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Good Life (Adelaide)

2009-12-06T16:40:00.007+11:00

We stopped over at Adelaide for 1 night on our way to Kangaroo Island. Took the opportunity to meet up a friend of ours for dinner. She recommended Good Life pizza since we haven't tried it before.

I loved the their concept, organic plus local produces right down to drinks, flour to make the pizza base.

We started the dinner with Olive Bread served with Adelaide Hills Olive Tapenade. I'm one who doesn't really enjoy olives. I had tried it before but just can't accept the taste. As for this dish, I find the taste of dip pretty unique. Still acceptable for me. Sorry don't really know how to appreciate them :-)

We ordered 4 pizzas in total with 3 different variety.

The most popular pizza for the night was Free Rang Roast Duck Pizza with shitake mushroom and spring onion ginger jam. I only came upon restaurants serving poached chicken with spring onion ginger jam but never with duck. Loved the uniqueness of this dish!

The 2nd pizza was Angaston Spicy Salami with kalamata olives, red onion, baby bocconcini and basil. Honestly, I have no idea what it taste like now plus I only had a slice.

The 3rd pizza we had was Kapunda Chicken oven roasted with baby potatoes, garilc, rosemary and mild parmesan. 1st time having potatoes in pizza and the roast chicken is delicious. I remember I like the cheese including CL who don't really fancy cheese.

We also had 2 sides which I forgot to take pictures of. It was Roast Vegetables and another Mixed Lettuce Salad. Both were very nicely served.

At the end of the meal, we were all stuffed with pizza that leaves us no space for dessert at all. We couldn't even finish all the pizza.

I will definitely go back for the Duck Pizza if I happen to go Adelaide again. At the meantime, just have to look out for such restaurants in Melbourne.

My 1st 3x

2009-11-19T10:13:00.002+11:00

Today is the day I start my age is a 3….30^th years old. What have I achieve or experience for the past 10 years I wonder??? Is it well spent I question myself.

At the age of:

20 – I graduated with a Diploma of Electrical, Electronic and Control and found a job as a Engineering Assistant or was it Assistant Engineer…..don't even remember the title. Started dating with CL, my 1^st and only boyfriend.

21 – Experience oversea education; learn to be independent, learn how to live with housemates. Most challenging is learning how to live together with CL (yes we stayed together for a year during our uni days to cut cost), sharing a tiny little room we rented.

22 – Learn how to be independent again without CL. Sharing a room with another female species other than my Sister. Flew back to Sing with a degree and 2 years of experiences with money can't buy. Started working as a SCADA Engineer in a local small company which the slogan is "NIKE" = just do it.

23 – Working, working, working. Got to admit I did manage to learn quite a bit on job.

24 – Slaving myself and planning for an escape?

25 – Flew into Melbourne for 2 weeks vacations, at the same time got married, a week honeymoon at Cairns and back to Sing alone.

26 – Got my Aussie permanent residency, got myself out of Sing system, relocated and actually felt married! Got ourselves out of living with a bunch of dirty, super pampered, think they are very rich uni kiddies. Started working in an Aussie local company as a Project Engineer. Have our 1^st kid.

27 – Promoted to being a Aunt and a Godma. Got my driving license after 2 tries.

28 – Finally I started driving and took over our 1^st kid after CL bought a 2^nd kiddo.

29 – Been living in a apartment my almost my whole life so after moving to our current place, it's like learning how to live in a house. Married to a Aussie on my last day of age 29…..yes, CL got his Australia Citizenship and took his pledge yesterday.

30 – What can I add into my achievement/experience next? A house? Obtain my Aussie Citizenship? Kid?? …..hmmmmm It's something I won't have any idea till next year but 1 thing I know is I'm having a stuffy +irritating + block + running nose and a pair of itchy eye. I HATE HAY FEVER!!!

3 down 6 more to go

2009-11-11T14:50:00.003+11:00

I have being trying to blog more especially on the back entry which I wanted to do.

Out of the 9 entries, I did 3. So 6 more to go!

1> Ayame
2> Tutto Bene
3> Kangaroo Island Vacation
4> Traditional Hakka Dish
5> Spanish food at South Melbourne Market
6> Good Life in Adelaide
7> Rockpool - My advance birthday dinner
8> My Surprise Birthday Present from CL --- Most important!!!!
9> Homecook food by Dearest Mummy and Me =)

I will leave my advance Birthday Dinner and Present till my birthday to blog about it :)

Tutto Bene (2nd Visit)

2009-11-11T13:32:00.009+11:00

From memory and blog entry, the 1st time and previous time we being to Tutto Bene was almost 2 years ago. We tried our luck getting a table without booking a couple of time for the past 2 years without success till Sept 13th 09.

