Birthday Surprise!

Sorry for my mysterious disappearance.  As some of you know, last week was my birthday (yay me) and it sort of threw my week out, not that I'm complaining, in fact I wish every week was birthday week!!


Thank you to all those best wishes, emails, phone calls and pressies, they were great!  My Aunty got the time difference between South African and Australia a bit wrong and phoned me one day early, but was happy to hear that she was the first to wish me happy Birthday :)


I was spoilt enough to receive some yummy cooking items from Simon Johnson (thanks Abby), 2 beautiful Tassie chopping boards (thanks best Sister, niece and brother in law ever!), the cutest lunch box (for school from Brigitte) and a popcorn machine (from Ryan) and finally (and certainly the highlight of my birthday) a degustation dinner for two to Becasse - which was divine and Justin North is my hero.


At Becasse, Ryan and I took careful notes, analyzing each of the 10 courses, rating each for Food (taste, quality, texture), Wine (did it match the meal, portion, description accuracy), Presentation (temperature of plate, polished, first impression) and Consistency (were our plates the same).  We also took note of the time served, as we got more tipsy and more drunk (as the wine portion were very generous), our descriptions got slightly less descriptive.
Best Course (course no.5) - Poached fillet of jewfish
Food = 5
Wine = 4.5
Presentation = 5
Consistency = 4.9
Description on Menu: Prawn croustillant and sweet corn
My notes: PERFECT!  Best combination of fresh corn (still with a bit of crunch) and creamy pureed corn sauce.  Fish moist and the skin was perfectly cut with 4 perfectly matching sides.  Soft and melts in your mouth. served at 10.10pm.
Desert (course no. 10) - Mango Mousseline
Food = forgot to fill it in (but it was SO good)
Wine = forgot to fill it in (but it was a yummy desert wine)
Presentation = forgot to fill it in (but it was amazing)
Consistency = n/a as we had different deserts
Description on Menu - coconut sorbet, warm doughnuts, macadamia nuts and tropical vinaigrette
My notes:  the lightness of mousseline, the creamyness of the macadamia nut.  Bit of heaven.  Amanzing.


Actually I'm very impressed with my last write up, as we were pretty drunk by then.  All I got out of Ryan for his desert of Coffee & banana!!!! OMG!  (hehehe)


I'm still a bit confused about the consomme, which came served in its gelatinous state and I'm still not sure that I was comfortable eating that.   Anyone who has not been, i truley recommend you go, even if it is just for the desert.  SSOOOOO goood!!! Yum..yummmmmmmy!

So, back to the presents, Cornelius, the popcorn maker, is the newest addition to my kitchen family and as it was my birthday, the rule of one item in - one item out did not apply :D  Here is a picture of Cornelius in action!


Sadly however, with all this eating and a gratuitous week of emulsions (mayo, hollandaise and aioli) sauces at Le Cordon Bleu, weight watchers took a bit of a dive and now I need to get right back into it.  In fact this week at Le Cordon Bleu was so bad for the waist line even Ryan commited
himself back into a rigurous routine of golf, squash and weights.

But all of that in mind, it was worth the dieting pain I will need to endure this week.