Duchess of Spotswood & Jock's Ice Cream

The Duchess -- A quaint, tiny cafe in a quiet, little neighbourhood...

The Duchess of Spotswood!

A place that can easily be so unassuming from the outside to the casual walker by... With a setting so casual and inviting that you feel like you're eating from someone's home or backyard... And food so incredible that has me thinking about for months since my visit... Ahhhh, The Duchess... Why are you so good to me? An unforgettable meal that I've been earnestly waiting to blog about for the longest time...

I still remember that it was on Good Friday when we came. The sun was out and everyone was well rested from a morning of sleeping in. With just a few text messages sent out, it took less than 15 minutes for the 5 of us decide to head to The Duchess for an impromptu lunch that Friday morning. And I'm glad we did. I couldn't have picked a better place to go or with a better group of friends to spend the precious public holiday...

We headed to the back where we there was a larger seating area and we could enjoy the sun a little bit more... It was great. Humble little backyard, fitted with tables and chairs and a tree in the middle for some shade.

Latte

Some of us decided to order a nice cuppa to kickstart our meal; where the house blend of the day was Market Lane Coffee.

Soy Piccolo Latte

While one of us thought it was better to go with something a little more refreshing... I don't disagree.

Duchess of Pork -- $18.50

(Crispy pig's jowl with fried eggs, rich truffle sauce and sourdough toast)

A dish that jumped out of the menu to me and I knew then and there that it was a dish I HAD to try. And by golly was this flippin' delicious or what!

The pork was heavily seasoned, almost like spam but tasted much fresher and not processed. The yolks were so fresh and rich (in a good way) that you could tell they used only the best of the best. Oh and the truffle sauce... Rich, reduced and full of flavour to bind everything together. Wonderful.

Love the deep, intense colour of the yolk

I try to cut a little bit of everything to fit in each bite. Never mind that the yolks are lusciously oozing all over the plate. It's messy, but delicious. Honestly, a smashing dish to me from start to finish. Safe to say that both my friend, Sarah, and I enjoyed this dish very much.

The perfect bite!

Not to mention, the sourdough here was really one of the BEST I've ever had. No kidding. It was absolutely PERFECT. Firm but not too chewy, with a perfect crunch from the crust and a subtle flavour from the sourdough. DIVINE. I am seriously going to order an extra slice of sourdough next time I'm here.

To really enjoy this dish, you need to slather a generous amount of butter, then top with some of the pork, egg yolk and truffle before taking a big bite of the crunchy toast.

Hot dang this was seriously lip-smackingly good!! Can't tell you how much I loved it.

Special of the Day: Fish Cakes

My friend Devon ordered this dish and it was GOOD!! So fresh, crunchy and delicious. I loved the light, creamy potato in the cake more than the fish itself and the sauce was heavenly. Though, I'm still not sure why they called this the "Gentleman's Main". Beats me.

Steak 'n Chips -- $24.00

(200g dry aged rump with green salad and hand cut chips)

Ann's steak was cooked extremely well. Though, I think I would've preferred a bit more char around the edges. Still, this was pretty darn good! The seriously chunky fries were great. Crisp and naturally sweet from the potatoes. But my favourite part was actually the salad. Just look how pretty that is. Mmmmm.... With a light, clean dressing and fresh crunchy peas -- just yum!

Blow Your Own Trumpet -- $21.00

(Confit Trumpeter with spicy lamb sausage and poached egg)

The bit that I stole from Kel's plate was really satisfying, especially with the sauce. I think it's quite a good dish to order too, seeing as there were many other elements on the plate. But, I only tried the sausage and really liked it.

Overall, I must say that I really, really enjoyed my meal at The Duchess. And I haven't felt this strongly about a cafe/lunch place in a long time! There was great variety in the menu and every dish that came out of the kitchen was SO delicious. I especially enjoyed my Duchess of Pork dish and would happily recommend it to anyone who's thinking of visiting The Duchess for the first time. It was great. The portions were also JUST nice. Not too much, not too little and great value for money.

Now, I'm thinking that I HAVE to come back asap to try their breakfast and dinner menu. If it's anything like our lunch which was nothing short of faaan-friggin-tastic, I'm sure I'd enjoy the other menus just as much too. Will be back......!!

Right after our meal at The Duchess, we decided that we'd stop by Jock's for some ice-cream on our way home. What a brilliant idea! This was my first time here, so I was excited.

And just as I was walking out of the shop with my ice-cream, I was really shocked to bump into the friendly, familiar faces of Bryan and Jo. Wuaaaahhhh...! What a coincidence! Guess we all had the right idea of grabbing some ice-cream in the hot, sunny weather!

Obamarama & Zabaglione

Finally tried the famous Obamarama, which is basically a Peanut Butter & Jelly ice-cream. Great!! The flavours were really unmistakable and how can you ever go wrong with PB&J, you tell me. I've always enjoyed the eggnog-like taste of the Zabaglione so naturally I liked this flavour too. My alcoholic ice-cream flavour of choice.

