A weekend trip to Kangaroo Island was just what the doctor prescribed. Thanks to the peeps at Tourism Adelaide I was here for the Kangaroo Island Feastival, now in its second year to experience ‘all things delicious’ at the Island.


John and I had a bit of time after dropping off our luggage at the Aurora Ozone Hotel and dinner seemed so far away so we hopped into our car and drove up the road to family owned seafood harvester Ferguson Australia (48 Kohinoor Rd, Kingscote). Massive snow crabs and lobsters are kept in tanks on the side of the warehouse with picnic tables scattered around the area for those wanting to order freshly cooked seafood platters. We kinda only wanted a snack so decided against ordering lobster and instead went with a dozen oysters $12, a kilo of prawns ($23) and a tub of aioli (7.50). The oysters were freshly shucked and beautifully briny but unfortch the prawns were a frozen and defrosted mess of salty soggyness.


Dinner time rolls around and we head down to the Kingscote wharf for the Sealink Launch Night.


George Calombaris co hosted the event and was surprisingly entertaining! He spoke earnestly about the ingredients that were going to be used in the dinner, a bit about the producers and bantered with the crowd during Q&A.


KI abalone and whiting, native Tetragonia salad, sprouted red lentil dressing.


Goose in pastry, roast breast, buttered KI cabbage and Samphire salad, olive puree.


KI granola, sheep’s cheese and honey parfait, KI flowers, honeycomb.


Just so happened to spot George at brekky


We hit the road!


And arrive at Clifford’s Honey Farm (1157 Elsegood Rd, Macgillivray).


A quick tour and some info in the display area, honey ice cream available for purchase and best of all free honey tastings.


Next stop, Emu Bay Lavender (203 Emu Bay Rd, North Coast). It wasn’t quite the right season for lavender but it was just down the road. I’m not the biggest fan of lavender buuut ehh there’s lavender milkshakes and lavender scones…


I’ve always loved road trips and it was cute spotting this couple pitching a tent.


What’s the time? Winery time! Yale from the Islander Estate Vineyard has got to be the most cheerful guy I have ever met! He showed us around the winery and we got to taste their range. I’m not the biggest red drinker but I freaking loved each and every one of them tho my fav by far was the Old Rowley ’08 and had to grab a bottle back for Noods.


In need of sustenance we head towards Stokes Bay and have lunch at the Rockpool Cafe (North Coast Rd, Stokes Bay). There was battered fish and chips galore, garlic prawns, scallops and a token thai noodle salad.


Why hello there little fella


Last stop of the day before dinner was the Island Pure Sheep Dairy (127 Gum Creek Rd, Cygnet River) which is a true farmhouse dairy in that Island Pure grows the grass, milks the sheep, manufactures the milk and packages the products from the property. The sheep were so clean and well looked after! The staff were incredibly passionate as they spoke about what they do and we ended our tour with tastings and moaned that we wouldn’t be able to bring anything back with us.

Part 2 to come soon!

ChocolateSuze travelled and stayed at Kangaroo Island as a guest of Tourism Australia

(Click to enlarge) So like, if you spotted a familiar crackling I mean, face in the paper the other day that would’ve been me… Ever wanted a vintage makeover? How about winning a gorgeous De’Longhi Icona Vintage collection? Well this Sunday is your chance! Sydney peeps come say hi and visit me at Level 1 of the MOORE PARK SUPACENTRE (Corner of South Dowling Street, Todman and Dacey Avenues, Kensington) this Sunday 26th May from 10am-5pm!

After your free vintage mini makeover just take a pic of or with the Icona Vintage range. The person who has taken the awesomest pic by the end of the day and posted it on my app will WIN and entire Icona Vintage set for themselves in the colour of their choice!

Edit: Congratulations to Magdalena! You are the lucky winner of the Icona Vintage set! You will be contacted shortly to organise delivery of your prize 🙂

I heart bread. Soft pillowy innards and crusty golden edges? How can you not love bread? With butter of course 😛


And the best thing about bread? The smell as it bakes and fills the whole house. Zomg best!

The awesome peeps from Kitchenware Direct sent me a Sunbeam Smartbake Breadmaker and it’s been a pretty delicious time in the chocolatesuze household. You know how people say they only use a breadmaker once before it hides in the back of a cupboard? I’ve managed to go through a 10 kilo bag of flour baking loaves of bread! I guess the purists out there like to do the whole kneading of dough thing buuuut I’m hell lazy and have only baked bread once from scratch before giving up. So this baby? Already worth it’s space on my crowded counter.


