Tag Archives: Cheesecake

The Park Hyatt Buffet lunch

8 Replies

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.

Kedron-Wavell Services Club in Brisbane

5 Replies

It’s been a lovely day in Brisbane. We’ve been shopping and gymnastics training and other stuff as well. My parents have been in Yamba this last week and were not in the mood to cook dinner. We went to the HQ Café at the Kedron-Wavell Services Club.

We were all pretty hungry after a day of mild physical activity.

Fish, calamari, prawns and chips (iPhone) My dinner

Chicken and bacon burger (iPhone) Miss11 and Miss17 had one each

HQ Café beef burger (iPhone) Miss 15′s meal

Prawn sambo (Panasonic DMC-TZ10) Dad had this

Vanilla slice with ice cream and caramel topping (iPhone) My dessert

White chocolate and berry cheesecake (iPhone) Miss15 had this for dessert

Caramel sundae (iPhone) Miss11 had this for dessert

The Kedron-Wavell Services Club has three restaurants all of which are good for club food. I am always happy to eat there. They also cater for my Mum’s food allergies which is a big plus. The meals are not too expensive. They are always a good size. Like most clubs membership is required and very reasonable. At 1900 every evening everyone is expected to stand in silence while we remember those who have sacrificed their lives for our safety and security in Australia. This is something good for a family venue.

Cheesecake returns

7 Replies

Earlier this year Bron made a claim that she would cook a different cheesecake every month. We’ve certainly enjoyed some great cheesecakes however, the one a month concept hasn’t quite come to fruition.

Today we started with breakfast at a sort of new place. The old Hudson’s in the Gardens is now floresco in the Gardens. Bron had Eggs Benedict with bacon and I had Eggs Benedict with Kransky sausage (A cured cooked sausage of dubious contents and indeterminate age). The café was only a week new under the new management. The Eggs Benedict tasted really good with a really smooth and tasty Hollandaise sauce. The Kransky was a little small and not as spicy as I was hoping for. I like a big spicy Kransky sausage. They also didn’t have any cracked pepper on hand which was a slight disappointment.

Eggs Benedict with Kransky (iPhone)

After a bike ride and then a walk I had a late lunch. The other day we did a trip to CostCo and bought a box of pork buns and yesterday Bron bought me a can of pineapple Fanta from a shop (she won’t tell me the name). The pork bun was really good.

Pork bun and pineapple Fanta (iPhone)

Tonight for dinner Bron made a slow roasted chicken with preserved lemons and risotto. The preserved lemons come from a twitter friend who is well known for her lemon curd, lemon jam drops and preserved lemons.

Chicken with preserved lemons and risotto (iPhone)

And for the Pièce de résistance we had vanilla baked cheesecake with salted caramel sauce and vanilla cream. This was so light and yet so rich and so so sweet and unctuous.

Vanilla baked cheesecake with salted caramel sauce and vanilla cream (iPhone)

 

Related articles

Duck pancakes, homemade from scratch!

6 Replies

Bron has been talking about Peking duck and duck pancakes for weeks. She has been looking at various recipes and had settled on a modified Donna Hay recipe. When I say modified, I mean taking the best ideas from other recipes and using them in her creation.

I remember when my Mum made a Peking duck as a kid. It took her a weekend. I recall she built her own airing frame and had a fan set up to help dry out the duck.

Bron’s didn’t take that long and honestly it was an awesome product we had in the end. Bron reckons the most difficult part was getting the hang of making the pancakes.

Peking duck airing with a fan

It’s important to dry out the duck before cooking

Peking duck out of the oven

It looks so good

Peking duck out of the oven resting

Gently resting

From eye level

It’s good to get down to bench level

The table getting set

Lebanese cucumber and spring onions are a must for crunch

Pancakes, vegetables and hoi sin sauce

The pancakes kept well in the cool for a few hours

The bits I like, note the crispy tail in there

I love the tail, neck and thigh and the bones to chew

The carcass was picked clean later

The carcass got a real going over after we finished :-)

Shredded duck meat

The meat was succulent 

Getting ready with the hoi sin sauce

The pancakes were perfect 

Ready to roll. Yummo

It really was delicious

Ready to eat and enjoy

Two bites and this was gone

The last slice of the chocolate peanut paste cheesecake :-( It was so good.

I’m going to miss the cheesecake 

Follow me @garydlum

Related articles

A couple of repeats and some squid

8 Replies

Tonight we repeated Yorkshire puddings with the ocean trout, horseradish and cream cheese, plus we had calamari and then cheesecake. The Jamie Oliver recipe is really good.

