Food issue 1: Eating in

So here it is, the first "food special" post. Being as how I am obsessed with food, expect this to be the first of many such posts.

We haven't had a chance to go out much yet, as we have to get up early and have been quite busy. We've only been to three restaurants and the last two were certainly not worth writing about: we tried to get some food before going to the Mardi Gras, but could only find a poor - medium poor hotel restaurant and we've also been to a nearby Italian for lunch (this too was poor).

But, not going out has not been a problem since (as I expected) the food here is brilliant.

Until last weekend, however, I thought there were only two things that were absolutely fantastic: fruit and seafood. Then Sean went shopping and bought me a treat and I had to revise my opinion.

So here are the three things, in order of discovery.

1. Fruit



Mango, plum and kiwi salad

There is a wide range of fruit here and it is almost all grown in Australia as it is so warm all the time! However even the imported fruit tastes good (unlike e.g. peaches in winter in the UK).

The most exciting fruit I've found is a dragon fruit, which I haven't tried yet but is definitely on my list of things to do.

We buy most of our food from the local supermarket, which has a good range of fruit (including aforementioned dragon fruit). The food hall of David Jones, the "posh" department store (they have a pianist! in the Prada section), is also fantastic and has a large range of frozen fruit. I tend to use frozen fruit for making smoothies at the moment as it makes them taste like ice-cream. Genius.

2. Seafood



Our local seafood emporium

Seafood is the one thing we don't buy in our local supermarket. This is because two doors down there is a fishmonger, who sells us seafood and fish.

We have had three what I consider to be seafood feasts since we arrived. The second night we were here we made a mixed seafood stirfry (baby octopus, prawns and calamari). The calamari is gorgeous - really soft, unlike the tougher squid you often get in the UK. Then last night we had a mixed seafood platter - prawns, baby octopus, scallops, calamari and lobster tails. (We did have to go to David Jones to get the lobster tails though.) The final example doesn't rate as highly on variety: just cod, but the fillets were gigantic.

The other plus point about the local fish shop is that it doubles as a take away: point to any fish and they'll batter it and fry it for you with chips. And it's not only fish - we've only had cod so far but I full intend on having battered baby octopus next time we go!

3. Homer Hudson beyond Fudge Brownie Ice Cream



The ice cream itself

So this is what Sean bought me. He did pretty well; when we went back to buy a second tub it was really hard to find amoung some lacklustre looking alternatives.

This ice-cream is good! I ate well over half of it the first time I got hold of it and then was very disappointed the next day because the remaining serving was too small. The object of the photo is a new tub.

It certainly beats B&J's brownie ice cream and anything by Haagen-Das. The ultimate goal would of course be to beat cookie dough ice-cream and I think it scrapes past by a whisper. I had to leave my ice-cream machine at home, but I no longer mind if this is the standard of Australian shop-bought!