Long winded, then a request (PM)

Oh man! I wish so bad I had the time to bake scones today. I mean technically I guess I have the time but if Newbie goes to sleep and gives me some free time I have to clean the house because it's such a goddamn mess right now it's driving me mental!!!!

Great story, right, 'mother must clean house due to messiness'. I'm sorry guys. I'm really sorry. 

Mate, write a review of that apartment!  I know exactly how this goes, man. Something really annoying happens, you think "eff these guys". You think about writing the review, you don't. You regret it for longer than you should because you really wanted to eat some goddamn scones. I've been there a million times. Write that damn review! 

Also you could probably buy an oven tray for cheap. Maybe from an op shop. Or use a few layers of silver foil as a tray. Plates are usually oven-safe. 

Long winded, then a request (AM)

Since my tour of this United Kingdom (and Ireland) began, I've read a lot of reviews on Trip Advisor.  It's not something I normally do, because online user reviews are so darn subjective and the people who write them are so darn annoying and nitpicky. You know, giving a bad review because the towels were scratchy, and the window wouldn't open more than 10 centimetres at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning. These people are annoying and are not the people I want to take advice from, and I certainly can't ever imagine being one. Good god, no. But where Trip Advisor reviews are useful is when an otherwise moderate, rational person has written a review because a place is truly shit and he/she just wants to warn his or her fellow consumers. These are very very useful reviews.  It's how I found out that one of the places that I was going to be staying for a month was actually student accommodation, opposite a remand centre, and being sublet by someone who despite their professional looking website, didn't have the authority to sublet it. So thank you Ken from Cornwall, that review was very useful. 

The place I'm staying in now got quite a few average reviews, but on grounds that made the reviewers seem more annoying than the place. The towels aren't replaced frequently enough. The pillowcases were a bit thin. The pillows themselves a bit saggy. Annoying, right? Not the kind of thing that would stop you staying there, right? I carried on regardless. And I'm glad I did, because the pillowcases are actually fine and the pillows are fine. 

And yet, I find myself on the brink of writing a Trip Advisor review. And here's why. Though this place is advertised as having an oven, it doesn't have an oven tray or any piece of oven safe equipment that one can use in the oven. Not cool! And when I emailed them to ask if they could supply something, they said no. No! The cheek of them! They said they just provide basic kitchen equipment. "So sorry!" they said.

"You will be sorry!" I wanted to say. And may still stay. But probably not. But they don't know that!

Anyway, I really want to bake some scones to have with jam and cream because THIS IS ENGLAND but apparently I can't. Hey Mate, I don't suppose you have the time to whip up a batch today that you could post about this afternoon and I can live vicariously? That would rule. 

That time of the month: March (PM)

Cauliflower on more puree

That Time of the Month! What a great invention. An excuse to eat some food! Yes please!

So, was our dinner at Cutler & Co great? Great question. Well of course. Eating a delicious meal with a sister crab! No doubt. But what about the rest. I have to say that for me the meal started on a high and went steadily downhill to a slightly lesser high. And I think it was the dependence on purée. Ok, those crackers at the start had a smoked eggplant purée on them that was so fucking good. It was really good. It made me think 'I'm always going to eat eggplant like this'. High! The next thing I had, that rye cracker with smoked trout, horse radish and caviar-like not caviar called avruga was so good. All the delicacy and wonder you'd expect from a fancy restaurant. Then bonito on puréed avocado, which seriously detracted from the avocadoness. Delicious fish, but why not let the avocado shine?! Next I had the gnocchi on cauliflower on some purée. Come on McConnell, give the purée a rest. It was delicious and all, but lacked specialness.  It was kind of like the high-end equivalent of the vegetarian meal at the RSL. An afterthought.

Still, great night. I liked our waiter. I liked the wine, and of course I liked the food, and company, I just wish my mind could have been bent the whole meal through.

Chocolate yum things that came with the bill. Serve it up let's go!

That time of the month: March (AM)

Miss Soft Crab likes to eat. And to talk about what we eat. So far I'm not telling you anything you don't already know

But did you know that Miss Soft Crab likes to eat and then talk about it so much that we invented a whole new MSC feature that will ensure we have an extra excuse to go out and eat together regularly just in case (a) the fact that humans need to to eat to survive, and (b) we usually hang out once a week anyway somehow fail to facilitate our eating and talking about it together? You know we did, crabfans, and today is it's debut performance!

Welcome to Miss Soft Crab's first ever That time of the month, an account of a time we went to a place and ate some things and had some thoughts about it.

Ok, I hear your questions, readers.

Who cares?  you seem to be saying.

What makes this time of the month any different from all the other times of the month when you go eat and then talk about what you ate?

They're good questions, readers, and I see you've been boning up on your haggadah questions in anticipation of passover 2013.  Kudos!

The difference is regularity, people, now we are going to do this with some mother flipping regularity. And sometimes we are going to invite guests, members of the MSC community that you may like to get to know better, and what better way than over some tasty nosh during that time of the month?

Ok, enough of the intros, lets get down to business. Here we go. MSC's first ever That time of the month. 

So...where did we go? 

We went to Cutler and Co. on Gertrude street.

