Seems like Mexican food is all the rage these days. Check out our table of foods! We were at the Norfolk Hotel on Cleveland (305 Cleveland St, Surry Hills) to check out the $3 tacos. Oh how I heart taco Tuesdays! (Side note: it’s ribs night on Thursdays!)

A quick gander at the menu and the bar snacks looked too awesome to resist (as compared to the normal mains menu) and the suggestion of ordering one of everything was quickly confirmed by our group of 7. Order and pay at the bar and food will find its way to your table whether you be perched on a bar stool, in a cozy booth on the main floor or clustered upstairs on the mezzanine level with the pool table.


Jugs of deliciously sweet alcoholic beverages are $30 and comes with a crazy huge wooden spoon. There was also beer. Note to future self: I don’t like Becks! There was also cans of grape Welchs which I was insanely jealous of and knew to stay away from the tequila shots until I had eaten 😛


$3 tacos! Chicken, fish and beef up the back. There was also a pork taco which came later so I er forgot to take a pic and we didn’t get the vegie taco cos um that’s just not on (right Minh?). Super loved the braised beef taco with its rich, tender meaty nubbins! There was a twitter special running that if you ate 10 tacos you’d get free beer but next time my precioussss


Bbq’d sweet corn with chipotle mayo, queso cheese and lime ($5.50) was freaking addictive with each kernel bursting in corn juice. Mmm corn juice.


Now normally I hate pickles. Can’t stand em. Get them outta my cheeseburgers yo! But there they were on the menu with the magical words of DEEP FRIED. Majority of the table didn’t like pickles but I was just so curious about them and I think i was expecting the smaller sized pickles but ohoho what landed was a plate with about 10 pickle halves ($7.50) coated in the most delicious batter I have ever eaten. Seriously the batter was awesome! Piping hot straight from the deep fryer and slightly sweet, the batter would’ve been perfect for deep fried bananas. Or mars bars. You bet I peeled the batter off! All class.


Hot dog sliders with bacon, sweet mustard relish, pickled cucumber, crispy onions and jalapeno sauerkraut ($7.50) Squeeee how cute are the hotdogs!!! Perfect looking specimens but I think prefer The Dip’s smoky dawg


Dan’s awesome attempt at cutting the mini hotdogs into 7 pieces haha good effort


Pork belly crackling and slaw roll with fries ($8.50) was disappointingly devoid of crackle. Or I managed to get the piece that didn’t have crackle attached. Um.


Salt & pepper squid ($14) was your typical bar snack but made awesome with the spicy jalapeno aioli. That was one spicy dip man! Burrrrrrning


As spicy as the jalapeno aioli was, nothing prepared me for the Fried chicken wings with hot sauce and red eye mayo ($12.50) OMG BURNING!!! I’d just assumed it would be the sauce that was gonna be hot so I took a massive bite and my brain nearly exploded. The chicken is freaking covered in chili! So ok maybe it wasn’t that hot but I am super chili fail haha


Potato skins with bacon, cheddar, ranch, scallions ($9) were so delicious we ended up getting a second round because we were fighting over the last ones haha each potato half had tender potato innards and crisp baked skin, the ranch dressing was generously dolloped on and the bacon bits were just awesome cos who doesn’t love bacon?


Annnnd lastly there was this crazy ass burger: Chip roll with fries, cheese, chipotle, mayo and diced bacon and more fries ($7.50). Awesome right? A burger filled with fries and covered in gooey cheese. Yeahhh carb overload!


Sadly there were no desserts so we made do with tequilla shots. Cos it’s Friday Tuesday!


<3

You know when you find random ingredients in the cupboard and you just get hit with the baking itch? That’s what happened to me the other day when I saw a bag of pecans sitting next to my jar of maple syrup. They are a match made in dessert heaven!


Up above! Ok so I found this recipe on All Consuming and was totally gonna follow Maggie Beer’s recipe for the tart but didn’t have the sour cream so used a random tart recipe which I’m not entirely pleased about so hey click the link to see the recipe. Also I used 5 mini tart tins instead of the normal 9inch tin.


Ingredients (for the pecan pie filling only):
55g butter
½ cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1 cup maple syrup
170g pecans


Make your tart cases (recipe here). Here’s my tins yo. Preheat oven to 160C.


Melt the 55g butter in a saucepan on low heat


Stir in the ½ cup caster sugar and take the saucepan off the heat.


Whisk in the 3 eggs


Whisk in the 1 cup maple syrup and stir until the mixture is nice and glossy.


Arrange your pecans all nice and purdy


Carefully pour maple filling into tarts and bake until just firm in the center about 30mins if large tart, 23-25mins if small tarts.


The filling will puff up but no worries it will settle when it cools down. Brush with some extra maple syrup to make the surface all shiny


Helloooo delicious oozy centre!

