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A new restaurant opened very close to our apartment. I had been craving dumplings ever since moving back to Melbourne, so we went to check it out the other week. We were the only people in the whole restaurant, which was a little weird. I walk by there all the time and they never have any customers! Doubutful they will survive, tbh.

Salt and pepper calamari. Quite good. Tempura batter was thin and crispy, and not too oily. Calamari was tender.

Panfried chicken and prawn dumplings. Also good. Wrapper wasn’t too thick. Nice and juicy dumplings.

Spring onion pancake. We weren’t too impressed with this. Why did they deepfry it?? It wasn’t very nice.

Fried overload. Kinda our fault, we didn’t order well.

Prices were higher than I expected but they gave us $10 off, so that was nice.

Yummy Dumpling House Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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I finally got to try a Scotch Egg!

Actually the original plan was to meet Scott for lunch at the Masterchef event he saw on his walk to work. But it was SOOO busy and we couldn’t even figure out where the line started. Instead we just snooped around a bit and tried to get in the background of shots. I watched Gary, George and Matt taste some of the foods (although they didn’t actually eat much!), and we saw some of the competitors. There was quite a few of them on each team so I don’t think we really saw any big spoilers. There were people ERRYWHERE.

Then we walked a street over and ordered a couple scotch eggs from Good Egg where it was much less hectic.


We got one of each: a falafel scotch egg with harissa and tahini dressing, and a pork and fennel scotch egg with roast tomato relish. They were both great. Crispy crunchy coating on the outside with a perfect soft boiled egg in the middle. Scott really liked the falafel one, but I preferred the pork. The sweet tomato relish complimented the salty traditional scotch egg nicely.

They were only $5.50 each and quite filling, definitely one of the better value food options in Melbourne! Plus our server was very friendly. All in all a great experience.

Good Egg Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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I just realized that I never actually posted my 2016 video on here. I spammed it everywhere else, but not on the ol’ blog. So… here it is! What an epic year it was.

My favourite clips are Feb 29th, May 12th, and May 21st. :D

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This year I got myself a cider advent calendar, because… Treat Yo Self. I figured it would be a great way for me to try out a bunch of Aussie ciders and hopefully find some new favourites! It was mostly great, there was only one that I couldn’t finish (why would someone make a cider with hops in it?? blech). And it really was a fun way to count down until Christmas.

Here are my thoughts, mostly for my records. Note: I prefer very very dry ciders.

  • 1. The Hills Cider Company Apple & Ginger – quite gingery, not too sweet 7/10
  • 2. Bilpin Blush Pink Lady Cider – really tasted like pink lady, a little sweet 6/10
  • 3. The Apple Thief William Pear Cider – fine 6/10
  • 4. Pipsqueak Apple Cider – not too sweet, yum 8/10
  • 5. Woolshed Utopia Hard Lemonade – not too sweet, but not a cider! 6/10

  • 6. Napoleone Apple Cider – standard, not too sweet 8/10
  • 7. James Squire Orchard Crush Pear Cider – tasty 7/10
  • 8. Batlow Premium Cider – pretty dry 8/10
  • 9. Pagan Cider Apple –  nice 8/10
  • 10. Crushed Pear Aussie Cider –  generic, bleh 5/10

  • 11. Treehouse Cider – nice 9/10
  • 12. Tuckerbox Premium Apple Cider – also nice 8/10
  • 13. The Apple Thief Pink Lady Cider – meh 7/10
  • 14. Willie Smiths Farmhouse Perry – different 6/10
  • 15. Batlow Cloudy Cider – good 7/10

  • 16. Golden Axe Apple Cider – Jemma drank this one ?/10
  • 17. James Squire Orchard Crush Apple Cider – one of my pub favourites 9/10
  • 18. Australian Brewery The Fresh Press Cider – kinda gross 5/10
  • 19. Crisp Draught Aussie Cider – fine I guess 7/10
  • 20. Pagan Cider Cherry – I don’t like cherries 4/10

  • 21. Woolshed Brewery Utopia Apple & Pear Cider – literally tastes like juice 7/10
  • 22. The Hills Cider Company Hop Edition – why would I want a cider that tastes like beer 0/10
  • 23. Napoleone Cloudy Cider – not too sweet, nice 8/10
  • 24. Willie Smith Bone Dry Apple Cider – very dry! 8/10
  • 25. Forbidden Fruit Cider Original (unpictured) – smelled like body odour 4/10

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I’d always wanted to try cooking an artichoke, but found it all very confusing. What part do you eat?? Scott’s dad gave me one of his homegrown artichokes to experiment with, and well, I’ve finally figured it out.

This be yer artichoke.

Pull off all the tiny leaves at the base, and discard. Also use a vegetable peeler and peel off a few layers of the stem. Cut the stem shorter too.

Use scissors and cut all the tips off of the petals. I guess sometimes they are pointy? They weren’t sharp on this babby artichoke but I still did it, I dunno.

All trimmed up.

Use a knife and cut off the whole top of the artichoke so it’s flat. Then steam it flat side down. Mine was pretty small so I only steamed it for 15 minutes, but more normal sized ones would take 20-30 minutes. You can tell when it’s done when you can easily pull out a petal.

It’s ready! To eat, you just pull off the petals, dip them in butter or aioli or whatevs (seriously, artichokes are pretty much just dip vessels) and scrape the white soft stuff with your teeth. Don’t expect to get much from the leaves.

As you get closer to the center the petals turn into these weird thin white flaps. We didn’t eat those. Just keep pulling them off.

And eventually you’ll get to the crazy looking choke part.

Thankfully you aren’t supposed to eat the hairy bit. Just scrape it off with a spoon. The part that is left is what you can buy in jars from the supermarket. This was a bit of a revelation to me.

Slice it up and you can eat that part too.

Done.

“These things are just plain annoying. After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual “food” out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps. Have the shrimp cocktail instead.” – Miss Piggy