We celebrated our 8th anniversary with a very special treat: dinner at Dinner by Heston (Blumenthal). We’ve been seeing him on Masterchef for years and have always dreamed about eating a chocolate radio at The Fat Duck. His restaurant at Crown Casino here in Melbourne isn’t quite as crazy as the one in the UK, but it was still exceptional and lots of fun.

We started with some complimentary crusty bread and salty butter, and drinks. I had a Cider Gimlet (Somerset Cider Brandy, Acidulated Butter, Cider Cordial), which was very cold and very tiny, cider-y with a hit of extra alcohol. Scott had a non-alcoholic Oak Fizz (Oak Shrub, Dry Essence, Vichy Catalan) which he said was ‘arborific’.

Of course we had to order the meat fruit. I guess they have moved on from the version that looks like a mandarin. Now you get Plum Meat Fruit (spiced red wine, chicken liver parfait, grilled bread). It was so freaking smooth. And rich. And delicious. The buttery bread was great too, and if you run out, they’ll give you another slice.

For my main course I ordered the Cod in Cider, which is actually made with snapper. Everything on the menu is based on really old recipes (like from the middle ages and stuff) but they said that snapper is much nicer than cod now. It had silverbeet leaves, roast onions, fired mussels, and sorrel, in the most delicious buttery sauce. I LOVED IT. It was so so so tasty. The sauce tasted like buttery ocean, the fish and the mussels were perfect, and the vegetables were just as delicious.

Scott had Venison and Bottled Cherries (smoked beetroot, grilled red cabbage, pickled cherries). Scott says: The venison was perfectly cooked, rare and tender. The smoked beetroot was beautiful and earthy, the cherries tasted like mulled wine and the grilled red cabbage was nicely bitter against the sweetness.

We also ordered a side of Triple Cooked Chips because I’d read about how much other people love them. They really were good chips. So crispy but not too oily. Perfectly seasoned. They tasted AMAZING dipped in the sauce from my fish dish.

We got the Ice Cream with Vegemite to share. It comes with toasted barley cream, yeast caramel, macadamia, puffed spelt and sourdough crumble. Again, delicious. There were yeasty Vegemite-y bits, sweet bits, tart bits, crunchy elements, and of course everything was super smooth. Really really yum.

We were both stuffed but then they brought out complimentary chocolate mousse because it was our anniversary. Very sweet of them. It came with yummy little biscuits that you could dip in to the super smooth mousse. It was risky of me to eat chocolate so late at night but I decided it was worth the insomnia, haha.

All in all top notch experience. Great food and great service. We were there for about two hours in total. I’m glad we didn’t order any more appetizers or anything because we were both very full after what we had. We weren’t right next to the windows but we could still see the Melbourne skyline and the casino fireballs go off a couple times. Would love to go back any time. I’ll start saving up now.

A billion years ago we met up with Michael for burgers. I had the Smash Hit (smashed patty, bacon, american cheese, pickles, white onion, ketchup, mustard, mayo, tomato), and Scott had the Spicy Chic (house made fried chicken, red onion, lettuce, slaw, black bun, mayo). Side note.. Scott never orders beef burgers at restaurants? He is extremely predictable with this haha.

I don’t really understand the On It Burgers menu tbh. The Double Classic, On It Burger, Smash Hit, and The Nod all seem pretty much the same.

Anyway we also split some onion rings with On It Dip, and a macadamia milkshake. I’d heard all about On It’s (Its? :P) great milkshakes… but they just use syrup for the flavours… so I don’t see what’s so special about it.

This review makes me sound like I hated the place, which is not true though. I enjoyed it. My burger was delicious and I liked the onion rings and the sauce. I just don’t understand the menu or the hype.

I had to weigh in for my last weightlifting competition bright and early at 7AM. After stripping down (socks included!) Scott and I went out for a quick breakfast near by the stadium. I wanted something nutritious, but not too heavy, so opted for the Seasonal Avocado on multigrain toast. It came with truss tomatoes, feta, and lime. Scott had the same thing but with an added poached egg. Hit the spot.

There are a lot of good brunch options around us. This time we went left instead of right and ended up at Lights in the Attic (not to be confused with Light Years).

Flat White.

Sweet Benny: poached eggs, smoked salmon, hollandaise sauce on sweet potato hash browns with pea puree and parmesan crisp

Totes delicious. I loved the sweet hash browns. Nice dish.

Birds Nest: scotch egg on potato nest, tomato beans concasse with grated parmesan and kale crisp

Scotch eggs were great, and the potato nest was nicely crunchy and chewy. It was massive. Scott couldn’t even finish it, even though it was really yummy.

Apparently I procrastinated making this post for too long, because the place has now closed. Lol whoops. Well they still have some locations in NSW.

My friend Cris really likes Nutella so we met up at Melbourne Central for a choco hazelnut feast.

This was a KIDS MEAL. O_O

It came with a Nutella milkshake, Nutella doughnut, and doughnut chips with a Nutella dipping sauce. The doughnut was LOADED with Nutella.

Cris got the Nutella “pasta” (crepes with ice cream and Nutella). It was amusing.

Maybe the place closed because everyone got diabetes.