Gluttony is a Sin

where: Gluttony, Smith St Fitzroy
what: Grilled baby octupus salad, side order of potato salad, skinny cappucino, freshly sqeezed apple juice, lots of water
when: yesterday afternoon

The first time I went to Gluttony, I was warned 'don't get the breakfasts. They're alright, but they're nothing special. You must order off the board.'

I ignored this directive and ordered poached eggs with hollandaise, and as warned, they were nice (I love poached eggs and hollandaise, I'd a lot of the time rather have just the eggs than the ham, spinach or smoked salmon you get with eggs benedict and florentine), but they were nothing special. And the meals of my dining companions were.

Rachel had a warm gnocci salad, and Liz had the terrine plate, and both looked and tasted amazing. And both were massive. There's not a lot you can do to make eggs on toast look big, so my meal looked teeny in comparison.

So, this time, I was determined to have that kind of experience with my Gluttony dining, and ordered appropriately. Massively. Three drinks and two meals. It made sense at the time, I promise.

Baby octopus salad. Firstly, mmmmm, seafood. Secondly, mmmm, fetta cheese and sundried tomatoes and olives. Thirdly, mmmm, chargrilled eggplant and sweet potato. This dish usually also comes with chargrilled capsicum, but the taste of capsicum makes me wanna vom, so I ordered it without.

The fetta cheese was crumbled into the dressing, so the entire salad was drenched in the yummy salty cheesy taste. The sweet potato and eggplant were chargrilled to perfection and had caramelised crunchy outsides. The small octopi were fantastic, and my only beef with the entire salad was that some of the larger octopi were really quite undercooked. In fact I left the largest one on my plate because I just couldn't stomach it.
Potato salad was chosen from a display of salads, because it looked so tasty. It was actually a bit of a disappointment, at least as a companion to the octopus, as the dressing was fairly bland, and just couldn't stand up to the fetta cheese dressing on the other salad.

In the potato salad's favour, however: Hardboiled eggs cooked exactly right. The whites were solid but not rubbery, and the yolk was set but arrested before it got to that awful dry, chalky texture. I am sure that this would have been a lovely salad to have with steak or maybe with some chicken, but it just couldn't compete with the octopus.

Food Sookery

Having dinner last night with a 'Food Sook' was quite an experience. Not just a food sook, but a food ignoramus.

He ordered chicken and rice. Something came out that he thought was chicken and rice, he ate about half of it, when we realised we were missing a salt and pepper calamari. We looked at his meal. We ask him if his meal could possibly be it. He looks down, chews the food in his mouth thoughtfully... 'uuum, maybe'.

He hands the meal over.

It's salt and pepper fish.

Which mean's another of our dining group is eating something that's not his, but at least he's eating the same species as he ordered.

So then we realise that we're missing a chicken and rice, and a salt and pepper calamari.

Our food sook's meal comes out, and he then refuses to eat it because all of the bits of food are touching the other bits of food. I mean, really. Am I the only one who is just bamboozled by this idea?

We didn't make him pay for dinner. If you can't tell the difference between fish, calamari, and chicken, the world needs to take pity on you.

Roast Duck Leg - London Tavern, Richmond

I ate: Roast duck leg with sweet potato cake, green beans and mandarin sauce
I drank: carlton draught, in pots, from jugs.

As people who eat with me often would know, duck is probably my favourite meat. Tastier, I guess a bit gamier than chicken, but still poultry. It's delicous. I don't think I've ever disliked a duck meal I've eaten, so really, me reviewing this meal would be like me trying to objectively review the Dresden Dolls concert I saw last night after dinner. Just not gonna happen. I'm going to rave.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the 'sweet potato cake', bloody Melbournites referring to a slice of battered deep fried potato as a 'cake', but it turns out to be more related to the traditional cake than to the fish-and-chip-shop-staple. A dense wedge of mashed sweet potato, with herbs and spices throughout, and a deliciously caramelised bottom (I think it may actually have been overcooked, but it worked in it's favour).

