the adventures of NGO chick on the North Coast.

OMG!!! Even the badness of the baddest Darwin food makes my heart beat faster
with love than any of the trash I've been consuming in the sunny, homophobic,
racist and biggoted sea side town of Port Macquarie on the NSW mid north
coast!!!!! Toby's Estate coffee has made it all the way up here, the coffee at
the cafe that use it is pretty good, I can't remember the name cos THEY'RE NEVER
OPEN!!! So for all the good coffee (actually, the best coffee in town) they
certainly don't fit into the grand
daughter-hanging-out-with-unwell-grandmother-on-a-very-strict-routine, routine.
At times like these, we need: car parks available TICK, good coffee TICK, open
in the morning when I need them? NOTHING!!! For a town that surely sees its
share of metropolitan dwelling family members of expat-now-local retirees, Port
Macquarie really needs to pick up its act!

Last sunday night, after a long shift with Grandmother chick and Big Bro, I was
starving... Big Bro had promised a home cooked Ozi fave - lovely lamb chops,
eggs, and tomato sauce (and a few leaves of iceberg - if i was lucky -with lime
juice - Port Woolies was out of lemons!!! - and some salt that I'd nicked from
Maccas)...But we were knackered, so Big Bro offered to shout me take away! The
chops had to wait. Big Bro was happy with Kentucky Fried, but I had a hankering
for a steak sandwich with egg, MMMMmmmm mmmm just how I like it. Anyway, with my
hunger steaming out of my ears, and twirling like chickwithguts when she's
hungry, i sadly found that the local buger and kebab joint had their hot plate
off! AAAAAARRRRgggghhh! So I had some of Big Bro's hot chips and some KFC
chicken (only the skin!). Some things just don't change, 11 secret herbs and
spices? BIG FAT TICK!!!

I had an average coffee yesterday morning at the Toby's Estate joints neighbour
(PIER). I don't think it was my heart break at the Toby's Estate joint being
shut which made the coffee average, but it could have been :( I think it would
be difficult in this town for a nightclub that masquerades as a cafe by day, to
serve a decent brew... Then today I went to the ex-Starbucks Crema cos Toby's
Estate joint WAS STILL SHUT!!!! The coffee was better than PIER but not as good
as Never Open (Toby's Estate joint). And even though the name had changed, I may
as well have been at Starbucks. Cuz chick had a long black there with me, and it
looked burnt :( And there's a weird phenomenon happening down here. It's the
mug option. Everywhere I turn, I'm offered the choice of a mug or a cup for my
coffee, I feel as though I'm back home in Wollongong!!! Maybe it's due to the
demographic? I dunno, but it drives me nuts!

There's another trend gaining speed here, every cafe seems to offer piccolo
lattes, Crema even offered them in two sizes - 1/4 cup and a 3/4 cup...Speaking
of piccolo lattes, on Friday and Saturday last week, I tried Buzz cafe opposite
the Port library for my hit, its just down the road from our quaint motel -
Ocean Breeze, lovely accomodating people, running self contained motel rooms
right by the beach. I had a piccolo latte that felt a little bigger than the
piccolo's I have at home. Anyway, even though they are locally brewed beans, and
a local franchise(I think they have four cafes round town) TICK, they made the
classic take away coffee mistake - coffee too hot! NO TICK! Grandmother chick
liked it, but she's been on this Port coffee roundabout with me, and prefers
Never Open the best! I'll try them again tomorrow...

Back to today. After the coffee, we went to the local italian restarant. I
needed a gin, I knew it was going to be average, so with averageness expected, I
ordered my G&T as I always do, tall glass, loads of ice and lemon, please. An
average G&T arrived, but it went straight to my legs, which was all I really
needed, so yeah, TICK-ISH. Cuz chick had a massive childhood obesity inducing
iced choc, god it looked good :) Oh, to drink my average gin, I had to order
some food, the staff were very cool, and a hazelnut shortbread seemed to be
foodstuff enough to qualify as a food stuff for their liquor license, and that
was actually quite yummy! It was unusual as it was hazelnut flavoured, and it
had a choc dipped bottom just like those fabulous biscuits from the Alawa cake
shop in Darwin! Yum!

p.s. Big Bro cooked up that chops and eggs feed for me last night, sans lettuce,
he couldn't get it together for the greenery, and I couldn't be bothered. Port
Coles for a good ol' Ozi feed? TICK!

my uninspired eating week - oh wait, is it only Tuesday?

