Eating Out: The Starfish Deli [Promenade Plaza Shop 1, Clyde St, Batemans Bay 2536]

From my observation this is probably the busiest restaurant in the entire town. No matter what time of day it is, the place is at least half filled and by lunch you have to wait to get a table. This restaurant ain't small either so we had to check out why this place was so busy. The answer......I'm not sure because quite honestly I probably wouldn't come back to this place. $20 woodfire pizza or $6 LARGE pizza from Eagleboys? Eagleboys thanks, more topping and better value for money as though the woodfire pizza tasted better but not enough for the taste.
We waited for about 30 mins to get a table for 12 for lunch. Their menu actually says the date on it so I guess it probably changes daily.

 Potato Wedges $9.2

Nothing special except that there was a lot of sour cream

 Tagliatelle $20.7

Yes the name is just Tagliatelle which I believe is the type of pasta, the sauce was pesto but it wasn't put into the name for some reason. Average tasting but pasta was cooked al dente. Not enough ingredients considering the price. 

 Indo Seafood $25.3 

Same problem once again, only a few pieces of seafood =[ However the mango worked quite well to add sweetness. On the menu it says this has a sambal dressing, I believe that the brown puddles are kechap manis or something similar. I saw they had many bottles of ABC Kechap manis in the kitchen. 

 Spaghetti Puttanesca $19.55

Why 55cents? Anyways this had a lot more ingredients than the Tagliatelle except the olives still had pips in them. Not impressed.

 Starfish Supremo $27.6 

Not too bad since there was more topping.

Tropical $18.4

I bet this cost under $4 to make. Although it was the first time I've seen entire slices of ham on a pizza, normally it's shredded.

I watched the pizza chefs make pizzas for 10-15 mins since we got the table right next to the pizza station. The pizza I saw made most was the Nutritious one. The oyster pizza seemed interesting. Might try it at home.

Food: 7/10 Pretty average pizza and pasta.

Service/Environment: 8.5/10 Clean, by the water and friendly staff. 

Value: 6/10 Pizzas are small and lack topping, also they are very thin based. The pasta serving is barely enough for one and extremely over priced.

Verdict? I don't get why this place is so busy. Much rather try other cafes in the town. 

Cooking: Steak/Open Lasagna/Veal Roast

Steak and chips for a lazy Friday night dinner during exams

And made an open lasagna last Friday night except it turned out pretty bad. Tried to semi follow the one Anna made on Masterchef Masterclass. Made fresh pasta for the first time in ages, year 12 just made me not bother but the difference between dried and fresh is massive.

My pasta drying rack...aka oven rack. Not going to post a picture of the final dish, it looked disastrous.

Saturday was another simple quick lazy dinner. Veal roast with vegies and garlic bread.

It was actually quite nice. Roasted radishes taste weird.

Cooking: Lasagna

Easy to say, hard to spell. Made this on Friday night. And yes I cheated and used dried lasagna sheets instead of making my own but I was pushed for time and in year 12, you seriously cannot be bothered. Wanted to make this after watching Hestons In Search for Perfection-Ragu Tagliatelle.

Best picture I took.

Presentation was the last thing on my mind. Should have made a super tall lasagna instead.

Ingredients: 

Bolognese:1 carrot, 2 sticks celery, 1 onion, 2 cloves garlic, 300g pork mince, 300g beef mince, 600ml tomato passata or 2 cans of tinned tomatoes. (for about 3-4 people)

Bechamel: My one failed. Some butter, 2 tablespoons ish flour, 300ml milk. (I think double this for enough sauce)

Dried lasagna sheets

CHEEESSSEEEE

Method:

Saute carrots, celery, onion and garlic until soft. Add in minces and keep breaking it up and browning until it's all separated. Add the tomato passata/tinnned tomatoes. Salt and pepper. Simmer for 45 mins ish. Stir occasionally as the bottom can get stuck and burn. At 35 mins start making the bechamel sauce. Melt the butter in a separate saucepan. Add in flour and stir continuously for a few minutes. Then slowly add a little milk and whisk crazily (without splashing it everywhere) until flour and milk is combined, then add more milk and repeat until all the milk is in the saucepan. Simmer on a low heat until thickened like making custard. 

Then just spread meat sauce then bechamel sauce then pasta sheets and keep repeating. Spread the final layer with just bechamel and then sprinkle with a tonne of cheese. Bake for 45 mins or according to lasagna sheet packet. 

Hopefully yours will look better than mine. Vary the meat sauce by adding whatever you find in the fridge. 

Cooking: Tomato Seafood Marinara Spaghetti

Another dead simple recipe, very quick and tasty. Came home late and managed to make this in about 30 mins (From finding ingredients, peeling them, chopping them and cooking them and doing it slowly) with a bit of help from my bro. By the way, my bro cannot cook, if he had to live by himself he'd live off instant noodles, toast and fried eggs. Taught him how to cook pasta...or maybe the packet did.
Parents went out for dinner with family friends which let bro and I at home to make our own dinner.

