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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Breakfast @ Seven Seeds

Visiting La Latteria gives us a good excuse to visit some of the neighbouring cafes especially since it doesn't open until 9am. This week we popped in to Seven Seeds which even at this early hour was surprisingly busy.

For breakfast we ordered

seven seeds© by Haalo

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Dinner @ Maze Grill

Our Maze experience continues with a late dinner booking at Maze Grill and we've got a prime position, right at the front to get a perfect view of the Kitchen.

Maze Grill© by Haalo

Lunch @ Maze

You'd have to be in a cave somewhere not to know that Maze has opened in Melbourne and it's certainly been at the centre of some rather dubious reporting.

I've been a bit bewildered at the attitude of the professional reviewers. I don't know how professional it is to go to review a place with a mind set that you want to rip it apart. Worse still, all this angst isn't based on the food being served, or the people in the kitchen, or the people on the floor, it's directed at a person that isn't ever there. It was then disappointing to see that this attitude had seeped into the blogisphere, along with other mainstream vices, though that might be best left for another time.

Maze has been thoroughly scrutinised by many of our fellow EAT-ors - lunch and dinner, a la carte and set menu, I think between our crew we've tasted every dish. Some went during the first week, and felt while the food was excellent they had a hard time enjoying themselves due to the amount of flashes going off from neighbouring tables of food bloggers. It's a dimly lit restaurant at night, you can't take good photos, so give your fellow diners a break, your flashes are annoying and that is putting it politely.

This particular outing to Maze is in lieu of my failed birthday dinner. In fact we're even staying in the hotel and making a little holiday out of it.

maze melbourne© by Haalo

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Breakfast @ Collective Espresso

It's taken a little while but the kitchen has finally opened, so breakfast and lunch is available to go with some of the best coffee you'll find in this neighbourhood.

The menu may be small, much like the premises but it contains all those standard breakfast offerings and if you don't feel like something hot, there's always excellent Noisette pastries on hand

collective espresso© by Haalo

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Dinner @ Rumi

J: Have you guys been to Rumi?
Us: Nope but we should
J: Can I come with you?

That simple conversation sees us heading to Rumi for dinner with J. He's a real food lover so a good night is assured.

Rumi has been around for a while now - the lebanese/middle eastern/persian food of owner chef Joseph Abboud has certainly had people talking, even Anthony Bourdain popped over for a meal when he was here last year. It doesn't seem to get the mainstream media attention but on a Wednesday evening, it is packed so they must be doing something right.

Menu choices are a la carte or 3-or 4 course banquet and naturally we've gone the banquet plus a few extra dishes. We start off with a round of Arak, served with ice and bottled water on the side and I might blame it for the colour cast of my first photo

Rumi© by Haalo

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Stop43

stop43


I've already posted about this on the Cook site but it's too important an issue not to also make mention of it here.

If you're unaware of the UK Digital Economy Bill and in particular Clause 43 then I must direct you to  Stop 43 where you can get the full details. If you think it won't effect you because you aren't in UK, think again and head to that link.

What is at stake are our rights, our copyrights, our moral rights. We as photographers should be the ones deciding how and if our work is used - it most certainly should not be left to government.

The bill sets out to deal with, amongst many things, the issue of Orphan Works. Orphan works are works for which no owner/creator can be found and without finding an owner these works have been unable to be exploited.

In comes the UK Digital Economy Bill to bulldoze its way through that impasse.

The crux of Clause 43 is this
if someone finds your photograph, wants to use it and decides that they can’t trace you, they can do whatever they like with it after paying an arbitrary fee to a UK Government-appointed “licensing body”
Read that and then read again - they can do WHATEVER they like with your work. You may be thinking well my work isn't an orphan, I have identification on it this won't effect me - you're in for a nasty surprise.

There's now something called Extended Collective Licensing
if someone finds your photograph and can trace you, they still don’t have to contact you for permission to use it. They can go to a UK Government-appointed “collecting society” and ask them instead. They’ll pay an arbitrary fee and be able to do whatever they like with the photograph
This strips away any pretence of copyright - you'll have no rights. They won't have to ask and they don't have to tell.

All I can do is put this out there for people in the UK to see and take action on and I urge every other blogger to make mention of this issue on their websites so that their readers in the UK can see just how damaging this act is going to be.

If you are in the UK you must write to your member of parliament as the second reading of this bill will be held on April 6th - time is of the essence. You must stand up and have your voice heard.