It's been an uninspired eating week for the ole chickwithguts. The best thing i've eaten was tiny little limey/lemony meringue tarts whipped up by my good friend and favourite Dessert Doctor. They were all golden crispy meringue, perched on top of this beautiful citrussy filling and then the pastry! homemade, just the right combination of buttery and flaky, not sweet - a good counterpoint (!!) for the sweetness of the rest of it... honestly if she opened up a place in Darwin she'd make a killing!!!! I was only supposed to eat 1 and then i ate another half and then a whole nother 1 *sigh* talk about moreish!! I had to step up the workouts this week to burn up those babies.

Sunday i went back to box jellyfish at nightcliff swimming pool for another toastie and got charged $4 for a bubacino *frowning* pretty funny cos a proper grown up coffee costs $4.50 - maybe i should have just hyped the squids up on coffee for bang for my buck - LOL (just imagining it). Toastie was good. They had free muffins this time and asked for my blog address - so HI!

Monday arrived *sigh* and Director Chick 2 had pointed me in the direction of a cold chicken noodle salad they make at roast and noodle 328. i have to say i don't reckon it's up to their other offerings. a sign i should have paid attention to was my tummy growling at the sight of the bowls of roast pork rice and bok choys being wolfed down around me ... a lesson in sticking to what i really really want in the future :-( anyway, the noodle salad was pretty nice - steamed chicken pieces on some rice noodles with chilli and soy and bean sprouts.. but yeah, kind of uninspiring. MAN just thinking about that rice and bok choy makes me want to run down and get some now *burp*

Tomorrow - Sari Rasa :-))) yeah!!!

the dry season cometh?

While i was sitting at the park in the rain on saturday nite, i had heard tell of a new venture based in the Nightcliff swimming pool carpark and always intrigued by tales of toasties and coffee and bacon and egg sandwiches, i made a date to check it out next weekend. but. when i woke up yesterday morning i peered thru the louvres and lo and behold! hark! yay and verily! it was sunny!!!!!! i can't emphasise how good this was after all the shitty grey wet season-ness i've been dragging my ass through so i rallied Director Chick and the two squids round to the pool to check it out on the way to the markets yesterday.

They're called Box Jellyfish, a blue trailer that's hard to miss as it's right on the edge of the walkway to maximise the traffic (foot and otherwise) cruising by. they sell Vittoria coffee, which i really really like, they grind it then and there and though my flat white and DC's latte were on the weakish side, it wasn't hideous. they made a good toastie (we got a plain cheese one and a ham and cheese), judging by the way they were wolfed down and i enjoyed my bacon and egg s/wich (although you'd have to do something really really wrong for me to not like anything that involves bacon and eggs). they also delivered everything to our table as we chased squid 2 around which was sweet and they brought over chocolate frogs for the squids to eat (nothing like chocolate on an empty stomach at 10am) the other thing is that its such an excellent place to eat overlooking the sea and the sun.. ah the sun... i soaked it up as i ate, watching the three crazy people swimming in the sea below me with the box jellyfish..perhaps they too had been tricked into thinking it was a dry season day?

Box Jellyfish: Nightcliff Pool Carpark - definitely sat and
sun mornings.

my greasy emilios italian dinner :-((((

cos i didn't post a photo of it earlier but look at all that oiliness! *shuddering*

look what i made! *squeal*

For Director Chicks 40th!

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

and welcoming.... a guest blog from NGO chick!

Mmmm pastries. I love you.

My latest Darwin food experiences include...

Some pretty good curries from Saffron in Parap on the weekend - Lamb Roganjosh and Eggplant something - both yummy and lasted well in the fridge for a couple of days. Oh, and a roti that was almost up to Hanuman standard!

Saffron on that rainy night had sexy wait staff but an offhand supervisor person who irriatated me and wasn't so kind to staff I didn't think - oh, and there's a woman working in the kitchen, and that's always a good sign :)

It also has a highly confusing method of take away ordering. It was an intelligence test, and I failed, so someone else had to support me through the process... it was however a very 'green' ordering system - recycled orders from other diners where on the flip side... I'm not sure if that made me feel dirty or not...

Anyway, it was reasonable priced as well - all that for $45, and for good sized meals.

