TWO-KG

Mizuya, George St

2010-02-14T23:04:00.004+11:00

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR and HAPPY VALENTINES DAY everyone!

As I've promised K, I would make a post on my birthday dinner. To be honest, I have a very vague memory of what the dinner was like.. but I will try my best.

This dinner was for my birthday celebration, decided to try Mizuya out on George St because it was new, (or at least we haven't been to?). and interestingly, it was a failed attempt at trying to imitate Wagaya. the touch screen layout was exactly the same, (in a different colour), the seating arrangement were similar (but VERY squashy compared to the amount of space you get in a wagaya seat) LOL! and the food rather slow. Not a place I'd return to for another dinner. (aww sorry if it sounds really bad>< AHHAHA)

Anyways, to the food:

started off with a salad, smoked salmon I think it was? (looks like it.. XD) other than there not being enough dressing I guess it was okay. (but dressing is like the most important thing in a salad!!)

they had really pretty looking drinks. LOL yes, we ordered them because it 'looked' good, but tasted terrible, it had star signs drinks instead of monthly drinks compared to wagaya =O this was the capricorn drink, considering it was kiwi, I didn't think it'd taste too bad but after one sip, I didn't touch the cup for the rest of the night =) I should ask L how this tasted, because I seriously don't remember.

the other one was strawberry.. which was better. (a much safer choice too compared to kiwi! LOL)

and then we ordered grilled scallops, with cheese.. , it was very oily..

and then we went off to order something more safe, SUSHI! I mean, sushi can't really taste bad unless the sashimi is not fresh or the rice is from overnight or something!? HAHAH

and fried rice, which tasted very, CHINESE. ==" knowing that it is a japanese restaurant.

and I have no memory of what this is. some potato thing I assume.. some help K??? LOL! if you remember please add to this (I'm so sorry I'm such a terrible blogger)

after eating all those not so lovely food we decided to head off to seek for better food =) (unfortunately we didn't manage to eat another dinner. but we did buy some desserts?)

FROZEN FRUZ from World Square. =) as you can see K is already in the background having her spoon in her mouth. ready to eat =] tastes pretty nice and fruity. (I don't remember the flav anymore)

mission accomplished! 4 weeks delayed post. This dinner was on the 16th JAN 2010 =) hahahaha thankyou all for reading. (it's very rare for G to make a post!!! =D)

The Corn Exchange, Four Points by Sheraton

2010-02-07T13:37:00.005+11:00

Okay, so this was from Christmas, and yes we are in February...let's just pretend it's still Christmas LOL

So for Christmas we went to The Corn Exchange for some buffet lovin' and we had it for two for the price of one with the viva Sydney deal.

We ate seafood a plenty...

and made our own seafood salad too LOL!

had a bit of the hot food...

(sorry this looks unappetising.. it's got a bit of everything there, veggies, steamed fish, cous cous, etc etc...)

then finished off with a gazillion desserts, both festive and non!

The Corn Exchange

Four Points by Sheraton

161 Sussex St

Sydney NSW 2000

Ph: (02) 9290 4000

Miss Chu, Darlinghurst

2010-02-02T22:23:00.005+11:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been volunteering at the Mental Health Association (MHA). Well last week when I was there, Bec and I found this really cool place for lunch called Miss Chu. It's this little hole in the wall with a few stools on the side of the street and at first I thought it was a cafe. I still kind of think it's a cafe because it's got the buzzing atmosphere of a cafe and they do sell coffee hehehe

the awesome menu with a picture of miss chu's visa on the back

It was really busy when we got there but most people seemed to be getting take away so by the time our food came out the crowd had dispersed and there were chairs a plenty ^^ There's a bunch of Asian bananas hanging from the sheltery thing. It was quite amusing trying to discern whether they were really bananas or just some random yellow decoration thing...i changed my mind may times as to what it was before we crossed the road and reached Miss Chu's and confirmed they were, in fact bananas =]

I got the warm seared Tasmanian salmon and vermicelli salad (above + below). I was a bit disappointed at the lack of greens but found out pretty soon that it was all buried at the bottom. The salmon was cooked just right and slightly pink in the middle. It was a tad bit on the salty side though, mainly because the sauce wasn't mixed properly throughout the vermicelli so I had bits that were completely covered in sauce and some bits that were pure white.

Organic Chai Lattes $3.50

Bec got her Chai Latte first and the first thing she said was "THERE'S GINGER IN IT...It's nice but THERE'S SO MUCH GINGER IN IT..." I DID taste the ginger and I did agree it was nice but there wasn't THAT much ginger was there? We found out in the end that her's had actually had GINGER PIECES whilst mines only had the ginger flavour...I think they made them together but Bec got all the ginger chucks and mines didn't get any. But yes, it was a great Chai Latte - my favourite at the moment (because of the ginger - genius way of linking it back to the Asian food!) and because it's organic and because I think they used soy milk in it.

failed attempt to take a picture of the ginger in Bec's Chai Latte

Steamed Dumplings (Asian Vegetables with garlic chives) $4.50

There were two types of dumplings and Bec tells me one tastes better than the other (I foret which is which) but overall we both loved our meals and our chai lattes =] They also had these interesting looking desert things though we didn't have enough stomach space for it. We aim to try it this Thurs! ehhehe Did I mention that Miss Chu also claims to be the "queen of rice paper rolls"? I think we better check out that claim next time too LOL

Miss Chu

Shop 1/50 Bourke St

Darlinghurst

Ph: 8356 9988

Website: http://www.misschu.com.au

Open Mon - Fri 11am - 9pm

Sofitel Wentworth, Viva Sydney Deal

2010-01-27T23:18:00.003+11:00

Hey guys!

So a while back I stayed at the Sofitel Wentworth and it was stay one night get one night free with the viva sydney deal. It was a great way to take a break without the stresses of leaving home plus I wouldn't have otherwise been able to afford staying at a five star hotel so it was a great, short trip =]

mini bar in the room - it was sooo pricey!

We had dinner at the restaurant in Sofitel - Garden Court - which was also buy one meal and get the second one free but it wasn't that great. The service was quite bad and I didn't even bother taking pictures of our meals! We did get complimentary breakfast during our stay as well but it was the same bunch of people serving us form the dinner so we didn't enjoy it as much as we might have.

The high tea at the Sofitel was another story though, excellent service and the staff were really helpful - we waiter went and asked the chef whether he could accommodate another high tea stand even though we didn't have a reservation. Hawflake girl even popped by which was really nice coz it was sooo hot that day!

high tea stand for one

I've pretty much forgotten what was on the stand but all the food was quite nice. I had even more fun sharing the food or at least, trying to persuade people to eat it with me hehehe To be honest I think it was the company which made the food so good =]

Our stay also coincided witht he first night of the Sydney festival which was practically happening right outside the hotel!

acrobatic lady on a colour changing hot air balloon - the balloon was actually being pulled by people on the ground!

Staying at the Sofitel was really a great thing to do, even though I'm still on holidays from uni I've been even more busy that during the uni semester with work, summer school and catching up with friends - I have actually been quite stressed at times. I'm currently volunteering at the Mental Health Association, promoting the Stress Less Campaign which is all about sharing tips about how to stress less and to increase community awareness of the negative consequences of stress. The campaign is tied with a monthly facebook competition for the best stress less tip entry as well as a stress less tip of the month. For January it's "Sign up for that course, join that club" which I think is not only a great way to relive stress but to also learn something new. My friend Korkong girl has actually taken up this advice and she's going to a cooking class at the fish markets tomorrow! I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR PAELLA!!

If you've got a great way to relive stress and would like to share it with the rest of us I encourage you to enter the facebook competition. Up for grabs this month are vouchers for the Sydney Community College and double passes for Life is an Adventure!

Ice + Slice, Newtown

2009-12-30T21:26:00.006+11:00

HEY GUYS!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas =] Mines was filled with heaps and heaps of chocolate!! I kinda wish I'd waiting so I could have taken a picture of my stash of chocolate but I guess I didn't have the foresight to think of that. What I've done instead is make a dodgy collage of googled pics of choc to show you guys how much chocolate I've eaten these past few days (mind you, I ate it all myself).

Also got this from work except it was to be shared between everyone. I'm still very happy that it arrived on the day I was working so I got to see it in all it's glory! It's still sitting at work, half of the choc gone LOL

Anyway, I thought I'd post something up before the new year and what better way to end the year than with CHOCOLATE! ahahhaaa So Korkong girl and I went to this place called Ice + Slice a while back when we'd just finished our uni exams to eat dessert. We had the chocolate pizza (below) to share and it was sosososooooooo GOOD! The warm oozing chocolate and the aroma of the oven baked almond slivers and the cold vanilla ice cream were such a good combination!

It was REALLY messy to eat though, I dare say the messiest thing I've ever eaten. It was actually a bit traumatic trying to eat it all before the ice cream melted completely and on top of that I just got told that provisional marks for one of my subjects had just been released - OMG it was hectic. But it was still heaps of fun, Korkong girl and I even took pics of ourselves covered in choc and taking bites from the pizza, though you guys aren't seeing those pics =P

The mess we made - hehehe luckily I had wet ones =]

Korkong girl also had an Affogao al caffe (above) which was also quite good. She was instructed to stir it well and be careful coz the icecream would *explode*...haha - not really...

Well I hope you all have a safe & happy new year and eat lots of chocolate! hehehe

Ice + Slice

Gelateria E Pizzeria

135 King St

Newtwon, NSW 2042

Ph: (02) 9516 4595

website: http://www.iceandslice.com.au

MERRY CHRISTMAS =]

2009-12-12T22:00:00.004+11:00

lookie at what i got at work!! (above) one of the doctors actually baked us all a plate of Christmas goodies =] =] it was soooo good too! Especially the one in the cupcake patty (not sure what it was) but i couldn't get enough of it! The Christmas pudding thingy was soo cute and it looks so easy to make! i might give it a go myself hehehee

and raffaellos! ahahha someone gave my mum this and now it's mine! WOOT! i didn't want to cut the ribbon tho! amazingly i refrained from opening this for ONE WHOLE DAY! i got it yesterday but i ended up cutting the ribbon today ='( if only i could put the ribbon back together again, that would be awesome!

anyway i'm expecting heaps more Christmas treats and I hope you guys get heaps of treats too!

Blu Gourmet Pearl Couscous Stuffed Capsicum

2009-12-06T10:19:00.006+11:00

HELLOOOOOOO!!! LONG TIME NO SEE =]

I've finished exams and now on holidays! Even the exam marks have been released, 'twas a relief seeing that i didn't screw everything up *phew* and now it's time to get back to blogging *yay*

Okay so I received a pack of this new gourmet pearl couscous from Erin a while back and I have finally had the time to try it out. Pearl couscous is different from traditional couscous in that traditional couscous is about 1mm in diameter when dry but pearl couscous is much bigger coming in at 3mm - like a pearl =P Random note: I always thought couscous was a type of rice, but it was only through trying out this pearl couscous that I've learnt that it's actually a pasta! Blu gourmet pearl couscous has been toasted in an open flame oven who allows it to absorb liquid and sauces, making it jam packed with flavour whilst remaining al dente.

I did get some recipes along with the couscous but in the end I decided to use make up my own thing =] I did poke around on the internet for some ideas but I didn't strictly follow any recipe - I just used ingredients I liked and stuff that we already had at home.

Blu Gourmet Pearl Couscous Stuffed Capsicum

Ingredients

1 cup of gourmet pearl cous cous

4-6 medium sized capsicums

1/4 can of chickpeas (100g)

150g canned corn kernels

1/2 medium sized Lebanese cucumber

2-3 small button mushrooms

50g crumbled fetta cheese

50g sun dried tomatoes

1. Cook the gourmet pearl couscous according to the instructions on the packet (1 cup couscous to 1 1/4 cups water or stock), stirring occasionally.

2. Whilst the couscous is cooking, cut the tops off the capsicums and put them aside. Clear the hull of any seeds and don't forget to preheat the oven to 180C =]

3. Finely chop the cucumber and mushrooms. I did pour some hot water over the mushrooms so they cooked a little in hindsight I don't think that was really necessary.

4. Drain the chickpeas and corn and give them a quick rinse to get rid of the funny canned water taste.

5. Mix all the ingredients together with the couscous and season as desired.

leftover couscous mixture

6. Stuff the capsicums with the couscous mixture, replace the tops and bake in the oven for 20min or until the capsicum skins start to shrivel. (you can reduce the time needed in the oven by blanching the capsicums beforehand but I just let them cook in the oven)

*TADAAAA*

You could really tell that the couscous absorbed all the liquid, I mean the other ingredients weren't that heavy yet the stuffed capsicums were SO HEAVY! It did take me a while to figure out how I could best eat this, in the end it required a knife, a fork AND a spoon! LOL The couscous was really chewy and fun to eat, the texture was kind of like the pearls you'd find in pearl milk tea! I only used water to cook the couscous but I think they would be even more flavoursome if I tried using stock next time ^^ As for the other ingredients, they are all more favourite foods so I liked it all hehehe (except the chickpeas - I only put them in because a lot of recipes online seemed to use chickpeas. Next time no more chickpeas for me! LOL)

Chuck's Life Less Serious Champion Challenge

2009-10-29T15:00:00.001+11:00

Okay so I decided to take up the Chuck's Life less Serious Champion Challenge. There's $500 up for grabs and you get a box of Chupa Chups, a chuck doll and a limited edition Chupa Chups tee so why not? My entry category is art which I am noooo good at! LOL What I decided to do in the end was to take a series of pictures to make a little (kinda lame) story with my *art* in one of the pics...

Okay so let the story begin...

Hi, I'm Chuck, as you can see from the video below I am one sexy dude and very popular with the ladies ;) I'm so awesome I have my own website AND facebook page...how cool am I?!?

I recently got myself a date with this chick but guess what?!?! She wanted to go to the library to STUDY!! What kind of girl chooses to go to the library for their first date? Dude, she even fell asleep on me so I hardly even saw her face...

Well she can draw okay but that doesn't make up for the fact that I can't even remember what she looks like...

WAKE UP!! Man, I'm soooo not going out with her again!!

But everything is cool, my sexy looks and savy ways got me a date with another chick!! =] But OMG this one is no better...all she does is stare at me with that dopey look on her face...

Sigh* How I crave some more action...

Ohhhh yeah now this is more like it...two gals fighting over me...ooohhh yeaaahhhhhhh!!! I still have NO IDEA what the first chick looks like and the second chick still has the weirdest expressions ever but you've got to take life less seriously so whatever, I'm just gonna enjoy the moment~

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hope you guys liked it and hope you guys spotted my *artistic* contribution...I ACTUALLY drew that when I was supposed to be studying LOL! It took me aages coz I'm a really crap drawer! In case you were wondering I'm *the faceless chick* =P and a big big thanks to HawFlake Girl for helping make this possible (she's *the dopey chick*)

Just in case you were wondering I'm at the library (again) studying for my finals... everyone around me is working hard whilst I'm here, blogging ==

Sooshi, New Zealand Natural

2009-10-25T19:43:00.010+11:00

Hahaha ok, one more post before I decide to drown myself in lecture notes and textbooks!

The guys at New Zealand Natural have been nice enough to send me two vouchers to try their new product Sooshi. Sooshi looks like a regular rice sushi but it's made of real fruit and ice cream! Their fruit fillings are made to represent fillings you can find in real sushi with lemon presenting yellow peppers, raspberry - crab, blackcurrant - red peppers and apricot - carrot.

I managed to get a box of six a few days ago and they had two flavours in a box, I did find them to be slightly different to the pic tho. Instead of a white ice cream (the rice bit) they had fruit flavoured ice cream with matching fruit fillings. The 'seaweed' bit was pretty cool. It was those *healthy* versions of roll ups you had as a kid..the dried fruit strip things - not sure what they were called. But the 'seaweed' was really soft so I could bite it apart without really having to use my teeth.

I was alone that day so I found it difficult to finish all six by myself - it's a sign that I should have waiting until I had someone to share with - sharing is caring! =P Or maybe it was coz I'd just had lunch.....meh~ either way I suggest sharing with others! LOL I still have one voucher left so I will definitely be sharing the next box I get =] Any takers? =P

images provided by New Zealand Natural

You can find sooshi at your local New Zealand Natural for $1 a piece or $5.70 for a tray of six. For more info visit www.newzealandnatural.com or you can go to your local store and ask for more details =]

EDIT: hey guys! I found a site where you can get your own buy one get one free vouchers! Link HERE!!

