The Ultimate Brownie Recipe Guide

Over on Relish.com, Tessa Arias has done us all a favour, and experimented with how to make different types of brownies - what happens when you use brown sugar, what happens when you add an extra egg.

For the brownie lovers out there, I suggest you take a look!

Five for Friday

The Greatest Wedding Photo in the World. No joke. This is the sort of photo I'd like to have taken.

Ten new species in pictures.

Duet for leaves and turntable.

Ten recipes for Cauliflower. Because I have soft spot of albino cousin of broccoli.

The kit to cure heart break. Wish I'd had this last year. 

Five for Friday

Happy Friday everyone! It is a particularly splendid day for me because I spontaneously was given a day off, so I am off to the Sunshine Coast to eat, drink and be merry.

Still, a five-for-Friday;

Scientific 7 minute work out. Even I could manage that.

An artist an designer uses food to create plate-art.  

Make-your-own pixilated poster design.

Mr and Mrs Smith; luxury and boutique hotels. I can't afford any of these but a girl can dream. And drool a little in hopeful anticipation.

And on a more sobering note;

Excellent analysis by Time on our costly and ineffectual asylum-seeker policy.

Five for Friday

Neil Gaiman on entitlement issues; namely fans expecting George R. R. Martin to produce his next book immediately.

Some of the world's amazing places.

Charming artwork and obscure words.

Frank Warren, 'the most trusted strange in the world' is the keeper of post secret. Started out as a spontaneous project, people from all over the world tell him their secrets. He now posts them anonymously, of course, on his website Post Secret. The secrets we can never tell can be told to him. Read more on Mamma Mia.

Phoodie: my latest food blog discovery!

Image courtesy of Phoodie.com.au

Review: Hoo Ha Bar

Hoo Ha Bar has taken a while to get from conception to opening but open they did last week, and with it being 10 minutes from my work I was very keen to check out this new arrival in the somewhat staid South Bank area.

My friend Gabi and I met there for breakfast on Friday morning. Nestled almost underneath South Bank station it’s mightily convenient for both bus and train, and you can park your bike outside no problem. Inside is open with the wooden sparse slightly-hipster decoration that is becoming the norm of Brisbane cafes. No complaints, I like it, and I think Brisbane cafes are starting to look different to any other cities’.   

The menu is interesting and a little off-beat, all about flavours rather than traditional breakfast fare. The prices are exciting, though. Fruit toast is $3, and the rest of the menu is between $7 - $11. Cheap for Brisbane, where no one seems to bat an eye at paying $12 for avocado on toast.  Reading the menu, you know everything on it is going to be tasty.

Gabi had the Cannellini bean smash, rosemary, chilli, orange, lemon and Grana Padano served with garlic croute, though in her instance she requested gluten-free bread, which was no problem ($7).

I had grilled eggplant, peperonata, Haloumi, rocket and hummus on focaccia (replaced with Turkish bread) ($9).

The food come out quickly and was very tasty. It was also of just the right size for breakfast, filling but not so much that it is an effort to get up off your chair. The coffee came out within minutes and was strong and rich.

I really enjoyed our breakfast date and would heartily recommend Hoo Ha Bar to anyone. At the moment, Hoo Ha is more café than bar but apparently the liquor licence has been applied for so there will soon be options for lunchtime beer and cider and maybe after-work tipples as well. 

Hoo Ha Bar
41 Tribune Street, South Brisbane
Open: Tuesday to Saturday 7:00 am to 3:00 pm

McLaren Vale; an ideal location for a cross-continental catch-up

McLaren Vale is a small township 50 minutes south of Adelaide that has lent its name to the surrounding wine region and it was where I spent my second Australian-wine-region holiday of 2012.

An old travelling friend who lives in Perth and I decided to have a wine-infused holiday and we chose McLaren Vale because it was roughly halfway between our two cities. Flying in on Friday night, we motored down to McLaren and found our carefully selected cottage; a compromise between proximity to town, price and quaint wine-country-cottage; and quickly opened the complimentary welcome bottle. Getting up the next day, I was metres away from my own cellar door / café overlooking a garden and vines. Not a bad start to a trip.

McLaren Vale is small but fruitful wine-making region. There are 88 cellar doors in a region enclosed by the sea to the south and Adelaide and the Clare Valley to the north. If you had enough time, you could easily spend a fortnight visiting the Barossa, Clare Valley and McLaren Vale and taste hundreds of wines.

