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July 14, 2017 Cindy took me to Attica for my PhD completion five years ago for one of the most spectacular meals of my life . This year I was out of town for my birthday, and I was thrilled when she forwarded me a booking confirmation for a celebratory revisit. Attica continues to be Melbourne's most awarded restaurant, picking up three hats in the Good Food Guide every year and regularly making it onto "world's best" lists. With all the hype, it's bloody hard to get reservations, so a Friday night table for two was a pretty impressive reflection of Cindy's commitment. The set menu is the only option at Attica these days, an eye-watering $260 a head for an extravaganza of fancy courses. They have a vegetarian menu as a standard option and will happily cater for vegans and other dietary requirements with a bit of warning. Dining at Attica is an incredible experience - there's a focus on Australian ingredients, meaning you get to taste things you don't o

July 2-9, 2017 I visited Brisbane for a week this month. My trip was scheduled for work, and I stayed on campus at the University of Queensland. My accommodation was on the pretty lake side, near a bus stop and a bridge that didn't exist when I was a student there 15 years ago. I made the best of them, venturing to my old neighbourhood in West End, meeting up and eating out with friends, family and past colleagues at every available opportunity. The weather was stunning and I clocked up more steps on my phone's pedometer than I have since summer. Here are the seven meals that most delighted me during my stay. ____________ The Tibetan Momo Cafe is less than a month old, and located just around the corner from my first sharehouse in West End. It is a total charmer, with friendly generous hosts just bursting to share their traditional foods with new customers. There's a full vegan menu in addition to the standard meaty one, and they make both flour-based and gluten-free momo

June 27, 2017 Our mate Kate recently suggested The Yarra Hotel as a potential venue for our book club. The two factors in its favour are that this pub has half-price vegetarian meals every Monday and Tuesday night, and room for dogs in the beer garden. We figured we'd best test the food and pooch space before our next club meeting. The menu has abundant veg*n and gluten-free options, all pretty well labelled; the veg dishes are often matching pairs to more traditional meaty ones. It's hearty fare: six kinds of burger (with a veg patty that can be subbed into any one), parmas (chicken or eggplant), ribs (pork or vegan mock), toad-in-the-hole (beef or veg sausages).  Kate was excited to see Hungarian-style cabbage rolls ($11) on the menu. The vegan version is stuffed with mushrooms, then served with pickled peas, dill sour cream, and a beetroot puree that was most unexpected and most appreciated by Kate. Michael took on the vegan hoisin ribs ($12), a thick and flavoursome wodge o

June 24-25, 2017 I've had these chocolate & sesame yo-yos from Ottolenghi's  Guardian column  bookmarked for 18 months, just waiting for the seasons and our Ottolenghi club dates to align. They come under the apt heading Rich pickings , sandwiching biscuits dense with chocolate and sesame seeds with layers of chocolate ganache and  tahini cheesecake spread.  Unfortunately, the instructions weren't quite what I needed to get the job done, and I've adjusted my instructions to reflect what's more workable in my kitchen. For example, the ambient heat from the boiled cream wasn't enough to melt all of the chocolate and butter in my ganache, and I had to set up a makeshift double boiler. The rest of my butter was too firm for hand-beating, yet the biscuit dough was too soft for rolling! What is the temperature in Ottolenghi's test kitchen, I wonder? In retrospect, I reckon it's worth refrigerating the biscuit dough before forming the cookies. They spread

June 25, 2017 Ottolenghi club took May off, but we reconvened on the weekend for a real winter-lenghi experience. As always, it was a sensational meal, featuring vego scotch eggs , sweetcorn soup with chipotle and lime , roast cauliflower with green olives and Cindy's dessert, which will be posted here soon. I considered trying this amazing looking potato dish , but decided that transporting it would be too difficult, so I settled for an Ottolenghi stew. This stew is from Plenty More and features classic Ottolenghi ingredients Iranian dried limes and barberries, both of which we sourced from Middle Eastern grocery stores on Sydney Road. It's relatively simple for an Otto recipe, although he still manages to have you both simmer and bake the stew just to add some extra steps. The end result is gigantic - only about two-thirds of it squeezed into our casserole dish in the picture above - I'd recommend cutting in half if you're not cooking for a group. It's tasty and