A bunch of us headed to Melbourne for the weekend for a quick weekend away. The last time I was there was about 7 years ago so it’s been a while and I’d forgotten just how much I love the place (But don’t tell any Melbournians that).

We flew down with Tiger airways and it was a pretty safe and smooth flight. At this stage I was thinking ‘There’s nothing wrong with Tiger airways, what’s all the fuss about’. Well, that all changed in a few days (but I’ll get to that later).

This was our accommodation – Darling Tower on Collins Street. It’s pretty good if you’re on a budget. Decent size rooms, kitchen, balcony, and the best part – the location. It’s pretty awesome having a tram stop right in front of your door.

One of the stand out memories from my previous trip to Melbourne was Lygon Street. Seriously the best Italian food I’ve ever eaten!

After this trip my memory remains unchanged. Still the best Italian ever! If you’re heading to Lygon Street I’d highly recommend this place.

I’m not really sure if it’s called University Cafe or Universita Restaurant. I didn’t notice at the time, but there’s 2 different signs.

As usual I ordered the marinara. Man it was huge! I kept trying to share my food so I’d have room for dessert but I failed. I don’t have a separate stomach for dessert.

All up, great food and decently priced. Love Lygon Street!

A couple of weeks ago I tried Adriano Zumbo’s macaroons, and while they are really good, I think the Lindt cafe does a better job. They’re bigger (and hence more expensive), fluffier (oh so fluffy) and I think the overall flavour and texture is better at Lindt. Some of Adriano’s were a little too sweet for my liking, but that’s just me.

There’s so many flavours at the Lindt cafe, making it hard for an indecisive person like myself to choose. I ended up picking a handful of different flavours, the most interesting ones were Salty Caramel, Champagne and Olive Oil. My advice: steer clear of the Olive Oil one. I couldn’t quite figure out what it tasted like, it’s just odd. I would however, highly recommend Salty Caramel. As for Champagne … meh, didn’t mind it.

I was pretty impressed with the macaroons at Lindt, but I’ve heard rumours of even better macaroons at La Renaissance at the Rocks. Guess there’s only one way to find out…

Lisa got free tickets to the Home Buyers and Property Investors Expo so we thought we’d check it out. At the least I thought I would leave with a few free pens but I actually picked up quite a few good tips here and there, and a handful of free property magazines. Nice!

With the early morning start (well, early for me) and the required use of my brain on the weekend, we were both up for a good feed. Hurricanes seemed like the perfect fit.

Rainy weekends are perfect for staying in, and with G’s basil plant going nuts, pesto-making was the perfect fit for the Sunday afternoon. It’s actually really easy to make, it’s just a bit of banging and mixing in the mortar and pestle, and you’re done. The hardest part of the process was finding a jar to put it in.

My first visit to Bodega was short-lived. It was about 9ish on a Friday night and the wait for a table was too long so we ventured elsewhere.

To ensure we got a table this time round (they don’t take bookings, gr…), we got there right on opening time – 6pm. There was already a line forming at the door, but we got a seat.

I would highly recommend the fish fingers. As you can see from the picture below, they’re not your typical ‘fish fingers’. It’s Kingfish sashimi with little bits of cuttlefish on garlic toast. The puzzling thing was even though there was a heap of onion on top, it wasn’t onion-ey.

Pumpkin and feta empanadas with yoghurt sauce. Pretty average without the yoghurt sauce, awesome with it.

Never had Spatchcock before, it just tastes like chicken.

The pork belly was pretty good. And again, it’s not your usual pork belly with crispy crackling on top. It’s steamed pork belly with a shiitake mushroom and onion salad. At first it was weird that the skin wasn’t crispy, but you get use to it and grow to like it.

I sort of went a little camera happy with Lily when I was in Byron. Couldn’t help it, she’s just so cute! G took the photo above. Cute huh?

Here’s a few shots.

All you have to do is look at her and she smiles.

Love the faces she pulls.

Wish you guys lived in Sydney. I miss the little one!

Finally got to try Adriano Zumbo’s macaroons. Even though it’s months after the Masterchef-macaroon-madness, we still had to line up – out the door – for the macaroons! Crazy.

We got an interesting selection of flavours: Pistachio and apricot, Rice pudding and Finger bun. I think I like rice pudding the best, it’s not as sweet and has little bits of rice in the middle.

btw: sorry about the crappy photo, seeing that I’ve lost my camera it’s the best I can do.

Jan and Esta recently got engaged and decided to throw an impromptu engagement party. She only gave us a weeks notice of the party so it was a bit of a rushed trip. And I was lucky enough to fly Virgin Blue on the days their IT system crashed. Gr…

The day before the party was pretty crazy. Esta’s a chef so she decided to cater for the party herself; with us as the kitchen hand. I’ve seriously never grated so many veggies in my life. I had muscles the next day from grating and chopping so much. This was the frittata mixture: grated carrots, zucchini, potato, pumpkin; capsicum; fresh corn off the cob; spinach and two dozen eggs. The tray was giant – so giant that it actually didn’t fit in the oven. FAIL!

Esta’s concoction: Cherry tomato, basil and bocconcini sticks drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Yum…

Apart from chopping and grating, we also had to roll. Gav and I spent what felt like hours rolling rice paper rolls, I think we made about 80 rolls all up. It was all worth it though, they were a huge hit. Jerry nearly ate an entire plate all by himself.

The never-ending punch bowl. It’s always dangerous having a punch bowl at a party, especially when there’s cheeky boys constantly topping it up with God knows what. It was a bit hard to keep track of what was going in the punch bowl throughout the night but whatever it was, it was still delicious.

And now for the main attraction. The dish that stopped the party. Max’s Pavluva (Heart shaped pavlova).

When these rolled out everyone went silent. Everyone was too busy eating to talk.

I kid you not, Max’s Pavluva is THE BEST pavlova I’ve ever had. It wasn’t too sweet and it had a really nice gooey bit in the middle. Sheer heaven! And to top it off, that morning Max picked 5kgs of Mulberries and made his own Mulberry sauce. YUM!

I had seriously died and gone to heaven, then snapped back to reality and I remembered I had to share my dessert with G.

It was an amazing party all up. You had the a great mix of people, awesome food, great punch and the best dessert ever.

Congrats Jan and Esta!

It’s been a while since my last post but I’m back! I’d like to say that I’m back stronger than ever but that would be a lie, if anything it’s the opposite. I lost my little pocket camera and suffered from 2 types of the flu (normal flu AND stomach flu). Fun times! In between that I did a quick trip to Byron (my second home), more on Byron coming soon.

If you’ve been in my car you’ll know that the radio is permanently set to 105.7 – Triple J. I have Maree to thank for that, she introduced me to triple j about 3 years ago and ever since then I haven’t looked back. I actually think I’ve turned into a radio station snob. The other day I had to endure a whole day of listen to one of the commercial radio stations and by the end of the day I was seriously going to rip my ears off.

When I was explaining this to a work mate he kindly lent me a batch of his Triple J Hottest 100 albums to re-educate myself. I think he’s got pretty much all of them so I’m borrowing them 5 CDs at a time. Good music here we come!