Sizzling in the oven

Getting bigger

This short video just shows how good they sizzle in the oven.

This is a great plate of puds.

Straight out of the oven, two different sizes.

Smoked ocean trout with horseradish and cream cheese

Smoked ocean trout with horseradish and cream cheese with yorkies

Smoked ocean trout with horseradish and cream cheese with yorkies

Smoked ocean trout with horseradish and cream cheese with yorkies

Squid is good You should check out dileeshus she loves squid

Sizzling squid

Resting squid

Lots of squid

Plated squid

The squid was amazingly tender and fresh and perfectly cooked. The dipping sauce Bron made was delicious.

Dessert is chocolate and peanut paste cheesecake with Queensland nut brittle

Related articles

Australia Day dinner. Yes it’s lamb again.

7 Replies

For the last few years an Australian personality, viz., Sam Kekovich has acted as a lambassador for the Australian lamb industry. It’s just as well I have a deep and abiding fondness for lamb as evidenced by last night’s blog (Lamb cutlets with mint sauce and radish salad).

Every Australia Day Sam gives an address to the Australian people and beyond.

Today while we enjoyed Australia Day cheesecake Bron had her slow cooker going with lamb shanks. Lamb shanks in red wine is one of my favourite meals.

In the slow cooker

The smell in the apartment was amazing.

Plated up

Look I had greens plus potatoes and a plate load of the best tasting meat around. It was so jelly like and amazing.

The remaining bones

I had fun sucking the marrow out of the bones.

Chocolate and peanut paste cheesecake

We finished with Australia Day Cheesecake.

Related articles

Australia Day cheesecake

6 Replies

For the past few weeks Bron has been talking about cheesecake since she made a white chocolate cheesecake some weeks ago. She has had her eye on a recipe from Nigella Lawson. To give it more interest, Bron chose Nigella’s Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.

I need to digress and explain why this has more interest for me. I grew up in Queensland in the 1960s and 1970s. We only knew of peanut paste and Queensland nuts. We’d heard of peanut butter and Macadamia nuts but our impression was that only southerners used those terms. As Queenslanders we knew better. There are a few sites that mention the debate, e.g., Peanut Butter or Peanut Paste? and there is also a Facebook page. As far as I’m concerned, the edible species in the genus Macadamia found in Eastern Australia are Queensland nuts and that’s how I shall always know them. While it may be Australia Day, I am and always will be a proud convinced and convicted Queenslander.

Last night I also learned that 24 January is national peanut butter day in the USA from food blogger John-Bryan Hopkins also known as the Foodimentary Guy.

Back to the important stuff though. This is a baked cheesecake. Nigella describes it best, “This is not for the faint-hearted. Unashamed indulgence, wallowingly so, is what this recipe is all about: think reese’s Peanut Butter cup in cheesecake form. For that reason, I don’t bake this in a water-bath as I do the Banoffee cheesecake. The water-bath is excellent if you want a silky texture, but for me, the peanut butter constituent demands a certain amount of pleasurable, palate-cleaving clagginess. And baked like this, too, the top gets a slight crust when it’s cooked, making it all the easier to spread the chocolate topping.”

Baking in the oven

Straight out of the oven

Time for the chocolate topping.

Here comes the chocolate topping

It is good.

Smoothed over chocolate

Melted chocolate swirls.

Chocolate swirls

The finished product with the Queensland nut brittle similar to the cheesecake we had at Kingley’s steak and crab house.

A perfect slice of cheesecake with Queensland nut brittle

Related articles

Some of the preparation happened in a new blender.

A really great tweet up

12 Replies

Prologue

About a month ago Meredith @macjam1 asked a bunch of us to her place for a Christmas barbecue.

Canberra has a really good and very active group of tweeps. There are circles within circles. I’ve found myself spending a lot of my twitter and facebook time with a small group of friends based in Canberra. We’ve met a few times already and have become firm friends. Some of us know each other through listening to @markparton on @2CC and others have work connections. Mostly though it’s through twitter and facebook. In addition to this group we also have some close twitter buddies in Queensland and Victoria who one day we will visit.

The barbecue

Each of us had in mind something to bring along while @macjam1 and her husband provided an excellent venue and more meat that we could throw a stick at. The weather ended up being great after forecasts of rain and cold. The afternoon and evening air was fresh but not cold. The sound of mosquitoes was held at bay with Aeroguard and Citronella candles.

