Picnic

Did you know I just recently passed my practical driving test? I was 16 before the new Queensland driving laws made you do 100 hours supervised but I was never interested in driving, so I didn't even bother getting my learners until I was 22. I failed the first time but managed to pass the second time just after New Years.

At the moment, I'm not sure how things will be once I get a car. As you know, I have a pretty terrible sense of direction and you can't go up and down a street three or four times, while scratching your head, in a car. I suppose you could, but it would be more dangerous.

Growing up, my parents drove us around the south side of Brisbane, to the east side and all over the coast. This has worsened my directional ability because I was always reading when we went anywhere, I'd look up, notice a landmark and go straight back to reading my book. So I vaguely know where a lot of things are, very vaguely though. I fear this will greatly impact my driving as I'll be assured I know where I'm going when I actually don't. I drove solo recently and panicked because the slip lane to the shops was closed off and had no idea how else to get there, despite going there for the last five years.

Then there is the practical aspect of actually buying a car and maintaining it. Cars are expensive, the car, the mounting fuel costs, registration and insurance. While I stick to a very strict budget between my house bills, mortgage and untouchable emergency fund, the rest of my budget goes towards eating out, which I do a far bit as you can tell. I strongly suspect that by the time I get a car, I'll be put in a self imposed ban of eateries for a few months while I lick my financial gashes.

Then my mum got me a car and I paid off all the additional costs, like stamp duty, insurance, registration, E-Toll toggle, GPS system, new P plates, new oil, new oil filter, got a new key cut and a new electric remote for my garage. Oh god, so poor, so, so poor. Don't expect any new, hip posts for a while, in fact I'll just be here clearing my back log of places to go to and my recipe file.

Ms M for Megababe and Chelle both recommended me this new little cafe. They said they had had breakfast here and really enjoyed it. They also said that they felt I should've been there, which is odd cause they didn't invite me. Maybe they were just feeling like that because we had been going together to random places a fair bit.

Cute little picnic!

The place setting here is really cute, a little box of napkins, salt and pepper grinders as well as a box of retro plastic handled forks, knives and spoons. I really like the design on these.

Defs would buy them

The restaurant itself is quite cute, there is lots of solid wooden furniture. The cafe is very open with a large open window that opens out into the street. There is a very eye catching 3D painting on the wall/ceiling/air conditioner.

Awesome

The only good photo of this has all of us clearly in it

Here is the front counter as seen from the main dining area

The large open air dining area

Their display case

They serve Campos coffee!

Awww

The view from the outside

Perving into the kitchen

The specials

Here is their menu, I was experimenting with a different angle to see if it reduced shininess or glare at all.

Yeah I took some terrible photos

This one isn't bad

The best one

On this visit, I went with my Boyfriend, Jubi and Mandy. You guys haven't really met Mandy before, she's been over in the UK on exchange for her university studies. She came back a year ago but I never saw her cause we had conflicting schedules all the time.

My Boyfriend ordered Phoenix Organic Ginger Beer, this drink is lightly carbonated with a mildly sweet/spicy ginger flavour. He reports that it wasn't amazing and that it was slightly bitter.

Lots of ice!

Mandy ordered the Zippy, a smoothie made out of banana, chai and chilled milk. The chai flavour wasn't particularly noticeable, it seemed to be topped with chai powder. It tasted more like a banana milkshake than anything else.

Impressive looking at least

I got a salted caramel milkshake with a cute purple paper straw served in a thick ceramic cup. The salted caramel flavour was delicious, sweet, buttery and with a good amount of salt to contrast with the sweetness of the caramel. Everyone at the table tried some and they agreed that it was a very good milkshake. I added some salt from the salt shaker at the table to add to the saltiness!

Verrrrry tasty

I stole my Boyfriend's pick of the wagyu beef burger, so he backed off and choose one of the specials of the day, massaman curry with fresh roti and salad. It was delicious, a thick rich curry gravy with peanuts, potatoes and meltingly soft beef, a super hot, fluffy and buttery roti as well as a curried quinoa, cauliflower and coriander salad. I adored his food and I really wish I had ordered that instead.

Delicious!

Jubi ordered the pecan and almond granola with organic yoghurt and berries, she also ended up getting a small pitcher of milk as she prefers her granola wet. Its an absolutely gorgeous little dish and well presented in it's jar. She said she really like the texture of the granola as well as the crunchy flavours of the ingredients.

Pretty

Mandy is a vegetarian and was tossing up between corn cakes and this. This was a roasted pumpkin gnocchi with onion jam, rocket, lemon wedges, a soft cheese, mushrooms and god knows what else I forgot. The gnocchi were soft and pillowy, but didn't taste very much of pumpkin which is good as I hate the stuff. She said she enjoyed the flavours.

