Laneway, Wentworth Building University of Sydney

A new cafe recently opened at my uni featuring an all day breakfast menu. Searching them up on facebook and looking at the foods they had to offer I was pretty excited to finally try it out.

I like their build your own breakfast style which allows you to choose your bread, the toppings and any extras. I chose a waffle base with sauteed garlic mushrooms, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce ($10.50) plus extra avocado ($1.80) and my friend chose sourdough with smashed avocado and ricotta ($10.50).

Our food came out really quickly, within 5 minutes of ordering. When put in front of us I immediately saw the stark difference in size of the two portions. Disregarding my extra avocado, my plate of waffles was a lot larger than my friend's single slice of sourdough.

Despite that, both tasted amazing. My friend's choice was light and refreshing with a nice tang of lemon juice in the avocado. With my dish, the waffles were hot and crispy, perfect to soak up all the runny yolk goodness and smothered in tangy avocado.

Garlic mushrooms, poached eggs, hollandaise sauce and smashed avocado on waffles (front), smashed avocado and ricotta on sourdough (back).

I was pretty full after finishing my plate but my friend recommended me to try a cronut after learning that I have never tried one before. If I wasn't so full I maybe would've enjoyed it more. The pistachio cream was a tad too sweet for my liking and the pastry wasn't as flaky as a croissant. The dark chocolate sauce was good though, a much needed element to go with something so sweet.

Pistachio cream filled cronut with dark chocolate dipping sauce ($5.80)

Overall, I enjoyed my experience at Laneway and given that its located at my uni, I do see myself returning in the future.

Second visit:
So I visited Laneway for a second time last week. My intention this time was to try their sour cherry loaf bread. I wasn't in the mood for what they had on their menu that day so in a way I built my own combination. You may think I'm super weird for ordering peanut butter on sour cherry loaf with poached eggs and avocado, but this combo totally works. Well to me at least.

So how was the bread? It was nice - a crusty exterior with a soft, slightly chewy centre laced with sour cherries which were more sweet than sour.

Peanut butter on sour cherry toast with poached eggs and avocado ($8.75 or $7.45 with Access) 

Recipe: Udon Noodles with Prawn, Shiitake Mushroom and Tomato Broth

Winter is here and there's nothing like tucking into a bowl of hot slurpy udon noodles. I made the broth with prawn heads and shells and shiitake mushroom soaking water. Not only are shiitake mushrooms delicious, they are full of health benefits too. They are known to boost your immunity, lower blood cholesterol and is a good source of iron.

This was how I made my noodles tonight.

Serves one.

1 x 200g udon
2 prawns, unpeeled
2 dried shiitake mushrooms
1/2 tomato diced
3 cubes fish tofu
Bok choy (optional, but its always nice to add some extra veggies to your meal)
Salt to taste

Wash and soak mushrooms in 3/4 cup hot water until soft. When the mushrooms are soft, trim the stems and pour the soaking water in a pot. Peel the prawns and add the heads and the shells to the pot. Keep the prawns themselves for later.

Add one more cup of water. Bring to the boil and add your diced tomato. Keep on a medium heat, or low heat if the water is evaporating too quickly.

While the broth is simmering, cook the noodles in another pot according to the packet. I like to rinse my noodles afterwards to remove any preservatives. So just tip the noodles into a colander or sieve and wash it under tap water. Pour out the water that you used to cook the noodles, add fresh water and boil the bok choy.

By now the flavour from the prawn heads and mushrooms would have been extracted, add the peeled prawns, fish tofu, and salt to taste. When the prawns are half cooked, add the noodles. Bring the broth back to a boil. When the prawns are fully cooked, pour everything into a bowl and dinner is served.

Recipe: Chocolate Pancakes

This is a recipe of some chocolate pancakes I made the other day. It is adapted from a recipe from Cancer Council NSW. I had soy milk instead of normal milk and I know that soy milk has quite a distinct flavour and doesn't go well in everything. So to mask this flavour I added cocoa powder to make chocolate pancakes. I also didn't have any pears so I used half a banana, saving the other half for the toppings. I also halved the amounts since I didn't want to make too much in case they didn't turn out too nice. But luckily, they were super delicious!

