Breakfast Series - Il Locale - my (not quite) local Italian

http://www.illocaleitalian.com.au/

For a long long time, one of my favourite breakfast spots in Brisbane was just around the corner from my apartment in the CBD.  Bordering on the City / Valley fringe is a little shopping complex that amongst other things houses the Valley Woolworths as well as a little breakfast spot called Tognini's Trattoria (see post here).  Unfortunately, as was the case once I started blogging about food, I stopped going to my regular spots so often, mainly so I could get out and experience as many restaurants and cafes as possible.

I was petty excited to learn that another restaurant owned by the Togninis had started a breakfast service, so excited that I decided that I had to get across and check it out.  I'd been to Il Locale once before, and that was for the opening launch party (see post here) which had been pretty good, but I'd not been back since.  Located in my old stomping ground in the Rosalie Village (I used to live just around the corner), Il Locale took over from my all time favourite pizza spot - Tomato Brothers, which unfortunately doesn't exist any more.

We'd decided that a breakfast with our very good buddies, Thommo and DruBoy was well overdue and that catching up over a nice breakfast in Rosalie would be a fantastic idea.  Our breakfasts with Thommo and DruBoy have become more frequent in the last twelve months and DruBoy and I have been branching out without the girls lately too, so breakfast is our new thing!  It was a beautiful sunny Sunday morning when we made our way across to Rosalie and surprisingly found that the whole area was pretty much dead!  It was puzzling to us as we remember the area as being a bustling hive of activity on a Sunday morning.

Lutece Bistro and Wine Bar - a truffle degustation from the French master

http://lutece.com.au/

There are not too many foods which evoke a pure sense of indulgence, but for centuries, black truffles have been sought out by chefs for their aromatic, earthy and indulgent flavour.  The French Black Truffle grows in the roots of oak or hazel trees, with the edible portion harvested during the winter months, usually by specially trained dogs or even pigs.  Once the exclusive domain of regional France, Australia now has a very successful black truffle season, which has enabled the once almost inaccessible fungus to have become almost mainstream.

I say almost mainstream because at up to $9000 per kilo, the humble truffle is one of the most expensive food substances on the planet.  In previous years, we'd always take the opportunity to add truffle to a meal when offered - which usually meant a supplementation of fifty dollars a person for a few shavings of the 'black gold'.  Even our most recent visit to Vue De Monde was elevated to our most expensive meal ever due to the inflationary impacts of truffle (see post here).

Even though we've always added truffle to a meal, interestingly, we've never taken the next step of attending one of the many truffle dinners that are invariably offered each year in Brisbane.  Well, that was until recently, when we were invited along to check out the Lutece Bistro seven course truffle degustation dinner by renowned French chef Romain Bapst.  Romain hails from Strasbourg in France but has lived in Australia since 1990, where he has worked in some of Australia's finest restaurants before establishing his little French bistro in Bardon.  Most impressively, Romain is the President of Bocuse D'or Australia, which is perhaps the most quintessentially French and prestigious cooking competitions in the world.