Such a random combination of ingredients

Here is my wagyu beef cheeseburger with caramelised onions, serrano ham and cos lettuce. This came with a delicious side of beer battered chips and aioli. The wagyu beef patty was tender and super juicy, I'd have preferred it to have been almost less juicy as my soft bun disintegrated within a few bites of the burger. The caramelised onions were very sweet and that was the predominate flavour in the burger after the beef and cheese. I would've preferred a sour or spicy flavour in there like a good relish, chutney or mustard to round things out. The cos lettuce was an odd choice as the size of the leaves is a pain to eat around, I ended up chomping them off to get around it. It was a very large portion and filled me up alarmingly quickly.

Tasty stuff

Innards shot

Falling apart in my hands ):

Picnic
Atmosphere: 7, airy, bright and with interesting decorations/ furniture/cutlery to catch your eye. I really liked the design of the place.
Service: 6, honestly don't remember anything positive or negative about the service.
Food: 7, everyone liked their food besides me. I would gladly go back to try something else on their menu. Good portions, interesting food combinations and quite cheap prices.

Matcha Chiffon Cake

Do you know what the most definitive indication of a woman's weight loss is? That one thing that tells you, "geez you've lost a bit recently."

Visible collarbones? Nope.

A thigh gap? Nope.

An arse that defies gravity? Nope.

No periods? That fine anorexia down to conserve body heat? Yes, but that's gone way too far. I'm talking quick fix here, no one drops down to anorexia proportions and goes back up in a week or two.

It's actually a women's breasts that tend to shrink first when losing weight. Breasts are pure fat, so it only makes sense that when the body is lean and mean, the first place to go is the breasts and pretty much nowhere else. Sorry thighs and belly fat, this is a more permanent storage solution for the body, so this is often the last to go.

What does this story have anything to do with matcha chiffon cakes? Well one of the finer points of chiffon cakes is that the lightness is due directly to the huge amount of stiff peaks egg whites used as well as the lack of heavy fat. Chiffon cakes, unlike most cakes, is made without butter and instead only oil, water and a splash of milk are used to moisture to the cake. This makes for a very light, fluffy and delicate flavour rather than the rich buttery flavour you'd associate with most cakes.

With this being said, chiffon cakes are quite plain in flavour and are always flavoured with something else. This recipe is easily adapted to contain other flavours though, like orange zest, lemon zest, pandan, vanilla and whatever else you can think of.

My cakes fell a little flat because I don't have a high cake tin. Since this cake is so light and has no real substance, it needs a high walled cake tin to cling to to support itself. You can buy specially made chiffon cake tins and things but I've never seen one for sale ever. Despite the lack of cake tin, they still had a beautiful rise and were soft and fluffy. This is the recipe I originally used. I just messed with the proportions a bit for lazy baker inside all of us, it still worked.

When I measure out this matcha powder, I normally sift it a few times to get out the tougher bits of tea. I find myself using a fair bit of matcha powder to make this cake but the flavour is delicious. For the neutral flavoured oil, don't use olive oil, it makes the cake have a really odd flavour due to its strong flavour. Vegetable oil is normally my go to for oil in cakes.

Beating stuff into stiff peaks is honestly the hardest part of this cake. Not so hard if you've got a stand mixer, or are willing to wash yours. I did mine the old fashioned way with a wire whisk and did the traditional test of standing it over my head. Jubi drew me a picture because I made this cake once over Skype.

I freaked out several times attempting this

Matcha Chiffon Cake

Uses: unsweet cake for Asians to enjoy.

Ingredients for the cake:
5 large egg yolks at room temperature
3/4 cup of caster sugar
1/3 cup of neutral tasting oil
2 tablespoons of milk
2 tablespoons of water
1 scant cup of plain flour with 2 tablespoons of corn flour well sifted in, aka cake flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
25g of matcha green tea powder

Ingredients for the meringue:
5 large egg whites at room temperature
1/2 scant cup of sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar

All the usual suspects

Instructions:
1. Separate your eggs.

I should just reuse this photo constantly

2. Beat your egg yolks and sugar together until pale, thick and creamy.

Same for this photo

3. Start mixing in the oil a little bit at a time, while whipping vigorously. Very much like a mayonnaise. I don't know why I do this, you can just add it all in at once, I found it made only a small different to how fluffy the cake turned out.

