Australia's Biggest Morning Tea

The Cancer Council Australia runs a great initiative called "Australia's Biggest Morning Tea" where people get together and have a morning tea together and donate money to the Cancer Council.

Unfortunately, meetings got in our way this morning so we had to reschedule for an afternoon tea, but it was just as successful all the same!

Everyone in the dev team contributed to our lovely tea including hand made cakes, friands, fruit platters and  savoury treats (I'm still munching on chips as I type...!). I'm hoping I can convince some of our chefs to share their recipes here!

Recipe - Rekorderlig Strawberry & Lime Cider Scones

If you can manage to stop yourself from drinking this cider long enough to use it in this recipe, you're in for a treat!

Rekorderlig Strawberry & Lime Cider Scones 

Ingredients
3 cups of self-raising flour
A pinch of salt
1 cup of thickened cream
1 cup of Rekorderlig Strawberry & Lime Cider


1) Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celsius.

2) Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, then make a well in the centre into which pour the cream and cider (yes, stop drinking it now and put it in the bowl!).

3) Using a flat bladed knife, cut through the mixture until it forms a dough.

4) Empty the bowl out onto a floured bench and press out gently so it's about 3cm thick.







5) Use a small glass or scone cutter (about 2 inches) and cut out scones from the dough.


6) Place each of the scones onto a greaseproof paper lined baking tray, fairly close together.

7) Brush the tops of the scones with a little milk.

8) Pop the tray into the oven for about 10 minutes, then turn the heat up to 250 degrees celcius for another 5 minutes to make the scones nice and brown on top.

9) Serve hot with your favourite scone toppings - jam and cream is pretty hard to go past - and enjoy!

Cullen Hotel

Last Friday saw us visiting The Cullen Hotel for an all day planning meeting and what an amazing venue for a talk-fest! The view from our meeting room over the Melbourne skyline was spectacular (and only a little distracting initially!), there were very bright, interesting prints of the paintings of Adam Cullen and we were very excited about the T2 tea and Nespresso machine - simple things!

We were very spoilt with delicious morning and afternoon teas of banana cake (with icing! Can't have cake without icing, I say!) and raspberry and white chocolate muffins (my favourite!), which were deliciously homemadely tasty!

Lunchtime was a delectable treat of risotto, sandwiches and wraps along with some very fancy soft drinks and an enlightening talk about Cullen's paintings, which was a great break from all of the talk of style guides and web application navigation (as interesting as those subjects are... oh dear, I'm actually being serious there too!).

The Deck Cafe

The Deck (Shp2/ 479 St Kilda Rd) is one of our regular haunts - it's so lovely having a place where you just walk in and your coffee (or skinny chai latte - lah-di-dah!) is handed to you without you having to ask.


We're fairly sure the resident barrista, Gavin, is psychic - he must start making our drinks before we've even decided we're going to wander over to grab one he's so fast!!

Of all the places we've tried along this strip, the chai latte here is the best - not too overwhelming in flavour but not too milky - the perfect mix.


We don't eat here a lot, being that we usually just have time for a quick coffee and back to the office, but when we do the food is always great. Today I had the lasagne, which was delicious - lots of white sauce, meat and cheese - great comfort food. Cathy had a ricotta and spinach pie type thing - it looked way too fancy for me (I'm a girl of simple tastes), but she said it was very good.


On top of this, they have a great selection of slices and biscuits (the happy cookies - chocolate with smarties - are my favourite when I've had a bad morning!) and I'm a big fan of their muffin + coffee special.

Flavours of India

Today our team of gourmet adventurers strolled in the sun to the Flavours of India restaurant
The proprietor and staff were friendly and professional
our food - fresh and aromatic
plain and garlic naan - light with crispy bits
railway lamb - tender, spicy and not hot (as served on the famous Indian railway since 1906)
beef vindaloo - not too hot
dahl and rice
all dishes were dressed with fresh coriander
We have been here before and always enjoy the friendly service and fresh food

http://www.flavoursofindia.net.au/

Roule Galette

Braving the ominous overtones of it being Friday the 13th - not a black cat or ladder in sight, thankfully - our little team spent this morning venturing slightly wider afield than St Kilda Road.

Admittedly, not sticking to our "theme" of "St Kilda Road Eateries" in only our second post may not be a good sign, but we do frequently venture into the city for treats so it's only fair to keep you in the loop on our opinions on those places too.

Today's treat was in the shape of Roule Galette and what a treat it was!

Our little team nearly packed out the whole cafe, it's a tiny little place filled with many cute treasures from Brittany and a gorgeous little children's book called Roule Galette - not every place can boast having a storybook of their own!

Being fairly early in the day most of us opted for savoury galettes - Cathy and Tom were the exceptions with a lemon and sugar crepe and a Normandy Flambee, the latter taking several tries to set alight, but it was a spectacular and delicious-smelling display when it eventually did catch on!

For myself, I was very boring and went for the ham and cheese galette, which was a perfect rainy day brunch choice, although maybe a little too much ham for my taste (but easily enough fixed with a little of my traditional food dissection).

Others opted for the Complete (ham, cheese and egg) and (not even on a dare!) Paul selected the escargot... very brave for that early in the day if you ask me, but he seemed very happy with his choice! I liked the inclusion of lettuce, presumably to give the snails something to nibble on (don't get me started on lettuce - I may be the only person on the planet who doesn't like it!).

We stayed for about an hour enjoying the atmosphere, sharing travel stories and discussing the origins of Facebook and how "liking" works and we certainly weren't pushed to hurry along.

Overall, I couldn't fault our food, the service or the venue and judging by the faces of my fellow travellers, I like to think they agree.

PS - a bonus treat, completely unrelated to food - an amazing timelapse video of monks working on a Mandala Sculpture.

Fleur Depot de Pain

Yesterday we visited the Fleur Depot de Pain (love the name!) for the second time.

It has a great feel about it, with big wooden tables and cute old-fashioned chairs.

For early January it was quite busy and it can be a bit noisy inside so we bravely decided to sit outside... but the wild winds of Melbourne quickly forced a retreat back inside, where we found a table towards the back.

The staff weren't super friendly, but they were efficient and the food arrived relatively quickly.

I had the Croque Monsieur which was lovely and buttery with generous amounts of gruyere and ham - the perfect treat for a day when I was feeling a bit under the weather! Although I was a little jealous of Cathy's leek quiche which smelt divine...

I finished off with a piece of the pistachio crumble which I was a bit disappointed in - if I'm going to be bad and have cake with lunch, I want it to be worth the calories, so forgive me if I'm a little over-critical of my sweets! I guess for crumble I expect there to be a contrast in the texture - soft pastry, warm goooy middle and slightly crunchy top. This one, although the elements were reasonably tasty, was the same texture all the way through - and I'm sure being served cold did it an injustice.

Overall, I'd say lunch was a delightful French-ish break from the everyday trappings of St Kilda Road.