Lowenbrau Keller, Ton Ton, Azuma Patisserie and MORE

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

Lowenbrau Keller, The Rocks

Lowerbrau Keller

Cnr Argyle and Playfair St

The Rocks

Lisa from Jesus Drinks Soy and K from TWO-KG (me?!?! LOL) have been dying to try this pork knuckle after seeing it on ChocolateSuze's blog. We finally got the chance to do so yesterday and it didn't fail to disappoint. True that the pork knuckle didn't look as big as it did in chocolatesuze's pics but we wer still happy with what we got. The crackle was a bit hard for me, being used to the crunch yet bitable crackle on chinese roast porks and a tad too salty. But the inside was soooo good! Nice and tender with plenty to go around. The mash was also excellent, you could really taste all the creamy. buttery fatty goodness they'd put into it.

We really wanted more of the mash after sharing this massive thing but due to some form of miscommunication/bad service!??! We didn't end up getting any but by that stage we'd started feeling full. The service was really bad! When we went to pay the bill they just asked us what we had and charged us for whatever we said we had. But of course being truthful little kiddies we told them the truth! =P

Schweinshaxn- Oven Roasted Pork Knuckle with Sauerkraut and Mashed Potato

St James Hotel, St James

So me and my mum have this thing where we eat out when we're tired. She'd heard me say the cheap steaks at St James Hotel were nice so we went there tonight together.

250g Certified Agnus Rump Steak $10.95

 

So this time my mum got the cheap steak with mash. It looked really dodgy this time...the whole thing looked like it was tired and falling down, if you get what i mean LOL According to my mum it didnt taste that great either. I had a bite and I agree this time round the steak wasn't that good. 

Risotto of the Day (sundried tomato and chicken risotto) $11.95

I wanted to try something different tonight so i got the risotto of the day. This was very creamy and the taste not too heavy. There was a generous portion of sundried tomatoes and chicken were mixed in the risotto but not so much as to make me sick of it. The portion wasn't that big but the dish was really creamy, weighing heavily in my already overloaded tummy, leaving me to look sadly and the leftovers i couldn't finish. 

Thick cut fries

My mum got fries afterwards coz she wasn't satisfied with the steak. They were actually ok despit their dismal appearance. 

St James Hotel, Sydeny

114 Castlereagh Street, Sydney
(opposite David Jones)
Tel: +61 (02) 9261 8277

It think this will become one of those fond memories I'll have of my uni days when I'm older. I'll be like *grin*/*cringe* I still remember I my first year of uni when I went to the pub for the first time with a friend...and this this and this happened...oh were we young and naiive back then.................

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Ok so we're at the library supposedly studying really hard for our finals....But L gets distracted on her laptop and eventually i join in on the fun and somehow we end up reading food blogs and thats like totally nooooooooot my fault!! LOL

Anyways, we'd decided we'd go out and eat dinner and we were going through what we could eat but it seemed boring eating the same stuff everytime...i suddenly remembered the $10 steaks at St James Hotel after reading about a $5 steak that was waaay too far for us to get to and so we settle on $10 steak instead =] I've always wanted to try the steak here and I'm reaaallly excited about finally going.

It's just outside of the place when I mention that I havn't been to a pub to eat without my mum before and L says that she hasn't been to a pub before at all. We express our stereotypes about the old/mature office people coming to get a drink with their co-workers and by the time we actually step inside and DO SEE everyone in business attire we feel reallly out of palce.

It's real awkward sitting on those tall round table thingos and we're at a loss as what to do and how to order....anyways we assumed that we order from the bar as there's nowhere else you could order from and L is given the super difficult task of actually going to the bar and ordering our food coz I decide that I should remain behind and mindd our belongings LOL!! THANKS AGAIN L!!!

When getting up from her seat L says:

"OMG I feel like I'm underaged, I think I'll bring my ID incase they thinnk I'm underaged....."   Even typing this now I can remember how funny it was when she said that and how relieved I was that I wasn't the one who would potentially make a fool of herself....

L waits in line at the bar and she looks back at me nervously...I wave meekly and just hope it doen't go too badly...She comes back and it's altogether less daunting knowing that we're one step closer to eating yummy steak. Here's a snippet of L's exchange with the bartender...

L: so is this where you order the food?!?!

Bartender: yeah..yeah   (looks at L as if she's some underaged alien from outerspace)

We get a beeper thingy (below) to tell us when to go get our food and it says it should flash and vibrate when our food's done. But the thing is it's alrady flashing and so we're lost as to whether it's supposed to be flashing and we need to wait for it to vibrate or if our food really is ready in which case it would have been made in less than 10min!

Beeper thingy

Anyways after much difficulty we find ourselves finally in the bistro area of the pub whih was waaaaay better!! There were less people there and the people that were there, were less corporate looking and the atmosphere was overall more suited to us uni-students who are very much like highschoolers inside.

Ok, I'm gonna cut this short now coz if i was to tell you every funny thing that happened, i'd still be here when the sun rises. Oh yeah, and i better not tell you about how L jumped up in surprise when the beeper thingy finally BEEPED AND VIBRATED!

Ok and now to the food...

250gram certified Agnus Rump Steak with potato mash & gravy $10.95

Oh yeah, the only disappointment was the fact that the steak wasn't $9.95. I'd read everywhere that it was $9.95 which made it a $10 steak which is like the coolest thing ever!! But still it was waaay worth it for a $11 steak LOL As you can see from the really cool flag thingy in my steak I had mines medium =P

When we'd placed our food on the table I was like WAIT, DON'T EAT YET I GOTTA TAKE A PIC! there was this one very torturous moment where we could smell the aroma of the steak floating into our nostrils and I was still trying to take pics of the food. THIS is one of the reasons why I can't take nice pics, because the food is like screaming to be eaten ASAP and leaves no room for me to take pretty pics of it!!

L's steak (same but served rare)

The steak was GREAT! It was GREAT for a $11 steak and even better than some of the expensive steaks you can get. It was really tender and the mash was great too although it was a bit on the cold side...We'd read online that the serving wasn't that big so we also got...

Spicy Chicken wings w/ Asian style dipping sauce $13.95

This was SUPER YUMMY too!! REALLY FATTENING BUT OH-SO-YUMMY!

Close up of chicken

Ok I know it looks kinda burnt here but trust me when i say IT WASN'T BURNT, rather it was like a crisp dark brown colour and VERY VERY YUM!!

I'd promised my mum like last year that we'd go there some day but I've yet to fulfill that promise...after getting home and telling her about it she was starting to get jealous! LOL I'm POSITIVE there will be more than one next times here and next time, I'll go with my mum and try som of their other food too =P