Postcard Pretty Quedlinburg

 Arrived late into Quedlinburg (thanks DB for that total shit show - first train our booked seats weren't even ON the train, the second one was late meaning we missed the third and forth. But eventually were arrived in Quedlinburg. First impressions were terrible! Miscommunication with hotel meant no one was there to let us in and the brew house we had intended to have dinner at had closed early!

But, after a tasty Vietnamese meal and a really good nights sleep things were brighter and we enjoyed exploring the amazingly preserved old city with original timbered buildings. Disappointed that the castle was closed for renovations but what's a European Vacation without a shitload of scaffolding! Good thing for bank balance space is restricted because antique widow shopping was a blast.

actual view from bedroom window

I didn't buy but could have!

View from the castle

Gin and Mustard shop. Some - er...INTERESTING gins!

World Heritage Listing.

Interesting things to look at everywhere!

PS how could I forget? As we were leaving late Friday afternoon it was SNOWING!!!!!

Here we go again on our own

 

Hundreds of miles? Nope try about 16,000 kilometres. 
It was supposed to be an extravagance shared with my mum and dad, but unfortunately they were unable to join us.  So here we go and I really better keep the blog updated this time so I can share with them what they're missing. 

We flew via Singapore and Singapore Air. Really comfortable, even down the back of the (air)bus with attentive cabin crew who not only frequently offered food and drinks, but seemed to pop into the loos between every customer to freshen them.

I can highly recommend using the swimming pool in terminal 2 if you have a few hours to kill between flights, it was not only refreshing but we enjoyed a snack in the outdoor bar area and joined our second leg feeling ready for anything. Anything except the hell that is Lufthansa economy.

For a midnight flight you hope supper will come out swiftly. It didn't. But eventually we had a snack and tried to get some sleep. Full flight and seats so close together MY knees were hitting the seat in front. A little bit of turbulance but not too bad. Unfortunately the loos were neglected and smelly and cabin service rare. We did like the water bottles that were provided on each seat but they were pretty much the only amenity on offer! 12 hours (or was it 200) later once the seat belt signs were off they started breakfast service. I'd love to review it but I don't know what it was as we didn't get any. Yep the Captain told them to stop serving and get ready to land before they got to the peasants. 

Arrived in Munich on a cold morning tired and hungry and Matt was sad it was so early the beer and sausage van he's previously visited was still shut!

Bags duly dumped for the morning at the HBH (storage €3 for 6 hours) we set off for coffee and orientation then off for a walk to the Vikualienmarkt before our train trip onwards to Quedlinburg

Tastes like sadness

As part of their ongoing mission to own all the restaurants, the Rockpool group has recently completed a massive expansion, including opening a branch of The Barvarian at Charlestown, and a branch of the Beerhaus at Kotara.  Their website claims  "The Bavarians is a collection of Australia’s greatest German inspired food, drinking and entertainment venues".  Hmm.  Well they have quite a collection and the restaurants are BIG.  In fact the Beerhaus we visited today was huge.  But it wasn't  so German  - with a mostly American inspired menu and a sports theme complete with pingpong, fussball, and basketball hoops.  Luckily pingpong balls don't actually hurt when they're smashed into you by a gang of 8 year olds. 

It was a pleasant surprise to walk into a beer barn and find they had table service and the wait staff were lovely.  Matt had a hankering for some 'murrican food and we soon ordered drinks and appealing sounding fried things and sat back to wait for delcious things to be brought to us.  And Wait we did.  Not somewhere to go for a quick lunchbreak, you really need to commit your time.  After what felt like 20 minutes our drinks finally appeared.  Domain Chandon for me (a reasonable $13) and a Hofbrau Dunkel Lager ($13 for 500ml) for Matt.  