Basic ingredients needed for plain bread: Bakers flour, salt, sugar, dry yeast, milk powder, warm water, butter.


The Sunbeam Smartbake Breadmaker comes with a booklet of recipes with straight forward instructions, the main thing is to remember to lift out the pan before adding your ingredients into it.


It bothered me a bit that the lid of the breadmaker is able to be raised while the dough is mixing, it doesn’t seem safe? But anywhos I freaking love the time delay function so I could set the bread maker to start mixing and finish baking at a designated time.


Waking up to freshly baked bread = awesome.


My pretties all in a row! There’s different functions which is tops, loaves can be baked in weights of 750g, 1kg & 1.25kg and 3 crust settings. They do get a tad burnt on the bottom if you leave them sitting in the machine too long, the bread maker has a keep warm function so the crust doesn’t get soggy but it also means the heat stays on the bottom longer if you don’t take out the pan when it’s done.


Aaaaand you can also set to a pizza dough function!


The recipes makes enough dough for 2 pizzas so hello Margarita time!


Side note, don’t put basil onto pizza except for presentation or they’ll shrivel and look like burning 😛


We were a little low on supplies so Noods created… a ham and pineapple pizza…


And attempted to make it classy with rocket hehe

To all the mothers out there, hope you had a great mother’s day! The Wong/Thye clan took the Mothership to Sake Restaurant (12 Argyle St, The Rocks) and we managed to nab the last reservation for the first dinner session. It is incredibly dark in Sake and I only managed to take this photo on my iphone hence the not so great photo above (sorry Mum!)


We start off with the famed Kingfish Jalapeño ($22), fat slices of fresh kingfish bathed in the tangy deliciousness that is yuzu soy and topped with jalapeno and coriander.


The Mothership is the biggest fan of grilled miso eggplant so a serve of Nasu Dengaku ($18) is a requisite order, a drizzle of light and dark miso paste on eggplant that is unctuously soft and creamy.


The Brother Unit requested the Crispy Chicken ($16) which satisfied our need for deep fried with juicy chicken and golden crispy batter. We couldn’t get enough of the accompanying sauces either, alternating bites with schmears of the spicy jalapeno sauce and refreshing tomato salsa. I’m happy to say I’m slowly moving my way up the chilli tolerance scale! The trick is to ignore the burning..


The Sashimi Tacos ($17) were bloody amazing BUT $17 for 2 tacos and 2 shots of sake hurts when you’re a table of 6 = $51. I mean, the tacos are freaking awesome, crisp shells filled with diced salmon or tuna sashimi with a dollop of chilled tomato salsa. But yeah. Ouch.


Salt & Pepper Tofu ($12) were pillow soft cubes of comfort. Like a hug! For your insides! That sounds a tad wrong so let’s move along now shall we?


The Steamed Prawn Dumplings ($17) are adorable and ridiculously delicious with the spicy ponzu dipping sauce. Like, I would’ve loved some alone time with that steamer basket. The dumplings are Chinese-inspired shumai but instead of wrapping the prawn innards with a single wrapper they are tossed in finely sliced gyoza wrappers before being steamed.


We were worried the Sashimi Combo ($47) would be too massive for us so I chose the Aburi Sushi Selection ($27) instead. I heart aburi anything mainly because I love seared smoky flavours. Tastes like a good kind of burning! We didn’t think cutting up everything would work so it was each man for themselves. I managed to score the salmon which has the perfect ratio of fatty belly to sweet rice.


The Brother Unit chose the Spider Maki ($18) because he loves soft shell crab and who am I to argue when it was pretty damn tasty especially covered in all that tobiko!


Who doesn’t love tempura?? The Scampi Tempura ($36) had a light and crisp batter and was piping hot from duh being baptised in oil. The scampi portions were surprisingly large and we eyed each other off for the last piece.


Big Dada is a fan of of pork belly in all forms and I am a sucker for anything with gooey eggs which meant we absolutely had to order the Buta no Kakun ($28). Huge chunks of the 12 hour braised pork belly are nestled around the onsen 64C hens egg which Noods took great delight in stabbing. When the dish first arrived we could smell truffle oil which felt a bit out of place but luckily couldn’t discern much in the dish. Next time I’ll order this with a bowl of rice to soak up all the meaty juices.

Bill worked out to be $400/6 people which was a bit pricey but well, we are in the touristy area and everything was delicious and I guess in hindsight we should’ve gone with the degustation menu as the prices would’ve worked out the same. I’m always wary of special menus on those celebratory days but the service at Sake was spot on and it was nice that they gave each mother a bouquet of flowers. So in the words of Rove, say hi to your mum for me!