We haven't being into the city for quite a while so decided to spend the day in the city walking around. From memory the plan was to go to Crown and find a nice place for lunch. But when we passed by Tutto Bene on the way, we couldn't help but pop in to request for a table. Lucky stars fall upon us :). I'm guessing because we were really early, can see it from the number of empty tables around us.

We just love their Risotto and couldn't forget it! So far, it's the best risotto we tried in Melbourne.

Started off with some complimentary bread with olive oil. We don't really know how to appreciate olive oil because we can't taste what's so special about it and how it won so many medal.

PRIMI PIATTI
Calamari Fritti
We were served by a really friendly, knowledgeable waiter. Because me and CL don't eat olives and we don't really want something too heavy for entree, he suggested Fried Calamari. The Calamari was lightly battered with semolina and quick deep fried. It's really light in taste, fresh and doesn't taste oily.

RISOTTERIA

Seafood Risotto - Special of the day on the left and on the right Anatra, funghi e salvia - Braised buck, porcini, mushroom and sage

CL had the seafood risotto and I went for the braised buck risotto. Both dishes were totally different as CL's dish was tomato base and mine creamy slightly heavy base. Both were fantastic! Delicious!
I can even taste the "freshness" in CL's dish and have chunks of duck meat in mine.

CONTORNI E INSALATE
Ruchetta selvatica con scaglie di parmigiano, olio e limone - wild rocket with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, lemon and parmigiano
We actually wanted to try Zucca arrosto con cannella e peperoncino - Roasted pumpkin with cinnamon and chilli but the waiter suggested to match our main with wild rocket instead. Gald we accepted his suggestion because it blend it with our main very well.

We only had space for 1 dessert to share and we ordered Creme Brulee.

DOLCI

Brulee al tiramisu con ganache di cioccolate e gelato al mascarpone - Tiramisu infused brulee served with in house mascarpone gelati and chocolate ganache
The sweetness was just right, soft and not watery. As for infused with Tiramisu, honestly I don't remember except did taste a bit of liquor. Does that count???

Golden Dragon Palace 2

2009-11-11T12:41:00.008+11:00

During Dad and Mum's visit, we bought them to Golden Dragon Palace for dinner. Yes I had already blogged about this restaurant before but since I did manage to take some nice photos, why not have a short entry about it. Right?

It seem the restaurant had either updated/changed their menu or changed of chef. We couldn't find the dishes which we tried before in the menu. It took us extremely long this time to decide what to order.

1st we had San Chow Bao. It was Mum and Dad 1st time having this dish. They love it!

Yong Tau Fu
This dish turn out to be slightly different version from the previous time we had. On the 1st time, the tofu seem to be steamed follow by pan fry to crisp the base up a bit. But this time, the tofu is deep fried. I actually prefer it steamed rather than deep fried.

Fried Pork Ribs in Peking Sauce
This dish is nice but a bit too saltish for our tastebud. Would be nice to eat with white rice which we didn't have that night coz of the last dish.

Sweet and Sour Fish Fillet
Initially we wanted to steam a whole fish but they didn't have the kind of fish we wanted.

Singapore Style Chilli Crab with Egg Noodles
They were having special promotion on crabs that night. Looking around the restaurant, most customers came for the crabs. So we decided to order some too.
It's really nice, not too spicy. The crab meat is really firm + the chef mixed the crab egg into the gravy.

We ordered too much food that we had to take away the pork ribs for next day lunch.

Green Bean Soup
I love their FOC dessert. Dessert of the night is Green Bean Soup instead of the usual Red Bean Soup.

31st Oct Weekend

2009-11-01T19:09:00.009+11:00

We are back to routine this week. Both of us back to work and CL on night shift during the weekend. That also means I'm going to have a lot of free time during the day while he's catching up on his beauty sleep. What's my favourite way of spending the time other than trying new recipes cooking/baking.

I always want to try making Sausage Roll especially after I spotted a Pork, Veal and Pistachio Sausage Roll on my Bill Granger Holiday cookbook. With puff pastry in my freezer, a new pack of pistachio in my pantry, a pack of mince beef which I just bought on Saturday marketing; I guess sausage roll should be a good idea for CL's supper. Something different plus I can finally try the recipe.

