victoria – Gourmanda

Review: Source Dining, Kyneton, and a Weekend in the Macedon Ranges, September 2017

It wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to say that in our previous pre-baby life, many of our getaways were planned around meals. Where we went for lunch or dinner, would often dictate our activities for the day. That was certainly true of our long weekend getaway in the Macedon Ranges this time last year. While we stayed in the picturesque town of Woodend, the one ‘fancy meal’ we booked was in Kyneton – and therefore, there was where we spent our Saturday.

Source Dining came highly recommended by the Good Food Guide and Gourmet Traveller, regularly earning one hat for their dedication to using excellent local produce, with changing menus to reflect seasonal produce availability. Importantly for me at that point, the menu was also pregnancy-friendly with classic dishes that didn’t feature too much raw food!

Located on iconic Piper Street in Kyneton, you can easily spend the morning browsing the gorgeous boutiques, antique and local makers stores before gradually making your way down to Source Dining for lunch. If you’ve got a later lunch booking, you can even duck into boutique Animus Distillery for a cheeky gin tasting before going for lunch (note – we didn’t do this, but K did try some Animus gin at lunch!)!

We keep relatively early lunch hours – I think I would perish from hunger if I had to wait past 12.30pm for lunch! As such, we were some of the first diners into Source, but were rewarded with an excellent table by the window for people-watching as a result.

Elderflower Cucumber and Lime Mocktail, Gin and Tonic with gin from Animus Distillery, Kyneton

Being seven months pregnant meant a mocktail for me – a housemade Elderflower, Cucumber and Lime Mocktail. Light, spritzy and utterly refreshing for a surprisingly warm September day (or maybe I just remember it was warm because I was running about five degrees warmer than everyone else in the latter stages of pregnancy!). K enjoyed a Gin and Tonic with local gin from Animus Distillery.

I love house-baked bread and house-made butter – especially when it’s as soft and spreadable as this. I’m pretty sure I ate not just my own bread, but K’s too, with both slices absolutely slathered with butter. In my defense, I was pregnant and hungry. Let’s go with that!

A little complimentary appetiser to get us started – a few mouthfuls of an incredibly fragrant Thai soup topped with crispy crunchy fried shallots.

Pan seared scallops with cauliflower puree, pickled cauliflower, caper and currant beurre noisette, curry spice, $22

My entree – Pan seared scallops with cauliflower two ways. Lovely tender scallops that were beautifully caramelised in the pan, best eaten with the slight crunch of the cauliflower pickle. Scallops are a tricky ingredient to cook right – it’s underwhelming when undercooked, and chewy when overcooked. Finding that balance is difficult, but Source did it beautifully.

House made Ricotta Gnocchi with roast pumpkin, local walnuts, kale, sage, brown butter, crumbed hens egg, $20

I tried some of K’s Ricotta gnocchi with roast pumpkin before he cracked open the crumbed hens egg (uncooked yolks not recommended in pregnancy!) and found the gnocchi just beautifully light and fluffy. Pumpkin, gnocchi and browned butter is an unbeatable combination!

Market fresh fish with celeriac puree, remoulade, seaweed, fried Australian crab dumplings, sauce bisque, $42

Onto mains, and I stuck with seafood – the day’s market fish special of Salmon with crab dumplings. I loved the crispy salmon skin, the crunchy dumplings, and fresh salad, but the real highlight was the intense and richly flavoured bisque. It was simply to die for. I ended up asking our waiter for more bread so that I could soak it up and not waste any at all!

Eucalyptus smoked kangaroo with sprouted organic grains, sunflower, watercress, mountain pepper jus, $42

K opted to order the Smoked kangaroo for his main, a rare treat as we never cook kangaroo at home. I know we should – it’s lean, healthy, and a better choice of red meat when you consider the environment impact. But I do doubt our ability to cook it so it’s as tender and juicy as this kangaroo at Source Dining….

White chocolate mousse with rhubarb, strawberries, balsamic, hazelnut sponge, white chocolate and strawberry sorbet, meringue, $18

We finished with a shared dessert as we were already well-full by the time we finished our entrees and mains – even though I was eating for two! This White chocolate mousse was superb, with a real medley of textures and flavours to explore. My pick was the refreshing sorbet, a perfect palate cleanser after my rich seafood dishes.

Source Dining is a fantastic destination restaurant if you’re looking for a special meal while in the Macedon Ranges. Kyneton is a lovely little town for a daytrip and we certainly enjoyed our time exploring the region. Other highlights of our weekend included:

Three varieties of award-winning vanilla slice from the famous Bourkie’s Bakery in Woodend – my pick is the classic vanilla!
Hiking to the top of Hanging Rock, seven months pregnant belly and all. I’m no Serena Williams winning the Australian Open or Kerri Jennings winning volleyball gold at the Olympics, but I did feel rather victorious by the end of it!
Visiting the Sand Art Gallery at Romsey
Our wonderfully cosy Airbnb accommodation, where we enjoyed some delicious breakfasts and BBQ dinners with local produce
Stopping by the Gisborne Olde Time Markets on our way back to Melbourne on the Sunday – one of the largest and most comprehensive markets I’ve encountered!