Counter Burger, Crows Nest

2009-10-25T19:08:00.005+11:00

Hey Guys! I'm still alive! LOL This uni semester has been really tiring. All the staying up until 3 or 4am to complete assignments then waking up early to go to go uni/work has been taking on a toll on me. I haven't really had much chances to go out and I haven't been eating anything interesting, I'm just binging on snacks lately. I'm really disappointed that I haven't been able to go to a single one of the SIFF events =[ I know October isn't over yet but I've got exams coming up so I need to study! *cries* I decided I better make a post today before I start full on studying soon. For those of you reading this post thanks for not giving up on us LOL

This visit to Counter Burger was actually from a while back and I've been waiting to get some pictures off Korkong girl but it hasn't happened T_T So I'll just have to make do with the pics I've got on me.

Build your own burger!

Fanta Float

Apple Pie Malt Shake

I was set on trying the apple pie shake even before going but I still had my doubts...after all it does sound a bit weird right? Well it HawFlake Girl seemed to share my doubts except that when she voiced her doubts one of the guys working there heard! Ahhahaha it was pretty embarrassing coz he came over and said something like "hey, it's AMAZING, people come all the way here JUST TO GET THE SHAKE" LOL Well I ended up getting the shake and yes it was AMAZING and I've had 100000000000000 cravings for it since trying it. If you have a look in the pic there's a smaller plastic cup of the apple pie shake. The guy decided HawFlake Girl needed to know how wrong she was about thinking the apple pie shake was weird so gave her a sample =] Seriously, I could have not eaten anything and just downed two or three of those man! It was sooooo goooooooood!

"The Fifty-Fifty" - Fries and onion strings

We actually wanted the sweet fries and onion strings but sadly they ran out of sweet fries =[ They were still rally good though, especially with the dips (can't remember what they were!), I also dipped them in the sauce that came with my burger and mixed the different sauces together hehehe (I was one of those kids that always mixed up all the left over sauces and food).

HawFlake Girl's Burger

I dunno what happened to the pic of my burger...there's only one burger pic left =[ I think the pictured burger was a grilled chicken grilled onion, pineapple, lettuce blend and.....i can't remember the rest >< (this visit was before this hectic semester started! So that's at least 13 weeks ago!!)

I do remember what I had in my burger tho! It was a grilled chicken burger with imported Swiss cheese, roasted corn & black bean salsa (this was very spicy!), lettuce blend, tomatoes and capsicum with a country buttermilk ranch sauce on a hamburger bun. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm It was a really really filling meal and I ended up feeling sick afterwards but it really enjoyed it during the eating process hehe I'm definitely going back when the holidays come around but maybe pass on the fries.

Counter Burger

118 Willoughby Rd

Crows Nest NSW 2065

ph: (02) 9436 2700

website: www.thecounterburger.com

Happy Moon Festival =]

2009-10-03T15:47:00.004+10:00

You'd never know considering it's cold, rainy and miserable but it's moon festival today, like the actual day you're supposed to be outside eating mooncakes under the moon. Owelps, I think I've already eaten my fair share of mooncakes this year LOL I've had your traditional egg yolk ones, home made ones, pig shaped ones and of course the snowy mooncakes. The traditional mooncakes with 2 egg yolks are the favourites in my household so I really don't get the chance to try new things. However, I spotted these little beauties in the freezer one day...

Mooncakes in packs of TWO! (Tiramisu & Strawberry flavour)

YAY! These allow me to sample more flavours than one AND I don't have to force the rest of the family to eat them too hehehe

I bought them for $7 a box (of two) at my local Asian grocery store

Strawberry flavoured

innards

Woohooo! Lookie look! The snowy white outside and pretty red inside looks sooo much more prettier than the traditional mooncakes! It's all much lighter on the stomach than the traditional ones, making it a GREAT mid-essay procrastination time snack! hehehe

Tiramisu flavoured

Innards shot

This was Tiramisu flavoured but they might as well have called it coffee coz that's all I could taste (they DO have another coffee flavour tho! LOL) For those who know me they'll know that I'm not the biggest fan of coffee hence I liked the strawberry one much much more. I think I also saw lychee, red bean and the like flavours on sale.

Well I'm off to celebrate the Moon Festival now (not really, I'm just gonna go eat hahaha!) So I wish you guys all a Happy Moon Festival! =]

Spanish Tapas Restaurant & San Churro, Glebe

2009-10-01T13:39:00.007+10:00

Hey Guys!

I've been buried in uni work lately (and still am) but managed to go out for a little bit after uni yesterday. We were planning to go to Ryo's at Crows Nest for ramen but NOOO it's not open on Wednesdays =[ We ended up going to the Spanish Tapas Restaurant in Glebe instead and still had a great night! There was really dim lighting tho so all pics are kinda dodgy =[ the ones below are the least dodgy ones LOL

Avocado Salad $10.50

The avocado on top was really nicely presented but it would have been easier to share around if they actually cut it up completely but it was nice regardless.

Gambas al ajillo (garlic prawns) $15.50

These were smothered in garlic (yuuuuum) hehehe the prawns were a bit small but they tasted really good and crunchy.

We also had patatas bravas, cordornices a la plancha (grilled quails), chorizos and pincho moruno (lamb skewers) all of which i really enjoyed but no pics (sorry)

We then headed down the road to San Churro and shared the Tapas for 2 and Chocolate fondue! Everyone was groaning and a bit sick from all the food afterwards but I LOVED IT hahaha. But I would suggest getting either the tapas OR the fondue because they're really similar.

Tapas for Two

You'll get better pics if you visit the San Churro website and check out their menu.

A few funny incidents occurred last night involving babies and in a separate incident left over chocolate...hahaha it was a really nice way to kick of the beginning of the long weekend. But now I need to go an do uni work =[ Thanks to everyone who hasn't given up on two-kg yet LOL

Oh yeah! I tried the golden gaytime krusher at KFC! YAY! I luuurved it!!

Ok back to uni work now!

For more info pls visit the websites below

http://www.spanishtapas.com.au

http://www.sanchurro.com

Cupcake & Hamburger Necklaces

2009-09-20T18:32:00.004+10:00

LOL I'm back for a second bout of procrastination! I bought a hamburger and cupcake necklace from etsy recently. They came with a free pair of cutlery earrings =] Too bad i don't have ear holes! I still need to find an affordable hypo-allergenic chain tho coz I'm not sure whether the ball chains they came with are nickel free.

Oh and WHAT A CONTRAST! Mother Teresa holding the hands of a sick man juxtaposed with a hamburger and cupcake == If you haven't guessed already, my essay is on Mother Teresa (not that this really relates to food...), specifically it's on Mother Teresa's personality from two psychological perspectives. Hahahaha I'm REALLY procrastinating here!

Oh, and I found out my phone camera has pre-set white balance functions! It's making a great difference with the pictures I take at home when it's night time! The pictures don't come out yellowy any more (yay!) have you ever wondered why you don't actually perceive the colour difference with your eyes tho? (I mean like you don't really see things as yellowy when you've got the lights on at home..) THIS can be explained by COLOUR CONSTANCY, something we learnt in psychology a few weeks ago hehehe

ok, I'm really pushing it now...maybe I should get back to my assignment =]

EDIT 23/09/09: here's the link to the buyer i bought the necklaces from =]

Sara Lee Minis - Baked Cheesecake

2009-09-20T17:10:00.006+10:00

These are my new favourite snacks at the moment. They come in original, strawberry and chocolate flavour. At the moment my favourite is chocolate (coz it's the one i'm eating right now!)

chocolate

strawberry

original

There's 36 bites to a box that comes in two individual smaller containers (pictured above). Hahaha this is a very quick post to procrastinate. I've got two assignments due the coming week and not even half way through either of them.

WISH ME LUCK! Oh, and good luck with your assignments all you other uni students ^^

xoxo K

Hello Happy, Strathfield

2009-09-07T12:45:00.005+10:00

There's a new Korean cake shop in strathfield called 'Hello Happy' and boy was I happy when it finally opened! It's got a large range of western cakes - both in slices and as whole cakes as well as an array of asian breads (which I've yet to try).

There's also a seating area so you can sit down and enjoy your cake/bread with a cup of tea/coffee. I like their wall, very cute!

Fruit tart

The fruit tart was so pretty! Great variety of fresh fruits and the portions were generous too! Though I thought the custard could have been a bit better.

Chocco Chocco (I think?)

Haha this one had a funny name. I wanted it because it had half a macaroon stuck to it but the macaroon was a MAJOR dissapointment! It was the first thing I ate off that cake and it was dry and hard which made me worry that the rest of the cake wasn't that great either. But I mean they even decorated it with gold leaf!! It can't be THAT bad right? Yep the rst of that cake was good! It reminded me of the Christine and the 100% pure pleasure but this one was definitely cheaper and it had a very cute name (the name describes the cake really well - it was chocco! LOL).

Black Forest

I'm not much of a black forest person. I find that they are almost always dry and the cream artifical. I sneaked a little taste and it seemed to confirm my expectations although my mum seemed to enjoy it (she's a black forest person).

Overall the cakes are pretty decent, ranging from $4.50 - $6 or so a slice. I would recommend that you ask a friend who can speak Korean to go with you though. I'm not Korean, I don't even look Korean! I talked to them in English yet they responded to me in Korean which really put me off. In the end we made it clear that we weren't Korean which received looks of shock and an apology on our way out LOL

Hello Happy

(couldn't find a business card for further details)

It's located next to NAB near Strathfield Station

For 'Cake Order' call: 9715 6259

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANI!

2009-09-05T18:39:00.005+10:00

sorry guys, uni hasn't been very nice to me. We had a great dinner at Subsolo yesterday but i was't able to take any pics =[ the place was great tho, you should definitely check out their desserts! They had dulce de leche filled churros! How awesome is that?

here's their website if you wanna check it out

The 15 minute Leggo's Challenge - Italian Beef Casserole

2009-08-24T15:35:00.016+10:00

Okay so here's the challenge. Can you cook an Italian Beef Casserole to feed two people in less than 15 minutes?

This was quite some challenge for me, I mean I can cook but I'm usually quite slow at it and I've never tried - let alone make a casserole! But having been provided with the Leggo's Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce, courtesy of Nuffnang - I decided to take up the challenge! I mean, I'm sure I could do it with a bit of help from google...

Hahaha. I reeaally hoped so? The results of my googling revealed that the ingredients of a casserole were typically cooked on the stove before being transferred to the oven where it continues to be cooked slowly for an hour at the very least. It was then that I thought to myself 'OMG, what have I gotten myself into?!?! How am I supposed to bake it when I've only got 15minutes? Should I maybe just use ingredients that don't require chopping and just bake it at a higher temperature...' Hahaha, I really didn't know what I was going to do. My initial thoughts of making something exciting changed right there and then to making something within the time limit... Luckily, I eventually found out that a dish can be called a 'casserole' if it's served in a casserole dish and surprisingly, YES WE HAD CASSEROLE DISHES AT HOME! Phew, so I didn't need to bake!

I know some of you might be like meh, as long as you use the 'Italian Beef Casserole' sauce, then it's an Italian beef Casserole but I'm a stickler for technicalities, I had to get it right! When I received the sauce, I read the suggested cooking instructions and it didn't mention baking either - I was getting confident I could accomplish the challenge.

Okay, so here's my first attempt:

I call it 'K's Italian Meatballs and Mushroom Casserole' =P

I used meatballs for a few reasons:

- I've never had proper meatballs (yep, it's true!)

- I keep hearing about those IKEA meatballs which are supposed to sosososoooo good but I've never tried them before =[

- I WANT MEATBALLS!

Ingredients (serves 2)

1 pack of Leggo's Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce

1 pack of beef meatballs (300g)

1 onion

70g white button mushrooms

1 tbsp olive oil

mint leaves to garnish

Method

1. Start the timer!! Then dice the onion and halve the button mushrooms.

2. In a non-stick pan, heat the olive oil and cook the onions until they begin to soften.

3. Add the meatballs and cook until the meatballs are browned evenly.

4. Check to see how you're going for time.

5. Add mushrooms and Leggo's sauce then simmer until mushrooms are just cooked.

6. Garnish with mint leaves or herbs, serve in casserole dish.

7. Stop the timer and jump up in joy when you see that yes, you did manage to do it in less than 15 minutes!!

cooking meatballs

after sauce was added

finished product! yay!

Yep, I timed myself and managed to clock it in just under 12 minutes. I served this with toasted Turkish bread rolls which were very good for dipping. At first I tried to serve it as a meatball hamburger using the Turkish bread roll but it got too messy so I ended up just having the bread on the side. But this way I managed to mop up all the sauce! Mmmmmm. Oh and the meatballs, they were goooood! Soft but with a bit of chew, much easier to eat than actual chunks of meat.

If you look on the sauce packaging, they've done it with actual chunks of meat though and that looked pretty good served with mash. I decided to try it with diced beef too and see which one I liked the best. I basically used the same ingredients as above but replaced meatballs with diced beef.

finished product number 2!

I also made some cheesey mash (Got that idea from that cheese ad on TV!) but I cheated a little because of the time restraint. I didn't want to use those instant mash powdery things so I got frozen potatoes and defrosted & heated them in the microwave. Mashed them up good, adding some milk, butter and a good heap of shredded cheese. It wasn't the fluffiest of mashes but the cheese all but made up for it! =]

finished product number 2 with mash

It actually took more effort to make the mash than it did the casserole and it wasn't even the star of the plate! I ate this with Turkish bread rolls too because I liked it so much the first time and this time round it was even better!! I'd dip a chunk of bread into the sauce and plop of cheesey mashed potato on it too - yuummmmy! The beef was definitely not as soft and cool to eat as the meatballs so next time I'm gonna go with the first version but with a side of mash too.

So how fast can you cook an Italian Beef Casserole? Can you do it in less than 15 minutes? Find out by heading over to Nuffnang's site and grabbing your own free sample of Leggo's Italian Beef Casserole Simmer Sauce. (Want some more variety? You can also get Leggo's Simmer Sauce Pouches - which serves 2 - in Chicken Parmigiana and Tuscan Meatball flavours for just $2.39 at your local supermarket.) So put on your thinking caps, fire up the stove and let’s see if you can beat me at the challenge!

The Smokehouse, Surry Hills

2009-08-13T21:43:00.007+10:00

Okay, I'm quite tired and I've still got an assignment to complete by Monday so I'm gonna try and make this a short post...

So it was red_anz_flame's birthday. We took what seemed like a full hour's trek from Central to the Smokehouse ON AN EMPTY STOMACH! It felt like quite a long walk and by the time we got there I was hungry and tired but that didn't stop us from ooh-ing and aah-ing about the surroundings. We had high expectations after seeing what the palce looked like!

One of our party actauly had a DSLR camera so he was incharge of taking the food pics for me that night! Hehehe thanks again for the pics tofuboy!! I'm not sure what happened to the pics of the tasting plate for two but take my word for it when I say it was good. It included, but was not limited to (I may have forgotten some items) the following: smoked salmon, smoked cod fritters smoked eel on lime, salmon/trout smoked in nori, and some sort of wonton).

Here are the mains:

Sorry, I've forgotten what this was called...it was on the specials menu as one of the non-smoked alternatives. It was something along the lines of rib eye steak with foie gras sauce and potatoes. I managed a taste of this and the sauce was really good! The steak was cooked perfectly too though the potatoes were quite average.

Smoked crispy skin NZ salmon belly with caramelised escahlots and creamed sweet potato $24

Atlantic salmon cutlet lightly smoked, on green pea and chorizo mash $24

I sneaked a taste of this too *grins* and this was also very nice. WHen it says 'lightly smoked' it means just that. You could taste the smokey flavour but it wasn't overpowering and the flesh soft and yielding. We were really amuzed by the lemon wrapped in cloth - a very considerate gesture.

