District Dining

With the cooking show invasion of the past few years, it seems like reading food blogs is the new 'cool' thing.
I know it might sound like I'm jumping on the bandwagon here, but I've always followed food blogs (NQN especially) mainly because I love seeing the 'photo-reviews' of restaurants so I know which places are worth spending time and money to go to and then of course which dishes to try when there.

A few weeks ago I went to District Dining armed with a list of dishes I wanted to try after seeing amazing pictures of them, and I wasn't disappointed! It was a great meal, and though I was designated driver so didn't really drink, my friends tried a jug of the bubbly champagne and strawberry cocktail and it tasted and looked fabulous. Too bad I didn't get any piccies of it.

I'm still getting used to my new-ish Canon Powershot S95 camera (had it for around 3 months but haven't had the time to do more than use the Auto and AV functions) so excuse some of the overexposed photos.

Marinated tuna - even though the balance on this photo isn't quite right, I actually like it!



Ooh I did get a shot of the cocktail jug in the background! Pretty!



Mmm 'Eton Mess' inspired dessert

Yes, I realise the photo of the dessert is much bigger. It's because
a) I love dessert - anyone who doesn't know this about me obviously doesn't know me well.
b) I love how this photo turned out - makes me want to eat it off the page right now.
c) I love the Eton Mess, but really I love any meringue desserts. If I had to name the one baking/cooking dish I make the most it is (french) meringues. I'm even now the nominated meringue maker in the family because I know exactly when/what/how to get them right.

So here's where I jump on my soapbox and have a little rant: while I loved the flavours in the dessert (the sorbet was fantastic!), I have huge issues with grainy apparently-store-bought meringues being used by top restaurants in Sydney. I'm yet to work out whether District Dining did use store-bought meringues, but the consistency was not at all like fresh meringues made at home. They were grainy, chalky and dense, so didn't have that airy meringue lightness that I love. Disappointing, to be honest. I also noticed Restaurant Balzac used a similar consistency of meringue. I had the thought that perhaps they were not store-bought, but made using powdered egg whites, but I'm yet to make any conclusions. Methinks I'll need to continue my meringue eating adventures (not that I'm complaining!)

But anyway, if that last photo doesn't make you hungry, I don't know what will.