photographing food

I was reading the paper at lunch today – as I often do – and I came across this article in the Herald Sun: Don’t say cheese please, photos are off the menu. The article discusses how some restaurants are banning patrons from photographing their food.

I often take photos when I’m out (and post them on here) – I find it helps me remember meals at specific restaurants, and also reminisce about the night out.  The restaurants which have banned photos have said that it is because you could be misrepresenting their food to the public, which to me seems all a bit silly.  Most blogs that I read that post their own food shots always accompany the photo with a review of the dish, and this is usually what I will base my judgement on, not solely on the photo.

Either way I think it is all slightly over the top. What are your thoughts? Do you take photos in restaurants? Will you now stop?

Koliba Czech Restaurant

So last night’s dinner restaurant was Koliba Czech and Slovak Restaurant in Collingwood. It was really quiet, with only us and two other tables occupied, but I presume that’s usual for a Sunday night. In a very eastern european fashion a lot of the food came with potato and cabbage (which I just love!), and they were very well sized meals – I even had some leftovers for lunch today.

We started with potato pancakes with a marinated cabbage:

These were deliciously crispy, and the vinegar in the cabbage was a great contrast to the potato.  Then it was onto mains, I had kransky sausages with potato and more cabbage, and Phil had a beef goulash. Both were very tasty, although massive in size. (Only my kranksy’s shown below, the goulash photo didn’t turn out too well)

And for dessert we went for the cinnamon crepe with homemade strawberry jam – it was absolutely to die for, definitely could have had one each.

All in all it was a good dinner – quite heavy on the carbs, but very tasty. Also learnt a bit of trivia – we asked the waitress for a bottle of water for the table and she said that apparently in Czech they find it very rude to have water on the table, and will ask you to remove it if it’s on the table – we did shun tradition and go with the water though, I needed something to wash down all the potato!

and the recap begins

Yay! I came home to my internet back! I don’t know what I would do without the internet, two weeks was long enough! Now to catch up on what we’ve missed.

A few weeks ago the bf and I headed to a Japanese Restaurant in Northcote, Otsunami – on the recommendation of the Cheap Eats Guide 2010.  I couldn’t recommend this restaurant enough – it was a contemporary twist on Japanese cuisine, taking interesting combinations of food and putting them together. It was delish – and to top it off, cheap as well!

We started with a salmon and nori roll, quite similar in texture and crunch to a spring roll.

Then deep fried chicken that had been marinated in sake…mmmm

Sweet potato gyozas – these have definitely inspired me to make my own.

Mixed tempura – not that exciting or unusual but I just can’t pass up tempura.

For our main we enjoyed mixed sashimi on top of sushi rice with a scrumptious sesame flavoured dressing.

Last but not least a lemon tart with black sesame ice-cream.

Couldn’t have been happier with the meal, the service was impeccable as well. Highly recommended if you’re ever in the Northcote area.

profiteroles

I just discovered the picture I took of the profiteroles I ordered at Paris Go a week or two ago. It was phil’s birthday and he choose french as his cuisine of choice – the restaurant’s food absolutely delicious, however the profiteroles at the end trumped it all! I unfortunately forgot my camera so no meal shots, but I did get my iPhone camera out for these delicious morsels, perhaps the best I’ve ever tasted.

mmm…

I am now on the hunt for a recipe for something similar so I can attempt them at home – it’s on the list!

japanese and movie

maedaya restaurant, richmond

Last night phil and I headed to Maedaya restaurant in Richmond for some Japanese BBQ grill. We had booked in the upstairs of the restaurant which was a do-it-yourself sort of bbq arrangement. You received a small grill with hot coals on which you placed meat, vegetables and seafood of your choice.

