The Foodie Post - A Healthy Chocolate, Banana and Strawberry Smoothie

Hello hello :)

Today I have another "Foodie Post" to share with you!

I literally just whipped up this smoothie about an hour ago, and it turned out rather well (if I do say so myself), so I figured I should document it before I forget the recipe! 

(Plus I had a punnet of fresh strawberries from the farmer's market and couldn't resist the opportunity to photograph them - strawberries are just so photogenic!)

I used almond milk for this recipe (I've been trying to eat a little less dairy lately) and it tasted great! I find almond milk works really well for smoothies and gives them a nice, slightly nutty flavour. I also used frozen bananas so the smoothie would be nice and thick without needing to add any yoghurt. 

The cacao powder adds a nice chocolatey-ness, but needs a bit of sweetening so I threw in two dates which worked perfectly. Obviously you can adjust to taste - this is just what I happened to use today.

Ingredients:

(Serves 2)

*2 frozen bananas

*A handful of fresh or frozen strawberries

*2 teaspoons of cacao powder

*2 dates

*Approx 300ml almond milk (adjust depending on how thick you want your smoothie)

*Cinnamon to sprinkle on top

Blend together, sprinkle over a little cinnamon, and there you have a yummy, chocolatey fruit smoothie!

Hope you enjoy - let me know if you give it a try :)

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

PS: You could even turn this into a healthy version of ice-cream if you wanted to just pop it in the freezer for a while!

Melbourne Travel Diary - Day 3

As you can probably tell by now, Tom and I love our food (particularly breakfast food) and we tend to plan our days around where we're going to eat! 

We'd been recommended a place called

Chez Dre

in South Melbourne, so we caught a tram and headed off in search of this French-inspired patisserie/cafe. Located in a revamped warehouse, the setting was perfect and of course the food ended up being delicious! I definitely recommend the french toast if you visit! 

Once we'd stuffed ourselves with food, we had a look around the South Melbourne Markets, and then caught a tram to St Kilda where we enjoyed some sunshine while walking along the beach, before going in search of the famous Luna Park (admittedly just for the photo - we didn't actually end up going inside!)

Then it was off to Chapel Street for some shopping (at least that was the plan). I've already mentioned this in a previous post, but we ended up walking almost the full length of the street before finding the actually "shopping area", so by the time we actually reached this part we were exhausted! - It's a long street!

 It was really fun just strolling around exploring the area though and coming across cute little places we wouldn't have found if we'd just caught a tram. My favourite find was this little bookshop that reminded me so much of something out of Harry Potter. The bookshelves towered to the ceiling and were all higgledy piggledy, and there were cats just strolling around or curled up in a chair! 

We walked through the Botanic Gardens on our way back and it was such a beautiful place, although it was starting to get dark by this point  so we didn't get to fully explore it - we'll be back though!

We ended the day with dinner at

Movida

- a Spanish tapas bar. The food was seriously

so good

and I highly recommend it!

So that's it for our Melbourne trip! I didn't take many photos on our last day (but it was a pretty similar thing - lots of eating and walking around exploring!)

I've actually just bought tickets to see Taylor Swift in Melbourne in December so I'm excited to be going back in a few months (although still kinda annoyed that she's not coming to Perth!)

There's still so many things to see and do there, so if you have any suggestions for next time, I'd love to hear them! 

I actually "vlogged" some parts of the trip too and have been slowly putting the clips together  (my editing skills need a lot of work though), so I'm toying with the idea of putting that video up.

I love watching vlogs on YouTube so I am kinda tempted to give them a try myself... we'll see if that actually happens :)

Anyway, I hope you're having a fab day!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Melbourne Travel Diary - Day 2

We started off our second day in Melbourne by heading to the train station (stopping for coffee in Hosier Lane) to make our way to a cute little breakfast place called 

Little Big Sugar Salt

. I'll admit the only reason I picked this place was because of their Instagram photos, and luckily we weren't disappointed! 

The food was delicious - Tom's croque monsieur was the best, but my pancakes were pretty good too, and that blueberry (plus a tonne of other ingredients that I can't remember now) smoothie was so yum :)

After breakfast we walked around exploring the area and then of course had to do a little shopping!

We ended the night with dinner and a long walk (a

lot

of walking was done on this trip!) along the Southbank. A pretty awesome second day and a great way to spend my birthday!

The Foodie Post - Tropico North Beach

Today's scrumptious looking food photos are from a restaurant called 

Tropico North Beach

After seeing many mouthwatering, hunger-inducing photos on Instagram (thanks

@BreakfastinPerth

) we decided it was about time we checked this place out.

So on a rather rainy Sunday morning, Tom and I headed out for a drive and met up with our usual brunch buddies to test out this much hyped breakfast spot (they also do lunch and dinner, but as you know I'm all about the breakfast food!)

With a great menu to select from, a lovely atmosphere and amazing food that tastes just as delicious as it looks, we weren't disappointed. 

I struggled choosing my food (there were so many yummy sounding options), finally settling on the

Sourdough toast, smashed avocado and lemon curd

, on the proviso that I could also share Tom's

Banana bread with spiced banana, honeycomb and vanilla meringue

. Both were delicious and it was particularly good to have the mix of sweet and savoury so I'd definitely recommend sharing if you can! 

