Eat. @ Estelle Bar & Kitchen

243 High St, Northcote 3070 ph (03) 9489 4609

It's Date Night again and this time we booked for dinner at Estelle Bar & Kitchen.  I've often admired the beautifully plated food from their degustation menu on my instagram feed since Scott Pickett (now over at St. Crispin) opened this lovely eatery over in Northcote.  

We had an earlier sitting and only had time for the 8 course degustation ($100pp) (6 courses/$80, 10 courses/$120, matched wines optional extra).   We started off with an amuse bouche, which was delightful and tasty, the standout of which would be the onion cream/mousse with the crackling.  This was the start of an exciting food adventure!

The tomato, fior di burrata, & yellow gazpacho was surprisingly packed with flavour, and beautifully presented on a Glenn Tebble plate.

The hand rolled macaroni, slippery jack mushroom & pinenut is a great twist on the tradition, with sheets of rolled pasta and smokey mushrooms held together with a sauce packed full of umami.  I am usually a "meat please" type of girl but I would happily gobble a plateful of this.

Next up was the spanner crab soldier.  I loved the presentation and the spanner crab was lovely and delicate sitting on top of the slightly chewy soldier, giving it an interesting contrast in textures.

John Dory, artichoke and farro was a perfectly cooked piece of fish, and I have to admit I had to google what "farro" is (a type of grain).  Again the crisps on top gave the dish a really nice balance in both flavour and texture.

Pork jowl and blood plums was our first meat dish, and I really enjoyed the tang of the plums both as a piece and in the sauce coupled with the oh-so-good fatty pork and a crispy skin.

The second meat dish was the wagyu rump, bone marrow & eggplant.  Hubby found the combination of the fatty wagyu and bone marrow a bit overpowering but the glutton in me loved every bit of this dish.

On to dessert!  The fig and beetroot was quite an unusual combination for me.  I found the use of the freeze dried beetroot and the meringue really interesting but the sweet-tooth in me wanted this to just be a little sweeter.  

Sadly we came to our last course, which was the chocolate, yuzu & gruetine, presented in the form of a beautiful and smooth mousse.  A lovely sweet note to end the degustation.  

Alas, there was one more little treat as we paid the bill and bid the lovely evening adieu.  We lingered (just a little bit) over the sticky meringue, and exited to the apple-liciously tangy note in the sugar coated jellies.  

The degustation menu at Estelle was a delightful experience which showcased the chef's mastery with fresh and interesting ingredients.  The creativity of the dishes was impressive and refreshing, and the artfully presented dishes were a treat for the eyes as well as the taste buds.  I am most certainly looking forward to our next visit with great anticipation!

Eat. @ Daniel Son

471 - 473 Neerim Rd, Murrumbeena 3163 ph 0497 690 628

Daniel Son is a cafe located in a little strip of shops on Neerim Rd, a stone's throw away from Chadstone Shopping Centre.  On a shopping trip down that way recently Bubs and I had one of our Friday brunchie dates there.

After a hectic morning of school drop offs and witnessing some pretty dangerous parental driving and road rage, I was ready for a coffee.  (Seriously people it's not that big an ask to drive safely when dropping your children off at school and not use obscene words at each other!)  My mocha ($3.8) came with a pretty heart and a thumbs up for meeting the Melbourne standard!

I was a little disappointed that the fritters on the specials board was not available by the time we got there mid-morning, and that we didn't get to try the crack pie that I had seen on their instagram feed.  We ended up getting what we like to call the "choose your own adventure" options, starting with sous vide slow poached eggs on toast ($9), and adding a side of house made hashbrown ($4) and free range bacon ($4.5).  Not amazing but a decent and pleasant breakfast dish.

The cafe has room for prams and there were lots of mummies and toddlers as well as the usual mix of local business-people on coffee breaks and uni students on their way to afternoon classes.  The staff were friendly and efficient.  A cool little suburban cafe.

Shop. and Eat. @ Emporium Melbourne (Part 2)

287 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne CBD 3000
Website for latest news : http://www.emporiummelbourne.com.au/
Check out Part 1 of this post here.