Artwork outside d'Arenberg, the very first stop on our McLaren Vale trip. 

The great advantage of how small the McLaren Vale region is, is that you can get up late, take yourself out for coffee and breakfast and still make it to four vineyards before lunch. There are scores of wineries within a 10 – 12m drive of the town, so you can skip from one to the other on a quick easy circuit.

McLaren Vale is known for its Shiraz, Grenache and Chardonnay. The first vines were planted in McLaren around 1838 and wine producers such as Hardys have been producing wine from the region since 1850. It is a real treat to be able to drink Shiraz from vines 50 to 100 years old.

 

Sculpted vineyards and twisted vines.

Just as with my previous trip to Margaret River, though I tasted scores of the region’s iconic drops, I found myself loving the range of Tempranillo, Sangiovese and the heavier Cabernet blends. My friend, a mad keen Australian wine taster and amateur connoisseur had to taste every Grenache on offer and there were plenty for him to sample. I tried my hand at Chardonnays, reasoning that if any region was going to change my opinion of them it would be this one but no. I came away with a better opinion of Australian Chardonnays but not a convert.

Shiraz and Cabernet vines.

 

We mostly stopped at smaller wineries that we were not at all familiar with. They have so much more personality and passion and I found it easier to engage with the staff behind the bar and learn about their wine and the region. My favourite winery was Hugh Hamilton, partly for the delightful set-up but mostly because I could happily have bought a mixed dozen and enjoyed every drop. 

The selection at Hugh Hamilton. Greatly enjoyed.

High tea at Bacchus

I found myself is the enviable position this week of nabbing an invitation to the launch of high tea at Bacchus, the now 5-month old luxury bar at Rydges South Bank.

If you haven’t been to Bacchus, it’s one level up from the street and is a slightly odd all-in-one entertainment space. There is an outside deck complete with glistening pool, ready for cocktail hour, there is an art-deco inspired restaurant in varnished wood with golden trimmings and a bar lounge with the feel of a London club complete with high-backed arm chairs you can disappear into.

Business women and men enjoying some indulgence. 

Photo filtered to better represent the feel of the bar. 

As it was the launch, we were rather spoilt. Instead of the standard one glass of bubbles, a charming waitress was circling with a bottle, so my one glass of Moet turned mysteriously into three. Also, instead of the usual three-plated tier of delicacies, waiters circulated with plates of delicate sandwiches, macarons, coffee cake and citrus tarts, so there was no moderation in my demolition of pastries and chicken salad sandwiches.  

It was a most pleasant way to spend a Thursday lunchtime.

 

If you’re looking for a place to have high tea in Brisbane, I would recommend Bacchus. The space has an enticing feeling of luxury, and the food is excellent. Rydges really is going all out, bringing in top managers and pastry chefs from all over the world to oversee their latest venture, topped off with excellent waitstaff, who are worth their weight in gold for the positive influence they have on your experience.

There are three levels of tea - English cream tea ($30 p/p), quintessential high tea ($36 p/p) and Champagne high tea ($49 p/p). As someone who has experienced a fair few high teas over the last two years thanks to girlfriends getting married, I would recommend Bacchus for the quality of the food and service.

Five for Friday

Should I eat this shit? A website that tells you if you should eat something. 

To celebrate getting 1 million followers on Twitter, Lonely Planet have released their Best Travel 2013 guide free for download. 

Brisbane's latest mobile food enterprise, following in the very successful footsteps of the Bun Mobile: Wandering Elephant. 

Gucci releases new leather handbag line with a passport detailing the life of the cow it came from. The accessories version of 'meet the meat'?

The Australian Writers' Centre have opened their annual Australia's Best Blog competition, so if there are blogs out there that you really enjoy and value, nominate them for an award. This is a great opportunity to give recognition to people who put a lot of time and love into a project that brings enjoyment, help or entertainment to others as well as themselves.

 

Happy Friday

Brews at Bitter Suite

On Wednesday night, in a bid to enjoy Brisbane despite the seemingly endless downpour, we headed out to try Bitter Suite, a local pub with style in the heart of New Farm.

