L: Lemon Pie – vanilla soft serve, lemon curd, toasted coconut crumble, graham crackers
R: Red Rapture – vanilla soft serve, red velvet cake, cream cheese icing, raspberry puree, meringue crumble
The ice cream was kinda bland. I actually thought it was ultra trendy “milk flavour” until I looked back at the menu online. Not much vanilla going on there. Also, needs more lemon curd! The toppings are nice and all, but they’re only on the outside so it gets a bit boring towards the end.
About a month ago I had a very bad case of analysis paralysis. As I often do, I frantically messaged Rosemarie.
She helped me solve all my little problems, and also figure out that in general I need to:
Isn’t she wise.
So I did! I’ve got a few new things on the go at the moment.
First I signed up for a picture framing short course through Scott’s mum’s work. I thought it might be useful because all my cross stitch projects come out in random non-standard sizes, and as a result almost all of my finished stitches are rolled up in a box under my bed instead of displayed.
The first class we learned about materials and cut mat boards, second class we cut more mat board bevels, and foam core and mounted things together. This week we cut the wood for our frames and glued them together, and the last week we cut the glass and put everything together. It was fun! I finished two frames. The instructor is very knowledgeable and gave us a lot of info. The tools to do it on my own would be a bit of an investment though.
Have you ever seen 2.5 kg plates before?? Lol.
Second I joined an Olympic weightlifting club. It is very intense and scary there. Everyone is extremely strong. There are people training for the Commonwealth Games and stuff. The first night I went, THIS GUY was there!! He is so awesome. Anyway so now I have a coach who is teaching me snatch and clean and jerk from scratch. It’s very cheap and I can go as much as I want, which is pretty cool. And everyone I’ve met so far has been very friendly. I think it will be good for me to have some goals again, now that I don’t have skeleton in my life. Hopefully I can do some local competitions at some point.
I also thought maybe I could try and cook more elaborate meals? These were homemade pork and shrimp siu mai. They were yum. I got a library card too so I could get a bunch of fancy cookbooks for some new ideas. Any ideas for labour intensive but not cost intensive meals would be very welcomed! (Just typing that out makes me realize that I should make perogies v soon, especially since they don’t really exist here.) (brb crying)
So life is very busy these days. This is good.
Next weekend I’m going to Adelaide for Cassia’s baby shower. I don’t think they actually expected me to accept the invitation but flights were only $33!!! So… YOLO, I’m going.
And then a couple days after that we go to Ottawa!!! We are very excited to escape the cold here and get some quality family/friends/cottage/Canada time in.
PS fish and chip shop deep fried Mars bars are amazing. We shared a few at work the other day. :D
This place is very close to our house.
Jemma, Jess and I ALL ordered the zucchini, corn and halloumi fritters… and then found out they were not available. Le sigh. So here are our second choices…
Smashed avo for me, which I guess is the reason we still don’t own a house. :P With a poached egg. The avocado mixture was like 50% feta. Yum. Very lemony. Good sourdough as well, and we appreciated them giving us decent knives to cut through it.
Jess had the big breakfast that came with a cheesy croquette and mushrooms and stuff.
Jem had hotcakes with bacon and pecan and ice cream. They were very light and fluffy.
All decent. Disappointing that we didn’t get to try the fritters though. Maybe don’t go on a Monday morning.
Eau De Vie is a cocktail bar hidden down one of Melbourne’s many alleyways. We actually had a pretty hard time finding the entrance. Typical Melbs, tbh. They serve very creative and unique cocktails.
Sgt Pepper. Vodka with honey, lime, orange and bell pepper jelly. It was super citrusy, perfectly sour but not too sour, with a lingering heat that was spicy but not too spicy. It was also super cold, and came with a dark chocolate dipped candied lemon. I loved it all. Seriously perfect cocktail.
Scott had some house ginger beer. It was very gingery/spicy and not too sweet. Again, very nice.
I also had a Ocean Side #2 but don’t have a non-blurry picture (it was super dark inside!!). It was made from gin, lime, apple, cucumber, white chocolate and fennel, and was okay but not as awesome as the Sgt Pepper. It also came in a very boring tall glass, unlike some of the other drinks we saw being served in shells, beakers, whale figurines, etc etc.
Overall, very cool place. I wish I was rich so I could go there all the time and try everything.
Natasha takes loans seriously. She came all the way to Australia to pay back the $5 we loaned her on the last day in Mexico. Good thing the interest rate was favourable.
We did A LOT of fun things together. It was great.
We went for a swim and a photo session at Brighton Beach.
Baby’s first snot block. (And by “baby” I mean Natasha! Cripes people ;))
Melbourne has the best alleys. We did a lot of walking.
Top notch Melbs graffiti.
Our favourite work at the National Gallery of Victoria (which is free, by the way).
I tried a macaron from Maccas. It was a confusing experience.
We went to an AFL game at the MCG. The crowd was lively and Collingwood lost so it was a good night.
The view from Arthur’s Seat, on the Mornington Peninsula. You can see the tiny gap in the otherwise enclosed Port Phillip Bay, and the actual ocean in the very back.
Playing on the rocks at Cape Schanck.
At Yering Station in the Yarra Valley. That was a very cheese, chocolate, wine and cider filled day. Thank you Scott for driving us around.
All that was in the first week! The second week I kinda had to get back to my normal routines, and Natasha explored on her own. And then she found a ride to Adelaide and continued on her lap around Australia. I hope she comes back to visit again, or we are able to meet up with her somewhere!