Our first plates of food soon followed.  Deep fried Pickles ($9) sounded great.  They were quite overcooked though so all you could really taste was the breading.  Our potato skins ($11) came out with them.  They were described as loaded with chorizo, mozzarella, scallions and chipotle aioli.  Good thing they weren't described as "piping hot" because they were sadly only just luke-warm.  Before we were quite finished our starters, our actual lunch came out.  Two for one Tuesday meant we ordered the popcorn shrimp ($18) and the buffalo chicken ($17) po' boys.  And that, ladies and gentlemen is where an ordinary meal desended to one we'll talk about for months.  Like the pickles, the prawns were so massively overcooked all you got was the crunch and no flavour  There were nine bits of prawn on the roll so not an overgenerous number. The (four pieces of) chicken itself wasn't terrible (and it was actually hot!).  But it's a good thing they were half price because I sure don't think they were worth their normal charge.  On both sandwiches the baguette they were served on was so stale we both discarded it and just ate the fillings.

Not a cheap lunch, $64 for some fried stuff and one drink each.  We'd really been looking forward to it - American junk food is just so tasty - but ultimately had to say despite the pleasant wait staff we didn't love it at all.  It was overpriced and not well cooked food, with undergenerous serves (unlike their sister restaurant beer barn, The Barvarian); ultimately an exercise in disapointment not one of gustatory delight.

Just a teensy breakette

It had come to pass that another year had passed and I was getting ever older.  Its well known that sorrows should be drowned (or pickled) and thus, a few days in wine country were in order.  Trusting to google maps we set out for Mudgee.

First things first - checking petrol prices.  We were not surprised to learn that Newcastle had the most expensive fuel in the state! Having HAD to joing the NRMA after breaking down on Pennant Hills Road easter last year (why yes, it was just DAYS after the roadside assist that came with the car expired) we used the NRMA app to get cheaper fuel than we could get by shopping at ColesWorth.  Onwards towards the upper hunter and a round-about way to Denman where we had planned to have lunch.  The ladies in the visitor centre were lovely and suggested a wine tasting and cheese platter at Two Rivers Winery, fortuitously on our way.  Starting our mid week escape as we intended it to continue, we enjoyed our very generous cheese and antipasto plate with a glass of rose for me (and a bottle for later on).  Notice our valiant steed in the background of the photo, she has so far avoided all the kangaroos, foxes, feral cats, feral truckies, numerous wedge tale eagles, and something we couldn't identify from the bird book - possibly a young dragon.

All local products including cheese by Hunter Belle, there was enough for any four normal people but we managed.

We followed the Bylong Way to Mudgee, a drive of outstanding natural beauty.  Matt observes he saw very little as he was concentrating on not skidding on the somewhat rugged surface, not hitting kangaroos alive and dead on the road, and avoiding the terrifying tradies who overtook when ever they felt like it no matter what the conditions (as evidenced by the not insignificant number of wrecks scattered by the side of the road)! We've made note for a future visit to make time to do the Castle Rocks walk after glimpsing some of the amazing rock formations from the road.

We reached Mudgee and our accomodation at Beverly House while it was still daylight and after checking in to our lovely - and large - suite had time for a wander around the centre of town only a few minutes walk away.  

almost needed a ladder to get into bed

complementary port and chocolates.

After a pleasant wander around Mudgee's town centre admiring the many lovely old buildings we ended up at the Orient Hotel for a traditional pub dinner.  It was clearly a very popular spot even so early in the week.  Stabbing the wine menu with a pin we selected a couple of local drops, only $10 for a 250ml glass.  Suffice to say that's two wineries we crossed off our list for tomorrow.  The bright side of buying a glass of wine that isn't quite undrinkable is it cuts down on expenses as you make one glass last all evening.  The meals were very generous (mixed grill for him and rump steak for her since you asked) and the chips were probably the best I've had in years! This sounds like a real whinge - but I swear if there had been decent cutlery provided I would have enjoyed the meat more - the forks were uncomfortable to hold and the steak knives were blunt.  Still, I guess it cuts down on petty theft.

Mudgee's Regent Theatre, a beautiful art deco cinema

After our complementary port and chocolate we were soon sleeping soundly in our four poster bed - our hostess Lesley did offer us padded handcuffs to go with the room, however, a lady never kisses and tells.

