages please feel free to leave a link to them in the comments below.
I’d like to mention a couple of European blogging friends.
Ana Calin
The first is Ana Calin. Ana is an author of suspense fiction and she has a passion for psychology. Ana regularly shares psychological profile questionnaires which are fun to take and learn from. For example, Ana will share a photograph or painting and ask her readers to look at a short selection of possible captions. You need to make your choice quickly without spending too much time ‘thinking’ it through. Down the page is a list of possible interpretations.
Ana is an active responder to comments so if you want an interactive blogger Ana is great. She also has a Facebook page.
Medical Fun Facts Podcast
Okay so here is a little bit of self-promotion. A friend at work inspired me to start a podcast on medical fun facts. This started when my friend, let’s call her KMV, was working in a short-term task force and I’d visit from time to time in my role as a medical adviser. Because I like to tell stories, KMV asked for a medical fun fact each time I visited. That was a while back and now KMV is in another area and we’re working together on one or two pieces of policy work.
So MFF started as a podcast on my ‘professional’ webpage and KMV suggested putting it up on iTunes. It turns out it is dead easy if you’re using a Squarespace site to load a podcast and have it submitted to the iTunes podcast store.
If you want to listen and read each show head on over to https://drgarylum.com/blog/ and check it out. Now remember the emphasis is on fun which can also mean frivolous but facts are facts. These are short snippets of information with a little jargon, some strine and hopefully a laugh every now and then. So far I have ten shows on the blog.
I’d love it if you subscribed if you like what you hear. Please also rate (5 stars would be great) and review in the iTunes store. If you do, it helps iTunes rank the podcast higher so others can find it. Thank you.
You can also get the shows at the Facebook Page. Please like it and you’ll receive a notification with each new episode.
Jasper and Myrtle Chocolates
My dear friends Peter and Li Peng are going gang busters with their handmade chocolate business, Jasper and Myrtle Chocolates.
I’m in a very fortunate position to see them every so often and I get to sample chocolate. If you live in or near Canberra you’ll be able to find Peter and Li Peng at various markets. You’ll also find their products in various outlets around Canberra. If you don’t live near Canberra, you can still try their award winning chocolate by putting an order in through their website.
If you like chocolate, you need to get onto this straight away!
Both Peter and Li Peng are talented in the kitchen too. Last night we had a meal which started with salt and pepper squid, then a massive steam boat (no photographs, I was too busy talking and eating), then a gorgeous tiramisu which was followed by homemade baklava.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a link love post here on Yummy Lummy.
I want to share some link love with two bloggers for whom there is a canine connection. Both own dogs and one blogs about her dog every day. The other blogs about a couple of webcomics she writes and she has a dog. I know this may be a tenuous connection but I needed a hook for the title and I communicate with each of them nearly every day through social media.
Jennifer P
The first blogger is Jennifer P. I’ve mentioned Jennifer a few times previously on Yummy Lummy. Jennifer is an independent author of fiction for children and teens as well as the creator of a couple of webcomics. She is very artistic.
Sarah and Choppy
The second blogger is Sarah. Sarah likes to travel with her dog Choppy. Although of late, Sarah and Choppy have limited their travel to daily walks.
The nice thing is that Jennifer and Sarah know each other.
The Canine Connection
So what’s the canine connection with Jennifer I hear you ask? Jennifer has recently started posting to Instagram and she has a great Vimeo channel. A recent video (on her Patreon site) was of her dog, Siggi going on a walk. Siggi has this bright blue illuminated collar which he wears to increase his visibility on footpaths. Jennifer has mentioned that sometimes cyclists ride on footpaths and it sounds like little Siggi can be easily missed. The collar is like a high visibility jacket.
Webcomics
Jennifer has a couple of webcomics and derives some money from a patreon account and the sale of webcomic-related merchandise. One of the comics, viz., Little Monster Girl is not safe for work NSFW. There’s nothing particularly offensive about LMG except it’s about Zela a little monster girl and her adventures in her comic realm. The thing that makes LMG NSFW is that she’s usually topless and she has large boobs. Then there is Lulu, Lulu has no knees and she has even larger boobs.
So Sarah has a dog, viz., Choppy (F) and a cat, viz., Schooner (M) [BTW Jennifer has a cat too, viz., Mr Ashe]. Choppy features in four blog genres.
Where’s Choppy? In these posts Sarah shoots a photograph of a scene with Choppy in it. It’s usually not obvious where Choppy is. It’s the reader’s task to find Choppy. Sarah usually follows up within a few days with the location.
Howlidays are basically memes where Sarah hangs a sign around Choppy’s neck with a funny quote or slogan. Sarah also writes on a card and places it in front of Schooner’s fore paws. I’m guessing Schooner won’t let anything hang around his neck. The words on the card are usually a smart reply to the words on the sign around Choppy’s neck. Sometimes there are outtakes suggesting Schooner is very much his own cat. I’m hoping for some video violence in the future to add some excitement!