Smoked salmon, cod and leek pie $24

This was mines!!!! There were oohs and aaahs when we saw it arriving at other tables and there was much speculation of whether that was the pie I ordered or not. I was very happy when this lovely bowl of puff arrived infront of me which was followed by a very strong urge to poke it. It was like music to my ears when my fork plunged through layer after layer of light aromatic pastry. Enclosed were soft, warm, wonderfully-smelling chunks of fish *droools* The whole thing was really creamy and someone even mentioned that it 'smelled of lactose' (sorry lactoe-intolerant girl!) I really really really enjoyed this pie and would definitely order it again!

Soft shell crab with green papaya salad (can be served as an entree or main)

Overall this was one of the best nights out for me recently. Good food + good company + Bliss. Of course the birthday boy had a great night and loved our present which was a plus! Oh yeah, remember to check our their toilets when you're there - you'll be in for a treat! ;]

The Smokehouse

204 Devonshire St

Surry Hills, 2010

Ph (02) 9699 1155

website: www.thesmokehouse.com.au

Golden Stream Seafood Restaurant, Burwood

2009-08-07T22:29:00.003+10:00

BEHOLD - THE MOST EXPENSIVE MEAL I'VE EVER SHOUTED (SO FAR)

Whilst some of you might think 'meh' that's not that expensive, other foodbloggers have heaps of posts about hatted restaurants, degustation meals and what not - I am still a student so this summed up to a really hefty bill. I'm not quite sure whether it was worth it, considering I could have had a really degustation meal at a nice restaurant with the price I paid but it was way more casual and laid back here so I can't really complain.

Deep fried pigeon

You can't really go wrong with a deep fried pigeon at a chinese restaurant and these were just like any other deep fried pigeon I'd had - GREAT! Hot, crispy skin, soft, juicy flesh and because pigeons are pretty small, the breast was nice and moist too. You can just make out the pigeon bums near the parsley hehehe Anyone else hate the pigeon bums?

Oysters steamed with ginger and shallot

These were definitely the biggest oysters I've ever had. The shells were as big as my fist and they came out burried under a mound of ginger and shallots. Yum! These were cooked to perfection and I was sort of wishing we'd ordered more - we had two of these massive oysters each but I soooo wanted half a dozen to myself!

Yep, it was bigger than a tablespoon!

Lobster and vermicelli in clay pot

Last but not least - the star to the show - LOBSTER! The Lobster alone was 1.8kg, can you imagine how big the clay pot was? Well, according to my estimates, the circumference was atleast twice the size of my head. This would definitely be one massive feat if we finished all that! Did we?...

Nup!

That was what we had to doggy bag. It made for a very extravagant leftovers-for-breakfast! It actually tasted better the next morning because those were the bits at the bottom of the pot - the bits that had all the lobster juices soaked into it!

The size was everything in this meal. I think that I was paying for the sheer size of everything and the type of ingredients rather than a demonstration of cooking skills. You could eat everything here at any Chinese Seafood Restaurant but what stood out was its size. If you don't mind poor service and dingy surroundings and like your seafood big then this is definitely for you. But if you're after a demonstration of skill and great execution, food that 'tells a story' - a fine dining experience that may or may not fill you up, you'd best look elsewhere. Would I come here again? Of course! - But only if I'm not shouting!

Golden Stream Seafood Restaurant
242 Burwood Rd
Burwood NSW 2134
Ph (02) 9745 5039

Encasa Restaurant, Sydney

2009-08-04T17:19:00.008+10:00

Okay, believe it or not this is the third go I've had at starting this post. It's just that I had a really really good time with high school friends I haven't seen/caught up with for aaages and I wanted to make this a really good post. But considering how I never plan my posts, nor do I write very well - I think I'm just gonna stick with writing whatever that comes to mind.

We went about our dish orderings in a very organised fashion. There were two designated order-ers, a designated picture taker and well, the rest were designated eaters. I was one of the 'designated order-ers' which was really fun because I had a part in dictating what everyone else was eating that night! G was the designated picture taker (as I always make her do when we eat together =P) - thanks for taking the pics! hehe

I was really excited that night because I'd never had tapas before. I'd never tried paella before either and I'd seen enough wonderful pictures of pans of saffron rice with large morsels of seafood to be looking for a chance to order it (which I succeeded in - hehehe).

Potatas Bravas - Fried potato with garlic mayonnaise and spicy tomato salsa $8

This was the first tapas to come out and we were immediately hit with a nice garlicky aroma. We all described this as similar to wedges in both look and taste but of course these were better. They were less crunchier than wedges but the insides were soft and smooth. The mayonnaise was a hit and I loved the combination of the mayonnaise with the tangy, slightly spicy salsa.

Pan Campero - Toasted bread with goat's cheese and red capsicum spread $5

I would not reccomend this, the spread was really foul! It tasted like burnt capsicum and something unidentifiable. We ended up eating the left over toast with the remaining garlic etc from the torrades below.

Torrades - Toasted bread with garlic, fresh tomato and olive oil $4

The Torrades on the other hand was excellent. The waitress explained to us that first you rub the toast with a piece of garlic and make sure you get all the flavours out. You then do the same with the tomato, you follw that on by drizzling some olive oil on top and finish it off with a sprinkle of sea salt. The gals seemed reluctant to get their hands dirty so I ended up doing it all. It was quite fun actually and very tasty. I did rub the toast with quite A LOT of garlic on my own piece of toast so the first taste packed quite a punch.

Ibiza - Chicken, sun dried tomato, onion and olive pizza $17.50 (medium)

I don't think you can rally go wrong with that combination of ingredients plus they were very generous with the sun dried tomatoes. Yum yum!

Vieiras en Azafran - Scallops in the shell with saffron, shallot and cream sauce $12

This was one of the highlights of the night. The scallops were big and juicy and the cream sauce - though I couldn't really tell what was in it - was great! We didn't realise there were only four scallops to a plate so we had to order a second plate afterwards. I waited til the second plate to try it and scored myself two scallops because people were getting full by that time *woot*

Gallo - pasta w/ chicken, sun dried tomato, onion and cream $15

Yep, we (or maybe just the two of us who ordered) love our chicken and sun dried tomato! This was also a highlight and was gone in a flash. There were intentions of ordering another serving of this but we were already beginning to feel full and the paella had yet to come out!!

Beef skewers w/ capsicum, onions and olive oil

The beef skewers were actually on the specials menu so I'm not sure of it's actual name. This wasn't as exciting when compared with the pasta or the scallops and was slightly on the tough side.

Paella Valenciana - Saffron rice with chicken and seafood $24pp (min 2 people)

Last to come out was the paella as it takes 45min to prepare. We ordered a serving for two people yet we were still amazed at how bit it was. It doesn't look that big in the picture but trust me it could have fed four of us easily as a main. Maybe it was because I was already full. Or maybe I was expecting too much? But whilst the paella looked impressive, it wasn't one of the highlights of the meal. It just seemed to lack some oomph although I'm not sure how. The prawns were pretty big though and there was also a very generous serving of seafood including pipis, calamari and of course mussels.

Churros with chocolate dip

These were quite disappointing. Not completely cooked in the centre and the chocolate dip seemed more like hot chocolate.

Crepes with bananas, vanilla icecream and chocolate sauce

I must mention that only three of us shared the desserts. We don't intend it that way, I swear we didn't. The thing was, only three of us wanted dessert and the rest were kindd of forcefully persuaded into it. But they were too full so they'd gone off for a little walk and that was when our desserts arrived. I'd asked miss nitnitlau whether we were going to leave some for the others as I could see she was attacking the crepes with real gutso. I got a look that was a cross between 'are you serious?!?!' and 'stop disturbing me, i'm eating!' and eventually we sort of came to a consensus that we'd leave them some churros but we'd split the rest between the rest of us.

The other two kept raving about the crepes whilst eating it and we sort of had to fight miss nitnitlau if we wanted our fair share of it because she was shovelling it down her throat like there was no tomorrow! Yes the crepes were nice but I thought the actually crepe it self was a teensy bit dry.

Miss nitnitlau was very proud of the aftermath she'd caused

Leche frita (fried milk)

I was more looking forward to the leche frita and was not disappointed when it came out. Crunch golden bars of goodness covered with a dusting of cinnamon. The inside was soft, creamy, sweet - it's consistency more like custard than milk. And there were three bars of the awesome stuff - just enough to go around the three of us hehehe.

The others were confused and speechless when they came back and only a half eaten plate of churros was left. They proabbly noticed our faces of guilty pleasure and realised that they'd miss out on something good but thankfully not much was said. Sorry guys! But as miss nitnitlau said "they didn't want dessert anyway..."

Encasa Restaurant

423 Pitt St

Sydney 2000

Ph 9211 4257

bookings essential Thurs/Fri lunch and Fri/Sat dinner

for more info pls visit http://www.encasarestaurant.com.au/

First Taste Restaurant, Campsie

2009-07-30T15:36:00.006+10:00

There's a new Chinese place in town called First Taste Restaurant. I reckon they've got a pretty good concept going with their specialties being double steamed soups and claypot rice aka rice in hotpot as it's called in this restaurant.

I had to search online for the term "double steamed" as I hadn't the faintest clue of what it was in English. Here's a little wiki description for all you people still in the dark. I'm not too sure if double steaming and double boiling are the same thing as I'm seeing it being used interchangeably on Chinese sites with dogy English but I'll stick to the term "double steamed" in this post.

What's the difference between double steamed soups and normal chinese soups? In my opinion if you took two sets of identical ingredients and double steamed one set and just boiled the other you would definitely come out with two different tasting soups. The double steamed soup would have a more delicate flavour and you'd be able to taste every single ingredient - this would be the 'higher class' option. If you just boiled it normally you'd end up with a stronger gutsier flavour and the flavours of all the ingredients would integrate and you'd have to look at the soup remnants to distinguish all the individual ingredients used. Most chinese households just boil their soup and double steaming - as it requires more time and effort - is reserved for soups with more higher end ingredients.

The double steamed soups at First taste are only described as being "stewed with herbs" in English with only a few brief words about its ingredients. The Chinese description however not only states the ingredients but it also says what the soup is good for eg. sore throats, poor digestion etc, which is one of the main reasons why Chinese people make soup in the first place. Soup can be used to accompany a healthy diet and medications to help adjust bodily imbalances.

Pork and mushroom stewed with Chicken feet soup $3.80

I need a little help with translating the beneficial properties of the soup so I'll post that up a little later. This soup is not the "delicate" soup I associate with double steamed soups but I attribute this to it coming from a restaurant as homecooking as always more lightly seasoned. The pork was very tender and there was a hint of ginger which was not overpowering but enough to warm me up. The chicken feet could have been a bit more tender but still good.

Plum sauce spare ribs rice in hotpot $8.80

Beef tenderloin rice $8.00

Hot and sour noodle soup w/ chicken $7.80

My dad and I opted for the rice in hotpot whilst my mum had the noodles. Both the rice dishes were good but my mum wasn't as happy with her noodles - not because they weren't good but because it wasn't what she expected.

Unscraped bottom of hotpot

Scraped bottom of hotpot

To me, the whole point of eating rice in hotpot is to eat the hard rice stuck to the bottom of the pot and that's exactly what I did. My dad on the other hand did not eat any of the rice stuck at the bottom which I thought was a complete waste! I would have scraped the whole thing squeaky clean if my parents stopped me because I was seriously full to bursting point!

We also ordered chinese broccoli just so we had some veggies, a durian dessert aswell as a mango dessert, none of which I have pics for. Actually my dad ordered the two desserts for HIMSELF and they took aaages to come out. When they came out they looked like bowls of yellow muck! Both bowls were overfilled and the waiter probably had a hard time getting them out as both had spilt onto the plate underneath. Even though they'd already spilt some it was still so full that we spilt MORE when we put our spoons in. The desserts were pretty good despite their unappetising appearances but they weren't coldd enough. The mango dessert also had chucks of grapefruit and rockmelon in it which I'd loved. Oh yeah I know I said my dad ordered the two desserts for himself but of course the waiter didn't know that, so he'd placed the durian infront of my dad and the mango infront of my mum and I. Since the dessert was right infront of me I couldn't not try it right? Hehehe so my mum and I ate the mango dessert whilst my dad looked at it whilstfully after finishing his durian one in what was probably only 2 minutes! He managed to get his hands on the mango dessert in the end! LOL

First Taste Restaurant

233 Beamish St

Campsie NSW 2194

Ph 8065 3679

Please visit their website for other Sydney and Melbourne Locations

Christopher's Cake Shop, Surry Hills

2009-07-30T14:27:00.002+10:00

So my mum has this soft spot for millefeulle and me being the bestest daughter ever (*people start rolling there eyes in cyberspace*) decided to buy her some. It took me a while to google but I finally found this place called Christopher's Cake Shop which seemed to be of reasonable distance and price as well as looking pretty yummy! The internet tells me Christopher's is probably one of the oldest Greek cake shops in Australia and truely, the amount of greek sweets on sale is amazing! (They even sell them by the tray!) I've been to Christopher's twice now but unfortunately both times where when they were close to closing so I have yet to see their full range of cakes on display. I must say that their cake display was still pretty impressive near closing time.

Vanilla cannoli

The vanilla cannoli was dipped in sweet white chocolate. The filling was very minimally sweetened, with most of the sweetness coming from the white chocolate. I liked it like this as it wasn't too sweet and the vanilla and the white choc went well together.

Millefuelle

This was definitely the star! The cake was really heavy (weight-wise) for its size, promising that it was the real deal and none of that fake tasting cream stuff. The layers of pastry were nice and flaky and the cream was oh-sooooo-good! It sort of looked and tasted like the cannoli filling but I'm not sure why but somehow this was better. I only had a small taste of this (as it was for my mum) but it made me really regret not getting one for myself! The second time I went I bought one for each of us hehehe.

Almond shortcakes

By now I'm pretty sure you've noticed that everything seems to come covered in icing sugar LOL It was kind of scary seeing all the left over icing sugar...it conjured up images of a certain someone who licked the plate clean of icing sugar at our post-exam binge. I seem to have misplaced the other pics taken at Christopher's Cake Shop that may help it be come less of a yellowy/browny post but be ensured that they will definitely go up when I find them.

Christopher's Cake Shop

409 Bourke St

Surry Hills

Ph 9360 4878

open Mon - Sat 7.30am - 6pm

please visit their website for other locations and their entensive range of cakes

P.S. Did I mention they have automatic glass doors? This is one impressive cake shop!

Organic Cafe, Surry Hills

2009-07-26T00:13:00.004+10:00

Organic sugar!

After Bills with G, I met up with hawflakegirl and we went to Surry Hills. We were totally lost, tired and starved after wondering around endlessly and when we stumbled across Organic Cafe we surrendered right then and there. There really wasn't much of an indoor seating area so we opted to sit outside on the sidewalk (sometime which I've never done before!). The first thing I noticed when we were seated was the organic sugar! LOL

Organic Split green pea soup with smoked tofu and organic sourdough bread

Argh! I should have posted this earlier! Now I've forgotten how much they cost! This was very very very thick and there was a lot of pepper in it. It was warm, thick and firey, perfect for that cold winter day - and it was especially cold because we sat outside. I know it's a pea soup but it was really pea-y and I was all pea-ed out halfway through. The sourdough bread was very good with the soup but the one I had early at Bills was definitely better. There was little sign of this "smoked tofu" which didn't seem very smokey to me.

organic nachos avocado and kidney beans

I'm pretty sure that's not the actual name of the dish but my memory fails me. This was exceptionally good. It tasted way better than the nachos which you get in packets (the only type I've had!). You could really taste that they were healthier than the packet ones and it was surprisingly even yummier when you dipped it in the pea soup!

I think we overstayed our welcome - they were packing up the other empty tables and chairs on the sidewalk midway through our meal. They were really nice about it though, not rushing us at all which made us kind of feel bad when we left! Sorry and thankyou to the nice guy who we paid!! Thanks for the directions too! hehehe

Organic Cafe

487 Crown St

Surry Hills

Ph (02) 9319 4009

website: http://www.organicproduce.com.au/cafe.html

On a tangent this is the funniest thing I've seen in a while! I'm too sleepy to type up a translation but I'm pretty sure the visuals do the talking. BEHOLD AIR YAKINIKU for vegetrians or those too poor to eat yakiniku. (*hint*hint* this is the site I was talking about amy the great =P) Basically what you do is have a real bowl of rice and soy sauce with you infront of the computer (the source of the yakiniku) and you pretend you're really eating yakiniku. You can do it alone, with friends, with your date and even with your whole family!

