There are three things that I forgot to pack on a trip that I made to Melbourne.
1. An umbrella
2. A thick coat
3. Leggings or stockings
I should have known-silly me. I’ve visited Melbourne enough times to be warned about the four seasons in one day!
That morning I had managed a sleep in an sadly bade a farewell to the Park Hyatt, my glamorous home for the weekend. I cabbed it over to see my fabulous sponsors at Sigma Lenses to have lunch with them. We go to nearby Pacific Seafood BBQ house for a meal which was wonderful because it was just what I felt like eating. Don’t you love it when you are in the mood for something and you get to eat it?
Complimentary soup
The soup is particularly welcome in this chilly weather and is given depth from pork bones and vegetables.
Roast duck, pork and suckling pork platter
Now bizarre as it sounds, an as much as I love pork I don’t usually go for the suckling pork at Chinese restaurants. It’s usually too big a piece and too salty. Here it is different and they slice it more judiciously into thin slices and it is very moreish indeed. Also good is the crispy lacquered skinned roast duck an the char siu. Oh how I love a platter!
Lobster with chilli sauce
The lobster arrives resplendent in all of its glossy glory. The head is pointed at one end and lovely fat chunks of lobster flesh and claws scattered throughout. It sits on a bed of sauce soaked chow mien noodles which are toothsome and require dexterity I don’t have 
. The lobster flesh is sweet and soft and the chilli sauce has a slight bite to it. I could bathe in a big bath of this (hmm except the lobster claws might hurt…)!
Shanghai bok Choy with garlic
The shanghai boy choy is braised with a garlic sauce and needs a touch more seasoning and by the time it arrives I’ve filled up with lobster (lobster trumps vegetables, sorry!).
We had walked past the Ganache chocolate store and seen the displays and drooled briefly and after lunch where else do we head but to Ganache. Chocolatier Arno Backes, former Head Chocolatier at Koko Black makes all of his chocolates upstairs and has had a career as long as several people. His creations have decked the displays of top end stores like Harrods, The Dorchester and Queen Elizabeth has been a customer ordering a selection of the honey and almond truffles before sending him a note of thanks.
He uses chocolate from five overseas chocolatiers and even has a blend made specially for him by a European chocolate manufacturer although declines to say who with. Apparently the chocolate game isn’t all sweets and truffles and he tells us that he abs had competitors fishing through his bins to find out what product they are using!
Brownie mousse
I select a brownie mousse which is lovely and airy with a rich, dark chocolate flavour to it. On top there is a thin rectangle of chocolate accented with gold leaf. It is lovely but so rich and I can only finish half of it try as I might.
Chocolate truffle cake
Festive hot chocolate
The other reason why I may have had trouble finishing the brownie mousse is the festive hot chocolate. This is also rich and spiced with cinnamon and Christmas spices. It even tastes slightly spicy like it has a touch of chili in it.
And Malcolm asks me “Would you like to try the Queen Elizabeth chocolate?”. Music to my ears! It is a distinct two layered chocolate inside with chewiness from an almond nougatty layer and sweetness from the honey. It is made in both a milk and a dark chocolate and the dark suits this very nicely given the sweet filling. What a wonderful way to spend an afternoon, the rain from the previous day is completely forgotten!
So tell me Dear Reader, when you get a food craving, do you have to follow it up with that food?
Pacific Seafood BBQ House
1/210 Toorak Road, South Yarra, Vic
Tel: +61 (03) 9826 3838
Ganache Chocolate
250 Toorak Rd, South Yarra, VIC
Tel: +61 (03) 9804 7485
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40 Comments | Add your own
Yummy chocolateeeeeee!!! I ALWAYS need to satisfy my food cravings with that specific food and nothing else! If I don’t get it then I am always severely disappointed!
Oh my. That first platter & the hot chocolate, I’d kill for. I long for cold weather, which I usually don’t thrive in, mostly because of the food you can enjoy in cold weather!
We are in Melbourne at the moment – staying just around the corner from both of these fine establishments!! If you haven’t been already, you need to get yourself to Burch and Purchese for the deserts. They are phenomenal.We had wonderful dinners at Mopho, Red Spice Road and Merchant too. And macarons from La Belle Miette in Hardware Lane are Melbourne’s best, in my opinion!
Oh YES YES YES ! That platter of duck and pork! Im salivating! We went to your recommended New Shanghai in Chatswood Chase last night for a double birthday celebration for 8 of us. Despite a long wait for the large table it was definately worth the wait, the food was divine!
Yes, absolutely. I get a fixation and that’s what I have to have… In my fair city today the sun is streaming in, and we’re taking the cherubs to the Melbourne zoo… hopefully the 4 seasons in 1 day thing will nick off for today- until this winter it hasn’t really happened here for the last 5 years. We are going to attempt Brunetti on the way home to really push the girls over the edge!
I love the brownie mousse cake! I think it’s one of the better choc cakes in the city. Yet, it’s pretty pricey!
“Don’t you love it when you are in the mood for something and you get to eat it?” Oh yes, it is precisely this that brings joy and light to my life
x
Mmm! I love my lobster made that why in Chinese restaurants!
That brownie mousse looks divine : )
I’m having a huge laugh at your expense looking at those first three dismal photos of Melbourne
! Been there, done that, learnt after a while 
! That food looks seriously good – but, Lorraine, surely the biggest compliment you can pay your host in a Chinese restaurant is to leave a sauce trail twixt platter and own bowl? 
