New Zealand is beautiful. I keep thinking that when the world gets more and more crowded, the South Island will become a very sought after place. Buy a property there now! There is plenty of water, scenery, and green pastures for food. I have just returned from a holiday in New Zealand including the Milford trek. So happy, along with bunjy jumping.

Just before I left for my trip, 4 of us went to Cumulus Inc. for dinner. When people come to visit Melbourne, and there was one place you could take them to eat, I think this is it. Fine food in casual, shared setting. No table cloths, no lengthy speech about how to eat your food. The dishes ranges from delicate fine dining style to home/rustic (last year’s truffle gnocchi!) but all designed to share. After dinner, you could take them for a walk along Little Flinder’s Lane, past Kenzan, Coda, Yu-yu, Movida and see some graffiti in narrow laneways.

We ended up having 12 dishes all up, and if not including wine or oysters, the bill came would be $40 per person. Two dishes were the favorites of the day. The crispy school prawns with chili, garlic and spring onions was sweet, juicy and the shells all edible. Surely inspired from travels in Asia. Second was the mussels, jamon, parsley and saffron sauce. Perfectly balanced flavours that we have never seen with mussels. We certainly did not forget to ask for more of the white sourdough/wet-dough bread to mop up the sauce. That bread is always so nice, I could order just the prawns and mussels and my evening would be complete.

Going again tonight =)

That’s what I said to the puzzled Max Brenner waitress a few years ago. I have moved on a bit since then but I am still intrigued at what makes a perfect souffle. I have made it 4 times in my life with varying results. Once it was to sweet. Once too salty (smoked salmon), another time quite pleased with a green tea version. Last night I learnt to use a dry bowl with no gold fish swimming in the egg whites the hard way. I combined a jog to the nearest convenience store with cooking.

The twiced baked chocolate souffle at Cumulus Inc was just so good. And I tend not to order chocolate desserts at restaurants! The texture was simultaneously dense, bitey and light. The crust also caramalized with an extra bite. My mouth feels tingly now.

I was so happy with the food that I went 3 times in a month last year. After work today, I didn’t want to cook and I needed something good to cheer me up. Ramen just wasn’t going to cut it tonight. We walked past Movida Next Door and it was a 20 minute wait. So be it. I think Movida is getting too much hype and just to proud to be ‘so melbourne’ these days I was happy to give it’s neighbour a miss too. on our walk to Cumulus, I was thinking about the dinner at Svago a few weeks back. Oh, that really was good.

Off to to a cloud
(Photo from their website)

A Tempranillio (plum, smokey/tobacco, fruity) to start

3 pacific oysters: Kumoto SA (small tangy), Coffin Bay SA (creamy sweet) , Moutling Bay TAS (large, sweet and slightly tangy).

Scallops with speck, rasin dressings (salty, sweety, savory and bacon flavours with a well seared scallop)

Cured venison with horseradish cream and smoked tomato puree (a sashimi of a good cut, nice balance)

We happend to bump into a friend my mine, also a frequent visitor, foodie and well informed with wines. He recommended the soup of salt cod with parsely (creamy salt cod soup with a dense textured but lightly flavoured green foam of parsley – surprising combination)

Shredded confit duck leg, roasted and pickled beetroot, watercress, radish and walnut dressing (a stand-out of the night. I could eat a carton of this stuff. I need to get a packet of walnut and blended it now.)

Cassoulet – white beans, smoked Lyonnaise sausage, roast pork strap (a nice, home and rish dish to finish with. Love slow cooked beans)

The dessert recommended by the waiter was excellent. He took our dilema of the lemon jelly versus chocolate souffle and said that the weather commanded the chocolate and also he think that my friend likes the chocolate. Fine, it was good – twice backed chocolate souffle with penut butter ice cream. This souffle has the stamp of AWSOME-NESS. A little denser than a normal souffle, light in texture but so rich and just ‘Oooh, give me another bite’. I will endever to make this. The ice cream was excellent also. not very sweet and just a good clean peanut flavour.

Sherry: blend of Palomino and Pedro Ximénez. Recommended by the waiter to go with chocolate. Some sherries are too sweet but this had a good acidity/fruity character to really compliment the rasin-like sweetness. Give me more! Spain here I come (minus the pig flu).

I walked home. Happy.

On that note… I am off to sleep.