N.B. It does take a while to load.

Bills, Darlinghurst

2009-07-16T23:37:00.005+10:00

So K & G have FINALLY eaten together again. Boy has it been a long time! We turn up at Bills and are greeted with a bright and modern atmosphere. We get seats at the large communal table and immediately start spying to see what other people are eating.

Big planty thingy on the communal table

I'm meeting up with hawflake girl later for lunch so we decide to get one big and one small thing to share between the two us.

Organic sourdough with jam

You can't see in the picture but there's a massive slab of butter between the two slices of bread. The sourdough was soo good with the butter and jam that I think I would have been content just eating that alone for my brunch!

Sweet corn fritters, roast tomato, spinach and bacon

I was really looking forawrd to this and it didn't disappoint. The corn kernels were sweet and juicy, and the bits of everything else went really well together too. We were shocked by how full we were, considering we thought we'd order just enough food for a light meal!

Bills hot chocolate made with Callebaut

G also had the hot chocolate which she allowed me to stir =P It was so fun stirring it and watching the milk turn from white to brown hehehe. G declared the hot choc very yummy although it got a bit too sweet near the end. I feel like I missed out without trying the hot choc! (That's my excuse to go again! Oh, and I still haven't tried the ricotta hot cakes which means I MUST go again right? =P)

For a complete list of Sydney foodblogs, please visit GrabYourFork!

Bills

433 Liverpool St

Darlinghurst 2010

Ph (02) 9360 9631

http://www.bills.com.au/restaurants/darlinghurst.htm

Glutinous Rice Balls/ Yum Cha Style Mochi

2009-07-12T21:18:00.009+10:00

Ingredients (makes HEAPS!)

3 cups glutinous rice flour

1 1/4 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

dessicated coconut to coat

oil for greasing

filling of choice

glutionous rice flour

1. Bring water to the boil then add sugar, stirring until completely dissolved.

2. In a large bowl, mix glttionous rice flour and sugar-dissolved water until dough is formed.

3. Add more water/flour if needed. When the right consistency, you should be able to break off small pieces easily and when you press your finger into the dough it should leave a visible indent.

4. Break off small pieces to desired size and roll them into balls.

5. Using your finger, make a "well" in the dough to put the filling. Make sure not to overfill it!!

6. Pinch the edges together, ensuring the filling doesn't come out.

7. Oil a large plate before placing the glutinous rice balls on it, making sure they are quite spaced out. (they do expand when steaming)

8. Steam for approx 8-10min in small batches.

9. Roll in dessicated cocolnut to coat.

10. Allow to cool before serving.

Seasame filling

Dark chocolate ganache filling

N.B. Best to refridgerate or freeze the filling beforehand to make it easier to handle. I found it the easiest to use chocolate ganache (which I made myself). I also tried using mashed banana, custard and coconut spread (found in asian groceries). You can keep the in the fridge in an air tight container for a few days but you'll need to microwave them so that they're soft.

This is the first actual receipe that I've postedd up and gosh it was hard thinking of and typing up each step!

Strawberry Roll Cake

2009-07-09T16:34:00.002+10:00

This one was bought at a shop called "Rainbow Cakes" in Strathfield.

And here's the one I made myself.

Botanica Brasserie, Sheraton on the Park Hotel

2009-07-07T16:49:00.008+10:00

Now who doesn't love a great two for the price of one buffet? Hehehe with the enliven your senses deal you can have two for the price of one buffet at both Sheraton on the Park (Bontanica Brasserie) and Sheraton Four Points Hotel (Corn Exchange). I don't know why but we've only had Sheraton buffet at Bontanica Brasserie and not at the Corn Exchange and this time was no exception...(I just checked it out and it's cheaper at the Corn Exchange, maybe it's reflected in the food quality?)

Prawns

Smoked Salmon

They had those glass thingys where you could only put your hand in to reach the food so it was a bit hard to take pics. I also totally fail when it comes to taking pics at a buffet, I only remember to take pics of my own plate but not the actual self service areas ==

Prawns & Oysters

The oysters were a bit of a disappointment. They were very small and I llike mines creamy, which these weren't.

Anti-clockwise from the bottom: Lamb rack, ricotta and pumpkin pinwheel, noodle salad, saffron crusted lamb, smoked salmon, pesto pasta, grilled mediterranean veggies

The ricotta and pumpkin pinwheel was definitely the highlight of that plate and I went back for it twice! The noodle salad was also pretty nice, slightly tangy, helping to cut through the richness of all the other stuff on my plate! The saffron lamb was okay but nothing special.

Not sure what I was trying to take a pic of here...

Desserts!

Icecream Teppanyaki

They had a whole slab of glass separating us from the icecream teppanyaki so I couldn't get a good shot with my meagre camera phone. This is like coldrock icecream but with a fancier name and less options to choose from!

You could choose from chocolate or vanilla icecream and the toppings included nuts, chocolate, m&m's, banana chips, marshmallows etc.

Vanilla icecream teppanyaki w/ banana chips

I was quite full by this time so went for simple vanilla icecream & banana chips instead of something richer. I think it would have been nicer if they had real banana as well as a selection of other fruits.

Fruits

I left as a very happy chappy, clutching my tummy! =] The desserts were definitely my favourite part of the meal though I am disappointed I only managed ONE creme brulee!

Buffet prices start from $90 (ie. $90 for two people with the enliven your senses deal)

Botanica Brasserie

Sheraton on the Park

Level 1, 161 Elizabeth St

Sydney, NSW 2000

Ph: (02) 9286 6650

La Renaissance, The Rocks

2009-07-02T23:00:00.005+10:00

47 Argyle St, The Rocks
Sydney NSW
ph: 9241 4878
email: orders@larenaissance.com.au

HELLO ALL! yes I know I've disappeared for a very long time =S LOL, I'm finally on holidays and bothered to make some posts.. and today I went to the rocks especially to buy the cakes at la renaissance! :D

ever since last week, when my sister ordered a cake for her birthday there, I always wanted to buy all these other ones, I wasn't a fan of mousse cakes until I tried the one at la renaissance last week haha for her birthday we tried the 'Larme de Gaugin' one, which was $36 and served 6

I know the colour isn't the best, =.='' because that day, we stupidly forgot to bring a camera, I can't believe it, we didn't bring a camera and it was like a birthday celebration ==" but anyways, so we resorted to phones.... and my phone was so smart it's battery decided to DIE! so yes, we had like pictures from everyone's phone and this one was the best one I could find of the cake LOL!

yes I know.. it looks very pretty, it tastes awesome too! The inside is a mixed berry mousse which is not too sweet, infact, its abit sour too.. which is perfect for someone like me, who don't eat cakes much because they always tend to be overly sweet...

and the outer layer is a very thin layer of sponge cake and we were all wondering why it tasted so nice and soon realised that it was the taste of almond ^^hehehe

so then today I went back to get more cakes HAHA single slice ones =D
and I couldn't get over the nice mousse cakes they have there so I bought three different flavours. the berry one (same as the birthday cake), passionfruit, and mango x strawberry

I bought the passionfruit one for my mum cos I don't really like passionfruits myself, I was more interested in the strawberry x mango one hahahhaa

they are so pretty omg.. ><" but I can't really blog about them yet cos I just got home not long ago and its pretty late at night so I'm planning to eat them tomorrow HAHAHA I'll edit this after I taste them and see which one tastes the best ^^~ ohh and they were $6 per slice =) eat in would be $7.

I also bought 2 macaroons - chestnut x greentea and dark chocolate
they should be really nice with coffee, even though I don't drink coffee... LOL and it's not as sweet as the lindt ones. =D

this is like a really really bad photo I took in the car =.=" and it was all dark... and look theres a mini version of the gaugin one for only $2.50! =P so cute ><" and then the oval shape one is coffee x chocolate, and a mini fruit tart, and the other one, according to the site it is: Tranche au Chocolate - Valrhona chocolate Ganache with layers of flourless chocolate biscuit sponge and pistachio nuts. (btw these are my friend's, but the macaroons are mine hahahah) I'll ask her what they taste like ... LOL when she eats them..

Lowenbrau Keller, Ton Ton, Azuma Patisserie and MORE

2009-06-25T13:15:00.017+10:00

YAY! I finally finished my exams! So what's the first thing I did to celebrate the end of the torturous hell know as exams? I ATE!

FIRST STOP: LOWENBRAU KELLER

Schweinshaxn (Over roast pork knuckle with Sauerkraut and Mashed Potatoes)

Hawflake girl and I already know that we're having the prok knuckle shared between us, I don't know about her but I'd been dreaming about it for aaaages LOL Sir CKWL couldn't stand the wait til we got there so he'd already eaten but still decided to try A BIT of our pork knuckle but ooooh he sooo didn't eat a bit! We ended up having to order extra mash to share because nothing beats Lowenbrau's mash and also because THERE WASN'T ENOUGH FOOD TO GO AROUNND!!! LOL

Extra side of Mashed Potatoes

Hehehe we weren't the only hungry ones that day, several times parrot flew in and tried to steal sugar. They were successful at it too! I don't know if birds are aloowed to have sugar or not but the cheeky parrots were SO CUTE!

Variation Plate (apple strudel, sticky date pudding, berry crumble and icecream with berry coulis)

Ofenfrischer Apfelstrudel (Traditional Warm Apple Strudel with Freshly Whipped Cream)

The apple strudel without the whipped cream! LOL This was the most lactose free dessert on the menu!

THE AFTER PIC OF THE APPLE STRUDEL.

*Someone* licked their plate clean of the icing sugar hehehe

I think all of Lowenbrau's desserts are pretty good, my favourites being the apple strudel, bier battered apples and the sticky date pudding (which I'd only tried from the variation plate). The icecream on the variation plate was really crap but the berry coulis was very nice, making up for the icecream.

We were clutching our stomachs and groaning when we left and I even make hawflake girl promise that she'd stop me if I wanted to buy cake later!

NEXT STOP: TON TON REGENT

Shio ramen

Ton Ton ramen

Kogashi Ninniku Ramen

Need I state the obvious and say that these were GREAT? they all look similar here though but my kogashi ninniku ramen (garlic ramen topped with black seasame) was defintely worth the frew extra dollars. The pork was sooo much more tender than the pork in the shio ramen. I'm sad to say I've only ordered noodles each time I go to Ton Ton. I will remember to try the other stuff next time!

THIRD AND FINAL STOP FOR THE DAY:AZUMA PATISSERIE

When I say Azuma Patisserie I'm talking about the cake display at the Azuma Kushiyaki in Regent (i.e. right opposite Ton Ton). This is my new found love at the moment and I think it will remain so for quite some time!

Strawberry Layered Cake & Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc $5.90

The Mont Blanc is a chestnut cream cake and features a shiny brown chestnut on the top. I'm amazed at the prettiness of the cake and smooth even piping on the outside. While I don't really like the chestnut itself, I think it's very nice visually.

Mont Blanc innards

That was actually the first time I'd had a Mont Blanc cake. Sure, I'd tried some chestnut cakes before but they were always the quare/rectangluar ones with the chestnut piping on the top and looked mor like watery poo than something you'd eat. The cream on the inside was very nice too but then there was someother sort of cream down the bottom, inside the pastry which was a bit weird. The pastry itself was very nice too.

Strawberry Layered Cake $5.90

This is definitely my favourite at the moment out of all the cakes I've tried at Azuma. Every single layer is PERFECT and the layers of songe cake were SO MOIST they were practically still wet! (Okay, that doesn't sound very nice but trust me, the moist-ness was AMAZING!) The pink layered bits you see were actually THINLY SLICED STRAWBERRIES which was a VERY NICE SURPRISE.

Saint Honore $5.90

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this was CROQUEMBOUCHE CHALLENGE. This was so cute I had to try it. This was slightly disappointing though. The choux pastry puffs tasted like they'd been sitting there for quite some time (it was the only one left when I bought it...) and the pate brisee down the bottom a bit too brown, it started to taste burnt =[ There was "the crunch" from the caramel on the puff pastries though, bring a smile to my face, reminding me of how I wished I was one of the judges the one eating Poh's croquembouche.

Mikan (mandarin) Nerikiri $4.50

These were so cute I had to try them too! LOL I'd never tried nerikiri before and whilst I didn't really like this, I know it was more due to personal preference than because it didn't taste nice. Nerikiri is a type of wagashi (Japanese traditional sweet) eaten at Tea Ceremonies.

The outside had a strong taste of mandarin peels and the inside was filled with red bean paste. I really liked how they did that little slicing of the manadarin the expose the flesh thing. They even tried to make it look like you could actually see the segments of the mandarin!

See the square container of white stuff on the left? That's soy milk pudding. I wanted to try that too but I thought I'd better not be too greedy so didn't end up getting it. Hawflake girl bought it so maybe I'll just wait and see what she says about it.

So that concludes my eating adventures on the last day of exams. Rest assured that I have not been starving myself DURING the exams though. Here's just a few pics from the during-exam-period.

Plum Quark Pastry (Luneburger)

Apple Triangle (Luneburger)

Unseeded Pastrami Roll (Luneburger)

Seeded Pastrami Roll (luneburger)

Smoked Chicken Bagel (Bagel House)

Assorted asian mushrooms hotpot (at home)

First attempt maltesers mochi (made my me)

Gosh they look terrible! But they tasted GREAT! I will try to make them again soon and post them up again along with a recipe.

Yum Cha style custard lo mai chi/mochi

These were my first attempt too. Additional pics and recipe to come later on.

Lindt Dolce/Macaroons

Me making wonton

Excuse the mess on the table...

Finished product

Sushi platter from Sho-ya

Sho-ya is a Korean owned sushi place in Strathfield. They offer *all sushi $3 per plate* everyday! Situated at Strathfield Blvd.

For more information about any of the places in this post please visit the respective websites.

http://www.tontontakeaway.com.au/

http://www.azuma.com.au/

http://www.lowenbrau.com.au/

http://www.luneburger.com.au/

http://www.bagelhouse.com.au/

http://www.lindt.com.au/1/4.asp

Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe, Sydney

2009-06-05T11:52:00.002+10:00

This is another enliven your sense meal two for the price of one deal. YAY! It was a cold and rainy night when we went and we were so glad to walk in and get away from the rain. The first thing that I noticed was the separate bar and dinning area and the second thing I noticed were the massive beer barrels in the bar area.

According to their site, Redoak Brewery is the *msot awarded brewery in Australia* and this is really emphasised with display after display of trophies and awards. All their food is matched with beer suggestions, they even have tasting plates that come with matched beers.

Vegetarian Tasting Board $20

The little schooners of beer were so cute and I thought that the actual 'board' was ingenious, there were slight depressions to hold everytyhing in place and they all fit perfectly.

From front to back (beer in brackets):

Sweet corn, red capsicum and chilli soup (Honey Ale)

Cous cous, vegetable loaf with beetroot hommus (Kolsch)

Polenta muffin w/ BBQ zucchini, tomato and Irish Red Ale relish (Irish Red Ale)

Roasted pumpkin, fetta and pine nut pie (Organic Pale Ale)

We were instructed to take a sip of beer first then take a small taste of the food then another small sip of beer and so on. The food would enhance the beer and vice versa. I'm no beer expert (I get Asian flush VERY EASILY so I rarely drink but hey, it is a *beer cafe* so why not!) so I don't really know if the beers were enhancing the food and so on! My favourites were the soup and the pie. The soup was all at once sweet, salty and slightly firey and I was quickly mourning the fact that there was so little of it!

The pie was also great, crisp pastry, a tad of fetta on top and pumpkin and pine nuts in the centre. We had a a bit of trouble eating it though! We didn't realise it was only a pastry top, the innards housed in a dish so we tried to cut the thing in half! We got a rude shock when the knife hit china! hahaha

Cripsy Skinned Tasmanian Ocean Trout w/ sauteed scallops, cauliflower mash and tomato & chive dressing $26

I had the Tasmanian Ocean Trout. The whole thing was great, perfectly cooked fish & scallops, nice dressing - everything excepting the cauliflower mash. The cauliflower mash was placed under the trout and it had a very distinctive fishy taste - not good. But apart from that I loved it!

