Doing Dinner Melbourne Style!

As discussed previously, Melbourne is fantastic! It is also sold as this awesome city with heaps of laneways and great restaurants, so when I'm there I feel super pressured to pick the right places. This obviously annoys whoever I am with, mostly Dad and Harry, but Nat (my bff in Melbs) is totally down with my excruciating deliberation process that involves copious amounts of internetz searching. And after many-a-time going in blind, I was finally vindicated! In two days we had two fantastic dinners.


Oriental Tea House
378 Little Collins Street Melbourne, VIC 3000

Super delicious dumpling house.

I've been to this place twice now on my trips to Melbourne and I love it! It's not exactly a hardcore party house or even really a full restaurant but it's the perfect place for catching up with old friends. 

It's pretty much a little restaurant at the back of the tea store, which I've heard is buzzing at lunch, but has been quite subdued both times I've been. It's great, the dumplings are nice and fresh (even if they can sometimes be a bit doughy) and the tea is beautiful!

I walked passed the other restaurant in South Yarra before leaving and it looked a little more full on, but the Little Collins Tea House was perfect for our occassion (especially when you go with near deaf parents...). I probably wouldn't go on a first date or generally awkward evening as the silence could kill you, but I love it as an old reliable!





Mamasita  
Level 1/11 Collins Street Melbourne, VIC 3000

GET THE ICE CREAM!!

 Mexican to die for! I love how Mexican is becoming the new thing. 

My fam and I lived in California for a time where the best kind of lunches/dinners were some nice fresh Baja style Mexican! So it's nice to see the move away from TexMex and re-fried beans here in Australia! YAY! I have been searching for the closest thing to my memories full of fresh, cleansing Mexican (hard to imagine here I know) and so was so extatic with my experience at Mamasita. 

I understand I'm a little late on the band wagon but it was truly a memorable and delicious dinner so I thought, whatevs - I'm going to talk about it! Even though Mamasita may not be the hottest place in Melbs anymore you still have to wait up to 45 minutes for a seat at 8 on a Friday so it's still burning strong! We arrived a little wide eyed and secured our place in the line after spying the full page menu of Tequila!

The food was amazing, every course as good as the next, and the margaritas?!?! Yarrribaaa (yes I did just do that). The highlight was most definitely the Street Style Corn, cheesy, spicy, warm - amazing! The downside was the possibly overstressed staff and the speed at which each course comes out - but we took our time and ended up leaving near close muahahah but seriously I've never wowed over Mexican as much as I did there... I've told all my friends and am already looking forward to my next trip down!

We ordered the street style corn, chicken and shredded beef tostados, fish tacos, cerviche and the ice cream (GET THE ICE CREAM)!

 Aaaaaahhh such dreamy memories...

Happy eating! xx

Adventures in Melbs

A couple of weeks ago I planned a somewhat spontaneous trip to Melbourne. There was an airfare sale, I had free accomodation and one of my besties, Nat, had moved down earlier this year. Then everything snowballed and I nearly forgot about it. But a short train, plane, and bus later and it's grand! 

Nitty in all her glory!

I love Melbourne. The laneways, the vibe, the fact wine is sold everywhere! To be honest though I never feel truly comfortable there.. I feel like they know I'm a stranger and I'm not really welcome. But I brave it none-the less.

It was a pretty glorious two days!

A new friend! I think it's colourful sperm... but I like it anyway.

An old Friend, I love you!

last assignment before mid semester break!

...almost there

Tra Mi Marrickville

Always a treat! Glorious, giant meal for one $10...

Tra Mi is a great little Vietnamese restaurant in Marrickville that does a mean Pho too!

delicious! xx

Uni = the pits

Lazy night dinner!

You have just come home from work, school, play and have a bunch of things to catch up on/ don't want to do anything but watch TV, but want to eat real food, as opposed to fake/ toast. 

Solution, plastic bag marinade! 

Of course you can make any marinade you want, all of which are super delicious and can be made with a number of left over ingredients, but last week I surprised myself with a really simple Teriyaki marinade. 

1 part soy sauce, 1 part caster sugar, and 1 part mirin seasoning  the recipe is nearly impossible to get wrong!

I had a left over fillet of salmon in the freezer so took it out to defrost when I got home. After it had defrosted I mixed 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin seasoning in a bowl until the sugar disolved and popped the marinade into the resealable bag with the fish and let it marinate. 

The recipe I found here, indicated you should marinate for at least 30 minutes but I got super busy and forgot about it and so pulled it out of the fridge the next day. Then all you have to do is bake for 5 minutes! The benefit of leaving it over night also meant I didn't need to open the oven and brush the marinade.

Simple, easy, and delicious!

Of course you can substitute the salmon for anything, chicken, beef, etc. Harry ended up making the same and only marinating it for 20 minutes with a minute steak and had the same delicious result. 

If you don't have mirin seasoning, I heard on the grape vine that you can either put more sugar or leave it out entirely for a saltier marinade. 

We also quickly sauteed some zuchini and kale that was about to turn, with a little oil and chilli, as a side. Yum!

Slurpeeees!

Today is BYO mug day at 7/11s in Sydney! Get on it! xx