Raining Chaos

Author: reine

  • Running, jumping, and vivid succulent trees

    Every now and again, I get my weird, random dreams that I actually remember in enough detail that I can actually blog about it like an epic story. And when I get really lucky, it comes illustrated!

    Turns out dreaming can really tire you, especially if you spend 2-3 dream hours running away from what you think are bad guys, but you’re not really sure because it’s not explained in your dream why they’re chasing you, your friend simply says so, and they’re waving guns about, so you may as well run for your life.

    In my case, I was with a friend and we were getting ready to be in a play. First we’re getting our costumes ready, next we’re sitting in the audience, staring at an empty stage waiting for things to happen. My friend got up and started walking off, and indicated for me to do the same. I was confused, but followed her lead. It turns out she just wanted to escape, so we spent the first part of our night out on the streets, just walking about, when I came across a succulent tree. With chunky, triangular leaves and bright orange and red flowers as big as my hand, the branches weighed down from all the water in the leaves, enough that the flowers were within my reach. I also wanted to take a cutting so I could grow them at home. I reached out, plucked one, but then found that the entire tree was infested! White caterpillars and a bright green gummy worm (yes, a gummy worm) were all over my flower, so I threw it back on the ground. I had no time to be disappointed as some mysterious guy started walking towards us – possibly a council worker or something, so my friend and I quickly disappeared.

    (more…)

  • Snobbery snob snob

    So the other day, I met my first real snob. Not just a pretend snob, or wannabe snob, this was an absolutely real, fully fledged snob, and it was an amazing experience.

    Basically, I was frequenting my cafe, sitting at the communal table eating waffles, and eventually the barista asked me how my coffee was. The person diagonally opposite me then got asked the same thing. Due to my response (which was usually some panicked survival instinct kicking in to help me describe my coffee in the hopes of not sounding like I have no clue), he started talking to me. It always starts out the same, “so you like coffee?” which then turned into a very interesting conversation.

    (more…)

  • Orana

     

    I’ve hyped up this restaurant amongst my friends, mostly because I have an incredibly well connected barista. On top of that, I managed to stalk Heston Blumenthal as I’d been given a heads up that he was visiting, as well as having read an article by Terry Durack from his visit. All the big names! How could I not go? So I went!

    I did some research before going, and discovered that the staff had previously worked at Magill Estate (which I was totally unaware of, having been an ignorant Sydney-sider who only pined for Quay and Rockpool), which apparently is an amazing restaurant. Much like Attica, the head chef forages, and the cuisine is indigenous Australian – and not witchetty grubs, mind you – but rather encompassing all of Australia’s history including the present, so there was some tasty beef and my favourite succulents.

    Being only 3 weeks old and a tiny place to start off with (25 seats), it was interesting to talk to the staff, and that they were learning  as well, especially since they created a per-dish juice pairing (unlike Momofuku, which paired every second dish or thereabouts). So I would say this was even a new juice pairing concept!

    Now that’s enough rambling and onto pretty pictures.

    (more…)

  • Vue de Monde

    I didn’t know too much about Melbourne (and still don’t know as much as I’d like) so trying to figure out which restaurant to book was a little tricky. The only place I had really wanted to go to was Cumulus Inc/Cumulus Up, so after thinking and taking a stab in the dark, I chose Vue de Monde.

    It sits in the Rialto tower and gets a view of the city, though not really a pretty view or anything. What was exciting though, was this was probably the most fun and interactive degustations I’ve had, especially considering I had Momofuku not even two weeks prior.

    These were pre-meal snacks on our “Stonehenge” table – smoked eel with white chocolate candy and caviar, salt and vinegar chips with macadamia butter, truffle marshmallows, and oysters. The table decorations were amazing as the rocks formed part of the service, and cutlery was placed on pretty pieces of wood. Apparently there is a tea pairing at this place, however we didn’t realise until after we had finished. That means a re-visit is necessary!
    (more…)

  • Momofuku Seiōbo

    I should try and visit a 3-hatted restaurant every year. It’s expensive but so worth it! This time it was a visit to Momofuku and its 13 course degustation. It’s the first time I’ve seen both “reduced” wine and juice pairings, which means I could enjoy some tailored drinks. I found their choice of music to be rather amusing, but hey, it worked if it was meant to be the essence of America… or something. Forgive me for not remembering the names and types of drinks paired with the food; I’m no master of memory… yet!