Grain-Fed Beef Fillet on a potato, chive and Spanish onion cake with eggplant relish and peppered Oatmeal stout jus $36

The slab of beef was very thick and we found it slightly rarer than we preferred, but it was very tender and every last bit was eaten up. I really liked the potato, chive and spanish onion cake and I had a hard time trying to sneak more of it onto my plate! N.B. If you order the steak you'll need to wait 30min.

The lighting was pretty low but half way through the night they decided to make it even dimmer! Thus the next horrible pic:

Tamarillo Creme Brulee w/ Blackberry coulis and peanut brittle $10

The dessert was a bit of a let down. I really wanted to taste their famed beer icecreams or truffles but my Asian fllush had only settled down a while ago so I decided on the creme brulee instead. I couldn't taste the tamarillo at all and the creme brulee itself was very foamy and it wasn't set properly. The blackberry coulis was good and the peanut brittle smelled really nice. I'm allergic to peanuts so I didn't try the brittle but my mum tells me it wasn't that great.

Overall there were some great bits and also some not great bits but hey, it was two for the price of one!

Pretty cupcake display I saw at QVB that night

Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe

201 Clarence St

Sydney

Ph (02) 9202 3303

website: www.redoak.com.au

Grace Brasserie, Grace Hotel, Sydney

2009-06-02T14:14:00.008+10:00

I haven't actually finished blogging about all the places I went to during the "We Love Sydney" deal and now there's already another deal being promoted! Buffet breakfast at the Grace Brasserie was the first thing I'd had with the Enliven Your Senses deal and by, was it a good deal.

Buffet breakfast was $30pp but with the enliven your senses deal it was buy one get on free i.e. $30 for two people.

Earl Grey Tea

I started with a pot of earl grey tea but they also had coffee and an assortment of juices on offer.

Eggs Benedict

I'm not really a fan on poached eggs, mainly because I don't really like the taste of vinegar with eggs. Bu the eggs benedict looked really enticing so I gave it a shot. Yep, I still don't really like poached eggs but I think that those who like poached eggs would have really enjoyed this.

Eggs Benedict, Baked Beans, Mushrooms

Eggs benedict, mushrooms, sausages

The sausages were pretty good, they were veal sausages if I remember correctly =]

Scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes and cranberry juice

I really like cranberry juice! I couldn't get enough of it but it soon ran out and so I had to resort back to my earl grey tea. The scrambled eggs were oay but I think I could have made them better, these were sort of waek and runny.

Sausages, bacon, egg, salmon strudel

Hashbrowns, egg sunny side up, bacon, salmon strudel

The salmon strudel was something I'd never tried before. It was cripsy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, definitely my favourite for the day.

MORE FOOD!

Spelt banana cake, croissant, pastry.

I was so full from the savoury stuff I didn't really get a chance to try the sweet stuff on offer. I did try the spelt banana cake and croissant though and they were pretty nice. There were also cereals, fruits and other breakfast-y food on offer. They even had chinese pork buns! hahaha

Grace Brasserie

77 York St

Sydney NSW 2000

Ph: (02) 9272 6888

open for breakfast: 6.30-10am Mon - Fri

7-11am weekends & public holidays

Bagel House, Sydney

2009-05-31T13:08:00.005+10:00

As some of you might know, Organic girl and I have this thing for bagels. Well more llike Organic girl had this thing and she passed that thing to me (I'd never had a bagel before meeting her!) You might also know that because of this thing we have for bagels, we've done some crazy stuff. Well it was around then that Lil Miss Luv2shop told us about the bagel house, and now - at long last - we can say we've been to the Bagel House.

We were actually expecting a cafe but it turned out to be in the foodcourt but that's okay. There were heaps of choices, from plain to sweet to savoury, there were even mini bagels!

Mini Bagels

We all opted for the savoury bagelss as it was lunchtime and we were all hungry.

Club Bagelwich $7.50 (chicken, bacon, swiss cheese, tomato, mayo, lettuce)

Classic Salmon Gourmet Bagel $8.50 (smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, red onion, lettuce)

Chicken and avocado gourmet bagel $8.50 (smoked chicken, avocado, mushroom, cheese)

I was sort of disappointed when I unwrapped my Chicken and avocado bagel, mines looked pathetic next to the other two. But I quickly forgot this as the warm, inviting smell of bagel & chicken wafted towards me, telling me to stop taking pics and hurry up and eat it!

The outside was nice and crispy, the inside nice and soft (these were definitely softer than the ones I made). Chicken and avocado were made to be together and I love mushroom and cheese as well! They toast your bagel right after you order it so the whole thing is nice and warm andvery fresh tasting.

I'm definitely going there again. I think I might even get out of the house earlier one day and try a breakfast bagel before going to uni.

Bagel House Sydney Central Plaza

Sydney Central Plaza food court

(beneath Myer, opposite McDonalds)

Pitt St Mall

Sydney

for contact details, trading hours and other locations, please vist the Bagel House website!

Breadtop, Burwood

2009-05-31T11:42:00.005+10:00

YAY! A new breadtop has opened! One night my mum came home with a bag of breadtop stuff. There was a loaf of cheesy bread (it was unbelievably good!), a swiss roll, a slice of cheesecake and a tripe choc mousse.

Triple choc mousse

I'd had this one before and I didn't find it that great, it wasn't that great this time round either. The white choc on the top tasted funny and the whole thing was just too sweet for my liking. But it is nice to look at.

Cheesecake

I'd completely forgotten how much I liked breadtop's cheesecakes!! I would always buy it when Breadtop first came around but I had somehow forgotten about it. Well I won't forget again. Breadtop's cheesecake isn't very strong but you can still definitely taste the cheese. It's also really light and fluffy, I think if I had a whole cheesecake in front of me I'd be able to finish the whole thing myself.

That was the first time I'd had the cheese bread loaf. I wasn't expecting much out of it, being a bread loaf and all so I didn't take a picture of it but it was SO GOOD. The loaf was soft and fluffy, and the whole loaf was smelling of cheese. The were bits of browned cheese on the top of the loaf but the inside was even better. There were CHEESE SWIRLS throughout the loaf and I ended up eating THE WHOLE LOAF OD BREAD myself. I just sat there ripping chucks of bread and eating eating eating then suddenly the whole loaf is gone!

I've yet to actually see the new breadtop for myself but I hear they did a 85c thing and they've got drinks and a dining area now. YAY for new breadtop!

Boiled Coke with Lemon and Ginger

2009-05-25T02:31:00.002+10:00

It's that time of the year again. THE COLD SEASON. As expected, I catch a cold as soon as the first reports of circulating colds come about and in no time I find myself with a tap for a nose and throat as painful as the ones with the jagged discs in those strepsil ads.

I whinge and complain incessantly and force my mum to buy me some coke. You shouldn't be drinking soft drinks when you're sick, I hear you say? Well of course you can't have normal soft drinks but this is boiled coke with lemon and ginger! This is a popular chinese home remedy, the medicinal effects of which are yet to be determined! Nevertheless, you can find this concoction at every cafe in Hong Kong and it does wonders lifting a sick person's spirit.

INGREDIENTS (serves 1)

*approx 250ml of coca-cola (diet coke, pepsi and other brands of cola are not permitted)

*half a lemon, sliced

*slivers of old ginger (young ginger not permitted)

METHOD

1.) Boil coke with ginger for 1-2 minutes

2.) Add lemon slices just before or after taking off the heat (boiling the lemon for too long removes its vitamins)

3.) Serve whilst hot

A very easy drink to make and very effective in getting some warm fluids into the body. The ginger adds a bit of heat and it goes really with the lemon tang. I'm not sure why you can only use regular coca-cola for this reciepe - maybe this whole thing's a promotion idea made up by the coca-cola company?? I'm not sure why you can't use young ginger either - maybe just because old ginger is generally considered superior to young ginger?

Whilst I doubt boiled coke with lemon and ginger helped to cure my cold, it definitely improved my mood and warmed my cold hands. It's also one (if not the only) thing that actually be looked forward to when you have a cold!

Shu Shin Bou, World Square

2009-05-20T08:25:00.006+10:00

SHU SHIN BOU END OF DAY SALE! =] =]

You can't imagine how happy I was when I saw that sign! TWO DOLLAR MOCHI!! But then I looked at the usual prices ($2.75 each, $14.50/box of 4, $25/box of 12) and saw that the saving wasn't really that great. But still, a sale is a sale and this is a mochi sale!

I bought 5 different flavours and they were (L-R from the back) :

choc chip and melon, strawberry, blueberry, brown sugar and coconut, green tea

I was told by the sales assistant that there were two ways to store/eat your mochi.

1.) For a icecream-like texture: keep in the freezer and rest for 5 min before consumption (can be kept for up to 20 days in the freezer)

2.) For a mousse-like texture: keep in the fridge, can be consumed right after refridgerating (can be kept for up to 5 days in the fridge)

I had put mines in the freezer, wanting an incecream-like texture. I really savoured every mochi, not gorging myself on all five in one day (that's what I'd usually do) because I've been a bit sick lately.

Greentea mochi

I tried the greentea mochi first. I was sort of impatient, waiting for the 5min resting time so when I bit into it, it still had a few icy bits. The greentea and red bean flavours were very strong though, very nice!

Strawberry mochi

This was my favourite! I'd rested this one perfectly so there were no cold, hard icy bits and really did taste llike icecream! There were also bits of strawberry inside, adding a little fruity tang to it which I really liked.

Blueberry and choc chip & melon mochi

I was also really looking forward to these two but they didn't seem as great after I'd had the strawberry one. I actually forgot about these two after taking them out of the freezer so they rested for close to 30min! They were more mousse than icecream by that stage and there was this just-noticable coating of oilyness/cream?!? on my tongue that I didn't really like. Also I wasn't aware that the melon mochi actually had choc chips in it until cutting it open. I was expecting it to have an empowering melon scent like kasugai gummies so I was majorly disappointed when I couldn't taste any melon flavour at all.

Brown sugar and coconut mochi

Last but not least, the brown sugar and coconut mochi. I thought this was very interesting with the separation of the brown sugar part and the coconut part. I coudn't really taste the two dinstinctive flavours though, expect for the shreds of coconut that coated the mochi.

All in all, my preferences are as follows:

1. Strawberry

2. Greentea

3. Blueberry

4. Choc chip and melon = brown suagr and coconut

Shu Shin Bou

Miracle Supermarket

Lower Ground, World Square Shopping Centre

644 George St, NSW 2000

Ph: +61 402 551 082

Open 11am - 8.30pm everyday

http://www.shushinbou.com/home.php

Croquebouche Patisserie, Randwick

2009-05-11T23:00:00.003+10:00

Croquenbouche Patisserie

Shop 2

65/71 Belmore Rd

Randwick, NSW 2031

http://www.croquembouche.com.au/index.htm

Last time we walked down to Randwick we'd come across this place. The cake display was really pretty but unfortunately we were already pretty full from other amazing food! We promised that the next time we went to Randwick we'd stop by and get ourselves some cake! Of course we kept our promise! hahaha

Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture of the cake display so the pics ofthe actual cakes we had will have to suffice.

Opera $4.90

Truffle $4.90

We all had our eyes on the Opera cake but the individualist in me refused to conform so I got the Truffle instead! Plus it would have been boring to have three identical cakes in this post right? hehehe It was actually a good choice because the Opera ckae turned out to be TOO sweet whilstmines was still manageable despite it being so chocolate-y. I liked mines but I'd already had a lot of sweet things earlier today so I struggled to finish the whole thing. I was actually pretty relieved when I handed the cake over to more able hands (or should I say stomachs?)

N.B. You have been warned about the sweetness of the opera cake! Attempt it at your own risk!

Din Tai Fung, World Square

2009-05-11T21:24:00.009+10:00

Din Tai Fung

Shop 11.04, World Square Shopping Centre

644 George St, Sydney NSW 2000

Ph (02) 9264 6010

bookings are only taken for groups of 10 or more people

After a long and tiring day of uni, there's nothing better than a warm meal, good company and not having to worry about actually cooking the meal or having to wash the dishes. I was pleasantly surprised, getting a call from my mum asking if I wanted to go out for dinner tonight at Din Tai Fung. There was that enliven your senses - buy one get one free dumplings - deal so of course I said yes.

By the time we got there my mum, ever so considerate had ordered a few things so that we could dig straight in once we got there!

Steamed pork dumplings (xiao long bao)

The xiao long bao was the first to come out. Din Tai Fing definitely makes the best you can get in Sydney although the differences in the price you need to pay is also pronounce. The crab meat xiao long bao are even more tasty however I would definitely stick to the pork ones if you're not the type to just have money lying around randomly.

Individual Xiao Long Bao

Crab Meat Xiao Long Bao

Shrimp and Pork Shao Mai

The shao mai was pretty good too. I wasn't expecting this to have soup in it too so I tipped it upside down, intending to get the shrimp out. I was surprised when the shrimp fell out with a plop and immediately following it, all the soupy goodness! It was such a waste!!

Individual Shao Mai

Okay, and now for the noodles. Not only does Din Tai Fung make the best dumplings in Sydney, it also makes one mean bowl of noodles! They always come out al dente, snapping apart with every bite =]

Noodles mixed in broad bean sauce (Zha jang mien)

Noodle soup with fried pork chop

Hot and Sour Soup

Now don't forget the hot and sour soup! I'm not a big fan of bamboo shoots so this didn't sit that well with me. But I could tell that it was still good, not too hot nor too sour. But there was a lot of pepper and I felt like I was turning into a fire breathing dragon after just one taste.

The six dishes came to a grand total of just under $60 after the buy one get one dumpling free deal, making it slightly more affordable than it usually is. I urge all you dumpling lovers out there to hurry up and take advantage of this deal before it ends on the 31st July, 2009.

New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant, Ashfield

2009-05-06T23:38:00.004+10:00

New Shanghai Chinese Restaurant

273 Liverpool Rd

Ashfield

Want Shangnainese food? Look no further than Ashfield. Take a stroll down Liverpool rd and rather than having trouble finiding a restaurant that serves Shanghainese food, you will find yourself struggling to decide on which Shanghainese restaurant you should enter. Whilst the dumplings are no way as good as the ones you can get at Din Tai Fung, they are decent for the price you pay.

Won Ton Soup

Xiao Long Bao

Whilst the xiao long bao here are okay, I have actually had frozen ones that were better than this. Hehehe this is really saying something, but for under $10 you really can't expect that much.

Shallot Pancakes

I find that most places will usually get their shallot pancakes right and the same goes for New Shanghai Chinese. Hot, crispy, oily, shallot-y mmmmmmmmmmm. This was defintely the highlight of the meal.

"knife-cut noodles"

I'm not sure of the exact English name of this dish but it's literal translation would be "knife-cut noodles" although they don't look like much these were pretty good, my second favourite of the night.

Sorry, but I'm not sure of the English name of this dish either. I'd translate it as glutinous balls in sweet rice wine soup. I've always wanted to try this and coming at a mere $4 there was no excuse for me not to! I really likes the smell of the rice wine however I didn't really like the composition of tastes in general. I sort of think it was due to my immature taste buds, I'm not really used to any alcohol at all but I can see why this would be more popular with adults.

There was only the two of us so we really struggled to finish all that food. In the end we left the glutinous balls unfinished, not as big of a waste considering it was pretty cheap. MORAL OF THIS MEAL: Don't order more than you can eat just beacause it's cheap!

Laurent, Bondi Junction

2009-05-06T23:15:00.004+10:00

Laurent

Kiosk K107 Westfield

Bondi Junction

Okay, so what organic girl and I really wanted was a nice blueberry bagel with cream cheese. But sadly the joint we wanted to go to had already closed down and since I'd been wanting to try Sydney's Laurent after the Melbourne one, we gave it a shot. The Bondi Junction one was no where near as classy and stylish as the one in Melbourne, it was one of those in the middle of no-where shopping centre cafes but there were seats a plenty and very spacious.

We opted for one sweet and one savoury item to share between us.