Wednesday saw us avoiding getting up early; I somehow had blocked out just how cold inland mornings are while Matt just avoids getting up before the crack of noon whenever possible.  A breakfast of coffee and toast as well as home made (by Lesley) spiced poached pears and yoghurt saw us on our way to the Pioneer Museum at Gulgong which was fascinating in the way all volunteer run museums are (we could have done without the fire alarm testing going off at intervals without warning to the poor clients standing underneath said alarms).  We did wonder exactly how 11  passengers got on the Cobb and Co. Coach (possibly sitting in each others laps) as space was not lavish but figured three on each bench inside, one on either side of the driver, and three on a very makeshift looking rear-facing bench (the fore-runner of the dicky seat?)  Hope those last three passengers had something firm to hold on to.

How can this fridge be in a museum when I remember us having one very similar?!

image from https://mgnsw.org.au/organisations/gulgong-pioneer-museum-historical-society/

Our next stop was Lowe Winers, a certified organic and bio-dynamic winery where the attendant Clare was so enthusiastic and knowledgable about their products we tasted our way through nearly their entire offering with great enjoyment.  And came away with a bottle or two to try again at home. Having tried some better known organic offerings neither of us were actually expecting much, however, we were pleasantly surprised with the delicate rose and the preservative free shiraz.  Extremely promising, we look forward to tasting again at home in an uncontrolled environment.  We've saved our free postage voucher in case we need to get a case to do a propper tasting.

I had promised Matt our time away wouldn't end without a beer tasting so our next stop was a beer flight/tasting paddle at the Mudgee Brewing Co., only a few minutes walk from our accomodation but open limited hours midweek. Damn, midweeks away, great for fewer people doing the same tourist trail, but a bit of a bugger when businesses decide they don't get enough passing trade for long hours. We tried the seven beers which were available on tap (plus a coffee for me, hey, it was a COLD day!) as well as the pork crackling, guarenteed to get to you still crackling.  It was, it was huge, we devoured it all!  Oh and the beers...please remember these were tiny tasting glasses and shared between two... 

pork crackling. One piece.  Bigger than my head!

What to choose today?

Why yes, I think we shall have it all!

Of the beers we both prefered the porter and the stout, however Matt was VERY sorry the Belgian style triple wasn't available. So far we've managed to fit quite a few bottles to bring home to try under different conditions in our tiny boot without having to put our clothes on the external luggage rack.

A friend had recommended a visit to the local distillery (thanks Scott, glad we did make it there) and Baker-Williams was a high point of the day;  we enjoyed their gins very much.  I also liked their Orangecello, needless to say, Matt the Orange Food Phobiac didn't try it.  It was fascinating to try the spirits neat and see how the flavours changed and developed as mixers were added.  We're both firmly in the "tonic on the side" camp when buying a mixed drink just so you can try both ways and then dilute/infuse to taste - an interesting discussion was had on different brands of tonics and how these themselves change the taste of your drink.  

picture stolen from https://bakerwilliams.com.au/.  One of these bottles fitted in the car too.

We had planned to have dinner at a modern Asian restaurant, however, we were a bit early and stopped for a drink at another local pub, drawn in by the ambience, great local wine selection,  and the open fire, thus, we decided another pub meal was in order, this time at Kelly's, the local Irish pub since 1886 (or thereabouts).  I loved the traditional veggies served with my roast chook, unfortunatley the chook (being breast not the yummy thigh) was a bit dry.  Matt's 400gm (that's one lb, y'all) (ed.  what the hell is a lb?) rump with prawns and garlic sauce (local "surf and turf") was probably the pick of the menu and did come out pretty rare!  We also enjoyed tasting several reasonably priced local wines by the glass.  Matt rather liked a local white port served as an aperetif.

Our final day away saw us visiting nearby Rylstone en route back to Newcastle.  The local op shop provided a couple of new to me girlsown books while we kept our hands FIRMLY in pockets at the record shop.  What a great selection they had! 

For Rockwiz affecionados, they had in stock both the first album Matt bought with his own money and the album associated with the tour of the first band I saw live. 

