Time & Tide

Few weeks ago, me and CL went away for a short weekend trip to try spot some whales at Warrnambool. We departed pretty early on Saturday morning for the long drive. We had our 1st pit-stop at Geelong for some coffee and simple breakky.

It was a really long drive passing quite a few major towns. By the time we reached Warrnambool, both of us were staving. But since we were ahead of schedule, we decided to drive another 30mins to Port Fairy for lunch.

We had our Good Food Guide with us and had no problem deciding where to eat. Time &Tide was our choice for lunch. I had the address punched into the GSP and CL to bring us there....or I should say the GSP instead.

We started to have doubts 5 minutes before we reach Time and Tide. The road leading to the restaurant doesn't seem to be bringing us to a place that serve food at all! More like bringing us to a farm...haha.

We even spotted horses by the side of the road having their meal and I manage to capture a shot of them beautifully!

After driving a long road with lots of pot-holes, we finally reach Time & Tide. CL said this place better be worth the drive before we hopped off the car.
View from the car park.

When we enter Time & Tide, I was shocked by the view! OMG it was amazing! Plus we both love the sea. It's a view which we never get bore with.

Next was the food! All the food on display seem so delicious. We had a hard time deciding what to have. See for yourself if you don't believe me.


Roasted Macadamia Brownie Cake with Chocolate Ganache (left) and Apricot Orange & Almond Sticky Scrolls (right)

Italian Trifle with Kahlua & Expresso (notice the sandwich roll at the back? It's all pack in separate container. I was impressed)
Baked Lemon Cheesecake with Passionfruit Curd

They had blackboard surrounding the counter and it was all written with food menus to chose.


CL had their Beef Lasagna while I had the Wood-Smoked Trout Salad.

I have never order Lasagna as I'm pretty picky and don't enjoy the beef if it wasn't marinated. Therefore I never take the risk. But this dish totally blew me away! CL knew I will love it after having the 1st bite and he was totally right! Plus it wasn't too cheesy either.

As for the salad, lots of green(we love our green), tasty trout and a nice salad dressing. It was really refreshing.

CL wanted to try more food after we finished our 2 dishes. As both of us were really full and couldn't fit more food into our tummy, we decided to share and CL will be the decision maker.

It was a fight between Apricot Orange & Almond Sticky Scroll or Pecan Cinnamon Sticky Scroll and Pecan WON!

The scroll was heated and a dash of cinnamon sugar added on the top before serve. Just by the smell, we knew it's going to be really delicious. We won't wrong! The scroll was full of pecan. Soft and moist on the inside but slight crunch on the outside. We just can't stop eating even though our tummy going to explode anytime.



It was such a nice way to start a weekend. Good food plus amazing ocean view, what else can I ask for???

Vanilla Cupcake with Chocolate Icing

After CL left for work last night, I tried baking cupcakes.

Ingredients require for baking Vanilla Cupcake and Chocolate Cupcake.

I failed badly on the Chocolate Cupcake. 1st, I didn't follow instruction. I had doubts when I pop them into the oven wondering will they turn out hard. 2nd, they sank in the middle! 3rd, I over baked. *sigh* I was so dishearten and start to wonder am I wasting my time baking and doing what I enjoy.

But lucky the Vanilla Cupcake turn out perfect! YEAH!!!


I baked the Vanilla Cupcake in two different sizes. I even try decorating my cupcakes. Made some chocolate icing to go with it and decorate with some M&Ms minis. I'm pretty happy with the result as it was my 1st time making cupcakes. Hmmm I wonder how's the review from CL's workmates.

Chocolate Mint Cookies

I haven't being baking any cookies for a long time. Finally I manage to squeeze in some time today and bake some for CL. There isn't much chocolate chips left so I added some M&Ms mini which I bought last week. I also added some mint essence to have something different instead of just a normal chocolate chip cookies.

It taste great! But CL requested me to bake normal Chocolate Chips Cookies as he will love them more. I'm married to a very traditional taste bud guy.

