From Luxembourg, with love

. . .
[Dead man espresso, 35 Market Street South Melbourne VIC]

Phone: (03) 9686 2255
Open: Weekdays 7am-4pm; Weekends 8am-4pm

Broadsheet review: click here

With my special orange parcel all the way from Luxembourg in hand, I went to meet Ash (or ashie, if you’re my mother)

This little Mr had been waiting patiently for a very special gift from a very orange shop… you may know? Hermes?? 🙂 They had run out of stock of a particularly gorgeous scarf (or tie if you’re from Lucky coq), and as a result ordered it from Luxembourg to be preciously hand delivered via Germany and Qatar- a well travelled little tie. Scarf. 😉

We ventured down to his local- ‘Dead man espresso’ and enjoyed the sun, company and some quality melbourne service and food.

What I should’ve done is ordered a coffee to taste this special dead man blend from seven seeds, but instead I very unsurprisingly ordered a Chai latte (soy ofcourse)…. I just can’t help myself. Its either that or an ICED chai latte…no icecream, just plently of ice and chilled – seriously amazing sh*t.

Ash’s Latte: 

We both decided on toasties – and I must say, dunno if Ash agrees or not, I chose very quickly! 🙂 I normally take so long, the waiters will try to order for me….awkward.

Ash ordered an eggy bacony lovely number.
Before:

After:

And I was craving some smoked salmon, so I went with that:

The bread was fresh and smelt amaaaazing, lightly crusty exterior and soft and bouncy interior, fresh smoked salmon, spanish onion, mint and cream cheese.

Life is pretty sweet when you’re sitting in the semi sun, enjoying a gold ol’ catch up and taking it down the slow lane.

Dead Man espresso, is off busy Clarendon street, on a very quiet corner. This foodie’s sanctuary is exactly what the doctor ordered for a lazy sunday brunch or even a quick coffee on the go. Its buzzing with energy, happy satisfied tummies and the aroma of fresh beans linger softly against the humming of conversation.

enjoy!

. . .

Tastefully yours,

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Adiós. . . for now ☺

[Caffe Fiorino, Barcelona]

Heres a little picture story for my last spanish blog post…. for now 🙂

We started with creamy coffees and fresh OJs at Caffe Fiorino.

The view inside is warm and inviting with quick and simple food.

[Euskal Taberna, Barcelona]

We then decided lunch would be a ‘grazing’ affair, and in true spanish style we dabbled in tapas and sangria @Euskal Taberna. 🙂

The sangria was sweet, delicious and just what we needed after being on our feet all day.

[Taller de Tapas, Barcelona]

Paella was on the menu for dinner @ Taller de Tapas

Galician style octopus was amazing as usual, the fresh grilled ciabatta with garlic and tomato was crunchy and a nice break to cleanse the palatte.
And the Paella in broth was morish but quite simply not enough. We wanted more 🙂
We ended with a perfect espresso which was oddly strong for Barcelona, but still very welcomed.
As we were also quite close to Gelaaati di Marco, we once again had a nice serving of diabetes… eek!!

This concludes the ‘foodaholic in Spain’ segment… for now 🙂
Stay tuned for some more german flavoured tasty adventures 🙂

. . .

Tastefully yours,
. . .

Diagonally shopping [part 2]

[Canas y Tapas, Barcelona]

So, its lunch and we’ve been pretty much shopping for 3 or 4 hours straight… and the men have been really patient. waiting. waiting. waaaaaaaaaaaaiting.

This is when I thought why the hell isn’t there a ‘men/baby/bags’ drop off point in shopping centres?? you know, like an area where the helpless victims of shopping go to congregate, discuss how shit their life is waiting for their ‘WAGs’ as they chew through their credit card… naturally watching some sort of manly sport event over a manly drink, like beer. hmmmm, I seem to have gotten a bit carried away with the ‘masculine’ stereotyping….

[image from here]

In all seriousness, if there was a ‘bar’ or some sort of couchy/tv/drinky area where men and women alike can rest and wait for their significant others… [like a pitstop] – I think it would really take off!. You could also leave your bags there whilst you mosy around collecting more?? I dunno, I’m just putting it out there. 🙂 I saw a billion men in pain-blank look in their eyes, wishing this would end with one hand on the hip and the other on their throat…as they died a slow and painful, shopping related death….. [omg…. distracted!!!!]

Just quietly, I thought men and women had evolved from the shopping stereotypes… but I guess these were middle aged men, and old habits die hard…

ok, where was I?…. LUNCH!!!

We stopped by the outdoor eating area, but opted for inside eating as the weather was being super Melbounrne – bipolar!!

We proceeded to eat through the menu. pretty much.

First, we have grilled chicken salad: This was lying on a bed of fresh salady leafy numbers accompanied my amazing goats cheese. I love cheese. I would totally die for cheese…totally. 😀

Fresh tuna salad on a bed of leaves. Partying on the side we have tomatoes and boiled eggs… this wasn’t my favourite dish… but thats only b/c I cant stand boiled eggs!

