XIC LO Vietnemese Noodle Bar - Chatswood

Another day, another quick lunch..where today? Xic Lo Chatswood! The mad greek and myself often leave the office, on a mission to find food...QUICK. We don't stray too far from the office, but if we do, then we need to find a place that serves quickly so we can get back to the office and back on the job. We have eyed off Xic Lo a few times, and today we visited for the second time in a month. Found in Spring Street Chatswood, it sits next to Tims BBQ and the Gourmet salad bar on the corner. The decor is utilitarian, the clientele is mixed, and the food is always consistent, fast, well prices, FRESH, and steaming. The first visit we were right in the middle of the lunch rush. Nearly every table was full, but the turnover was fast. We sat straight away, were given a menu, and the waitress kept a very keen eye on us as we checked the menu and the second we made our decisions, she was by our side with notebook in hand. The mad greek ordered a crispy skinned chicken and rice (com ga da don) for $10.50 which came with white rice or tomato rice, soup and salad. Incredibly good value and very filling, even for hungry girls like us. I tried the clear noodle soup with prawns, fish, squid and chicken (hu tiu do bien) $11.00. Served with the freshest been shoots on the side, we drank hot tea (pre brewed in a pressure pot on the tables) and took our time trying to finish our respective meals whilst listening to the chopping sounds coming from the kitchen, and lively conversations in the tables nearby. We ate up and left whilst checking out the pre-prepared glasses of rainbow drinks in the glass counter at the cash register. All boxes were ticked, fast food, yummy and cheap. On our return visit, we were late from a meeting and missed the lunch rush, so walked in, sat down in relative quiet, but still had the hawk-eyed waitress rushing to attention as soon as we looked like we had made our decisions. Today, the mad greek had the spring rolls with vermicelli (bun cha gio) for $10.50. It was served in a huge bowl, with shredded green salad, top dressed with fish sauce and roasted peanuts. The spring rolls were chopped up on top of the rice, the dressing served separately, and again, it was a huge meal and good value, dished up fast. It was a really hot day, so I decided to have the summer rolls (always a fave) with vermicelli (bun goi cuon) for $10.50. We again, had tea, and really enjoyed the fresh flavours and quick friendly service. Again, we looked at the health drinks, and rainbow drink glasses pre-set up with jelly and assorted goodies. Neither were really interested in the mung bean concoctions, but liked the look of them lined up ready for hungry customers. Back to the office we walked off the food, happy and sated once again! We'll definitely put it on the go to list, its cheaper than some of the terrible meals on offer at the local mall food hall, so there is no reason not to be back in the next little while. Might bring the others next time! Happi Eating!

TEN FOODIE THINGS I LOVED IN NOVEMBER!

