Friday, April 15, 2011

Favourite Things Friday

Welcome to Favourite Things Friday for this week. After a brief hiatus I'm ready and raring to get back into the swing of sharing my favourite things and I hope you are too. If you feel like playing along and sharing, just link up at the bottom of this post so we can all come to visit and see what your favourite thing is.

This weeks favourite for me was playing hostess in my home town. One of the best things about having a friend come and stay is getting to see your city through their eyes. So join me while I give you a tour of some of the sights of  that I shared with Marg this past week.

This is where I live. Adelaide. Home of the Festival Theatre, The River Torrens and one of the best cricket grounds in the world. Not that I care - I hate cricket.


No visit to Adelaide is complete without a visit to Haighs which is a chocolate shop/factory and naturally at the moment they're gearing up for Easter. The shop (and the chocolates) are Adelaide Icons. I really must get some more Hot Cross Bun chocolates...



Mmmmmmm Chocolate Peppermint Truffle Bars -my favourite!


 I kind of think of having a house guest  as a food free for all where you get to eat what you like every single day without worrying about how much calorie value it has or whether you're eating "right". And the Brown Dog is one of my favourite places to eat.



Yes-I ate salad. And it was delicious.


It's a great place to chill out and the food is fabulous.


Then it was  off  to the Central Market in the city. People flock to the market which is undercover because you can get just about anything there. I saw black beans Elizabeth! We were on a mission to get yummy things for dinner Friday night.





In addition to the Easter Bunny Australia also has the Easter Bilby. Here's the proof. That means we get twice as much chocolate as the rest of the world on Easter weekend.




And when we got home it was just a matter of throwing things onto platters and eating until we were full. Yum! Antipasto anyone? I love help yourself dinners.


This is Marg ripping the head off a Balfours Frog Cake. You may recall I have a particular fondness for these. She liked them too.


And while she was here I made sure she had some of the best Iced Coffee in the Universe as well.


On Monday we wandered round Hahndorf and had lunch at the German Arms (Sorry no lunch pics - too busy eating) Hahndorf is a town nestled in the Adelaide Hills that was settled by German people who emigrated to Adelaide in the 1800's. It's very pretty and has lots of German influences in the buildings and food. We had schnitzel for lunch, bought more chocolate, wandered up and down the main street  and hit a couple of tiny op shops.




Monday night saw us at one of my favourite cafes- Assaggio at Newton. This is their famous chicken vegetable soup. Yes - I ate healthy food twice in 5 days. Gold star for me! No pictures of dessert - I inhaled it too fast. Citrus tart in case you're wondering.  If you're here at any stage- Assaggio is a must.


Overall I had plenty of other places I would have loved to play tourist at with Marg but I guess we'll have to save that for the next trip! We packed a lot of stuff into 4 days.

So...if I came to visit you - what's the one thing you'd absolutely have to take me to see?


P.S. Would have taken a picture of our jail cell but the cops confiscated my camera.



24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Shea, I loved the tour. I wish we had an Easter Bilby. What is a Bilby again? If you came to RI, I would take you to Newport, a beautiful little seaport town and former playground of the rich. Now it is a playground for the rest of us, too. Federal Hill is also great and a must see for you since you like to eat out. Come anytime you'd like!

Marg said...

I;m coming back for the food.........
and of course to see you, just as long as you promise me I won't be arrested again, oh and the current charges are dropped.
Cant pick just one, Eumundi Markets would be a good place to start here, then Noosa River, great views and places to eat and have coffee. Oh and my verandah!!!!!!

Michelle Ridgway said...

Loved seeing all the pics of Adelaide. When we by our van at the end of the year we will be doing a bit of travelling so now I have the heads up on some great places. LOVED the CHOCS!! I would show you Highfields in Toowoomba and probably Maleny and Montville in the Sunshine coast hinterland

thea said...

I loved seeing Adelaide .. can't wait until I can come and visit (just a distant dream at this point...). If you came here, we could go to wine country, see the Golden Gate Bridge, go to Alcatraz .. there's probably some good food to be had in San Francisco too. Then there's Muir Woods with all the giant redwood trees. Lots of cool stuff.

Kate said...

Thanks for the tour, I lingered over the pictures of all the chocolate shop I think that would be my favorite place to go.

Ann Marie @ 16 Muddy Feet said...

Looks like a lovely place to live. I would weigh hundreds of pounds with all that fabulous chocolate around. Wow it looked so yummy!!! Schnitzel, you made me hungry with that one, I haven't made it in a while. Maybe this weekend now that you reminded me of it. Lets see if you came to Panama City Beach, we have the white sand beaches.......that is about all there is here.

Sara said...

Since you used to live here, I figure you've seen most of it. Might take you down to Donovans and the Glenelg River where I lived when I was little. If I had a chance to clean my room first I might invite you over to see my stash, but tidying up is still a work in progress.

vawriter said...

Shay, I loved the tour, but the chocolate pictures made me lick the screen. I managed to gain 3 lbs. and totally ruin my crazy-ass diet. Thanks.

I would LOVE to take you on a tour of Hershey, PA and return the
favo(u)r. And you would probably like Lancaster County and its Amish people who live and work as if it were still the 18th century. Lots of corn and cows here, so great ice cream. Maybe a trip south to Baltimore and the National Aquarium, too?

