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Archive for Christmas

Eating Adelaide – Skyline

Feb24

Restaurant: Skyline

Location: 1 South Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000, Australia. +61 8 8216 0388

Date: December 25, 2017

Cuisine: Australian Cuisine

Rating: Nice view

_

It was kinda hard to fine somewhere that was open on Christmas day (evening of the 25th). Most of the top places in Australia close for the holidays.
 We settled on Skyline which did have a lovely view off the edge of the city. Funny too as it’s atop a tall building for Adelaide — but is perhaps only 5 or 6 stories!

The Christmas menu. The gang in the dining room.

And even a shot of me.

During dinner the sun went down right in front of us.

Goats Cheese Tart. Beetroot meringue, succulent salsa.

Seared Scallops. Coral emulsion, chorizo crumb.

Salad.

Side vegetables (kinda like the Nicoise minus the tuna).

Simple pasta for the boy.

Fish & chips.

SA Kingfish Nicoise Salad. Green beans, kipfler potatoes, heirloom tomatoes, sous vide egg.

Lamb Backstrap – Hay Valley Farms. Beetroot leather, burnt butter beans, roasted beets, goats cheese.

Ice cream.

Chocolate brownie. Honey caramel, toasted macadamia, burnt honey ice cream, egg nog foam, puffed black rice, candied muntries.
 Vanilla Panna Cotta. Rosemary short bread, confit rhubarb, balsamic jelly, strawberry jell, native mint.

A fun enough meal — although the kitchen was more clued in than the servers. They had that super friendly Australian thing going, but they were pretty clueless and made a bunch of mistakes.

For more Australia dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Eating Adelaide – Ding Hao
  2. Eating Sydney – Leura Gourmet
  3. Eating Cairns – Tamarind
  4. Eating Uluru – Sails in the Desert
  5. Eating Sydney – Quay & Co
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Adelaide, Australia, Christmas, eating-australia, Skyline

The Darkening Dream for Christmas!

Dec25

As a surprise move, I’m stealth launching The Darkening Dream — right now! — although only the Kindle edition.

If your stocking has been stuffed with a brand new Kindle, or you already have one, or you read on the Kindle app anywhere (iPad, Android, etc.)…

Buy it now!

Stealthy introductory price of $2.99. Which is certainly a bargain given that it took me two busy years to write and a lot of work to produce the layout, cover, etc.

So, you might ask (after you have purchased your copy — hint hint), what is a stealth launch?

Well, firstly, while the book is totally done and the E-Book version is all typeset, I’ve only put up the Kindle version. In the next week or so I’ll try and get all the other E-Book variants up (B&N, iTunes, etc.). Also, I’m still finishing up the paper editions. These will look great but they take a bit longer because I have to wait for physical proofs (5 days), make changes, then wait again, etc.

But also, I’m bucking the marketing machine that over the last thirty years has moved more and more to “big launch and then go away” mentality. Pretty much all big products: movies, albums, books etc. are marketed this way now. The marketeers build everything up for a big launch, hope for the best, then turn elsewhere a few scant weeks later. Truth is, this serves the marketeers more than it does the customer. Novels don’t age very fast. I enjoyed The Maltese Falcon as much as any book I read this year and it’s 81 years old. And the potential reader who happens to stumble upon my book doesn’t really care if it was published today — or last year. And it will take me time to collect reviews, get the other editions out, build up more web linkages etc. Later, when I have more of that in place I’ll begin the bigger marketing push.

So try it out and see what you think. Afterward, please review the book on Amazon. Reviews matter!

If you’re still not convinced:

Find out more about the book here
or read the sample chapters
or even check out a bit about the characters.

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream – Soliciting Reviews
  2. All Things Change
  3. The Darkening Dream
  4. Christmas is for Dim Sum
  5. The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing
By: agavin
Comments (8)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Android, Andy Gavin, Christmas, E-book, IPad, Kindle, The Darkening Dream

Christmas is for Dim Sum

Dec26

Restaurant: The Palace

Location: 11701 Wilshire Blvd, Second Floor, Los Angeles, CA.  310-979-3377.

Date: Dec 25, 2010

Cuisine: Chinese Dimsum

 

As we don’t celebrate Christmas, and very few restaurants are open, Chinese is a long standing tradition. These days we go to Dim Sum. For those of you who have lived in a culinary hole for the last couple decades, Dim Sum is a Cantonese brunch tradition in which tasty little delectables are served on carts. Dim Sum is hard to find on the westside, and this particular place recently changed owners and names. It’s actually slightly better in its current incarnation, although they may offer less items at current. This is a pretty traditional or classic implementation of the cuisine. Last month I reviewed Ping Pong in Washington DC which offered a more expensive but updated variant.

This, for example, is the “fried stuff” cart.

And this young lady is organizing some of the “steamed stuff” carts.

There are condiments too. Vinegar, Chinese mustard, hot sauce, soy sauce, and tea — which isn’t really a condiment but is certainly present at every Chinese meal I’ve ever had.

We don’t go in so much for the fried, but these are shrimp and scallop rolls with sesame seeds.

Shrimp and scallop dumplings (pounded rice batter) with cilantro.

Vegetarian dumplings shaped like Hamantash.

One of my favorites — and readily available. Pork shumai.

Another classic, Har Gow. These are shrimp pockets. They are very light. Dim Sum is also often VERY hot in a physical sense. Seared oral tissue is a significant hazard.

Shrimp, scallop, and some other green.

Shrimp and scallop. You may notice a trend.

Curried shrimp balls. This is shrimp chopped up, reconstituted, and covered in curry sauce.

Tofo stuffed with vegetables. Surprisingly tasty.

Another classic, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf.

Inside is a blob of rice filled with various bits of meat, vegetable, and egg.

These are pork “crepes” (ripe noodles). As I’ve been eating Dim Sum for over 30 years, as kids we used to call this “slime” (we meant it as a compliment). It has a jiggly consistency. I still love it. They come in various “flavors,” this one being “pork slime.” “Shrimp slime” is also ver popular. The sauce is a somewhat sweet soy.

Steamed pork buns. These fluffy rice flower buns are stuffed with a red tinted BBQ pork. Essentially they are BBQ pork sandwiches.

For desert pineapple bun. These buttery pastries are stuffed with a very yolky egg custard.

Same place, new sign. This is solid Dim Sum. I’ve certainly had better, but in LA you have to travel pretty far east for amazing Dim Sum. The current chef also makes some really really good “soup dumplings,” but they ran out on Christmas eve and none were available. We were crushed. Four of us also pigged out (or maybe shrimped out) for $67.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art: Ping Pong
  2. Red Medicine is the Cure
  3. Melisse – How much would a Woodcock…
  4. Swish Swish – Mizu 212
  5. Foreign Flavors: Panjshir
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Chinese, Chinese cuisine, Christmas, Dessert, Dim sum, dumplings, Food, Hamantash, Har Gow, Restaurant, scallop, shrimp, side dishes, Tofo, vegetarian
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