! Those noodles accompanying that v moreish lobster look too yummy to leave! And would love to have a pick at the chocolate store. Well, in my case, one thing is to want, the other to get – and I am a pretty pragmatic lady: won’t lose sleep if s’thing is impossible!!
Being the incurable sweet-tooth that I am, I’d just go straight to Ganache Chocolate and happily pig out! If I have a particular food craving , I try to satisfy it by cooking or buying. Lately, I’ve been craving cake ( no surprise there) and have been baking too much. My mum’s birthday next Tuesday, she’s asked for a menu to satisfy all her food cravings as I’m making dinner. Artichokes, fried Baccala balls( salt dried cod fish, reconstituted ) , potato croquettes , Italian lugarniche sausages, spaghetti Amartriciana, and my cream cakes recipe made into a birthday cake. Lucky I love to cook but I love my mum more.
I’m salivating as well. That looks like perfect food for a cold wet day.
Hi
The sun is shining today in beautiful Melbourne – come back soon. I second the rec for La Belle Miette in Hardware Lane for the best macaron – esp the rose flavour although friends adore the salted caramel flavour.
Ohhh Ganache is amazing!!! We go there a little too regularly… the brownie mousse cake really is incredible!
And yes, I often crave chocolate, and yes I eat it. Life’s too short!
Satisfy my crave is all my rave, TRUE!
HAVE to have it (certain food) when nothing else will do!
My craving usually takes on a particular cuisine,
Something related to what I have read or visually seen!!
WHOO HOO!
The food at Pacific Seafood BBQ house sure looks delicious! That platter looks so ono!
I’m not much of a pork girl myself, but I definitely would not have had a problem finishing off those chocolates all by myself, they look amazing! I often get cravings for food, and I absolutely have to fulfill them otherwise they just continue for days!
When I saw that first photo I had to get up and turn the heater on straight away!
Wow, that food all looks good. I lived in SY for two and a half years but never went to this place. Ganache Chocolate is a great place for coffee and dessert. If I crave something, I generally get it.
Hey everyone , if you are in Sydney and wanting something to do, the Aroma Coffee festival is on at the Rocks. It’s a sunny day in the beautiful Sydney Harbour area. It doesn’t get much better than this!
Even I can admit that, sometimes, certainly, lobster can trump vegetables
Lorraine… I’m even more giddy with happiness seeing a new post of yours, after yesterday. I just want to sing, but I’ll have to save my voice for next time
P.S. At least your Melbourne four seasons experience didn’t result in you undressing to near nekkidness in a shopping centre, like mine did in December
Ooo.. despite all the chocolate you had, the picture of the lobster is etched in my brain!!
—-Always, Chocolate. I dream of it…I bathe in it…I believe heaven will be drenchedin it.
Ps. I could savor the chocolate truffle cake all day long. Sweeet. xx mmmmmmmmmmmmm
oh the lobster in chilli sauce looks divine!!! as does the hot choc. LOL at Melbourne weather, how horrible did that look? I would have stayed in my 5 star hotel all day..well, I suppose the lobster beckoned!
That chocolate looks simply decadent!
I’ve recently read 3 books by Haruki Murakami (Norweigan Wood, etc) and I have been craving Japanese food!!
How amusing – I spent 2.5 weeks back home in Melbourne and didn’t need my umbrella once! Oh well, nothing new about our different weather experiences! That brownie mousse looks divine!
I must have some of that lobster…. could anything look more gorgeous???
What a fabulous looking meal. I’d brave the rain for that
Unfortunately when I have a food craving, I usually cant satisfy it. I don’t drive, and most of the food I love is in London.
All for that rain reminds me of Florida, it really pours there too. Here in the Uk people take out their umbrellas at the first sign of a drizzle, but they don’t know what real rain is like.
*kisses* HH
Brownie mousse! OMG! I would brave wind, rain and hail for that.
Both look wonderful Lorraine. Food cravings – some just won’t go away until they are satisfied. I have had a craving for poached eggs for a couple of weeks now. And because it is a simple one (I have the necessary ingredients) the idea just won’t quit
And now I think I have a new craving for spiced hot chocolate!
oooh this is now on my Melbourne places to eat – I’ve just returned but will be going back a few more times at least this year.. is it bad I want that lobster for breakfast?
Haven’t visited your blog in ages. I’m just back from dinner in a restaurant and checked by, the photography here is making me hungry again….I’d brave the weather no question for this!
Yum, I’m actually craving savoury right now so the lobster with noodles and Roast duck, pork and suckling pork platter is right up my alley =)
Well, now I have a craving for lobster and that fantastic pork! By a great piece of good luck though, a new BBQ house opened up at our markets and I gazed droolingly through the window at the lovely fresh meats wishing for an excuse to eat there. Now I have one- it’s all your fault, Thanks for giving me a great excuse
Oh definitely. Since I am a die-hard Boombah Battler the calories/kilojoules have to be totally worth it. I learned long ago that trying to satisfy a food craving with something else is likely to end in a big tummy because I will still want the noms. So know I go for noms first, but a sensible portion, without dessert. Sad I know ….
Moreish hehehe
WOW, what a fantastic meal! It all looked amazing – and I loved the ‘library’ buried in the path in melbourne too, how cool!
While the food all looks and sounds lovely, I’m still trying to figure out what looks like the sinking library in the second photo???? Optical illusion? Crazy art? Way Way to much rain???
Not sure where you eat your suckling pig… but as the little sucker should never be bigger than 6-8 kgs in total (as opposed to their 50-130kg mother), you should never get a ‘big’ piece… always small, toffee-apple crispy and there is nothing quite like it…
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