Dresses & Snacks

family-funded food coma

Luckily for me, my Dad still likes me enough to take me out for lunch so when he was in town last week we caught up for some sammiches and other treats.

Our first stop was Lygon Food Store for sammiches. Lygon Food Store doesn't do fancy shmancy Earl Canteen-type sammiches, but they are just as lovely. They use beautiful bread and very fresh fillings in simple, but perfect, combinations. Along with a Capi soda, it makes for a very good mid-week lunch.

Toasted sourdough baguette with smoked turkey, lettuce, tomato and swiss cheese. Very scrumptious!

I was realtively full and possible a little bit food coma-y after sammiches, but we weren't quite done with lunch. Next we wandered around the corner to Brunetti's for coffee (including beans to take home for Dad) and cake for me.

Lemon brûlée tart.

The lemon curd was spot on, very tart and smooth. The pastry was also great, buttery and crumbly. The "brûlée" component was a little lacking though. Instead of crackly, toffee top the tart had more of a jelly-like glaze, like the glaze you would find on a fruit tart. That of course did not stop me from devouring the entire thing. By this point I was definitely on the express train to snooze town.


We made one last stop at Baker D Chirico for some (more) sourdough. Isn't their shop interior beautiful? I'm taken by it every time I visit. It's so simple, and extremely practical (in terms of the softened acoustics it creates as well as the shelving behind the counter) but has such a big impact on the space.

After our mini food tour of Carlton, it was time for Dad to head to the airport and me to head home for a food coma nap. I'm pretty sure I was fast asleep before Dad got to the terminal.

Thanks for the treats Dad!

snapshots - embarrassing my dog and drinking lots of coffee

Nothing too exciting to report from the land of Amy and Karl, but here are some snapshots of what we've been up to lately.

This more or less sums up my existence at present: yellow trace and Sharpies.

Work day treat! A very yummy pain au chocolat from Brioche by Philip


Pretty good rainbow spied from my balcony.

Cooler days means big baby Karl gets shivery! This in turn means it's time for me to embarrass him in sweaters.

Bocce at The Local for a lady friend's birthday.


More work day treats! This time a delicious filter coffee and a brownie so rich it was like eating chocolate mud from Patricia. Patricia's filter coffee is so mellow and creamy they've converted me to black coffee.


Baby Karl in a significantly more embarrassing sweater.


More Patricia coffee magic. This time a cold drip brew with a giant ice cube.


More and more and more coffee! This time in my beautiful, giant, blue cup with a digital print-look floral pattern inside. This baby fits the entire contents of my cafetera making it the perfect study companion.


This one is for Mum so she knows I'm not just drinking coffee and eating cake. Citrus fruit is so yummy at the moment, so I'm eating lots and lots of oranges and mandarins.

Time to get back to my yellow trace and sharpies.

eggscelent breakfast

I would say pardon the dreadful pun of a post title, but I actually love a good pun so shan't be apologising for being so awful.

A little while ago I met some lovely friends for breakfast at Jellystone. It's a lovely little cafe, away from the main drag and with plenty of outdoor seating which means Mr Karl can come along.

The coffee was above average and the service very friendly but still efficient (my favourite). The menu leaves you spoiled for choice, but not to the point of being overwhelming. Jellystone is also very good at vegetarian and gluten free options.

I had the "Middle Eastern eggs" which, dare I say it, were poached perfectly (to my taste).  Creamy, runny yolks with peppery roquette and crunchy, spicey dukkah. Yum, yum and yum.

Jellystone is just right for a slow (not in terms of service, but in terms of not being rushed) breakfast and I'm absolutely sure Mr Karl and I will be visiting again very soon.

little lunchables

While my little brother was visiting Melbourne we went for a lazy lunch of pintxos at Naked for Satan. Pintxos are tiny bite size (or really, 2 or 3 bite-sized) treats served on slices of baguette. These treats are set up like a buffet which you can munch your way through, collecting the toothpicks inserted into the pintxos as you go. At the end of your feast you present your toothpicks to have your bill tallied up.  The variety of little treats was fantastic and I think just about anyone's taste buds would be pleased.

Smoked turkey and sweet corn in the foreground and to the left calamari with squid ink risoni.

Tortilla (the Spanish cousin of frittata) and next to it smoked trout and pickle.

Possibly my favourite pintxos was the wine-poached pear on blue cream cheese with walnuts. Oh my goodness, whatta combo. I was making so many "mm..nom..yum" noises I think I embarrassed my poor brother. The grilled cauliflower in the background was nothing to sniff at, but the poached pear was a hard act to follow.

