Chicago Style Pizza at Bella Bacino's

Okay, so there seems to exist somewhat of a pizza debate between Chicago style pizza and NY style. I think this is a really dumb argument, because Chicago Style is really more of a completely different dish. I love both kinds of pizza and I crave both separately. You don't compare a hot dog to a braut, they are different foods, both similar and both delish, but still distinct. Same thing with the pizzas.

Now that that is out of the way, growing up in Chicago I realized that my standards for deep dish are set rather high. For example, St. Louis's Pi Pizza is raved about because they have deep dish, but when I tried it I really didn't think it was that good. At first I couldn't figure out why, and then I realized my standards were really high, and none of the friends I was trying it with were from chi town. 

So that takes me to my favorite deep dish pizza in the city. It's a place called Bella Bacino's which is on Wabash across the river from Trump Tower. It is the cheesiest pizza in the city and it's sooooooooo goooooood. I really only eat it once or twice a year because it's basically a pound of cheese. But my family and I love to go. The restaurant has beautiful outdoor seating in the summer. I should also note that you have to ask for a pizza menu here, they won't give you one. It's an Italian restaurant, but the pizza is what's amazing here. Pizza takes about 30 minutes to cook but it is well worth the wait.

As I mentioned in my previous post I was downtown for the Midwest Geobiology Symposium this weekend presenting research with the rest of my lab group. I suggested that we go to Bacino's for pizza and a bunch of us ended up there on Saturday night.

There were nine of us. We got three large pizzas and we had about half a pizza left. Everyone loved it! I was really happy to be able to share one of my favorite Chicago restaurants with them. We all ordered beers (I got a Dogfish pumpkin ale (see above)), and had a really good time. I think the waiter really liked our table. He brought out these bags of fresh from the oven complimentary chocolate chip cookies after the meal. That's never happened to me before, so it must be for big groups. We were stuffed but still managed to eat the amazing cookies. It was a really nice meal and it was fun sharing Bacino's with people who had never tried Chicago pizza before :D

Big Star

So my Mom has been trying to take me to eat at the Mexican Restaurant Big Star in Wicker Park for years now. We've always run out of time, or forgotten about it, and so we never were able to try it. However, I was in Chicago visiting my family for Rosh Hashanah last week. The timing worked perfectly because the Midwest Geobiology Symposium was being held in Chicago this weekend, so I just met the other members of my lab group in the city. I had to meet up with them on Friday evening, but I spend the rest of the day with my Mom. I love spending time with her, we always have such a nice time! We decided to finally get lunch at Big Star, then walk around Wicker Park before meeting up with a friend in the afternoon. 

Big Star is an awesome restaurant and we went on the perfect day. It's a small place with a huge outdoor seating area. It has a sit down section, and a take out window and picnic table area. We sat down to eat. We ordered guac and chips (yumm) and I got a cider. It was from somewhere I hadn't tried, Vandermill. A nice crisp Michigan cider. I liked it alot and It had 8% alcohol content, so I definitely felt the drink. For out main meal I got a sweet potato taco and a zucchini tostada. Both were good but the taco was rather spicy. The tostada definitely stole the show, and I could pick it up and eat it without it falling apart, excellent quality right there!

It was a really pleasant afternoon! The food, company, and weather made it so. I forget how much I love Chicago until I really spend some time in the city, but I'm so lucky to have grown up close to such a vibrant, amazing city. 

Chickpea Salad with Chicken Sausage

I made a variation of a chick pea salad last week. This salad is feta, chickpeas, spinach, sundried tomatoes, pesto, and greek dressing. It's easy to make and no cooking is required. I decided to eat it with the spinach fontina chicken sausages I had left in the freezer. I grilled the sausages on our mini grill, and sliced them up to mix with the salad. They went so well together! And on top of that I opened the bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc I had bought earlier in the semester. I love this region's wines, and I really developed a taste for Sav Blancs when I was abroad. The oaky sweetness of the wine went extremely well with this dish and the dish made the wine taste better as well. I was impressed that I was able to recognize that this wine would go really well with this meal and it made me happy. I've started trying to pair alcohol that I enjoy with meals that I like. It's another whole set of culinary skills!

