yummy dans mon estomac

so given that my life is all together a little boring... and the most interesting events all happen on the weekend (generally) i decided i'd write a review of sorts. Everyone seems fairly busy of late so it leaves more time for me and the fella.. actually, i think he just feels compelled to join me on my adventures because well... thats what boys are supposed to do? no, he's been very nice about it all... so the little secret for today is....

Ripe.

Ripe is an amazing little gem I stumbled upon awhilst ago in Sassafrass. Meals are well priced and sumptuous. They ALWAYS do a reallllly good salmon dish but it depends when you go. They have a consistent menu of baguettes but have an ever changing specials menu. But the loveliest thing about Ripe are the cakes and the hot chocolates. Oh, to have a taste of the rocky road cheesecake. Its a lovely balance of flavours and

textures really, where the chunks of chocolate and cherry are generous and surprising. The ambience is altogether cosy (the bathroom is pretty cute too), we sat by the roaring fire last sunday, it was raining when we got out of the car and it kept raining, so i'm glad we had a nice warm fire to sit next to. Make a booking if you can, otherwise you might get stuck sharing a table (okay for some, not okay for others).

So we shared a meal of fillet steak with beans and mash. It was nice, abit salty but nice.

For drinks, mr. b had a dark lindt hot chocolate which was amazing cause it was the perfect balance of bitter and sweet and milky. I opted for an earl grey which was really fragrant and light and smelt reallly pretty.

Dessert was the rocky road cheesecake. Words cannot describe the awesomeness that this cake is.. we are definitely going there again..

Anyway so it continued to rain but we weren

't quite ready to go home so we decided to walk around and maybe buy an umbrella (we didn't find a cute enough one so we ended getting an umbrella). The first stop was at the tea shop. This is where we bought our french earl grey from.. this has to be the most amazing tea ever.. Next we headed off to Geppetto's workshop to play with the wooden toys and puppets.. so immature.. i know.. doesn't matter though it was an excellent day overall and we're already planning out next trip there.

boo no photos of ripe. i leave you with this..

weekend mornings

are for:

 -sleeping in

 -staying under the doona warm and snug and giggling

-chai soy french toast with cinnamon sugar

-chocolate pancakes with strawberry sauce

-big brekkys with salmon and gourmet sausages

-rooibos teas

-apple and guava juice

-french music

-and most importantly 

FRIENDS

i had the most amazing weekend. ever.

p.s: i ♥ you 

secret note #1: i really liked not having to live with my parents... now they're back i want to move out.

is that mean? 

raving review: caffe e cucina

caffe e cucina

the food:

lovers of pasta and all italian food.. come closer as i tell you of the wonderful delights of this cosy little place where my taste-buds embarked on a journey of sublime flavours that came together like a well composed masterpiece.  I think i heard angels singing when i bit into a most perfect, well formed, gnocchi i have ever tasted and the lightness of it left me giddy with astonishment. my plate of gnocchi left me smiling hours after dinner was over. i didn't even detest the fact that it was vegetarian, cause it had my to favourite vegetables in it, hence i was very satisfied. I will never understand why people dislike mushrooms and/or aubergines.

[side note: aubergines don't exist on bloggers dictionary by aborigines do. is it weird that an eggplant is affiliated with an aboriginal? ].

service:

now, i'm abit biased just cause i think any place that speaks a european language to you when you walk in the door, is fantastic. BUT I realized that my repetoire of italian words and phrases were very limited to oh, i don't know, cafe latte? spaghetti bolognese?affagatos and chinottos and you get the idea. So my first logical reaction when the waiters spoke to me in italian was to revert to french...

[oh, très embarrassant ].That aside, the service was excellent. I think more places need to hire waiters like them.*coughgreccos&eatinghousecough*

I was talking to a friend and we both agreed how good service makes SUCH a difference. We used to go to this place every friday night and we've stopped cause they were just rude..

and so was the manager.

atmosphere:

it was definitely nice albeit a bit small but i guess another word for small is cosy? It was cute, there was this table of 2 by the window which was tiny and looked out to the street and it had a little gardenbox and all. So perfect for the couple that were there i reckon. It's not too noisy which i like and its got all these lovely vintage campari bitters and mamma mia olive oil posters on the walls. Very charming.

famous for:

scialatielli di mareal cartoccio

complaints:

none.

So if you are ever walking down chapel street i highly recommend you stop over at caffe e cucina. 

Definitely earns a rating of 5 stars.

oh also, the menu is one of those where it's impossibly hard to try and guess the pronunciation.

*****

lazy fridays and Canemah

i am sitting smugly in front of the screen with a honey joy in hand and its making me ridiculously happy cause i think there is waaay too much sugar in there. Its a coronary heart attack in cupcake case. I decided i really just needed to do something productive like.. making jellies. which are still setting in the fridge and coconut/chocolate honey joys. No one eats cornflakes but we had them in our pantry so i thought i'd best not let it go to waste. 

Anyway, I know how hard it is on the big wide internet to get recognised so i am going to be featuring new shops from etsy on my blog. Tell you what, its pretty exciting when after sifting through hundreds of stores finding one that reallly catches your eye.  Last night [ i think it was last night ] I stumbled across Canemah who sells all sorts of wonderful things like this :

4th gen Duaflex Kodak Twin Lense + Ansco Pioneer camera

At this store you'll find plenty of collectibles. Wether you're after a working vintage cameras or are just collecting, Canmeh is a great place to start looking for a one of a kind sorta camera. There are old cameras and then there are vintage cameras.. These are vintage and are in pretty good condition. Even if they aren't the seller lets you know the condition they are in but its fairly hard finding old cameras that are mint and ones work well and don't burn a hole in your pockets. I'd definitely be buying one of these babies if i had more than what is left in my current bank account.

For now i will just shoot with these two:

minolta hi-matic F + olympus trip

olympus trip

minolta hi-matic

 Its always been a bit of a hit and miss for me. I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to film cameras but the result are so worth it when you get it right. They just don't make em like these anymore. And because i'm in a good mood and feel like spreading the love...

aww. they're kissing xoxo...

the customer is almost usually always right

dear greccos... 

your service was highly unsatisfactory, you forgot our veal scallopini somewhere along the line. which we would tolerate, but when we asked about it no one came back to tell us what was going on. we asked a 2nd time and you said it'd be 4 minutes. It took 10 or so. When one of us complained you said " well,he seems to be alright with it".. dumb move! it would've been smarter to just say sorry about that and move on. when you got back you were rather rude. also, when we said we didn't order the water you brought us, your waiter started speaking in french to his friend.. whilst he may have been saying something completely unrelated, his face clearly indicated who he was talking about.. VERY rude. Your food was great, but the quality of your service means we won't be coming back too often if we do come back. We were sorely disappointed as a few of us who are ourselves in the hospitality industry would have expected a bit more from an establishment like yours. OH and on top of that you charged us for the water we didn't order.....we ended up going to riverland later where things are a fraction of the cost and the service is MUCH FRIENDLIER & ALL AROUND BETTER. their staff actually smile! and don't seem pretentious at all.

to the staff at riverland : you never fail to make an awesomely delicious soy chai latte. I love ordering thing through those huge as windows as i'm always greeted in the nicest way possible. :) 

p.s i love your lamb hotdogs.