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OH HAI! What would you like from Santa this year? Stuck on ideas on what to get your friends or family? How about a Magshop subscription for a whole range of magazines from Australian Gourmet Traveller to Australian House and Gardening, Woman’s Day or Rolling Stone. There’s just something about taking some time out in your day and curling up in your fav couch with a glossy magazine and a cup of tea coffee coke and drool over the perfectly arranged food.


Thanks to Nuffnang I scored the latest issue of Recipes+ which was choc a block packed with awesome Christmas ideas complete with costs per serve which comes in handy when preparing your wallet for how much you’re willing to spend on food for a party cos if you’re anything like me you tend to blow your budget by adding extras to the trolley!


Particularly loving the Xmas bbq ideas zomg bacon stuffing?! Why have I never thought of that before??


But of course my fav section in any food magazine is the desserts 😀 How cute are these frosty snowmen biscuits? And I’m dying at the cuteness factor of the mini coconut ice candy canes!


Magshop is the online store for Australia’s leading magazine subscriptions. Browse through dozens of Food and Cooking Magazine titles for subscriptions this Christmas. Subscribe now and you could win one of 10 trips for two to discover Hawaii!

So who wants to win year’s subscription to Recipes+ ? Thanks to Magshop and Nuffnang, 3 readers will each receive a Magshop subscription to Recipes+. All you gotta do is leave a comment below telling me:

What has been your worst cooking disaster at Christmas?

The 3 winners will be judged on the most creative comment entered and only one entry per person is allowed so make it count! Please leave a valid email address! Sorry peeps but entry is only open to Australian residents over 14. Competition closes Wed 22nd December 5pm EST. Magshop is not responsible for the promotion
offered by Nuffnang Australia and you should read the conditions on Nuffnang

Edit: CLOSED OH HAI! Mmm mango bier how I ♥ thee… We are gathered here today to partake in the deliciousness that is Bavarian food at the Bavarian Bier Cafe (16 O’Connell Street, Sydney) thanks to the lovely Kate from Zing.


Would you like some butter with your pretzels ($3.50)? I jest I jest! The butter was shared with the other basket of pretzels lol but there’s nothing quite like fresh pretzels warm from the oven and studded with salt crystals.


The Salt and Pepper Squid with garlic, lime aioli (small $19.50/large $21.50) are a little heavy handed on the salt but are uber tender with the perfect ratio of batter to squid.


Forest Mushrooms and Sauteed Garlic Flammenbrot ($16.50). Mushrooms of the forest yo! Doesn’t that give you such great imagery? I’m totes imagining a whole bunch of super gnarled trees with branches stretching for the skies and sunlight filtering thru the leaves as they sway in the wind and pockets of mushrooms clustered together, almost as if they’re sharing mushroom body heat.. Oh yes it’s another 4am post wheeee! But the flammenbrot was delicious! Like a super thin pizza and covered in the lives of garlicy mushroom slices and topped with stretchy cheese.


Snap attack!


Crackling roast pork belly ($28.50). The meat is so tender and MOIST that it doesn’t really need the Granny Smith apple compote but is delicious nevertheless. I could totes eat the apple compote by the spoonful from whence it came.


Karen has ordered the Bavarian tasting platter ($27) which comes with pork belly, sausages and schnitzel and is such an impressive sight that I’m immediately overcome with food envy. Cos hot damn a tasting platter to try the restaurant’s specialties is gold.


Lisa’s Swiss Chicken Schnitzel topped with Swiss cheese and double smoked leg ham is a beast and try as she might she is unable to finish it. We help her out by stealing the fried to perfection fries. Seriously golden carb perfection with every bite!


Oohs and aahs fill the air as Helen’s massive Slow roasted pork knuckle ($37) arrives. Ain’t she a beauty! “It has a skirt of crackling!” she cackles. The word ‘resplendent’ comes to mind. Resplendent in crackling? Resplendent in beauty? Have I now made the word resplendent, redundant? Moving along. Luckily after having trouble deciding what to order we had agreed to share the knuckle and the pork belly between us which meant I had more access to crackling woot! The meat wasn’t as juicy as the pork belly but the crackling was fan freaking awesome and kicked the pork belly’s crackling to the kerb. Well not the kerb cos I still ate it. Mmm crackling you will not be wasted!


I interrupt the pork forecast with this photo of hanging bier steins.


But a dinner ain’t complete without some dessert and even tho we are stuffed we find our emergency dessert stomach and power thru. First up is a classic lemon tart with double cream ($11.50) which is zingy and just the right amount of sourness and sweetness ratio to counter the richness of all the pork that had been consumed.