Lunch Box for 25th Aug 2008

This is my lunchbox for tomorrow lunch. I always cook a bit more during dinner so that I have extra food to pack. Sometimes I cook 2 meals at one shot, 4 different dishes; dinner and lunch. I also pack CL's lunch or supper depending his shift for the day. It's much easier to have our meal with us during work. Just have to pop the lunchbox into the microwave, heat it up and a hot meal is on the table in less than 5 minutes. Plus it's cheaper and healthier than eating out. At least I control the oil, salt and sugar intake for each meal.

Love the Lock & Lock container as as they have separate compartments in the container. I can have 1 compartment for rice, 1 for vegetable and 1 for meat. Won't be having soggy rice because the rice is mixed with the meat or vegetable gravy.

I will try to keep track what lunchbox I have so that I can refer when I have no bloody idea what to cook. hehe

For Jasmine, my Best Friend

Happy Belated Birthday JASmine!

It was Jasmine's birthday last Sunday and found out she didn't end her special day with a birthday cake. I told her I will bake her 1, post it on the blog but I will have to eat it for her...hehe. Do you like it Jas? It's vanilla cupcake with chocolate icing. It's my first time trying to decorate + playing with icing. I'm quite satisfied with the result.

JASMINE, my best friend. I knew her during my 2nd year of polytechnic. 1997-2008 WOW 11 years!! She's now happily married and a mother of cute, lovely boy, Jarrett (my god-son).

Our friendship really comes a long way. We spend a lot of time together studying, attending classes, having lunch, going for swim at break time during poly. After graduating, both of us started hunting our individual path. We started to minimise our contact. It got worst when I flew over to down under for my degree. BUT we manage to turn our friendship round after I got back to Singapore. Although both of us were busy with work and dating, we still manage to meet up regularly for makan, chit chat, gossip, pedicure, shopping, gym session. (I just realise we never being to a movie together....guess coz we can't talk in a cinema = waste time...haha) All those session build our friendship to a higher level and definitely make our friendship really strong.

Even though I'm now so far away, without makan, chit chat, gossip, pedicure, shopping, gym session. We now have blog, emails to keep our friendship going. We are there for each other when it's require. We listen to each other complain, advise each other and gossip. We almost email each other everyday. Sometimes a few emails back and fro in 1 day! Yes, I admit we talk a lot. But that's how we keep our friendship stronger and stronger.

Jas >> we will continue to build this friendship stronger okie?

Wagyu Beef Burger

Totally forgotten about this photo till I was uploading my weekend trip to Warrnambool.
The Wagyu Beef Burger we bought from Prahan Market with a simple light salad. It's the beef that was the highlight for the meal!

St Kilda Galleon Cafe

It's already after midnight and I'm still awake, very unlike me. I'm actually pretty tired but my brain is not switching off! I did go to bed but spend all the time forcing myself to sleep and obviously it's not working at all. Is it because of the coffee I had or I'm alone?

Since I can't sleep, I decided to blog about a breakky experience we had recently.

CL suggested to have breakky at St Kilda and I chose Gallen Cafe St Kilda. It's listed as Top 20 Melbourne breakky on The Breakfast Blog. This is the 2nd Cafe on the list we tried. The 1st cafe we tried was Filter at Fitzroy which is just round the corner where we stay (hmm...that remind me that I haven't blog about it yet).

Gallen Cafe is actually right round the corner of St Kilda Beach. Honestly I never notice this cafe before. I even told CL that I doubt I will actually step into this cafe if I walk pass. Coz I won't bother to find out what they serve and I will never imagine that it serve such nice Breakky!! Lesson learn....never ever judge the book by it's cover.

The layout of the cafe looks messy. Tables and chairs are make up of what the owner can get their hands on and still in working condition.

They seem to be having a lot of special for the day and you won't have trouble finding what you like. In fact, one will have problem deciding what to order. There are light and healthy breakky meal which consist of porridge, yogurt to chose. Or baked items like scones(I saw pumkin scone on special), muffins etc. Or a hearty breakky which both of us went for.

We started the breakky with a nice, strong mocha each. The mocha serving is huge. Unlike some cafe which I hope for a mug size when the coffee arrive.

As for the *star*, CL had their big breakfast with additional order of hashbrown. When it arrive, both of us were shocked. The serving was really huge. Don't believe me? See it for yourself.