Pistachio Sausage Roll

The sausage roll turn out really nice but could do with less spices. The recipe call for 2 teaspoons of cumin, 1 teaspoon of coriander for 1kg of meant. "800+g of mince beef" was in my brain when I'm mixing in the spices with the cooked onion. But I was wrong! I only had a 500+g of beef but there's no turing back :(. I prayed it will turn out alright. It did! CL says it taste a bit bitter but that can be easily solve by having them with sauce (chilli, ketchup etc).

I also made a No-Kead Bread. I came to know about No-Kead Bread more than a year ago thru food bloggers entries. I always wanted to try but I do not have a cast iron pot or anything which has a lid that is oven proof. After reading Sarah latest entry, it occur to me I can try it now! I spend 17hrs on the 1st proof and it look promising. When it comes to shaping, I'm totally lost and I suck at it. It's definitely a long wait from mixing the ingredients till taking the product out from the oven. But it's worth the wait.

My 1st No-Kead Bread crust is really hard but soft on the inside. Is that suppose to be? It didn't look as nice as Sarah's. I coated the bread with too much flour, will need to cut that down next time.

No Knead Bread

I will be trying this recipe out a few more time to improve on my bread making. Plus I'm trying to resist myself from baking cake because CL will only eat 1/4 at most and I ended up finishing them myself. As a result, I gained a lot of weight. =(

Time to try losing some weight now.

Traditional Hakka Dish

2009-10-30T22:04:00.009+11:00

Both CL and me have Hakka background. My mum is a Hakka and his dad is a Hakka. Lei Cha the traditional Hakka dish is no stranger to us. Both our families cooked it since we were young. Especially during the 7th day of Chinese New Year, my granny will cook 7 different side dishes and invite all the neighbours, relatives and families over to eat it.

During my folks recent visit, Mum cooked Lei Cha for us as we miss it a lot.

Tea leaves, peanut, basil and sesame seeds are ground together into a paste using a pestle and mortar looking equipment instead of using a food processor. The paste is mix with hot water to serve as soup.

The mortar is actually a huge bowl with really rough surfaces on the inside and the pestle is a wooden stick made from a particular tree trunk. During grinding, tiny bits of tree trunk are mix in and that result a different soup taste from grinding the ingredient using a food processor.

I don't have the correct equipment therefore I decided to give the soup a miss. I don't think I will ever able to bring it into Melbourne as wood is not allow into Australia.

Back in Singapore, I love eating Lei Cha with puffed rice which we buy from Malaysia. The puff rice look just like rice bubbles. Grandpa's neighbour own a factory that makes it in Malacca. As we can't find puffed rice, Mum cooked garlic rice to go with the vegetable. Lots of garlic are mince, fried and mixed with raw rice before cooking.

As for side dishes, Mum cook

Choy Sum

Cabbage

Leek

String Beans

Bean Curd
Peanut
Dried Shrimp, Sweet Dried Radish and Basil

The way I eat it is scoop some garlic rice into my bowl, place a big spoonful of different vegetable plus bean curd and some dried shrimp, dried radish, basil and a handful of peanuts. MIX EVERYTHING together and it's ready to be dig in.

I cook it again last night and I spend 2 hours just washing and chopping up the vegetable. I know I'm slow. It's a very simple dish but too long preparation time required.

Ayame

2009-10-25T20:39:00.006+11:00

CL found Ayama in The Age Good Food Guide 2008 which we had. We decided to give it a try and manage to reserve a table before we left the house. The place was pretty empty when we arrived. There was a table of 10 boys/guys and we were the 2nd table.

From memory the menu was not huge, craving for the night for us was sashimi. I was pretty determine to make sure I have space for dessert at end of the meal, therefore we decided to order a main size of mixture of sushi & sashimi, a main size of mixed tempura, a bowl of rice for CL to go with his tempura.

My initial impression was the restaurant was managed/owned by HK. But during the wait, we notice 1 of the guy from the table of 10 was chatting with the chef and waitress (guessing boss and wife) in Japanese. I'm definitely wrong about their origin....hell knows why I thought they are HK. Later part we found out that the guy was in fact making order for his mates! He's definitely a regular, able to order without looking at the menu at all.

We started the meal with a complimentary appetizer. It's really refreshing, crunchy, appetizing but can't figure out what actually it is. Answer we got for the waitress was POTATO. Half cooked potato maybe?

