A Sweet Mother's Day Breakfast at Luxbite

I must be the last food blogger to try out Luxbite.  I have heard many good things about Luxbite and have been wanting to go for a long time.  Hubby finally took me on Mother's day weekend.  To be honest, the decision to take me was due to the reason pictured below.

They recently started serving breakfast and this dish was the special for the Mother's day weekend. It is called Sweet Benedict.  It consisted of donuts, bacon, burnt butter maple dressing and white chocolate hollandaise.  It was also dotted with fresh kiwi and decorated with a chocolate heart.

When we ordered it, we were not expecting it to look this beautiful.  It was hard to eat it because we didn't want to destroy the look of the dish.  However, it only took a few seconds of that thought before we plunged right in.

The donut was crunchy and delightful.  The saltiness of the bacon worked really well with the sweetness of the rest of the dish. The fresh kiwi gave it the freshness it needed.  Personally, the best part of the dish was the pork crackling and lemon crumbs.  This added a savoury element to the dish.   All in all, this weekend special was delicious and I hope this makes it back onto the menu on a regular basis.

We also ordered the waffles.  The texture was more bready than the usual skinny waffles you would normally get and together with the spices, it had a  more substantial feel and made it moorish.  The Heilala Vanilla roasted plums were sweet and tangy at the same time. Deanna happily ate the waffles with lashings of the whipped honey butter.

Now, how can I write about Luxbite and not mention their macarons.  They are much talked about. They have many unique flavours.  I wanted to try them all but I let Deanna choose what she wanted to eat.  So she chose watermelon and yoghurt, strawberry, passion fruit and the chocolate sprinkles.

I loved my first experience at Luxbite and I will happily go back again.  In fact, I am planing to going back again real soon.  After all, I have to try every macaron and cake they offer, don't I?

Luxbite
38 Toorak Rd
South Yarra
www.LuxBite.com.au

Bon Appetite,
Cherrie

2008 Holiday Part 9 - Borough Market

We made a quick trip to Borough Market. We didn't get to spend as much time as I would've liked at the market but we only made the day trip to London and our itinerary was full. I did, however get to see lots of wonderful produce.


















Bon Appetite,
Cherrie

2008 Holiday Part 12 - Paris

We decided to do a day trip into Paris. We took the Eurostar from Ashford International into Gare du Nord in Paris. It was only an 1hr 45min trip.

We then took a hop-on-hop-off, bus tour around Paris as it was the most convenient was to see all of Paris in one day.

Eiffel Tower



Notre-Dame. We found this quaint boulangeri and patisseri down the road from the Notre Dame. For lunch I had a Salami and Fromage baguette and Hubby had a Fromage pizza






I had to try a croissant and eclair while in France. It was delightful and totally different to what we get here. It's lighter and the texture is different.



Bon Appetite,
Cherrie

Max Brenner

Today was cold and wet. It was a perfect kind of day to go to Max Brenner at Highpoint Shopping Centre. This is a cafe specialises in chocolate. They are famous for their hot chocolates served in a hug mug, which is was Hubby got. He said it's the best hot chocolate he's tasted. Now that's saying a lot!



I had the suckao with dark chocolate. A suckao is a special cup with a tea light candle underneath to keep the milk warm. You then given a small plate of chocolate buds and you put as much as you want in the cup to get the texture and thickness you want. You get a special stainless steel spoon that has a straw where you can suck the hot chocolate with. It's very decadent.


Hubby and I had Belgian waffles to share. It was drizzled with melted chocolate and served with fresh bananas and strawberries and vanilla ice cream. The waffle was sweet and sticky. The fresh fruit really went well with it. yummo!

If you get a chance to go to Max Brenner, you should go. The hot chocolate is to die for.



Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Grill'd

I had Friday night off from work so Hubby took Little One and me on a date.

We went to Grill'd in Highpoint .



It's been a while since I've had beef burger so I was quite excited. For anyone who hasn't been to Grill'd, it's a burger bar - be it beef, lamb, chicken and even vegie. Back in 2005, Matt Preston voted the "Mighty Melbourne" burger the best in town. So Hubby had to try it. It was massive - as you can see in the pic below. It had the beef patty, cheese, bacon, egg, beetroot, salad, relish and herbed mayo.

