Coco de Mer – Seychelles Family Recipe

Since my last collaboration with Once Upon A Table Melbourne for the Lost in Jerusalem dinner event, I’ve been anxiously waiting for the OUAT team to contact me again for future collaborations and one day they did! Hallelujah.

This time it is called Coco de Mer – Seychelles Family Recipe.

On Sat 18 Oct 2014, Once Upon A Table Melbourne event transported their guests to the exotic sights, smells and tastes of the Seychelles Islands. The hosts Alain, Eva and their parents Christine and Serge generously opened their home and shared their family memories and recipes alongside with the talented Once Upon A Table team Vittoria, Bridget, Sophie, Sarah N, Sarah L and family. Big thanks to our sponsors The Collection Fine Wine, Pino Fine Produce, Royal Hamam Crockery, Kwencher Premium Beer.

Seychelles is an island nation, located in the indian ocean close to Madagascar. To fit the theme, OUAT team hung fishing nets, shells and scattered coconuts, surfboards, orchids and sand to create the island atmosphere.

Upon arrivals, the guests were served with Coco De Mer colada with fresh pineapple and grapefruit cocktail. The entree was fragrant seafood bisque with lobster and tarragon, followed by mouth-watering main dishes of Tender silverside and eggplant curry & whole bbq-ed red snapper with ginger, garlic and chilli wrapped in banana leaf.

Dessert was the coconut, lime and lemongrass pudding with biscuit crumb, passionfruit curd, white chocolate mousse, ginger crisp and dehydrated pineapple.

The night was simply perfect.

 

Lost in Jerusalem – Secret Supper Dinner in Melbourne

My first ever collaboration with the talented team of Once Upon A Table for their Lost In Jerusalem secret dinner in Melbourne. It was such a fun and enjoyable collaboration, and I can tell you that there were A LOT of delicious food that night.

The secret home location for the secret supper dinner was the modern apartment of Ahmad and Jen in South Yarra. Ahmed is Palestinean and his father was born in Jerusalem which made them the perfect host for this event. Stylists Bridget and Aurora worked their magic to transform Ahmad and Jen’s modern 2 bed apartment into an exotic Jerusalem tea house and awesome feasting rooftop terrace. Below are some of the film photos that I took and you can head onto Once Upon A Table’s Blog for more photos.

I would like to thank Ahmed, Jen, Angie Ma, Vittoria Chiarilli, Sophie, Bridget and the rest of OUAT’s team, including Vitti’s young daughters for the awesome event and delicious food.

Study Room

I finally bought myself a proper study desk after contemplating which one to choose. I went with stationary trestle study desk from Freedom Furniture, which was on special last weekend. Here’s a glimpse of how it looks in my study.

Jesse’s trying to help me with my editing.

 

Fort Nepean

Took a day trip exploring the Fort Nepean – Mornington Peninsula yesterday. It was the former defensive facility occupying part of Point Nepean,Victoria. We had to park our car at the parking area and walked approx. 2km one way to the engine house. It was pouring earlier in the day and then the wind was freakishly strong that we struggled to walk a straight line. 

To this date, this place is called “Victoria’s Gibraltar”, and here are some photos taken after the rain.

Winter is here

The weather was wet and cold for the last few days here in Melbourne. Luckily it’s been sunny today and it will be sunny tomorrow too.

I finally got my scans back from my local photo lab. It’s been a while since I took my Yashica TLR out to play with, so about two weeks ago after the usual weekend brunch at the new cafe Tall Timber, I took a drive down to Eltham to visit Montsalvat with the Yashica. For those who aren’t familiar with Montsalvat, it is Australia’s oldest artists’ colony and home to practising artists.

All are shot with Fuji 400H, both in 35mm and medium format.

Melbourne Open House 2012 – Phillips Shirts

Last weekend, I visited the old working shirt factory Phillips Shirts as part of the Melbourne Open House 2012. This building was built back in the 1915 and it has not changed much since Phillips Shirts bought it back in the early 60s. This factory is currently still in production. As part of the open house tour, I was allowed to view the inside of the factory, the old equipment that are still in function, the archive of the vintage fabrics as well as the old original warehouse of the building.

It was pretty interesting overall, to see how most of their equipments and setup are still very traditional. I hope these photos will give you an idea of what I saw. If you missed out on MOH this year, you can always attend it next year. MOH is held every year around the end of July, with many interesting old and new buildings being constantly added every year.

Moon Under Water – Builders Arms Hotel

It’s been a while since the last time I indulged myself with a fine dining experience. When I first read the article in Broadsheet about the newly opened Moon Under Water, especially when I was going through the photos of the restaurant I instantly knew that I had to visit this place immediately and so I did, along with my usual dining companions. This time we decided to do lunch, instead of dinner because I noticed from the photos that this place has such gorgeous lighting from the window. What I love about this place was the all-white decorations, in addition to their top-notch service and food of course.

Moon Under Water only serves 4-course set menu, no À la carte.  The interesting thing is, their menu changes frequently according to the market produce and the availability. I won’t bore you with more words, here’s the list of the menu during the week I visited this place.

1. Winter vegetable salad

2. Black rice, red mullet and cuttlefish

3. Aged pheasant, boudin noir, apple

4. Burnt butter hazelnut sponge & chocolate ice cream

I think this place could also be the perfect venue for a small wedding reception. Everyone should try to visit this restaurant, while it’s still fairly new and easy to book.