Asian

The other day I was in my old stamping ground and noted that Chinese Garden, the local Chinese restaurant, was still going strong. With its fabulous green tiled roof and red pillars, it was quite upmarket as far as Chinese restaurants went in the 1970’s. With a reception area, flocked wallpaper, linen table cloths, huge… Read more

It’s early in the year but I’m calling it. I just had the best breakfast I’m going to have all year. I wasn’t planning on eating but when I saw it on the menu and asked the waiter to explain, he didn’t even get to finish his sentence before I was ordering it. Last weekend… Read more

Like much of the world, TIFFIN is on the countdown to Christmas. If you work in an office, it’s that time of year where it’s acceptable to crack open the tin of Quality Street at 9am and share them out with your mates, enjoy endless morning teas with endless variations on rum balls and apricot… Read more

The other night we took a trip down memory lane and listened to Siouxsie & The Banshees ‘Once Upon a Time’ & ‘Twice Upon a Time’ greatest hits. The first track of the first CD is the exuberant Hong Kong Garden. From the opening notes of the xylophone and cymbals crashing everywhere to the wonderful… Read more

A few weeks ago I finally visited Fat Noodle, one of Luke Nguyen’s ventures outposted to the Treasury Casino in Brisbane. It opened to much fanfare 12 months ago but has had mixed reviews. When I say mixed reviews, I’m being generous. A quick tour of sites such as Urbanspoon and Yelp! consistently provide poor… Read more

Welcome to TIFFIN’s new home.  Between travel for work, helping out with some project coordination, a weekend of camping and moving to the my new Blog home, there hasn’t been an awful lot of cooking or eating going on. So without further ado, here’s what’s happening this month   In my March kitchen… … are… Read more

My BFF was celebrating her birthday and rather than schlep into town, decided to organise dinner at a restaurant in her stamping ground of Runcorn. Located in a set of local shops on busy Mains Rd, our crowd of ten for a was easily accommodated in an otherwise very quiet restaurant. After pouring our BYO wine… Read more

A few weeks ago I found myself on a trek in the wilds of Fairfield, Brisbane.  It took me across many borders and I met lots of other like minded trekkers on the same journey.  It was my favourite kind of trek.  No physical exertion involved and lots of eating along the way.  It was… Read more

As we were spending a decent amount of time in Bali, I decided that it might be interesting to go to a cooking school.  After some research, it became apparent that Casa Luna cooking school in Ubud was the place to go.  Casa Luna is owned by expat Janet Da Neefe and her husband and… Read more

*** THIS VENUE HAS NOW CLOSED *** One of the things that I missed most when we were travelling in Europe were Asian flavours.  After only 2 months in Birmingham, I was so desperate that we hunted out the very small Chinatown for some smoky Char Kway Teow and Salt & Pepper Calamari.  In Berlin… Read more

It’s hard to miss.  Stretching over a hundred metres down the block, the queue for sushi from LR Sushi rivals the banana queues at the City Farmers Markets.  But there’s no shortage of sushi in Brisbane and not even a shortage of sushi on the block, yet there is massive queue every day from 11am… Read more

As I’m still on holidays, I get the opportunity to be a little more creative with our lunches rather than the standard ‘take to work’ salad.  I was home alone today and in a Nigella-esque moment, just happened to have some tofu in the fridge that needed to be used so I took the opportunity… Read more