I ordered sauteed mushrooms with my favourite Iberico Jamon on crusty fresh bread. This was beautiful accesorised with fresh leaves and a touch of onion sprouts. Oh and I ordered a handbag/airport friendly bottle of olive oil to go!.. seriously, what was with that…. we were swimming in oils… OH heres some for your carryon luggage, pop it in with your 100mls!!! right!.

Lastly, not leastly, we have the cheese and meat platter… seriously I need to be kept away from this stuff. It is my weakspot.

Meat platter: YUM!!! JIZZ
Cheese platter: again JIZZ!!!

Fresh.Crusty.BREAD and DIPS and take home airport friendly OIL!!!!! I DIE! 🙂

To top it all off, we were presented with a gorgeous espresso that left the most creamy taste in my mouth… LOVE!

This essentially ends Diagonally shopping in Barcelona… stay tuned for the next session of ‘a foodaholic in Spain…’ *giggles*

. . .

Tastefully yours,
. . .

L u x e m b o u r g : c o f f e e

[cafe knopes, Luxembourg]

errrgh! I have such a back log of posts… this was from a couple of weeks ago, but its pretty good coffee, and its always really nice to wonder through Luxembourg oldtown when youre filled with sunshine and warm coffee. delish! 🙂

Les Coffeeshops Knopes sont des endroits entièrement dédiés au café. Que ce soit pour déguster un café sur place, demander des conseils de préparation, emporter un sac de café fraîchement torréfié chez soi, vous y trouverez tout ce que vous voulez savoir sur le café. A côté du café, nous vous proposons aussi des thés, boissons fraîches et originales ou encore des en-cas sucrés et salés.

Ouvert depuis 2002, ce Coffeeshop est situé dans une cour intérieure près de la bourse de Luxembourg. Cet endroit est devenu une référence au centre de Luxembourg pour tous les amateurs de café. Venez partager notre passion du café dans un endroit intime et chaleureux.

english: Coffeeshops Knopes The locations are completely dedicated to coffee. Whether for a coffee on site, ask for advice on preparation, carrying a bag of freshly roasted coffee at home, you’ll find everything you need to know about coffee. Besides coffee, we also offer teas, soft drinks and original, or sugary snacks and savoury.

Open since 2002, Coffeeshop is located in a courtyard near the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. This place has become a reference center in Luxembourg for all coffee lovers. Come share our passion for coffee in an intimate and warm

For some [beautiful] reason, whenever I have a coffee at Cafe Knopes its always sunny… I hope this coffee phenomenon  lasts all through the cold f*ck that will be winter… hahah, scuuuse my french, I’m just super anxious about the onset of a German/Luxembourg winter.

We had some super nice weather over the w/e, but today is serious poo!, and i’m only thinking its going to get colder and greyer… I hope it gets so cold though that it turns white. 🙂 or maybe I can just have an espresso, and all will be sunny and delicious again! 😉

Anyway, I hope its sunny where you are 🙂

. . .

Tastefully yours,

S u i t e : a u : C h o c o l a t

[suite au chocoloat | Trier ]

WRC, (thats world rally championships for those like me who had no idea) was in town for the weekend. To me it was like a massive go kart track for big kids!

Anywho, we happened to duck into a side street before the the streets were closed off and snuck in a bite before the engines rolled.

The espresso & espresso machiato was pretty good, but not as good as Cafe Lecca

Due to the name we thought we’d sample Sweet crepes, but they were unfortunately off the menu for the day, so we ordered Galettes…

what are galettes I hear you ask?…

Galette is a general term used in French to designate various types of flat, round or freeform crusty cakes.^[1][2] One notable type is the galette des Rois (King cake) eaten on the day of Epiphany. In French Canada, the term galette is usually applied to pastries best described as large cookies.

Galette, or more properly Breton galette (French: Galette bretonne, Breton: Krampouezhenn gwinizh du), is also the name given in most French crêperiesto savoury buckwheat flour pancakes, while those made from wheat flour, much smaller in size and mostly served with a sweet filling, are branded crêpes. Galette is a type of thin large pancake mostly associated with the regions of Normandy and Brittany, where it replaced at times bread as basic food, but it is eaten countrywide. Buckwheat was introduced as a crop suitable to impoverished soils and buckwheat pancakes were known in other regions where this crop was cultivated, such as Limousin or Auvergne.

It is frequently garnished with egg, meat, fish, cheese, cut vegetables, apple slices, berries, or similar ingredients. One of the most popular varieties is agalette covered with grated Emmental cheese, a slice of ham and an egg, cooked on the galette.^[3] In France, this is known as a galette complète (a complete galette). A hot sausage wrapped in a galette (called galette saucisse, a tradition of Rennes, France) and eaten like a hot dog is becoming increasingly popular as well.

Prociutto with walnuts was a little salty and dry, but was still very appetising.

The Galette ‘italianische’ was seriously yummy boasting with essential Italian flavours : fresh tomatoes, fresh mozerella and fresh basil. All lovingly drizzled in olive oil.

The cars may have been driving fast and loud, but breakfast on this particular sunday was eaten slowly and peacefully.

I’ll be sure to come back to play with the chocolate.

.    .    .

Tastefully yours,