The Piggery Cafe at Burnham Beeches, and Cafe Vue - restaurant reviews

Most foodies would have heard of Shannon Bennett, he of the straggly and somewhat greasy, almost blond hair!  He owns Vue de Monde in Melbourne, a well-known and respected restaurant there.  He has a bit of a food empire going, including the 2 cafes we visited on our recent trip.  This was our first visit to Burnham Beeches, but we had been to Cafe Vue before.  I have fond memories of Burnham Beeches as it was still a guest house back when we were children; my sister actually had her (second) honeymoon there!  I am very glad that Mr Bennett and his colleagues are restoring this lovely Art Deco building and grounds to its former (perhaps improved?) glory.
We were in Melbourne for a family wedding, and stayed in the hills (i.e. Dandenong Ranges) for a few nights, giving us time to check out the marvellous shops and cafes in the area.  I was determined to get to Burnham Beeches so we went for an early lunch on the day of the wedding which was in the late afternoon.  It is such a beautiful spot, with huge trees, lovely lawns, a veggie garden and a piggery -  now the Piggery Cafe.  We got there before 12, but it was filling up quickly.  We sat at a long bench with a couple of keen foodies who had big cameras, and were discussing "subtle tastes", etc.  They were actually very sweet to us, and asked us what we were doing in Melbourne and wished us a happy wedding.
We started off with a drink each - orange juice for me, and ginger beer for Mr Pickings.

freshly squeezed organic orange juice $7 

ginger beer $4

I decided on a lobster roll, while hubby went for the wagyu beef burger.  He seems to be trying out every burger he can find lately:)  Oh, and don't forget the chips!  Or should I say house-made fries as per the menu?

lobster roll - $19

wagyu beef burger $12  

house-made fries $8  

We didn't have time for anything else sadly, except a quick wander around and a few photos.  They have a char grill BBQ which sends delicious smoky smells down through the cafe.  Perhaps not so good for the lungs of the chef?:) There is a cheese plate, a charcuterie plate, a couple of different pies and various burgers including fish and vegetarian. Prices are reasonable, and the atmosphere is delightful.  I will have to be honest here and say that the food was somewhat disappointing.  My lobster roll was overwhelmed by the pink sauce, and the fries were limp and not very warm.  Mr Pickings was not terribly impressed by his burger, but I guess you can't expect much for $12.  He said the bun was tiny, and there was no visible relish or sauce.  What is it with restaurants and the lack of condiments lately?  I know, I know, I keep beefing about it.  All in all, a pleasant place to while away some time, but not followed through with great food.

a cute pggy at the Piggery 

love the rustic interior and those pendant lamps 

Mr Pickings looking pensive in front of the tower - Rapunzel here he comes!  

the front drive into the property - can't wait till the hotel opens in a few years!

Now to Cafe Vue, Mr Bennett's eatery at Heide Museum on the outskirts of Melbourne in Bulleen.  I really love this museum, the former property of John and Sunday Reed, well-known figures in the Melbourne art world from the 1930s on, who established a gallery of modern art here in the 1950s. We have eaten here before when we came down for my niece's engagement party (the same one whose wedding we came down for this time).  Dare I say that the food was rather lacking?  In the case of my meal, literally!  The menu is very similar to the Piggery cafe, so we chose different dishes here.  I had house-smoked ocean trout, while Mr Pickings had the veggie burger; we shared the fries which were once again limp and luke-warm.  I have to say that the waitress did warn me that the meal I had chosen was particularly small, but I really didn't think it would be so very very small.

house-smoked ocean trout $18 - I think most of it had swum away already  

veggie burger $10 - that is some lonely little burger 

house fries - sorry to say limp and luke-warm again; at least there was sauce  

 It was a very busy place, with constant comings and goings, so obviously Melburnians are happy enough with the food (though the reviews make you wonder).  The most fun part of lunch was listening to the German (?) waitress getting stuck into the other staff, who seemed to need a good bollocking.  So to conclude, maybe one day I will get to Vue de Monde (misspelt so maybe that says something about the chef's attention to detail)  and see if he really can produce good food, but on the evidence we have here, I would have to say a la Miss Clavel from the children's book Madeline- "something is not right".

beautiful pomegranates in the Heide Heart Garden  

International Women's Day and Muriel Matters!