Their

Pineapple, coconut and raspberry smoothie

 was also very yummy and tasted basically like a non-alcoholic Pina Colada (which is always a good thing in my book)

Our friends had the

Tropico breakfast trifle

and the

Waffles with strawberries, dried grapes and mascarpone with a side of crispy fried chicken

(sounds like a weird combination but I had a bite and it was yum!) as well as the

Mango, passionfruit and raspberry smoothie

and they seemed very happy with their choices. 

Good food and good company - a pretty perfect way to spend a Sunday morning :)

The only downside that I found was you really need to get there early or you could find yourself waiting a good half an hour for a table.

For us it is a bit of a drive, and considering how busy it gets, it requires a bit of pre-planning in order to avoid anyone getting too hangry (something that we don't often do when going out for breakfast - it's usually a last minute decision) so Tropico won't become one of our regular hangouts, but we'll definitely be going back again at some point (there's still so many things to try!)

If you can plan ahead or don't mind the wait, its absolutely worth the drive and I definitely recommend checking it out!

I hope you enjoyed!

Let me know if you've checked out Tropico and what you thought of it.

Also, on a different note, does anyone have any recommendations of things to do in Melbourne?

Tom and I are heading there next week and would love some suggestions!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

The Foodie Post - Typika Artisan Roasters

Hello Hello :)

Today I'm sharing one of mine and Tom's favourite brunch haunts which we always turn to if we're stuck for ideas.

Typika

in Claremont never disappoints, and these photos are actually from a few different trips so you can tell we really do love this place!

As you'll see from the photos  there's clearly a favourite go-to order - Tom can never go past the

Wagyu Beef Burger 

(which I'm always happy about because it leaves me free to try new things and still get to have a few bites!) It is seriously one of the best burgers out there and the kimchi filling adds a special little flare. The bun is just that perfect mix of soft but still crunchy and there's something about it that reminds me slightly of a Hungry Jacks burger (but a really amazing, delicious, and good quality Hungry Jacks burger!) The chips it's served with are also lovely with some sweet potato ones thrown into the mix to make it even better.

The pancakes pictured above are just as delicious as they look, served with vanilla custard, poached pears, strawberries and a nut crumble sprinkled over the top. It's just a slight variation on the ones in the photos below which are actually hiding under a very generous amount of vanilla custard. The ones below are the

Cast Iron Pan - cakes

"a doughnut style pancake cooked in steaming hot cast iron", which gives them a delicious puffy crust . I'm not sure these were available last time I was there but they do change up their menu now and then so we'll just have to wait and see if they make a comeback.

My friend Alex is an Egg's Benedict connoisseur and we've actually joked that he needs to start up an "Eggs Benedict of Perth" instagram account he's tried that many places. The Typika

Eggs Benedict

get's the thumbs up from him so you know they're going to be pretty good.  

Pictured right down the bottom is their

Vegetarian Bagel

with roasted pumpkin, capsicum, dukkah,  caramalised onion, aioli and spinach. A very nice bagel and another good savoury option (but it doesn't quite match up to the burger or pancakes for me!)

Another of their staple dishes (which I don't have photos of unfortunately) is their

Golden French Toast

. This one is seriously rich - "french toast served with maple candied bacon and lashings of salted caramel sauce". A delicious one if you're feeling indulgent and have a particularly sweet tooth. I'd recommend sharing this one if you can and maybe having some sort of savoury option on the side!

Ok enough about the food, let's talk about the drinks.

Considering the name of the place is "Typica Artisan Roasters" it's not a surprise that they're mostly known for their coffee which they roast on site. I can't really comment on the coffee myself (I'm just weird and don't actually like coffee) but Tom tells me it's pretty good. 

For those like me who are not so fond of coffee, they also have a pretty decent selection of smoothies, juices and of course chocolate-y drinks - in particular their

Ice Chocolate

which (in my opinion at least) is the

best ice chocolate in Perth

.

I usually always start slurping it down as soon as it's placed in front of me, so haven't been able to get an amazing photo of it but as you can see from the quick snap I did get (pictured below), it's served in a 

mason jar

 (oh so hip these days) with a scoop of ice cream and a good sprinkling of chocolatey goodness on top. As I mentioned in my last Foodie post, I'm a pretty tough critic when it comes to ice chocolates and this one is seriously the best. None of that over the top sickly sweetness you can sometimes get, just perfectly chocolatey and yummy.

Seeing as we're heading into the cooler months I might be switching up my ice chocolate for something a bit warmer soon and I highly recommend their

Deconstructed Hot Chocolate. 

Served on a platter with a glass of warm frothy milk, chocolate flakes and melted chocolate it's also a winner. 

For those coffee drinkers out there wanting something a bit different, they actually also do an interesting

Cold Brew

which is served with a beaker of sparkling water and a glass of ice. This one's a favourite of Tom's in summer.

(I don't have a photo of these two at the moment sorry!)

In terms of the service I've read a few unhappy reviews on 

Urbanspoon

,  but personally I've always found the staff to be really friendly and helpful and for us the food has always arrived pretty quickly. The one downside is that it can get quite busy on weekends, so there is usually a bit of a wait for a table. We've never found this to be too much of a problem though as there's usually somewhere to sit and you can always order a drink at their espresso bar if you're really starving! 

Hopefully you're enjoying these posts - they're a bit of a change from my usual ones but it's fun to mix it up a bit. I'm not sure I have many Perth readers so these may not be particularly helpful or relevant, but who doesn't love looking at mouthwatering food photos anyway? ;)

I hope you've had a great day! Let me know what your favourite breakfast food is!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx