A Few of My Favourite Things !

A team from The Age’s Epicure department tracked down and tested this dense, creamy Italian hot chocolate brew that is cioccolata calda to announce that the best of the best can be imbibed at the Lygon Street institution, Brunetti’s.

I can personally attest to fact that Brunetti’s cocoa, milk and sugar concoction, which is made by their in-house chocolatier and kept churning in their heated cioccolatiera, is very good indeed, however having not tried the others I cannot definitively name it as the best

PS: Unfortunately, despite mentioning that two places did not rise up to standards due either to their uninspiring brew and bad service, the journalist does not name names. Too bad for us as we won’t know which places to avoid

I found these bag clip thingies at the Korean Grocery store opposite Victoria Market. Aren’t they fantastic?

Sarah has tagged me for this meme and it’s the first one that I’m actually posting about. Here goes…

Four Jobs I’ve Had in My Life:

1. Waitress at Malaysian restaurant
2. Waitress at Indian restaurant (for about 3 shifts until a. they took a big tip from me to share with the girl who worked not on the same night but the night before, b. I saw them cutting the mouldy parts off strawberries which were then served with kulfi, c. they scraped the uneaten basmati rice from the guest’s plate back into the rice cooker)
3. Service assistant at Myer
4. Research scientist

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Eat Drink Man Woman
3. Love Actually
4. can’t think of a last but I used to watch Anne of Green Gables every school holidays if I could!

Four Places I’ve Lived:

1. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2. Melbourne, Australia
3. hopefully somewhere in Europe in the near future (are you ready this, A?)

Four TV Shows I Watch:

1. Iron Chef
2. Cold Case
3. NCIS
4. Sex and the City (when it was still on but now I watch the series on DVD)

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation:

1. Bintan, Indonesia
2. Calgary, Canada
3. New York, USA
4. Sicily, Italy

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

1. The Age
2. Food Porn Watch
3. Blogger
4. work website

Four of My Favourite Foods:
* this is a hard one because I don’t know where to start. I have so many favourites…

1. Char Siew Bao
2. Roti Chanai
3. Pretty much any fruit (esp tropical)
4. Sashimi

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

* Of all the places I’ve visited, nowhere would be as good as where A. is right now

Four Tags to Continue This Meme:

* Has anyone NOT done this one yet? Let me know…

Ed of Tomato has written an excellent article, “Eat my words: Meet the bloggers: the gastronomes who have set their sites on satisfying our increasing appetite for recipes, rants and restaurant reviews”, for the most recent issue of the Australian Gourmet Traveller, in which he espouses grass-roots food writing and encourages the relatively young Aussie food-blogging world. To Ed’s credit, although two international bloggers are mentioned - Chez Pim, one of the most widely read blogs internationally, and TSOGB - the main focus is on the growing Australian blog world.

Aussie blogs that scored a mention include: Grab Your Fork, Australian Gourmet Pages, Cat on the Bench, Sarah Discovers How to Eat, The Breakfast Blog, Tomato and yours truly. I have to admit that I’m not so sure about having a photo in the mag though (with full name included!). Until this point, I’ve been fairly protective of my identity (as, I can see, have many others) and I’m not sure what to think about this…

For those who have come to this site from the GT article, welcome & happy reading!

Image of St Vitus Cathedral from Lava. 

The word is out!

There are some fantastic Australian foodblogs out there and some of them are featured in this article by Liesl Rampono. I think it’s great that Rampono has actually looked into the Australian blogging scene in more detail than this article. There are even some quotes from the lovely Saffron at The Food Palate, so please check it out. Access is free however if you have any difficulties, I can email you a copy instead.

There is going to be an article on ‘The Food Blog Boom’ in the Epicure section of The Age tomorrow. I’m not sure if this will be the same article as the one reported by Saffron at The Food Palate, however I will keep an eye out for it and let you know.