Shiny, shiny oil

4. Mix in the water with the sugary mayo mixture.

5. Sift the crap out of your matcha green tea, flour and baking powder. I normally do this about three or four times depending on how lazy I feel. If there are any chunky bits of tea left behind, just throw them out.

One of the many siftings

The colour quickly evens out

6. Mix the matcha/baking powder/flour into the sugar mayo mixture. Start working on the meringue mixture and you will notice the mixture will start to turn a bit greener as the tea infuses.

Shiny/lumpy

7. Time to work on the meringue! Start whipping the egg whites vigorously.

Is this picture upside down?

8. When it hits soft peaks, add in the cream of tartar and start adding the sugar in a teaspoon at a time. Whisk vigorously after each addition.

Dump the sugar in!

9. You will notice the egg whites start to turn nice and shiny after the sugar. Once the egg whites hit stiff peaks, you are done.

This glossy

10. Fold the first third of the meringue into the matcha cake mixture. Fold carefully before folding the rest of the meringue.

Fold it in! Not with a whisk though!

First third!

11. Bake in a high walled 22cm cake tin at 180C for about 40 minutes, this cake doesn't turn golden brown. It really only get pale and springy when pressed down, do the skewer test and you should be sweet.

Last few thirds!

Give it a light tap and smooth out the top

Yeahhh do not use a bundt tin, that's not the same thing at all.

Whats the name of my blog again?

Oh and I didn't bother putting in pictures about the thigh gaps, collar bones or nice arse. Its actually quite NSFW/raunchy considering what I'm looking up, especially when you start venturing into thigh gaps and nice arses. If you need photos, you're already on the internet buddy, check out that stuff in your own time.

Ahmet's on Oxford

So November is the birthday month of H., Z., and Mrs. I! They decided to have a joint party to share the love. Mrs. I actually didn't end up going due to continuing celebrations with her family, however, Miss Chatterbox, S., G., and her mother A., L., and D., NZ-A., Beck and her baby, H-Dizzle and Professor J., all came along, not a bad turn out at all!

I was originally supposed to organise the whole thing as ordered by Z., and H., but I only got as far as deciding the weekend it was supposed to be on before H., picked Ahmet's on Oxford. I was a bit irritated at her as I found it hard to get to, being the only non-driver out of all the people who turned up, however S., kindly offered me a lift.

I'm really struggling with how to take photographs of all the food for large groups of people, up to five or six is fine but any larger and I find its really difficult to take all the photos while people are hungrily waiting. I go with friends who are very patient with me but I feel like its really annoying waiting for me when the food is right there. Do I stand up and go over to each individual spot? Do I ask the waiter to present all the meals to me first so I can get a photo?

Lately, I've been getting people to take photos on my behalf and I use that photo no matter how it turns out. It's made for some very interesting or blurred photos recently.

The other Ahmet's!

I'm not sure what to make of Ahmet's interior, it reminds me of an oddly lit bathroom due to all the tiles? I'm struggling to remember what it looks like besides the photos I have here. I didn't get a good photo of their bar due to all the lights they had there. There are lots of water colour country scenes scattered around the restaurant.

Front desk with jewellery

The kitchen service area

The eerily glowing bar

Here is their menu.

Both H-Dizzle and H., ordered the ayran. Apparently this is Turkey's natural drink of unsweetened yoghurt, water and salt flakes. The taste is very strong with that sour, thick creaminess that you associate with plain Greek yoghurt. It has a very pronounced saltiness that emphasises the sourness of the yoghurt and its not as thick as it could be due to the water used to thin down the drink. I was quite surprised as I was expected more a lassi type flavour, a similar Indian drink made from sweetened or plain yoghurt and assorted fruit. When I tasted this, I would not have been surprised if this was a sauce for a particularly spicy main, H., did not enjoy her drink but H-Dizzle did, having had it on previous occasions.

Salty and sour?

I decided to get some cider, it was the Hills Cider and I got an apple one whilst G., got a pear one. I didn't like it, not sweet enough to my taste and with a mildly hops like flavour?

Disliked ):

I have no idea what this was called as it doesn't appear to be on their menu, however it was an absolutely delicious cheese, dill and shallot flat bread drizzled with hummus. I cannot even begin to describe the enticing smell that came from this bread from the liberal usage of dill. We cut apart the bread to share amongst our end, S., NZ-A., H-Dizzle and myself and I was a bit too slow to take a photo of all that oozy cheese. The bread was puffy and crispy, somewhat like pizza dough haha.

What are you called delicious thing!?

This was D., and L.,'s entree mujver, vegetable fritters. They're not the most attractive of entrees but they are incredibly delicious, being made of a light, creamy interior and a crunchy chickpea batter. I can't remember what was in them but I remember wanting to eat more of them.