It consists of 2 slices of toast, 2 poached eggs, bacons, spinach, tomato and mushrooms.


I love their toast. It's not cheap white bread but multi-grain bread. CL love their mushroom and hash brown. The hash brown is actually made from sweet potato. He initially though the orange strands in the hash brown is carrot. He was a bit surprise when he found out they are actually sweet potato. For someone who hate sweet potato and fall in love with this, the chef definitly done a great job.

As for me, I had sweet-potato, basil and fetta hash browns with spinach, poached egg, and house-made relish. The toast in the picture actually is from CL.



I can't really tell what is the vegetable that is used to make this relish. It look like onion. It taste really strange but I won't say the taste sucks. But I personally don't really like it. Think it's my 1st time tasting relish. Therefore don't really know what to expect.

This place is definitly a keeper. Staffs are very friendly too! Plus I notice it's a cafe which the local visit and they seem to have a lot of loyal customers.

Me with my new hairstyle in Galleon Cafe. Nice? Do I look younger?

Banana Upside Down Cake

I was in the mood to bake this morning. Hmmm what should I bake??? There are 3 over-ripe banana in the freezer. Maybe I should try to get rid of it. After flipping thru my cookbook and surfing thru my few favourite and trust worthy blog, I decided to try baking a Banana Upside Down Cake.

I find it pretty easy to bake. As for the result, see for yourself.

Can't really see the banana on the top. Where have they gone??? The whole house smell of banana when the cake in cooking in the oven.

A slice of banana cake for myself later in the night with a nice hot strong coffee. I packed the rest for CL to bring to work. He is working night shift again.

What's there on the telly tonight? Or I only have the Beijing Olympic to accompany me tonight?

Amazing Ice Cream

We had the most amazing ice cream at Kuranda during our trip at Cairns. We were told not to miss trying the ice cream by the bus driver and I'm so glad that we remembered!

Me buying the 1st ice cream. CL and me shared a Mint Chocolate Chip. Mummy and Daddy had errrrrr...seriously can't remember!!!
The seller was really cute! He actually asked where I am from and when he found out that I'm staying in Collingwood. He told me not to support Magpie but the team from Brisbane. Hahaha.



After the 1st cone, we went back for 2nd!

This time was CL who's in charge. We bough 2 cones of passionfruit to share.

Passionfruit Ice Cream

Although there isn't much choices to chose from but we already had a hard time deciding. The ice cream is full of favour, sweetness is just right. The amazing thing is you don't actually feel thirsty after having it. Daddy and Mummy who isn't really into ice cream because they find them too sweet and thristy after having them LOVE IT! All 4 of us just can't stop licking.

La Luna Bistro

Going thru my flickr account, I found out that I have not being blogging enough. A lot of catching up need to be done. I haven't even finish my Fiji trip entry, the road trip which I did with my parents, Cairns trip and a lot more food entry.

Here is 1 of the late entry.

CL had the craving for steak on a Sun evening. It was too late to defrost the porterhouse steak we bought from our favourite butcher at Victoria Market. Therefore we decided to pick a restaurant and try out their steak. It wasn't an easy task. We went thru the Good Food Guide and also food blog on the web. Most of the restaurant were closed and finally we settled La Luna Bistro at Carlton North. It was our 1st visit and we actually know what we had in mind even before we arrived. Thanks to the menu they had on their website.

We started the meal with an entree to share. This dish was on the special menu for the night.
Spicy char grill steak with salad. Both of us like it. I love the Char Grill taste and smell.

CL had the Char grilled Aged Beef (aged on the premises) with mash,roasted swiss brown mushrooms & red wine

I had the same but mine was a Porterhouse while CL was a Rump. The mash potato was lovely. Smooth and buttery. But it was a bit disappointing on the steak. Both of us find the steak a bit too tough.

Ending the meal, we had Vanilla bean creme brulee with almond wafer to share. We seldom order creme brulee therefore I don't really know what makes a good brulee. But we actually like this. Strong smell of vanilla and the wafer is really crunchy.

At the end of the meal, they actually charge us $1 for the meal! $1 for 1 entree, 2 main and 1 dessert. How can that be????

Lucky CL checked the bill before he signed. If not the restaurant going to make a huge lost that evening.