Wow, we are in December already, so many yummy things have been tried and re-tried in November. I wanted to do a foodies gift guide for Christmas, but am not yet organised enough for that, so to kick off the list, my number one thing for November was my EUMUNDI MARKETS MACADAMIA COFFEE! Lucky for me, my lovely neighbour was holidaying in Noosa and when I realised she was heading for Eumundi markets, I got straight on the phone to ask her to find the coffee. Many MANY years ago, the husband and I were honeymooning in Hawaii, and came across some Kona Macadamia Coffee there. We came home with quite a few bags, and once they ran out, we were quite sad. About a year later, after coffee supplies had run out and the flavour was just a distant memory, we also holidayed in Noosa and did a trip to Eumundi. There was a local grower with all sorts of varieties inluding Macadamia! Once again, we headed home with the suitcase full of coffee, but this time we also had the email so we could have it sent to Sydney. Over the years, we dropped off ordering, and so it was an absolute blast from the past when we had the opportunity to try it again. The same grower, same flavour, GREAT COFFEE. You can order it direct on 07 5472 7235 through Coffee-Market Direct / Yandina QLD. Second on the list this month was a 1 litre tub of La Creme GREEN TEA ICE CREAM from our local Asian grocer I first had this many, many MANY years ago at a Japanese restaurant (and have had it many times since), but its lovely to have a tub at home for a refreshing flavour burst on a hot summer night. Not too sweet, but packs a flavour. About $10 a litre, it's not cheap, but a certainly a nice treat. Number three is the FANTASTIC HONEY I picked up direct from the Bee-Keeper roadside at Galston. John Donvito, from Kunghur (Northern Rivers NSW), keeps bees in a couple of locations, including Blue Mountains and near Arcadia, when he has some stock to sell, he sets up a roadside stall until its all sold. When I met him, he had 1kg jars for $10 a pop. He also has smaller jars with natural honeycomb in them for $4.50, and some candied honey for those who like it. Coming from a family of honey lovers, I bought two 1kg bottles, one deep in colour (wish I could find the piece of paper I wrote down which honey it was), and one light in colour, then two of the honeycomb jars. They make great gifts and you can eat the honeycomb. Although, at the rate we are getting through it, there may be none to give! John can be contacted on 0408 476 965 if you would like to know where he is next setting up shop. He can't sit roadside for too long as he needs to tend to his bees. We had a great chat, he's really animated about explaining the varieties and qualities of honey. Fourth this month is the teeny tiny, PENDLETON ESTATE WILD OLIVES from Thomas Dux. The lad's latest fancy is for olives. He loves trying new varieties, and when at the Thomas Dux charcuterie I noticed some lovely little olives, and thought he would like to try them for a change. They were mild in flavour, easy to eat, and were a great hit with him, and the husband as a treat. Fifth is the mixed KOREAN VEGETABLES...don't really know what they are (note to self..need more research...Ya Ya...HEEELLLPPPP!), but they are very delicious. I haven't had a chance to question the shopkeeper, she was busy when serving me last time so I'll find out for next..but they were all a little different and great with the wagyu steak I also bought from her. SIX, fresh, tree-picked peaches from the two stereotypical farmers on the side of the road at Dural. I drove up to the makeshift stall, and found the two men, in overalls, check shirts, wide brim hats, working under their table top truck. As I walked up to say hello, I gave them a start, and the one under the truck lifted his head, banged it fully on the underside of the car, comedy style, and then they both scurried to me and sold me some yummy, juicy, peaches fresh from the orchard. They didn't have plastic bags, so we scrabbled through the boot to find something suitable, and they still had the leaves on them. Much more satisfying than the hard, store bought ones I had the week before. I haven't seen those two guys again since though. SEVEN, these natty kids training chopsticks I found at a Chatswood homewears stall. My kids have tried the regular chopsticks, and have both been frustrated by their efforts and given up and used forks. I had seen these in a magazine, and tried to find them. It took me a while, and I actually found them when I was looking for a horse-shaped cookie cutter (anyone who knows where I can get one in Sydney..please let me know?). I was very pleased, bought two sets, I think they were around $10 each, but when I pulled them out at dinner time, the children were so excited and best of all, they were really easy to use! I got two cute pairs, a horse, and a goat, there was a sheep too, so very cute and fun. EIGHT is my very inexpensive, but very cute looking cupcake wrapping paper from "top dollar" and "hot dollar" stores. $1.00 a sheet, with matching cards, also $1.00. They are fun, cute and suitable for young and old. Lickable cupcake prints...I LOVE THEM. NINE is theme cakes, not just for kids. With the firstborn's obsession with all things horsie, I threw out the word for the cookie cutters and was delighted to be presented with a set of two horse-shaped cake tins from IDEA. $24 for the set, they were greatly appreciated and we did a test run of them for a friends bbq. The kids liked the shape, but I need to hone the decorations for next time. I have some halloween fairy floss in a tub for the next time to use as a tail and mane. We had fun, it all looked cute. The little tin didn't work as well, so I may just use THAT as a cookie cutter. Will try that soon. Another theme cake I made for fun, was for a friends birthday. I had a Varden tin left over from the firstborns Barbie cake a few years back, and decided to do a Priscilla inspired cake with a boy dolly and a big puffy skirt. I had it all planned, with pink marshmallows for the bra, and a hat with feathers, but when it came to putting "Ken" into his skirt, he was too tall! Obviously, he's much taller than Barbie, so he only got a leg in. I had to change him to a maracca swinging, scantily clad man jumping out of a cake! It was fun to make, fun to eat, and caused great hilarity in the office for the recipient. TEN was the baby-cino served to the lad at Savvy Coffee. Usually servied with marshmallows, but as he isn't a fan, they re-jigged it to included sprinkles. Cute as. All good fun...loved this month. Happi eating one and all!

Birthday lunch number...uhmmm

My dear friend Bee had been planning this outing for such a long time so it was quite exciting when the day finally arrived and I turned up at Newtown station on a really hot day to be met by an exotic looking Bee dressed for the occasion in a Hawaiian shirt! We headed straight for Christopher The's Black Star Pastry to pick up lunch.

Bee had a lamb shank pie (unfortunately, since he was unused to eating with food bloggers, he was mostly done with it by the time I got my camera out!) and the spinach and pinenut pithivier, both of which were rich and tasty (well, at least the initial allow-the-foodblogger-to-taste training took, hehe)!


I selected the serrano ham and basil in an olive roll. It was crusty and chewey and the fragrance of the fresh basil leaves enhanced the saltiness of the ham.