So ugly, yet so tasty

Quite a few people got Turkish bread and dips to share as a starter. Me? I just ate what was offered to me haha. Both A., and G., got some as well as L., and her husband, D. The bread was soft, thick and puffy with a slight chew, it was very good stuff.

Soft and puffy

So much bread and dip!

From left to right, we tried the jajik, avocado, beetroot, hot and spicy, baba ganoush and hummus dips. The jajik is a creamy, yoghurt, cucumber and garlic dip which I avoided due to yoghurt upsetting my lactose intolerance like a bull in a china shop. The avocado was also surprisingly creamy and bland, I was expecting a guacamole type dip but it was quite bland. The beetroot was sweet, earthy and super pink. The hot and spicy relish was like an oven roasted capsicum that had a good heat behind it, it was a favourite. The baba ganoush was my pick of the lot with my love of smokey eggplant. The hummus was surprisingly average, with a very, very smooth texture, it wasn't bad though.

Dips in all the colours of the rainbow!

A., the house special pide consisting of salami, chicken, capsicum, mushroom, mozzarella and egg.  I didn't get to try this but A., remarked that she has had better and didn't really enjoy it. How can I say I didn't try this and still know what the pide base tasted like? There was one down my end! This picture was taken by H., as I was pinned against the wall and couldn't get up to take a photo.

Its so darn dark

Here is another pide, this time a vegetarian one. Z., ordered this are remarked that the mushrooms were very good, there was also capsicum, spinach, onion and feta. I found this one to be much cheesier than the tavuklu one for some reason, the cheese was so stretchy. Z., didn't really like her meal, stating that it was nice but she wouldn't go back.

So blurry

This is the lamb shish that Professor J., ordered, it came with a few pieces of flatbread, very buttery, garlicky and super fluffy potato mash and a tasty rice pilaf. I didn't see her afterwards so I was unable to ask her how her meal was.

Two thick skewers of meat

G., got the lamb iskander, a drowned looking combination of slow cooked lamb, Turkish bread and tomatoes with a tomato sauce and a dill and yoghurt sauce on top. It looks very, very saucy in my opinion. G., remarked that she didn't like it as the flavours were very bland.

It does look a bit struggle plate to be honest

My end of the table ordered the tavuklu pide to share, a garlic chicken, capsicum, mushroom and mozzarella topped Turkish style pizza. The pide base was delicious! Like the best deep pan base you've ever eaten, super fluffy, with a slight chew and crustiness.

This the chicken shish which came with turkish bread, mashed potato and rice pilaf. I can't remember who got this but it must've been someone sitting nearby as I've got a clear photo of it.

Much blur.

I was gunning for the king's mixed grill which had a little of everything on it. L., and D., got one to share and H-Dizzle and I split ours since we wanted to try lots of things. It came with turkish bread, rice pilaf, mashed potato, two prawn skewers, lamb, chicken and adana shish as well as a lamb cutlet. Delicious! A perfect size to share between two people. The prawns were a touch on the small size, bursty, sweet and garlicky. The chicken shish was also garlicky, so juicy and tender. The lamb was also very, very tender and I enjoyed that the most out of all the meats on this plate. The adana was mildly spicy and very tasty. I didn't get to try our sole lamb cutlet cause someone else at the table pinched it.

All the food!

H., once again, ordered the worst thing out of the menu. Not so much so, in terms of deliciousness but in size. She received about eight or ten garlic and lemon marinated prawns on top of some mashed potato and rice pilaf. She was highly disappointed and said that she was expecting more, especially with the price of the meal.

Much sadface.

The last dish that ordered to share was the ali nazak which came with your choice of chicken, lamb or adana shish. We got the lamb to compliment what we already had. This was a thick, slow roasted and very hearty stew of eggplant, capsicum, tomato and onion topped with lamb cubes and garlic and yoghurt sauce. I really enjoyed this dish as did NZ-A, H-Dizzle and S.,

So delicious

Ahmet's on Oxford
Atmosphere: 6, busy, dimly lit but with very comfy tables and seats.
Service: 5, ordered and got our food, nothing much to say.
Food: 6, the food at our end of the table was much better. I think it's because we all choose very different dishes and decided to share amongst ourselves. The other end ordered stuff that was a lot harder to share out and found their dishes very repetitive. I'm not sure if I would ever go back here again with that being said. The turkish bread was very good as was the pide, I think the flavours of the meat can be a little plain at times but they are very well cooked, always tender and juicy with a lovely smokey, charcoal laced flavour from the bits I sampled.