From the Vegicurean's Bar: Maija's Cranberry Bubbly

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Phew! So much has been going on for me lately that I've barely had time to blog, but in honour of this being Saturday night, I'll steal a moment just to share one of my favourite cocktails. Aside from food reviewing and cooking, mixing drinks is also one of my hobbies and similarly, I love digging up unique recipes to try out...

If you've already read my beetroot salad post, you may have noticed me reminiscing over the time I've spent in Finland. One of my favourite aspects of Finnish culture has got to be Finnish design, be it glassware, textiles or fashion. As such, I often drop by the website of Finnish textile legend Marimekko for a bit of a browse. On one such occasion, I stumbled upon an absolutely delightful cocktail recipe in the blog section of the website.

May I present, courtesy of Marimekko: "Maija's Cranberry Bubbly", which has evidently been named in honour of Maija Isola, the designer who first made the company famous half a century ago. It's a relatively simple mix of 1 part vodka, 2 parts cranberry juice, 4 parts champagne, and some frozen berries, but it looks great and is effective.

In keeping with the theme, I mixed my cocktail in this divine apple green glass by renowned Finnish glassware designer iittala. Isn't it just stunning - I brought two of these glasses all the way home from Helsinki to Melbourne! Note that in making the cocktail, I had to replace the cranberries with raspberries because I couldn't find any cranberries at the time.

I think this is a really clever cocktail, particularly because the frozen berries are able to take the place of ice cubes while also adding flavour. If you can't source cranberries, as I said, you can easily replace them with other red berries and it will taste just as wonderful. Just a small tip: I used Yellowglen "Pink" for the champagne part of the drink and most people to whom I've served this cocktail seem to prefer it made with that rather than regular champagne, perhaps because the berry flavours of "Pink" actually enhance the berry goodness of the cocktail. However, your tastes may differ, so I recommend trying both Pink and normal champagne to see which you personally prefer. Either way, with spring well and truly upon us and summer just around the corner, I think this refreshing summery cocktail would be perfect for your next dinner party on the patio :-)

Cocktail recipe HERE. Cheers...or "kippis!", as the Finns would say!

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High Tea Report: Grand Hyatt Hotel Melbourne

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All my friends know what a high tea fiend I am. I will never turn down a high tea invitation...maybe it's the excuse to glam up and make full use of my overflowing designer wardrobe? Maybe it's the cute, bite-sized food on offer? I reckon it's both. And of course, I'm always on the lookout for high tea institutions which look after both meateaters and vegetarians well! My latest tea venture brought me and two girls to the Grand Hyatt because it was the only one which suited our schedules that day. It pains me to have to write a negative review, but unfortunately I wasn't too impressed by it. Read on to find out why...

Having settled ourselves into the plush lounge-style dining room - the interior design gets a big thumbs-up from me (see photo below) - we started off with a three-tiered stand of sandwiches and cakes. I'd forgotten to tell them about my dietary requirement when making the booking, but nonetheless there were enough egg sandwiches to keep me satisfied. Quality-wise, the sandwiches weren't overly impressive - no better than what I could have made at home. The cakes were pretty decent, but were of the kind of quality you'd expect from a plain jane suburban café, not a five-star hotel high tea.

(Photo credit: The Grand Hyatt Melbourne)

On weekdays the Hyatt high tea includes a small buffet, which we started "working on" once we were done with the tier stand of food. There was only one vegetarian option, a mini-wrap, which I found pretty crudely made. It wasn't well wrapped, which meant that it easily fell apart once I tried to eat it, and it too fell below my expectations, with a thick chunk of capsicum and some greens. What really ruined it for me though, was the random slosh of spicy, supermarket-quality, salsa-style sauce which just did not make sense with the ingredients and completely spiced out my taste buds. I ultimately resorted to taking a few bruschetta, removing the salami and just eating them with the veg-friendly ingredients. As for the sweets, they weren't much of an improvement either - most of them consisted of the same bad generic crust (refer to my photo) with various crème fillings. For example, my friends commented that the mandarin-white chocolate one was a "weird" flavour combination which did not work well together. There were also various other sweets on offer, for example cakes, ice cream and toppings, and chocolate fondue, but these were similarly of very plain quality.