Make-your-own Mac at Cheesology

I already did a very long complimentary post about my favorite STL restaurant, Cheesology, so if you'd like the details about why the establishment is so amazing please check it out here! This post is going to focus on a new menu item that they released while I was in Australia. It's a make your own option! You can create your own macaroni creation from a huge selection of ingredients! Best. Idea. Ever! I'd been eagerly waiting to try it out and got a chance to do so a couple of weeks ago. 

Two cheeses are included and they charge an extra 30 cents for other ingredients. I got a munster and smoked gouda mac with spinach, onions and bbq sauce. With breadcrumbs on top of course! It was really delicious. Bbq, onions, and smoked gouda is one of my favorite flavor combos and it was great in a cheesology mac. I also had it with my go to cider, Angry Orchard. This cider goes really well with bbq sauce because it's crisp sweetness compliments and brings out the sweetness in the sauce. This was amazing dinner, and I scraped the pan clean (note the caste iron pan that the dish is served in). It's so great to have cheesology again after being away for so long. And I'll be back on Friday for the traditional break fast!

Schofferhofer Grapefruit Beer

So I don't really like beer. I'm not a fan of the hoppy flavor and it tends to make me feel bloated. However, I've found that occasionally I do enjoy a flavored beer. The problem with this is that flavored beer can wither be really excellent or really shitting, and you don't want to buy a 6-pack and find yourself with 6 bottles of crap. Fortunately, I've found a solution. World Market has this thing where you can make your own 6 pack for $12. World Market has a really great alcohol section with beers and wines from all over the world. This means that I had the chance to buy a 6-pack with beers and ciders that I wanted to try without inadvertently wasting them. This Grapefruit Beer is the first of this pack to be tasted. I was really pleasantly surprised. It tasted strongly of grapefruit, and only had the faintest of beer aftertastes. It's only 3% alcohol so it's nice if you want a refreshing mildly alcoholic drink. I was pleased that I liked the first of my stash and can't wait to taste the other flavors that I bought!

Labor Day Meal

My mom always makes a huge cookout on Labor Day, so I decided I wanted BBQ style food too! I made myself 3 of my favorites (all things I've previously made on this blog) A black bean burger, with sweet potato fries, and sweet spicy veggie salad. I also had a bottle of cider (Angry Orchard is my preferred American brew). This time around I had my black bean burger with guacamole, bbq sauce, sautéed red onions, and smoked gouda cheese. Yes it was amazing. I've also gotten so much better at making sweet potato fries. I've stopped steaming the potato in the microwave first, also I've gotten better at cutting them cleanly. Cook around 400F for 25 minutes and they're perfectly crispy. 

All in all a really fun and yummy meal of old favorites. Nothing really special to report, other than this was my first kinda involved meal in the new apartment. Our kitchen is much smaller, so that has taken some getting used to. Good thing I got to practice by sharing a kitchen with limited surfaces with 6 other people in Oz! 

Amaretto Tiramisu

 So I decided to make some Tiramisu. I've never made this dessert before, and the fact that it is no bake, combined with it being boozy made me want to try it out. It took me awhile to find the ladyfingers, but I finally found them at United Provisions on the Loop. I make this I ended up basically following the instructions on the package of said lady fingers. I mixed egg yolks with sugar, and combined that with whipped egg whites and marscapone cheese. That made the creamy stuff. Then I dipped the lady fingers in a mixture of brewed coffee, Amaretto, and Bailey's. I dipped each side for about a second. My roommate cautioned me not to dip them too long or the dessert would be overpowered by alcohol and get super soggy. It was really good advice. I layered the ladyfingers, lining the pan with them. Then I sprinkled coco powder on top then layered on the cream filling. Then more coco, then more lady fingers, then coco, then filling, you get the idea. I did this until the pan was filled. Then I stuck it in the fridge to settle. The recipe said that it would need 3 hours to settle, but realistically it needs about 24 to harden to the right consistency. Also I noticed that it tastes better the second and third days, because the flavors have time to permeate the cookies and really blend extremely well.