Next was Mixed Sushi & Sashimi. Nothing to shout about except their California roll. When I 1st saw it, I was disappointed that the roll was so badly done. It's not even totally sealed, not rolled tightly. But after the 1st bite, I know it was done on purpose! Their famous california roll is so crunchy!!!! The chef had placed loose tempura batter in as filling. Rolling the sushi too tightly will crash all the batter hence lose the crunch. It's such a brilliant idea using the loose tempura batter since it's going into the bin anyway.

As for this dish, we smelled it when it was served to the table next to us (10 boys/guys). CL made a enquiry on it and the waitress told us it's a cold dish. Beef was chilled and sliced and serve with salad. It's a popular dish and very nice. We decided to try and it's really amazing! Very beautifully presented, the dressing on the beef is different from the dressing on the salad which is hidden under the slices of beef. Although we find the salad dressing too saltish, we still like the dish.

Final dish was tempura. The serve was huge! All the vegetable ( sweet potato, carrot, eggplant...can't remember what else)tempura came in pair plus 3 giant prawn. It wasn't soaked with oil, nicely battered (not too thick).

As for dessert, choices was limited. We settled for Green Tea Ice Cream served with Sesame Cookies. It's a nice combination of two. The cookie is nice and covered with white and hint of black sesame seeds.
Does anyone has any idea where can I find such cookie????

Excuse : Folks came for visit

2009-10-25T16:14:00.002+11:00

Sorry for the lack of blog post for the past 1 month......My folks were here for visit cum vacation. In fact I just got home after sending them to the airport after a slightly more than 3 weeks stay.

I have so much of catching up to do!!!!

A reminder to myself......back dated entry to be done

1> Ayame

2> Tutto Bene

3> Kangaroo Island Vacation

4> Traditional Hakka Dish

5> Spanish food at South Melbourne Market

6> Good Life in Adelaide

7> Rockpool - My advance birthday dinner

8> My Surprise Birthday Present from CL --- Most important!!!!

9> Homecook food by Dearest Mummy and Me =)

OMG.....starting to wonder how long that is going to take me.....hmmmmm

Golden Dragon Palace

2009-09-20T17:44:00.016+10:00

Golden Dragon Palace Restaurant is one of our favourite chinese restaurant. It's not a budget restaurant but the food served is really delicious and service is good. It's near our place and no problem getting a car park. I had never blogged about this restaurant despite of being there quite a few time now. That's partly because I always tends to forget having my camera with me.

They also served Yum Cha daily starting from late morning to late afternoon. I had bought my guests from Singapore (parents, my best friend) for Yum Cha and all of them enjoyed it a lot.

Last month, after a long day at work we decided to pamper ourselves. Spend some time together and have a good meal. Golden Dragon Palace Restaurant immediately came to our mind because we knew it will not disappoint us.

We started the meal with San Choy Bow (chicken). Loved the sweet sauce which comes with it and pines nuts which is used to garnish the dish.

CL had his usual Hot and Sour Seafood Soup.

Another of our favourite dish is their Peking Duck. The wrap is soft, duck is meaty and with together with the sauce it's one of the best Peking Duck dish we had in Melbourne so far.

Stir fry chicken, duck, prawn with cream& egg. This dish is under the chef recommendation section on the menu. We had tried quite a few dishes under the chef recommendation and it always impressed us. Same for this dish. It has a very unique taste, not traditional chinese food style.

Yong Tau Fu (Bean Curd stuff with Seafood paste). Although this is a very ordinary dish, they manage to do it really nice. The seafood paste is firm, not saltish and it didn't get separated with the bean curd when we use our chopstick to pick it up. We didn't manage to finish all the dishes so we had half of it take away for lunch the next day.

As for dessert, we had red bean soup which is complementary. Red bean soup is a dessert which I don't really eat but I actually loved this a lot. I always end my meal at Golden Dragon Palace with this regardless how full my tummy is.

Mei Cai Kou Rou (Pork with Preserved Vegetable)

2009-09-20T17:03:00.011+10:00

The 1st dish I cook with my newly purchase 27cm Oval French Oven is Mei Cai Kou Rou (Pork with Preserved Vegetable). It's a Hakka dish which I learned from mummy and I haven't cook it for quite some time.

The size is just right. I'm amazed that the content doesn't get overflow when boiling even with the lid fully closed!