Roast Beef Foccacia - A quarter of a tomato & ollive foccacia filled with slices of roast beef and cos lettuce leaves

I'm noticing that the description given on the site differs slightly from what we had - spinach instead of lectuce but what-the-heck it was still GREAT! It did take a while for it to be brought to our table but it was warm and cripsy, all the hearty smells wafting towards us *droool*

Castel - Hazelnut meringue, hazelnut cream and nugatine

This had the soft-yet-crunchy-yet chewy texture of a macaroon although a bit too sweet for our liking. Despite this it was gone in a flash and we were soon left trying to fork up the smallest crumbs, wanting more food hehehe.

Laurent is a bit costly, charging around the same prices as you'd expect from Lindt or Guylian but the food does deliver, and the more causal atmosphere of the Bondi Junction joint definitely suits me more than the more stylish, uptight Melbourne one.

Bagels

2009-05-06T22:43:00.003+10:00

GOOD GRIEF I've had sooo much food lately I dunno where to start. I think I'll just start from some of the more recent things and work backwards. I actually made a list of all the places/things I need to blog about and WOW there's stuff dating back to when I was in Melbourne which was Feb! LOL

So anyway organic girl and I were really craving bagels on day and so we went to Bondi Junction, planning to try out the Great Bagel and Coffe Co. but IT WASN'T THERE!! Hahaha we went crazy and made a REALLY HUGE DEAL out of it, involving calling someone with internet access up and googling all sorts of things for us - but to no avail =[

We ended up eating at Laurent but our bagel cravings weren't satisfied. So last night I stayed up until 1.30am making bagels! I used Nigella's receipe that NQN blogged about before and I was pleasantly surprised because bagel's don't have any lactose-y ingredients! =] So this is a great recipe for anyone lactose-intolerant!!

I got to use the dough attachment of my electric mixer for the first time and boy was it coooooool! I've kneaded dough by hand before and boy does the dough attachment save time! There was quite a lot of the mixture though and at one point I heard a *crack* and I got really scared that the mixer broke! Haha, don't worry, rest assured it's still working fine!

I didn't have much to work with though so I only made plain bagels.

This morning I sliced them in half and put them under the grill then slathered on the philly. I also put some homemade smoked salmon spread that organic girl gave me, along with it went a bit of lettuce and some smoked trout. Smoked salmon was ideal except it's more expensive and I like smoked trout too so meh~

My bagels that now look more like burgers!

Hehehhee they were yummy, I had one for breakfast today and two for lunch! I also made some 'mini' bagels for my friends to try, they were so cute! =]

bagel fillings

So my homemade bagels tempered our cravings for bagels slightly... but don't worry, the receipe makes 15 bagels so I've got plenty more for my breakfast and lunch tomorrow! We're gonna do Yala spreads tomorrow *woooot*

Corelli's Cafe; Dolce & Gelato, Newtown

2009-04-23T01:32:00.005+10:00

Okay, so I've JUST finished this craaaazy nine page psych report so I thought I'd reward myself with a bit of time on the net. What's the FIRST THING that comes to mind? TWO-KG! hahaha

I just got the pics from hawflakegirl and me's joint birthday party at Newtown (Poor English much?) So of course I immediately think of sharing them here =]

We had dinner at Corelli's Cafe (352 King st). I think this place would have been a cool place to just have a good hearty meal, relax and unwind, but it wasn't the best place to have a birthday party. (Sorry to everyone who had to put up with our noise!) But all in all it was a grat night! =] I can't remember the exact names of all the dishes but I do remember what they were =]

Chicken Parmigiana

Fish...hahaha i only say *fish* because due to current dietary constraints, machoboy couldn't have dressing or anything, just *fish*

Sirloin steak

Jamaican chicken salad

Pumpkin, spinach and feta tart

This was mines, I actually ordered a tomato tart but they told me when the food came out that they didn't do tomato tarts anymore and that it tasted crap anyway...meh~ i didn't want to make a fuss and this wasn't bad either so it was cool.

Grilled Haloumi salad

Chicken burger

Me swamped in wrapping stuffs.

The guys at Corelli's tolerated us for quite some time...hehehe and thanks for letting us cut our own cake and providing us with plates and cutlery =]

Then we moved on to Dolce & Gelato (318 King st) *woooot*

The nice people there found out it was my birthday because they saw my birthday badge so they gave me a corinthian wafer *yay* doesn't it resemble a cupcake with candles!?! =] I had kiwi and apple flavoured sorbet, don't you just love the green colour?

Okay, started from me (the one with the $10 note) and going clockwise: kiwi and apple, somethingberry, bueno, something i've forgotten, something and macadamia and last but not least peanut butter! Hehehe you can see people holding their spoons in this pic!!

I tried everything except for the peanut butter one (I'm allergic to peanuts!) and they all tasted great! The peanut butter one had the best raves though so go try it if you're not allergic! LOL

Gelato section....

Sorbet section.....

They actually asked that someone be in the pic if we wanted to take a pic of the gelato display. We've cropped ourselves out so as to not ruin your wonderful enjoyment of the icecream. The people were really nice there and there's a great selection of flavours including chocolate sorbet for the lactose intolerany!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

2009-04-17T21:50:00.004+10:00

I'm really supposed to be writing a results and discussion section for a lame pscyh report about how we can improve children's memory but then again, that's boring and this is fun hehehe. I just got off work a while ago so I will procrastinate a bit first =]

So it was my birthday this week and haw flake girl's birthdady exactly a week before mines! So to celebrate us and our group of B Pysch buddies went to Newtown to celebrate. I won't blog about Newtown yet (as I don't want to procrastinate too much) but I can definitely say this year was one of the coolest birthday parties I've had =] Seriously, Newtown is the place to be to have a good time!

I will leave you with a pic of my cool cool food-related birthday presents from my cool cool friends =]

WHO AND WHAT:

Organic girl: homemade nutella mochi (they were soo yummy!), agnes b pin, cool cool pacer with hand-stuck diamantes

The BFFs: Around the world in 450 recipes & The Chocolate and Coffee Bible (these are sooo good for procrastinating! LOL)

Haagen Daz girl: the cool cool tea pot set including teapot, tea bag holder, cup & saucer! The place we ate at had coffee mugs in the exact same pattern! HAHAHA

Macho boy: An OVEN MIT! (hahaha) and the Engrish book!

and last but not least...

Haw flake girl: SHE GOT ME AN ELECTRIC BEATER! Twas very very ironic as earlier that day we made our birthday cake BY HAND as we lacked electircal appliances!

Maybe I'll be back in another 15minutes claiming to have another small break (before I've even started my work! LOL)

*EDIT*

HAHAHA i came back! im soo useless! I forgot my birthday badge!

hahaha that badge is still on my scarf =P

Lim's Charcoal Barbeque, Hurstville

2009-04-10T22:15:00.006+10:00

374 Forest Rd
Hurstville NSW 2220
Phone (02) 9586 1582

hahaha so it's been a while since I've made a post... yes.. I know I'm sad.. LOL I've neglected two-kg, so I went out to eat on the first day of holiday!! yay for mid semester break.. haha and went all the way to hurstville for this korean bbq buffet! the price was reasonable, $29 for all you can eat =)

although I only went with one other person, I believe this place is better when it's some group outing. there's a great variety of bbq meat, and some cooked traditional korean food... it also offers food like sushi, fried rice, salads and other small things.. and theres dessert and fruits too! (but the cooked food wasn't as great.....and the icecream, tasted so weird.. but I guess you can't expect too much from a $29 all you can eat buffet ^^ ) the marinated bbq meat tasted great tho, esp the beef being so soft.. but some of them were pretty hard to chew.. (I can't really remember which one tho.. because I can't really tell the difference between the meat when they are raw =.='')

the service wasn't the best.. we waited very long for them to put the hot plate on for us.. we were starving... and I think they turn the grills down on purpose.. and took forever to cook the food! and I was starring at it hoping it'll be done soon cos I WAS SO HUNGRY >=\ but in the end we figured out how to turn it up hahaha =)

the range of traditional korean dishes... the things u usually get in the beginning when you go to a korean restaurant =D

hehehehe

not much choice for seafoods... only some squid, octopus and mussel.

here we have the range of the meat... I think it was the marinated beef that was the softest... =D or was it beef skirt.. =\ don't remember =.='' they look the same to me... beef! LOL! but some were so hard to chew I couldn't swallow it ><
waiting for the food to cook -.-'' it looks as though the hot plate is COLD LOL! not a single sign of food being cooked =.='' haha I was so impatient =.='' and after a very long time we felt some heat =]

and FINALLY I can eat! lOL! wasnt too bad... I was VERY FULL by the end of the meal LOL! like so full I couldn't eat anymore hahaha

some pics of other food I took when I was walking around =)

at first I saw alot more.. but when I went to get them... there were only these left =.=''

some salad and corn (haha grilled corn is nice!)

at first I didn't know what they were cos they looked abit..... o.o'' ahhaha and then saw ''rice cake'' LOL! didn't try.. .hmm..

sweet potato and garlic bread

I got these when I was waiting for the meat to be cooked cos it was sooo slow.. LOL! the potato noodles reminded me of the first time I bought them during high school years at strathfield.. cos people kept eating it at school =\ LOL!

overall it was a fun experience... but I smelt like smoke afterwards T__T" my poor jacket.. LOL! ><" food wasn't bad =D I prefer japanese bbq more though LOL! yes, I'm refering to suminoya.. hahahahah~~~ but suminoya is $50pp compared to 29 here =] I should plan to go to some more places this holiday ><" since I haven't been out much during the semester.. and I finally have my car back! so yea ^^

Bobby's Cafe, Darlington

2009-03-31T20:58:00.009+11:00

Bobby's Cafe

Cnr Abercrombie & Lawson St

(Near Redfern Station)

I couldn't actually any details about Bobby's Cafe online except for a comment someone left on smh asking people to recommed places with good coffee. That's where I got the address from.

So I'd decided to meet up with the usyd-er, have brekkie together and tka e atour around usyd too. The usyd-er suggests we go to Bobby's. She hadn't been there yet but it was recommended to her and whoever that was, I thank you.

It had a "Melbourne feel" to it. Hahahaha I dunno. It just had a bit more personality than the normal cafes you'd find in Sydney, or maybe because it was in the Redfern area. Everything there had what I now call "a Melbourne feel" LOL

Chai Latte $2.80

Latte $2.80

Our drinks came with Tiny Teddies!!!!!!! That was definitely the coolest thing hehehe This Chai Latte reminded me of the one I had at Cafe No 5 not too sweet, not watery. I was very happy =] =] It was just a shame that the sun was shining in the wrong direction and I didn't know how to take a nice pic in the poor lighting.

Vegetarian Omelette w/ white Turish bread $10.80

The food was pretty affordable compared to other Sydney cafes and considering the size. When our brekkies came out the first thing that came to mind was we're not gonna finish this, we should have shared LOL

When I saw my omelette was was like wow it looks like a face =] The bit of tomato looks like its' tongue sticking out hhehehe The omelette had tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes and and and..umm...OLIVES (hahaha thanks usyder for reminding me =]) But most importantly it was yummy, especially on my yummy toast...

Green eggs & mushrooms on toast w/ fetta $10.80

The green eggs were actually pesto eggs and that was very good too. You really can't go wrong with muchrooms, nor can you go wrong with fetta ao everything was great! Neither of us finished our meals which was kinda sad.... I had so much difficultly getting up and walking!! We then got up to pay and the usyd-er notices the tiny teddy stuck on the blackboard which was the second cool thing about the place (you might make it out in the first pic). See what I mean about the "Melbourne feel"?? You wouldn't expect something cool like that in Syd but that would have been sooo normal if it was Melb!

Oh and because I've been to Redfern now I also know that the Eveleigh Markets are actually there and pretty close. Not in some obscure suburb named Eveleigh that I hadn't heard of LOL But I work on Sats so I can't visit the Eveligh Markets!! =[=[

EDIT: here's a link to a list of some of the best places for coffee in Syd compiled thru over 500 comments on SMH

Sushi Tengoku, Kingsford

2009-03-31T20:18:00.005+11:00

Sushi Tengoku

121 Anzac Parade

Kensington NSW 2033

Ph: 9663 3388

Okay, so when I was still a clueless first year who finished uni at 7/8pm I'd catch the bus with Cherry-chan. Everynight we'd go past Sushi Tengoku and most nights it stop near there waiting for the lights turned green. We'd see the bright blue shop, it's tacky interior and joke that all those crazy suckers were more like in sushi jikoku (sushi hell) rather than sushi tengoku (sushi heaven). We had no idea why it would be sooo packed every night because it whole appearance of that plce was THAT BAD.

But the amazing reviews of the place kept popping up on food blogs and my friends had heard some great reviews about the place too. Everyone we asked would rave about the GINORMOUS SUSHI. So oneday last year we decided to give it a go. Sadly we were ignorant of the fact that it was only open for dinner (we went during lunch time) so ended up here instead.

Well this year we're clued-in second years so we set out prepared with the knowledge that it opened at 5pm and were the first customers there hehehehe

The first thing that hit us was the strong fishy smell of the place...it was a bit of a turn off but we eventually got used to the smell and things rolled smoothly from there. Since it was "sushi" tengoku of course we ordered the sushi. Plus I was fully cluedd-in about the size of the sushi so we kept things to a reasonable proportion =]

The salson sushi came out first and immediate we were like WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and as Nat put it, the sushi was "so big you could cry" hehehe

comparing the size of the salmon with my phone. Hehehe you can see that I was really impatient to try it. I had chopsticks in one hand, phone in the other =]

Next came the tuna & scallop sushi. You can see in the background I've still got part of the salmon sushi on my plate. I usually shove the whole sushi in my mouth but it was impossible with this one. I doubt you'd get sashimi this big normally at other places.

Hehehehheeeeee THREE SCALLOPS on one bit of rice. I'd seen pics of the 3 scallop sushi on foodblogs but it still didn't prepare me for the real thing. It was MUCH MORE EXCITING seeing the scallop mountain in real life! Now this wasn't the CRAZY thing.

THIS WAS.

The tuna sushi was basically a TUNA STEAK WRAPPED AROUND A BLOB OF RICE. The words "it's so big I could cry" kept coming out of nat's mouth that night LOL

Next came the unagi. This was massive too but not as shocking because you often see one massive unagi on a bed of rice. We were sooooooooooooooooooooo FULL after eating 5pc of sushi each but there was still one thing to come..

Chawanmushi

The two of us hadn't tried chawanmushi before and this probably wasn't the best way to experience it. There was a hair in there and it was so hot it burnt my tongue =[ Plus we were way too full so we only tried a bit of this before giving up.

We were really really happy after this meal. We were grinning like little kids eating those massive sushi. Hehehe I guess big things will always have a novel value =] But will I go back there soon? I don't think so. I'm way too sushied-out!

85c, Kingsford

2009-03-31T19:30:00.006+11:00

Okay, so it's news that there's an 85c near UNSW nor is it news that they sell bread there as well as cakes. But it was a really big thing for me to go aaaaalllllll the way there seeing as I NEVER go out of uni for lunch. I mean it might be a big thing for you commerce students because you guys have classes down there (lower campus) but we psyc students are always up here (upper campus) LOL We had to plan this trip a week ahead of time maaan....I mean, we had to walk aaallll the way to lower campus, down the mainwalk way, go OUTSIDE of uni and BEYOND! Plus we had to do it in one of our 2hr breaks so there was enough time to EAT the bread after going AAAALLL the way back to upper campus!

Anyway it was definitely worth all that effort! Just look at the beauties we got! LOL

I think these were called cheese bites?? They smelled sooooo FOUL! But it tasted REALLY GOOD! It smelled like a really smelly salty cheese but it was essentially just a very small cheesecake =]

Yep, it was definitely a cheesecake. Bite sized cheesecake...

Marble Taro

This was one MASSIVE bread. I usually need two breads to satisfy me but this one was so big I was full after only eat this alone. It was soft andd fluffy and there was a bit of flaky pastry in the outside. The bread was marbled w/ taro (hence the name...) but it was none of that in-your-face-artificial-colouring thing. The taro purple was more natural looking and there were also some grains in there. I highly recommend this one if you like taro breads but think other places put too much sugar and too much colouring.