    Smoked eel

    Freeze-dried apple

    What I also found quirky about this place was that they encouraged the use of hands with some of their dishes. The smoked eel roll was eaten with hands, and it was kind of like eel-mashed potato. I’m sure there’s a name for that: the smoked fish in potato combination. It was paired with apple and celery juice, and some kind of fizzy dry alcoholic liquid.

    (more…)

  • Street_ADL!

    So life is a lot like an RPG where talking to townspeoeple/shopkeeper gets you rep and unlocks information to get you to new areas lol!

    So I got an early heads up about a restaurant that was opening, and managed to visit on day 2 of their soft launch. Apparently called Street_ADL, it’s a wine bar that will have an indigenous Australian degustation restaurant, which I’m really looking forward to as when I hear “indigenous Australian” I think kakadu plum, quandong, saltbush, bush tomato, and Billy Kwong. The chef of the restaurant is also apparently renowned for working in famous restaurants, but I fail and don’t actually recall the names.

    As only the bar was open and the restaurant still in progress, I decided to check it out. I’ve been liking grenache recently, but I still fail and only managed to drink half a glass (I had more planned for later!) and decided to check out the bar food. First thing I spotted was pork crackling, oh yes! Perfectly salted with some sort of pate-like dip.

    (more…)

  • GINger cured salmon???

    For a while now, I’ve wanted to see if I could ever make a vodka ceviche, because it sounds like fun. I may not be able to consume copious amounts of alcohol, but that doesn’t stop me from cooking with it! Or in the case of a ceviche, not even cooking it!

    Me being me, recipes are just guidelines. I take one look, then do whatever I feel like. Which can have disastrous consequences.

    In any case, I tossed together some really random things and decided to go with gin cured salmon.

    Salt, sugar, basil, pepper, gin, lemon juice and a tiny dash of ginger (just so I could write GINger).

    This was me tossing everything into a container. I took no note of how much salt and sugar was in here, and I assumed I had to have enough liquid to cover my fillet. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the recipe I consulted…

    (more…)

  • Mr Black Co

    It has arrived! Batch 1 of the most fantastic combinations ever… and I’m on a no coffee spree again too -_-

    It is definitely awesomely tasty, so this one goes into storage being batch 0001 and all, so I’ll keep it forever and ever. Pretty pictures! But the glass was so shiny it was hard not to get a reflection I didn’t want, so the best I could do were macro shots.


  • WHERE’S MY SOUFFLE, I ASKED FOR A SOUFFLE, WHERE IS IT.

    Turns out yelling about souffles makes people think I’m drunk, which is pretty hilarious. Press* Food&Wine had a souffle special which I passed up for a bombe alaska, and since then I’ve been wishing I also had the souffle. I could always make one, but I’d probably fail miserably. A strawberry vanilla souffle does sound nice if I could pull it off, though.

    In other news, I finally decided to test out preparing a squid. Since my visit to Peel St where they had crispy pork and squid Vietnamese style salad (which was amazing!!!), I’ve been craving squid. I thought it’d be difficult, but after watching a video on how to do it, it wasn’t so bad. It actually happened as the video said it would and it was quick, clean and simple! Since I have previously fried squid legs, this time it was the slow cook challenge. The oven was set to less than 100°C and the squid was cooked for 30mins with salt and olive oil in a bag. The end result was very tender squid – though it could have been a little more perfect to be totally melt in the mouth, but this was a great result regardless.

    (more…)

  • BOMBE ALASKA

    The real bombe alaska; flaming brandy! With a strawberry-raspberry sorbet centre of delicousness and goodness, pineapple and creme anglais. From Press* Food and Wine

    I need to convince someone to sit with me at Peel St so I can grab some pictures from there too. Turns out crispy pork with squid is trending, l o l.