Dog walk challenges are daily posts with a photograph of at least Choppy or a scene on Sarah’s walks plus some walk statistics.
Corny dog jobs are irregular, associated often with holidays, but consist of up to a handful of memes featuring Choppy, usually in some fancy dress and jokes written in meme form. Most of these will give you a giggle, some make cause you to scratch your head and occasionally you will LMAO.
Choppy is a very forgiving girl and I often wonder about the relationship between her and Sarah!
I know you want to know what I’ve eaten and what else I’ve photographed this week!
Last night I caught up with a friend from the Northern Territory. She’s now a rural and remote general practitioner but when I knew her she was an excellent medical laboratory scientist who I worked with across the NT. She was in town for the Rural Medicine Australia conference. About nine of us dined at Aubergine. The reservation was set for 8.30 pm. That’s the time I go to bed. I was surprised I stayed awake but it was a fantastic night. I had so much fun. The food was also fantastic. We had a four-course meal plus canapes.
Salad of local asparagus, crispy quail egg, grilled avocado and toasted buckwheat.
Lamb rump and sweetbreads, broad beans, black garlic and celtuce.
Beef rib eye, mustard butter, cippolini onion, pumpkin and zucchini.
Brown butter ice cream, almond praline, and frozen lemon myrtle milk.
No photographs because I was too busy talking and eating.
The 2016 National Clubs Carnival for Gymnastics Australia is being held in Bendigo at the Bendigo Stadium at the moment. It’s the reason for my road trip. My two youngest daughters, viz., Miss15 and Ms19 competed. Well, Ms19 competed and Miss15 got a 0.00 score because a few weeks ago she fractured her fifth metacarpal in her dominant hand while training on the balance beam. It was a clean fracture which hopefully will heal without repercussions. Anyway, Miss15 was listed to compete, so on the score sheet, she scored 0.00 for all apparatus. Looks silly really. She was allowed on the floor with her teammates so she helped with video recording their routines and doing other tasks to assist her coaches.
Ms19 competed injury-free and did well in the L10 division.
Bendigo
Given Bendigo is a little over 600 kilometres from Canberra it was a good reason for me to take a few days recreation leave and drive down on Wednesday 14 September. I’ve never driven to Bendigo, I’ve never been to Bendigo, I knew almost nothing about Bendigo. What I did know was it is a large country town in Victoria and had a start in gold mining. I learnt in high school there was a lot of racial tension with the Chinese who came in and extracted gold from the waste left behind by others.
[Read with sarcasm] Being Victoria, I knew they speak another language. They refer to things like snot blocks and potato cakes. I knew I had to be careful amongst these aliens. I knew I could ask for a vanilla slice but they wouldn’t have a clue what a potato scallop is. I figured if they didn’t know what a potato scallop is they probably didn’t know how to cook a decent one anyway. For confused readers, I wrote this paragraph with heavy sarcasm, after all, I was born and bred from the greatest of the Australian states, viz., Queensland and lived for twelve years in the greatest of Australian territories, viz., the Northern Territory of Australia.
The plan
Before embarking on this trip I consulted with a close colleague from another government agency who is widely regarded as a vanilla slice connoisseur with an excellent knowledge of rural Victoria and New South Wales. I even made an MS Excel spreadsheet containing my extensive ‘research’ findings. I passed this on to my friend and his only warning was to lock my car in one of the towns I mentioned.
The plan for the drive from Canberra to Bendigo was to leave early and have breakfast on the road in Gundagai. This nearly came unstuck because Apple in its wisdom released iOS 10 on the morning of Wednesday 14 September. Being an early adopter (but not brave enough to use β versions) I woke up at 4 am to download iOS 10. Bloody hell, Apple also wanted me to download an updated version of iTunes which was >250 MB. iOS 10 was >1 GB. My ADSL is pathetically slow so I only managed to update my iPad and I was late leaving my apartment at 6.15.
First stop
My first stop was the town of Gundagai. I’d been to Gundagai before and seen the dog on the tucker box. Would you believe my kids didn’t know about the dog on the tucker box? What do they teach kids in school these days? I had decided I’d have a coffee and some sort of carbohydrate-laden product for breakfast. I went with a scone and butter. I did this with trepidation. I have irritable bowel syndrome and my gastrocolic reflex is reasonably good and it is the reason I usually never leave ‘home’ without eating, even if it’s for a morning walk. Being caught short is a constant fear for IBS sufferers.
The Gundagai Bakery is pretty nice. The person who served me was very friendly and I got a large scone, some butter and a decent flat white coffee for $4.50. That was the best bargain of the trip.
