Birthday lunch at ARIA Brisbane

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c's photography, Food, foodie reviews, matt moran

I was lucky enough to be treated to lunch at ARIA Brisbane on my birthday. Just a tiny tip- you’d want to go during lunch and not dinner- it’s almost half price, and I believe the menu doesn’t change.

I didn’t actually take photos of the entire meal- just the dishes that were new to me. This was my third visit to ARIA. Honestly, I was running out of things on the menu that I wanted to try! If I had one criticism, it would be that Matt Moran really should vary his menu a LOT more each season.

This was one of the mains. Potato and parmesan ravioli with mushroom and Madeira consommé. I actually liked this a lot. It was really nice and light, and the combination of flavours was lovely. It probably wouldn’t have been enough if we hadn’t ordered entrees, I must admit.

Next main! Roast beef with yorkshire pudding (and roast veggies). I liked this a lot, but I’m not a big fan of tendon, and this dish had a lot of it!

Dessert. I’d ordered the Valrhona Chocolate twice before, so I went with Banoffee this time (we did order the valrhona chocolate too though!). I LOVED this. Dare I say that I loved it more than the chocolate délice? It’s a banana brûlée with caramel, almond praline and toasted almond milk ice cream. I could’ve died and gone to heaven. The valrhona chocolate is very rich, and very sweet. But this was amazingly light and was a perfect way to end off the meal.

Even though halfway back to the city from the restaurant, I had to sit down at a cafe for about fifteen minutes because I felt so full, I was starting to feel sick. But it was worth it.

all photos were taken by me. all were straight-out-of-camera.

B & C’s Dinner

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Food, jamie oliver

A couple days ago, the best friend and I decided to cook dinner for my brother and the two of us. Given my very fond love for Jamie Oliver and his cooking we decided to pick two dishes… One from her favourite Jamie cookbook (Jamie’s Kitchen, which is also my second favourite), and one from mine (Jamie at Home). We picked simple recipes, and I baked Gary Mehigan’s chocolate fondant for dessert.

Jamie’s potato and smoked salmon with creme fraiche! (Jamie at Home) This was B’s dish.I attempted to plate the dish the way Jamie plated it… Not TOO bad, I must say!

My dish. Slightly adapted from Jamie’s Kitchen (we swapped mussels for cherry tomatoes as we couldn’t find any good fresh seafood and it was a last minute pick). It’s a white wine-and-saffron ‘sauce’ (I think it looks like a consomme!). We used monkfish. The whole thing was baked in a bag. I tried this recipe again tonight, and finally mastered the art of making sure the white wine didn’t leak out of the bag!

Gary Mehigan’s chocolate fondant recipe. I used 70% Dark Lindt chocolate, which turned out really well. I tried the same recipe with Lindt’s milk chocolate but it was a disaster. I think that maybe something in milk chocolate screws up the recipe a little. I don’t know, anyone have any advice?

 

Leeuwin Estate

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foodie reviews

I decided to catch up on some of my culinary exploits from REALLY REALLY long ago.

The family and I took a two-week holiday in WA. Funnily enough, even though SO MANY of my friends in school have never been out of Southeast Asia except TO Perth, I’d never been.

BUT I must admit they have pretty wineries, which brings me to the point. We visited Leeuwin Estate. We took a tour of their winemaking process, and then went into the art gallery. This was my absolute favourite bit. They commission one painting a year for their Art Series, and I LOVED seeing all the paintings. I took pictures with some of my favourites…

I’m always so self conscious when having my picture taken. The only person who’s ever able to get candid shots of me is Kat. She weaves, she swerves, she jams the camera practically up your nose… And I don’t think anyone can ever be uncomfortable around Kat.

Lunch!

<3