Really liked Jock's and thought it was honestly the perfect way to end an incredible and relaxed meal with friends on a public holiday. Cherishing the company of awesome people while basking in the warm weather over delicious food. What more could you ask for in Life? An unforgettable day it was, indeed =)

Papa Goose, CBD

Simple yet inviting decor

I love my uni life. As much as there are days when I simply cannot stand the amount and difficulty of my uni workload, there are also aspects of it, which I love. And No.1 for me has got to be the amazing group of friends that I've made. They make uni life so damn fun for me and the only reason why I was able to maintain my sanity to complete an Engineering degree. We work hard, but play much, much harder.

For the last 2 years of our undergrad, we've also sort of developed a tradition which we carry out every time we finish the last paper of our exams:

- Head STRAIGHT to Queensberry Hotel to completely let loose and just drank and drank and drank

- Go home, sober up and get dressed for a long, relaxed dinner at a nice-ish restaurant

- Play Counter Strike till really late. And if it's at someone's house, we'd do that while drinking cheap wine and listen to depressing music.

It's totally weird. But that's just us and oh, so much fun. Judge away... Lol

So when we just ended our LAST ever exam of our undergrad (Nov last year), we carried out our favourite tradition together one last time. For dinner, we decided to head to Papa Goose.

A few of my friends and I opted for the 5-Course Degustation for $85 but the other bigger eaters preferred to order a range of dishes off the menu instead.

Here's a recap of our degustation dinner:

Amuse bouche of Pea Gazpacho with Peppermint Oil

Well, a lot of people are neither fans of peas or gazpacho (raw, cold soup). NOT EVEN CLOSE. But I am, so this worked for me.

Dressed spanner crab, soft-shelled crab, avocado, free-range egg, cucumber, avruga and parsley

This dish was really pretty.

Australia is really lucky to have abundance of fresh and delicious crabs. The spanner crab was umami-sweet and fried soft-shelled crabs never fail to make me happy. I always enjoy eating avruga a lot too (as I find real caviar too salty), so this dish was a win.

Scallop of the Day:

Seared scallops, scallops rolled in fish (?), celeriac remoulade, apple and cauliflower puree

Couldn't remember the exact name of the dish (cause it wasn't on the menu) but it was pretty pleasant and delicious. Very ready (and excited) to enter the mains, now...

Twice cooked quails, puy lentils, radicchio, pear, pomegranate dressing

Quails were cooked well. Though, I wasn't entirely sure if all the elements worked well together on the plate in terms of flavour for this one.

This dish reminded me of the UNFORGETTABLE spatchcock dish I had at Marque (in Sydney), last year. Oh, how I've missed that so.

Aylesbury duck, roasted carrot puree, fennel, fig, mandarin marmalade

I enjoyed this a bit more than the previous dish. Though, I've had some sort of puree on two of my dishes before this already so I was a bit like, "huh... again??" when I saw the roasted carrot puree in this. Granted, it was delicious but a tad repetitive. That aside, duck was nicely pink and moist and dish was tasty overall.

Deconstructed Banoffee Pie

This dish was not on the menu that day but the waiter told us that the chef was experimenting with this dessert and kindly asked if we wanted to give it a go. Of course, we said, "YES!!!". Since most of us are fans of Banoffee Pie, so this was intriguing.

Plating was impeccable and elegant. Very interactive dish as we found ourselves going from one element to another comprising of the flavours of banana and toffee but in various forms and textures. I complimented the chef's successful efforts on this dish, which the waiter happily passed on.

Seeing as this was a British restaurant, this dessert bode really well with the overall theme. Personally, I think they should put this on their regular menu from now on.

Lemon gin cake, lemon curd ice cream, sloe gin syrup, candied violets

I decided to order this dessert because the waiter briefly explained the origins of sloe gin in the UK and how it was made, which I found very intriguing. To put it simply, it's gin soaked in a special kind of berry for months before it turns ruby red.

Cake was well-soaked and moist and the alcohol was definitely present (but not overpowering). I quite enjoyed this dessert as a whole. Good experience.

Ending our very long and relaxed dinner together

There's always that "one person" who has their eyes closed in group photos, isn't there? Haha

Thankfully, I doubt by friend S reads my blog otherwise she'd definitely scold me for putting up this photo LOL

To cap it off, I think our meal here was quite enjoyable. It wasn't too busy (despite being a Friday night) and as for me, I found the presentation of the dishes here quite intricate and beautiful.

Besides that, the specific waiter that attended to our table was seriously exceptional. At the start, I wasn't too happy with the choice of dishes for the degustation so he really went out of his way, back and forth from the kitchen to help negotiate with the chef until we decided on the exact dishes we wanted for every course. This was quite unheard of and I'm sure it caused the kitchen a certain amount of inconvenience to accommodate, so I appreciated the waiter's help really, really much.

The service we received from the waiter was very relaxed and friendly as well, so there was a lot of pleasant conversations with the table throughout the dinner. Love it when that happens. At the end of the night, the waiter even shook my hand to thank us for a good evening, when I feel honestly like it should've been the other way around. I don't know about you, but I was quite surprised by this. Let's just say that this was one of those times that good service does go a long way. Good stuff, Papa Goose and Team. And thank YOU for being so kind to us that night.