Thoughts on this Dessert:

• For a first try I was really happy with this. I'd love to make it in a larger portion so that it is easier to share with lots of people.
• Construction doesn't take very long, but waiting for it to settle obviously does.
• The longer it sits the better, I'm glad that I now know this. I felt bad because I had friends waiting to eat it the night I made it and they had to come back to taste it the next day.
• The combination of coffee, and liquors was great! I'm particularly partial to both Bailey's and Amaretto so I loved it, but my friends agreed that the flavors meshed extremely well.
• I'd love to try this with different flavor profiles! Matcha Tiramisu anyone haha? Also though I could see myself doing this in an orange chocolate variety. I would put orange zest in the filling and use Grand Mariner as the alcohol to soak the cookies in. 

A fun first time dessert. I'm glad it turned out so well!

Bundaberg in STL?!

So Bundaberg Ginger Beer is an Aussie Staple (one I never actually did a blog post about). I generally don't like soda, but I actually do enjoy Bundaberg (especially as a mixer), since it is sweeter than typical American ginger beer, and it also comes with a sweet pull top! I wasn't something that I drank a lot in Australia, but it was such a comforting site to find in in St. Louis!!!! There is a soda and candy shop, called Soda Fizz that opened up on the loop this summer. One of my friends took me there when I got back and I scoured the store until I found this treasure! Since returning to the states I've been frantically searching to see if I can find any Aussie staples around. So far I have found that "Arnnett's Biscuits" (aka snooty american Tim Tams) can be purchased at World Market. Violet Crumble can be found there too. There is a new specialty grocery store on the Loop that sells tins of Milo and jars of vegemite. And Soda Fizz sells Bundaberg. I have not been able to find Boost chocolate bars :,(, Just Right Ceral, or Aussie Strongbow Cider anywhere. 

It's funny how seeing Aussie brands and foods has become a very comforting sight. I've made myself vegemite on toast/cheddarmite sandwiches about once a week since returning to St. Louis, and I've already run through one of my two boxes of Just Right, much to my dismay. As Australia starts to feel farther away, seeing these little things make feel sadly nostalgic. On the flip side, seeing an Aussie food item in a store brings happy memories and stories to the forefront of my mind. I've shared these stories with friends to explain my enthusiasm for these little things, and doing so makes me feel a lot closer to being back Down Under!

Homemade High Tea

One of the fun food things in Australia is that like England, they have a tea time/afternoon snack culture. Now, this isn't really as prevalent as it is in Britain, but it made me start thinking about High Tea. And this lead me to he idea of making a fancy high tea once I got home. And naturally, this sort of genius had to be shared with my baker of a sister. So we resolved to make ourselves a fancy homemade high tea when I got back to Chicago. For those of you that don't know, High Tea is a multi-course afternoon meal, usually consisting of finger sandwiches, pastries, and scones. My sister and I carefully planned out our tea, bought the ingredients, and spent an entire day preparing this meal. It was an ambitious endeavor, but really it turned out wonderfully. We even had menus (below). 

We had this wonderful fancy chocolate rose tea that my sister had gotten in London. We tried to make some fun tea treats to go along with it. We basically divided and conquered the cooking, but I had a couple of minor difficulties so my sister ended up helping me out some, especially with making things look nice. Our first course was a platter of fruit salads, which we decided to call the amuse bouche. I rolled cantaloupe balls in procuitto (yes it's a meat, but it's the only part of this meal that is), the saltiness of the procuitto and the sweetness of the melon go amazingly together. I also this crazy watermelon/feta salad. I constructed a cube of rectangular pieces and then garnished it with mint. It didn't turn out quite was pretty as I hoped for, but it tasted amazing. The winner of this salad was the mint, it brought out the freshness of both the fruit and the cheese. Can't wait to make this one again (though maybe not in cube form).