At $35 a head, the weekday Grand Hyatt high tea is quite cheap by Melbourne high tea standards which is a plus, but in my humble opinion the quality of the food is reflected in that. It wasn't "unacceptably bad" as such, but it was very, very ordinary as you can tell from my descriptions above. Coming to a five-star hotel for high tea, I expected a certain quality of offering, which just wasn't what I got. To their credit, the dining area is really lovely as I mentioned before, and service was friendly. However, in the end it is the food which truly makes or breaks an institution and in my opinion, I would rather pay a little more to be rewarded with something of much better quality. Look out for my upcoming high tea reviews to see my recommendations!

Rating: C

Vegetarian Friendliness: 5/10
Price Range: $$$

 

The Collins Kitchen @ Grand Hyatt Melbourne

123 Collins St, Melbourne

VIC 3000

AUSTRALIA
 

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Manchester Press

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My internet is finally back up and running after my area's cables got damaged in those raging Melbourne winds over the last two weeks, thank goodness! You really don't appreciate the necessity of the internet in the 21st century until you're left without it. At the same time, it was a nice little pause from being wired up 24/7!

Anyway, as my return to blogging, I thought I'd do a brunch-oriented review today. Manchester Press is a good summary of Melbourne brunch: eclectic, warehouse space found tucked away in a laneway. An interstate friend was in town for the weekend and our usual "thing" is to go for a girls' brunch, so I proposed Manchester Press, knowing that she enjoys artsy places like this and having seen the photos. Sure enough, it lived up to its expectations in that department.

The menu was relatively short; the focal points were definitely bagels and coffee. Although I'm not a coffee drinker myself, my friend rated her coffee highly and it was served with beautiful coffee art. Our other friend and I opted for the "juice of the day", which in our case was watermelon, rockmelon and mint. Can't say no to a beautifully made, all-natural, fresh juice!

At the time of my visit, I did not find the menu particularly vegetarian-friendly. There were virtually no savoury vegetarian items, with most of the bagel dishes coming with things like salmon, salami or pulled pork. The meateaters will be right at home here - looking at the menu, I thought that the combinations are very thoughtful and gourmet-quality, and judging by my friends' orders, the ingredients used are only the freshest. As for me, I looked to the sweet selection and ultimately opted for this bagel with marscapone, mixed berries, and pistachio dust:

The fruit marscapone was well done, being neither too heavy nor too sweet. If anything, I perhaps would have liked to see a few more berries in the mix. As for the bagel itself, well, the fantastic bagels which I had the privilege of trying in New York still set the benchmark for me, particularly in texture - the NYC bagels which I liked the most were ever so slightly softer and less dense in texture than these, but that may be my personal preference. And my benchmark is informed by awfully high standards, given that I woke up to bagels from famed NYC bakery Balthazar's in my hotel breakfast every morning! The Manchester Press take on the bagel is definitely great quality and one of the best I've tried in Melbourne and I would be happy to recommend it to anyone looking for a bagel fix here. Also note that you can ask for plain, seeded or fruit and nut bagels with your order as you please.

Manchester Press is one of those places which keeps a tight focus on doing a select few things, and doing them well. I'd come here if you're in the mood for good coffee, bagel-based dishes, and perhaps some fresh juice and cakes/slices on the side. If you want a more conventional meal with less bread or bagels and more things like cooked meat, pasta, risotto, and so on, or a menu with more variety in the type of dish served, I would look elsewhere. Meateaters will be happiest here judging by the menu, though I believe that since my visit, the lack of savoury vegetarian choices has been remedied with the addition of a bagel served with avocado, feta, chili and mint mash and cherry tomatoes, rocket and pine nuts. Overall, I was definitely impressed by the quality of what I had and by the atmosphere, and would definitely recommend Manchester Press to anyone looking for the kinds of things which fall within the focal scope of their work.

Rating: A+

Vegetarian Friendliness: 6/10

Price Range: $

 

Manchester Press

8 Rankins Lane, Melbourne

VIC 3000

Australia

 

(Ph): (03) 9600 4054

(W): www.facebook.com/manchesterpress
 

 

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