Bitter Suite is housed is a red brick building on the corner of Welsby and Lamington Streets in New Farm. Heading in from the rain, the glow of the lights and the full tables looked incredibly inviting.

 

Inside, Bitter Suite is an enjoyable mid point between warm English gastro-pub and the personality-laden inside-outside bars that are popping up all over Brisbane

We shared a few plates; duck pancakes (the house specialty), bread with oils and a dish of olives. All were very tasty, though we could easily have devoured another couple of serves of the pancakes. The weeknight special beer'n'burger for $20 was very tempting. If we'd spotted the pig'n'beer special of slow roasted suckling pig, chips and a 3/4 pint for $20 we definitely would have gone for that.

Even on a rainy Wednesday night, there was a steady stream of people come to enjoy the good food and excellent selection of beers. I even think there were a few people there on dates.

Bitter Suite is well worth a visit. Nice atmosphere, good food and beer and the bar staff were friendly and helpful. An all over pleasant pub in which to spend an evening.

Bitter Suite have regular Beer Baron gatherings, if you want to educate your taste buds and will be welcoming all comers for St Patricks Day.

Alcoholic volcanos and layers of leis

A couple of weekends ago I threw a birthday party with two of my favourite people and fellow February-babies Caz and Kirst.

 Kirst in Gorman and me in Kitten d'Amour.

We’ve thrown joint birthday shindigs for a few years now. First at Alloneword, then at Limes and this year’s venue of choice: Alfred and Constance.  All three of us have had some good times there, so with the considerations of a Tiki bar, Queenslander decks, good food and a very helpful events coordinator, it was a pretty easy choice to make.

 

Bar drinks and decoration

 
Waking up on the day or your birthday party, if you’re looking forward to it, is a little like a second birthday. It felt like by special day all over again, but this time on a Saturday so I got to sleep in!

The party started early and our friends faithfully turned up right on the button to help us celebrate. There were beers, mojitos and bottles of wine to wash down platters of devils on horseback and bowls of thick salty chips.

Celebration time!

Over the night I got to catch up with so many old friends I now seem to see only at our annual bash. A triple birthday is one hell of an excuse to get people together. In amongst all the updates, we managed to down some Zombies (only one each), Jamaican Divorces and Kava Bowls.

 
Pina Coladas and Kava Bowls.

Cocktail appreciation time.

There were some great parts: everyone went nuts on the cocktails and the oddly 90s music. Being outdoors significantly lowered the temperature on what was one of Brisbane’s only clear Saturday nights this year. The bar staff were charming, the food as good as expected.

 

  

Downsides were that we had been lead to believe we’d have a small roped off area for a few hours which would then be opened up. But when we arrived, there was a rowdy blow-up doll-toting hen’s night in process on our little deck and they were not to be moved. Also, the place seemed to be much busier than any other time I’ve been to Alfred and Constance. Good for them, but it bums me out when I can’t reach a bar laden with pina coladas.

 

 

Nevertheless, a great time was had by all, and I would recommend Alfred and Constance for functions or for just a nice, relaxed evening out.  There’s something just so right about the combination of wooden deck, novelty cocktails  and fake turf carpet that really makes a night out. 

Thank you to all my wonderful friends who helped make my night!

 

My first Street Food Australia lunch

Today marked the first day a Street Food Australia bike hit the streets of Brisbane and I jumped at the opportunity to support the organisation by scoffing down a plate of fresh, delicious dumplings.

 The menu.

Broadcasting on Twitter that they would be serving steamed dumplings from their bike on William Street opposite the Casino, I trudged over the bridge into the CBD to grab some before they all disappeared.  Two guys – Billerwell and Lucus - were manning the bicycle under the shade of a tent. I treated myself to 8 dumplings for $10 (or you could get 4 for $6); four pork, chives and ginger and four chicken, pongu mushroom and 5 spice. Splashed with some soy and a little black pepper chilli sauce, they were fresh hot and tasty. A perfect lunch.

 Lucus serving out my lunch (above) and Billerwell enjoying his own (below).

SFA will be in the same spot, on William Street opposite the casino by the Victoria Bridge, at lunchtime on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday this week and presumably for weeks to come. In time, they will be joined by more bikes selling international cuisine that is cheap and tasty and even better, supporting an excellent cause. If you work in the CBD I strongly advise you head along and give them a try. 

 I could eat this every day.