Food: Feb

This was the best vanilla slice from Revolver, though not nearing the wonderous ones that Lisa used to make in Nowra. The puff pastry is soggy but still delicious (like eating leftovers straight from the fridge), the custard a perfect wobble and the acidity of the passionfruit just cutting through the richness.

Vegetarian big breakfast at Revolver - sourdough toast with hummus, two eggs baked with housemade baked cannelini beans, avocado, roast tomato, pickled beetroot, eggplant relish and goats cheese. It looks very busy on the plate, but the flavours were well balanced and it was such a healthy selection!

 Dad's 60th birthday cake.

Ricotta hotcakes with caramelised banana and honeycomb butter from Bills. This was as good as it always is - such light fluffy hotcakes, drizzled with the most indulgent butter with crunchy bits of sweet honey heaven. If I could eat this every weekend I may grow even more gloriously fat. 

 Stinky tofu soup! This was perfect, reminiscent of the night markets in Taiwan. My place did stink for days afterwards, but it was well worth it.

Sweet potato gnocchi - our attempt to follow the recipe fell apart when I realised we had no scales or reliable measuring devices and had to resort to approximating the weight of a sweet potato with our hands. We boiled it for too long and it got mushy, but a bit of pan-frying did the trick, and we gobbled this down once tossed with pesto and parmesan. 

Kedgeree from Single Origin Roasters in Surry Hills. Aside from the usual breakfast offerings, this really caught my eye - wild quinoa tossed with spices and smoked trout, topped with goats cheese, capers and parsley. It was like a warm rice salad, but with such interesting flavours that I really enjoyed this breakfast (and such excellent coffee they do too).

Summer lunch set at Nazimi - mixed tempura with cold soba. The iced sauce that came with this was really icy cold, and together with the fresh crisp tempura straight out of the fryer, made for a little dance in the mouth. Perfect for a muggy summer lunch.

I love Gumshara Ramen but somehow haven't managed to get there for a couple of years, and they have now moved a couple of spaces across and have a bigger kitchen. Between 3pm and 5pm the usual tonkotsu soups are not available because they are updating the stock with new bones (that is just so cool), so instead we had this fish ramen which was utterly delicious. The soup was thick and rich, coating one's lips with collagen - I think my lips felt plumper by the time I finished the soup! A few slices of roast pork, bamboo shoots, a few nori strips and a scattering of spring onions - so simple, but so satisfying. I must return soon to try the mega ramen that I saw on the menu.

 This one is not food, but I found him while I was looking through photos on my phone. As of end Feb, he is 29kg of muscle! I love Regal, he's such a sweetie.