Let’s avoid the sobriety (of watching fireworks in town with families and NO alcohol – blerg) and the transport troubles of going somewhere for a meal / drink.  Lets cook something wonderful and open a darn nice bottle of wine.

So we did.  We opened two in fact.  Starting with a Coldstream Hills Vintage Bubbles – we made bellini’s with beautiful ripe white peaches.  Very nice, but if someone can tell me the trick of pouring them I will be ever so grateful.  Lots of bubble and froth and mess.  But sooooooo yummy!  we kept half for midnight toasting.

The we roasted some confit duck, and cooked some puy lentils in duck stock, carrots, onion, bay leaf and orange.  I had macerated some fresh cherries in red wine, orange rind and star anise and poured them over the duck for the last 5 mins of cooking.

It was delicious and we drank it with a 2004 Curly Flat Pinot Noir – which is coming along nicely, but still needs more time in the cellar.

So all in all, a nice quiet Christmas at home was ideal.  JB and I started off with a cup of tea and a bagel in bed with pressies.  I got a fabulous enamelled cast iron pot to replace my 20 year old camp oven.  And it’s pistachio green!  Hooray!.

Then we popped next door and cooked Belgium Waffles with Maple syrup and Bananas, and scrambled eggs with Christmas Ham and Bagels for breakfast.  We washed it down with a couple of bottles of local bubbles, a gorgeous, savory sparkling rose from Dominique Portet, and a vintage pinot noir chardonnay from Coldstream.

Then we took it easy, watched some Qi, fell asleep and snacked.  We were going to go down the road to see some friends, but in the end the call of the neighbours in the evening was too strong (and too easy).

Today JB has toddled off to the Boxing Day Cricket Test, and I have moved gravel (one of my neighbour’s presents was weeding my front garden!  how very helpful and much appreciated) and cleaned the bathroom!

We’ve had lovely weather, not too hot, not too cold, but not enough rain … still.

I’ll be off to Queensland in a few weeks, but I’m not really looking forward to it.  Although Mum did sound quite bright on the phone yesterday, so perhaps it won’t be too awful.

Chef James Wilkinson is cooking there and I really enjoyed his food at Jimmy Watson’s some years ago.

The space is a bit sparse, and I expected it to be a bit busier on a Wednesday night – but it is large and possibly deceptive.  The kitchen staff use “squeaky toys” to let the floor staff know that there is food to pick up – which is startling at first, and quirky thereafter.  The kitchen is VERY open.  I really liked the lampshades in the bar area, the one over our table seemed to get in the way of the waiters.

The menu is broken up into some out of the ordinary Mezze, Turkish Pizza Selections, Claypots and Kebabs and Deserts.  We could also have chosen a food safari (degustation East Brunswick style).

We opted to try our own luck and ordered Celeriac and Parsley Dip with Lime ($5) and Grilled Zucchinis, sheeps yogurt, pumpkin seeds and currants ($6).  The dip was brilliant, tasty, tangy and moorish.  The Zucchini suffered from being a bit watery, which diluted the other flavours too much.  The dressing of yogurt and Olive Oil was delicious, but not strong enough to work with the zucchini.    There are 28 Mezza selections so you could easily entertain eating just from small plates – which is some thing I think I would like to try.

We drank a turkish lemonade – not too sweet ($3) and Efes Turkish Beer ($6.50)

Next we tried the Turkish PIzza with Sucuk sausage, Kasarli Cheese and smoked tomato ($14) which arrived on a plank – a long, delicious, perfectly balanced tasty treat.  It was difficult to choose from the 7 pizzas on offer, and after tasting the crisp but flaky, melt-in-the-mouth base we will be happy to try a few more.

The chicken claypot with dried orange, mint and walnuts ($17)  was under-flavoured for my liking.  The flavour combination seemed enticing and it came with lovely pilaf rice, but the flavour juust wasn’t strong enough.  I think perhaps the chicken was on the menu to tempt the “not very adventurous” and lets face it, restaurants are there to make people happy, so perhaps it was the wrong choice.  Next time I think we should try the signature dish of goat tagine for 2.

Dessert was hard to go past, Turkish Delight Gelato ($6) and a stunning Rhubarb and rose petal pannacotta with rhubarb and pomegranate jelly ($9).

Throw in two glasses of decent wine, a turkish coffee and a mint tea and we ate very well for $71 (2 people)

Baba’s Website

We are having a spell of stunning late summer weather at the moment – today it was blue and clear and about 27C and we couldn’t have picked a better day. We set out in JB’s mid-life machine (red MX5 Roadster), top down, smiles on our faces.

I had booked us for lunch at Heronswood and we were so taken by it we didn’t even look around the gardens afterward. I wanted to buy a stunning clematis or two but there really isn’t any boot in the MX-5. So now I have two reasons to go back (oh and I want heirloom sweet peas) ( and a self pollinating cherry!)

I really missed my camera today (it broke a few months ago and I haven’t been able to replace it yet), so let me try to describe what we ate.

The cafe at Heronswood uses produce grown in the garden as much as possible. JB started with cucumber and tomato soup which came in a glass, with a small salad of yellow tomatoes and cucumber shavings. There was a lovely creamy tangy taste in the soup which I think might have been a goats milk yogurt or curd.

I had a tigerella and russian black tomato tart – which was sublimely simple. A selection of small halved tomatoes, cut side down on a circle of adequate puff pastry. It was hot and delicious! It takes a dab and confident hand to let the produce speak for itself. And when the produce is this fresh, it has a lot to say!

JB followed up with cure Ocean trout with a salad of melon, rocket and fresh soft herbs, served with a coriander emulsion. I don’t even like fish much, but it was fresh and tingly and full of late summer goodness. The coriander emulsion was delightful -I kept sneaking my finger over to smooth a bit more off the plate.

I had oriechetti pasta with lemon and herbs and chilli. It was perfectly seasoned, with tangy lemon and a little bit of heat. It was so good I would have guessed that the pasta was made on-site, but the kitchen told me that they were trying a new producer and it had only come in yesterday. Its times like these that I am glad I speak up in restaurants, and I hope that their new supplier gets the job for good!.

We ate these two entrees with a glass of local Riesling (JB) and a Jones Road Pinot Gris (me)

And as they were entree servings and we were feeling indulgent … JB had a chocolate fondant and I had a lemon creme brulee. What can I say – they didn’t let us down.

I was honestly surprised by the simplicity and quality of the food we ate, and will be going back again.

Recommended!