We love sharing good food and drink tips with our friends – it’s one of the things that really got us onto blogging from Mr & Mrs Romance. There’s nothing better than finding a great little secret lunch spot, a new cocktail or beer to try, or even a new product to cook at home.
Our last 5 Foodie Finds featured all things sweet. And while it did get our pulses racing, that could well have been simply a sugar rush!
This time round we’re all about more savoury comestibles. Things that make me want to face-smash my plate and just trough out.
From gluten-free bread and guilt-free eggs to the best room service and bush tucker dishes we’ve ever had, here are our 5 Foodie Finds.
Rock Chic Eggs
The chickens at Archerfield Farm live a real rockstar life. Not only is their coop called the Hen Penthouse, they get full range of the 80-acre property. Even better, the founder is none other than INXS manager Chris Murphy!
The Murphy family have worked hard over the years to farm organically and ethically, and this is their latest effort. The idea of being able to buy eggs with a guarantee of being from farm to home within 48 hours is very welcome.
These eggs are available from specialist stores in Sydney – find the closest one to you here.
The Protein Bread Co.
What you get with most gluten-free bread:
Gross taste, crumbly and impossibly to eat, doesn’t toast, horrible texture, unabsorbent, insipid, leaves you feeling a bit hungry.
What you get with Protein Bread:
None of that stuff. In fact, I feel fuller from this bread than when I eat regular bread. That’s because there’s so much protein in it – 16.4g per serve in fact.
It’s also got some good ol’ super foods in there like chia seeds in it and it’s incredibly low in carbohydrates with only 2.4g per serve.
The only downside is that it’s a bit pricey. I was a bit surprised how much Mrs R paid for her loaf, but it does freeze extremely well so you can make it last.
Thank you to Nikki from Styling You for putting us onto this excellent product.
QT Gold Coast room service
We’ve been to a conference in the QT Gold Coast Hotel in Queensland these past few days. Although the catering at the conference was ok – as is their bar Stingray, there’s nothing quite like escaping the crowds, picking up the phone in your room and bunkering down till the food comes to you.
Mrs Romance ordered the fish tacos and I couldn’t resist the temptations of the slow roast pork burger, which is essentially a pork belly burger, and tasty fries. We also felt duty-bound to order a bowl of special fries, which were covered in jalapeño and liquid cheese.
I’d like to add that, in a moment of gluttony, a few days later I ordered another burger – this time the buttermilk chicken burger – and I was once again astonished at how tasty it was.
Bush tucker at Kingfisher Bay Resort
We’ve been on a few bush tucker tours in Australia. They’ve always promised to show us food that the Australian aborigines have lived on for millennia and that, if we knew where to look, we’d be able to survive in the Outback.
This lesson in Kingfisher Bay Resort’s Seabelle Restaurant on Fraser Island, Queensland does much more than teach you about what people can live on. It’s a gastronomic exploration.
We tried all sorts of things from crocodile and emu to pepperberry and finger limes. Each of them had its own distinct flavour and all of them are utilised in the restaurant’s menu, which is excellent and worth a trip to Fraser Island for on its own.
Viet pho at PHD Marrickville
A few years ago, Mrs Romance and I tried Vietnamese pho (pronounced a bit like ‘fur’) for the first time. Thinking we’d be extravagant, we ordered the slightly more expensive ‘special’ option. There was nothing special about it… unless the word ‘special’ in Vietnamese means ‘offal and miscellaneous carcass.
So we ignored pho for a long time. Which was silly. It’s a delicious dish… just don’t go for the special!
A week ago, we went to dinner with friends of our Paul and Ewelina from ReFoil. They took us to PHD in Marrickville, where they said the best pho is outside Cabramatta.
I was feeling hungry [greedy] and went for the large [swimming pool] size beef pho. It was a lot of food but I tell you what, I finished that big beautiful bastard! It was excellent. Others in our group had the free range chicken pho. The chicken looked a bit troublesome as the chook was on the bone, but it was good nonetheless.
Have you ever eaten a truly free-range egg that had just been laid? What do you order at Vietnamese restaurants? What do you usually order from the room service menu? Tell us all about your foodie finds in the comments!
Steph @ Lipstick & Cake
Ooooh now I’m really, really hungry. THANKS A LOT!
Cannot wait to go back to QT so I can get some of those fries.
Mr Romance
Serves you right for abandoning us, Steph!
Yes, those fries are absolute geniuses, every single one of them. Little crispy fried potato Einsteins sitting there looking clever!
Jxx
Fairlie
Pho is one of my favourite Vietnamese foods – each time I’ve been in Vietnam, I’ve had it for breakfast. It’s been interesting to note the explosion of Vietnamese street food outlets in Melbourne CBD in the last year or so. Pho has gone from being something a bit exotic to a regular lunch option for city workers.
I laughed at your description of most gluten free bread…couldn’t agree more. I’m excited to discover that Protein Bread is available in Melbourne!
Mr Romance
Pho for breakfast! That’s pretty keen, Fairlie! We’ve seen a similar pho-splosion here in Sydney too. In the last 2-3 years, it’s become very de rigueur.
I think the Protein Bread Co deliver Australia wide – not sure what outlets would sell it though. It really is worth trying if you need your bread fix. Best GF bread I’ve tried since… sliced bread… no, that expression doesn’t work so well here, does it.
Let me know how you get on anyway.
Jxx
5 Foodie Finds – top choc, food with wings, Good Food Month, Noodle Markets and a café with a twist | Mr and Mrs Romance
[…] last 5 Foodie Finds were random and wide-reaching – from happy eggs and bush tucker to room service and Viet pho… and this time it’s just as […]
The Style Loop | Hair Romance
[…] Here’s pics of what I got up to with Jim the week before and a sneak peek at our Qld trip and some of our foodie finds. […]