Category Archives: Food

Hogs Breath Cafe

Another thing that was a happy coincidence after eating dinner at Hogs Breath Cafe last night was they have their 21st birthday celebration on until the 21st August.

The 21st birthday celebration means if you eat at Hogs Breath and order one of their signature steaks, they’ll give you a frequent diners card for free that entitles you to 21% off your next meal at Hogs Breath. If you’re a current frequent diners card holder, you’re entitled to your normal frequent diners card discount and they’ll give you a Hogs Breath steak knife for each prime rib meal as well.

Since Claire and I have had Hogs Breath cards for a long time, they were still happy to give them to us so we signed up Lorraine & Sterle – fantastic. I’m now thinking we should go back before the end of the month, get a couple more frequent diners cards for some other friends that don’t have them and get another pair of steak knives!

Bumbles Cafe Surfers Paradise

Bumbles Cafe Surfers Paradise Gold CoastThis evening I was lucky enough to have dinner at a small, quirky Surfers Paradise restaurant named Bumbles Cafe. It is located on River Drive at Budds Beach and has a great outlook over the famous Gold Coast canals with their luxurious mega mansions and super sized cruiser style boats. The site was originally a convenience store and in January 2000 was converted into a small cafe with a handful of tables and a bench seat. Over the years, that has grown to now seat sixty inside spread across a split level floor and four general dining spaces, coupled with alfresco dining for forty.

By the look of it, Bumbles take a lot of pride in their menu and keeping it seasonal and fresh. We were eating from the menu of the month, which had three courses with 4-6 dishes in each section. I chose a lemon risotto with Morten Bay bugs for an entre, snapper on a bed of beans and a sticky date putting for dessert. All of the meals I had for dinner were excellent, well cooked and flavoursome. With so many other delicious options on this months menu alone, I can see why people return to Bumbles restaurant for dinner.

I’ve known about Bumbles as a cafe from 2004 when I first moved to the Gold Coast as it is walking distance from one of our offices, however didn’t realise that they had such an excellent dinner service as well. I would absolutely love to go back and sample some of the other items on the menu at some point, which will no doubt be different but equally as scrumptious.


Dark Chocolate Tim Tams

Arnott’s Tim Tams are probably the most popular chocolate biscuit in Australia, so popular in fact that one in two households throughout the country have a packet of Tim Tams.

Over the illustrious life of the trusty Tim Tam, they have undergone a number of transformations – none more popular than the original classic flavour and backed up by double coated Tim Tams and chewy caramel Tim Tams. Recently Arnott’s have added another flavour to the Tim Tam stables, Tim Tam Classic Dark.

I’ll eat just about any chocolate, white, milk, dark and everything in between but white and dark I have to eat in measured quantities. I wasn’t sure about a dark chocolate Tim Tam but decided I needed to experience it first hand and I have to say, I really like it. They’ve still got that familiar taste, which is enriched by a luscious dark chocolate however there are hints of an old school favourite in there, the moreish Arnott’s TeeVee Snack.

I don’t buy Tim Tam’s very often, I’m generally more of a Mint Slice type of guy but next time I do buy a Tim Tam – I think it might very well be a dark chocolate version!

Christmas

Christmas for 2008 is nearly over and it has been magnificent.

The day started a smidgen before 5AM due to the heat and by 5.30AM I had to get up. We were aiming to be over at George & Jude’s by 6:30AM to begin the present opening festivities – however we ended up getting there a little late by the time Hugo awoke and we organised him. As it turns out, when we arrived the house was still basically asleep and Cam, Tina & their kids hadn’t arrived yet either so we didn’t feel so bad. Once the kids arrived and we started opening presents, it was pandemonium – so much excitement and they were buzzing! We packed up some of our stuff and headed home at around 9AM.

Hugo went down for his nap when we arrived and as soon as that was sorted, the second of the ceremonies began. I munched down some cereal and savored a ham & cheese crassoint. It seems to be a bit of a tradition that the present session with the Buchanan clan goes off; every year the intention is to make it a little smaller than the last and a more metered but it never seems to pan out that way!

We worked our way back over the George & Jude’s for lunch with Andrew, Belinda, Ben, George and Jude and it was fantastic. Mum has been making the same style Christmas ham for a long time now and every time I eat it – it is positively delicious. Not wanting to go hungry, Jude had also prepared a collection of superb desserts – fair to say that we probably all ate too much but it is just so hard to say no to great food! Emily, Will, Anita and Oliver came over not long after we’d finished lunch to pass on well wishes for Christmas and we talked and caught up for the next few hours.

At 3PM, we made our way back over the Sterle, Lorraine & Grandma’s place where we chilled out for an hour or two. Conveniently, while the Lattimore family traditionally does a Christmas lunch, the Buchanan clan does a Christmas dinner. So with a couple of hours of recuperation from lunch, we got stuck into another excellent Christmas meal – which was followed by more scrumptious desserts.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised yet again by how tolerant Hugo has been with us today. We dragged him with us over to George & Jude’s early this morning for breakfast and he was presented with a mad house. We came back home to more people and then back over to George and Jude’s for lunch. He had his lunch time nap over there in a strange house, strange room, strange smell and didn’t seem to care one bit – which we’re obviously very happy about.

As an aside, one thing that you can’t take away from a small country town like Chinchilla, is that it doesn’t ever take long to get from anywhere to anywhere. While we were tripping about a little bit today between the two homes, which are on opposite sides of the town – we’re talking about less than 10 minutes of drive time. That is certainly something I miss about living in a city like the Gold Coast.

It has been a great day, lots of family, friends and plenty of decadent food. A bonus from Christmas day is that there is always left over everything, which makes for at least one day of excellent lunches and dinners. Bring on Christmas 2009 I say.

Continental Three Thirtyitus TV Advertisements

Continental started airing TV advertisements last year for their soup range and the theme of the ads was something they termed three thirtyitus. According to Continental, three thirtyitus kicks in at about 3:30PM when your brain starts to slow down, you start thinking less clearly and silly things happen.

So far I’ve found three of their advertisements on YouTube:

In the latest creation, a customs officer is searching a users baggage and is pulling out all sorts of interesting stuff from the bag like numerous bricks of cocaine. Paying absolutely no attention to the bricks of cocaine, the customs officer finally pulls up the user because he is carrying a multi-purpose utility; he flicks open the knife on it – which of course is tiny, and informs the user that this is unacceptable and he’ll need to confiscate it.

I’ve been unable to find a copy of it on YouTube so far, so if someone happens to find it – let me know and I’ll add it to the list.