Our second course was the savory finger sandwiches and deviled eggs! This was fun to make because we got to choose what flavors we wanted to use. I ended up making 4 types of sandwich, and 2 kinds of deviled eggs. For the sandwiches we ended up making all vegetarian ones. I used two types of bread: light rye and honey wheat. I cut off the crusts and then cut the bread into the fun shapes of triangles and rectangles. I did 3 sandwiches on the rye and one on the honey wheat. The honey wheat one was pears and goat cheese. The first of the rye sandwiches were cream cheese and cucumber (classic tea sandwich). Next I made some eggs salad and made egg salad sandwiches. I tried not to use too much mayonnaise, but then didn't use enough and the egg salad didn't stay together all that well. We garnished those sandwiches with fresh chives (see below). The last sandwich was a pickle cheddar, and dill butter sandwich. This one was probably my favorite. The pickle and cheddar went together amazingly, but the dill butter really made this one. I actually infused the butter with dill and salt. This made it really dill tasting and fresh and it added another dimension to the sandwich.

Okay the deviled eggs. My mom gave me this wonderful book full of deviled egg recipes for a present. My sister and I decided to try two kinds of deviled eggs from the book. The first was Sunrise eggs (below left) and the second was Boursin Garlic eggs (below right). The Boursin ones were the winners! The sunrise eggs were infused with orange juice and sundried tomato pesto. I really wanted to like these eggs, but they just tasted a little too weird. The boursin ones on the other hand were out of this world. We added roasted garlic and herbed boursin cheese. We then garnished them with fresh chives. The creaminess of the boursin and the flavoring of the garlic and herbs made these eggs taste gourmet. We loved them, I will definitely make them again.

                         

Our next course was a tea time classic. Scones! I while I would have preferred Australian/British scones we instead used the awesome scone mix from World Market. We got the plain flavor, and I have to say these were absolutely amazing. While at World Market we found mini jams and clotted cream! So we got that to eat with the scones in the traditional manner. They were delicious and really fun.

After scones we got to the pastries, specifically cookies and cakes. We had Earl Grey Lavender Cupcakes (below left), made by my wonderful sister. She infused the cake with earl grey tea and the frosting with lavender extract. These were the perfect thing to go with tea, tea cupcakes! Next we had Petit Fours! Okay, these are my absolute favorite thing that my sister makes. They are her own invention of cake, call blush cake. This is almond cake with rose and orange extracts. And it's brilliant. For these petit fours she makes strawberry buttercream frosting for the middle layer and then dips them in orange glaze. They. Are. The. Best. And they take her a long time to make because they have so many components. She doesn't make them often, but did them for me as a back from Australia treat. Also they were a perfect addition to high tea. The last dessert in this course was Raspberry frosting sugar cookie sandwiches. These were also outstanding. We found this wonderful soft sugar cookie recipe, and used that for the cookies. My sister then made this wonderful raspberry buttercream that was  heavenly. Lastly she sugared the cookies with raspberry sugar. Is your mouth watering yet?

Our last course was Midgardises, little ending sweets. For this we made Lemon shortbread dark chocolate truffles… and we also bought some meringues from Trader Joes (below). The Truffles were made in a very similar fashion to my Tim Tam Truffles. We used shortbread cookies, lemon curd, and cream cheese frosting to make these. Also we used food coloring to make sure that the filling had a nice lemon yellow color. This time we stuck them in the fridge to harden for a hour or so before they were dipped in the chocolate. Also my sister did the dipping so they turned out pretty!