Blueberry Cheese

This one was a bit disappointing. It was all puffy and all but the inside was HOLLOW so not very filling. The crunchy top was still gooooooood.

Premium Milk

This was a UBER MASSIVE thing bought for those that were left behind to share. The top and sides were crunchy and the inside was really soft. You could taste the milky-ness and it smelt really good too! HAHAHA A few of us had sort of finished more than half of this before the others even set eyes upon it LOL

Japanese Soft Bread (inside contains potato mash w/ sausage slivers)

This wasn't really "soft", mainly because I'd bought it for my next day's lunch so it spent a night in the fridge before being eaten. There was enough pepper in it to leave me with a firey mouth, something which I don't really expect when eating bread. It was still good but I still prefer the sweet breads.

Custard ___ I have COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN what this is called...

It got squashed in my bag hence the sad pic but it still tasted fine even though it too spent a night in my fridge. It was surprising how none of the custard had squirted out despite it being almost completely flat... I think sweet breads hold up better after being in the fridge so I liked this one better than the Japanese soft bread.

Tiger Swiss Roll w/ Coffee

This was slighty dry but apart from that it was good. It even had walnuts in it which was a nice surprise =]

Luneburger converted me to a western bread thing for a while but sigh* in the end the Asian bakeries always win.

Fish Maw Soup

2009-03-29T12:29:00.003+11:00

I luuurve fish maw soup! I love how it's thick with collagen and the sticky feeling you get in your mouth just proves how much of it there is in the soup! For those of you who don't know, fish maw is actually the air bladder of a fish. It's considered a delicacy in chinese cooking and most often used in soups or braised. It's really popular with the ladies because it's sooo jam packed with collagen!!

Like Wagyu, fish maw comes in many grades. I'm not sure of the exact grading system but I know that my mum uses the "B grade" fish maw which is one of the lower premium grades of fish maw you can get in Australia. I'm not sure about the actual retail price of B grade fish maw but it probably sells for somewhere in the $100s for 500g (not that we had to pay that much =P)

With the cheaper fish maws you will be able to smell and distinct a very distinctive fishy smell and this may put you off from trying it. But with this one there was no foul stinky fishy smell, there was still the smell of fish but it was more aromatic rather than stinky.

Pic taken last night-from the top: fish maw, the white one is a form of dioscorea, then goji berries then dried longan.

There are several ways you can make maw fish soup which you can find onlline but my mum doesn't really follow recipes so you probably won't find this one online. My mum just put in whatever was good for me (goji berries for the eyes, longan for peaceful sleep etc).

Anyway I don't really the proportions my mum put in because she doesn't measure out her stuff, just going by her experience. If you want to make fish maw soup I think it would be better if you found an actual recipe online. I'm posting this up more to introduce the yummy yummy fish maw oup rather than to give insturctions on how to make it.

Nothing beats soup made in a terracotta pot! We cut some corners and used an electric terracotta pot! LOL Don't you just LOVE technology?!?

Sky Phoenix, Sydney

2009-03-22T15:47:00.002+11:00

Sky Phoenix

Level 3

Skygarden Shopping complex

Okay, so some of you might be able to tell that I hardly blog about chinese food, especially not yum cha. For me it's like "chinese food? meh~ I eat it all the time" or "yum cha? meh~ It's always the same selection of food". But this time was an exception. We went to Sky Phoenix, a place that has always given me the impression of "catered to westerners" and very very expensive. After that day both of these impressions were confirmed but there were still a few surprises.

I only took snaps of food we rarely eat, things I thoguht were out of the ordinary for Asian yum cha-ers so there really aren't that many pictures. The food in general was a mixture of hit and misses and the service was HILARIOUS!

So everyone knows that "yum cha" literally translates to "drink tea" right? Well of course you'd have a pot of hot tea on your table. Our tea? The water was only warm-ish so the brew came out really weak and luke warm. Then there was the "catered to westerners" thing. All service was conducted in broken english (I must admit it was a bit better than some of the ones in Chinatown) even though we were trying to talk in Chinese to them. It was only after they realised we couldn't understand their english that they'd ffinally revert back to chinese. There was this one trolley girl that kept promoting "chicken chip", she went past us three times telling us she had "chicken chip", even showing us the steamer and I couldn't get what it was. It was only after we left that we were like oooooh....chicken TRIPE....no...wait a sec...BEEF tripe! LOL

But enough of that, let me get into the food.

Chicken Pie

Its a general rule that we never order chicken pies. But this one looked really attractive thus the exception. The pastry was sweet and delish but I didn't think that it went too well with the savoury filling. A sweet filling would have been much better.

Okay, I have NO IDEA what this is called in English. All I can say is that we usually eat the steamed version but since we were doing the whole not-too-asian thing we got the deep fried version. I hated it. There was hot oil squirting out and burning your mouth with every bite and the filling wasn't that great either.

Deep fried gluttinous balls with taro filling

These looked sooo light and fluffy that I couldn't resist. These were going to be the highlight of the meal until I reached the very centre and started tasting something salty...

See the tinge of yellow in the middle??

I thought it was just me but after a few more bites I was positive it wasn't me. IT WAS CHEESE. Yucky artificial-y kraft cheese or the likes of it by what I could gather. That just ruined EVERYTHING. Gluttinous balls - sweet. Taro - sweet. WHY ON EARTH DID THEY PUT SOME CHEESE IN THE MIDDLE??

Sigh* Everything pictured above had to be doggy bagged and taken home. The yum cha basics - the usual stuff like siu mai and chicken feet were okay. But these? Maybe someone else might enjoy them...

Lüneburger German Bakery, QVB

2009-03-22T15:12:00.005+11:00

Move over asian bakeries, I've got a new lunch staple now! Okay, so the asian breads as my lunch staple is a slight exaggeration but they have always been a cheap, yummy and fast option for me. I barely get sick of eating asian breads, growing up with the pineapple bun and sausage bun. But there do come times when one yearns for a little variety - something different from the usual.

So I've walked past this place a gazillion times in QVB, often getting distracted by the heady freshly-baked-bread aromas, but it had never occured to me to actually buy anything from there. I never gave it a second glance, assuming that it was like a Bakers Delight alternative or something. But one random night, trying to google some eclectic places in Sydney (have you noticed that everything is described as "eclectic" lately??) and I have no idea how but I stumbled across a review for Luneburger. With my interest caught, I made sure I left home earlier the next day so as to buy some bread for my day's lunch!

Sweet Cheese Pocket

Sweet Cheese Pocket Innards

I endd up buying a sweet cheese pocket and a spinach and cheese strudel, costing $7.50 in total. Yes, they are a bit expensive in comparison to Asian bakeries but I'd rather Luneburger than Bakers delight. The sweet cheese pocket was a delight. It tasted like a mascarpone-y sort of thing but the website tells me it's quark - a fresh cheese of Central European origin, usually translated into curd cheese and has a lower fat content than cream cheeses (THANKS WIKI!) It was interesting because I could still slighty taste some sort of salty cheese in there but it didn't detract from the taste at all. Looking at that innards shot makes me wanna eat it RIGHT NOW.

Spinach and cheese strudel

I got this one simply because it has the word strudel in it =] This too lived up to my expectations and the whole time I was eating it I was trying to imagine how it would have been even greater if I was eating one that was fresh out of the oven. *DROOOOOLS* Even after so long this smelled great, with its savoury scent wafting out everytime I opened by bag LOL

I was in a rush to catch the bus when I took this innards shot so it's a bit blurry (walking while eating, then trying to take a pic). This doesn't look as fantastic as the sweet cheese pocket innards shot and I do think that a more substantial amount of spinach and cheese would have been even better.

Yep, I think I'll be going through a Luneburger phase for the next couple of weeks =]

Luneburger German Bakery

Shop 72 Lower Ground

QVB

455 George St

Sydney NSW 2000

website: http://www.luneburger.com.au/

Kiwi Pocky, Fake Buns and a Macaroon Pin Cushion

2009-03-18T09:56:00.003+11:00

Teheheheeeeee

Cherry-chan went to Japan over the summer holidays and knowing me well, bought me a pack of kiwi pocky as souvenir =]

I didn't see that it said 4 packs and so I did a Homer Simpson "woohooo" when I opened it! Hehehehe the separate packaging allowed me to ration out the pocky over a few days! =]

After opening one of the individual packs I was immediately overwhemed by the sweet aroma of kiwi. I then quickly tried one, then another and it was when there were only three left that I remembered I was yet to take a picture of the actual pocky!

Actual pocky pic~

The pocky were mildly sweet and had a slight tang to it as kiwis do. You can't really see it from the picture but there were little black specks of kiwi seeds and which made it feel like you were actually eating a kiwi fruit. The only downside was that this pack of kiwi pocky had come from Japan, through to Hong Kong for a while and then journeyed to Sydney and has endured many weatherings LOL I received then on a hot day and the kiwi flavouring part had actually melted and a lot of the pocky were stuck together. But all in all I LOVED IT! THANKS CHERRY!

As mentioned before, I'd made a pretty ugly macaroon so I'm just using it as a pin cushion instead LOL I think I put too much stuffing into it and I could not get the middle part right! My macaroon looks like a pink burger stuffed with pink french fries =[ I'm sad to say this has put me off making another felt macaroon for now and my current felt project has been delayed due to my cheapness. I refuse to buy a gazillion pieces of different coloured felt nor am I willing to do the same for stranded cotton. The result? I am in desperate need of brown stranded cotton and have no idea when I will go an buy it!

Now to the fake bun.....

I got this fake bun as a souvenir from Hong Kong. Natsin gave me this, don't my friends know me well? LOL But yeah, the poor thing went through some very rough times after being given to me, it's been chucked around, squeezed used as a catch-and-throw ball....Yes, it went through some very rough times...By the time I got home from uni the poor thing had a little tear around its rear end but that's okay...everything is still cool =]

These things have somehow become really popular lately and now I've got one too! It's lyk, the latest craze maaaaan. LOL Oh, did I mention that they sort of tried to make it actually smell like a bun and it sort of does except that it's mixed with another more foul smell of artificial-ness.

Shu Shin Bou

2009-03-14T18:08:00.002+11:00

Just a quick note to let you all know that Shu Shin Bou has moved into World Square (if you didn't know already).

Kingsley Steakhouse, Sydney

2009-03-12T11:14:00.006+11:00

Kingsley Steakhouse

at three locations, for more info click here (edit: there's only one "Kingsley" left, the other two have been renamed to "Steersons")

I was thinking of what I shouldd post up next when I stumbled across the pics from Kingsley. I went there when the "We Love sydney" promotion was still on so how could anyone resist eating two for the price of one steak?

We'd booked a table thinking that it would be very crowded (TWO FOR ONE STEAK MAN!) but it turned out that we needn't bother. There was not a single table occupied when we arrived and it remained quiet throught our dinner (we went around 6ish). We were served by someone wearing the kitchen uniform whilst the waiterstaff stood idly and talked??? But he knew what he was doing so everything was cool.

The fresh and yummy bread came out first along with the steak condiments. The bread was warm and soft and the herb butter was also pretty good.

Wagyu steak w/ chips

I can't remember the exact names of the steaks and their website doesn't really help =[ This was the better of the steaks. The marbling was pretty good which made sure the steak remained soft, tender and chewable =] The sauce it came with was some sort of red wine sauce and it went really with the steak and I lilked it dipping the chips in it too! LOL

I have completely forgotten what this was...probably an eye fillet or something by the looks of it. This was actually my steak and I found it a bit tough and approaching well done rather than medium... The baked potato was good but how could you go wrong with baked potato?

Anyway the highlight of the meal was definitely the bread and it was still a pretty good meal considering it was two for the price of one =] I have had better and more affordable steak before but I suppose this was still okay, if not outstanding.

George's Cafe, Burwood

2009-03-09T21:54:00.002+11:00

George's Cafe

122 Burwood Rd

Burwood NSW 2134

WOOHOOOO! PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR ANOTHER K.G POST! YAY! LOL Yeah, it's been a very long while since K & G have seen each other and even longer since we've dined together! Well we didn't really meet under the greatest circumstances that day, both of us weren't that happy and that was reflected in our food...

We randomly rocked up to George's Cafe and the first thing I (Kiwi) noticed was that they've gone through a massive refurbishment and the place is looking very modern. The seating arragements were pretty good, car seats all round =] But back to the food...

We ordered an apple strudel to share but it wasn't that great. I think I'm too used to the yummy gelato in Melbourne and I just can't take yucky icecream now. Just one scoop and you could taste a massive difference, it was definitely a supermarket icecream (possibly no frills?!?! I dunno LOL) The apple strudel wasn't that great either. I kept thinking back to the excellent apple strudel I'd tasted at Lowenbrau (I havn't posted about that yet...) and this was just a complete let down.

apple strudel w/ icecream

ice choc & vanilla milkshake

LOL they weren't that great either.... I'd rather not go into it...

LOL trying our hand food art?!?

Maybe we should try the mains next time? Someone had ordered something that was smelly awfully good....We were almost tempted into ordering something except it was close to dinner time and we were to have dinner with our famillies.

Sigh* Why aren't there cafes in Sydney that are as affordable and nice as Melbourne!??! WHY!!!! LOL K has another crappy Syd cafe experience coming up veeeery soon!!

MELBOURNE CAKAGE!

2009-03-09T21:28:00.007+11:00

Okay, so I can't remember where exactly I took all these pics (maybe because I only took pics of the cake displays and didn't eat any, but I could almost feel my sugar levels rising from just looking at them..) So here's a taste of what Melbourne has to offer in the cake department!

I must say thought that in some places the reason why they looked so impressive was because of quantity not quality LOL

Domed Cake

2009-03-08T09:42:00.003+11:00

Here's my second attempt at felt cakes. Click here for my first attempt. I still can't get the blueberry perfect (yes, I know mines is purple...) but the rest was okay I think. I'm currently working on macaroons but despite how easy they might look I'm finding them harder than the more fancy cakes. I guess I won't be making an Ispahan anytime soon Chris. But you guys got any other suggestions?

The author of the book I'm working from actually has a whole site dedicated to felt cakes. There you can see the way more polished versions of the cakes I tried to make plus a lot more. My gaawd she's talented! With mines you can sooo tell they're fake but her's really do look real! MY GOAL: To be so pro at making felt cakes that people will be like woah is that real? LOL I also wish I could have enough to make a cake display too! Do you guys have/know about some cool hobbies? I would love to know about it!

EDIT: I've re-uploaded the pic to a bigger version so you can see it a bit more clearly! (09/03/09)

Cafe Andiamo, Melbourne

2009-03-04T23:08:00.005+11:00

Cafe Andiamo

36 Degraves St

Melbourne VIC 3000

The day after the amazing meal at cafe no 5 we went back to Centre Place/Degraves St (they're practically the same place) and spent a good 10min deciding on which cafe we should try. We eventually settled on Andiamo because it wasn't squashy,dark,dirty or loud (all of which my mum hates!).

The prices here weren't as cheap as they were at the day before but they were still cheaper than what you;d findd in Sydney. We got our usual hot beverages - me = chai latte, mum = cap.

Chai Latte

The usual sprinking of cinnamon on the top is absent (something I only just noticed when posting the pic up) but I vaguely remember seeing heaps of it at the bottom of my glass. This one was pretty sweet, perfect for those with a sweet tooth but I still had the memory of yesterday's chai latte so I thought that one was a bit too sweet...

Cap

Mum declared this one better than Sydney but it still lost to cafe no 5 LOL

Toast w/ Jam

Big Breakfast (includes THREE eggs, grilled tomato and mushrooms, a mountain of toast, a hash brown and bacon)

We opted to get one big breakfast and just the toast to share between the two of us. Even so, the two of us stuffed ourselves silly and were just plain glad we decided to share everything. I'm not really a bacon person but my mum says the bacon was pretty good, not tooooo salty. The eggs were set, not the runny type that I preferred with toast but ZI don't mind eggs that are just set either so everything was cool. The grilled tomato and mushrooms were my favourite part of the meal and the toast was actually really fresh damper bread smothered in yummy yummy butter hehehhe

This was a really really good meal and we both left as very happy (and full) chappies before wandering around to continue our exploration of melbourne =]

I forgot which laneway this was...but yeah you find the coolest things in the weirdest places in Melb.

