This weekend was fabulous. I went away with 7 women to Point Londsale - a gorgeous seaside town here in Victoria.
It was a last minute decision to go and I am so so glad I did. Some of these women I have known for 11 or so years - a couple were just new to me. I went with the expectation of having a 'rest' from my family and maybe a laugh or two. Can I just say, I don't believe I have talked or laughed so much since oh another weekend away I had a few years ago now Sydney with a completely different group of women who were equally as fun. What is it about women and freedom I wonder?
Anyway, we rented a most gorgeous
house in Point Lonsdale called Illoura. It was stunning!
Friday night, we stayed up chatting, giggling, guffawing, drinking until about 2.30am. Saturday morning some of the women made a gorgeous hot breakfast then we all went out to explore the town. Some went to a Day Spa and others (like me) wandered the town, had coffee and shoppped.
Back to the house and we prepared dinner - I had already prepared a Chicken Curry, another woman cooked us Tandoori Chicken and Spinach Pizzas. We had Vegetable Curry and rotis. We were stuffed full by the end but not too stuffed that we couldn't enjoy the delicious Apple Crumble and icecream that another friend made.
We laughed and shared.
We left our lovely rental home and on the way back to the real world stopped at a superb restaurant called
Loam. An amazing and wonderful dining experience.
Loam is not a 'normal' restaurant where the menu has a list of meals from which you choose. In fact, the 'menu' is a list of ingredients. The waiter, instead of asking you what you want, asks you to look at the list and tell what you don't want to eat. I opted to not have Roe, Beef Tongue, Mussels and Squab.
Our wonderful waiter told us to treat this as a dining experience and as if we were going to dine at a friends place - you get a surprise in what you are served. Great idea!
We had delicious sour dough bread supplied by
Zeally Bay Sourdough from a local town, Torquay, accompanied by burnt, twice whipped home made butter. So, so delicious!
First up was fresh, whole radish served with coffee 'soil'. The coffee 'soil' was made up of coffee grounds, sugar and salt I think. Certainly something I would never ever select to order but it really was amazingly delicious!!! Who woulda thunk it? lol
Next was a selection of fresh pine mushrooms. Lightly sauteed with fresh garden silverbeet laid on a bed of pine needle yoghurt. Can you imagine? Again, no way I would order such an item but so tasty.
Next, all but two of us had Veal Rump, Spinach, Pearl Onion, Wakame and Black Garlic. I loved loved loved this!
Two of the others had the Beef Tongue, garlic puree, tomato and quinoa and they said it was delicious but I was having none of that! (It did look so yummy though)
Finally, dessert - Quince Parfait and oh my goodness!
Ingredients were Quince, Honey, Lemon, Spices such as ginger, coriander, nutmeg and cinnamon. So unusual yet absolutely sublime! Crunchy, home made honeycomb - yum!
We finished our meal, 3 hours later. The service was amazing. The food was stunning. It was a terrific experience.
So, I arrived back home after 6pm - a wonderful, fun and food filled weekend. Tired but relaxed.