This tea was such a fun and exciting thing to do with a summer day!! Almost everything (looking at you sunrise eggs!) turned out excellently! It was also really fun to spend the day cooking and baking with my sister. She's the master dessert baker and watching her work reminds me that I have a ton to learn when it comes to baking and cooking, thankfully I have access to a wonderful teacher :D

Sweet Apple Sangria

So for my Birthday I was given a bottle of Savigon Blanc. Since we are getting down to the wire and I needed to drink it, and a couple of ciders that I still had, before we all leave I decided to use it to make sangria! Basically, this is an extremely simple, but very tasty Sangria that you can make in a matter of minutes. I sliced up 4 small apples, 1 pear, and 2 mandarin oranges. Then I poured the bottle of wine, as well as 2 bottles of cider over them. I mixed the entire thing with 3 shot glasses worth of orange juice. Mix this carefully because the cider will fizz up. Then I stuck it in the fridge or 5 hours or so. We enjoyed our tasty drink/dessert while watching the Disney movie Frozen :P An excellent way to end a day! We all agreed that the ranking of the fruit was the pear, then oranges, then apples. Really the pears stole the show here, they sucked up the wine in a perfect way and were really wonderful. I think that I should have mixed this a little better because a bunch of the alcohol sunk to the bottom. However, even with that it really didn't taste alcoholic despite it mostly being wine and cider. A dangerous drink indeed :) I really enjoy sangria, and I look forward to making it more now that I can legally buy alcohol in the states!!

21st Birthday Cupcakes!!!

My twenty first birthday day was yesterday, June 4th. Usually, my birthday falls at the time where I'm back in Chicago after the end of the semester and celebrate with my high school friends, and of course, my family. This is actually the first time I haven't been in Chicago with my family on my birthday. However, my parents managed to make it special even half a world away. They had cupcakes sent over to our house from the Cupcake Parlour in West End, which I blogged about months ago! In fact, my sister referred to that when picking flavors, which is why there were 5 Turkish Delight cupcakes, because I had expressed my love for that cupcake in my previous post. They were even better than I remembered, I really really like them :) And the Tim Tam cupcakes were really cool as well, perfect for a birthday in Australia. My family coordinated with my housemates to get them delivered to the house. The Cupcake Parlour kinda messed up and had them delivered 3 hours early, so I was the one who came to the door to get them. I was still really surprised and it was wonderful, but we couldn't help but laugh because there was a note on the box that said to deliver them between 1-2 and they came at 10 :P The surprises didn't end there! Apparently my parents also had balloons sent to the house (this time when I was at class) and my housemates surprised me with the balloons and a cupcake with a candle in it later that day! It so nice of everyone. 

That night I then went out to dinner with friends at the club and restaurant Cloudland in Fortitude Valley. We had some wonderful Italian food, and an AMAZING apple-pear sangria. I wasn't really taking food pics because I was just trying to enjoy the night instead, but take my word for it the food was splendid. The highlight was the pumpkin ricotta tortellinis in brown butter sauce. Also the decor at Cloudland is the coolest thing ever. It's full of feathers, leaves, and crystal chandeliers! After dinner we ended up going to the RE, one of the UQ student bars, because it's the place to be on a Wednesday. It was really great because a bunch of other people I knew were there as well so it was a great place to drink and dance, and ultimately end the evening. It was such a wonderful way to spend a birthday, and it was so cool to be able to celebrate in Australia!

The Ultimate Tim Tam Guide

Okay. I've mentioned Tim Tams a couple of times on this blog, but have yet to devote an entire post to them. This is why. I've been waiting until I tried all flavors of these magnificent cookies, and could review them in their entirety. Well today was the day that I finally for around to tasting them all! So the post I've been waiting to do all semester: The Ultimate Tim Tam Guide.