And here's the popular shoes-haning-on-powerlines shot

Laurent, Melbourne

2009-03-02T23:48:00.004+11:00

We went to Laurent on our last day in Melbourne (hahaha my Melbourne posts aren't in Chronological order, they're in the order off how memorable they were =]). Laurent was definitely a great way to end our trip and although it was expensive (maybe not if you're used to the prices at Lindt, Guylian etc cafes) but I thought it was worth every dollar. As you can see the exterior is amazing - as expected of Melbourne (we went to the Laurent on Little Collins St) and it had an interior to match too!

Their cake display was AMAZING! Way better than the Lindt, Guylian etc cake displays in Sydney (or maybe I'm being bias.. I can't tell) but unfortunately when I asked if I could take a pic of the cake display I was denied =[ =[ So I didn't get to take a pic of the cake display nor did I take one of the interior. But I did take a quick snap of our cakes because they were so lovely.

Millefeuille (french for 'thousand leaves' according to wiki)

The Millefeuille (a.k.a. vanilla slice, custard slice, napoleon etc) is one of my mum's fav cakes, not so much mines as it easy to get ones where the pastry is cardboard-like and not-very-fresh-tasting. This one was great though, as expected. The pastry was light and crispy and the custard wasn't the yucky excessively sweet plastic type things. Yep, the more you pay, the better the quality.

Christine (brownie biscuit, valrhona milk, chocolate mousse, cream)

I had the Christine (also available as a whole cake in various sizes) which is their signature cake. This reminded me of Guylian's 100% Pure Pleasure in both taste and texture. The top part of the Christine was actually soft, not hard despite its looks which was the same for the 100% Pure Pleasure and it too also had a varying layer of choc thing going too. It was really sweet, maybe more so for me as we'd eaten a lot before this...but I still finished everything and tried to scrape every last bit of choc of the plate!

We also shared an earl grey tea (which I didn't take a pic of), it was served in very pretty black china and was one of the most fragrant earl greys I've tried. The serving was pretty big too so we were lucky to have shared it. We left very satisfied and headed towards union lane for one last look at Melbourne's famous grafitti.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Laurent is actually available in Sydney too! There's one at the Bondi Junction Westfield (not that I've noticed it around) and one at Manly. I'll be sure to try and find the Bondi Junction one when uni starts hehehe

Cassis Mousse

2009-03-02T23:34:00.005+11:00

Step 1: Buy all the needed materials (I forgot my shopping list so I didn't end up getting everything I needed and so I had to make compromises =[ =[)

Step 2: Pour over the instructions again and again, just to make sure you've got everything right...

Step 3: Get your hands moving and your forehead sweating...don't forget your eyes straining (I did this at night)

Step 4: Boast to your family when you've got a little progress only to have them say to you "please don't show off when you're not finished yet!"

Step 5: Finally get round to finishing it only to find that you've made a right mess of your working area. But it's now midnight so you're not bothered to clean anything up and just leave things the way they are and go to sleep confident your mum will have cleaned up after you when you wake up in the morning =]

Step 6: Finally notice that you really have poor attention to detail and that it's different to the pic in the pic in several ways but decide not to show everyone the original because you know they'll think it's good if they've got nothing to compare with!

Step 7: Blog about it!!

P.S. YES, I SPENT A WHOLE NIGHT MAKING AN UNEDIBLE CAKE!

P.P.S. NO, I DIDN"T MAKE THE CAKE PICTURED UP THE TOP, I TOOK THE PIC FROM THIS SITE

P.P.P.S This was my first attempt at making felt cakes and I must say it's very very hard work but very liberating when you see the final product.

P.P.P.P.S. Sorry for the overuse of post scripts! hehehe

Gelato in Melbourne

2009-02-25T22:01:00.005+11:00

Gelato in Melbourne is unofficially waaaaay better than it is in Sydney! Reasons?

1.It's everywhere

2.It's cheaper

3.There's more flavours to choose from

4. The smallest size there is TWO SCOOPS!

5. Each scoop is BIGGER than what they give you in Syd

Yep, Melbourne is the place to be for gelato =]

I can't profess to have had a lot of gelato in Melbourne, only enough to whet my appetite and feel like I didn't eat my worth of it because the only way I could have done that was by eating gelato for breakfast lunch and tea hehehehe

Here's a list of the places I did try:

Movenpick (yes, I know we have that in Syd too but I've never tried Movenpick before and we just happened to go past it =])

Fritz Gelato (THE BEST GELATO I'VE EVER HAD)

Trampoline (It's like an ice cream franchise that we don't have in Syd)

Timis Gelateria

The Movenpick one was disappointing. ONE SCOOP for $5!!! All the other places were under $5 for TWO SCOOPS and tasted way better. It didn't even look appealing so I won't bother with it. Sigh* I had great expectations for Movenpick =[

Panacotta & raspberry + Natural yoghurt

The Fritz Gelato one is BLISS! Fritz Gelato is AWARD WINNING ORGANIC gelato!! I tried the panacotta & raspberry flavour and the natural yoghurt one. Both were excellent, tasting fresh and like the real thing, you could really taste that there wasn't any artificial stuff in it =] The panacotta & raspberry one was sweet but not too sweet nor did it taste artifical. I thought the balance between the panacotta and the raspberry was excellent.

Click here to find out more about Fritz Gelato. I went to the one at the Prahran Markets and I must say, Melbourne does markets waaay better than Sydney. Everything is so orderly and civilised (and fairly clean) yet there's still the hustle and bustle you'd expect at the markets. Fritz Gelato also does organic doughnuts and coffee but I didn't get a chance to try those.

lemon, lime andd bitters (pink) & kiwi (yellow)

Trampoline had some really interesting flavours, for an example of their whacky flavours click here. I tried there lemon, lime and bitters one and kiwi. The lemon, lime and bitters was actually quite disappointing. It had the fizzy soft drink thing going but that was about it. It was sort of acidic in a bad way and tasted a bit like cheao lemonade...the kiwi one was okay but nothing spectacular. It just tasted like all the other kiwi flavoured icecream I'd tried before. Seriously...all the kiwi icecream I've had has all tasted the same... Despite what I say this was still waaay better than the Movenpick one and still pretty cool (mainly because we don't have it in Syd =P)

view of the Trampoline gelato store from the outside seating

Timis Gelateria was somewhere on Brunswick St. It saved my day coz I'd had a bad day that day. I wanted to go to this Bakery that was aparently really popular but the Bakery turned out to be a Bakery cafe and not a bakery bakery that my mum had in mind. She chucked a spazz and refused to eat there coz it was really crowded and complained about not being able to eat chinese food LOL I gave in and we looked around but there wasn't much to choose from. Eventually we settled on this Vietnamese place called VietRose and it was THE WORST meal we had in Melbourne. We wanted pho and we ordered the “Vietnamese rice noodles with beef” which came out as something completely different to what we had in mind. Rice noodles? Yep. Beef? Nup, they gave us pork. Was it Pho? Nup. It was what my mum called “sugary water with rice noodles and western veggies” and yep, that pretty much summed it up. Yep, and you know what? At the end of the meal I found an insect in mines T_T

this is "two scoops" the top is vanilla, bottom is melon

Uhuh, that just killed our day. So anyway then we go past Timis and I get my mum to let me eat gelato =] She went along with me only because she wanted to drink soft drink ==” yep, my mum can be as childish as me sometimes hehehe I get her a fanta then she starts winging that it's in a can and not in those glass bottles like the counter display (I just rolled my eyes sigh*) I got vanilla flavour thinking my mum would like it but she didn't because I also got melon flavour and the scoop I gave her had a bit of both in it * rolls eyes again* LOL but I enjoyed the gelato and that’s all that mattered. =] Both were pretty decent but the vanilla one was the winner, made from real vanilla beans.

Well that's my gelato experiences in Melbourne. =] The closest thing in Sydney I've come across was the gelato at Bravo in Crows Nest. Got any cool gelato/ice cream haunts of your own? Please do share =]

Cafe No 5, Melbourne

2009-02-19T22:09:00.005+11:00

Cafe No 5

5 Centre Place

Melbourne, VIC 3000

This was - no argument - the best cafe we'd been to during our trip to Melbourne. The food was a decent proportion, nothing fancy - just a really good hearty meal. It was also the first coffee my mum had in Melbourne and she declared it excellent, something she's NEVER done in Sydney. I'm no judge as I don't drink coffee but my mum apparently makes a really good coffee and she's never complimented a single place in Sydney for their coffee (got any suggestions anyone?). But she loved the cappuccino here and I was really surprised to hear her mentioning the coffee from this place even after we got back to Syd and she's NEVER recalled a single good coffee experience (except for her own).

My chai latte & mum's cap in the background

My chai latte was also excellent! I remember my first exp with chai latte...hehehe It was at uni last year, i was told that it was coffee and I was really surprised that it smelled and tasted nothing like it, shocked that it was actually suggary and that the lovely aroma of cinnamon greeted me. It was a SUPER SUGGARY EXPERIENCE and it changed my views about coffee, only to go home, google it, and find out that it was actually tea! LOL Then I've got some memories of the really watery and weak chai lattes, the ones that don't have enough cinnamon nor the suggary hit that I'd experienced the first time. All the chai lattes I've had are either really suggary or just plain weak. But this one was perfect. Not watery, enough froth at the top, a decent amount of cinnamon, but most importantly it wasn't too sweet nor too bland!

BRAT (Bacon, rocket, avocado & tomato) Panini

Chicken Schnitzel Panini

I must say their menu isn't really extensive but they don't need one! We each ordered a panini and swapped a half each. I know my photography skills are really bad and it doesn't look like much in the pics but trust me when I say they were great! I'm not a great fan of rocket so I liked the chicken schnitzel one better but the BRAT panini would definitely be a more veg-balanced option.

The decor was really cool here and it had a really cozy, local kind of feel to it. The walls were lined with loads of awesome stuff: pics drawn by local artists, posters and cards about all different local music events and that cool clock with their shop name on it =] The only one thing that made us worry at first was that there were no prices on the walls (no menus here) and we were crossing our fingers that it wouldn't be expensive after we'd ordered. But after their good coffee and good food we weren't too fussed about the price. It turned out to be really cheap though, $18 for the two of us! Now where could you get that in Sydney?

HONG KONG (Part VIII)

2009-02-07T18:29:00.007+11:00

on my third last day in hk, a fd of my sis took me to some swiss restaurant for dinner... and we had cheese fondue! in the beginning we were planning to order a one person cheese fondue and then a one person chocolate fondue for dsessert.. and it turned out to be that for dessert you must order one per person .. and it was impossible for us to finish two chocolate fondue HAHA so we had a salad with a cheese fondue.. (so sad, I had icecream fondue, cheese fondue but just not chocolate! =0=")

I must say, the cheese fondue didn't taste as nice as I expected when I dipped the bread in... it was filled with alcohol =.=' like way too much.. lol but when I dipped it with the beef, it tasted way nicer hahaha maybe cos the bread didn't have much taste, so it made the alcohol seemed too strong.. it was perfect with the beef =D

sorry for the crappy photography, the photos turned out really dark even though I tried making it brighter >< it's so hard to take photos in dark restaurants, but it was really nice inside! and it was so cool when I went in because everyone spoke english, lol! so my english finally came into some use in hk *v*

so this is my last post on food from hk, seems so less =='' I want to go out to eat more in sydney but ever since I came back all I've been doing was work, work and more work... hopefully I can go out more when I have less shifts after next week.. sigh*

theres still something that I really wanted to go eat but I didn't end up... BUFFET!!! ><' when I called them, the earlist available time was like... after I leave... so it was very disappointing =( I actually wanted to book it for christmas but it was impossible, so I tried booking it for birthday and there were no tables at all.. sigh* must book 6weeks in advance next time I go! hahaha

Champagne High Tea, Shangri-La Lobby Lounge

2009-02-06T00:22:00.006+11:00

I was planning to go with friends using the we love sydney card but OMG i saw the pics on NQN and i COULD NOT WAIT so i went with my mum today ahahahha yep me and my mum luuurve eating =]

I must agree with NQN that the service was baaad (at first, it improves later =]). It takes them aaages to bring us the champagne and then another aaaage for tea and then they tell us the kitchen's really busy so our sandwiches willl take another 5min....the 5min turns into 30min-1hr..i forget how long...but then the waitress comes and appologises about the sandwiches and to compensate for this our afternoon tea would be ON THE HOUSE! WOOOHOOOOO!

Not long after she says this tiers of food are brought down from the elevators?!?! and we're served with a tier of stuff. I WAS EXPECTING A BUFFET LIKE SEEN ON NQN!!! =[ =[ AAAAAND there was NO MACARONS!!! THE MENU SAID MACARONS!! Yeah i was REALLY disappointed!! The table behind us complained that what was served was heaps different to what was written on the menu and the kind waitress said she'd get them some additional stuff. A waiter arrived with HEAPS of additional stuff...brownies, tarts etc but the silly people said it wasn't theirs, I was thinking GIVE IT TO MEEEEE!!! hahahaha maybe i should have complained to them too =[=[

What we survived on for about 2hrs

As you can see there's only the basics and NO CAKES AT ALL. The strawberries were horrid to look at andd attracting fruit flies and the scones were just-out-of-the-fridge-cold. The other stuff? We couldn't finish any of it. Let's just say they just didn't suit our tastebuds. NO COLOUR AT ALL. PLAIN DISAPPOINTMENT!

sandwiches that came out AFTER the sweet stuff

We only soften up because the waitress was really appologetic about it and it was really evident that they were overworked and understaffed....

It sorta looks like it was nice when you look at the table as a whole.....

Yeah, Shangri-La is an uber disappointment to me now... The only good thing about it was that it was on the house...but i'm still not happy that there was NOT A SINGLE CAKE IN SIGHT! My mum still tipped them though cause we felt bad not paying for any of it...

Maybe we just chose a bad day to go?

***there's still more we love sydney food posts coming...but maybe not soon...***

P.S. The other we love sydney posts were definitely not this disappointing

Cafe Mix, Shangri-La

2009-02-05T23:43:00.008+11:00

I read a while ago on herecomesthefood about the we love sydney offer and I immediately told everyone about it andd it was not long until we went too hehehhe

I must admit if it wasn't half price it would have sooo been a rip off!! The quality of the food has also dropped alot since the last time I went (approx 1-2yrs ago). Despite saying this I went twice - once with my mum, second time in a big group (and staying until we got kicked out at closing time!)

i didn't take that many pics but here's what i've got (i took some pics from your facebook miss nerd!!):

the famous entrance =]

cutlery~~

seafood!!

D.I.Y ceasar salad & pasta salad

hahaha the frist time i went i didn't know you were supposed to mix your salad in the big bowl thing there so i just dumped dressing on my greens and walked back to my table

HUUUUUGE fish eye!!!! (hahaha i <3>

assorted =]

and here's the desserts:

I have to say the desserts weren't anything flash....i think the nicest thing was the chocolate fondue & fresh fruit!! AND THERE WAS NO CREME BRULEE ON BOTH OCCASIONS!!!! What's a hotel buffet without creme brulee!??!?!?!

I suggest if you want to go try to buffet here go before the we love sydney offer finishes as it's really not worth it otherwise.

Cafe Mix

Level 1

Shangri-La Hotel

176 Cumberland St

The Rocks, Sydney

Tel: (02) 9250 6206

apple crumble

2009-02-05T23:35:00.003+11:00

okay this was made last year sometime in december but as you can see i've been really lazy lately so............hehehhe

i can't even remember where the recipe was from =[

this isn't going to be a post worth reading but i feel bad for not posting about it coz it was our hardwork!! LOL I remember having to go all the way to the shops andd buying this and buying that (not that it was far....just that i had a horrible pair of shoes on), peeling and cutting up i dunno how many apples, mushing the butter with the dry ingredients etcetc

anyways here's the finished product

HONG KONG (Part VII)

2009-02-02T23:26:00.004+11:00

HAAGEN DAZS ICECREAM FONDUE!!!

LOL, I didn't eat dinner for this.. LOL! because it was too much as a dessert
omg thinking back it was so delicious ~ <33