It was almost too much for one person but I managed to finish it knowing that dessert was nearby.

Let me introduce you to my new friends:

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble

Canneles de Bordeaux

Passionfruit and Coconut Macaron

Plum, Fig and Orange Cake

I loved them all, particularly the canneles (can-nu-lay is the way the French speaking Bee pronounces it) which I'd never tried before. According to the Food Network and the Worldwide Gourmet, this little cake has an ancient history but the most interesting part is how particular the recipe is in creating what turns out to be a crunchy, gooey toffee skin covering a creamy custardy interior. Apparently, fluted copper tins and coating the inside of the tins with beeswax (food grade I hope!) is what makes these pastries unique. My favourite of the day however was the orange cake with such a pretty topping, deliciously moist but not too sweet.

And the special cup of Earl Grey tea served up by Bee in gorgeous gold leaf cups inherited from his father. I felt rather privileged to be using this service and Bee went to the effort of getting the tablecloth matching the cup and saucer sets too!

But wait, there's more! Not only did Bee supply a wonderful lunch in the most elegant surroundings, afterwards he presented me with a very heavy parcel which turned out to be a Gateau Breton made to Nigella's own recipe. How lucky can a girl get?

Having read so much about this (and drooled over the photo in my copy of How to be a Domestic Goddess) I am now in possession of one! I couldn't wait to get home and open it up, it's a recipe that I don't think I'll ever make for myself, just reading the ingredients is probably raising my cholesterol level already, so how thoughtful of Bee to give me a little of the experience without the massive guilt, hehe! It was delicious by the way, crumbly and buttery and to be enjoyed a little at a time SLOWLY.

And after lunch, Bee organised a showing of finely bound artists books put together by a private collector.

Food and art, thanks for a gorgeous day Bee, hope your year is turning out to be just as good!

Bellinis, Burgers and Bliss

After you've been overawed by the fabulousness of the foyer of the Rockpool Bar & Grill, you need to remember to turn RIGHT so you can enter the more affordable bar section of this gorgeous restaurant. The bar doesn't take reservations so my companion and I decided to turn up at 12pm to take our chances, it was the right strategy as only a few tables were occupied unlike 30 minutes later when the entire place is full.

As it was a special occasion (erm alright, it was another birthday meal for me - look out for more in the coming days) S convinced me to celebrate in style and we started with a classic Bellini cocktail - peach nectar and sparkling white wine.

Like a lot of the other patrons of the bar, the must try dish was the Wagyu burger, its popularity boosting its original price of $18 to the current $22.00. The burger itself was stunning, the pure essence of meatiness and bbq beautifully grilled sitting on a toasted brioche roll, I must admit a little disappointment at the plain lettuce and tomato slices and not having the option of some beetroot on it (Aussie through and through), pickled zucchini in the Zuni Cafe style was nice but not the same!

Had to check out the fat chips (as it was on the menu a couple of weeks ago, checking tonight, they are now known as handcut chips - what's wrong with fat chips I say? The fatter the better.) and they were VERY good. Pity the meat in the burger was so satisfying I couldn't finish the other half of the bun or a good portion of the chips. They may not be the best value for money at $12 but I may just go back for a plate of the chips alone, now that would be the height of decadence if not a nutritionist's nightmare!

S decided on the spanner crab, tomato and chilli with semolina pasta at $29. It being my birthday, S kindly allowed me to sample a bit of the crab!

On the whole, I think the wagyu burger at Plan B is better value for money but if you like meat, you do need to try eating here at least once!

The making of MARMALADE - kidstyle.

