Tag Archives: Food

Italian and Sons | #bestblogs13

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Last night Bron and I went to Italian & Sons for the first sitting dinner (in at 6 pm and out at 8 pm). We’ve been here before and enjoyed a number of excellent meals. We’ve been keen though to attend on a Tuesday evening. The day of the week is important for Italian & Sons. The menu varies, that is, the major main meal changes each night. Tuesday is suckling pig night.

If you take a look at the sample menu you’ll see what I mean. You can see a sample menu here

The ambience is really nice. It’s quiet, it’s dark and it’s warm. Unlike Ned Stark’s northern kingdom whose words were “winter is coming”; winter has arrived in Canberra. It was a very cold last night even at 6 pm as we were walking to the restaurant. Being dark was a bit of a problem though. Darkness is the enemy of the amateur food blogger armed only with an iPhone. Despite the iPhone 5 having an enhanced low light camera, it can’t compensate for really dim light. I am very sorry to Italian & Sons that the images I captured do not do the food justice.

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For our entrée we asked to share one of the specials. It was a Gorgonzola and polenta croquette on a delicate cheesy white sauce. I’m sure there’s an Italian name for the French word that describes cheesy white sauce but I don’t know either of the words. Happy to be educated if you know :-)

Entrée croquette

#dinner #entrée Gorgonzola with polenta. This was gorgeous. #superyummy

There were three on the plate. We had one and a half each. They were delicate yet they cracked open easily and the cheese and polenta were combined perfectly. The odour and taste of the Gorgonzola was present but not too strong. It was delightful. If offered, you should take it.

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For the main course Bron seemed tempted by a lamb special but in the end we both went for the suckling pig on lentils.

Suckling pig

Trying again after tweaking #dinner #main suckling pig with lentils. This was sublime. Sorry the lighting was really low. #superyummy

This was sublime. I’ve not had better pork. The crackling came away easily. It was thin, crispy and easy to cut and eat bite sized pieces. The muscle was perfectly cooked. It could be cut with a spoon but it wasn’t falling apart. The taste was exceptional. The lentils with the meat were delightful. Combined with a forkful of salad it was perfectly balanced.

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Rocket, pear and shaved ricotta salata

#dinner #salad rocket pear and Parmesan #superyummy

This was a lovely salad

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The service was really very good. Our main server was a dead ringer for Freddy Mercury. He was attentive and helpful and knowledgeable about all the dishes and the wines. The other wait staff were also very helpful and attentive. I feel a bit bad we didn’t stay for dessert. We talked about it and we both wanted to go to Koko Black for dessert and have some chocolate.

As promised in a previous post I’m going to start adding a napkin and dunny rating. For Italian & Sons the first thing I noticed was the cloth napkins which means pass, that said after I went to the dunny I noticed on my return it had been refolded neatly which gives Italian & Sons an exceptional napkin rating. The toilet has earnt a 4/5 dunny rating. If it wasn’t for the bulk toilet paper dispenser it would have been a 4.5/5. I really don’t like the bulk dispensers. I understand why they’re installed but as a user rather than an owner/cleaner, I prefer a standard toilet roll. The hand basin, taps, soap dispenser and paper towel dispenser were all good. The toilet pedestal itself was clean and it looked well maintained. The room itself was a nice size.

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Italian and Sons - Vino e Cucina on Urbanspoon

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For dessert we walked around to Koko Black in the cold night air. I was shivering and my teeth chattered a little. Getting into Koko Black was cosy and warming. Bron chose a chocolate mousse and I asked for a chocolate affogato.

Chocolate affogato

#dessert chocolate affogato #yummy

Yay the lighting in Koko Black is more photo friendly :-)

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Koko Black on Urbanspoon

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The night was a wonderful combination of food. The entrée and main at Italian & Sons was something all Canberra residents should try. Look through the sample menu and choose a night. I can’t say anything else is better than the suckling pig if you’re a meaty like me. Koko Black appears regularly in this blog. You know that means it’s good.

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The finalists for the Best Blogs 2013 have been announced. Check out the finalists here  Congratulations to all the finalists especially Christina the hungry Australian

The people’s choice round is still open. I’d love for you to vote for Yummy Lummy if you haven’t voted already.

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Italian & Sons http://www.italianandsons.com.au/
Italian & Sons sample menu http://www.italianandsons.com.au/assets/files/f919bbf39.pdf
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/QkU5s


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Koko Black http://www.kokoblack.com/
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/6rTJJ


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Wraps as a theme | Shout out @hilahcooking | #bestblogs13

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For the last week I’ve been eating more meals as wraps. My week in Instagram shows it in graphic detail :-)   I’m not sure why I’ve turned to wraps this week. Instagram followers will be familiar with my love of the Mavi Breakfast Wrap over the last 18 months.