Our final destination was 29 nine 99, a restaurant well known for its excellent yum cha.  Not quite the furthest I've travelled for dumplings.  As we're both rather fond of yum cha we picked the big serving that gave us 12 pieces each plus one (sticky rice for Matt and a red bean bun for me); we were happy to let the kitchen decide what to give us but you do have the option to pick from the more than 30 types of dumplings.  A FANTASTIC way to do yum cha in a beautiful location, I've often complained that we can never order enough different things, this, with just one piece each of each variety was perfect.  My favourite was the duck.

Replete, we left Rylstone for our last leg, through the beautiful Bylong Valley and back to the coast and home.  What a contrast to the Hunter which has been systematically raped by mining.  

The steep dry sclerophyll forests of Wollemi National Park gave way to the fertile floodplains

Many farms had large signs protesting the intrustion of coal mining and fracking on their property

image from https://www.lockthegate.org.au/new_south_wales_hunter_valley_coal_mines

Image from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-07/bylong-valley-coal-mine-divides-locals/10472766

If only Mudgee wasn't so far from the coast we'd be tempted to move to the area, the friendly and enthusiastic people we met everywhere made our visit an absolute pleasure.

Two Rivers

At Lowe's

So fresh

I recently took up the opportunity to try a week of "Hello Fresh" meal boxes (thanks to a work colleague who had some freebies to share) and I was astounded at how good it was.  If you haven't come across the concept, it's food delivery service that gives you a choice of meals to cook from scratch yourself.  You're not locked in to any contract, you can pick and chose how often you get a delivery, and even what day it arrives - we had four delivery options in our area.

I signed up and quickly took the option to make my own meal choices rather than leaving it to fate; there were plenty of options (although be aware, there are not a lot of options for people with special dietary considerations - a few vegie selections but not really accomodating anything else like requirements for gluten free diets) and even a "premium" meal that cost a few dollars extra shoud you fancy it.

I was pleasantly surprised with how fresh the ingredients were, we did NOT follow the suggestions in terms of what days we ate things and in fact, our last two meals were recommended as ones to eat earlier in the week.  We checked the use by dates on the protein and followed our own preferences.

First impressions...signing up was easy, as was selecting our delivery day.  Deliveries are mostly made overnight, some time before 7am.  Ours actually arrived around midnight.  I was fast asleep but Matt was still up and brought it in.  It would have been fine until morning though, it was well packaged with plenty of special insulation to keep it cold.  We tested it and the ice bricks were still partially frozen sitting on the kitchen bench even 24 hours later.  You can also track your delivery and it culminates with a photo showing where it's been left.  We asked for ours to be left at the back door and it was.

The recipes come with a card that you match up with your meat and other bits bag that gives you a good idea of how long it will take to make your meal and what extras you need - mostly staples like butter and olive oil, I was surprised at fish sauce being on one of them.  Yes of course we had it - but would you if you didn't regularly cook Thai or Vietnamese food?  Maybe everyone in Australia cooks Thai and Vietnamese meals often enough to require a bottle of fish sauce?  Or perhaps they were expecting an ancient Roman's pantry?

Menu One was Tahini & Honey-Glazed Chicken with Garlic Rice and a tomato and cucumber salad.
My first comment was that I was disappointed that the chicken is not free range  although it was RSPCA approved (in my feedback to the company I suggested they add free range as an option to their chook and pork products even with a surcharge).
The garlic rice was sensational and we will make it again.
The chicken was pretty nice too, thights are my favourite bit of the chook.  If we made it agian I'd chope the bits smaller than the illustration so it cooked faster.
The salad was OK, a bit like Tabbouleh without the cracked wheat.  Plenty of left over salad too, I had it on my lunch the following day.

Next up was Five Spice Caramel Pork with Ramen Noodles.
Strangely, this recipe was the one with the longest cook and prep time.
It was quite tasty - but we both thought the version Matt regularly makes with pork spare ribs from the AWW Vietnamese recipe book (instead of the loin supplied) is actually better and tastier.  We left out the carrot because orange vegetables are vile.  Probably because it was so similar to a recipe we do make frequently I thought it the most disappointing.  Not BAD, just not great.  Meat a bit chewy.  Udon noodles were the same brand I which buy as ramen. 

Why yes, all the chilli did go onto one plate!


