When the heat is on

We went house hunting on a 40 degree day in Melbourne and stopped at Leo's for an ice-cream.  We were delighted to find they had our favourite Aurora flavours in small tubs:

Bubbles and I polished them off in the car and thought it would be a good suburb to live in if we can source our favourite ice-cream there!

What's happened to the Metropolitan?

A few weeks ago we had dinner at the Metropolitan in North Melbourne.  We sat in the white table cloth restaurant rather than the front bar and were quite disappointed by the steaks (normally very reliable).  Perhaps the chef was having an off night, but they were cooked as if they were frozen and then seared.  Dessert was also not up to scratch.  Bubbles and I shared a dessert and it looked beautiful, but lacked flavour:

I'm hoping they pick up their act.  The service was excellent and the wine they recommended was very good (but on the expensive side).  I am hoping they return to the excellent pub they used to be with great steaks, parmas and reasonable prices.

Sumner by the seaside, Christchurch New Zealand

For our last night of the holidays, we drove down to Sumner for dinner and a movie at the old Hollywood cinema.  Having eaten a lot of rich food over the last week, we thought we would try the Mexican cantina.  We had Argentinian pulled lamb burritos and they were terrific - the meat was soft from slow cooking and the guacamole, beans and sour cream made a great compliment to the salad and rice:

However we managed to find some room for our last scream of the holidays.  We found a little stripy wallpaper shop serving Deep South ice-cream.  I had orange and choc-chip.  Bubbles had raspberry marshmallow yoghurt with orange chic-chip.  Excellent food for a stroll along the shore:

Geraldine has more than cordial and jam

On our way to Christchurch, we followed a large cycling group and some terrible drivers trying to overtake them.  We decided we needed a stress break in Geraldine and found a shop serving Kapiti ice-cream.

I tried apricot with fig and walnut - fantastic:

Bubbles had apple crumble with double chocolate - very nice:

Incredible ice-cream sundae in Lake Tekapo

We really loved Wanaka (having so much fun, we went without ice-cream for two days).  We were a bit disappointed at the landscape in Lake Tekapo (fewer trees, more rocks, narrower lake).  However we found a lovely place to eat called McKenzie's Tavern.  They served meat on stone grills. I had beef, but it was so large, I could not eat it all:

Bubbles tried three smaller pieces of venison, lamb and beef (then finished off my beef)!

The meal was exquisite (cooking it ourselves was half the fun) and we decided we should probably only share a dessert (keeping in mind what the Germans had said about us in Oamaru).  The ice-cream sundae turned out to be incredible.  It included a scoop of flavourful vanilla bean, creamy vanilla and chocolate with soft nuts, topped with chocolate sauce… Delicious!

Then we went to play on the flying fox by the water, which was such fun and we decided that was the best feature of Lake Tekapo… and it was free!  We would have liked to go star gazing, but it was too cloudy.

Soft serve in Dunedin

Before hopping on the train to the Taieri Gorge (we were the youngest people on the train), we indulged in a soft serve made with frozen berries and yoghurt.  You could select a flavour, but the machine provided a taste of the last person's choice.  Bubbles had apricot and I had strawberry:

We had walked around Larnach castle all morning and were quite grateful for a four hour sit-down guided journey into the rocky hills outside Dunedin.  They pointed out successful horse studs and a bath tub that is by the river (they heat it with firewood)!

It is funny to think Taieri Gorge was once heavily populated during the gold rush and there were tea rooms all along the rail line.  There are only a couple of buildings left and the one with the outdoor bath tub was bought by a railway worker for 37 pounds in the 1960s, because the railway wanted to get rid of all the stations.

Fleur's in Moeraki

Rick Stein was right.  Fleur's is a fantastic eatery off the beaten track in a little beach shack near the Moeraki boulders.  We had scrumptious seafood chowder with a saffron bread:

The Moeraki platter was full of delicious morsels including pate, whitebait omelette, salad, lamb skewers, gerkins, onion pickles and cheese:

Some German tourists were placed on our table and questioned whether we were fat or just strong (in German - thinking we didn't understand), but we had dessert anyway!

I had the chocolate pudding with a self saucing centre, raspberry smear, nutty scatterings and vanilla ice-cream.

Bubbles had the Tunisian orange and cardamon cake with pecan ice-cream - exquisite!

Deja Moo in Oamaru New Zealand

Our morning of steam punk was topped off with a delicious Deja Moo ice-cream in Oamaru:

Bubbles tried pineapple lump flavour coupled with apricot (beautiful):

Denheath Custard Squares eaten at the source in Timaru New Zealand

Bubbles and I had a delicious stop on our way from Christchurch to Oamaru.  We wanted to see the home of Denheath's famous custard squares (now exporting to the world, including Korea!).  We were not disappointed in Timaru:

They were advertising the cycle tour "Alps to Ocean" and encouragement to cycle around Timaru.  It would be the perfect way to burn off all the deliciousness.

The cafe also served delicious carrot cake:

Impressing the English with breakfast at the European, Spring Street

After years of loyalty to Cumulus, we decided to try the European for breakfast.  The occasion was an overseas visitor, so old-world Melbourne was the ambience we wanted to show off.  They didn't disappoint and check out the way they served the banana bread:

You can order caviar, but I think the smoked salmon, asparagus, poached egg and rye toast is even better!

If you have a gluten intolerance, there is nut bread with avocado:

And classics such as eggs atlantic are also delicious (even if it took 10 minutes to bring out the side of spinach - anyone can forget after all):

We thought about having an ice-cream afterwards, but were too full!

Maxibon by Moonlight

On Saturday night we went to the Moonlight Cinema in the botanic gardens.  It was hot so we thought we would indulge in an ice-cream before the movie began.  They had Connoisseur and Maxibon.  My date had never tried Maxibon and I said I would eat anything he chose.

The chocolate coated side (compound chocolate) is better than the soft biscuit side.  It might be the crispy bits in the chocolate that make it more tasty or texturally exciting.  The chocolate itself if fairly generic and the vanilla is quite plain.  A little sickly sweet compared to fresh ice-cream made by one of the artisan ice-creameries we have been frequenting.

At least the movie was good.  We saw "Labour Day" with Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet.  Josh Brolin's character is terrific (even though he plays a criminal wanted by the police).  There is a lot to be said for a man who can make a nectarine pie, fix a stair, repair a car's engine and show a poor stooped kid the canopy of leaves above his head.

Soft biscuit side