Neckie the Giraffe

I had made my forceful request for a Mrs Perkins giraffe back when Suboo first posted about her here.  Fearful that I would deliver my threat of stealing her, Suboo made the quick smart decision to become a surrogate and recently gave birth to my very own Mrs Perkins giraffe.

Yay!! Having adopted my very own Mrs. Perkins I decided to re-christen her as Neckie. She almost became Leggy but I think Neckie rolls off the tongue a bit better.

Neckie settling in at her new home nicely. She's made friends with totoro already.

Neckie and I having a staring contest. I let her win.

Thanks to Suboo for my new pride and joy.  Neckie will be loved addition to the family.  I suppose you may want to hear Suboo's version of the birth?  Click here!

Maze Melbourne

I first ate at Maze in London back here and I had been quite impressed with the nosh and overall experience.  Hence, I was pretty keen on seeing what the Australian outpost had to offer.  Technically it's French cuisine (reflecting the skills of Gordon Ramsay who heads the chain) but the menus are heavily influenced by local produce.

The occasion of the day was a certain someone's 21st (hehe).  For a lazy Sunday lunch, it was rather puzzling to fight a traffic jam on the way to the casino.  It all finally made sense when we neared the Exhibition Building to see that Sexpo was on!  Along for the meal (though they were probably there for Sexpo too) were Moo, Suboo, Male Suboo, Mona, Bao and litle Sbee.  Maze were very accommodating and provided a most comfortable highchair for Sbee.  He sure seemed to enjoy sitting in it and showed us his new found skills - projectile raspberry-blowing, shrieking randomly and charming the pants off all the wait staff.  One waiter in particular was so taken aback by Sbee, that he dropped Mona's tuna tartare.

So far, so good.  We were given the set lunch menu.  Huh?  When I made the reservation, I was informed we could have the a la carte menu *whiiiiiiine*  Ok, whatever.  The lunch menu had a decent sampling so we all settled on four courses each.

My cocktail.  I can't remember what was in it.  Passionfruit juice and basil I think.  Moo and I enjoying our drinks. 

The menu is no longer online so I'm a bit airy fairy about describing some of the dishes.  A few photos of what we ordered:

Pork belly.  My 'winter vegetables with pork terrine'.  This piece of terrine was cut with a ham slicer or something.  It was that precise.  My winter vegetables were laid out using a ruler and a pair of tweezers.  Barramundi with butternut squash.  

Tuna tartare - very nice!  Artichoke with baby root vegetables.  Marinated beetroot with goats curd and cabernet sauvignon vinaigrette - also yum! 

Wagyu beef (or was it lamb?)  Smoked eel and green pea veloute.  It didn't sound that great on paper but it was very tasty too!  I like food surprises! 

Despite ordering four courses each (including dessert), I decided that we could fit a few more morsels and doubled up on some of the dishes.  The dishes were very technical, precise and pretty but the portions were small and degustation in size.  Or maybe I'm a pig.

Dessert.  I really wanted to try the Maze Lamington but it wasn't a Sunday option :`(  However I was not disappointed by the alternative.  Dish of the day, I'd say!  Chocolate jaffa with freeze-dried (forgot the more culinary term) mandarin pieces and mandarin sorbet.  Yum yum!!!  Mooey was the only person who didn't have the jaffa and settled on the coconut pannacotta.  I'm sure it was nice but the jaffa was better!

A *bonus* part of the day (or repulsive, depending on how you swing) was the people-watching.  The large Maze windows faced a block of Southbank apartments and one male resident in particular enjoyed coming out to his balcony in his tracky-dacks.  He gave us a friendly wave.

Overall I have to say it was a positive experience at Maze.  Having been to the London counterpart, the Melbourne version does feel more casual and less snooty despite having similar decor and identically clothed wait staff.   That probably has more to do with the crowd who tend to frequent such restaurants in class-divided UK versus the more egalitarian (eating) scene in Australia.  Of course that's not to say that the cooking standards dropped accordingly in Australia or that I received haughty service in London.  However there was definitely an 'air' within the London restaurant.

