Eating Out in Paradise

Night 1: Temple of Tastes
Grilled Barramundi with pureed peas, potato rosti and chilli and corn salsa. Accompanied by a lovely fruity Crowded House Sav Blanc from New Zealand.

Night 2: Vivo
Natural Oysters followed by Crab Linguini while Sweetpea enjoyed the Seafood Tagliattelli with Mussels

Night 3: L'Unico at Trinity Beach
Natural Oysters (again) followed by an unnameable local reef fish with winter roast vegetables. Sweetpea got stuck into the Bugs with Chili and Spaghetti. We shared the gelati dessert.

Night 4: Apres Bar and Grill
Surf and Turf (steak and prawns) with mango salsa for me. Reef and Beef (steak and bugs) for sweetpea. Then across the road for a shared Mandarin Sorbet and Chocolate Gelato dessert.

Day 1: Lunch courtesy of QANTAS therefore completely forgettable.

Day 2, 4 & 5: Lunch by the pool at the Sea Temple Pool Bar - Garlic Prawns washed down delicately with a Cosmopolitan or Margarita. Sweetpea loved the Barramundi Wraps and Temple Cocktail.

Day 3: Lunch by the water at Port Douglas - Fresh prawns with seafood sauce followed by a shared Bounty Bar!

The perfect night

It doesn't get better - really!


A lovely dinner - quick and easy - at one of our favourite places in Leichhardt - Martini Bar and Restaurant.
We were running late for the movie, so tonight we shared the Prosciutto e funghi pizza. 
The pizza was heaven - carefully sprinkled with black pepper only on my half. And perfectly complemented by my Adelaide Hills Pinot Grigio and sweetpea's Peroni.


We followed this with a choc top each (a glass of bubbles for me!) and Woody Allen - Midnight in Paris.

We both now want to go back to Paris - ASAP!


The movie was quirky, funny, light-hearted. Some might say plotless; but we found it just right for a lazy, sultry, chickadee-free Saturday night.


Walking along Norton St afterwards we could almost imagine ourselves somewhere exotic and foreign. Chatting about what our Golden Age would be to time travel back to and just how long we would really need to stay in Paris to feel like we had done it due justice.


Good food, good wine, great company and a dream - it doesn't get better than that.

Exotic Pleasures

On a recent family holiday to Vanuatu we visited L'Houstalet Restaurant. The write-up in Lonely Planet prepared us for the unusual items on the menu. We had also met a couple at Mele Cascades who had eaten at L'Houstalet the night before and raved about the flying fox.

We decided that we were brave enough to try it too.

The restaurant itself was a little shabby to look at - no French chic here. But everything was clean and all but one staff member was happy and friendly.

Entree was an easy choice - escargot! What else would you order in a French restaurant?
We had already been told by locals that the Ni-Vats imported French shells and inserted the locally bred snails into them as the tourists expected the shells to look a certain way (ie French).

My last escargot experience was in 1991 - also cooked in garlic butter - with the same result. I managed to eat one without really looking at what I was doing. But the second little sucker, slipped off my fork and onto the plate and looked at me exactly like a snail would. End of entree for me!

However sweetpea and both chickadees happily divided the remaining 11 pieces between them.

Big chickadee was determined to have the flying fox. The red wine reduction, rice and vegetables on the side did not deter him.

Sweetpea and I got a taste. It was a huge flavour - very rich and gamey and I'm not sure I could have eaten a whole meal of it.

But chickadee devoured the lot and declared he was still hungry!

Sweetpea went for the wild pigeon in mushroom sauce.

This was rather like a serving of quail and tasted rather like chicken.

I decided to try the local crab - coconut crab in garlic.
It was huge, juicy and messy to eat.

I'm never quite sure that crab is worth the effort involved in extracting it from its shell!

Fortunately big chickadee was more than happy to help me finish it off!

And what did the little chickadee eat, I hear you ask?

With all those wonderful, exotic options to pick from on the menu? After having a go at escargot for the very first time and loving it...what could he possibly choose?

Margharita pizza of course!

This was not one of the best meals we have ever eaten. But it was interesting, exotic and a little bizarre. The kind of experience that overseas holidays are made of.

We all had a memorable night and we'll be dining out on this story for a long, long time to come! Hearing the "ohhhh yuk"s and the "urgghhhh"s from unwarying listeners makes us feel like brave and fearless culinary explorers.

P.S. There were no aubergines to be seen anywhere on the menu!

Hatted Bliss

We like to celebrate our birthdays with style and spice. They have become special events for us to look forward to - the secret preparations and anticipation on the one hand and the suspense and surprise on the other.

Previous lush* birthday dinners have been at Otto's, Sailor's Thai, The Boathouse and Spice Temple. Very diverse meals, locations and flavours and all hard acts to follow.
The common thread being a SMH Good Food Guide hat (The Spice Temple now has 2 hats but was only a new entry the year we went).

This year one of us turned 45 - which seemed like as good a reason as any to experience a fully-fledged 2 hatted restaurant.

With much anticipation and preparation (how do you pronounce it?) and to general delight this year we went to Guillaume at Bennelong.

It was hard to imagine how enjoying cocktails at the bar whilst looking across the harbour to the bridge and Luna Park could be topped, until we were lead by a friendly waiter to our cosy round table.
Discrete down-lighting allows each table to feel like an island and sweetpea was delighted by the high-backed, cushioned bench seating that curved around our table. 

I have no idea how I'm going to do justice to the menu - perhaps I will simply tell you what we ordered and let the chef's words do their own magic. 

I ordered the oysters with cucumber jelly and yuzu cream for entree and sweetpea ordered the scallops gently sealed and served with pea and smoked ham hock puree, girolle mushrooms and jus gras.

But before they arrived we were presented with a complimentary pre-entree (I'm sure there is some lovely French word for this, but it's beyond me) of tuna tartare with wasabi mayonnaise.
They were only small, but the tang of the wasabi mayonnaise turned out to be a lovely palate cleanser and they complemented the Mornington pinot gris we had moved onto to a tee.

For mains we went for the sealed John Dory served on a bed of carrot and ginger puree, coriander and pommes allumettes and the roasted chicken and yabbies with deglazed celeriac puree, fresh Manjimup truffle and jus gras. The individual flavours swam across your tongue with each mouthful.

And perhaps we should have stopped there!

The bottle of wine was all but empty and although the meals were not large, they were rich and filling.

But it wouldn't be a birthday dinner without dessert (& a little bit of gluttony and over-indulgence!) so we soldiered on.

Each dessert came with its own 60ml glass of dessert wine - and perhaps the sensible thing would have been to share a dessert.
The raspberry mille feuille with white chocolate, elderflower and raspberry sorbet (with a sticky from Bloodwood in Orange) was calling my name, whilst sweetpea was being tantalised by the Valrhona chocolate mousse with mandarin and vanilla bean icecream (and a sticky from NZ).
Instead we asked if we could share the 2 desserts and have 2 glasses with 30mls of each sticky.

To our surprise we were then presented with a pre-dessert dessert - a tiny platter with macaroons, jellies and chocolate treats.

By the time we had polished off all of the above a sense of fullness and silliness had overwhelmed us. Not even the bill could dampen our spirits!

Needless to say, the following day was one of general seediness and malaise. An experience that won't be repeated...until the next birthday!
* I use lush with all its various meanings in mind - tender, juicy, succulent, luxuriant and drinking bout!