eat drink dream: Food adventures

I grew up in Tassie and M and I go back there 3-4 times a year to visit the family and relax. The good thing is that it's only a 1 hour flight from Melbourne and we can often get cheap fares.

Last wekend we played tour guide to a friend who had never seen the apple isle. We flew out on Friday night and back on Sunday and fitted in so much over the weekend!

On Saturday we did brekkie down at Salamanca and browsed the market. I've been to the market hundreds of times but never get sick of it; there are always so many little stalls to look at and I'm obsessive about the tempura Huon Valley mushrooms! For brekkie we headed to Machine cafe in the back corner of Salamanca square. I come here most trips to Hobart as the food is always great.

What we ate:

Eggs florentine with caramelised onion and a side of bacon

Eggs Benedict

Eggs florentine with a side of tomato

BEST brekkie! Never quite sure about the lettuce on the side though

After Salamanca we headed to MONA which is an AMAZING modern art gallery outside of town. It was a stinking hot day so after we'd browsed the art gallery we collapsed onto the huge beanbags they have outside and were given some delicious chocolate eclairs from the market stall that was closing up next door.

We headed out for dinner in the evening to Ethos Eat Drink. This place has been open for about a year in Elizabeth St in the city. I'd been hearing a lot about it (The Age and Inside Out) and wanting to try it for a while. The menu centres around simple and authentic ingredients, an ethic we saw reflected whilst there. They were awarded Tasmania's best small wine list and listed in the top 10 small wine lists in Australia in the 2011 Gourmet Traveller wine list of the year awards.

What we drank:

Pimms iced tea

Peach Bellini

2011 Grosset Springvale Watervale Riesling, Clare Valley, SA

LOVED the Pimms cocktail in a little jar with handwritten instructions on top!

What we ate:

Hot and spicy almonds

Raw kingfish + crushed peas

Summer vegetables + goats curd

Squid, parsley and lemon

Octopus, mussels + toasted crumbs

Chorizo, caramel used apple + almonds

Chicken tortilla

These were beautifully salty with a real chilli bite.

Underneath the kingfish was a beautiful red onion jam.

This was the only dish I wasn't 100% keen on - the veggies were raw and there wasn't enough sauce or goats cheese.

The calamari was good, but probably not my favourite.

The octopus and mussels definately hit the right spot!

The chorizo was beautiful - soft and flavoursome.

The tortillas were our FAVE - M liked them so much he ordered another serve just for him while S and I devoured the cheese platter!

PLUS the best cheese platter I've had in a very long time featuring:

Old Telegraph Rd brie

Elgaar Farm cheddar (check spelling)

Grandvewe Saphire blue (winner of the best cheese in Australia at the Sydney Royal show)

The bread was very thinly sliced - unusual but it worked.

On Sunday we headed on a drive through the country stopping at Peppermint Bay on the way down for coffee and morning tea of delicious scones with jam and cream and a beautiful strawberry friand.

Who can beat this view!

We started devouring the scones before we remembered to take a piccie! The friand was so buttery and chewy - amazing!

We stopped in at Grandvewe to taste some of their amazing sheeps milk cheeses before heading to Fleurtys, a lovely little cafe in the bush, for lunch.

What we ate: