Kush - krushed?

Continuing on from my FOG night theme, when I ventured out of the house tonight with Ange, I looked us both up and down and appreciated that we had put in the effort to dress up; tonight I thought, lets go down to what has traditionally been known as the classey end of Chapel Street for dinner.

I might have mentioned this before, but the Windsor end of Chapel Street (My end, the southern end) apparently doesn't hold a candle to the 'classier' Toorak end. Taking this in to account, I thought we were more suitably dressed to try somewhere down there... It took me a while to convince myself to leave the comfort of home, but we did.

The stretch of Chapel Street between High St and Malvern/Commercial Road was like a barren wasteland, there was nothing open and it gave you the feeling of being exposed. Where was everyone hiding?.

Having spent many years working on Chapel Street and living in the area I had an out of date idea of what would be good and what to expect.

We walked past the Old Pepper but weren't up for Pizza, so we continued... KFC didn't even come close to appearing on the radar! The next restaurant we passed was Sienna (the place to be seen on Chapel Street), but alas, pasta wasn't on our radar either... Hang on, are we on Lygon Street?

Then, across the road, I saw Kush. I used to love eating at Kush. It was cool, funky and fresh. Bound to be a good experience.

We went, in. The place was quite empty, but the street wasn't all that busy so we didn't think anything of it. There was no sign of staff so we seated ourselves. After an embarrassing attempt to order a drink we got the staffs attention and some table service.

I won't even mention here the waiter asking me if I wanted to pour the wine myself. Hell, after FOG I'm no stranger to pouring my own drink. But hey, just pour us our first glass and then you can get back to your gossiping behind the bar.

We ordered the Saganaki, there is nothing quite like hot Saganaki with lemon squeezed over it and we got nothing quite like it! I actually used the garnish that came with it to help me eat it.

The napkins at Kush are the first sign I have seen of the GFC, are the little extras the first thing to go?

It was around then that we started to notice our surroundings. The nice clean fresh look of Kush of long ago had given way to ill chosen feature walls and a broken mirror. Personally I don't think menus written on mirrors are a good idea anywhere.

We ventured out for a ciggie, another of my bad habits, and sat in their seats out the front. Definitely one of the great places to eat and drink on Chapel Street in the summer. To the credit of the waitress, she came out to see how long we would be and to let us know that our meals would be ready in five minutes. Loved it, much better than waiting for us to come in and having our dinner go cold.

The mains were great, I had smoked Salmon pasta (yes pasta) and Ange had a salad. Great flavours and fresh. Beautiful.

It was good, but not great, there were too many things that just weren't right. I'd like to say I'll go back, but I really aren't that sure.

To add insult to injury, we went back past Sienna which was still packed! Bugger, I know where I'm going next time.

Ange's favourite healthy breafast

So me best friend Ange has been on Cohen's and has been taught or exposed to a lot of information and knowledge on nutrition. The kind of thing that I think is missing from our education system.

Any hows... Ange for breakfast now eats fruit or fruit salad. Exactly the kind of think I learned when I was going through my Phillip Day phase.

Ange and her hubby Tim went on a road trip up the east coast of Australia and when they were in Byron Bay, Ange ordered her standard fruit orientated breakfast and was awarded by what she has now made her new standard breakfast.

Here it is:
- Fresh fruit (salad like, cut up etc)
- Natural yoghurt (I prefer Jelna)
- Honey drizzled over it
- Anointed with crushed Macadamia nuts

I haven't tried it yet and this is the first post I have made about food I haven't eaten, but I'm looking forward to her making it for me for breakfast next time I'm staying at their place! Hint Hint... ;)

Napier hotel - premier pub food

Today I joined the traditional lunch time crew from work. We headed just round the corner to the Napier Hotel, one of our oft chosen locals.

I tend to be wary when eating there, due to their novelty oversized meals. Sometimes I go halves and are still very satisfied.

The range of meat loving and vegie loving dishes means that there is always going to be something for everyone.

This time I chose the blue cheese twice cooked Soufflé with fennel. I love egg and I love blue cheese and actually, come to think of it, I love fennel to. This dish was great, the mix of the fennel and the blue cheese was genius.

Another great eating experience at the Napier.

FOG

Tonight I caught up with Mark Torpy, as one last dinner out before the wife got back from her trip to London.

We decided to head down Chapel Street, towards the Toorak end... I had been spending most of my time up the Windsor end so it

was a noice treat. We got to Greville Street and thought, hey, been a while since we ate down here so off we headed.

Past the old Candy bar where we had spent so many Sunday afternoons.

