Best of 2009 @ Penguin says Feed Me!

It's hard to believe that it's already been 6 months since I started my blog and the year 2009 has already come to an end! Not only has food blogging made me expand my waistline but it's also encouraged me to expand my baking and cooking skills as well as meeting other amazing bloggers from around Sydney. Thanks to all the readers - those who comment and also those who lurk around unnnoticed ;) - for your support for the first 6 months of this blog. It's really you guys who motivate me to keep posting about my culinary adventures!

So here are some of my favourite posts from 2009:

The First Post - Assiette, Surry Hills: I had been toying around with starting up a food blog for a while but this was the meal that really kicked me into it! It was an amazing 3 course meal shared with some of my closest friends and it was without a doubt great value at only $30!

Best value aburi scallop sushi - Sushi Sagunja, Chatswood: This may just have been my greatest find in 2009. Since my post about it I've been back several times and they have never failed to impress with their sweet, smokey perfectly-seared scallops on top of sushi rice... yum!

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick post to say a Merry Christmas to everyone out there reading this! Hope you've all enjoyed a fantastic Christmas meal with loved ones - I certainly did :) Today the family congregated upon our place to have Christmas dinner, and here are some snaps of the food on offer:

Smoked salmon, garlic aioli and chives on crackers

Orange glazed ham studded with cloves (made by Mum)

Gingerbread Galore!

The lovely bloggers Helen from Grab Your Fork and Suze from chocolatesuze recently organised a massive Xmas party for Sydney food bloggers. Everyone brought along a dish to share and needless to say with around 50 food bloggers in attendance, we ended up with huge amounts of food. Check out these posts for more foodie madness!

Amongst a tiered platter of classic kids favourites, "Elvis" cupcakes, a slow cooked Bo Ssam, chicken wings, a Makoto sushi platter and other delicious offerings, I made some iced gingerbread cookies for the occasion (recipe below).

A few days later I also decided to try out raspberri cupcakes' mini gingerbread houses. These turned out great and now there is a cute little gingerbread house sitting on my dining table awaiting it's destruction on Christmas Day! 

I didn't make all four houses in the recipe so I had some dough leftover for some gingerbread Christmas trees and gingerbread men to decorate the garden around my house. The house was very sturdy and the measurements for the house were perfect! Thanks Steph :)

It's not quite finished yet - on the day I intend on sprinkling some sifted icing sugar for some snow and also putting a puff of smoke from the chimney using mini marshmallows and an unravelled paperclip, as shown in the raspberri cupcakes recipe. More photos will be posted up of the finished product later.

La Renaissance Patisserie, The Rocks

Ever since tasting my last year's birthday cake from La Renaissance with melt-in-the-mouth delicate chocolate sheets and light-as-air mousse, I knew that I had to return for more cakes and pastries! Charm had to go to The Rocks Markets to pick up some things and with the promise of cake I tagged along.

Courtyard in La Renaissance Patisserie

We had lunch at La Renaissance first, choosing things from a range of pies, baguettes and quiches from their savouries menu and ordering at the counter before taking a seat in the quaint little courtyard out the back.

Poulet Chasseur pie - $8.00

I ordered the poulet chasseur pie which had a delicious chicken and vegetable. As soon as I cut into the pie the sauce oozed outand I could smell the tomato, garlic and white wine aromas from the sauce. The chicken was still succulent and the pastry was beautifully flaky.

Boeuf Hâche pie - $7.00

Malay-Chinese Takeaway, Sydney

One sweltering hot lunchtime I met up with Mum at Malay-Chinese Takeaway since I was craving some Malaysian food. I don't know who said that eating hot food on a hot day would make you cooler but it certainly didn't work for me! Although I thought I was semi-delusional for choosing to eat hot and spicy food on a hot summer's day the food was so good that it was worth it in the end.

When we got there during lunch hour it was packed with people but luckily we found a seat reasonably quickly. Malay-Chinese Takeaway has daily specials which are rotated around a 4-week time period. Today's special was mee rebus, which I was thinking of getting, but in the end decided to stick with an old favourite, the char kway teow.

Char Kway Teow - $9.00

Inspired by Chocolatesuze: Rainbow Vanilla Buttercake

Looks like a normal cake right?

Until you cut a slice out of it to reveal crazy rainbow colours!

I had planned on baking something amazing for my dear friend Queen Chu's 21st birthday, but it wasn't until I saw this cake that I thought a) I have to make this! and b) I'm crazy! At this point in time chocolatesuze had yet to post up her method of making her amazing rainbow cake so I was sort of improvising along the way and just praying that everything would turn out alright.

I was never as ambitious as chocolatesuze to make an astounding 20 layers in her cake AND make it into a fork shape, so I ended up with 8 layers. I didn't have high hopes for success while I was baking this, hence the lack of process photos but it turned out surprisingly well (albeit a bit lopsided!). Chocolatesuze's recipe is here for a 20 layer cake and probably one that is more efficient to make but I'll post mine below anyway just in case you're interested ;)

Sakana-Ya, Crows Nest

Feeling like going out for dinner somewhere close by, Sir D and I headed out to Crows Nest to eat at Sakana-Ya on a Thursday night. The restaurant was surprisingly quiet which also meant that the waitstaff were particularly attentive. We sat down and were given a regular menu as well as a sheet of chef's recommendations and the types of fish available for the day.

The menu was so extensive that we took forever to decide what to eat and spent a great deal of time staring at all the types of fish. There were so many things I wanted to try but there were only two of us so we settled on a few dishes that caught our eyes.

Tuna tartare with raw egg - $14.00

The Falconer, Darlinghurst

Falcon in The Falconer

The Falconer is an unsuspecting little restaurant on Oxford Street that we walked straight past when trying to find it. Sir D and I were greeted by cheerful waitstaff who asked us whether we were here for dinner or drinks, and then led us to a comfortable booth on the side of the restaurant.

Menu

We are handed us single page menus with entrees, pasta and risotto, mains, sides and salads and desserts. It all sounded so delicious I wanted to order one of everything, but I exercise restraint and we choose one entree and two mains.

Arancini (2) filled with pumpkin, stracchino cheese and marjoram - $8.00

Ben & Jerry's, Manly

Did someone say free ice cream?

How could I resist the lure of a Scoop-A-Thon at the newly opened Ben & Jerry's at Manly, especially when that day was forecast to be 35ºC! I joined Suze, Yas, The Ninja's body double, Shez, Richard and Rose for some serious ice-cream eating.

We joined the ever present queue and waited for our turn while the Ben & Jerry's people held competitions giving away free cooler bags and other merchandise. While we were in the queue we decided which flavours to get using these handy flavour cards.

We got our ice creams and sat outside the store where they had installed some fresh grass on the pavement, and we tried and tested all the flavours. My favourite was without a doubt the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough aka Peanut Cookie-Burra Dough! The salty peanut butter with the sweet ice cream was the most amazing combination ever! Phish Food (which doesn't contain any fish food) as also a close second with melty marshmallow bits in the chocolate ice cream.

Clockwise from top: Berry Berry Extraordinary, Chocolate Therapy, Lemonade Stand, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Chocolate Macadamia, Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, Lemonade Stand.