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To my delight as much as hers, Katy returned to Melbourne for the weekend as a surprise birthday gift from her boyfriend! We hastily made plans to meet at Brunetti for morning tea. I made a point of ordering the barley-based orzo that Julia recommended , and was a little stumped when asked what kind of coffee I wanted with it. I went with a cafe latte, and received a subtly nutty and sweet drink with a light coffee kick. Having now reread the wikipedia page on orzo , I'm confused as to whether there was actually coffee in the beverage or whether it's just prepared in the same range of styles (latte, long black, etc). Could that twitchy leg I developed afterwards "from the caffeine" be psychosomatic? To accompany my orzo latte, a mini bomboloni with lemon custard. The perfect little package for an early treat! ____________ Want more Brunetti? We have this and ten other visits archived here .

After dinner at Shakahari , we led our guests across the road to Brunetti for dessert. They were appropriately wowed by its extent, so Michael and I made relatively fast orders and hunted down a table as they browsed. With a huge (and delicious) meal under my belt, I didn't find it too difficult to limit myself to two small Tartufo al caffe ($1.40 each). Their two-toned chocolate coating was pleasant, but the interior coffee cream was dry and powdery. Michael chose a French custard tart with cherries ($5.30). He enjoyed it well enough, but it was a typically unremarkable Brunetti dessert. You can read our full catalogue of Brunetti experiences here .

After spending two weeks in regional Victoria with her sisters, my Mum had one last free night in Melbourne before flying back home to Brisbane. It was about time we introduced her to Brunetti, right? Two of her sisters, Lynne and Carol, also joined us. They are an indecisive bunch when gathered together and the variety available at Brunetti was the catalyst for a good 20 minutes of umm-ing and aah-ing. But everyone got their coffee, cake and seat in good time. I picked a cake that I haven't seen displayed before. The Domino ($5.90) is a sizable slice of chocolate cake, layered with strawberry cream and kirsch, then iced with chocolate. It far exceeded my expectations - I was anticipating a dense brick of a cake with impenetrably hard icing, but instead encountered a yielding ganache and almost sponge-light cake that retained plenty of flavour. The cream and kirsch were sparing, adding only a smidge of extra richness. It's fortunate that I arranged to share it with Mich...

What would a night with interstate guests be without a trip to Brunetti? Fun, perhaps, but with fewer pairs of widened eyes. After sharing a tapas-style dinner with Beth and Ryan, we reunited with Jack and Emma for a 6-person dessert fest. Michael reacquainted himself with the pear and cheese crumble from his second visit (and the photos I took of it this time were really awful). That gilded cocoa-based creation you see above is my Chocolate Oblivion ($4.50, from memory): a heated and molten chocolate cake. Here is a crisp brownie-like film yielding to a cakey layer, then giving way to viscous cake batter without a hint of baking powder to sour it. Oblivion, indeed - blissful in this modest serving size, but sure to put you into a chocolatey coma were it any larger. (Check out our other Brunetti trips: one , two , three , four , five , six and seven .)

As I hinted in my previous post , I've been spending the weekend with a long-time friend, L. Her journey from Brisbane was made for entirely unselfish reasons - to introduce her internationally-acquired partner S to another Aussie city and to pull her sister L2 away from a demanding day job for a bit of fun. The trio managed to pack in a formidable five days of shopping, sight-seeing, eating and catching up with friends, with a day-and-a-half of it based at our home. On their Friday night arrival at our place, I decided to team a welcoming home-cooked dinner with a very Melbourne dessert out on Lygon St. One of my favourite moments of the weekend was presenting the very vego-skeptical S with a plate of enjoyable meat-free food. Aware that he'd taken a shine to Australia's meat pie, I prepared a muffin pan's worth of TVP mince pies , fragrant with a rosemary gravy. On the side were lemony potatoes with artichokes (I'll make these again and blog them soon) and a ...

After a few months' Brunetti drought, we managed to find two excuses to visit this week! Our first companions were two of Michael's relatives, visiting from Queensland. Since Emma and Simon arrived almost three weeks ago we've had vague intentions of taking them, but it took Emma firmly setting aside this Friday evening for it to happen. I was a little concerned that my over-blown promises of aisles and aisles of glorious cakes might mean that they would actually be underwhelmed by the Brunetti experience. Far from it! Emma lingered over the enormous pre-ordered cakes (Happy birthday Helen! And John! And our blessings on the child being christened on Sunday the 21st!) and was photographed in front of one of the display fridges before she even noticed the dozens and dozens of single serves she could have for herself. Then there was some time spent hovering around the multiple profiterole flavours before she finally picked out two. Without quite so much external deli...