The Mykids Emporium opened last weekend on the 4th floor of the Emporium Melbourne.  Myers has moved its toys and children's wear department, as well as Men's Casual Wear and Luggage departments into this large open space.  It reminded me a little bit of the toy department back in the day when I was little, and I would have to "patiently" go through each level of the department store with my parents until we hit the top floor of the old Myer Store where the toy department was located! 

 It's just an escalator ride up from the food court on Level 3.

The big difference of course is that there are now so many different and varied toys available!  Myer has set up little play areas throughout the level to let children have some hands on fun with some of the toys.  To the delight of my children this meant that they got to spend quite a bit of time checking out all the toys!  My afternoon was full of exclamations from my very excitable trio of kids.

"Here's Emmet!"

"And Wyldstyle!"

And a duplo wall that entertained Bubs for ages.  You'd think we don't have any duplo at home.......

I was quite impressed with the model of Luna Park made with Lego.

Iron Man was there striking a pose.

Thomas and Percy were there.  Thomas had about 15 kids hanging off him so I took a picture of quiet little Percy. The Thomas toys have always been a massive draw for Bubs and this was no exception.

There were a couple of Little Tikes playhouses as well as their infamous little cars to entertain the toddlers. These were bolted to the ground when we were there, which is not a bad idea as I can't help envisioning the possible motor vehicle accidents and subsequent TAC claims.

Rainbow Dash was there.

And so was Lalaloopsy and a massive wall of all its different curly hair and detachable body bits incarnations. (At this angle all you can see are the Monster High dolls though, of which I am not a huge fan)

And next to that was a big screen TV (with a couch, which I took unabashed advantage of to have a rest) showing an endless loop of the latest Barbie movies.

There's also one of the biggest selection of Playmobil sets I have seen in Melbourne. I love Playmobil!

To my delight I found that Fisher Price has remade some of its classic toys. You're probably thinking that I know way too much about toys.  I'm sure Hubby often thinks that I buy toys for my own excitement rather than for the kids!  (I'm no Will Farrell but seriously hands off my minifig display case!)

We spent most of the afternoon here and by the time we left we were too lazy to walk far for dinner, and ended up having a bit of an "international buffet" of sorts by getting different dishes from the various vendors in the food court.   

We ordered some Parmasen Truffled Fries from Charlie & Co. Burgers.  ($4.9)  We had loved them and couldn't get enough when we tried them at the Sydney Westfield foodcourt (they serve a bigger bowl there for $8).  We've had these a couple of times here since they've opened but have found that somehow these seem less "truffle-y" and "parmasen-y" than the ones from the North.  Hopefully this will improve with time!

Hubby had the Bonezilla from Jimmy Grants ($9), as we hadn't tried that on our previous visit to their Fitzroy Store. 

Happy to report that this was just as awesome as the other ones!

And I acutally preferred their Chips with garlic oil, feta and oregano ($7).  

The kids wanted spaghetti and pizza so we ordered from Bar Napoli which has opened up in the same area, and the chef there cooks to order.

Thumbs up for the chef!

The Spaghetti Bolognaise ($12) was very pleasant.  Hubby felt it could probably do with a little bit more salt but the kids didn't mind and gobbled it all up, loving the generous amount of cheese on top.

The Margherita Pizza ($12) was very tasty in its simplicity, as it should.

As if Greek and Italian weren't enough, I had a hankering for sushi, probably because I had spotted the sushi train going around at Sushi Hon.  

By the time I got there the train had finished, so I got a sushi platter ($12) which helped me fulfill my hankering for aburi salmon, although it probably would've tasted even nicer fresh!

Macaron Monster had been asking for milk teas from Chatime everytime we've been out.  My last Chatime Milktea was way too sweet so this time we had them with 50% less sugar and 50% less ice and they turned out perfectly refreshing!

Earlier on in the day we had popped down to Tutti Frutti for some frozen yoghurt as they had an opening special with 50% off then normal price of $2.60/100g.  We tried the green apple, coconut and the salted caramel flavours which were all quite pleasant.

I of course added lots of pearls (they had pomegranate ones!) and some coconut jelly, and quite liked the little bits of mochi as a topping.

I'm looking forward to our next visit to the Emporium as more shops open over the next few months!