Unfortunately, our next weekend getaway in November will be planned less around excellent meals like Source Dining, and more around practical decisions like “do they offer a high chair and will a whinging baby disturb the other diners?” Any suggestions for child-friendly restaurants that still offer excellent food in the Daylesford area?

Weekend Away in Torquay, February 2017

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this feels like a lifetime ago.

Back in early 2017, K and I decided to have a short weekend away before we would begin work on the renovation blitz of our little apartment. At that stage, we were still living with my father and brother, and private couple time alone was few and far between. A weekend away to reconnect as a couple before the inevitable tears and arguments of home renovation wrenched us apart seemed like a good idea!

I got down to Torquay first early on the Friday afternoon as I went straight from a work event in Geelong, with K following on a V-line train after work. We settled into our Airbnb with a simple dinner of cheese and crackers, pate, and other nibblies.

Blessed with beautiful weather that weekend, we spent Saturday driving down the Great Ocean Road, stopping in at the Aireys Inlet lighthouse (fans of Round the Twist will know it well!) and the Twelve Apostles with ice-cream treats along the way: an organic fruit juice popsicle and a little punnet of local Timboon Fine Icecream as well.

An excellent dinner was had at local fish’n’chippery Fisho’s in Torquay, with some fresh oysters, some excellent gummy shark and trevally, and excellently crunchy sweet potato cakes. Being right on the beach, Fisho’s is a bit of a local institution and had quite a long queue of people waiting for their delicately pan-fried fish and crunchy chips.

We finished off our Sunday with a visit to the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery, buying some lovely chocolates to go as well as enjoying a hot chocolate and ice-cream in their cafe. On the way back to Melbourne, we stopped by Ocean Grove’s Rolling Pin Pies & Cakes (a favourite of Attica’s Ben Shewry’s!) to have some pies for lunch, as well as pick up some family-sized pies to take home for future delicious meals.

Our weekend on the Great Ocean Road was just the type of regional Victorian getaway that K and I love, with long lazy drives, lots of eating simple local food, and plenty of ice-cream and chocolate stops! While I don’t think we’ll be doing any more long lazy drives with a baby in the car who is very vocal about not liking her car seat, we do have a weekend away planned over Melbourne Cup weekend in Daylesford…surely there’ll be lots of simple local food delights to be sampled there?

Review: The Forge Pizzeria, Ballarat Victoria

To cap off a recent weekend in Ballarat visiting attractions like Sovereign Hill and the Gold Museum, I went with my brother and father to The Forge Pizzeria in town for lunch on the Sunday before driving back to Melbourne for my late afternoon flight back to Sydney. Recommended with a high rating on Urbanspoon (now Zomato), The Forge Pizzeria is absolutely massive. Dressed up as an old warehouse with the requisite exposed bricks and industrial reclaimed furniture, the restaurant can easily seat 200 people or even more. The massive brick pizza ovens take pride of place along the walls though, and you can see the pizza chefs at work if you just peek over the bar.

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We ordered a few cold drinks to start our meal. I decided to combine dessert with my beverage, and ordered an iced chocolate which came with a delicious scoop of creamy vanilla ice-cream. It probably could have been blended up a little bit better as the chocolate mix hadn’t quite integrated with the milk, but I quite like getting bursts of chocolate so it worked quite well for me. Dad’s strong iced coffee came with its own scoop of ice-cream as well, which my brother quickly ate under the guise of ‘taste-testing’ the coffee!

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On the menu was a pulled pork pizza with an apple slaw topping, so of course, I had to order it, because who ever turns down pulled pork? Unfortunately this pulled pork was a little dry, I assume as a result of having been cooked for a second time in the pizza oven. It’s unfortunate because the flavour was definitely there – it just lacked the texture that you would hope for. It’s too bad that the pulled pork wasn’t used in a pasta instead of a pizza, as I think it would have been a much better choice.

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The potato pizza was a much better choice. You can’t go wrong with wafer thin slices of potato, a healthy sprinkle of rosemary and salt, as well as an absolute metric ton of melted cheese. Simple pizzas always win, and this won in spades from the crowd-pleasing toppings to the crispy but fluffy crust.

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Remembering how much my father had enjoyed the grain salad at Gazi, I ordered the quinoa and lentil salad for him to try. While it was enjoyable in its nuttiness, it lacked a certain punch which could have elevated it into something special. The grain salad at Gazi included pomegranate seeds which really added bursts of flavour, and I feel like the Forge Pizzeria should have added something like that to their quinoa salad to make it really sing.

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We finished off our meal with one of the specials of the day, gnocchi with Italian sausage and wilted spinach. This was the first time that Dad had tried gnocchi, and he kept asking me, “This is potato? Are you sure this is potato?” I can understand the confusion – this gnocchi was so light and fluffy that you would find it hard to believe that it was made with something as dense as a potato. Combined with the rich tomato sauce and the spicy sausage, this dish was a real winner.

I can understand why The Forge Pizzeria is so popular with the locals – the prices are good and it really caters well for larger groups. The menu can be a bit hit or miss, so I would recommend ordering some simpler pizzas for a guaranteed good meal, rather than opting for fancier versions like the pulled pork.