LuxBite

Melbourne!

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to finally go to Melbourne since I've actually never been. On our agenda was clothes (i.e. Topshop) and food. Though I brought my camera with me everywhere, I really couldn't be bothered taking photos but I did take photos of our visit to LuxBite. I have really bad memory so I can't remember what most of the stuff was but I can kinda guess. Oh wait! Found the menu. IMMA GENIUS.

Affrogato - Vanilla ice cream topped with a shot of hot espresso.
Yes, I am copying straight off the menu. Do you have a problem with it? Huh? Huh?

Mango Tango - Passionfruit tart, pineapple jelly and a mango flower

It was okay. Tasty, but nothing mindblowing though the pastry was quite good. It was really hard trying to identify the different parts because I had already forgotten what the label had said once we sat at our tables and started eating.

Stoned Meringue Monster - Pistachio sponge, raspberry yoghurt and creamy apricot

I liked this one, the inside was really soft and delicate, not what I expected. And meringues are always delicious anyway. Again, couldn't really remember what I was eating not that that was a bad thing. It was nice but we were just too nooby to figure it out the separate parts.

Our box of macarons! We bought the twelve pack, so four each for the three of us. We bought kaya toast, sour strawberry, rose & lychee, ribena lemonade, salt caramel and peanut butter & jelly, doubling up here and there.

Ribena Lemonade

Rose and Lychee

Okay from memory...

The kaya toast macaron didn't really taste like kaya. It had a little bit of butter in the middle which was pretty cool but was otherwise, disappointing. Ooh! This reminds me that I should probably make some kaya sometime soonish. I think we have some pandan leaves. Huh. I'll check tomorrow morning.

The peanut butter and jelly one was good but most peanut butter things mostly are. It was hard to taste much of the jelly, it's a tiny little block in the middle.

Ribena Lemonade...I don't remember much.

And the rest I didn't try.

Yes, I am a really bad reviewer. I'm more of a 'this is tasty', 'this is not', 'this is weird' and 'this is kinda sorta okayish'.

LuxBite will be on the 'this is tasty' but slowly nearing the 'this is kinda sorta okayish' side. Like I've said, it was good, but not spectacular. The presentation was lovely though and the shop was nicely decorated so I suppose it is also about the overall experience of the meal.

Oh and I almost forgot.
Clara and Amelia's toast with a poached egg because they felt like something salty.

And end post with a picture of the really nice macaron box with the shop's website conveniently printed on the end which then directs the reader to the site to further browse through more pictures of food and menus. Or click on this link. www.luxbite.com.au

christmas + gingerbread

merry christmas!

So, this year like most, the Lim household (minus Kelvin) hosted Christmas lunch for our relatives. We aren't exactly religious so Christmas day is more of a 'let's make a whole bunch of food and eat it!' kind of occasion which is absolutely fine by me. 

And as usual, I was in charge of the desserts. I already had two ideas in mind, some form of cake and a pavlova but didn't know what else to make. Biscotti? Brownies? Tarts? And then...sudden inspiration! A gingerbread house! Festive! Pretty! And I only have one day to make it! Crap! 

Anyway I did a little google searching, found this Simple gingerbread house recipe. I went mostly by the picture but deviated here and there. 

Cue pictures and compare for yourself.

sad melting snowman with slight duck-like features

demolition!

So I am quite happy about how everything turned out. There were a few ugly things that could have been better *ahem* (snowman and tree) but I do love the roof and my weird icing and cachous pattern on the front which was meant to look like a snowflake but eh. 

The gingerbread actually tasted quite nice. I was expecting it to be dry and icky and purely for decorative purpose but I was pleasantly surprised it didn't taste like crap. 

For reference:

Walls: Gingerbread, mini chocolate fingers

Roof: Gingerbread and flaked almonds

Doors: mini chocolate fingers, smarties, choc-chip (door knob)

'Snowflake': cachous 

Logs: mini snowflakes

Snowman: royal icing, chopped orange sprinkle (nose), chopped chocolate (eyes), jube and choc-chip (hat), cachous (buttons)

Chimney: Marshmallow log dipped in chocolate

Snow: dessicated coconut, icing sugar

Footpath: homemade chocolate freckles

that's attractive

So difficulty level? Not bad really. It's not technically difficult but it does take time, effort and care. I worked on this from about 10pm-5am (by accident! I didn't realize it was that late.) and then 4pm-12am (with long food breaks and distractions and general procrastinating such as watching Game of Thrones and season four of Buffy again. Thank you Log for that DVD. Twas much appreciated. Oh my goodness I hate Riley, go away. Buffy, how could you possibly like a guy as boring as that? And I love Spike. Ah! Oz! Willow! And Giles! Not so much Zander but WHOA! That went a bit off topic). So if you make a gingerbread house, it's best to give it time.

I didn't find the construction of this very difficult and have fallen in love with royal icing (easy to make and sets like glue). The walls and roof was surprisingly easy to put together and only waited about a couple minutes to let dry before sticking the next thing on. The worst bit was my snowman which I initially made out of a white chocolate truffles but they wouldn't keep their shape and kept melting. I ended up just using the icing but that too was still too soft but passable. The tree also kept falling down and had to use a lot of white chocolate to stick it down. And it was kinda ugly because I'm a bad icer. But all in all, not too hard.

So I say success.

OKAY! Other pictures of the day.

flourless chocolate cake topped with cream and berries

tropical pavlova: topped with cream, mango, kiwi fruit and passionfruit

baklava courtesy of our neighbours

my hand model: Catherine

hand models: Catherine and Nathan

lame jokes

christmas t-shirts and typical teenagers

carnage

So yes. That's Christmas. And the end of the long, very picture filled post. Oh, and to the crazy naked girl and sister who waited for this to be posted, I've got some leftovers for you.