Last night, I cook a pot of Korean style beef soup with my 20cm black French Oven. Opps I didn't manage to take any photos. I will try to remember next time. :)

Dinner tonight will be grilling some thinly sliced beef and pork purchased from Suzuran with the square skillet. Yummm.....can't wait!

Le Creuset

2009-09-19T23:22:00.011+10:00

The title says it all! I just own a Le Creuset cookware.

Not one, not two but three pieces!!!!!

The plan before we left the house to Doncaster Westfield was to search for the best bargain on a Le Creuset skillet grill. I never expect to find it at DJ + a 50% discount! I'm definitely getting it.

As DJ having promotion on all Le Creuset cookware range for 30-50% discount. CL decided to let me buy more since I have being "eyeing" it for so long.

After some discussion especially on what size to buy, what color, what shape etc. We finally came to a decision.

A blue 27cm Oval French Ovens, a black 20cm French Ovens and a 26cm square skillet grill.

So Ang Moh Style

2009-08-23T10:49:00.004+10:00

"Today dinner so Ang Moh" that's what CL said when he sat at the table.

I did nothing fanciful, just used what I had in the freezer + pantry. Mince beef + mince chicken + onion + egg + corn flake crumb = meatball. Packet of meatball gravy from IKEA in the pantry + milk = gravy. Jam from Miss Maple in the fridge. Some mash potatoes and greens. Altogether is my own version of IKEA meatball.

As I had served the greens in 1 plate, smash potatoes in 1 bowl, meatballs in another plate. CL felt yesterday dinner was so ang moh style. Scooping from 1 plate to after another, piecing his dinner together in front of him was rather unusual. Once he took some chilli sauce from the fridge, the ang moh style gone as I told him. LOL. Very typical of him having chilli sauce with almost everything. A friend of ours even laugh at him having steak with chilli sauce! It's something which can't be change.

Chocolate Cake

2009-08-23T10:44:00.002+10:00

Yeah! I finally found the picture!

Thought I lost it but turn out I didn't look hard enough and detail enough. Plus I think I need to change my filing system for the photos.

This is the Chocolate Cake which I tried months ago mentioned here. Definitely going to bake for daddy when he comes, he loves cake. Bet he will enjoyed it a lot! As for mummy, I need to start looking into Butter Cake as that's her favourite.

Steak Sandwich + Pumpkin Soup

2009-07-28T16:12:00.020+10:00

Last Saturday I was called back to work in the morning :(. Client was running production slightly longer than expected and I got to relieve my colleague so that he is able to spend some time with his 2 kids (fair). I was actually looking forward to meet up with Lynn to do some baby shopping before she pop. It's so hard to slot her in with my current messy, last minute, all over the place schedule.

Even though I was pretty tired after work, I was hoping I could cook something simple and nice for dinner to de-stress. YES, cooking is actually a relaxation therapy for me. Shopping for clothing is actually stress for me!!!! Plus we have being eating out for the past few nights and getting sick of outside food covered with lots of msg + salt.

I had defrost the steak that morning. I could just have salad and steak or with roast pumpkin. That's very usual typical dinner which we have. Not very interesting dinner so I came up with having Pumpkin Soup with Steak Sandwich.

I had homemade chicken stock in the freezer and all the ingredient required. Plus I had a few avocados which I need to try finish before they go bad. All I had to do was pop into Coles on my way home and get some bread + fresh salad.

My version of Pumpkin Soup. Honestly I have no idea should it still be consider as Pumpkin Soup or Vegetable Soup. Because pumpkin wasn't the only ingredient. I also put in carrot, onion, celery. I was very surprise it turn out to be very sweet. It was really comforting to have a bowl of hot soup for dinner during winter.

Juicy Porterhouse Steak bought from my favourite butcher in Victoria Market. The steak was perfect! Not too cooked for CL nor too rare for me.

My version of steak sandwich made with porterhouse steak, rockets, avocado and roasted capsicum.

It was such a simple, easy and nice dinner that both of us enjoyed a lot. I'm more determine to try make more western style soup rather than my usual Cantonese, oriental soup.

Nice Breakky and Stroll by the Beach

2009-07-19T14:22:00.010+10:00

This morning was spent having a nice breakfast at St Kilda Gallen Cafe, follow by a stroll by the beach. It was our 2nd visit to Gallen Cafe. It never failed to impress us!

Although it was still pretty early when we arrived but we got the last available table. We started the morning with a huge cup of strong mocha.