For dessert I devoured this gorgeous and tiny crème de cassis cream filled cannoli. What is it about tiny foods that makes them so much more enjoyable than their full size counterparts?

This was the end result of out miniature snackfest. Quite a formidable effort.

The best part? As we were there for the midweek lunch special, our pintxos were $1 each. Nothing better than a scrumptious bargain.

I am totally in love with the concept of Naked for Satan and have already planned (more than one) return trip. The food is delicious and varied (and cheap!) and the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed, what more could you require of a midweek lunch?

day of rest

Today I had a day of rest.

I spent a lovely evening out last night with friends seeing Beirut, and as standing in a crowd is possibly the most exhausting thing I can do (and if adding in a vibrating floor, also fairly painful) today was spent being exhausted.

I could have spent my day off being productive, It's very frustrating being too tired to do anything on a regular basis, especially when I can see so much stuff around me that should or could be done. However, I tried to fight that urge and be a little kind to my body given its efforts of yesterday.

I spent the day cuddling and tickling Karl and taking goofy photos of him napping on his back like a turtle.

I did make myself a delightful breakfast, which I enjoyed slumped on the couch like a great big slob.






I made cinnamon French toast with raisin challah (a kosher eggloaf, a little similar to brioche) and the biggest cup of milky (soy) coffee in the world in my beautiful blue/floral cup.

I'm too tired to cook (or clean up) now, so I'll have a big soaky bath and some toast before an early bed time with the hope of waking up with enough energy to get to work tomorrow.

It's hard to know when I should push myself and when I should stop myself. I hope in being kinder to myself I can start to work that out.

I'm going to be posting more about the impact of chronic illness on my life. It's important for me to write about it, but also important for my readers (those I know and those I don't) to know the actual reality of being ill.

breakfast bagel

At the end of the week I went for a return visit to Manchester Press with a pal for  a luxurious late breakfast. As with my first visit, Manchester Press did not disappoint.

One of the menu options at Manchester Press is a bagel with a soft boiled egg and either salmon or avocado. Salmon or avocado? Talk about Sophie's choice. Fortunately upon request you can have both, so of course that's what I did. Such a perfect breakfast, especially when topped with a squeeze of lemon juice and lots of yummy coffee on the side.

I was so excited I ate a lot of it before I remembered to take a photo, such a pro.

I'm not psychic or anything, but I do foresee many Manchester Press bagels making their way to my belly in the near future.

Christmas in Canberra

This Christmas was the first year my family haven't all been together. By 'my family' I do mean my immediate family, as we usually celebrate with just the four of us (plus the three dachshunds of course). Little brother is still in China, so we were down to three humans and three dachshunds. We still had a lovely time, but kept it fairly low key. Here is my Christmas in photos.

After our dinner at Bambusa on Christmas Eve we wandered around the corner from Mum and Dad's house to see a Guinness World Record holding light display. So tacky and so fun!


Our restrained tree.

Brodie and Karl having an argument while we exchanged gifts on Christmas morning.

Karl playing peek-a-boo with Brodie under the couch.

Amazingly creamy oysters.

Scrumptious prawns.

Roquette, wild asparagus, parmesan and macadmia salad.

Five-different-types-of-tomato and basil salad.

Crayfish tail marinated in lemon and corriander then barbequed. Words cannot describe the joy of eating this squirted with fresh lime juice, absolute bliss.

And of course it wouldn't be Christmas with champagne! Champagne for everyone!

While we reclined nursing food-comas we watched the cheeky monkeys wreak havoc.

And that in a nutshell was my Christmas.

twas the night before Christmas..

Twas the night before Christmas, and as my family are in no way religious (beyond our extreme devotion to food) and missing one core family member (my little brother is still in Beijing) we had a rather lowkey but still Christmas-y evening.

We visited our local cinema to see a taping of The Nutcracker performed by the New York City Ballet at the Lincoln Centre, a beautiful theatre I was fortunate enough to visit roughly this time last year to see Carmen. It was a little odd watching something I'm used to seeing live in the cinema, but it was a beautiful production and a very nice outing to get us feeling festive.

After our Christmas booster shot, we wandered across the road to Bambusa for tea. Both my parents had already been there and spoke very highly of it, so my expectations were relatively high.

The style of Bambusa's menu encourages sharing, so that's exactly what we did. To start with, we enjoyed the gow gee (vegetable dumplings) and peking style duck pancakes.

