Where The Monster Sat, Petersham

Another Saturday morning, another brunch joint ticked off the sheet. This time round, WN and I picked a cafe based purely on it's name. Situated within view of the Petersham station, and with ample parking around the area, WTMS is a nice decent sized cafe with outdoor seating, is doggy and also pram friendly. Perfect for catching up with friends who have recently given birth. :)

Outdoor seating with loads of shade :)

As we haven't caught up in a while, conversation took over the perusing of the menu but after being asked twice by the waitress, we figured it was best we start ordering.

Their quirky designed takeaway cups

I forgot to get a photo of our coffees but you're not missing out on much. No latte art however the coffee was pretty good! WN and fi both opted for the Iced Coffee instead and both gals said it was REALLY GOOD. I wonder if it was because of the especially hot weather that morning. Note to self : order the iced coffee next time.
 

Smoked Salmon and Potato Hash

Soon our dishes arrived and as per the above picture, I got myself the Smoked Salmon Hash. I had fun with this plate by combining the key element which to me was the pieces of potato with either egg, bacon or salmon. When I felt adventurous, I combined all of them and had a party in my mouth. : P

Gluten Free eggs benedict on a Potato Rosti

WN had the GF eggs benedict on a potato rosti. You should have seen her face when I casually sliced the egg in half just to get an oozy eggporn shot, lol. She commented that this dish was slightly on the salty side. 

High ceilings, large windows, friendly atmosphere :)

WTMS is a quirky little cafe with lots of open space. I didn't feel like I had to rush nor did the polite staff give me a sense that they preferred if we just ate and got out ASAP. Would I come back again? Yes I will.

Do check out their facebook page as well if you wanted to 'follow' them on their journey from acquiring the shop lot, to renovating it and finally to serving customers. 

Where The Monster Sat
Address : 16 Douglas Street, Stanmore
Opening Hours : 7am to 4pm (8am to 4pm on weekends)
Facebook / Google Maps

My list of Must Eat Places in Europe

Can't believe it's been 2 months since I last blogged! I just got back from a ridiculously long holiday in Europe and going through over 2000 photos can be pretty tedious and pretty time consuming.

This pictorial blog is going to be about some of the awesome restaurants and cafes that WN and I visited, or in some cases, stumbled across.

Here we go.

PARIS
I noticed that the French love a breakfast with a view. Almost everyone sits facing outwards.

Doesn't matter if all they see is a cobbled stone roundabout, a view is a view is a view.

 Breakfast meals are kept simple, and so it should! For only 3.50euros, you'll get the below.

The croissants here are seriously out of this world! Picking one up, it weighed next to nothing. I felt like I was holding a little baked puff of cloud.

SO FLUFFYYYYYYY

I did not feel the least bit guilty (at least whilst I was on holidays, I'm paying for it now) slathering on most, if not all the butter served onto the baguettes or croissants.

Eat first, worry later

This breakfast was of course not enough to last us till lunch so what we did on most days was to buy a few more pastries and fruits to snack on when the stomach growls.

La Creperie De Josselin
Recommended by one of WN's friends, we made our way to Montparnasse to sample what was to be one of the best crepes we've ever had, period.

I don't know how long this place has been around but judging from the interior, I'll say "quite some time"

Prices of  everything in the menu was under 10Euros. Scanning through the menu, I picked the one called 'Finistere'.

Finistere (mashed eggplant, egg, bacon 9.90e)

 I was in buttery heaven on just the first bite. The crepe was wafer thin and matching it in terms of slimness was the bacon. If I had to compare it with the ones in Sydney, the bacon here was at least half the thickness making it a delight to cut through. The mashed eggplant balanced the flavours out and in no time, the dish was gone as quickly as it was served. 

Garo (Orange slices flambeed with Grand Marnier 8.50e)

Up next was the savoury Crepes. I didn't realize it but when the nice old lady plonked this in front of me, she swiftly took a lighter out and set it ablaze. Before I could even turn the camera on, she already stirred the dish about (stir-fry style) and the alcohol burnt out, much to my dissappointment. WN giggled and the lady walked away with a smile. Maybe she was indirectly telling me to take less photos and eat faster! There's a queue outside!

It's definitely worth the wait.

Can Ramonet, Barcelona
Our lovely lovely Spanish host highly recommended this next place and rightfully so. 
Situated about 10-15 minutes walk from where we stayed, WN and I took a nice evening walk out to this seafood restaurant.  Let the seafood fest begin!