On Thursday night I enjoyed an Elite Meats Black Angus and Burgundy sausage wrap

More prize meat from Elite Meats as part of my @2CC prize. Black Angus and Burgundy snags in a salad wrap. #dinner #yummy

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The sausage wrap was followed on Friday morning with a Mavi Breakfast wrap

Hey @hilahcooking this is my breakfast wrap full of bacon, egg, mushroom, hash brown, cheese and barbecue sauce goodness #breakfast #breakfastforwoojm #yummy

This is my wrap laid bare for all to see. The Mavi Breakfast wrap contains bacon, egg, mushrooms, hash brown, cheese and barbecue sauce.

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In between Hilah Johnson from Hilah Cooking posted a video on a Smoked Sausage Wrap

YouTube of Hilah cooking a sausage http://youtu.be/z15XchLnLqc

I decided on Friday I was so going to make a version of Hilah’s sausage wrap because my version from Thursday night was crap in comparison. I split my snag and added onion.

Hilah Cooking http://hilahcooking.com/
Hilah’s smoked sausage wrap http://hilahcooking.com/smoked-sausage-wrap/

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On Sunday night I made a chicken and onion wrap

Tonight's chicken and caramelised onion wrap

#dinner my chicken and caramelised onion wrap #yummy

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I did the onions in the afternoon. I needed three large brown onions, a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of brown sugar and a two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. I spent about an hour softening the onions with the oil and a good pinch of salt. I then added the sugar and vinegar and stirred regularly for another hour. It turned into a lovely gooey mess of happiness. I also added a little curry powder and smoked paprika for flavour.

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On Monday evening Bron came over for dinner and inspired by Hilah I made a sausage and onion wrap.

#dinner Black Angus and burgundy sausage wrap with caramelised onion, salad and cheese #yummy

Bron brought over some caramelised onion she bought at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. I cooked the sausages like Hilah did in her video and made the wrap. The bread I bought even came with little paper pocket bags.

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The best part of the evening though was that Bron brought over some of her home made macarons and non-churn ice cream. The flavours were orange and cardamon and lemon curd ice creams. The macarons where chocolate with chocolate popping candy ganache and lemon curd.

#dessert Bron's homemade non churn lemon curd and orange cardamom ice creams plus lemon and chocolate macarons #yummy

This dessert was amazingly good. Bron is a genius in the kitchen and a genius in general (yes her IQ is off the charts)

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Mavi http://www.maviturkish.com.au/
Mavi Phillip Menu http://www.maviturkish.com.au/images/Mavi-Phillip.pdf
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/A17B8


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Hilah Cooking http://hilahcooking.com/
Hilah’s smoked sausage wrap http://hilahcooking.com/smoked-sausage-wrap/

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2 Yummy in Belconnen | Not 2 Yummy for Yummy Lummy | Laksa and Duck | #bestblogs13

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The other night while at Sanur’s Balinese Restaurant we noticed another restaurant named 2 YUMMY.

We noticed the interesting Chef’s recommendations

2 YUMMY Menu

Look @donovanshaw intestines

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As much as I wanted to try (and I (or DrOffal) will try) Mountain city hot intestines and Intestines in black pepper sauce, we were keen for a nice laksa.

On Saturday night we went back to get some takeaway

Sorry about the poor photography

Tonight's takeaway

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The barbecue pork laksa was really good

BBQ Pork laksa #dinner #yummy from #2yummy

I’m glad I’ve discovered a local place to get a decent laksa. Winter in Canberra is pretty cold so a nice hot laksa is so good to have.

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So was the “Super tasty boneless duck” from the house specialties.

Super tasty boneless duck #dinner #yummy from #2yummy

This was really tasty and the skin divine

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2 YUMMY is definitely a worthwhile place to visit and eat. We’ll be back.

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2 Yummy BBQ Noodle House on Urbanspoon

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2 YUMMY www.2yummy.com.au
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/vJ2lA


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2 YUMMY menu
Banquet menu PDF
Suckling pig banquet menu PDF

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Lunch at Ricardo’s Cafe | #bestblogs13

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Yesterday Bron and I had lunch at Ricardo’s Cafe at the Jamison Shops in Macquarie

I had a caramel milkshake to start while Bron had a latte (no latte picture)

#lunch caramel milkshake #yummy

This was lovely and thick with a good caramel flavour. Not too much and not too little.

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We shared a smoked salmon fritter meal

#lunch salmon fritters #yummy

Three fritters. One each and one split down the middle. It was a good size for two.

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We then shared a caramel mousse

#lunch caramel mousse #yummy

This was amazing. So light yet so full of texture with the salted peanuts and pistachios. The peanut brittle cap was brilliant. The base was also crunchy and not gooey. We cut it into two halves and shared.