The dumplings were very pretty and equally as tasty. Having recently visited The Land of Dumplings I may be a little hard to please in this area, but they were certainly yummy. My only criticism would be they were served with forks, which struck me as odd, and as it turns out while I can wrangle chopsticks fairly competently if left with a fork I will complete bollocks up eating a dumpling.

Ducky pancakes! The pancakes were nice and thin, the duck nice and bbq-y and the vegetables fresh and crunchy. Pretty much all you can want from a ducky pancake, really.

After whetting our appetites with those little treats, we moved onto a teryaki lamb rack and fresh rock salt prawns with potato dumplings.

The lamb was ever-so tender,  just delightful. The sweet sake and soy glaze was lovely and sticky, but certainly not over the top as glazes can be. The accompany broccolini, lotus root and mushrooms also benefited from the glaze and this plate was emptied fairly promptly.

Looking at this (very bad) photo makes me want more of these prawns. The prawns themselves were very fresh with lovely sweet, tight flesh. The batter was very light and although obviously fried, they were in no way greasy and seasoned with great precision. Perfect. The cute little potato dumplings were quite fun too. I guess it was a very fancy/abstracted version of fish and chips.

While the dessert menu was very tempting I had to decline and had a reasonable coffee instead.

All in all I was impressed the Bambusa and will definitely visit again. In addition to the great food on offer, the service was of a surprisingly high standard as well and I take my hat off to the young staff there, they did a wonderful job.

the art of eating

As part of my family's Christmas celebration we joined the Melbourne branch of our family at The Artisan in Narrabundah, Canberra for a lovely dinner late last week.

The Artisan is easily my favourite restaurant in Canberra. The food is of an incredibly high standard, yet avoids being overly fussy. The service is impeccably professional, but still very friendly. I really loathe hoity toity service that leaves you feeling like you must be on your best behaviour. At The Artisan you are very well taken care of, but made to feel welcome and relaxed.

You will have to forgive my less than brilliant photos which do not give the beautiful food justice, I was silly enough to forget my camera and was in a hurry to eat rather than take amazing food portraits.

Wagyu bresaola, chesire cheddar, pickled beetroot, rosemary grissini and quail egg.

What a perfect little plate of flavours if ever there was one. This starter was just divine, a perfect balance of textures and tastes to begin a meal. I stopped talking to everyone at the table to eat this one. In addition, I may or may not have had half of Dad's pork belly (maple brushed pork belly, slow braised in Gypsy pear cider with witlof and hazelnuts), which was also highly delectable.

Blackberry glazed roast duck breast with sugar snaps, baby carrots and chestnut puree.

The gaminess of the duck, earthy flavours of chestnut and fresh sweetness of the baby carrots and sugar snaps made my tummy very happy. Sometimes I feel the additions to duck can make it far too heavy and rich, but the light accompaniments to this dish complimented  the duck very gently,  without distracting from the duck itself.

Bitter chocolate and cherry pavé with crème anglaise and rose fairy floss

This dessert, oh my goodness. To start with, it was abundantly gorgeous with its toupée of brightly pink rose fairy floss. The crème anglaise provided a soft, creamy background for the richness of the bitter chocolate and sweetness of the fairy floss to sit against. I was surprised to hear this, and in fact the vast majority of the dessert menu, was wheat and gluten free. This treat was the perfect end to the meal.

The Artisan has fast become my family's favourite for special occasion dinners so I'm sure I'll be visiting Canberra again soon for more of their scrumptious delights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

pressing matters

Today I visited  Manchester Press and I can safely say it is one of the few places I've eaten recently where I've been abundantly pleased with everything from start to finish. They even have nice Aesop soap in their bathroom.

The cafe itself is really beautifully and simply designed with nice little details like subtle acoustic panels suspended from the ceiling to prevent the space becoming overly loud. I also liked the worn-looking communal tables.

The lunch menu is predominantly bagels, which obviously made me extra happy because aside from pastries bagels are definitely my favourite bread product. YUM. Also, all the bagels are $12, which considering the amount and quality of fillings they're made with I think is just about the CBD lunch deal of the century. The bagels are generous enough that you could easily share one for lunch with a pal.

There are so many great bagel options on the menu, but I simply couldn't go past my old favourite of cream cheese, salmon, dill and capers. The dill was mixed into the cream cheese, how's that for a fancy bagel? And just look at all that salmon, my goodness. My bagel was beyond delicious, so fresh and scrummy.

My coffee had a lil face too, which was pretty good to say the least.

Manchester Press has yummy snacks, good coffee, really friendly and prompt service and for the city (or anywhere, really) is very affordable considering the quantity and quality of the food on offer. I think I will definitely be returning for many a bagels before too long.