Most of you probably know it is International Women's Day on March 8, but some of you may not have heard of Muriel Matters.  (I mean really, what a name!)  She was an Australian suffragist, who moved to London as a young woman, and became active in the women's suffrage movement.  She chained herself to a grille in the House of Commons in 1908, and became technically the first woman to deliver a speech there.  She was also an actor, and lecturer amongst other things.  I have always been fascinated by these amazing women who blazed a trail for the rest of us, making sure that modern women ended up with rights to own property, and most importantly the right to vote, and to work. I am quite stunned and horrified that young(er) women seem to think "feminist" is a dirty word these days, often proclaiming they don't need to be one.  Mmm maybe that is because these women worked and in some cases, died for the rest of us to have these fundamental rights.  Anyway, I will get off my soap-box now:)  (But really, these young women need to get a grip.)

American suffragettes picketing the White House in 1917  (image Wikimedia Commons public domain)  

I love the colours that the Women's Social & Political Union chose way back in 1908 as their "team colours".  Purple was to symbolise justice and dignity. (my fave colour so how can I not love it?)  So as my foodie tribute, I have plated up a tasty little salad dish in their honour, celebrating the colours, and the incredible women who began the Women's Movement, back in the day.

take some beetroot 

and some broad beans 

plus some topped and tailed green beans  

add some bocconcini and fetta  

scatter over some snipped chives and pine nuts     

I used frozen broad beans as fresh were not in season.  These need a second peeling after they are steamed or boiled to get rid of the rather nasty second skin.  Though Mr Pickings tried one with the skin, and said it was delicious!  I drizzled on some walnut oil and lime juice, then seasoned with salt and pepper.  Excuse the wonky photos.  They were taken at night, Mr Pickings holding a torch over for extra light, and my semi-inebriated sister taking the photos!!  (Oh did I forget to say steam or boil the green beans too?)

(image Wikimedia Commons public domain)

My Sunday Photo 8 March 2015

Jimmy's Bar Daylesford - restaurant review

Melbourne = food!  You can't really argue with that.  I felt the buzz when we were down there last week.  The food vibe sizzles everywhere you go.  So yes we tried our best to sample as many places as we could!  Driving back from Bendigo where we had visited the rightly famous Regional Art Gallery, we stopped in at Daylesford, a cute country town with some lovely old buildings (gotta make Mr Pickings the building designer happy).  We were in desperate need of lunch, so dove into the cool depths of Jimmy's Bar. We were most miffed by the heatwave down there, as we had been hoping to escape the endless summer we have been enduring here in Brisbane.  Jimmy's looked cool and shady, so was just the ticket for a long lunch.  We chose to sit in the leafy back courtyard under the grape vines, where the sunlight filtered through in a most charming fashion.  While we sat there, lots of people kept coming in via a secret door with suitcases, clearly here for an early start to their weekend in one of the 12 hotel rooms above.
We started with a drink - sparkling wine for me, Chinotto for Mr Pickings.

lovely cool leafy courtyard

Yarra Valley sparkling - yum! - $10.50  

chinotto for Mr Pickings - $5 

even the water is lush and special:)  - $6

I chose 2 entrees, while Mr Pickings had risotto.  I am always wary of risotto in restaurants, as it never seems to be quite right.  Mr Pickings however enjoyed this dish, which had asparagus, baby radish, goat's cheese, broccolini and pea puree. He said the texture of the rice was a bit chewy, which was perfect for him.  The goat's cheese really picked it up he felt; Mr Pickings loved the green colour too!

risotto - $23 

My lunch was chicken liver parfait, and the other dish I chose was quail sausage.  The parfait was absolutely smooth, with quite a strong liver taste.  To be honest, I have to say I prefer a chunky chicken liver pate to a parfait.  I think it was superbly done, but just not to my taste.  And I don't think the pickled veggies added much to the dish.  On the other hand, I really loved the quail dish.  The sausage was really tasty, and the 2 tiny legs were very moreish.

chicken liver parfait with picked veggies and sourdough - $12 

quail sausage - $18  

Other mains were rabbit pasta, pulled pork salad (frankly, not being a pork eater, I will be happy when this craze dies away), sirloin steak and roasted lamb shoulder.  Desserts were on offer, but we were ready to move on, as we had to get to our hotel in St Kilda, which would take us a while through peak hour traffic in Melbourne.  Desserts included a lavender brulee (there is a lavender farm not far away), doughnuts, ice honey parfait, and malt ice-cream.