We walked past FOG, had a look at the menu, which was very impressive and decided to see what else was on offer before made

our decision. Our first choice was Chez Olivier, I had been there a couple of times before and loved it. Unfortunately they

were busy and without a booking it would have meant a 30 minute wait.

So, we headed back to FOG.

We were taken inside out the back in a great spot so we could see the fire... We sat down and the waitress opened our napkins

and put them on our laps. Excellent, this should be a great experience.

Hang on, that fire is outside, and there are people out there eating! Why are we in here? So we requested a seat outside and

the waiter went out to see if there was anything available. There was, so we were escorted to our seat where fresh napkins

were waiting, however we had to put them on ourselves.

So this is where I have to explain why this post is heading in the direction it is heading in...

Normally, I'm not this fussy or snobby or what might start to appear as being unreasonable, but when I know I'm going to be paying a decent amount of money for the meal, I have some high expectations.

On the table were 2 warm fluffy rolls, a dish of lovely light olive oil and tasty balsamic...

First of all our sparkling water arrived, closely followed by our Cosmo and French Martini. The cocktails were only $10 each which for a cocktail out was very reasonable; however they were quite weak and very drinkable.

We took forever to decide on our food and put through our order, but no time at all to decide on the bottle of Catalina Sands Sauvignon Blanc.

After returning from the toilet it noted that our napkins hadn't been refolded.

I ordered the lightly Smoked Duck on Israeli Couscous or Ptitim with asparagus, charred bok choi and apricot almond compote. Mark had the Salmon with yellow lentils, roasted fennel topped with a brown mustard seed, watercress and persimmon and coriander glaze.

The food was amazing, the wine was great, but unfortunately my glass felt like it was always empty...? Oh, there's the bottle over there on the seat in the ice bucket... may as well fill up the glass myself.

The duck was juicy and tasty... I just love the ptitim, last time I had it was at Cavallero with fish.

The out door area at FOG is great, comforatble and the big brazier added to a great atmosphere... But we think indoors might have been the place to be for that extra little bit of attention.

It was deffinitely a great meal and I did enjoy myself, but I can't help but wonder what Chez Olivier would have been like.

Orange

You may have read in one of my prior posts about Melbourne's north and south of the river culture. Well, I've done the unthinkable and have crossed the great divide.

At first it was a bit of a culture shock and now that I'm getting used to it, I'm really getting back into things. I'm living round the corner from the place I lived in when I first moved to Melbourne. Sort of getting back to my roots.

Tonight I went to a place called Orange up the Windsor end of Chapel Street. When I first moved over I used to go to Orange for Breakfast on the Weekends with my friend Suse.

I've been regularly getting coffee's and the odd Bloody Mary lately, but tonight my friend Laura and I decided to try them out for dinner.

We shared a plate of mallgoods, it was meant to be smallgoods but there was a printing error and it was luncheon sausage which I don't really classify as food, so I'm gonna keep calling it mallgoods.

For mains I had Seared Tuna with Angel Hair Pasta and Laura had Asparagus and Leek risotto. My Tuna was fantastic, tasty and light. Laura's risotto was okay, but she wasn't impressed with the leek.

I finished off the meal with and Espresso Martini.

We sat outside in their cosy street site tables and enjoyed the odd bit of conversation and interaction with the people sitting around us.

All in all, I liked eating there, but that could've just been the company!

spudbar

So rumours have been going around the office lately about this new place to eat on Brunswick Street. People have been sneaking off and then coming back, raving about this great new place to have lunch.

Feeling slightly jipped that I hadn't been, when I heard that there was a group going down to the spudbar today for lunch, I didn't miss the opportunity to jump on board and tag along.

Now this is a strange occurrence, not that I joined in, but more that I wanted to go and eat potato. Potato isn't really one of my favourite foods and I am often heard dissing the humble Tayta... My favourite way to consume potato is in the form of McDonalds French Fries... Now I know that sounds really bad, I just can't help it, especially if they are fresh out of the frier!

So off we trundled, and by the time we arrived there were around ten of us hungering for a potato. Anthony, a seasoned spudbar customer started off with a custom concoction... I opted for a Dahl-i Lama, this had Dahl in it if you hadn't guessed.

Anyways, these potatoes are baked in an oven (very healthy) and then are topped with a generous helping of toppings, you can have 10 toppings and a drink for $10.

How I am likening it, is a pizza with toppings. Just instead of processed flour you have a potato.

I am going to label this as the perfect way to consume a potato! I will definitely be eating there again and recommending it to all my friends.