Brunetti usually proves to be an impressive dessert stop for interstate guests, and our night with Michael's Uncle Lee and Aunty Chris was no exception. Above is Michael's sour cherry tart: the cherry flavour verged on the medicinal but was agreeably sour, as promised. At 1 inch diameter and $1.40 each, I figured I could afford to taste two mini-tarts. The passionfruit custard was just the right combination of smooth, sweet and fruity, but the chocolate version didn't grab me. Still there's no harm done at this size, with the offending pastry probably having been walked off by the time I arrived home! (You can read about our previous visits to Brunetti here , here , here and here .)

I figured our guests from the north would be wowed more by the shelves and shelves of cakes at Brunetti than anything I could prepare. Michael and I joined in with more than half a heart apiece. In the left corner is my choc-hazelnut parfait. Ornately decorated firm chocolate icing concealing a moist dense chocolate cake. The candied orange was a welcome break in an intensely chocolatey (and overly sugary) experience. In the right corner is Michael's Grand Marnier tart. The chocolate pastry case was dominated by a weird jellyish custard that tasted faintly of orange, but not delicious liqueur orange. Dad and Anne seemed to enjoy both the range of cakes and their eventual choices, although I suspect Dad wanted to possess one of the enormous profiterole towers. For me, the quest for the perfect Brunetti treat continues. Categories: Restaurants

We arranged to have Carol over for dinner on this night, to thank her for her generosity during our first couple of weeks in Melbourne. During our time in her house, we noticed her smallish appetite and addiction to avocado and crackers before dinner. Thus we decided to prepare a few rounds of nibbly food instead of an elaborate main meal. During the day Michael made pesto and dukkah in his prized mortar and pestle. (Dukkah is a Middle Eastern spice mix, best mopped up using toasted Turkish bread dipped in olive oil.) (The recipes are included at the end of the post.) Carol arrived with the un-yuppie contributions of Cheezels and Snack chocolate, and I demolished about two thirds of the Cheezels before I even looked at Michael’s earthy gourmet creations. (Despite the overall tone of this blog, I’m not much of a food snob. My most craved food is probably chips.) Our after-thought of a main course was an encore performance of the marinated tofu, this time with ginger in the marina...

After enjoying as much of Michael’s curries as my spice-meter could take, I somehow talked him into a repeat visit to Brunetti for a late-night dessert. Well, late by Brisbane standards: Brunetti has been swarming with people on the nights that we visited at 10:30 and then 11:30, to the point where we were struggling to find a table. Another attempt to capture immense variety of sweets within: This time they tempted Michael, too. He ordered the pear and cheese crumble in the background. I didn’t manage to sneak a bite before he’d gobbled it up, remarking on the richness of the ricotta and restrained sweetness provided only by the fruit. The main feature is a slice of Opera: almond sponge with alternate layers of chocolate and coffee cream. I wasn’t completely sold on the texture of the cake: sponge that thin seems more like soggy pastry to me. The creams were extravagantly rich and a delight almost until the end, when it was almost too much for me. Another slightly less-than-perfect Br...

Our second day of sampling the local menus… Breakfast at the University Café , 257 Lygon St Carlton The breakfast menu is the standard array of healthy muesli, porridge and fruit, hearty cooked breakfasts, and a couple of sugary sweet options, with prices hovering around $10. I couldn’t detect the promised cinnamon in my ricotta pancakes, but they were light and cakey with a generous serving of stewed apple and rhubarb. The food appeared quickly and our waiter courteously stopped by twice to check whether we needed anything, even though the café was quite busy. Definitely good value, even though the menu doesn’t offer any surprises. Lunch at Sweet Source, 288 Rathdowne St Carlton North Naturally the name was enough to reel me in. Even so, we actually visited for lunch and I restricted myself to something savoury. Sweet Source has a tempting array of foccacias, pies and frittatas in the display case, and soup and grilled sandwiches on the menu, all at about $6-10. We arrived late and...