Sweet Source

The day was Saturday, March 14th 2009. Second Saturday of the month. Start of the weekends, the highlight of my week. Or so I thought it was. Melbourne has shown one of it's craziest weather moods with pouring rains and bone chilling wind with a speed that almost blew this tiny figure away. I can safely said goodbye to my pocket umbrella as the wind has turned it sideways. Say goodbye to that strolling around Collingwood's farmers market stuffing my face with just about anything available for sampling while going crazy buying veggies and fruits. I normally love rains.. but when you have to be outdoors in the rain, there's no feeling more miserable than that. Being the hard headed that I am, I refused to cancel all my plans, so M and I went to Victoria market instead where it's covered.

This day is unfortunately also the day I made reservations at Oyster little Bourke for the Express Lunch thing, part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. But this time, I won't be talking about that lunch, I'll blog about it another time.


We finished shopping way ahead of time. I had more than 1 hour to kill before lunch. A sweet treat and a good cup of coffee is in order to lift my mood a little bit. I always wanted to try Sweet Source in Carlton North, a little sidetracked, but it was so worth the trip.

Their coffee is quite good, perfectly roasted with perfect amount of milk and a caramelly after taste. After a long prowling at their fabulous array of cakes and desserts, I gave in for the cupcakes and raspberry linzer torte. Soft vanilla cupcake with generous amount of vanilla frosting... yummm. If you like Vanilla as much as I do, you will absolutely love this cupcake. You can see the specks of vanilla beans in the frosting. I end up taking the linzer torte for takeaway, and had it with my morning tea the next day while reading Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets. Perfection!

Vanilla cupcakes

Chicken pie

Linzer torte

Cabinet Bar & Balcony - another Melbourne's hidden gem

This is why I love this city so much!! It's filled with hidden alley ways with fabulous street murals and home to some of the best place to hang out. I first discovered Cabinet Bar & Balcony when I was searching for a relaxed restaurant to meet two of my bestest friends. It's been too long since we last meet, so a lot of catching up is in order.

I've been craving for tapas lately, however, my wallet is not liking the sounds of Movida or Match Bar & Grill. A little over my budget at this time of the month.


The bar is neatly tucked in an alley just in between L'incontro the Council House. It has a relaxed atmosphere and a homey feel to it. Decorated with Victorian regalia, Cabinet successfully blends essence of the past with aspects of today in both its environment and their food. Large blackboards in change for the traditional paper menu, and spare seats hanged on the wall give this place a retro-chic feel.

Chef Kath Lunny's brilliant share menus are perfect for nibbles and perfect compliment to the delicious cocktails and wide range of Australian wines. For a more serious snacks, they offer flatbreads treated as crunchy thin pizza crust with various toppings such as roast duck, mushroom and plum sauce or Tandoori chicken with red capsicum and cashew nuts. We had the antipasto platter to share and I tried their mini steak sandwich. The beef are very tender, but I had trouble popping it in my mouth at one go, but when you tried to bite it in half, I just end up with a mess. Perhaps I need a bigger mouth.

Tandoori chicken flatbread

Mini steak sandwich

Chocolate fondue platter

I am yet to try to sit in the balcony since it seems to be used for private functions everytime I stopped by. Perhaps third time's a charm?

Cabinet Bar & Balcony
11 Rainbow Alley
(cnr little collins & swanston) Melbourne, Victoria 3000 ph. (03) 9654 0915

Belated Valentine's dinner

I tend to avoid doing restaurant reviews in this blog for a couple of reasons. One, there are soooo many others doing that, and they are much better at it than I am. Two, coming here as a student with a student budget & student friends didn't really equal to dining in interesting restaurants, mostly the usual cheap eats, chinatown or budget pasta restaurants where all the students seem to go to. Only now, with a steady income, I started trying new stuff.. plus, all my friends are generally working now, so we start to move pass that budget living and start enjoying life, still nothing too fancy I'm afraid. Something slightly better to satisfy my foodie appetite. Unless, in my case, when the parents come to visit. Or what I like to refer as "my walking ATM machine". Especially when my dad visits, he always love trying new restaurants, and what makes him my favourite is because he always said "let's go eat at some place that you normally can't afford, while i'm here", ahh, those words to me are magic. Extensive research through The Age Good Food Guide always in order before he arrives. He's the reason I ever set foot inside Vue de Monde. Finally, the biggest reason why I'm reluctant to do reviews is because I still feel awkward pulling my camera and snapping away everytime the food arrives at the table. Especially in fancy restaurants!!However, I felt I owe my restaurant knowledge to these blogs that do restaurant reviews. I felt that I should pay my contribution to pass on my experience, eventhough it's only my personal opinion.

Last Friday night, M and I had our belated Valentine's dinner. Not because we were too busy that we put it of almost a month later, we just like to avoid the Valentine's rush. This is how we normally celebrate Valentine's day, a flower for me, and a nice quiet dinner a week after. We always try to look for something new that we never tried before. Well, this would mostly be on my part, he is not fuss about the type of restaurants, as long as it's not gonna cost him and arm and a leg. After much consultation hours in various blogs and my trusty little foodie bible The Age Good Food Guide, I condures up a little list of restaurants I find interesting and worth trying. Amongst them are The Italian, The French Brasserie, Panama Dining Room and Matteo's. The French & Italians are quite pricey, and considering my budget this month, I decided to put it aside. I'm leaning towards Matteo the minute I read their menu and see "Oysters in six ways". My favourite!!




You can imagine my rage when I look at the menu on the day, and that appetizer is none existence!! What a way to ruin my mood! But I was already hypnotize from the ambience of the restaurant. From the outside, it's nothing to be impressed about, Matteo's is located in the middle of residential area in Fitzroy North where it's habitant is more quirky than posh. So to have a sleek decor with warm purple tone throughout is quite a nice surprise. Their food was fantastic too! I read in the book, Matteo's take pride in serving modern Western dishes with a slight Asian edge. Even the bread basket had an asian touch to it. Instead of the usual olive oil dip, there's a sprinkling of what it appears to be some dried wakame with toasted sesame seed. Sprinkle that on top of your butter on a crusty artisan bread and your tongue is happily dancing around in seaweed heaven.



We ordered the fish plate for appetizer served three ways (no photos of this I'm afraid, I was too busy eating). all three of them had a very unique and tasty dressing one is more thai oriented, one Japanese with a definite hit of wasabi, and one is chinese. yum yum yum.. For the main course I ordered the wagyu beef with pea mash and wagyu croquette and M had the sesame glazed Balmain bug tails, seared scallops & veal sweetbreads in a Yakitori sauce, Asian coleslaw with shredded pork & jellyfish (minus the pork of course). He didn't feel like ordering dessert, but being the sweet tooth, I ordered the warm, dark chocolate fondant pudding, coconut milk gelato. I had doubts of the coconut milk gelato, but boy was I mistaken.. It was DELISH! very creamy and light, a perfect compliment for the rich, sultry, gooey chocolatey goodness of the fondant. To wrap things up, M had a glass of latte and he said it was really good coffee. I can only sniff it's aroma since I'm giving up coffee as one of my things to sacrifice during lent.



Matteo's
533 Brunswick St
Fitzroy Ph: (03) 9481 1177