Tim Tams are chocolate biscuits (cookies are called biscuits here). The easiest way to think of them is the Aussie equivalent of Oreos. Only they are SO MUCH better than Oreos. A Tim Tam is a rectangular chocolate cookie sandwich. It is chocolate cream between two chocolate cookies, covered in chocolate. Sounds good right? Well it is! They are really delicious and they make them in lots of different flavors and fillings besides the typical chocolate ones (see above). I tasted almost all of them (I didn't try the white ones, which were white chocolate covered vanilla cookies with vanilla cream, because I don't really like white chocolate). So the rest of the post is my ranking of the Tim Tams, as well as comments about each kind!

1. Dark Chocolate

These are unsurprisingly me favorite flavor of Tim Tams. Dark chocolate is richer and less sugary than milk and these Tim Tams are no exception. They are the best. Also this was the first flavor that I did a Tim Tam Slam with. A Tim Tam slam, is when you bit off both ends of the Tim Tam and stick it in a drink (preferably hot, but cold works too) This could be coffee, hot chocolate, or tea. I did mine with matcha (see above). You then use the Tim Tam as a straw and suck the liquid through it. You will notice the cookie starts to fall apart, at that point you slam it into your mouth an enjoy. It. Is. Amazing. Basically the Tim Tam becomes this gooey, cakey, choclatey mess, and is three times as good as the cookie by itself. Dark Chocolate Tim Tams can be slammed with all kinds of drinks. Their versatility, along with their general amazingness is why they beat out all other flavors in the rankings.

2. Orange Dark Chocolate

What makes dark chocolate better? Fruit! These Tim Tams are like the dark chocolate ones but have orange cream filling instead of chocolate. They are great because they have all the best qualities of the dark chocolate ones, but also a wonderful unique flavor that comes out amazingly in this cookie!

3. Mint Slice

Okay, so this isn't technically a Tim Tam. But it is a biscuit made by the same company, Arnott's, so I'm counting it. Imagine that a York Peppermint Patty and a Thin Mint had a baby. That is literally what this cookie is. It's basically self-explanatory why this is ranked 3rd on the list.

4. Chewy Caramel

So these guys are basically the original Tim Tam, with a little extra. There is chewy caramel in the middle of the cookie! If you refrigerate them (you have to in the summer because they melt!) it gets hard and crunchy, but at room temp it's gooey and chewy. These are really amazing, the carmel really adds something to the cookie.

5. Chocolate Brownie

                                

I mean this Tim Tam's filling is fudgey brownie batter. I transforms it into more than just a cookie. These ones are seriously addicting and so rich and delicious. I haven't done a slam with one, but I bet it would be out of this world!

6. Double Coat

So these Tim tams are something special. They have an extra coating of chocolate on the outside, and I think a little more cream in the middle as well. Basically the Double Stuf of the Tim Tam word. Also wonderful, I love Tim Tam slamming these ones because they can take a little more liquid before they break down. I did my Tim Tam Slam with Milo (above left). Milo is basically hot chocolate mix, but it's made of malted barley as well as coco (I posted about Milo here). It's amazing and went really well with the Tim Tams. It was such an Aussie thing to eat for dessert it made me happy!

7. Turkish Delight

Turkish Delight is one of the main flavors here, they have Turkish Delight flavored everything, so of course, Tim Tams are no exception. I really liked these ones. They have rose flavored jelly in the middle, and it goes really well with the chocolate. The cookies were actually dark chocolate, but the coating was the traditional milk. They were a yummy surprise!

8. Dark Chocolate Mint

These Tim Tams are basally milk chocolate coated with dark chocolate cookies, and dark chocolate filling with mint extract in it. They are pretty yummy, but I prefer the plain dark ones (the dark chocolate coating really makes it!). Also if I want mint biscuits I really prefer the Mint Slices. I think those two things hurt they're ranking.