We ordered a variety of beef, chicken and vegetables for our grill, and on the table was five different sauces; best of which was the spicy miso mayonnaise.

grilling on our japanese bbq

phil working the bbq

the delicious cheese and pork fried dumplings

We also ordered some dumplings as a side – which were absolutely delicious! All the meats and vegies were scrumptious, especially since you could choose what sauce you wanted with each piece. If we had more time we would have had more dishes but, since we were headed to a movie we had to leave it at that. Another delightful surprise was the bill – totalling to $42.2o for the two of us, including two alcoholic drinks. Thank you Cheap Eats 2010!

From dinner we rushed off to make our 9:30 movie, Shutter Island. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, certainly a well thought out psychological thriller – I would very much recommend the movie to any one wanting a bit of a scare. Apparently it was based on a novel, but need to go investigate…

mamasita

Last night I headed out to dinner with my sister and phil. I hadn’t seen her in a long time so we decided to go out somewhere in the city, a good compromise between her house south and my house north. We settled on Mexican cuisine, I set out trying to find out somewhere to go. Apparently Melbourne doesn’t have many Mexican restaurants so our choices were limited. I looked into a restaurant called Mamasita – which received a great review from The Age. When we arrived we nearly missed it! It was through a small doorway and up some stairs.

Since it was a no bookings restaurant, there was a bit of a wait for a table, and unfortunately we didn’t even get that – we were ushered to bar type table, which looked out over Collins St however it was not to shabby in the end.

We each ordered a different Mexican drink for starts, cider for myself, a mexican beer for phil and a traditional mexican drink for my sister (it was some sort of variation of a bloody mary).

And for starters we had hand made tortilla chips with a guacamole and corn salsa dips – yum!!

Mains were Quesadillas with a side of Tostaditas (which looked like Mexican tapas). They were both absolutely delicious – pure authentic mexican!

All in all the restaurant had an amazing life to it, and the food was divine, a definite keeper for the books.

tom phat

Woke up this morning at the early time of 8:45 to head out for breakfast (the main reason being we had run out of milk and bread – essential breakfast items). We were going to try out APTE (a place to eat) in Alphington, however we needed to back before 10am, and didn’t want to rush breakfast – we instead settled for a previous favourite, Tom Phat in Brunswick. It is a strange mix between asian and traditional breakfast – with a relaxed decor to match. I ordered the roti omelette, topped with a tomato salsa, accompanied with a green tea, in my individual tea-pot.

Phil opted for an omelette special which contained chorizo and roasted tomatoes, with a banana/coffee/cinnamon smoothie.

The square things on the left of the plate are hash browns – which were apparently delicious. All in all a fantastic breakfast venue – definitely a keeper!

oriental tea house

I headed to the Oriental Tea House for dinner on Thursday night – to farewell a few members of my new work team. I had been previously and we had an amazing selection of dumplings – tonight however, for ease of ordering, we had the banquet, which contained 5 different courses over the night.

The evening began with a raspberry and lime mar-tea-ni (iced tea with vodka!).

raspberry lime mar-tea-ni

Wasn’t too impressed with the drink, it mostly tasted of raspberry cordial, so it was sickly sweet. The first course arrived – chicken san choy bow.

chicken san chow boy and some sort of beans

The chicken was delicious! However the beans were coated in anchovies so I wasn’t such a fan.

dumplings! two prawn and one pork

The second and perhaps the best course of the night was the dumplings. They were deliciously tasty – mmm.

calamari and some sort of crab battered stick

The above course was the most disappointing . The calamari and crab battered stick were really tasty except for the fact that they were covered in salt. Now, I love salty food, but this was overkill, it just masked any of the flavour of the seafood underneath. Unfortunately I got stuck into the next course before I remembered to take a picture, but it was beef and rice with a rich sauce – not bad, but certainly not outstanding. And then for dessert…

custard dumpling and sesame chocolate ball

These were delicious! The only problem was that there were only two. The sesame ball cracked open revealing the gooey chocolate inside, and the custard dumpling was beautifully sweet. Along with the dumplings they were the highlight of the night.

All in all, the food was slightly disappointing compared to my last trip to the tea house – I think next time it’s just best to stick to the dumplings!