I think I must be the last Melbourne foodblogger to visit Seven Seeds...

Seven Seeds
114 Berkeley St
Carlton, VIC 3053
Ph: (03) 9347-8664
Website
Open Monday to Saturday 7am-5pm and Sunday 8:00am-4pm. (& pub. holidays)


We decided to finally visit Seven Seeds today, after finding that Tofu Shop is unfortunately closed on Sundays. It's on a nondescript street off Queensberry st, right behind the new (and hideous!) Economics and Commerce building at Melbourne uni. Given the warehouse vibe and obsessive focus on coffee, it comes as no surprise that Seven Seeds is run by the same crew who brought you St. Ali.


When we arrived at 2pm on a Sunday, there were some tables free, but lots of people were lining up for takeaways. (It's table service if you're eating in).


Funky red light skirt thingo.

As we sat at our table, smelling the gorgeous aroma of the coffee, I couldn't help but wish that this place had been here back when I was at uni! Doing Arts/Commerce. *Sigh* Which reminds me of a song! "I wish I could go back to college", from my other favourite musical, Avenue Q...

I wish I could go back to college.
Life was so simple back then.
What would I give to go back and live in a dorm with a meal plan again!

But if I were to go back to college,
Think what a loser I'd be-
I'd walk through the quad,
And think "Oh my God...
...These kids are so much younger than me."

So true. Avenue Q rocks. And for your amusement, here's a link to the Broadway version. I also found a Swedish version, here! It's called Jag längtar tillbaka till college. (Duncan please correct me if I spelled that wrong!)

Anyhoo... onto the food.
We both ordered lattes, which were as creamy and strong and delicious as you'd expect. Next time I'll try one of those funky Clover coffees.

The menu is a bit more limited than at St. Ali, mainly consisting of pastries, breakfasts (toast, muesli, French toast), and toasted sandwiches. The sandwiches come on super-thick grainy bread and are incredibly filling. Just half a sandwich would have been enough for me. Would it be too embarrassingly T.A. to order one to share?

Toasted sandwich with fontina, sardines and onion relish - $10.50

I liked the salad that came with it too - a very astringently dressed cabbage and parsley salad.
Toasted sandwich with ham and Gruyère cheese - $10.50


After lunch, I tweeted that I was at Seven Seeds... and who should come up and say hi but Jackie! Hehe, I knew we'd run into another Melbourne foodblogger there!

Great lunch. I'll be bringing my foodie (non-foodblogger) friends here in future to impress them with my knowledge of funky coffee places.

Flat white - $3.50

Replete Providore
302 Barkers Rd
Hawthorn VIC 3122
(03) 9818-4448
Website

Replete Providore is that cafe and catering company that all the food guides rave about. It constantly wins best breakfast awards, and despite being in a residential street, it is constantly packed. I'm sure this has something to do with it being located right in the midst of Kew's private school zone - highest density of private schools per square km in the world, apparently - so loads of parents pop in after dropping off the kids.

It came on the very strong recommendation of my friend Timmy K, so I was just able to get over my loathing of the word "providore". (So wanky!) A group of 5 of us rocked up at 1pm on Sunday (it happened to be Father's Day!), but we were lucky to get a table without a wait.

Apart from lots of baked goods at the counter - brownies, cookies, lemon slice, pies etc., there is a big shelf stocking house-made products like chutneys, biscuits and more. Bizarrely, you can buy smarties in a plastic container with the "Replete" logo stuck on it, although I'm not sure why you'd want to.

Biscotto - pistachio, almond and chocolate chip - $1.50

Y'all know I'm a big cookie-lover, and I couldn't resist a biscotto with pistachios and almonds. It was a little bit hard, but not tooth-shatteringly so, and went well with my cappuccino.

It took me ages to choose from the menu, as it all looked very tempting. In the end, I chose something very simple - avocado with marinated feta and chillies on dark rye grainy bread. I adore dark rye bread!

Avocado with marinated feta and chillies on dark rye grain bread - $13.50

This was an absolutely winning combination, and I'm glad I ordered it. A whole avocado for one serving was too much for me - I had both slices of toast, but only half the avocado. I'm totally recreating this at home for breakfasts in the future!

Beef Lasagne (without salad) - $13.50

Sandra had the lasagne, without salad. This tasted lovely, but was very, very rich.


Omelette special - brie, ham & rocket - $15.00

My buddy Timmy K ordered the omelette special, and said it was good, but that other omelettes he's had here in the past have been better.