The food was heavily influenced by most of us recently taking to various weight loss programs. Some are doing variations on low carbohydrate systems, others are exercising like crazy (cycling and Zumba are popular) and there are those on combinations. We started with combinations of spicy sausage and mushrooms cooked on the barbecue along with a cheese ball and Turkish bread and dips. Then @NatMcNazz brought along these awesome Parmesan cheese biscuits flavoured with chilli and fennel.

Fred the tooth pick holder was popular

This image reveals @tinythecabbie ‘s hand

Turkish bread and dips

Here is a close up of Fred and his partner Cork

Fred and his mate

The tooth picks later became popular with the kids who lit them in the candles and then played with fire (all under close adult supervision of course).

There was so much great food. By the time it was dinner time, I’d already eaten enough for a few nights anyway. Our gracious hosts and other friends had brought along enough to feed us all including children and then some.

Plate one for me

The coleslaw brought by @Bron99 was awesome and not traditional. I the potato bake was fantastic. Creamy and good. I haven’t had a snag and hamburger for ages. So this image has been captioned Plate one for me because I ended up going back twice more. My second plate was piled high with coleslaw and potato bake and a piece of honey soy chicken. The third plate was mainly coleslaw and another piece of chicken.

Then came the desserts. I’ll just list them through photographs.

Pavlova, Australia's greatest invention. I LOVE PAVLOVA!!! :-)

I can never resist pavlova. It brings back so many happy childhood memories.

This white chocolate cheesecake was amazing

@Bron99 made this lovely white chocolate cheesecake which came with a strawberry coulis.

Apple pie

I confess my eyes were bigger than my belly. I wanted apple pie but after the pavlova and cheesecake I could not go back for the apple pie.

Chocolate wafers, jaffas and spearmint leaves

I do not know what this is called but @TinyTheCabbie brought them. So colourful and everyone raved about them.

My plate of dessert

I have with much sadness and self condemnation have to admit I could not finish this lovely plate of food. My grandmother’s voice echoes in my head about the starving children in Africa, but after the gluttony of snacks and then three plates of dinner, my dessert stomach (also known as the œsophagus) failed me and certain sphincters sending signals to my brain to stop eating or eject food upwards.

At the end of the evening, we had a tweet up photograph which I won’t upload because I don’t have everyone’s permission to share. Suffice to say it is a great photograph and it was a wonderful and happy evening.

I think I can safely post one blurry image of a subset of us who preferred the company of mosquitoes so they could talk about the others :-)

Some of the tweeps

It really was a fantastic evening.

Epilogue

This morning I woke up feeling full. What better way to celebrate a new day than with brunch. Off to Black Pepper we went for a Black Pepper big breakfast.

Black Pepper big breakfast poached eggs, bacon (lots of bacon), chorizo sausage, mushrooms, tomato and a potato cake

Did I say there was lots of bacon?

Lots of bacon

Yep lots of bacon.

Related articles

Steak at Kingsleys steak and crab house in Canberra

7 Replies

On Friday night we went to Kingsleys steak and crab house. It was my first time. I recall a post from Jen when she took Mr J out for his birthday dinner there recently. It didn’t dawn on me until I was seated and reading the menu.

In a strange coincidence, it seems I have chosen a meal that is very popular, viz., the Angus beef eye fillet (300 g) and caramel cheesecake with peanut brittle.

For a starter we had the Chilli squid with aioli and crisp chickpeas which was really nice. The squid was tender and the chilli crumb coating was a nice balance. I’d never had crisp chickpeas before. They were a nice texture. The other nice touch was the squid was not swimming in aioli. It was the right amount.

Chilli squid with aioli and crisp chickpeas

For a main meal I went with the Angus beef eye fillet. It was cooked rare and 300 g of goodness (and happiness). It was served with a creamy potato mash and béarnaise sauce.

Angus eye fillet, mash potato and béarnaise sauce

Angus beef eye fillet cooked rare

For dessert we had the caramel cheesecake with peanut brittle. It was delicious.

Caramel cheesecake with peanut brittle

I can highly recommend Kingsleys steak and crab house. Next time I’m going for Alaskan King Crab and think about The Deadliest Catch.

Related articles

Last night in Mexico dinner

1 Reply

I decided on the buffet in the hotel restaurant,viz., Manhattan Deli Sheraton Reforma.

I started with salad and then some Mexican hot food followed by creme caramel and cheesecake.

Salad starter

Salad starter

Hot Mexican delights

Hot Mexican delights

Creme caramel and cheesecake

Creme caramel and cheesecake

Related articles