The duck was perhaps a little bit dry, but made up for that by having beautiful crispy skin that almost got to pork-crackling texture. *drool*. The mandarin sauce was not as sweet as I expected, which is a good thing, mandarin can end to the over-sweet when used in anything other than desserts, and there was plenty of it, enough to compliment both the duck and the cake. When I was done with eating, Ray and Tim both had to try the sauce, and I think both almost had an urge to have a second dinner!

Side notes: sanitary pads (in particular, Libre Hearts) do burn when placed in a burning fire, but will do so in several layers, and smell quite toxic. An entire box of matches will catch on fire, and then make cool noises when all the match-heads ignite at once. The chips I stole off Tim's plate were cold but very very tasty, and I was nearly tempted to get a side order to go with my duck.

Tapas - RedTounge, Brunswick Street

I ate: Mixed tapas plate
I drank: one skinny cappucino, two glasses of house red (and plenty more later at the corner. my liver aches.)

After wandering Brunswick Street from Alexandra Ave to Gertrude Street, at that terribly inconvenient time of day when lunchtime cafes are closing and dinner restaurants are yet to fling wide their doors, I stumbled across this little cafe.

Outdoor seating was fab, until the rain started pouring down and tables needed to be rearranged, but the heavy-duty umbrellas pretected me from getting wet (*looks smug*). The service was quick and attentive, especially to the poor buggers who were caught in the rain and needed their tables moved speedily.

The tapas menu has 7 options, and can all be ordered seperately, or mixed plates containing your choice of 3 or 5 of the tidbits can be brought out to your table, and the portions are quite hefty.

I chose:

Marinated bocconcini and olive salad
Parmeasan and herb crumbed mushrooms
Lamb kofta served with Tzatziki
Mild chilli fried calamari with lime and coriander mayo
Crumbed deep fried sardines with a napoli sauce

It comes out presented in one massive three-part-connected bowl and a couple of smaller side plates, and the combination of the flavours over the five dishes was really quite special. The calamari by itsef was perhaps a bit bland and average, but the flavour of the mayo it came with complimented not only the calamari, but the sardines, the bocconcini and the mushrooms as well. The bocconcini marinade was perhaps a little too mild for my tastes, I generally feel that the best was to marinate bocconcini is with vinegar, loads of it, preferably balsamic, as it helps cut through the fatty creamy taste of the cheese. This is a personal gripe though, and the olives and tomato combination in the rest of the salad was a winner.

The sardines were amazing, and I haven't ever eaten sardines before. They were always something Mum used to eat on toast when she couldn't be arsed cooking, and they looked and smelt horrible (much like her other staple can't-be-fucked meal - baked beans. I still can't eat those horrid looking fuckers). They were salty, and tasty, and with the crumbed-ed-ness and the napoli sauce, almost looked like miniature chicken parmas. Sardines are now added to my list of approved foods.

The mushrooms looked dry on the ouside, but were very succulent and tasty when I bit through the outer crumbly layer. The koftas (I love that word. Kofta. Say it aloud!), while there were only two of them, were quite large, and very yummy, I can't quite place the spices that were used to flavour them. The tzatziki looked like it came out of a Chris's Dips tub, but as I love tzatziki (another fabulous word), that's not really a complaint.

All in all a great meal, though would have been better without the rain, for more people watching, or with a mag. Eating alone can get a bit boring.

Welcome, Inroduction, yadda yadda...

OK, so I finally succumbed to this here blogging lark, and as I have one of the most boring lives in existance, I figured I'd talk about FOOD.

Good food, bad food, food I cook myself, food I buy at cafes, markets, restaurants, and so on and so forth. I love eating. Eating for sustinance, eating for enjoyment, occaisionally even eating for comfort or boredom.

I will endeavor to share my culinary adventures with you in any way I can - be it recipes, restaurant reviews, photos, or a simple 'DO NOT EAT AT ____'.

I am making myself hungry.