Can Ramonet, serving customers since 1956

We started off with an entree of garlic prawns. Served with the lid closed in a very hot saucer of oil, plenty of sliced garlic and chillies, the prawns were perfectly cooked by the time we were done admiring it and taking photos. 

Garlic prawns. What a dish to whet the appetite with...

Next up was a dish that I still have dreams of. Deep fried baby squid. The only other place I've ever tasted this was in a little town in Malaysia when I was a mere child and I've yet to find a restaurant or a fishmonger  in Sydney that serves this. If you know of a place, please please please tell me!

Deep fried baby squid...goes well with everything!

Lightly battered and cooked in high heat, these babies(pun not intended) were not overly oily nor did they clump together as one might expect.

Only an inch long! I'm salivating just thinking about it.

We might have gone abit overboard with the next dish. Next up was the Lobster Paella. I didn't manage to take a photo of the Paella tray but here are the plates after it has been dished out for us. Do bear in mind that these plates were HUGE

Lobster Paella on 45cm plates!

Another dish that was rich in flavour we now found ourselves taking our time extracting the succulent meat from the shell and slowly savouring each bite. A few days later, we came back here again to order the same entrees but this time we ordered the grilled seafood platter instead. Pictures didn't turn out too well so I won't stick it up.

 Da Enzo, Rome
Little did we know that situated just around the corner from where we stayed was a little hole in the wall restaurant that was famous amongst local Romanians called Da Enzo. As we were feeling a little lazy, we decided to give it ago an boy, were we delightfully surprised. 

Fried artichoke and stuffed zuchini flower

 I've never had fried artichokes cooked this way before and later found out that it was a very traditional jewish way of cooking it.  When enjoying really good food, I sometimes forget to jot down (or take a photo) of the dishes that I've eaten. WN ordered the below dish. 

Penne bolognaise?

I ordered the good ol Spaghetti Carbonara. This was prepared with no frills, no extra ingredients, just egg, pasta, abit of pepper, pieces of pork cheeks and a dusting of cheese. 

I will outright state that this is THE BEST pasta I've ever had in my LIFE. I know it's a big call but it's true. You should have seen my face light up when I stabbed the piece of pork cheeks only to feel a slight crunching texture as it slid through it. WN had the same crunchy pieces in her Penne. we both gave each other wide eyed nods of approval.  See below proof of how good it was!

This is proof of how good I thought it was.

The waiter said to make some room for dessert and so we did. The Tiramisu was so good that on our 2nd visit here, both WN and I got one each for ourselves. Not everything is meant to be shared. :P 

Too good to share. The dollop of Nutella right in the centre was a nice surprise.

Da Enzo is another restaurant that I would happily keep coming back to if I visited Rome again.

Nerbone, Florence
Another recommendation from WN's friend is Nerbone located in the Markets of Florence.
As we were pretty early, there was literally noone queueing up!!! wooooooot!

 Who knew slices of roast beef with soy sauce(I think?) and bread could taste so good.

Gelato Festival, Florence
At about the same time that Cow and Moon won the award for the best ice cream, we attended a gelato festival/competition in Florence. Time to get high!

If i didn't lose some of our coupons, we would have eaten another 3 cups each! burp...

I was a happy camper :)

 

 

 

 

Four Seasons Chinese Restaurant, London  You know, the last thing I thought I'd ever do was to have chinese food in London! But after 3+ weeks of having pizza, pasta and lasagne, it was a welcome break.

The sight of the bbq and roast pork made me salivate... :)~

There are plenty of other restaurants with the same name so look for this shop if you want some seriously good duck! Upon entering, proudly stuck up on their walls is a newspaper article stating that it this place had 'Best Roast Duck in the World'.

half a duck. Mostly meat, very little bone :)

 We got ourselves half a duck and WN who doesn't really fancy this meat, actually gave it a thumbs up. I enjoyed it throughly.

Skin that was still crispy and meat that wasn't so fatty.

  Another one of their signature dishes was the homemade beancurd and of course we had to order that too.

House special 'Pei-Pa' beancurd

We can't really remember what was it in but it sure was tasty! There was black mushroom, water chestnut(I think) and some sorta meat. Whatever it had in it, I'd be glad to have more of it.

Anyhow, If you've made it this far, I commend you. Not the most eloquent of blogs but I thought it would be a waste to visit Europe and not share some photos. We actually spent a few days in Japan too but I'll leave that for another (shorter) post....plus it wouldn't go well with the title of this blog ;)

If you have any questions about the places above, just fire away. Till then, c'yaaa!

:)