Walnut and Date Pudding ($11.50) was served with honey ice cream. The honey ice cream was the best! Sweet, with just a hint of floral, the ice cream was quickly devoured by us, leaving no traces it even existed.


Chocolate Delice with summer berries and toasted almond ice cream ($11.50). Unfortunately I haz issues with anything almond essence flavoured so I stayed far away from this dessert tho I managed to swipe a spoonful or two from the side that didn’t touch the ice cream and it was uber rich and chocolatey.


The Apple strudel with vanilla anglaise (11.50) looked like one hefty creature but was surprisingly light, the apples subtly flavoured with the joys that is cinnamon and enveloped in pastry that was buttery and flaky.


A platter of cheeses served with red wine apple compote and lavosh ($19.50) comes towards us and while at first we chortle at glee at the jenga formation of the cheese we can barely make a dent in it as our food coma has well and truly set in.


But there’s always room for a schnapps or two 😛

Chocolatesuze dined as a guest at Bavarian Bier Cafe with thanks to Zing

Hey Sydney Food Bloggers! 2 more days to the 2nd annual food bloggers picnic! Hope you guys have registered! If ya haven’t already registered jump on over to here so we’ll know who to make name tags for etc. No need to go nuts on the food guys! Just bring enough for maybe 3 people to try cos there’ll be HEAPS of food!


And the Ferrero Rocher by BKH Christmas Centrepiece competition ends at 5pm today so get your entries in here


And 1 more week till the Magnum Temptation $1000 Giveaway ends so click here

OH HAI! Well, make that bai to Chef Hideki Okazaki who is sadly leaving Rise Restaurant (23 Craigend St, Darlinghurst) to spend some time with the new addition to his family. It was our 10th visit to Rise, previous visits blogged here, here, here, here, here, here, and aw crap first 2 posts & 7th post have been eaten by the archive monster. The Sayonara Menu was 6 courses and $48 p.p.

Steamed pork belly, cauliflower, sugar snap, rocket salad with “chuka” vinaigrette. The tenderest pork evah! I’m pretty sure tenderest is a word. /runs to google. Yes yes it is. The pork was pretty damn juicy and I loved the presentation of the halved sugar snaps tho I wasn’t a fan of the bean sprouts hiding in the middle hmm I haz texture issues!

Potato soup with tofu & scallop tempura. There was complete silence at our table for the soup was delicious in oh so many ways. Creamy, soothing and tasting like the potatoes had happily given up their souls to create such a dreamy smooth soup, I could easily have drunk a litre of the stuff. The scallop tempura was a light and crispy nugget floating above the soup thanks to the hidden cube of tofu lurking in the depths like the Loch Ness Monster. Or an iceberg.

Sashimi– kingfish, ocean trout and one giant monster oyster. I would like to say things like, fresh! Tastes like the ocean! Or, so fresh it could swim off the plate! But it kinda sounds redundant when Rise always has the absolute best produce sourced.

Tasting platter – Soy milk flan with “shiitake” sauce; Rice paper rolls of cured salmon, omelette & gochujang mayo; Fish cake and green papaya. (Platter in the photo above was for 2 people). My fav from the platter was the flan which was like an uber smooth chawanmushi topped with the goodness of mushrooms. The rice paper rolls were um tasty but was totally outshone by the fish cake nubbin which was fragrant with basil and just enough chili to be zingy but not spicy.

Soba salad with chunyang chilli prawn. Ginormous deep fried prawn = happiness in mah belly

Chicken confit, bamboo shoot, button mushroom and “zahsai” sauce. Look at the skin look at the skin! Oh yes crispy perfection is staring right at you! And under that crispy deliciousness was chicken so juicy it was like it was weeping tears of juicy happiness. (Do I sound delirious? 4am awesomeness at its best hi jacq!)

Panna cotta with a layer of pomegranate & amareto jelly topped with a cumquat, amareto & milk granita. Unfortunately I haz issues with almond essence flavourings but luckily the boy loved it and hoovered up my dessert in no time.

But then Chef Hideki came out for a chat and brought us MORE DESSERT! Woot I love surprise desserts! They were green tea and rockmelon sponge cake rolls filled with a frozen yoghurt mixture studded with fruit mmm luckily by then everyone was full and thanks to my emergency dessert stomach I had the bowl to myself hahaha

♥

Farewell Hideki! All the best with your family and hope to see you soon!