Why did we go there? 
We'd been there for one of the TOYS dinners which was pretty great, but not the full C&C Music Factory experience so we thought we'd revisit it, traditional style.

Who came? 
This time it was just me and J.

What went down? 
We basically talked non stop for three hours like people who have known one another for almost 25 years do, which is to say I have no idea what we talked about. I suspect the following topics came up: love, hate (just kidding, we don't hate anything), the future, the past, food, clothes, our hair, running, current affairs (just kidding).

What did we eat? Well. We ate well. We started with a kind of rice craker dabbed with smoky eggplant. That was just a little amuse bouche or something and I can tell you my bouche was pretty amused.

Next, I had a Coffin Bay oyster and J had smoked fish sandwiched between crackers, which gave her crazy hands.

For entree, we had the same thing. Bonito sashimi with radish and avocado puree.

J then had baked gnocchi with tallegio, sweet sweet delicious tallegio. I had veal with sweetbreads and parsley purree.

Finally, there was a cheese plate and a dessert that included strawberry sorbet and some other yummy things that I can't remember that well.

What did we drink? 
Some nice sangiovese and maybe a glass of dessert wine? Given I can't remember the dessert that well, I'm going to say yes, there was dessert wine.

What was the highlight? For me, the veal. The bonito was pretty special but strangely enough, the avocado didn't taste like avocado and it really ruined my buzz.

Phew. That was a lot of food. See you back here this arvo for special comments from J.
 

Beer Review: Estrella Damm Inedit (PM)

I wish that Estrella Damm Inedit would come here and say that it wants to fill a gap in my drinking. The gap that's in my face!

 (I mean my mouth.)

What with it being Tuesday afternoon, and me being at work, and it being the coldest day of the year (coldest day of the world, more like it), I would love a visit from that little Iberian princess.
 Look at it, with it's pretty little label, begging to be followed like some unholy star of bethlehem.

Wait a minute, that's not asparagus

And don't bother bringing that wine glass, Estrella Damm Inedit. I'll take you straight out of the bottle, baby.
Yeah.

Persimmon: The Miss Soft Crab review (PM)

SHIT! I have been doing it all wrong! 

I guess somewhere in my past I have had a delicious persimmon, because in my head there is this idea that they can be delicious. But definitely every recent memory of them is of fruit lacking fullness of flavour and with a somehow dry texture that feels funny on the tongue. It's cause I eat them when they are way under ripe. Geez shops, why you gotta sell a persimmon like that?! How the hells am I supposed to know any better. To be fair Baby loves them like this. But what does he know? He wants to go into the garden every day and see if the Easter bunny has left any eggs! He doesn't get the Easter bunny, how can you expect him to get the persimmon?! Anyway, ups his fruit intake so no complaints here.

But hang on! My mum buys and eats persimmons! Let me go talk to her about them.

***

OK, I'm back. Mum told me she likes the persimmon half ripe because she thinks the fully ripe ones are too intense. I'm going to go see if I can find a persimmon.

***

I'm back! And I found a persimmon!

Can you believe it?! But it was hard as a rock. So I didn't eat it. So basically what I am saying is I can add nothing to this review except don't eat them under ripe.

Sorry guys.

Persimmon: The Miss Soft Crab review (AM)

Who here has eaten a persimmon before? 
If you answered yes, great! You guys are totally on to it.   

If you answered no, I say: don't worry guys, neither had I until Sunday.  And you've totally come to the right place because today, Miss Soft Crab reviews the persimmon! 
First things first: in case you are wondering what a persimmon is, it is an autumn fruit that, as you can see, looks a bit like a giant orange acorn and a bit like a tomato. 

Perhaps, like me, you see them at the fruit shop from time to time, and wonder what they taste like, and whether you have room for you in your life for them. I guess for me, the fact that I had not tried one before Sunday suggests (spoiler alert!) that no, I do not have room in my life for the persimmon. This is largely because they look a little too much like tomatoes for my liking, and my brain finds it difficult to image how something that looks like a tomato could be a sweet fruit.  
Regardless of my brain difficulty, the time to sample the persimmon came on the weekend when Neville's boyfriend G-Sepp brought me one from his garden. G-Sepp loves his garden so much that this one time, he shot a rat he found foraging within it with an air rifle. Who am I to refuse a persimmon from such a man, a man who would kill for his fruit and vegetables? I'm no fool, readers. I took that persimmon and waited until it was ripe.  


I must say, I had a lot of reservations. G-Sepp told me to wait until it went all gooey and gelatinous before I ate it. Really? When it's gooey and gelatinous?  But gooey and gelatinous are words that mean gross! Who does the persimmon think it is? I was actually pretty sure I was going to hate it, but I wanted to at least have one bite. When it took on this nasty, nasty texture, I cut it in to quarters and scooped out some of the fruity flesh to taste. 


Basically, it is tasted like a delicious, fruity custard, only it wasn't custard, it was just fruit. You know how mango is really rich and creamy, but also fruity? Well that's what persimmon is like too! It's like the richest fruit there is. Within about two minutes of the first bite, it looked like this. 

Within about another two minutes I had plundered it so thoroughly it looked way, way grosser than that. I could not believe how delicious it was. Readers, eat a goddamn persimmon as soon as you can!  

Lets hear it for the persimmon!