Dare a Deer, dear?

We became market junkie now.

Last Saturday was our second visit to Good Living Growers Market held at Prymont Park. We nothing next to rushed this time, way different with last month, knowing this market is only open for couple of hours. Somehow we managed to arrive earlier than last month. We must’ve been lucky with all the public transports, I guess.

You might wonder what is so special with this market. Ok, let me tell you, if you expecting to find some ‘normal’ items like sold in Supermarket, you’ll be disappointed. The vendor’s sells more like organics-things or their own products from their farm, or their homemade food. Others sells fresh food, fresh meet direct from paddock, blueberry pancakes ready to eat –in case you haven’t had time for breakfast- or even flowers. Rare and unique flowers and stems –not kind of lilies or roses you found in every florist around the corner; more like exotic for me-. Coffee? Morning shopping without a cup of cappuccino won’t be a perfect outing morning. There are six or five coffee vendors, but you can’t past the obvious queue on Toby Estate Coffee.

Because this is second trip, we won’t go and bought same products as before –except products that have no competition and we fall into it-.

So, here our best pick from both visit:
· Fresh Lamb from Saltbush Lamb. First we bought lamb-chopped marinated in Moroccan-style; which we though will be spicy but turned out to plain for our Asian-tongue. Second time I bought fresh lamb-chopped, we had it for dinner on Sunday night and it was very beautiful and juicy lamb.

· Pastabilities.
We kept coming back for their sauce. I haven’t do anything with their chili&tomato jam I bought last Saturday, I will using it for spreading my next pizza project. It quite spicy, for sure –I tasted it-. I bought their grilled-eggplant and chili ready-to-use-pasta sauce, but they run out the stock last Saturday.

· Cordial from Fruitsoda, we bought couple of bottle ginger and kaffir lime cordials on our first visit. We didn’t buy anything last time, knowing winter just around the corner and we don’t feel for hot cordial.

· Sesame sauce –Goma- and Miso paste from middle-age couple who made everything on their kitchen. She is Japanese and the chef-of course- and he is an Aussie and did very good talking part. The best miso paste I ever ate –outside Japan- and us not very lucky last Saturday, they got nothing left when we came to their marquee. Have to wait until next market, next month.

· Parkers Organic Juice. The second best fresh juice –the first is the one I made from my kitchen-. They had sparkling version too. Why these juices taste better on the market rather than the one I bought from my neighborhood café?

· Venison from Mandagery Creek Farm. Do you know what it venison is? A deer, dear. From a dear-farm. One thing that catches my eyes is: they stated on their poster about halal certificate for their products. So why not try? I haven’t cook it though, tomorrow or the day after. But the meat seems so smooth and soft, so, wait until I eat it. I will tell you the rest.

Going Barn

We love eating out. Especially if those places or restaurants are kids friendly. With high chair and kids menu available. Also crayons and papers to make my littlies busy.

We went to the barn 2 Saturdays ago. Not literally barn, this barn is a café.

We traveled about 15 km to southern Sydney and it took us about 1.5hours –including 2 times changing buses and waiting time for the buses to come-. Not to bad, for a good food and different ambience.
The Barn Café located in suburb of Rozelle. We had been here once before, without the kids –long before my second was born- and the best thing after food is grocery shopping.

This café, not like ordinary café. I means, the interior, the ambience, the food, they all standing tall. As it name –barn-. A big spacious room divided into 3 sections: café, food groceries store, coffee shop.
The café itself took the biggest par of this premise. They mixed different style of wooden chairs on every table, and the bulky-wooden table reminds me of my grandma. Very homy and friendly. Make you want to sit here forever. The menus not too many, yet guaranteed to please your taste buds. We ordered bread platter with dips –which a plate with various bread serve with 3 different home-made dips, very yummy- as an entrée. My husband opts for chili king prawn wrapped beautifully on kind of crispy pastry sheet and serve on bed of fresh salads.

I love a lamb –always- that was why I ordered lamb shank –surprisingly big but very tender- with cauliflower mash and crispy potato ribbons sprinkle on top of it. No veggies though –not really healthy- but on that moment I just want to enjoy the food without thinking about how much I missed the veggies.

For kids meal, nothing new. Every kid loves fish&chips or pasta or simple sandwich, I presume. The pasta my son ordered turned out as kangaroo-shape pasta with simple Napolitano sauce. Plus he got smarty ice cream as dessert for his kids’ meal package. It is kind of relief though, found out the chips wasn’t kind of frozen chips-ready-to-fried thing, but this homemade chips cut in chunky way, taste so light. So good that when I throw out batch of frozen chips on the oven and serve to my daughter on the following day, she just bite a bit and whining all way during dinnertime, that the chips on the barn café was much much better, she wants only that sort of chips. Good girl. That is the downside of teaching your kids eating fresh and good food.

It’s cost us less than 90dollars, and that including coffee, big bottle of sparkling water and a bottle of chinotto –Italian soda-thing-.
Every cent is worth.

Once we finished our lunch –we sat on our table for about 2 hours- we begin our journey to their food shop. So many well-known brands on the shelves next to less-known brand (at least for me) present their own unique character.
We check-out with a bottle of their brand of olive oil, Turkish bread and a couple of organic chocolates.

For my son, the most appealing wasn’t the food or the place. But the menu book and the bathroom. Rather than binding in sort of normal-spirally-way, they binding the menu book with mini fork or spoon or knive as the binder. Very arty. And with the toilet, what fascinated my son is the way they use big wok as the sink and hole-ing the bottom of the wok so water can goes through. My son even snapped the idea of using our old wok to do the same in our bathroom. As if we can easily change it.

We went home happy.
Now, do more research to find our next pit stop.

Organic Piggybank

Inspired by Sydney Slow Guide Book, we –me & my husband Zi- decided to do our own slow and joy guide around Sydney. Time flies, we had less than 6 months here, and sooo many places we always wants to visit.

Our first destination last week was one of the Organic Shop in Bondi Junction –about 20 minutes by bus from our place- called Macro Wholefood. We passed this shop couple of times and we always wanted to stop by.

This shop, divided into 2 sections, Greengrocer & Café. We started from the Café which serving organic food, organic breakfast and –of course- organic coffee. Breakfast was good. I ordered buckwheat pancakes with strawberries compote poured all over, sweet and yummy, and Z went for scramble tofu –yes, tofu- with organic rye bread toasted plus salad.

The winner? The coffee. We agreed to add their coffee on our ‘Best Coffee around Sydney’ list.

As I expected, groceries price from their greengrocer is bit expensive. I know when people walks into the organic shop, they understand that they have to pay more (and deep down inside they cursing the prices when stacking groceries into their shopping bag). With fruits or veggies, I can’t say anything. Hard to compare with non-organic shop. But for ‘dry food’ as noodles, or even cereals, I found the same products on small specialty shops or health stores about 1-2 dollar cheaper. And for this saving you have to walk from one shop to another, which may cost your leg, not to mention cost for coffee and cakes between those shops. So, fair enough for the sake of convenience.

Oh, yes. About the Piggybank.
Instead of usual stick-with-table-number-attached-on-top- things, the gives customer this green piggybank with number written on her head as table number. So if the customer wants to spare their money for tips, just insert it on this piggybank. Stare free from staff behind the register. Don’t have to deal with embarrassing moment if the only money left for tip is 20cents. Isn’t that great idea?