This is my adapted recipe:

Ingredients: 
1/2 cup self-raising flour
3/8 cup cocoa powder (I used the same 1/2 measuring cup and filled it 3/4 full)
1/2 soy milk
1 egg
1/2 a banana (mashed)
A swirl of honey (approx 2 tsp) (optional)

1. Sift the flour and cocoa powder
2. Add the egg, milk, mashed banana, and honey
3. Mix until the batter is smooth
4. Heat a non-stick pan on medium heat and spoon the batter onto the pan to the desired size
5. When bubbles start to form and the edges start to dry, flip the pancakes and heat for an extra minute or until cooked through. 
6. Serve and enjoy :) 

For my toppings, I used mixed berries, banana and honey. 

House of Crabs

Messy, fun and oh so delicious.

Last night I tried the newly opened House of Crabs upstairs from the Norfolk Hotel on Cleveland St, Surry Hills. Now, before I go to any restaurant to eat I'll always surf the food blogs and know what to expect. To be honest, I didn't go with much high hopes since I don't usually like mussels and clams, and whenever I eat crab, its always so hard to get the meat out. 

Instead though, I ended up really enjoying this dinner. Going with 6 people, we were able to try a large variety of their menu. We were one of the first tables there so our food came out really quickly (within 10 minutes of ordering). Our waiter was also really friendly and patient with our indecisiveness.

For starters, we tried their buffalo cucumber (w/ blue cheese and peanuts), crab, blackbean and chorizo balls, and the ceviche and guacamole with corn chips, plus a kale, bean and broccoli salad. As for drinks, we got the hurricane fishbowl and crabbies ginger beer.

Hurricane fishbowl ($25), ceviche and guacamole with corn chips ($16), crab, blackbean and chorizo balls (6 balls $15), kale salad ($16)

The cucumber came in a little bowl dressed in a blue cheese sauce. I'm not usually a fan of blue cheese so I was a bit reluctant to try it, but I did and it was better than expected. It had a nice cheesy flavour but wasn't too overpowering. The ceviche dish was nice, but nothing special. Same with the salad, though the toasted sunflower seeds provided a nice crunch and nutty flavour. 

What I really enjoyed from the starters was the crab and chorizo balls. Nice and crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside. It had a nice crabby flavour to it and the peas and beans provide a nice mix of textures. 

Now, on to the stars of the show - the boils. Bags of 500g boiled seafood smothered in their own finger-licking sauce. 

We ordered 5 boils with the 5 different sauces that they had - mussels with mexican sauce, clams with oriental sauce, yabbies with lemon and pepper sauce, snow crab with cajun sauce, and king crab with butter and garlic sauce (this was the special sauce of the night so its not on their menu). The waiter told us the best way to eat was to tip everything onto the table and just grab from the pile. This is why they have paper table clothes so everything is just wrapped up and thrown away after leaving a clean table.

The boils (minus the king crab - my fingers were too dirty by the time we got the the king crab to take a photo)

It was amazing seafood with equally as amazing sauce. My favourite sauce would have to be the cajun sauce, not too spicy but just enough kick to go with the firm and juicy snow crab. The mexican sauce was the spiciest of them all but still enjoyable even to someone with only a mild chilli tolerance like me. The clams with oriental sauce was ok but some of the shells were empty which was a bit disappointing. I was also disappointed by the lemon and pepper sauce, it was only weakly lemony and I couldn't taste the pepper at all. Lastly we had the king crab. This wasn't tipped on the table since the sauce was quite runny. The meat was quite a challenge to get out of this one, even with the crab crackers that were provided. The shell was very spiky too. This was the most expensive of the boils ($45 for 500g) but it was also the best tasting. Even without the sauce, this one was a winner with the fresh taste of crab meat. The butter sauce complimented this freshness really well. It was a lighter flavoured sauce so the taste of crab meat was able to come through.

All gone :)

Lastly, dessert! There is only one dessert on the menu - a neopolitan ice cream  waffle sandwich. You could never go wrong with a waffle sandwich. Two waffles sandwiching a thick slab of neopolitan ice cream, drizzled over with raspberry and chocolate sauce, with a sprinkle of toasted almonds. Such a delight to eat.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable and satisfying experience. Don't be deterred by the things I found disappointing because everyone likes different things. This place is well worth the try!

About Me

I'm a foodie, there's no denying it. I love food. I love to eat and I love to cook. I like making simple and healthy meals and experimenting with different healthier alternatives in recipes.

This blog will most likely be a mash of a normal food blog of the places I've been to eat with some of the recipes and foods that I have made.