Regardless of destination, we'd have fun and laugh so much we'd snort wine through our noses.

Kirsten said...

Oh what a lovely tour. And thanks for the inspiration. I guess I´ll give you a spring tour of my hometown one of these fridays.

Three Birds Inspired said...

If you came to visit me I would drag you through Lancaster County to every quilt shop we could find. Then we would go to Lititz and wander through the shops with a stop at the Wilber candy factory to load up on dark chocolate. Lancaster County has vast numbers of family farms and the countryside is especially beautiful in the late spring and early summer. You just have to get used to the smell of cows...

Mistea said...

You're making me hungry - looks like lots of fun stuff to see there, oh and yummy food too.

Hope you had eaten before you spent time on the inside!

seabreezequilts said...

Don't think I'll play tonight I have a deadline I am avoiding. Love Central Market smorgas board meals. We use to do them when we worked in the city, everyone would put in $5 and we would put on a feast. What would I show you about Adelaide I don't know....lunch down at the kiosk at Grange maybe, Leanne tells me High Tea at the Revolving Restaurant at Glenelg is pretty special.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the visit. I think I know how you like to visit any area...food, food and more food.
In our area of Ontario, it's best to visit late summer or early fall, all the wineries are in full operation, the fruit and veggies are just perfectly ripe the little cheese factories have distributed their cheeses, so life is good here too!

Anne said...

OMG I didn't realise it was you in the naughty corner until I got home today and caught up with blogs on google reader! I was in the class at Hettie's last weekend too. I've followed your blog for the last year or so and laugh out loud regularly. Loved the class and can't wait to do more of it.
A couple of months ago I commented and you directed me to Crossroads so thanks for that and the laughs.
Cheers
Anne

Anonymous said...

To truly experience the town where I live, there is one restaurant everyone must go to. We take people there whenever they come into town for a visit. It's called Mellow Mushroom (or, "the Mellow"). It is the one place where you can see the three-piece suits mixing with the tatooed and dread-locked, the families with small children, pigeons (if you eat outside), the Senior Citizens and the teens. Everyone together in one place. They have great sandwiches, pizza, calzones, interesting art and artifacts on the walls, and, most of the time, good music playing over the loud speakers. Whenever anyone comes to visit, that's where we take them. It truly shows the mixing of subcultures in this town.

Shevvy said...

Now I wish I had saved up to come out there.

For me there are 3 places to take visitors.

Greenwich Park, see the deer, rose gardens, observatory, planetarium, view over London and play on the meridian line in the ground and try and work out if you are in today, tomorrow or yesterday.

For drinkers, a pub crawl along the south bank of the Thames from London to Westminster bridges. For none drinkers, the same walk but seeing things like The Globe and the Aquarium and London Eye.

And lastly, the best museum in the world - The Victoria & Albert ie. the V&A.

Elizabeth said...

See. I knew beans were universal.

I think my favorite part of your tour was Hahndorf. I loved the little peek I got of it. Then again, I might just have to make the trip to Adelaide so I can eat one of those Frog Cakes. Oh, and the chocolate shop looked amazing. What a lovely hostess you are!

If you came to Utah, I'd probably take you to Temple Square. Their gardens are spectacular, and there is a museum adjacent to that with all kinds of 1840's - 1900's ish artifacts. It was actually a home, and it still furnished as such.

And right here in my little town, I'd probably take you to eat at the Art City Trolley, which is a little trolley car that has been converted to a restaurant. They have the best salads. As a matter of fact, that is the only place I'll eat a salad. It's the dressing that makes it so good.

Well, I've blathered on long enough.

xo -E

Katie said...

looks like a good time.

Unknown said...

Beautiful pictures!

Shay said...

Oh Anne - what a pity we didnt realise that at the time! Im up your way next weekend staying with my parents. maybe we'll run across one another up there!

Anne said...

Hi Shay
We look like being away for most of Easter (leaving on Sat)but let me know when you head up here again and we could catch up. Maybe we could "show and tell" our projects from Kellie's workshop? Do you suppose they'll be finished?
Cheers
Anne

Kirsten's Cooking said...

This was a great post - and a fabulous FTF. I guess the pictures of Marg's hands "count" as a picture of her! :)

I don't really know where I'd take you - I guess out to our cabin in western PA, or to Phila to see some sights - or 2 hours south to Washington DC - or, like others suggested, to Lancaster and the Amish farms. Our hometowns is only known as the snack food capital of the world, but we do live about 2 hours from a lot of great places!

Vesuviusmama said...

If you came to visit, I'd have to take you to the drive-in movies - I just love them and there are so few left. Plus, the food is yummy, and I know food is important to you. I'm on vacation right now, and for me, that is a food free for all. Yum!

Baa-Me Kniits said...

Adelaide looks lovely! I visited there many moons ago so only have vague memories, I do remember counting the emu's on the Hay Plains that seemed to go on forever ;-)

If you came to visit me I would have to say the Reef wouldn't I??? Well I would take you to see a real Dairy...You may not drink milk ever again (I do) but it is fun to visit :-)