With winter well and truly setting in, the only meals I want to eat these days are
hearty and meaty and packed full of flavour. Thanks to the awesome peeps at
Kitchenware Direct I scored the 5-in-1 Multi Cooker and knew it would be perfect for chucking in some meat and slow cooking it till the whole house filled with the smells of deliciousness. And are you ready for this? One lucky ChocolateSuze reader will win a 5-in-1 Multi Cooker so keep on reading for your chance to win!


The only thing I love more than a bowl of juicy, melt in your mouth beef ribs? A
never ending bowl! Yeah baby I heart my protein!


So we start with some beef ribs…


And all you need is: ¼ cup bbq sauce, ¼ cup coke and ¼ cup tomato ketchup! Told ya
it was easy 😀


Whack everything in, close the lid, and set to High Pressure for 1 hour


And voila! Meaty goodness baby!


Of course it’s not all meat in this household heh heh hullo potatoes! Give em a
good scrub, whack in the pot with a bit of water, high pressure for 10mins and
woot they’re done


Dunking the cooked potatoes into icy water makes for easy skin removal. Add
some knobs of butter, salt and pepper and mash away!


Decided to give my second lot of ribs a go with some store bought marinade
and slow cooked em for 6 hours for some crazy soft ribs. Sexy times indeed.
Definitely can’t wait to try out the other functions and make some soups or
maybe steam some fish yum!

So now thanks to Kitchenware Direct, who wants to win the very awesome
5-in-1 Multi Cooker? All you have to do is leave a comment in this blog post
answering:

What is your favourite winter memory?

The most creative entry will win this awesome prize! You can enter as many
times as you like, but you must be an Australian resident. Please enter a valid
email address. Competition closes Friday 8th July 2011, 10am AEST.

We were on a mission. A mission to try out steak tartare. And so the boy and I found ourselves at Glass Brasserie (Level 2 Hilton, 488 George St, Sydney). We were gearing up for an &#8216;interesting’ not so great month and decided we might as well splurge on a fabulous meal and fabulous it was!


Pan fried goose foie gras, scallop, quince, hazelnuts, spiced bread ($37). Oh man so much lobe. That wasn’t a typo heh. It was a lobe full of love. Fatty love. I love you lobe! Slightly crisp edges giving way to unctuous innards, I wanted to lick the plate clean! It was like meat flavoured butter! It was just THAT delicious though I had issues with the hazelnuts which were candied. Normally I heart candied hazelnuts but the toffee coating totes stuck to my teeth which made me worry for my fillings. A side of spiced bread also came with the foie gras and tasted awesomely like gingerbread but kinda made me wish it came for dessert haha my tastebuds got all kinds of confused!


Classic steak tartare ($27). Noods is almost fanatical about his steak tartare now! If he sees it on a menu it’s all he’ll talk about non stop until it arrives. Personally I think it’s just cos he likes playing with the condiments 😛

<3 watching someone enjoying their food!


David Blackmore Wagyu best end of rump 9+, beef cheek bourguignon, roasted bone marrow, grilled asparagus, mash ($125). We were in the mood for a bit of a splurge and decided we might as well go full hog cow and get the Wagyu platter to share and by golly be still my heart! The ginormous platter arrived with its own stand and the lovely waitress carefully portioned out our foods 50/50. Tho really i ended up having to pass Noods half my food cos um I get full quite fast and after the deliciously fatty foie gras my heart pretty much skipped a beat at the bone marrow OMGS sooo fatty! Is this the richest, fattiest dinner I’ve ever had?? The uneasy twitching in my heart says yes but ah my stomach was so very happy.

The beef cheek was incredible, each forkful just exploded with delicious beef-y juices and the slices of Wagyu just melted in the mouth. And not that I’m complaining but the mash had so much butter in it that it should have been called butter with a side of potato. Totally how I love my mash but all that richness made me reach for the aspargus and assorted mushrooms which were were grilled in MORE BUTTER.


Coconut, rhubarb & lime bombe Alaska ($18). And then there was dessert. The boy couldn’t resist the bombe alaska after watching one too many eps of Masterchef (go team Billy!) but somehow this just didn’t quite live up to the epicness of the savoury foods we’d just eaten. The shavings of coconut were pretty to look at but weren’t too flavourful, almost like it had had it’s coconut life sucked out of it. The rhubarb was a welcome vegetable and while I’m not a huge fan of eggwhite-y marshmallow concoctions the boy managed to demolish the dessert just in time for my dessert.


The Toffee soufflé with pecan butter ice cream ($20) has a 20min preparation time so when I had ordered this I had asked for the bombe alaska to arrive first because I have patience issues&#8230; And look at the height on this baby! I can just imagine someone sitting in front of the oven door and staring at the souffle and cackling RISE MY PRETTY RISE! No? Am I the only one that does that? Whatever, it was delish, light and airy and the pecan ice cream just perfect.