I have only ever made marmalade once in my culinary life, and it ended with me having to call a plumber because the residue from my rinsed out pans left such a thick goop in the drain, it needed a professional to unblock it! So, you can imagine my reservations when the lad asked me what he could cook with grapefruit? Should I suggest marmalade or pretend he never asked me? We have a lovely elderly neighbour, who has a very robust grapefruit tree growing in her backyard. Every year she gives it a very severe pruning in an attempt to keep it under control. It doesn't work as every year it comes back bushier than the last with big, yellow, fat grapefruit on it. She planted the tree around 30 years ago and has enjoyed many fruit over the years. Unfortunately she can no longer see the pips to eat them properly which is a travesty, but she is happy for others to enjoy the fruit and is very generous in sharing them. So, every year, we pick some fruit and juice them. I love grapefruit juice, and so does my husband, but the kids like the juicing process more than the flavour. However, this year, I decided to move forward from my less than positive experience last time, and get the kids involved in a batch of grapefruit marmalade..kid style! The first step was the planning. I had an old recipe, but thought I should try to find a more simple one on the internet that would suit the age group and skills of my "helpers". At 5 and 7 years, they are sometimes more hindrance than help, but I really want to encourage them to think about food and the processes it takes to get food on the table (or in this case, into a jar!). Both kids were GUNG-HO about picking the grapefruit so it was hard to hold them back and talk about recipes and what we should do. After my initial search, I found a great simple recipe on the Cooking Cache website. All I needed was 3 medium grapefruit, 2 medium lemons, 10 cups water and 10 cups of sugar. EEK! 10 cups of sugar!??? This in itself amazed the children, no wonder they love jams but neither of them had tried marmalade before so they were expecting something sweet and sticky after seeing how much sugar went in. It was a great surprise to them when they tasted the result (and highly entertaining for me to watch) to find it was still sour enough to make them squint. I guess they didn't think about the fact that if the fruit is sour, then the end result will be sour too? Funny. OK, so it was time to gather our baskets and visit Phyl to get permission to pick the fruit. She was tickled pink that we still wanted them, and she was also really pleased they weren't going to waste, not to mention that she would get some home made marmalade for her toast at the end of it all! She has always loved it and knew we would come through with a jar or two. What fun we had, picking the best fruit, trying to reach it, twisting it until it came off, and comparing the sizes we all had. When you considered some were the size of a baby's head, no wonder the kids had trouble balancing them while reaching high. It was like a comedy act, watching them drop, juggle and struggle with them, while straining to see the green bug we found on a leaf! So easily distracted. Back to the house to scrub the fruit. This is always important, but more so since we had recently had the worst dust storm since the 1930's! We set up the sink with water and scrubbing brushes. Both kids put to hard labour to get them squeaky clean. Then there was a squabble over who got the biggest knife to cut the fruit. We had to have our safety discussion at this point, because even though both children take the use of knives very seriously, there is always the danger of severed limbs, and that would certainly have interrupted the proceedings somewhat. I was so tempted to go over the slices and re-cut them to make them thinner, but thought that this is the kids marmalade after all and they should be able to feel proud of the fact that they did most of it themselves, so CHUNKY style marmalade it was to be. We got our biggest saucepan out and put the slices of fruit in. The first born was in charge of adding the water cup by cup. The lad was the fruit man. Everyone had an important job to do. Once that was done, we left the fruit overnight to soak. Because I work 3 days a week, this had to be timed on a day I knew I could boil the fruit the following morning. With all of the extra curricular activities, this was a feat in itself, but we managed. The next morning I packed the firstborn off to school, and the lad and I hurried home to begin the next step of our little project. We boiled the fruit with the lid on for about 45 minutes (until rind is soft). Then we measured the mixture, cup by cup. This is important as the usual idea is to mix 1 cup of suger per each cup of fruit mixture. We had 10, so the lad began the filling, tipping and counting of the sugar cups and made a pretty good mess of the kitchen floor in the process. Theres nothing quite like standing in a dust of sugar, crunching and sticking with each step while trying to concentrate on BOILING hot liquid! I guess that's what cooking kid-style is all about (!?). We stirred it over the heat, without boiling, until the sugar was dissoved. Then we brought it to the boil, uncovered, without stirring for about 15 minutes (or until marmalade gels when tested. I'm not sure what happened here, but mine took much longer to gel. I'm thinking that the removing of the seeds (even though the recipe said to earlier in the process) left me without enough pectin? Who knows, but we boiled for longer. There is a few ways to test the gel point of jams, we used the cold plate method. I find it all a bit open-ended, so I've recently bought a new thermometer from Victoria's basement to help me on my next quest. This takes the worry out of the process. We had washed and steralized the jars after we hurriedly did a ring around of the neighbours and friends to GATHER them. Once the lad gets an idea in his head, we have to put it into action pronto so, the call went out, and in no time we had an interesting assortment of jars for our marmalade. We put them in the oven just before it was time to jar up, and we had just enough for the amount of mixture. I did this part as the mixture is SCALDINGLY hot, so there was no way I was letting the lad near the pan. I'm currently sporting a scald on my arm from my tea kettle, so I can't even be trusted with hot things about. He loved watching it gloop into the jars, and we let them cool before wiping them down. Once the first born arrived home from school, we made some labels and lid covers and had fun deciding who would be worthy recipients of our marvellous marmalade. After the official tasting (and the decision that they loved making it but don't like the taste), we farmed jars off to our generous neighbour, one jar went to pre-school for the kids to taste, to the school teacher, to Ya Ya (who promptly marinated chicken wings in it and said they were scrupmtious!), to our friends and family. It was a great experience, and one well worth doing. The kids both learned a bit more about food and the sugar content, and I got some ripper, flavoursome marmalade for my morning toast! Happy days. Happi eating!