I loved the red stools inside 

look at this fabulous door handle!

my arty shot looking up the street; Jimmy's on the right

I am so in love with these stools   

now what's with the chucking of cutlery into a small wire basket?  and worst of all, no napkins!!

We have noticed it everywhere, here in Brisbane also.  I guess you could call it a funky approach to service, but I want my cutlery by my plate and damn! I demand napkins with my cutlery.
We enjoyed our lunch here, and if I lived anywhere near it, I would love to try dinner, or just drinks at the bar.  And what about those hotel rooms upstairs?!  We will definitely have to come back again.
Jimmy's Bar is part of Frangos & Frangos, which has the afore-mentioned hotel, and a cafe.

Preserving olives and climbing trees! - Part 1

I think I deserve an award this week!  Even with a bung knee, I have been climbing our olive tree to gather the harvest. Well, not the tree itself but a ladder.  Foolishly, I did not trim the tree last year, so it has gone mad with branches everywhere and up high.  For only the second time in many years, the tree has flowered AND fruited, much to my delight and slight trepidation.  The last time was several years ago when I ended up with a tiny crop, which I preserved and bravely I thought, gave some to our neighbour's mum who is Italian and does her own each year.  Thank goodness, she said mine were probably a bit better than hers.  Crazily, I don't seem to have taken any photos or written down what I did to preserve them so this year it is a big guess.  I have checked out some ideas online,  but they sound really complicated, and I think my own "recipe" was a helluva lot simpler.  So here I am giving it a go.  We will all find out in a few weeks whether I have done the right thing or not.
I have close to a kilo of fruit this year, so I am really praying they turn out well.

you can just see a few fruit up there:) 

getting ready to gather the harvest 

friend Andrew getting the high ones for me 

making small slashes in each one 

ready to salt them

about to (as)sault my olives

making up the brine 

stirring the salt and water together to make brine 

pouring in the brine  

ready to sit for the next 2 weeks or so to mature 

Ok, so what I ended up doing was adding a mix in a ratio of about 1 tbs of salt to 1 cup of water till I had enough brine to cover the olives.  This jar holds about a kilo, and I added just over 3 cups of brine to it, till all the fruit was covered.  I had around 850g. of olives after sorting them.  And yes I used a mix of green and ripe olives.  This is what I did last time and it seemed to work out fine.  I just picked every single little baby I could see on that tree and plonked it in the briny jar.  I have slashed each fruity treasure a couple of times to allow the brine to go in, and the nasty stuff to come out.  I will be changing the brine every day for at least 2 weeks, maybe more depending how it goes.  And then I will marinate them in olive oil (not home-pressed unfortunately).  I used 2 different salts simply because I have masses of them in the pantry at the moment.  I am a bit of a mad obsessive when it comes to salt and olive oils, and end up with scads of packets and bottles.  Tune in again soon for an update on the olive story!

In My Kitchen March 2015

Funnily enough, I had nothing new to show in this month's IMK, so I thought I would probably not jump in this month BUT!  We went to Melbourne for a wedding, and I ended up with a few goodies. They have such wonderful antique and curio stores down there; it is very hard to resist them!  I did manage to restrain myself and only bought a few things.  Mr Pickings the designer, is an artist of the organisational and spatial kind so he very kindly packed things away in his suitcase for the journey home.  His case was just a few kilos heavier than when we went down:)
Join in with Celia from Fig Jam & Lime Cordial for a monthly roundup of bloggers from all over the world showing off the latest lovely things in their kitchens.

my niece gave me this lovely book 

isn't this superb?  Robert Gordon pottery with saltbush glaze- I love it to bits! 

well you have to visit Burch & Purchese when in Melbourne !

adding to my collection of bone-handled knives  

not strictly a kitchen item but very useful:) 

I adore smoked salt

oh yeah baby!  looking good on ice cream 

old fashioned whisk; you press it down and it spins.  Who knew?! 

simply gorgeous Del Kathryn Barton plate

So I guess I did end up with some goodies after all!  I was very lucky to receive the book from my niece who is a keen baker and clever cook.  Her  brother's 21st cake was a chocolatey delight.  I am planning on making a chocolate cake with the spread and the nibs.  If you get a chance to go to Burch & Purchese when in Melbourne, run for it!  At the moment it is full of marvellous, delectable Easter delights.  You won't be sorry.  (no, this is not an ad:).  I just loved it!)

who could resist such cuties? 

My Sunday Photo 1 March 2015