On night three we had Greek style fetta and oregano steak with roasted potato cubes and balsamic onions.  The steak was actually really really good but the suggested cooking time was way too long - for medium or even well done (shudder).  I felt the oven needed to be hotter for the spuds than directed, and we finished them off in the frypan while the steak was resting.  One last comment, the balsamic onions were supposed to be cooked after the steak, while it was resting.  I looked at the steak (quite thin rump) and decided we would cook the onions first and reheat when ready to serve.  More washing up because not recycling one frypan but better than than well done meat!!

The next night was Friday so that was the day we had the fush and chups (and fush it was, imported NZ ling).  Friday wasn't fish n chips for any religious reason, it's always the night we have something easy for the end of the week.  And tonight it was panko crummbed fish and served with salad and oven fries.  Again, we felt the spuds didn't end up crispy enough.  Maybe my drizzle of oil is too much or not enough?  The fish, I thought was only just cooked on the recommended time.  Overall, pretty nice with a good crunch from the panko.  Liked the little extras mixed in with the panko for extra flavour.

Our final meal saw chicken again, this time breast (again, RSPCA approved but not free range). Chermoula spiced chicken with veggie risoni.  This will probably be my most mixed set of feedback because bits I loved and bits I loathed...  The chicken was marinated  in yoghurt and chermoula (a Moroccan spice mix which I love), then quickly fried to give it a bit of a crust and finished in the oven.  It was really tasty, and while breast can dry out, this was delicious and juicy.  Saving this part of the recipe to make again.  The veggie risoni I wasn't fussed on at all, it was basically Hot Wet Rice (well, risoni) with onions, zucchini, and capsicum. We halved the amout of capsicum that was suggested because I'm not a fan - actually I HATE capsicum -  and it didn't overwhelm the meal but it was my least favourite thing.  So I'd do the chook again - but with roasted vegies  and cous cous I think.  Matt said next time do it without the zucchini, the devils vegetable (clearly he's WRONG, yum yum).

So, to sum up...would I order again and actually pay money?  Yes, especially if I knew we had a busy week coming up.  I wish that this service had been around when we were both working full time and had much longer days than we do now - the food was tasty and I found the menus were easy to follow (although Matt found some of them a bit more challenging and thought the times specified were for a practiced cook not a beginnner).  We cooked together which is alwasy nice, ate an interesting variety of food and found the servings were generous.

Price for five nights of dinner for two people is usually  $109.  So a bit pricier than buying from scratch - but we didn't have to, we just had to look at the website and pick what we wanted to eat; there was very little wastage, and it came nicely portioned out with the recipes that you can save for another time if you like them.

I now return you to our regular service.  Sunday night schnitty and chips.  The beans were inspired by one of our Hello Fresh menus with garlic, oregano, and feta cheese :-)

Book Review/s

I posted this review elsewhere but enjoyed writing it so didn't want to lose it

The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow and The Well at the World’s End.
A.J. Mackinnon.

While not children’s literature I thought these books would probably find an appreciative audience amongst a group of fans of works such as the Swallows and Amazons series, Three Men in a Boat, and the Iain and Sovra stories.

Mackinnon is in many ways running away from being a modern grownup in favour of having adventures; obviously, from my choice of comparison titles, ones with boats and always displaying a good sense of humour.

In the first title, Mackinnon chucks in a job as a drama teacher somewhere in the UK and runs away with a dinghy. He plans a few days or weeks sailing, but the weeks turn into months and he slowly makes his way from North Wales to the Black Sea in a tiny little mirror dinghy. Like Ian and Sovra he tends towards accidental exploits that make observers chuckle (and probably caused his parents no end of gray hairs) even while he recalls more competent literary predecessors like John or Nancy (and camps in the style of Jerome – ie, at any opportunity he picks a convivial pub, hotel or even hostel instead of a sleeping bag in the misty damp, outside by the riverbank). In many ways an “old fashioned” story his travelogue is more about his own stupidity and the endless kindness of the strangers who helped him along the way than the finer details of his journey.