Cornucopia...
Life is always a gamble there.
There were three cakes doing the rounds that day. My pal, Food Doctor and I choose the French Apple Flan loveliness (we hoped) thing and the Chocolate Mousse number cos I figured the Chocolate Mud would be far too dry and oh so Sydney in the 90s, that I couldn't bear to eat it... Hungry knew better though..

The bottom layer of the Chocolate Mousse was so laden with gelatine that I thought I'd been beamed up into dead horse heaven, the rest of it didn't compensate for being unceremoniously and without consent, dumped in pony world. I love chocolate, and moussey food and I wanted with all my heart to gobble it up, but I couldn't, and neither could my partner in eating, the Food Doctor.

The apple number was even more heart breaking, this day too, was rainy (like the Saffron experience), I think I may have even been slightly cold! I've just returned from Paris and the mere mention of any thing apple-y and french sent me into a twist! I looked into that condensated cake fridge at Cornucopia and squeezed my eyes shut, praying to the cake Goddess that she would make it all OK at Cornucopia, just once, just for me...

But alas, the cake Goddess may have been caught at the Travelling Sydney Film Festival in town, or in the storm over Darwin harbour, cos my Apple French tart, weren't a tart, it certainly weren't french and it was only just apple.

It was ice cold, hard, and it was a cake. And I was sad.

Hungry's Chocolate Mud Cake (it was so retro it may have even been called a 'Mississipi' Mud Cake!)was almost perfect (by Darwin cake fridge cake standards). It was tall and dark, moist and chocolately with a very generous chunk of chocolate ganache / icing on top!

Thanks Cornucopia!

More to come :)

that reminds me

In a fit of pique (the reasons i won't go into here, suffice to say BURNETT HOUSE YOU ARE ON MY HITLIST!!!) on sunday afternoon i flounced down to Cornucopia cafe at the museum for tea and cake. Cornucopia isn't high on my list of Darwin cafes to frequent, because, as was noted by NGO chick (was that you NGO chick with your hilarious account of saffron and cake?), the cakes are soooo often disappointing, clearly made somewhere (that crappy generic place where all crappy generic cafe cakes are produced) that is not there on the premises. Anyway we were treated lovely-ly (this is is a word by the way) by the staff who happily pulled together a table for 15 people, and they were very accomodating of the 10 adults ordering different things at different times and all paying separately and the 5 screeching, running kids who galloped around the museum gardens climbing trees and hiding in their sculptures. i bravely decided to order the french apple loveliness and you know what? Perhaps my eyes were clouded with the rose glasses of it all but it was apple-y and it was moist and it went pretty nicely with my T2 tea ( i could have been in Melbourne but for the howling rain coupled with the brown sea and darwin humidity). Cornucopia, you did good that day.

its been kinda slow lately i know.....

I dunno why is is that it's harder to blog when i'm not inspired than when i am.... which is kind of like the opposite of journal writing which i only write when i'm miserable!!! send me tips for places to check out :-))) leave comments for me down the bottom puhleeze!!!!

in the last 5 days i have been to:
Emilio's italian on mitchell st: good garlic bread, good smell, crappy entree sized gamberi pasta with only 4 PRAWNS!!! oily, with weird sour aftertaste - wouldn't recommend in a hurry :-(
Martins vegetarian in coconut grove - bircher muesli with walnuts and freshly grated green apple - tick, quinoa for brekky - tick, bali curry made with a fresh home made curry base -TICK!
Noodle House on mitchell st - tofu rice and veges - fresh and yummy. not much tofu tho (only 3 pieces). chunks of fresh ginger and i think i got too excited with my cut chilli and soy and threw it over everything... ow ow ow
Darwin's Little India (again) - this time i had Aminah's fish curry, the dhal, potato and roti - tick!

see i'm on a roundabout. someone get me off with some ideas! (not in a sexy way you understand)

:-)))

Parap Fine Foods - Saturday morning

NGO chick sent me a text the other day saying that i should blog about the parap fine foods pastry selection - she reckons it's the best selection of gourmet breads and non-brumby/bakers delight type pastry yumminess in Darwin. This is not the first time i've been told this - Hungry told me some years ago now that she used to wait out the front of PFF on Saturday mornings to buy 2 of only 8 chocolate croissants that are available!! Not sure if this is still the case, and having not checked it out myself, i can only tell you what they've said and suggest it might be worth checking out. Not sure where they get their bread/pastriness from either...... it's all a mystery!

http://www.parapfinefoods.com/ i think they're open from 8am, 9 on Sundays.
Parap village, 40 Parap Rd, Parap.