monika brand coconut jam

I always enjoy my Pascoe Vale Road Market forays and this was no exception. Before I went to the PVRM I had breakfast at Dairy Queen in PVR itself, this is a standard diner-type place with booths (pretty unusual in Melbourne these days) and a dumbass breakfast system which I have encountered before: you can't deviate from the set breakfast. So I started listing what I wanted (mushrooms, baked beans, egg, chips - basically I fast on Fridays) and the woman said that wasn't going to fit with the set breakfast. Well, I said, can I have egg on toast, with mushrooms, baked beans and chips as extras and a cup of tea? She said that comes to $8.50. The set breakfasts are in the $7-$8 range, and the egg on toast was $5.50, so I don't know how much the extras were but I suppose they were about 50c each. When the plate came out it was more food than most people in this world eat in a week. I think I might have once again been benefactor of the north-west suburbs opinion that if it doesn't have meat in it it's not really a meal and therefore it's an insult to charge meal prices (similar opinion to be found at the Broadmeadows Sporting Club). Anyway I did very well. I'd give the food a 6 and the tea - get this - an 8.

PVRM is largely good for its cheap and decent vegetables and fruit (the apples had white stuff on them which I assumed was not liquid paper but bird shit - so they had seen the sun and the wide open spaces!) I got some brussels sprouts, a personal private pleasure. I expect to be hungry again in about four days... I also got some Matamis Na Bao aka Coconut Jam from the Philippines. Ingredients: coconut cream, brown sugar and water. It tastes a lot more like toffee than I thought it would, but the 'serving suggestion' on the front is to add it to white rice, and I look forward to doing so. Also, some instant Vada Mix ('COUNTRY OF ORIGIN-INDIA') which I was attracted to as it is described on the box as 'Lentil Doughnut Mix'. I think I have had Vadas at the Indian takeaway in Flinders St. This box came with a free jar of Tomato Pickle (actually, I think it was the other way around, but whatever). Looking forward to cooking those up. It's just water and 'cups of mix (without heap)' and then you fry them in a pan.

Also I got an unreasonably large block of bulgarian fetta, and some anchovy fillets for Mia. And the bananas looked just right - a bit green at one end. I wish I was hungry.