Steak Sandwich w chips and salad - $15.00

My bro ordered the steak sanga, a typical Daniel lunch, hehe. He was very unimpressed by this - too big, too rich, too dry - and only got about halfway through it. I had nearly ordered the roast beef sandwich, and after seeing the steak sandwich, was very glad I didn't.


Soup of the day - Vegetables, beans and silverbeet - $9.50

Su got the soup of the day, which she said was quite bland, and not as good as her own homemade soup. However, she said the multigrain toast was great!

I liked Replete, but don't think its food quite lives up to its reputation. Coffee was good, prices were the higher side of reasonable, and service was friendly and fast.

In 5 years of blogging (yes people, 5 years!), I have yet to do a Merdeka day post. (Merdeka Day is Malaysian independence day). I keep meaning too, but it keeps slipping my mind. By the time I realise it's 31st August it's too late to do anything special, and the Merdeka day post goes back on the To-Do list in my mind.

This year I was determined to do something, and even though it's almost a week late - here is my Merdeka Day post, about that great Malaysian tradition - kaya toast.

Kaya, in case you don't know, is a Malaysian coconut/egg jam, flavoured with pandan. It can be brown or green depending on how much colouring you add and how much you caramelise the mixture.

My mum used to make her own kaya, which was delightfully dark brown in colour, and slightly grainy, but it is quite a bit of work - and besides, what are you going to do with a massive vat of the stuff? These days we just buy jars of it from the Asian grocer. I used to love eating Mum's kaya spread between salty Ritz crackers (my amah's favourite!) when I was a kid. Absolutely compulsive stuff.

Anyhoo, to make proper kaya toast you need to start with white bread (don't even think about using artisan or grainy or sourdough). What you want is that super-fluffy, super-soft, super-Asian sweet white bread. The kind that would disintegrate if you got a drop of water on it.

I used the Japanese white loaf from Bread Top.
Toast it lightly...

... and spread with margarine (yes, margarine, NOT butter) and your kaya of choice. Serve with kopi o (black coffee) for the true Malaysian experience.

Lunch - triple-cream cheese brie, Schwarzwälder Schinken and some doorstop thick multigrain bread

Although I love them, I don't normally do markets - they're on too early, they're too far away, and a million other excuses. However, this morning we had a very successful expedition to the Victoria Market - got there around 1:30pm, which meant it was quieter than in the mornings, and there were bargains to be had. This is, of course, awesome, but the constant yelling by the vendors can give you a headache.

"Cauliflower one dollar one dollar one dollar.........."

I was there to buy rack of lamb for my Father's day lunch tomorrow (we got 2 racks of 8 bones each for $18 all up!!), but also managed to buy monkfish, passionfruit, kipfler potatoes, Bretzels, Fleischkäse, bread, strawberries and a lot more...

My heart skipped a beat when I saw the Schwarzwälder Schinken (Black Forest Ham) at the Polish Deli, and I just had to buy some. I'm told that certain families in Germany don't bother slicing it, but just take alternating bites from a big chunk of ham in the left hand, amazing German Brot in the right. A very tempting idea. However, the ham there looked quite fresh, as if it had only been smoked recently. It didn't seem as chewy and dry as most smoked hams, and I didn't think I'd have a knife sharp enough to slice it. I asked the guy at the shop to slice it thinly for me.


If you haven't tried it, I'm not quite sure how to how to describe its taste - except to say it's similar to prosciutto, but BETTER. (Perhaps this is because I've only had mediocre prosciutto in the past, who knows). It is mildly smoky, and pleasantly salty, with a wonderful melt-in-the-mouth texture.

As you can see from the first photo in this post, I also had a small wedge of decadent brie (it was bought from the supermarket earlier this week; couldn't let it go to waste!), and thick slices of soy and oat bread. It certainly wasn't echtes deutsches Brot, but it did the job.

A nice little pilsner to wash down all the deliciousness...

And strawberries for dessert...
These were gorgeous, and $2 for 3 punnets. Bargain. I love how cute and small they were, and so much tastier than the flavourless gargantuan beasts you find at the supermarket. (And no, I didn't eat all of them at once... only got through about 1/3 of them).


Mmm... smoked ham...
I've read somewhere that Germany is the spiritual home of smoked pork, and I'm inclined to agree.

Our table

My friend Georgina is a very cool, trendy young lady and her quarter-century birthday celebrations were no different. We started of with dinner at Scarpetta's on Brunswick st, followed by copious cocktails at Black Pearl.