The Australian prices were comparatively cheaper too even with the strong dollar - $49 a head for four (albeit small) dishes is still a good deal from an institution which tips into the fine dining category.  The price range for the a la carte dishes was $12 to $24.  Very reasonable.  You could argue that it is still quite expensive as you may require more than four dishes to be full but let's put it in perspective - to dine out decently these days your budget has got to be at least $50-70.

Friendly and efficient service, well executed, tasty, pretty dishes and casual atmosphere.  All good things yet I can't shake the feeling that there was something hollow about Maze.  It was like a well oiled Tin Man, just off the production line with an empty heart *sob sob*.  I'll still go back though.  I want to eat the nine course degustation menu, Tin Man or not!

Earl Canteen

I check out Urbanspoon frequently for public opinion regarding eateries around town.  It's also a good resource for finding places that you would not know about otherwise.  Over the past few months, one of the eateries which has featured highly on the 'Talk of the Town' list is Earl Canteen.

You can classify it a lunch time sandwich bar, serving not-your-everyday type of sandwiches, made to order on the spot.  I wanted to know what the fuss was about so Tina and I had lunchies there today while basking in the glorious sun.

We both settled on the Pork Belly baguette.  At $13.50, this certainly is not cheap.

The description goes: Crisp skin Otway pork belly, apple, cabbage and fennel coleslaw and wilted silverbeet on a baguette.

Earl prides itself on it's produce and yes the pork belly was sublime.  The pork crackling was cooked to the point of candied and this was certainly a nice fresh chunk of oink oink belly.  It was a bit difficult to eat everything in one bite, so here's me enjoying the candied crackling.

My criticisms.  The baguette portion wasn't long enough.  While I don't doubt it's freshness, the baguette outer crust was a bit too hard.  It was difficult to chew and there was no way you could squish the baguette down and take a big bite.  This was also made worse by the baguette being cut open along it's short axis rather than it's long axis.  While this might have made the presentation of the pork belly nicer and gave the impression of very large baguette, it just was too difficult to 'eat it like a sandwich'.  I ended up having to bite sections of the bread off, chew and then bite into the pork and salad.  In other words, it was bit annoying to eat it.

Ok.  I am whining about how to eat a baguette.

For $13.50 I would have expected to be quite full.  I was content for sure, but I definitely had room for a crepe.  Too bad Le Triskel was shut.  We had cake instead!

So....Earl Canteen.  It certainly has it's fans and yes the ingredients were great and after years of living the UK and eating sandwiches ad nauseam, it sure would have been nice to have an Earl in London.  But that baguette really put me off and if I was to eat the pork belly baguette again, I would ask to substitute it for another piece of bread.  Overall, I was a tad bit underwhelmed by Earl.  However, I definitely do want to return and sample their other offerings before deciding it's worthiness!

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part VIII

I'm now back in Rad-City and this of course marks the return to the intermittent eating of crap.  I don't know what I was thinking in the supermarket but I bought not one but two packets of tomato flavoured chips.  I initially only wanted to buy the Smith's Heinz Big Red, but thought hmmmm I would like to try the Samboy Atomic Tomato ones too.

The Smith's version is not part of their standard flavours so I absolutely had to buy a packet.  With that in mind, I thought I should test drive the Samboys to see if they would be an adequate substitute for the Smith's Big Red.  I didn't skimp on the size and each bag was 175 grams.  Pretty big for one person.

In short, the Samboy chips really didn't cut it.  The flavoured powder was poorly distributed in comparison to the evenly coated Smith's chips.  Judging from how much I enjoyed the Smith's chips, I could probably drink a bottle of Heinz tomato sauce.

Ok, I'm reviewing chips.  I've hit a new low.