CL got tempted with their Pumpkin Scone serve with butter and relish. It's very special having scone with their relish. The combination actually turn out really well.

I had sweet-potato, basil and fetta hash browns with spinach, poached egg, and relish. I'm beginning to appreciate relish a lot more although I still find the taste slightly strange.

While CL had his Egg Benedict. The poached egg is cook to prefection, served with the sesame bun plus hollandaise sauce.

A wonderful breakky, stroll by beach and a lazy afternoon in front of the telly, it's such a great way to spend a weekend with my love.

Chocolate Filled French Toast

2009-07-18T19:05:00.002+10:00

Another Bill Granger's recipe.

French toast came into my mind once I woke up. I had some leftover stale bread. Milk in the fridge and eggs. Remembered there is a french toast recipe in the Bill Granger's Holiday cookbook, best time to give it a try.

It's very sinful on a easy morning but it was really filling and delicious!!!!

Beef in Red Wine with Creamy Smash Potato

2009-07-15T20:17:00.005+10:00

Beef in Red Wine with Creamy Smash Potato

After I knocked off on Monday, I dropped by to the Fruit & Vegetable shop and Coles to top up the fridge.

When I got home, I had sudden urge to try cooking a casserole dish! I had never tried it before and always wanted to. So I did a search among my cookbooks and found a recipe which I like. Best of all, I had all the ingredients in my fridge and pantry(that's why I love stocking my pantry with lots of food. CL used to comment we are always ready for war)!

The recipe is from Bill Granger. I bought his cookbook title HOLIDAY more than a month ago and never really had the time to read every single recipe in it. Before trying this dish, I only tried his Chocolate Cake recipe (still trying to find the picture I took). It turn out really well!! The cake is moist, it's super easy to make and most important I love how it taste (not too sweet). I'm kinda of hook onto him especially after this dish.

Back to Beef in Red Wine. It's really easy to cook. Chop the meat, onions, garlic, celery. Mix them up and marinate with red wine. Chop up 1 tin of tomatoes and mix into the meat + vegetable after marinate and pop into the oven for 2 hours. Before times up, just fry some bacon with mushroom till bacon crisp and mix into the meat+ vegetable, also mix in some corn starch and continue to cook in the oven for another 20mins. I reckon it taste better after a day. It's such a nice dish for the cold winter.

Review by CL is pretty good. This dish is definitely very different from what I had tried cooking before. Initially I was afraid CL won't like it due to the red wine (he doesn't drink) but in the end I worried for nothing coz he likes it too :)

If my hectic schedule is not going to end soon, bet there's more beef in red wine on my table. Or even more Bill Granger's recipes.

Me in Action

2009-07-14T18:22:00.015+10:00

I'm currently a busy bee!!!! I'm so tired up with work that I don't even have time to cook, definitely can't even squeeze any blogging time. :(

Summary of the month June

My in-laws came for a 18 days vacation. Their 1st visit also my 1st time staying with them. At the end of the trip, I think 18 days a bit too long. I will had gone crazy any minute by the day 18. They spoiled my knive set (hopefully still repairable, need to find time and pop into King of Knives for sharpening), damage my thermal pot (still usable but appearance gone). Worst of all, they almost got the house burned down and they think it's a small issue. We seriously learned that we can't stay with them. There is a too huge gap in between us. At the end of the trip, I don't even feel appreciated after what we planned, organised and tried to put together. *sigh*

Went to Sydney for a 4 days short trip with my in-laws. I managed to visit my Aunt and Cousin's family. Discovered Chat Thai and we got hooked!!!!!!!! I had 2 meals out of the 4 days. How I wish Melbourne has something similar!!!!

I know how jelly snakes are made. Interesting process and I just tasted some fresh today.

Feeling hungry now as I'm having a big pot of beef in red wine cooking in the oven.....Yummmm.

I'm ending this entry with some photos I found. I will try to get my act together and post more back dated photos.

Me making a mess in the kitchen. This was taken during my in-laws visit. We were both so sick of chinese food that we decided to have a change and cook pasta for dinner.

Pasta, Salad and 4kg of mussels in white wine.

My favourite pasta by Jamie Oliver. Easy to cook and delicious to eat.

CL's Birthday Feast

2009-05-31T21:35:00.011+10:00

At 530pm on CL's birthday, "I want to eat Japanese food" was what he said once he got home from Uni. He made the call to Shira Nui and got us 2 counter seats for 6pm seating. Honestly, I didn't expect to have any available seats for us at all. Shira Nui is always full and has to make booking at least weeks before.