9. Salted Caramel

These Tim Tams are caramel cookies, with caramel filling, and a gooey salted carmel center, covered in the milk chocolate filling. Though the salted flavor is really yummy and adds an extra dimension to the cookie, they suffer from lack of chocolate cookies and filling. This makes the Chewy Caramel ones much better. 

10. Double Chocolate Vanilla

Oreo lovers take note! This are the typical Tim Tam, but with vanilla filling instead of chocolate. This basically makes them a chocolate covered oreo. Really yummy, and very satisfying, but the chocolate lover at heat had to rank them lower then all the more choclately flavors :)

11. Raspberry White Chocolate

So as I mentioned, I don't really like white chocolate, but wanted to try these because of the raspberry creme. They were my least favorite, but I did like how the raspberry complimented the vanilla cookies. 

So this is my list of Tim Tams! There may be a couple of other flavors floating around somewhere, but I haven't seen them around Brisbane. These biscuits are my FAVORITE Australian food and I will miss them dearly when I leave. So much so that I'm bringing as many as I can fit back to the U.S. with me. Especially the Dark Chocolate ones!

Paniyiri Greek Festival

This weekend in South Bank there was a gigantic Greek Culture Festival. I stayed in Brisbane this weekend after two weekends of traveling, a friend and I decided to check it out for dinner on Saturday night. The festival was a combination of souvenir booths, carnival rides, live performances, and food booths run by various Greek organizations in Brisbane. We headed over to those to get some dinner. First we got some Halloumi cheese (see above left)! It was absolutely amazing, basically fried cheese but not breaded like a mozzarella stick. We each got one and ate it as we made our way over to the alcohol booth. We both got some sweet white wine (see above right), it was pretty crappy wine, but went well with the cheese and was nice to drink as we walked around. We grabbed wraps for dinner, and ate those as we watched a dance competition in the main square.

We strolled the booths for a good while, then decided it was time for some dessert. We ended up with this little beauty (above). It's called Galaktobouriko, and was basically custard wrapped in phyllo dough. It was huge and really yummy. It tasted a bit like bread pudding because the custard was very thick. The two of us shared, and agreed that it was a perfect way to end our Greekfest experience. I love being able to experience some go the fun things happening in Brisbane, it's something that I haven't really been able to do the last two months since I've been traveling, but it's nice to get to do some more of it before I leave next month!

Denman's Cellar Beer Cafe

This place was awesome and it was not where we were planning on ending up! We headed off of the beaten path in Airle Beach with the intent of trying Moroccan food. Unfortunately that restaurant was closed. Fortunately, Denman's was next door. It was a beer cafe so it was attached to a classy liquor shop. you get to browse the shelves and choose your drink before you are seated. It's also a small plates menu, which meant we were able to get a gourmet meal without having to pay a ton. I got a Rekorderlig orange ginger cider. It was really refreshing and had a little zip to it. It also went really well with my spinach pumpkin quiche and sweet potato crisps. We sat outside which was really nice, I very much liked the atmosphere of this place. It had a bit of a classier crowd than the main strip of the town, but was still a fun pace to be!

Matzah Herb Flatbread

The first night of Passover is usually spent at a large dinner/ceremony called a seder. Seders are a way for family to come together and celebrate the story of Passover. Unfortunately, my family isn't in Brisbane, so no seder for me. Instead I made the most classic of passover dishes with a twist! Matzah Pizza is the beloved passover food, basically pizza sauce and cheese on matzah instead of pizza dough. Not so great compared to actual pizza, but good compared to other passover food. I did not have any pizza sauce so I decided to make a sophisticated matzah flatbread instead. I Spread olive oil mixed with tuscan herbs, parsley, and garlic pepper on the matzah. Then a bit of mozzarella cheese. Next I added sliced zucchinis and shallots. Then I topped it with more mozzarella and some shredded parmesan. Lastly I added some parsley for color and additional taste. Then I cooked it at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. 

