Bellaccino Espresso Bar, Castle Hill

Lazy weekends means brunching locally, and although we have a handful of go-to places, recent price hikes and deletion of some of our favourite menu items meant it was time for us to venture out and discover more good eats in the local area.

I'm not usually a fan of cafes which are smack-bam in the middle of busy shopping centres, but the huge $10 breakfast sign out the front of Bellaccino's was certainly enticing, especially given that there were still a couple more days til pay day.

Mocha Frappe ($5.50)

The $10 menu consists of your basic brekkie menu items (think eggs on toast) and even comes with a free drink if you find yourself here on a weekday, but alas we're not, and it's past the 11:30am that the menu runs to. Luckily there's plenty else to choose from on their menu, which is cleverly organised by cuisine.

The coffee is not amazing, and my mocha frappe tasted more like a milkshake than a frappe, but it worked well as a dessert-like sweet finish to the meal.

Vegetarian Big Breakfast ($15.90)

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Mushroom and Black Bean 'Meat' balls

Today's recipe is a little different from my usual recipes- I do plenty of veggie recipes, and some recipes which may involve meat, but not so much a crossover between the two like I have today with these mock 'meat' balls made from a combination of mushroom and black beans!

Mock meats are quite prominent in Asian culture, regardless of whether you are vegetarian or not. I can't say I'm a huge fan, especially as I find that they're not do cooked the right way most of the time, but I was keen to try this recipe because it
a) actually looked very similar to meatballs in the picture and
b) I had just fresh mushrooms in the fridge and a can of black beans that were almost reaching their expiry.

So why not?

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Crab Carnival 2017 at The Morrison, CBD

I'm a huge fan of all things seafood, and if there's one type of seafood that I don't see enough of on restaurant menus it would be crab. So when I heard about the Crab Carnival at The Morrison Bar & Oyster Room with a complete menu dedicated to crab, I knew I had to visit. The Crab Carnival runs annually for roughly a month between March and April, and involves not only crab dishes, but also crab drinks and events (hermit crab racing anyone?)

Oysters ($4 each)

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Grilled Miso Eggplant (Nasu Dengaku)

If you've been following my Instagram, you may have noticed I've had a bit of a baking itch lately, jumping at every opportunity to practice my cake making skills (and running into a lot of failures one the way). For those weekends where I can't an excuse to bake cake, I like to experiment with different foods in the kitchen, and my idea of fun is any recipe that's completely new- the more unique and complex, the better of course!

As much as I love spending my weekends on these food experiments, when it comes to taste, sometimes simple is best and that certainly is the case with this delicious miso eggplant dish. I had my first taste of miso eggplant in a Japanese restaurant last year and was blown away by how amazing a simple dish of grilled eggplant with miso sauce could taste.

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Custard Chiffon Cake v2

It's not often that I make a recipe more than once of twice, and even less often that I post the same recipe twice on this blog, but this Custard Chiffon Cake is so good it really deserves a second mention. I've gone on about how much I love this before and it has since become a family favourite, a simple cake I can whip up relatively quickly which doesn't need any icing or any decorating- it tastes best by itself.

The only thing I hate it having to wait for it to cool before I can take it out of the tin!

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An Evening in The Rocks Tour

I had my fair share of odd jobs back in the good old uni days, but one of the most fun and memorable jobs was when I guided tours of international students through The Rocks- an area I wasn't particularly familiar with myself, but a little bit of reading up helped me sound like an expert in front of groups of students most of whom probably had only been in Sydney for no more than a couple of weeks.

So when I was invited to an evening tour of The Rocks, it certainly brought back many good memories. Quite unlike the tours I ran however, this one was certainly much more professional and well planned, guided by a group of very staff who were much more knowledgeable in the area than me.

Tuxedo Bar

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We started at Tuxedo bar, Sydney's first bar completely dedicated to Espresso Martini's. It's not exactly an easy find- you won't see any large bright signs guiding you in- but once you do eventually make it into the entrance, you'll find yourself into a warm, inviting space, located within the former Cadbury chocolate factory.

Any type of cocktail is the perfect way to start the night, but Tuxedo's Espresso Martini is especially delicious. There's about 6 different variants of the espresso martini on the menu- it never gets boring!

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