Bahn Me?

It was a tough day at our place yesterday and it only allowed for a quick trip to the Nightcliff Markets - luckily though, the sissy went back later on a food run and picked up a Bahn Mi for .. me! From that stall - the one with the best pork sausage ever - comes the Bahn Mi - one of THOSE pork sausages, tucked into a crispy Vietnamese roll, lots of coriander, chilli, cucumber and carroty bits.. the sauce (what is it!!) oozes into the roll.. yum yum yum. I could eat 3. *burp*

Manoli's (again), happy greek easter, the best bbq pork sausage EVER and thailicious!!!!!

In case my pics come up all skewiff, they're of the Thai Food Fair here in Darwin. One day i'm gonna figure out the photo thing with this blog!!!!

Things have been a little slack at chickwithguts lately - the sissy has arrived from Perth and has been settling in, plus a bit of generalised anxiety and a mother-in-law visit have all been taking up a bit of time and space in my head. If i was a different person i would be furiously blogging away regardless, but i'm not, i disappear up my own ass. So i'll do a quick catch up instead:

Took the sissy to Manoli's for lunch last week, our first lunch visit - lunch very different to dinner. Some offerings on the menu that don't appear on the dinner menu - a home-made moussaka, spanakopita, all served up with a bit of uninspiring greek salad on the side. I don't know whether it was the lunch time ambience, my head, or WHAT, but it lacked the usual Manoli's magic. But then everything has lacked magic for me lately, so I won't hold it against them.

This weekend was Greek Easter, so we decided to do a bit of a greek-themed dinner party on Saturday night - everyone got very inspired, Hungry whipped up a very spinachy spinach and ricotta pie, the sissy a bit of her own made-up-recipe Tzatziki, I made a Horitiaki salad and the Dessert Doc made a greek rice pudding with some little citrussy orange shavings that rocked my world .... then we sat outside in the tropical humidity clutching our stomachs, pouring with sweat, so very very far from the Greek islands... MMM!

Sunday I took the sissy and the wee grrl to the Nightcliff Markets. I know I've talked before about a vietnamese stall there that does a lemongrass fish salad which is fresh and minty and perfect for Darwin.. well I was standing in line waiting to order it when the woman next to me ordered the BBQ pork sausage salad. An odd combo you might think, but this stall does the best BBQ pork sausages. Simple rice paper rolls are elevated to new heights when you stick one of these babies inside. So I decided to branch out. Try something new. Create a new neural pathway. God it was good. SO good. Fresh. Cool. Minty. The sausage sliced into big rounds of porky goodness, nestled into the rice noodles. Meaty, but not unpleasantly so, and very very tasty. I have absolutely NO regrets about this decision, the sissy was so taken by it she had to get one too.

Later Sunday afternoon we joined all the other adventurous Darwin locals looking for a bit of Thai and Laos food fair action. These food fair fundraisers are held a couple of times a year at a civic hall in Malak (?) and they are sweaty stinking hot affairs where you can get Thai and Laotion specialties that you wouldn't find anywhere outside well, say, Thailand or Laos. There are always safe options like Pad Thai for sale, or things sitting in Bain Maries (yuk) - but the more adventurous souls cruise around sampling the real deal - like the steamed prawn and chive dumplings ... the fried chilli mussels... fish maws... the fish soup so hot that when i ate it my lips swelled up like i'd done a quick round with the botox doctor... yup. If you are ever in Darwin and see that one of these is on, you need to get down. The sissy and I spent a minimal amount of money for great food and then perched on the wall with what looked like the whole Asian population of Darwin and tucked in. Good stuff.

markety market

Its been too long and thats because ive been exploring the NT for work - went to Katherine, Pine Creek, Adelaide River and thought seriously about turning right in Katherine to head to Kununnurra!!! Food has been pretty ordinary since sunday, my last food photo day - we went to nightcliff markets as we do pretty much every sunday - in my experience markets can be variable in terms of godawful westernised asian food, but if you poke around Nightcliff markets and steer clear of that you can get some SILKY, YUMMY. GORGEOUSNESS ( i really put those words in to annoy my sister) ...errr i mean some pretty decent asian/NT food and here's what we got:

My mango, pawpaw and ginger juice from the juice stall near the orchid man: MMMMMMM

My vietnamese lemongrass tofu noodle salad with thai basil, mint, chili, cucumber, carrot and crunchy peanutty bits rice noodles from the vietnamese stall that, incidentally, my mate got food poisoning from (old eggs - why would you do it!!!) - easy to identify by the fresh rice paper rolls and banh mi: MMMMMMMM

Big Kid's nutella crepe from Ken's Crepes (Ken is famous for his Ken's Crepe's stall - you'll find him/them at all the Darwin markets except for Rapid Creek, usually with a massive line out the front - they do sweet and savoury crepes, even a bacon and egg hangover crepe): MMMMMMMMMMMM

Director Chick's Just Coffee medium iced latte with extra coffee beans (i can't speak for her, but as a mother of 2 kids who don't sleep a lot i would say): MMMMMMMMMMM

Some hours later... i came back to edit this cos in my excitement i forgot to put directions to the markets :-)

Where: Nightcliff Markets, Nightcliff, NT

When: Every Sunday from 8am- 2pm