The view from our table: The entrance to Mr Tulk on the left, and to the State Library on the right; further down the room, guests can grab a coffee and something small to eat and sit at one of the bar stools. Note the man in the grey top with a menu in front of his face: that's our waiter, deliberately jumping and dancing to get in my picture.
Smoked salmon bruschetta with onions, capers and creme fraiche
A simple dish, but a delicious one, with a generous helping of fresh smoked salmon, served with a twist: creme fraiche rather than the commonly used Philadelphia cream cheese, and pickled, deliciously vinegar-y slices of red onion.
Both times I have been to Mr Tulk, service and food have been flawless - I really have nothing critical to say about the venue and highly recommend it as a great, friendly place to have a coffee or something quick to eat in between whatever it is you're doing in the city. Mr Tulk is open till 5pm Monday-Thursday and till 4pm Saturday (closed Sundays), but on Friday nights they close at 9pm and host happy hours and fish specials - something I am keen to experience.
(Apologies for the lack of prices accompanying the dishes in this post. Dishes at Mr Tulk are around $10-$16)
The dish that Bf received: apparently the same dish, but presented in an appalling manner, unlike the neat, clean stack above, and we assume the kitchen ran out of the lokaniko sausage as there were a few pieces but most of the meat served was bacon. (This was not explained to us at all when the waitress delivered the meal).
Finding this photo was very interesting for me as I had already done a whole blog post on how Demitri's delivered a few great dishes, but failed to keep up that same high standard. It's just incredible to me that the same dish can be served to two customers so differently - one presented quite nicely in a stack and the other, an unappealing mess - within the space of less than a month.
Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural Eat.Drink.Blog food bloggers conference. I was one of 45 bloggers who came together at the drool-worthy foodies store, The Essential Ingredient, went upstairs to their demonstration kitchen and discussed all things blogging - from how and why we blog, making money, ethics, and photography, to copyright and other legalities, being more social in the blogging community and SEO.
Receiving this invitation was thrilling for me as realised I would get to mingle with some of my favourite food bloggers, such as Ed from tomatom.com.au and Claire from Melbourne Gastronome. When I arrived it was evident that many of the bloggers knew each other from online or from previous events, and as a relative newcomer to the food blogging scene it was a relief to find each and every person was friendly and welcoming.
There were so many highlights, so many funny moments throughout the day, and one was the Twitter broadcast that was projected up onto the wall. Even if you didn't make it to the event, if you followed #eatdrinkblog or #eatdrinkblog2010 yesterday you probably felt like you were there as we furiously tweeted everything that was said, as well as updates on the temperature of the room and our current hunger/wanting booze status.
Lunch was provided by St Ali - a selection of sandwiches from which I chose the smoked salmon and chicken package.
We returned from lunch for the "how to be social" panel which I found particularly interesting as a fairly new blogger. Armed with a fat notebook I took down notes from the experienced bloggers and particularly took home this message: Be involved in the community - be active online as well as in the 'real world'. Interact with your fellow bloggers. If you are using your blog to simply upload and update information, your blog will only go so far.
Next stop: the food photography exhibition, sponsored by SBS, which featured some stunning pieces I'd love to have hanging on my walls - including the ice cream photo by the lovely Linda from buttersugarflour.com. We were served cocktails in brown paper bags and old poison bottles courtesy of Der Raum - I wasn't such a fan of a chamomile cocktail, but we all agreed that the beetroot juice mixture served in a wine glass was delicious.
After two hours of drinking and mingling we all had rumbling tummies and I know I was very excited when Ed yelled "FOOD!" - time to enter the very cool ST. ALi for a six course "Bloggers Banquet".
I ate scallops, oysters, wontons, Chinese broth, mushrooms, kingfish head, lamb rump and fresh fruit with chili sugar. Michael from myachinghead.net told me that he basically lives at this restaurant; I can see why. Each dish was stunningly presented, perfectly portioned and the flavours very balanced. It was an incredible meal, accompanied by a very passionate and knowledgeable waitress and beautiful fellow bloggers to chat to. I would consider a large majority of my friends and family to be very into food, but these people are absolute food geeks, and it was such a pleasure to be surrounded by people who also wanted to keep talking and talking about food and wine and coffee.