Once it the cheese was melted and the edges were crisp I took it out. It was amazing. Extremely flavorful with with perfect ratio of cheese to herbs and veggies. I had it with a glass of Pink Moscato, a sweet grapefruit flavored rosé, since you are traditionally supposed to drink 4 glasses of wine at a seder. I only had one glass of course, but it was nice to celebrate the holiday with a glass of wine with dinner. 

Night out in South Bank

So last Saturday night a friend and I decided to go see Captain America 2, which just came out! The closest movie theater is in South Bank, a restaurant/park district of Brisbane. We had planned on catching an early 6:20p movie and then eating dinner later, but the early movie was full. So we decided to buy tickets for a later 9:30p movie and grab some dinner instead. After a walk around to look at all out options we decided on Ginga Sushi Bar, because they had Udon and a recently priced authentic japanese menu. I was really happy because they also had okonomiyaki (above)! Okonmiayaki is a type of savory japanese pancake, they put different mixings in a savory batter and fry it up. It's a very regional dish so its different everywhere you try it. I was especially pleased because they had a vegetarian one, so I was able to get it. It was really good, cabbage and a bunch of other veggies in a yummy crispy batter. It was topped with a special garlic aoli and bbq sauce (typical Australian condiments which made me laugh) and Nori (seaweed). The flavors of the salty nori and the tangy condiments meshed really well with the mild and crispy pancake making it a really satisfying dish. My friend ordered ramen and her's unfortunately came out really late, so that made the service a bit less than subpar here, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the great food. Also the atmosphere was wonderful, it had japanese culture decorations and an anime was playing on a tv at the back on the restaurant. They also had a really cool sushi bar, that we came back for the next week, so I'll talk about that in a later blog post :)

After dinner we still had some time to kill before the movie so we decided to get some dessert/after dinner drinks. We went to Chocolate Pavilion, one of 4 chocolate bars around Southbank! This one is unique because it is the only one with a liquor license so it is able to sell alcoholic dessert drinks. I ordered a chocolate expresso martini (above), which was decadent and deadly. It was a combination of expresso, milk, chocolate ganache, Bacardi and vanilla. Basically, a mocha with rum. It was also presented in a gorgeous manner. I'm glad we finally got around to trying this place, it was a wonderful end to a really yummy dinner.

We had about 45 minutes before the movie, so we walked back to the movie theater. So both my friend and I are of the mentality that if you are going to a movie you need some form of movie snack, so we both had to get something. I ended up with a mixed penny candy bag of Aussie Lollies (encouraged by my tasting earlier this week) (above let). Some new ones that were in this mix were Chicos (basically chocolate gummies), which were weird… but kinda good once I got used to them. Jelly Babies (thicker gummies shaped like babies), I was excited to try them because I'm a Doctor Who fan :), they were decent but I like gummy bears better. And there were some of those in the mix as well, and they were the amazing 10 flavors kind. I also had something called red frogs, which were basically the Aussie equivalent of swedish fish. 

My friend got ginger beer, which is an Aussie soda. Armed with our snacks we entered the movie. It. Was. So. Good. I loved it so much! I'm a huge Marvel movie fan so I was so happy that I was able to see the movie so soon after it opened. It was so intense, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. I highly recommend it. Also apparently, there was a part of the movie that changed depending on what country you saw it in! There's a part where Capt pulls out a list of pop culture things he's missed (Star Wars was on it :) ). We also noticed that the list had Tim Tams and Steve Erwin on it… and thought how weird it was that Tim Tams were on Captain America's list (although I do agree with Steve that Tim Tams are definitely a list worthy development). Well I found out later that there were a few items on the list that changed depending on country (Below America on the top, England in the middle, and Australia on the bottom). This made it very special for me to see here. A movie from a franchise that I love, made unique for my study abroad experience!

This was such a fun evening, I hope that I get to see more movies when I'm here but I'll probably have to be really selective, so I'm glad that this is one of the ones I was able to see!