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Cut in half

#lunch inside the caramel mousse #yummy

So you can see all the happy mousse goodness.

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Ricardo’s Cafe is a gem in a suburban shopping centre in the north side of Canberra. I hope it never changes.

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Ricardo’S Cafe on Urbanspoon

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Ricardo’s Cafe http://ricardoscafe.com/
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/Dp0Sr


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My new food tube

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Miss15 bought me a couple of food tubes this weekend. I was up in Brisbane visiting my daughters and we went shopping and Miss15 asked if I wanted anything for the fathers day just past a few weeks ago. We were in kitchenware shop looking at cake decorating stuff and I saw a couple of food tubes.

Click on the images to reveal higher resolution views

I seared some Atlantic salmon and mashed some potato and sweet potato in my ricer. I put it into the food tube and created a mash tower in the centre of the plate. I topped this with spring onions. I made a thickish honey soy sauce (it had caramelised and become sticky) to drizzle on the mash stack and vegetables.

And to prove I could do it again, this is from Monday night.

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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.

Honey soy salmon

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After such a big weekend in food and a long day at work I thought something simple was needed. Then I remembered I still had some Zymil lactose-free gluten-free light cream in the refrigerator. I had opened it early last week and I needed to get one more use out of the small bottle. On the way home I bought a couple of spuds and thought salmon on a bed of mash with some veges. Bron regularly mentions the lack of greens on my plate so I steamed some asparagus and broccolini as greens.  I also steamed some carrot and added some honey after it was soft and tender. The honey is important because when it is warm it’s runny and along with some of the water from the carrot I used it for the honey soy sauce at the end.

I love my potato ricer. It is such a neat invention and makes such great mash. I boiled two spuds and put them through my ricer and added a dollop of cream plus a tablespoon of Dijon mustard and a teaspoon of garlic from a bottle of raw garlic. This was stirred in along with some finely sliced spring onion and some salt and pepper.

After pan frying the salmon and making sure the skin was crispy I added the honey juice from the carrot to the fry pan and then a dash of soy. I reduced this a little and spooned the sauce over the salmon.

The result was a delicious meal of salmon, mash, greens and carrot.

Honey soy salmon with asparagus, broccolini, carrot and mash (Nikon D90)

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Thai barbecue lamb at Chong Co Thai Restaurant

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Today was busy and hectic. Bron and I finished later than normal. We agreed on a quick meal at Chong Co. We’ve been there many times before.

Tonight Bron had the barbecue perch and I had the barbecue lamb along with some coconut rice. Bron also tried the house wine, suitably named, Chong Co Chardonnay.

Barbecue lamb (iPhone)

Tonight the lamb was not as tender as previous times. The perch though was very nicely cooked. It was delicious. Bron enjoyed her Chardonnay and the rice was nicely cooked and flavoured.

The Chong Co restaurant in Belconnen is worth visiting and trying.

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Roast lamb and smashed potatoes

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Some time ago I had the best roast lamb at a friend’s house. It was an awesome dinner party. This week I’ve eaten a good share of lamb (Australia Day dinner. Yes it’s lamb again. and Lamb cutlets with mint sauce and radish salad) and just feel the need for more. I didn’t feel the need to buy a shoulder, rather Coles had cheap lamb bones on sale which I thought would be good enough since they were ribs. Intercostal muscle is always tasty although it can be tough, so it needs long slow cooking.

Following my friend’s advice I laid down a bed of garlic and rosemary and overlaid that with lamb. On top I put in more garlic and rosemary and then covered snugly with aluminium foil. I placed the tray in a hot oven 240 °C for 30 minutes and then turned it down to 150 °C for a few hours. When it was ready I pulled the tray out and allowed the meat to cool enough for me to pick the meat from the bones and then put on my dinner plate.

These were cheap as at Coles.

There was lots of garlic. I pity friends who sit near me tomorrow.

The smashed potatoes were made by boiling a few spuds until just tender, allowing them to cool, ‘smashing’ them with your hand and then covering with salt, pepper, herbs and butter.

After boiling and smashing, in the tray.

The spuds should be boiled to just soft enough to smash with the heel of your hand.

Cover with salt, pepper and your herbs of choice. I chose oregano.

The potatoes need to be seasoned well.

Butter is also important.

As I’ve said before butter (like bacon) makes everything taste better.

The bones came out with the meat soft enough to pull away.

It is always a feeling of accomplishment when meat is cooked the way you like.

Plated up lamb and potatoes.

I should have made some gravy, but in truth it wasn’t necessary.

Poh does a nice rendition of this which can be found at the ABC website.

For alternative guidance on smashed potatoes here’s a youtube video to assist.

The images were captured with Lumix point and shoot AVCHD Lite.

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Australia Day dinner. Yes it’s lamb again.

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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.

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