Monday, June 27, 2011

MONA Museum Cafe

J and I recently checked out the Museum of Old and New Art - a pretty incredible place. While we were there we had lunch at the museum cafe. It was busy the whole time we were there - they must have a pretty high turnover!
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I had the pie, which was tasty with lovely pastry (a pie isn't good without nice pastry!) mona3 J had the eggs benedict muffin. The sauce looked a bit strange (not quite as strange as the photo makes it look) but it all tasted good. mona1 He was feeling hungry so also enjoyed a chicken wrap. mona2 Next time I'm there I'd like to check out the Wine Bar - the menu looked really interesting. And I'd also love to go to the Source restaurant sometime, perhaps for a special occasion.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Fish Frenzy, Elizabeth Street Pier

A recent Saturday lunch. I had the prawns with Caesar salad... I made a bad menu choice. The salad was drowning in dressing and the prawns were what you'd expect from a corner fish and chippery. ff Seafood chowder - this was J's much better menu choice. Thick and hearty and perfect for a cold day. ff2

Fish Frenzy on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Scary food

This is the 'Saffron rice' that we received from an unnamed Indian restaurant in Launceston recently. I haven't altered the colours in the picture at all! scary The curries that we got with the rice didn't fare much better in terms of authenticity...

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Maldini, Salamanca

J and I enjoyed at Saturday lunch at Maldini. I've been there for breakfast a couple of times and really like it, and have meaning to try their non-breakfast food for ages... finally got around to it! They have heaps of amazing sounding things on the menu which you can see online - I particularly wanted to try the pork loin dish but it seemed a bit much for a lunch time.

I ended up going for a dish from the Specials menu, which was a creamy salmon and asparagus fettuccine. It was delicious but deceptively rich - I couldn't finish it all, and went home and lay about in a food coma for the afternoon!

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J had a beautiful dish of crispy skinned Atlantic salmon on smashed créme fraîche pinkeyes with a tomato, green olive & lemon salsa. Everything about this was perfect.

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Maldini Cafe Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Cider tasting night at the New Sydney Hotel

Last Wednesday the New Sydney Hotel held a cider tasting night. Ticket cost was $40 and that covered ciders and food. It was brilliant - some interesting and uncommon ciders matched with some fabulous food. They were very generous with the cider too - it just kept on coming!

We started off with a glass of Napoleon Perry - I've had their apple cider before but not the pear, and it was really nice. This was matched with 'Two flavours of cider: tea of cider hot and cold', which you can see in the smaller, right-hand glass in the picture below. It was made up of two layers of a cider jelly - the top 'hot' layer had chilli, ginger and juniper berries, and the bottom cold layer had lemongrass and something that I have forgotten - perhaps elderflower? It was really interesting to drink - I noticed a few people around us didn't finish theirs but I loved it. The chef told us what the jelly was made with - not gelatine or agar agar, but another combination of fancy ingredients/chemicals that escapes me...

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Most of the food involved heading up to the chef's table at the front to grab a plate - this is the preparation of the next course:

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...which was rolled chicken, silverbeet, purple potato, chicken glaze. Very tasty and it matched nicely with the True South Miss Muffet apple cider. This cider was new to me and my favourite from the night. I'm happy to see that the New Sydney now has this on tap.

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Next up was apple and mustard cured salmon with lemon myrtle cream and an apple wafer. The salmon was melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

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It was matched with the Green Goblin cider - the match was really good, although it's not a favourite cider of mine.

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Next we had 'crisp pork fingers with apple' which were presented like pork lollipops. Another excellent match here, paired with Aspall cider from the UK.

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Elderflower sorbet with crisp chilli, served with Inn Cider. The sorbet was nicely refreshing and I've been a fan of Inn Cider for a while, but it was probably the least successful pairing of the night.

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With many drinks comes fuzzy photos taken after food has been nibbled on... these cheeses were served with crackers, bread and two jellies including a very nice raspberry jelly. Loved the soft cheese. It was served with Kelly Brothers cider.

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We finished up with crispy, sweet beetroot biscuits served with a hot apple cider topped with foam. The menu had 'cider macaroon' as the final course, and I was a bit sad not to get this - perhaps something went wrong...

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Our pile of drinks by the end of the night!

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During the tasting we had talks from a new cider producer, a cider judge and one of the New Sydney's chefs, both very informative and it was clear that lots of people there were very interested in what they had to say.

It was a great night with HEAPS of cider and tasty food. I hope they do another one soon! (this was the first cider tasting night but they've held beer and whiskey tastings before).

A few cider drinkers read this blog - what's your favourite? :)