Day off

First day off in 10 days. 33°. Hot. Note to self...must get a fan. It's pretty heady stuff in my room on the third floor. Maybe because of the heat, maybe because of all the coffee coursing through my veins from one of the new guys at the cafe practising his coffee-making yesterday, I awoke with the sun and went for a walk down the beach towards St Kilda.

Not that I needed more coffee in my system, but feeling the need to have someone else serve me food, I wandered down to Jerry's where the Jamaican barista always remembers I speak French (from being in there with French Karen) but doesn't remember that I don't drink soy lattes. I must look like a soy latte kind of woman, or something. Every time.

Errands in St. Kilda, swim in the outdoor pool in Albert Park, Christmas shopping in Elwood.

Then, buoyed by my successful independent-Jo Jo-dines-solo-and-also-does-cultural-stuff-alone Friday, I decided to go to my sister-in-law's brother's play in a pop-up theatre in Abbotsford. By pop-up, I of course mean temporary, and by theatre I mean primary school classroom. And seeing as I was over there, it seemed like a good option to try Huxtable, which is in Collingwood and so, just around the corner from the aforementioned pop-up play.

I looked at the online description for Huxtable and I am going to include it here. As far as I can tell, the following is just a collection of words...I find it very hard to know from these words what exactly the idea of the restaurant is or the kind of food one might expect...

"Huxtable is a collection of practices, observations, beliefs and experience accumulated over a many years in the industry and squeezed into one business model. When deciding what to apply to this model the brief was simple ‘All the things that work and none of the things that don’t.’

We believe we’ve chosen correctly.

Huxtable is a place where anyone can come and enjoy great tasting, uncomplicated food matched with wine and beverages that express consideration and experimentation delivered in an environment that is comfortable and easy to use"

Basically, what I think they're saying is "We make nice food. You should come and eat the nice food and, hey, have some nice wine to go with it and you and your friends will sit about having lovely times and chatting and laughing...ha ha..."

The best thing is, I think they were right when they came up with their crazy philosophy. The waitstaff were excellent, the chefs just quietly and efficiently got on with their work in the open kitchen, nice selection of wine and the food was delicious. 

Ideally, one has friends at a place like this so that you can get a few plates and share. The independent dine alone Jo Jo was slightly thwarted in this but what I did have was exceptional.

I started with tempura eggplant prawn fritter with shiso. Shiso is a little like a japanese basil, except it is a little more fierce looking than the innocuous basil. The fritter was crunchy on the outside with a delicious moist and flavourful filling.

Next was the quail with a green mango and cashew salad and roasted chilli dressing. Clean, fresh flavours. Melt-in-the-mouth little bird.

Dessert was a deconstructed version of cheesecake: creme fraiche cheesecake, strawberries, citrus crumbs and mango sorbet. Divine. Taste sensation. Over too quickly.

Then on to Abbotsford and possibly the world's first dramatization of Anders Breivik's massacre in Norway. The writer, Tobias Manderson-Galvin, who deserves fame, if only for his name, based his play on Breivik's 1500 page manifesto. Actually, T M-G deserves fame anyway. Some might say, "too soon" for a play about the events of Breivik's life which led to his shooting and killing young people at a summer camp on Natoya Island, and yet, The Economist successfully raises questions and addresses issues of the media's role in atrocities as well as the racial prejudice with which people view the world. Clever cast, completely in role and in the moment. Bravo.