Crawl n Bite

Well it's not often that you eat at every single venue you have a drink in.... if only that was the case there would be a few less sore heads after a night out!

Last night I attended Crawl n Bite part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, an event where you are ushered very orderly from place to place to crawl and bite!  This is the first year for this event which is happening in Fitzroy, St Kilda and the City.

We started at Easy Tiger at 6pm on the dot, they kicked off the evening promptly with the option of a cocktail called the "Mother Plum" or a Singa beer, followed quickly behind by the first small plate.

The night started with "The Mother Plum" Cocktail... Gin, Aloe, Umeshu & Soda

This was an aged rare wagu beef, served with coconut rice, a salad of coriander, red onion, finely shredded spinach, sliced lemongrass and a very zingy dressing that really brought the dish together.

Small Plate #1 great start to the evening

Next, we were ferried up the road to Huxtable.  We sauntered past Huxtaburger which smelt delicious and almost had the same amount of people queueing for burgers as we had on the crawl... mental note...try those burgers.

At Huxtable, we started off with a Medhurst Rose, which was served with a tuna sushami with a yuzo and tofu sauce with a seaweed on the side topped with tempura ginger and watercress.

Beautifully presented... check out the Tempura Ginger perfectly crunchy

This dish looked amazing and the flavours worked well with the Rose, but the flavour wasn't nearly as punchy as the previous bite.  We however, had no problems finishing our plates!

Emily was disappointed that the tempura ginger was missing on her plate!

Our last round was at Anada where we were greeted with a green pea gazpacho with smoked olive oil.

Pea gazpacho, with the smoked olive oil circling the top of the gazpacho

The gazpacho was my favourite dish of the night is had an amazing creamy texture with a bursting with freshness and flavour (I surprise myself not been a great fan of the humble pea!).

This was followed by a small taster of some Iberica ham and a glass of sherry to accompany the next plate.

Sherry line up

The final plate was a real treat.  It consisted of a small cut of pork bellie with fennel and smokey aubergine with a delicate crackling on the top.

Great mix of tapas, I would definitely go back for the pork!

Beside the pork was a small dish of beef cheek, slowly cooked in oloroso sherry. The beef was served with a fava bean mash and was so tender it melted in your mouth.

A very cute salad completed the meal, it was made up of gem lettuce salad with barberries (little red berries that look like pomegranates used to add a burst of tart flavour to a dish), chervil and a white balsamic dressing, gorgeous.

The Barberry...a small burst of tart flavour, known as one of "Natures Superfoods" if you believe the hype!

This was a great event, it was really well organised and fairly priced ($50 for three dishes plus a beverage at each place), if you want to check it out go to the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival website.

If you run out of time in the next two weeks why not do your own crawl and bite there are plenty of places in Fitzroy that serve small plates and a great way to try new places.

Thanks to Simon from Easy Tiger who was our tour leader, he made the event run smoothly and was a great host, I will be back to try out the rest of the menu!

Macaroons so 2011...the Cake Pop is here

Yes a cake pop... essentially a cake on a lolly pop stick.  It's taking the place of the macaroon and the cup cake, and is popping up all around Melbourne.

Made famous by bakerella in the US a few years ago and now you just need to you tube "Cake Pop" and you will see how popular they have become.  My personal fav publication is "Top of the Cake Pops" by April Carter ....feat. Lady Goo Goo, Crumbye West, Britney Sponge and Elton Bun among others...brilliant.



Here they go this weeks first attempt... they look super cute all together

I went in search of both these books but my local readings had sold out, so I decided to give these things a go at home.  I cheated a little, bought a plain sponge cake and made my own ganache...well icing.  Most of the recipes say to use the Betty Crocker Frosting, good if you are in a hurry but I prefer homemade. 


So far so good

I blitzed the cake in the food processor lightly to get a fluffy crumb then mixed the icing through.  I then rolled into balls and refrigerated until they were set.  It was time to put the sticks into the balls (actually they were straws) and then I dipped them  in white chocolate, so they were ready to decorate.



And this is when it started to go pear shaped

There are cake pop moulds out there if you want to get fancy and uniform, but for the novice like me I didn't mind a little un-uniformity, gave them a bit more character.  However, don't make them too big as they fall off the stick (see above)

So I imagined myself making Britney or Justin Bieber just focusing on celebrities.... not so easy there really is an art to it....  I thought I would start with someone I knew pretty well.



Self Portrait

Perhaps on the first try I should have stuck to hundreds and thousands and some glitter sprinkles.


Is it appropriate to eat your own kind......?

I had to do some some quality control on myself, just to make sure it tasted okay!



The Usual Suspects...

Here are the finished products, some of you might recognise Sinckers (or Courtney love), myself, Freida, an angry Chinamen and a brunette K Rudd (pushing it I know!).
 One lucky man got to have his pic of the cake pops....


"Mmmmm Sinckers.....she sure is tasty!"

They are great fun to make, when the book arrives I might be able to refine my technique!  Or I could just leave it to the experts! There are also heaps of accessories out there for your cake pops, if you are serious check out bakerella  and local places such as Cake Deco off Flinders Lane.  I went to kit myself out with the basics after my first attempt above.



Lego Men....could also pass for emoticons!

A day later I made some lego pops....thank goodness for the candy melts and the practice run a day earlier.  I worked out how to keep the cake pop on stick (dip it in chocolate and let it set), then dip it in the candy melts (essentially a coloured compound chocolate). I made these for a friend son Charlie's 5th birthday, the lego cake pops had the faces of his favorite lego men (and women) painted on them.

Tip for Novices!  Watch out for the food dye if feeding to Children!

Johnny Depp?