Scarpetta Ristorante
257 Brunswick St
Fitzroy VIC 3065
(03) 9416-0969

I hadn't been to Scarpetta's before, but I really liked their dim lighting and arty pictures. (It actually is a lot cooler than the website led me to believe, haha). It's quite a narrow restaurant, with the bar on the right side, and one row of tables along the left. The food is modern Italian, and they have a great range of well priced pizze (all under $18). Other main dishes are a bit pricey - around $25-32. I can't remember the exact prices, and the menu has changed from what's currently on their website - apologies if I made any mistakes!

Top Left: Fried prawns, whitebait and calamari with rocket and lemon mayo (my starter - delicious! The rocket was super-soft and fresh)
Top Right: Sparklies and bread
Bottom Left: Steak with truffle butter and a dish of soft, creamy polenta
Bottom Right: Sausages on polenta with a deep, rich jus sauce (my friend ordered this and let me try some, hehe. I don't normally like polenta but this was gorgeous!)

Top Left: Pennette pasta with beef ragu and peas. It had a deep mushroomy taste - perhaps porcini or truffle oil?
Top Right: Seafood spaghetti
Bottom Left: My main - lasagne with confit duck, creamy bechamel and porcini mushrooms. Wonderful, but very, very rich. $32
Bottom Right: Pizza (can't remember what type), with Ming's peace sign in the background

I thought Scarpetta's was a great find. Even though we had a big table, our food all came out quite quickly and without fuss. The small space and dim lighting would make it a great place to take a date. And even though it was a little pricey, the food was all delicious. Any place that can make a version of polenta I like gets my vote!

And here are my little square mud-cakelets! They survived the trip admirably and were swiftly demolished.

Blog post about Black Pearl cocktails coming up!

Above is a gorgeous little cake-tester that I got for my birthday this year. How cute! The name "cake tester" also perfectly describes me last week, as I furiously baked cakes for my friend George's bday on the weekend. After reviewing the super-pretty Cake Chic for The Gastronomer's Bookshelf I was inspired to try the cover recipe for Cherry Blossom Bites - small squares of vanilla Victoria sponge layered with vanilla syrup, jam and marzipan, dipped in pink fondant and decorated with sugar cherry-blossoms. I'm not normally a fondant-girl, but the pictures were so cute, and the book so inspiring that I just had to give it a go.

On Thursday night, I made the vanilla syrup...
... and baked the 20cm square Victoria sponge, brushing it with a little of the syrup.
On Friday after work, giving the sponge a good day to cool down and slightly dry out so it wouldn't crumble, I sliced the sponge into 3 lengthwise and brushed one layer with vanilla syrup. (At this stage I was getting alarmed at the sugar so didn't brush each layer as the book suggests.) I made a buttercream with equal amounts of butter and icing sugar, and spread it in between the layers, and on top. (Even though the recipe asks for a layer of marzipan on top, I know very few people apart from myself who actually like it!) I hot-knifed the top of the cake to make it nice and smooth - a tip I picked up from Planet Cake, actually - then wrapped up the whole thing well and popped it in the fridge.


Whilst cleaning up, I decided to try some of the cake offcuts and holy **** they were sweet! I mean, tooth-aching, migraine-inducing sweet. Even without the buttercream. I couldn't believe that we were meant to eat the layered cake dipped in fondant - total sugar overload! How feral. There's another recipe for miniature cakes in the book with THREE layers of buttercream plus ONE layer of marzipan, and I don't get how anyone could actually eat it. You can't really cut down on the sugar in the cake or buttercream because it would affect the cake's texture, and unlike rolled fondant, dipping fondant can't be peeled off easily when eating. I just don't get it. There was no way I was going to bring that cake to my friends. What a waste of time!

I couldn't very well rock up without a cake when I'd promised one - even though I'm sure George wouldn't have minded - so on Saturday afternoon I whipped up a half-quantity of the Planet Cake chocolate mud cake in a 20cm square tin. This was in the midst of frantically getting changed and applying make-up, haha. I let it cool for as long as I could (which was about 20 minutes in the fridge), and carefully sliced it into 16 squares. Ideally you'd let this sit overnight so it firms up a bit before slicing, but I did not have time. I used my sharpest knife and used a great deal of caution.

I then made some ganache...

...then, using a jug, I poured the ganache over each cake...

... and roughly spread them flat with an offset spatula. I then squished them into muffin papers and thence into a 9-inch cake box. Ta-dah!


Aah... much more my style. Simple-looking, delicious and just plain GOOD.

For the record, I still like the Cake Chic book, but more for its decorating tips, techniques and guidelines. It's obvious that the base recipes are way too sweet for my taste. For the moment I'm sticking to simple cakes without the excess fuss.