Pho review

This was just okaaay... From Mandalay Bay on Brunswick St. The chicken was kind of weird- too thick and dry. It sounds strange but it wasn't oily enough. The stock tasted ok though.

Phometer: 6/10




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Naked for Satan

I am SO full. Like Christmas full. And I only spent $3.50. And I'm not in Thailand.

Camille and I had lunch today at Naked for Satan, Fitzroy- it's a gourmet vodka bar or something like that, with lots of copper sculptures and exposed brick and awkwardly named cocktails. That aside, it serves amazing food in the form of Pintxos- Spanish tapas style snacks.

Cold Pintxos are displayed on trays near the bar and hot ones are passed around by staff. Each Pixtos usually takes the form of a piece of bread topped with something amazing held together by a toothpick. You help yourself, collect the toothpicks and then keep them in a little plastic cup. When you're achingly full you present your little cup at the counter and they add up your toothpicks. During weekday lunchtimes, each toothpick = 50 cents YES 50 cents.

I have taken quite a few people here because it is yummy, filling, well-presented food and yes, only 50 cents a serve. I think the most I've eaten was $5 worth. When I brought a certain hefty Swede, he spent an unimaginable $12.

Here's what I ate today:

Tempura eggplant, blue cheese and honey: OMG amazing.
Blue cheese, quince paste, walnuts and cos: anything with blue cheese is obviously amazing.
Pureed cauliflower and garlic prawns: VERY garlicky but so good.
I also had an anchovy, caramelised onion and olive one that I ate too quickly to photograph.

This was some kind of chorizo sausage and relish, it was flavoursome, but not spicy enough.

This was a pork and fennel sausage on caramelised onions.

By this stage I was pretty full after all that bread and sausage and we decided that we'd had enough. Just as I was about to get up the girl brought over this fried sardine aoli thing. Camille and I nearly bit her hand off. It was so salty, fishy and garlicky. Why don't I eat sardines more? It's really satisfying eating another creature's tiny bones.

Birthday cake

It was my birthday this week, so I baked a cake! I had problems deciding what to bake, but then I remembered an old favourite, that was actually in one of my cookbook's.

I baked Marängtårta (Meringue) from the book Svenska folkets 100 bästa recept ur Allt om Mat (1989) (the Swedish people's 100 best recipes from Allt om mat). Allt om Mat is a really good Swedish food magazine. I got the book from my mum, i guess around the time when it was published, and i have actually cooked a couple of things from it.

In the book they cover the meringue with a chocolate custard, but i wanted lemon and found a recipe on Allt om Mat's website.

I covered the meringue with lemon custard, whipped cream, raspberries and blueberries

It was yummy!!! 

You can find the recipes here: 

Kripig marängtårta med citronkräm (in Swedish)

Rice Krispies Meringue Cake with Lemon Custard (in English)

Ida's cookbooks

I've got a kitchen full of lovely cookbook that i never cook from. I love to look at the pictures and read recipes for inspiration, but i never actually cook anything from them. So one of my goals with this blog is to actually cook something from every cookbook that i've got.