Serves 2
Ingredients: 1 onion diced. 2-4 cloves of garlic. 1 carrot diced. 500g seafood marinara mix. Half a big (750ml) bottle of tomato passata (tomato puree. I don't ever buy those bottled pre made pasta sauces anymore, biggest rip off ever, and it takes the same amount of time to make your own). 250g spaghetti.

Method: Prep all the vegies. Cook pasta. In a separate pan, saute onions, galic and carrot for a few minutes until onions are translucent-ish. Add in seafood and cook for 2 mins. Add in tomato passata and season to taste (you can add in a few tbsp of tomato paste if you want it to be richer and add some chilli or dried oregano to you're liking). Simmer until pasta is done. Drain pasta and add into the sauce, toss until coated and serve.

I know it doesn't look the prettiest but taste pretty good. Especially when eaten on the couch whilst watching Jamie Oliver talk about junk food.

Cooking: Mother's Day Brekky/Honkie Style Breakfast

Decided to make a Honkie Style breakfast for mum this mothers day. Honkie breakfasts have a Western influence to it. My mum's favourite is Macaroni in Soup, Scrambled eggs, Bacon, Buttered toast and a honkie milk tea. However breakfast turned into brunch due to two things. 1: It took a lot longer to cook than I expected, thought I could do it in 30 mins, ended up taking 1h 30 mins due to my poor time management. 2: got home at 1 last night and went to bed at 2, tried to wake up at 9 but failed, unwillingly got out of bed at 10 to make brekky.

今天是母亲节，每年我都会为妈妈煮早餐。今年选了做港式早餐给她。妈妈在外面吃早餐一定会叫火腿通粉，炒蛋，烟肉，牛有多士和港式奶茶。如果我有得选择我一定会每天吃港式早餐，可是每天早上没有那么多时间做。
HAHA, my fail chinese xD Hope it makes sense.

Ingredients:
Bacon, Macaroni/Elbows (200-250g for 4 people), Eggs, 6 tea bags (lipton is fine, strings cut off, for 4 people)), 1 big can of asian chicken stock, bread, butter, condensed milk, evaporated milk, shredded ham (not shaved).

Method: (the way I should have done it)
Fry bacon a little bit under. Whilst bacon is frying, cook pasta according to packet. Put the 6 tea bags into a pot of boiling water and simmer until you're just about to serve breakfast (i know it sounds insane but u need it to be as dark as possible). Drain pasta. Reserve about 500ml of the pasta water. Pour the can of chicken stock into the pasta water and bring to boil. Cook eggs (however you want them). Add a tsp of condensed milk into each cup. Add about 1/4 of a cup of evaporated milk on top of the condensed milk. Stir to combine. Lightly toast the bread (honkie toast is always just toasted so it is barely even golden/yellow) and butter. Place pasta back into boiling stock. Place bacon back into pan to heat through. Ladle pasta and soup into bowls. Sprinkle with shredded ham. Place bacon, eggs and toast onto a plate. Take pot of tea and pour into cups through a strainer to catch any stray tea leaves. Serve all together.

I made a ham omelet instead. 

I like the idea of putting the milk into the cup first, whether it makes a difference I'm not sure. Just how some honkie people do it. Also evaporated milk makes so much of a difference. 

Unfortunately it didn't taste anywhere near as good as the breakfasts you get in HK and it was no where near as cheap. HK $20 can get you more than what I cooked. Thats about $3 aussie.

Cooking: Meat Lovers Pasta with Creamy Spinach and Sausages

Friday nights mean...I get to cook dinner. Today's dinner was anything leftover in the fridge chucked onto pasta.
Ingredients:

• Onion+garlic
• Carrot
• Tomato
• Bacon
• Meatballs
• Chicken Sausage slices
• Passata
• Zucchini
• Oregano

A lot of stuff just for pasta sauce, but it's a good way to use up all the leftover things. 

The creamy spinach was the best part of dinner, too bad there was only a tiny bit of spinach to go around. Creamy spinach which contained no cream, just butter and milk. 

Might make Japanese cheesecake again this weekend since it failed last time. I'll see if I have time.

Cooking: Spaghetti Marinara

Halfway through exams right now so really I should be studying.
Today I decided to cook creamy spaghetti marinara as the marinara mix at Safeway was almost half price. Took about 20-30 mins from start to finish.
Ingredients: Spaghetti, Marinara Mix, Cream, Onion, Garlic, White Wine

Tasted okay, wasn't exactly salty enough and the seafood lacked flavour. But the pasta sauce was really thick and creamy just how I like it. I think that's the way pasta sauces should be, especially cream sauces, just thick enough to coat the pasta. Unfortunately my family likes to drown their pasta in sauce, to the point where it is pasta sauce soup. I think a hint of chilli will make it that little bit better, next time I guess.