I got to Tarcutta and the urge to purge struck. Say no more I hear you think!
I posted a photograph to Twitter and mentioned my dunny stop. I received a mention from a fellow food blogger who tweeted when she was younger her father frowned on her use of the word dunny. I like that as an adult I can be as vulgar as I want.
By the time I got to Holbrook it was raining cats and dogs. I couldn’t see the submarine out the window as I drove. I figured it had been carried away by the storm water runoff. When I got to the Holbrook Bakery the gutters and sidewalk were like a white water rafting course. I really hate having wet shoes and socks when driving. Oh well I thought, I’m here for a reason, having wet shoes isn’t the end of the world.
Holbrook Bakery in the rain
English breakfast tea and vanilla slice
So this was my first vanilla slice of the trip. It was pretty nice. Not the best in terms of texture, taste and consistency but I’d happily eat more of these.
Lunch
Two years ago I drove to Geelong for the National Clubs Carnival and broke up my trip by spending the night in Wangaratta. This time, I was driving straight to Bendigo so rather than dinner in Wangaratta it was lunch.
I decided to have lunch at Cafe Derailleur. The café has seating in the front behind windows, some outdoor seating and an area out the back. I chose to sit inside near the main counter. I was feeling a little peckish so I went with duck fat garlic potato wedges with miso mayonnaise, beetroot sweet potato fritter, avocado, mushrooms, poached egg and spinach, along with a beetroot ginger carrot apple juice. It was pretty good. A word of warning, though. Having eaten a beetroot fritter and enjoyed a beetroot drink, don’t be surprised if you do both you may have a little scare in the bathroom the following day, especially if your tired and feeling a little vague. I’m glad I don’t need to visit the endoscopist again.
Afternoon tea
I had never heard of Violet Town before last week when I started planning this little holiday adventure.
As I arrived I noticed a nice Lions Park with public amenities so I stopped for a dunny break before afternoon tea.
The Violet Town Café had a nice looking vanilla slice in the display cabinet. I could see the passionfruit seeds in the custard and the icing. I had to have one. I really like a little passionfruit in my vanilla slices. While I also like a pink icing, it’s the passionfruit I really like.
Comfort Inn Julie-Anna Bendigo
I chose to stay at the Comfort Inn Julia-Anna on Lake Weeroona. I got a room with a spa bath. While it hasn’t been a really cold winter in Canberra, I’ve been crook for a while and I was looking forward to a daily soak in a spa bath.
This is a short video of my room
Dinner
I had thought I might go to the Bouchon Bendigo for dinner but I wasn’t feeling the best and figured I’d have dinner in the motel restaurant. When I checked in, the person at reception mentioned how much effort they’ve been putting into getting the restaurant up to a really high standard.
The menu looked good. I went with the parmesan crusted braised lamb shoulder with pea purée and mashed potato. It was delicious. I really enjoyed the mouthfeel of the crispy parmesan crust on the little brick of compressed lamb shoulder meat.
For dessert, I went with the vanilla cheesecake which came with chocolate soil and a raspberry coulis.
Thursday 15 September
Breakfast
Rather than have a motel breakfast, I went searching for a café. I had been told about The Dispensary in Chancery Lane but when I arrived it wasn’t open. I went for a little walk around to see if I could find anything open.
I came across Queen Victoria. Victorians really seem to like her.
Then I saw that the Pall Mall café was open and I went in and had Eggs Benedict. It was a pretty good breakfast.
My two youngest daughters, viz., Miss15 and Ms19 are gymnasts. They both compete for Delta Brisbane. Delta Brisbane has a very good record at national championships, regularly winning champion club. Unfortunately, Miss15 recently fractured the fifth metacarpal in her dominant hand. She did it while training. It was great that she was still permitted to travel with the team and help her Level 8 teammates. Both of them have had their share of injuries including fractures of vertebræ, elbows, and arms plus torn ligaments, tendons and muscles. It’s a tough sport but both of them love it so much. Ms19 is at Level 10 and was competing in the combined levels 9 and 10 division.
It was great seeing them both and spending some time with them. Needless to say, over the two days of competition for levels 7, 8 and 9/10 Delta Brisbane won the best club title for all three divisions.
I’ve created a SmugMug gallery of photographs that I shot during the event. I should explain the images are not that good. I was some distance from the competition floor and so I cropped these photographs considerably and had to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to reduce a lot of noise. I was using a 24–240 mm f/3.5–6.3 zoom lens and shot at 1/500 second with the ISO at 6400 and exposure compensation at +1 stop.
The gallery will run as a slideshow automatically. There are 25 images and they change every 3 seconds.
