30 before 30: #12 - spend time in Daylesford

Howdy bloggerinos. I may have taken a short spell of absence from the blogging world, but fear not, I have been slowly but surely working my way through my 30 before 30 list (only roughly a month to go - eeek!).

A few weeks ago, my beloved and I headed off to our favourite part of regional Victoria - Daylesford (and surrounds). We love this part of the world so much, that a year prior, decided to get married there. It seemed fitting that one year on we would return to celebrate the anniversary of this momentous occasion.

Our eatery of choice for a relaxed Sunday lunch was Mercato @ Daylesford - a contemporary, yet homely eatery only a short walk down the street from Daylesford's weekly Sunday market. We were early to arrive and snapped some pictures of an empty restaurant, which very quickly filled.

The meal was, without a doubt, one of the best I've had all year. I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Eye fillet of aged Kyneton Black Angus beef, sauteed mushrooms, kale, horseradish infused potato puree, caramelised shallots, cabernet sauce       42.50

Roasted breast of duck, truffle polenta, Swiss chard, pear salad, red currant jus     39.50

Roasted Brussels spouts, crisp Istra pancetta, hazelnuts      8.50

To round out the meal, we couldn't go past a date pudding, made all the more irresistible by the idea of ginger beer sorbet. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the combination of flavours in this dessert may be as close as I'm ever going to get to dessert Nirvana. My only regret? That I didn't insist on one of these all for myself!

Steamed date pudding, ginger beer sorbet, apple, salted caramel sauce      16.50

Suffice it to say: YUM!

After our delicious lunch we drove to Lake Daylesford and waddled our way around the Lake.

Now that we've done it twice, I'm going to proclaim that this walk is now an annual tradition. We even stopped on our way round (as we had a year prior) to take some shots of our favourite tree (oh yes, we have a favourite tree...we are *that* couple).

It gained preferred status, due to the rainbow of autumnal colours it bore on our wedding day. It was mainly a cherry colour all over this year, but still very pretty.

All up, a wonderful lunch and an even better husband. I'm one lucky gal!