June 1, 2008: Tokyo treats - Meiji 86% cacao

Even though this Tokyo treat wasn't completely new to me, I expected it to be an intense experience. Chocolate with 86% cocoa is bitter. But good bitter. These miniature, individually wrapped portions are just the right size for a cocoa jolt.

However, I had a particular job in mind for most of these. Their assignment will be revealed in my next post.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Alley

Image
June 3, 2017 A couple of friends alerted me to the opening of The Alley four months ago. Touted as a vegan burger spot, I imagined late Saturday nights on Brunswick St. Far from it! The Alley operates from a St Kilda Rd office block, primarily for lunch, and is closed on Sundays. Nevertheless, it's got the look - the bright yellows, millennial pinks, neon lights and line drawings remind me of Hobart's Veg Bar and just about any fro-yo bar you could name. The menu takes the healthified, superfood-infused approach. There are chia puddings and acai bowls for breakfast, macro and taco bowls for lunch; noodles are made from seaweed and spaghetti is made from squash. Fries are actually air baked and instead of shakes there are smoothies shot through with coconut water, almond milk, pea protein, macca and (they've hit me with a new one!) camu camu. Air-baked fries ($6.95) lack crispness but are beautifully fluffy on the inside. The almond parmesan and crispy kale crowning the pot...
Read more

Grand Trailer Park Taverna

Image
October 4, 2016 Almost every time Cindy and I eat in the CBD we wind up heading to Shandong Mama or Shanghai Street , so we were delighted when Hayley suggested a pre-movie meal at Grand Trailer Park Taverna. Melbourne's obsession with dude-food is getting a bit tiresome, but even the most committed dumpling-heads need a change sometimes. Grand Trailer Park Taverna exploded onto Melbourne's burger scene a few years back, with queues out the door and inordinate amounts of buzz (see the blog round-up below). Things appear to have mellowed slightly, and we had no trouble getting a table early on a Tuesday night. It's a beautiful setup, with tables nestled inside wooden caravan cut-outs and little cabins, chandeliers on the ceiling and a bright, cheerful vibe. The menu is a glorious paean to junk food, featuring ridiculous boozy milkshakes, a selection of burgers, loads of fried sides and mad dessert dishes like an ice-cream donut sandwich or the menacingly titled 'chocop...
Read more

October 13-15, 2007: Peanut butter and jelly drops

Image
On Saturday night, Kerrie and Daniel invited a gaggle of refugees from Queensland to their home for a housewarming and movie night. They invited us all to bring a DVD to share and challenged us to team our movie choice with some thematically appropriate food or drink. Much as I love a theme, I found this one a particular challenge. The DVDs I wanted to share didn't have memorable eating scenes at all! I decided to go ahead and take Press Gang (a favourite TV series from my tween years) regardless. This series was set in a newspaper office run by high school students and featured reams of snappy dialogue, but was most compelling for the love/hate relationship between the highly strung, very English editor Lynda Day and the American wise-guy sometime-journalist Spike Thompson. So why not find an edible clash of England and America? This proved to be perfect Nigella territory. I was keen to try making her jam doughnut muffins, but they didn't really allow for early preparat...
Read more