CL requested to try their omakase menu since we always go for À la carte and had a good reason to pamper ourselves. :)

Chefs busy at work behind the counter.

We managed to shot all the delicious sushi before popping them into the mouth. Chef even asked why we like to take photos of the food. It's to remind myself what I had eaten/tried.

Chef brief us on every pair of nigirizushi when served and told us to have it with soy or no soy. We had so many that I don't exactly remember what each nigirizushi is exactly made of. I just have to let the photos to do all the talking. :)

1st pair of nigirizushi

2nd pair of nigirizushi was Salmon seasoned with shichimi togarashi and pan fried. 5th pair of nigirizushi was oyster grilled with mayo. Both pictures can be seen on my previous entry.

**OMG.....while going though my old entries, found out that the 1st time we ate at Shira Nui was last year during CL's birthday.

3rd pair of nigirizushi.

4th pair of nigirizushi was grilled beef. Picture can be seen on my previous entry too.

6th pair of nigirizushi was Ark Clam.

7th pair of nigirizushi was tempura lady finger stuffed with crab meat. It was really different.

8th pair of nigirizushi was tuna lightly pan fried on the surface.

9th pair of nigirizushi was white fish belly marinated in some sauce.

10th pair of nigirizushi was grilled scallop.

Up to this point, only me, CL and another customer were still going. The rest already surrendered and ordered dessert.

This was a complimentary nigirizushi from the chef. They constantly tried new idea, new combination and seek reviews from the customers. This nigirizushi is made up from white fish, bacon and plum sauce. I find the bacon taste was too strong and covered/hidden all the rest of the taste.

11th pair of nigirizushi. White fish torched with miso.

12th pair of nigirizushi was tuna with special sauce. Special sauce made up of avocado, spicy chilli sauce and miso.

13th pair of nigirizushi was salmon belly torched with salmon roe.

Can you believe at this point, we can actually eat more! The chefs were pretty shock especially after 10 pairs of nigirizushi, we still requested for more. HAHAHA. But we had to stop after number 13th as it was already 8pm and that when their 2nd seating for the evening start.

It was a really good experience for both of us. We both enjoyed the meal a lot! Sitting at the counter, watching 3 chefs busying making sushi, slicing sashimi etc. Totally no idea what nigirizushi we will be served.

Hmmm.....when will be my next trip?? On my birthday???

CL's Birthday

2009-05-30T01:09:00.006+10:00

It was CL's birthday last week. We went for a very nice + expensive Japanese dinner at Shira Nui on the actual day (my next entry). As we were both too full after the dinner, CL didn't manage to blow his candle till few days ago.

I didn't forget to buy some candle a week before his birthday. :)

5min Chocolate Cake which I baked. Super easy! All ingredients available in the pantry and 2 mins in the microwave! Super dangerous recipe!!!!!

Food I Cook/Bake in April

2009-05-09T19:55:00.007+10:00

Baking banana bread was the best way to use up overripe bananas. To had freshly baked banana bread for breakfast on a weekend morning was having all the ingredients measured and stored aside the evening before. 1st thing in the morning after I woke up was mixed everything up and pop it into the oven to bake.

Meatball is another nice, simple, easy dish which taste well for lunchbox.

Char Siew Pork Spare Ribs. Totally clueless what to cook the spare ribs with so went for Char Siew flavour which is CL favourite. I can cook anything and everything with Char Siew sauce and he will comment it's nice. This dish turn out really nice as I had the ribs marinated 24 hours and I grilled it slowly under middle fire. Yum!

Quiche

2009-05-09T19:36:00.009+10:00

It was my 1st time making Quiche. In fact I don't think I ever ordered quiche outside. But it seem really easy to make and a colleague of mine started making all different types and having it for lunch.

I manage to find a pie dish few weeks ago at Box Hill and I kept delaying trying to make quiche till 2 weeks ago when my buddy and godson were here for a short visit.

The quiche turned out really nice. All of them loved it including my godson. It was bacon,leeks and mushroom quiche. It was so easy to make that I made another 1 last night for CL pack lunch/dinner and my dinner. The pastry was purchased from Coles. I didn't try making my own pastry as I heard it was hard without a food processor. Hopefully I'm able to find time and try making. I'm starting to work on site from end of next week. Looking at the schedule, the earliest for me to be situated back to office is Aug. Going to clock quite a bit of extra time at work soon.

