It’s been a looong time since I’ve been in Uni, but Newtown to me will always be a symbol of the hobo-chic-hipster lifestyle that I always dreamed of having in Uni. Days spent whiled away at a café, reading a book and relaxing by a window…the stereotypical artsy life.
So to relive a little bit of that Uni dream, Sam and I decided to head into Newtown for a relaxed lunch.
We love a good barbecue here at Insatiable Munchies, and to continue on the celebration of Barbecue Week, we enjoy all things smokey at The Oxford Tavern!
Because really, with American style meats cooked low and slow, how can you go wrong?
With our busy schedules, it’s hard to get the girls together for a girly catchup. So when the schedules of Shan and Alice finally lined up, I was really excited to finally get a girls’ night out!
Well, a very tame womens’ night out anyway.
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You know you’re getting older when you get together with a girlfriend you haven’t seen in ages, and you find yourself talking about…houses. Weird, isn’t it, when you find yourself suddenly all grown up and not even resisting the idea! Even the setting’s grown up – we ate at a swanky new gastropub in Singapore – Slake.
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Many Chinese dishes have stories behind them. Maybe it’s cause we know that food tastes richer with a legend or two, or maybe the lack of modern entertainment gave us cause to make things up. Either way, I love these tales that accompany my meal – it turns a simple lunch from a functional action, into a dining experience.
I think I’m a hippie at heart. There are a great many ideals I am in support of, and bringing together a community through food is definitely one of them.
Which is why I love the concept of Lentil as Anything – a not-for-profit restaurant with a unique business model of pay-as-you-like, all in the name of the community. But the question remains: how is the food?
Never in my life have I been surrounded with so many cafés, so many options, so many shops fighting to put a warm caffeinated beverage in my hands and send me off to work. In the mere 10 minutes walk to the Eastwood train station, I can think of over 5 cafés, each located within meters of each other, competing for my attention. Cherry Beans Cafe, Pishon Cafe and Sweet Pumpkin Soup Cafe are three that immediately come to mind. Some, intoxicating you with the awakening aroma of their coffee, while the rest repel you with the smell of burned coffee and their lack of appreciation for these magical beans.
Xiao Long Bao, to me, is a peasant dish that is extremely delicate. Many components make up these juicy mouthfuls: a thin, translucent skin that still holds up well enough for you to pick them up with chopsticks, a pork filling that is seasoned but not overly so, to let the natural flavour of the pork shine through, and the tiny cubes of gelatinised stock and pork fat that melt when the dumplings are steamed, to create a piping hot soup that flows when that skin is pricked.
So when a restaurant not only serves xiao long bao at their restaurant, but has it as one of their featured dishes, it makes you wonder about the execution of the rest of their menu.
It can be very hard to explain to a non-Singaporean the concept of Kway Chap – after all, how do you describe what is essentially a Singaporean version of haggis, except that it’s all chopped up and not stuffed into a sheep’s stomach.
Well, I’m sure going to try, because this local delicacy is not only worth the explanation, it’s worth the effort.
Thank goodness for girlfriends.
I was super excited when my friend Yina said that she was visiting me from Singapore – we’ve known each other since we were 13, been through all the awkward teenage years and it’s been awhile since I’ve moved to Australia. So when she suggested a trip together to Devon Cafe in scenic Surry Hills, I knew that it was going to be an afternoon of food and laughter, just like the old times.
Couple that with truffles? We were ready for some winter bling!