The companion title (published later but I think mostly written earlier) is about his journey from Australia to Iona in northern Scotland without using regular scheduled air transport. Travelling with seasonal yachties from New Zealand to Australia, to Indonesia and finally Singapore Mackinnon’s random travels in order to get to the other side of the world without getting airborne lead to more happy accidents and funny but keen observations of human behaviour from his younger self. His misadventures in Laos are akin to any Enid Blyton or Willard Price adventures in colonialism but he never does lose that sense of wonder about how lovely most people are to the stranger among them. Does he eventually make it? When you read about how he arrived in Egypt you start to believe in idiots luck!

When I started Jack de Crow I was worried that the humour might pale. Hasn’t the naïve but intelligent traveller with a literary quote for every occasion already been done to death? Who needs another memoir about following in the footsteps of the Swallows in the Goblin? Surely the English have already overdone their quota of stranger in a strange land type stories? Yet Mackinnon (an Aussie British hybrid) seems to manage to offer up a version encompassing all of these for the modern reader, he has a delightful helping of eccentricity and utter delight in his travels and travails.

A pair of books I can thoroughly recommend- although if you pick up the same editions I did make sure you dig out your reading glasses as the print is crazy tiny!

A birthday banquet : Lunch at Newcastle's Nagisa

I don't know why I asked Matt what he wanted to do for his birthday lunch because I really knew what the answer would be.  And I was pretty sure what his menu choices would be too.  
Lunch at Nagisa was indeed his choice.  It's our go to destination in Newcastle for every special occasion - and it's in walking distance of home.

As we arrived the staff apologised in advance as there would be a bit of a wait for meals - but we weren't in a hurry, it was a lovely sunny afternoon, and there was plenty to see.  People watching, watching cargo ships coming in empty and others leaving full, and of course checking out what other people were eating.  So Matt ordered a Yebisu Dark and I ordered a Veuve Ambal Brut Rose Cremant and we started our meal with some chilli edamame.  Someone once told me that soy beans were awfully good for you so I felt very virtuous!


Rarely can we skip the prawn tempura but this time we were quite restrained and only ordered four.  
Steaming hot with perfectly cooked traditional crisp batter and served with a lovely, gingery tentsuyu dipping sauce they make a perfect start to a meal eaten in sight of the river.  I think we've had the scallops with yuzu butter every time we've eaten here.  Served on the half shell today (on previous visit's they've been naked) with a little bit of honeydew melon, wasabi cream, and topped with a puree  of pear and radish, these succulent delights are matched with a dry sake that perfectly picks up the scent of the honeydew.  Luckily there's an option to upsize from the standard serving of three to four - and two cups of sake instead of one!  


Our second course was also based around seafood, but this time not cooked.  The sashimi selection was made up with the standard Aussie favourites of tuna, kingfish and salmon and we added fresh Tasmanian wasabi to the plate for a small additional charge.  The final course was smoked salmon and a real production.  I don't think I've had salmon this freshly smoked since last time we ordered this dish!

Presented under a cloche to
smoke the salmon while you watch

And watch you do as the smoke slowly clears

after just a few minutes you can almost see the delights ahead

Finally the big reveal!  Incredibly delicious.

It's described in the menu as Maple smoked sushi salmon slices, Yarra Valley salmon caviar, yuzu gel, chives, micro greens and a soy, ginger vinaigrette.  It's lovely, the smokey flavour is especially pronounced in the caviar.

With our second course we decided to have sake and the lovely waitress allowed us to try several before we made up our mind.  We selected the delightfully dry Jozen Mizunogotoshi and loved the jug and cups which were used to serve it - a very generous pour as the waitress kept pouring until the jug filled the first of the cups.  And we didn't spill a drop!

I also have to give the staff at Nagisa a shout out for how well stocked the ladies are - the emergency sanitary supplies discreetly placed next to the loos are something that more places should consider.

We decided to complete the afternoon with a stroll along the river and stopped to watch a game of waterpolo.  We may have speculated about how many dirty tricks a swimmer could get away with in water this murky (answer, a lot). 

A wonderful indulgent afternoon and a happy birthday to my beloved. 
(PS honey I was only joking, you're not REALLY older than Uncle Bulgaria).