This is a video of Ms19’s uneven bar routine from Thursday 15 September
Dinner
After the first night of competition, I was again feeling a little poorly so ate in the motel restaurant. This time I went for the duo of pork. This consisted of a
crumbed rillettes of pork shoulder plus a piece of braised pork belly. This was served with sweet potato purée and a ball of spinach. This was a particularly delicious meal. The crackling was nice and the fat had been rendered out nicely.
Friday 16 September
Breakfast
I slept very poorly. My snoring was out of control and my chronic cough kept me awake most of the night. I decided rather than going in search of another café I would eat breakfast at the motel.
The poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce, smoked salmon, and spinach was delightful to look at and delicious to eat.
Thursday and Friday Lunch and Friday dinner
The best sporting event meal I know is potato gems and chicken salt. The chips at Bendigo Stadium didn’t look that enticing. I could have gone out between events on Friday evening but I had a really good seat and I didn’t want to lose it. In addition, Ms21 made a surprise appearance. It turns out Ms19 had decided to retire from gymnastics after 16 years of training and competing. This was to be her last competition and with each apparatus I could see she was looking happier with the completion of each routine. Would you believe I spent $16 on three potato gems meals!
After the trophy presentation on Friday night, four gymnasts announced their retirement from the sport with Ms19 being one of them. When I got a chance to congratulate her, I started crying and couldn’t stop. All of us had leaking eyes. Gymnastics has been a major part of her life for 16 of her 19 years. It’s helped give her discipline and purpose. My Mum often says that Ms19 is very much like me. Dogged stubbornness and determination. I’ve often said, I’ve never seen anyone so young with the mental toughness of Ms19.
Saturday 17 September
Friday night ended late and well past my bed time. I had another crapulent sleep. I had planned to leave Bendigo at about 6.30 which meant I would need to be out of bed at about 5.30 given I hadn’t packed and I wanted one last spa bath.
After being awake until about 3.30 I fell asleep and woke at 6.30 with a start. I was running late. I still had a bath and was out of the motel room by 7.30.
Breakfast
I decided I would skip breakfast in Bendigo and planned to eat something in Benalla. Just before I got there though the instant coffee I had in the motel room kicked in so a rest stop was needed.
My target for breakfast was Hides Bakery. I got there a little after 9 and requested a coffee and scrambled eggs with bacon on avocado spread sourdough toast.
Morning tea
Before leaving Hides Bakery I bought a vanilla slice to go. I found a rest stop halfway between Wangaratta and Wodonga and enjoyed the treat. It was really nice.
Lunch
I’d promised myself that on this adventure I would also enjoy a meat pie or two or three. Surprisingly, that hadn’t happened. I went in search of a good meat pie. My search led me to Henri’s Bakery in Wodonga where I enjoyed a minted lamb pie. It was a perfect meat pie. Not too hot, chunky meat and recognisable vegetables.
Coffee stop
My final planned break on my journey was the Interchange Café in Tarcutta. To be honest, I was relieved when I entered the café to see a display case bereft of custard filled treats. No vanilla slices and no other pastries that looked appetising. Instead I had a small coffee. It was very good. I really needed it. I had started to feel very tired driving.
How was the drive?
I really like driving and despite not feeling the best, the drive to and from Bendigo was enjoyable. There was a lot of rain on the way south and on occasion there was sufficient water on the road that I had to slow down and carefully drive across the few centimetres of water that was flowing across the road surface. The roads in Victoria aren’t particularly good. There were a lot of pot holes to avoid.
I spent my hours in the car listening to podcasts. One of my favourite podcasts is Quackcast by Mark Crislip. Mark is an infectious diseases physician from the United States. He does a great job at demolishing the quackery of alternative and complementary medicine including acupuncture, naturopathy, Chinese herbal medicine and homeopathy. You can find the podcast in the iTunes store and I assume in the Google play store if you’re an Android user.
Getting back to Canberra
On arriving I filled the car with diesel and went and bought some food for dinner. I made a simple ramen noodles and lup cheong meal. Nothing fancy. Just light and easy.
Final words
What can I say. I enjoyed the short holiday. A good drive is always fun.
My favourite meal was the duo of pork at the Comfort Inn Julie-Anna.
My favourite vanilla slice was the takeaway treat from Hides Bakery and eaten on the side of the road.
My favourite moment was hugging Ms19 at the end of her competition and telling her how proud I am of her.
Every time I look at this photograph it brings tears to my eyes. Ms19 has been a gymnast for sixteen of her nineteen years. It’s taught her discipline. It’s helped her develop an understanding of physical fitness. It’s made her powerful and strong. Most importantly it’s developed her as an individual and as a member of a team. This year she captained Queensland at the national championships. A lot of people criticise gymnastics because of the injuries, it’s true gymnastics get injured but the benefits far outweigh the injuries. Well done Ms19 I love you so much and I am so proud of you.
Have you been to Bendigo?
What did you think? What did you eat? What did you do?
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