To top it all off, us bloggers woke this morning to discover our event had made it into the "Melbourne Life" section of The Age:
"We found out that we won Best Breakfast and we ran, and ran, and ran".
When mum and I visited Demitri's Feast on a Thursday morning, we found our waitress's description of her reaction to the award a little strange, but we liked her nonetheless. It had been two days since Epicure had announced that the Cheap Eats 2010 award for Best Breakfast had been given to this graffitied Greek cafe in Swan Street, and we were indeed enjoying our breakfasts.
The clientele was really interesting. There was a table of two business people who, it seems, the waitress suspected them of visiting in order to steal ideas; there was a young man having a working breakfast by himself; and a grandmother and her three year old granddaughter who, after sitting at the table for a few minutes exclaimed, "Where's my coffee!?!" The courtyard is tiny, as is the whole cafe, and it's a really interesting place to (subtly) people-watch.
Scrambled eggs with goats cheese feta and oregano roasted tomatoes on toast ($13.50)
Normally, I hate scrambled eggs that look like this: folds of egg rather than soft "clouds", however these eggs were creamy and rich and paired so well with the goat's feta - a cheese so much more authentically Greek and creamy than anything I've ever bought from a supermarket or even a deli.
Our waitress, in clearing our plates, knocked over the vibrant blue glass water bottle that sat on our table, smashing it on the ground and our feet. She managed to recover from that quite well. She was apologetic but confident enough to remain positive and make a joke out of the situation, and as the whole courtyard turned to see what had happened in the corner, the young man packed in tight next to us quipped: "It's still the Best Breakfast".
Omeletta - Greek omelette with lokaniko sausage, potatoes and kefalograviera ($14.50)
My omelette was pretty good - nothing to rave about though. The sausage was quite thick and I think it would have had a more enjoyable texture if it was cut finely.
While we were eating, a young male waiter asked a table to leave the cafe as he had another group waiting to be seated. I understand the importance of table turnover in a busy restaurant - you want to get as many people through as you can. At my work, however, we pre-warn customers of this during busy times - for example, letting customers know that on a packed Friday night, they can only have the table for an hour and a half. If customers know this at the start, they're usually fine with it. If they find out at the end of the meal, when they're relaxing for a moment, letting their food settle, and you're trying to hustle them out the door, it can be an unpleasant end to what might have been an otherwise enjoyable experience.
Bf was absolutely appalled by this place. I left feeling less negative because I had already had a great experience and know what Demitri's are capable of; it's just a shame that the floor really can't cope once it starts to get busy.
Last night I went to see a night of conversation, hosted by Catherine Deveny, in which she tackled "some of the hard topics" (food, literature, sex) with guests Marieke Hardy and Matt Preston. When S told me about the event I was incredibly excited; three fabulous writers whom we both admire, in the one room, speaking intelligently and about interesting topics. When I thought about what other 19-year-olds might be doing with their night I felt like a bit of a geek, and I enjoyed that feeling; it was so nice to do something so different. The demographic was mixed, with people of all ages in attendance.
Risotto of pea and pancetta, herbed marscapone ($19.90)
A bowl of creamy, quite runny rice. The flavour was nice, but it was nothing stunning. The herbed marscapone added a nice kick and would have been better spread throughout the whole dish rather than lumped in the middle. The flavour of the pancetta was good but the little pieces of pork were hard, rather than the thin, melt in your mouth slices I was expecting.
Carman's bircher muesli with pear and cinnamon compote, honeyed yoghurt ($10.90)
S really enjoyed her Bircher; I'm not much of a muesli eater but I had a spoonful and it was creamy with a strong taste of fresh pear.
From a PR point of view, P+MJ are on fire. Their website and business cards are fabulous and continue with the cute theme that's found throughout the restaurant - blackboards on the walls with little messages of optimism, cute quotes on the menu ("...My tongue is smiling", claimed Mr Jones' 5 year old brother). Presentation of the restaurant itself is fabulous and service could not be faulted - the only flaw in the entire experience was my risotto and even that wasn't a 'flaw' as such, just a dish whose flavours were simply 'nice' and whose texture could have been improved.
Given how nice S's breakfast was, maybe breakfast and brunch is more their thing - I will be back to investigate this further.
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