I had the Mustard & Pickled. It had the beef patty, dijon mustard, dill pickle, cheese, salad and relish. It took 4 bites before I even got to the beef patty. It was huge and it was hard to ea but when I finally got there, it was delish.


As a side we ordered Regular fries with sweet chili mayo dipping sauce. The chips were chunky and crunchy. It was cooked with rosemary and garlic. Fantastic.



I will definitely go back.

Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Laksa Me

Laksa Me is a new cafe that opened up a couple of weeks ago. It can be found at Shop 1, 16 Liverpool street, Melbourne. I decided to go after reading Mellie's review on Tummy Rumbles. (and it was on my "must eat places before I finish working in the city" list) The pictures she has on her blog looked enticing (as always). It was a long walk from our office. Right on the other side of the city, in fact but we were determined.

We all enjoyed our meal but I have to say that service was really slow. It was about 30 minutes before we got any of our meals even though there were only a few other diners.

I had the Laksa Lemak. It was vermicelli noodles, fish balls, fish cakes and prawns in a creamy coconuty broth. It was spicy and full of flavour. I usually can't handle too much spice and this dish is the most I can take.

JC went for the My mum's Laksa. It used the same broth as mine but he had roast pork, chicken and prawns. This dish was my second choice. For JC it wasn't as spicy for him, but he enjoyed it just the same.



To be honest, I can't remember the name of this dish. EB ordered this simply because it had pork crackling. After all... who wouldn't? The flat rice noodles were smothered in a spicy Red curry sauce then topped with tofu and fish balls. It looked delicious and EB said that it was.


AL ordered two dishes. The first was Rojak for us to share. This dish is fruits (apple, pineapple, pear and cucumber) with a dressing basically made up of belacan (shrimp paste), sugar, chili, and lime juice. When reading the menu, I knew I would love this dish... and I did. There was a combination of sweet from the fruits and a lovely saltiness that you can only get from the belacan.

AL's second dish was Ipoh Hor-fun. It's rice noodles (hor fun) in a spicy clear broth. It also included tofu and prawns. It wasn't spicy enough for AL as he kept ordering slices of chilli to eat with it.

All in all, we enjoyed our lunch at Laksa Me even though we walked right to the other side of town and the service wasn't that great. We would go anywhere for a good Laksa.

Bon Appetite
Cherrie

Lunch Box 3: This Time It's Personal

Ahhhh.... another month, another Red Lunch Box menu at Cafe Vue. I am so happy that I only work down the road from the cafe. This time we managed to grab a table at the small establishment.

Starter

Curried celeriac soup with Spring Bay mussels - I liked the taste of this soup however if it wasn't for the mussels, it would've tasted a little bland. There was only a small hint of curry.

Salad

Thai chicken salad - I loved the mixture of the vegetables in this salad - some carrots, bean shoots, chinese cabbage and onions. I'm not a big fan of raw onion and to me, the onions in this salad was too strong. The dressing had a real nice sweet, sour, salty and spicy balance. It came separately in a small test tube.

Savoury

Pork pie with aloe vera and pea jus - I loved the pork pie but not too sure about the ale vera and pea jus that came with it. The pork pie itself had a great flavour and didn't really need any sauce. The jus had an interesting flavour. I couldn't decide whether I like it or not. I think the aloe vera gave it kind of a medicinal taste so I decided that the pie didn't need it.

Sweet

Beetroot macaroon - This macaroon was very sweet. The flavour of the beetroot was very strong in this macaroon (which I don't know if it's good or bad). The texture of it was awesome. It was nice and crispy on the outside and sticky and squidgy on the inside.... nice.

My friend, EB, instead of going for the Lunch Box, went for the prawn baguette. The succulent prawns were dressed in a tangy cocktail sauce and placed in a crusty baguette, alongside slices of avocado and shredded lettuce. It looked fantastic. I may give this one a go next time I"m there.



I've been to Cafe Vue for the lunch Boxes three times now... can you tell?


Bon Appetite
Cherrie