Before going into the oven

Fresh out from the oven

After sliced

Yum Cha Ending Without Dessert

2009-05-03T22:23:00.015+10:00

Belated Post
19th April 2009

Kam Fook restaurants in Sydney are very famous, well known. During our (me & CL) uni days, we only manage to Yum Cha at Kum Fook during special occasion like after our exam or someone birthday as we were so tight on budget. As for dinner at Kam Fook was totally out of question. I love their yum cha. Last time I had yum cha there was 2 years ago at Bondi Junction,Sydney with my parents.

When I found out Kam Fook is coming to Melbourne, I got excited. It was supposed to be opened end of 2008. But we ended up waiting for months till April 2009. Why the long delay? Who knows. But it only proved they definitely earning a lot/at least enough to cover their lose from the restaurants in Sydney.

We planned to do some shopping at Westfield on Sunday morning and at the same time try the newly open Kam Fook Yum Cha if we manage to get a table. We were happy when we had no trouble getting a table, in fact the place was pretty empty. Bet their opening news has not really spread.

1st impression was actually pretty good. Tea was served fast and trolleys of food came fast too.

First we had Char Siew Bao, Chicken Feet and Pork Spare Ribs.

Chicken Feet was good. Full of flavour and not over cooked. It doesn't break into parts when I lifted it up using my chopstick. As for the spare ribs, nothing fantastic, the usual.

Char Siew Bao was disappointing. The filling was nice, not too sweet, not too dry nor wet. BUT the dough was not soft and fluffy enough. It was quite compressed and dense. :( I admit, when it comes to Char Siew Bao, I super picky!!!

Next was Congee (pork and century egg). The serving was HUGE! BUTTTT another disappointment!!!! It look thick but it wasn't! After a few stir, it all became super watery. Plus it was bland, tasteless. *faint* 1st time we adding soya sauce to our cooked food.

Follow up was Siew Mai and Har Gao. *shake head* I don't really remember what the siew mai taste like except it was dry. Definitely didn't leave good/ bad impression on me. As for the har gao, it was definitely dry! The skin was dry the filling was dry. Both oversteam???

After 6 dishes, we conclude the food wasn't as good as Tai Pan nor Golden Dragon Palace which were only 5 mins drive away from Kam Fook. So food wasn't their selling point.

As for their service, it all went downhill after we were seated within 15mins. Patrons started coming in, more tables were filled. We were being ignored! Trolleys stopped coming our area after they saw us stopped eating. What's there for us to eat when we had finished all the food we ordered and waiting for more????

Noticed we aren't being served, we decided to skip everything and go for the dessert. Saw the trolley, spend 15mins waiting but it never made it to our table/area. In the end, I had to asked a waiter who was topping up hot water for our tea what desserts were available. His answer was " I call the gal to push the trolley over". (For those who aren't familiar, only waitress served food/push trolleys/take order. Waiter job scope is set up table/clear table/ top up hot water for tea.) We spend another 15mins waiting for the trolley (can see we desperate for our usual dessert) and I finally told CL that forget it, we should just leave. I was sick of waiting!

That was our 1st time of Yum Cha ending without mango pudding for him and taofu fa for me. Ending our Yum Char after 6 dishes and adding soya sauce to my congee. *shake head* :(

I won't be going back there again unless someone who I can trust tell me they had experience a enjoyable Yum Cha there.

At the end of the day, we bought 2 slices of cakes as dessert which we had at the comfort of our own home. Btw, the cakes were delicious!!!! Tried their cakes before and knew it will not disappoint me at all. Sorry don't remember what's the stall named but it was just beside the Westfield Food Court. It also served pretty cute little cupcakes.

Where has my time gone???

2009-05-03T17:08:00.006+10:00

I haven't being blogging for the past few weeks and I just found out last night when I was looking thur the pictures from my camera. I'm just to busy (more like lazy right?) Seriously need to be more organise and discipline.

I have being trying very hard to start my day early, reaching the office after 7am. Clock a bit more time on the project as it's pretty tight schedule + they kept changing the requirement *sigh*. Not really enjoying work at the moment actually. Well, other than suck it up and concentrate on work what else can I do????

My best buddy and godson came for a short visit, 7 days (our 1st guest since the move).
Me and Godson
It was really last minute, she confirmed her trip on Monday and flew in overnight on Friday. I didn't manage to spend a lot of with them as I need to work. So it's just the evening which we chilled out at home after dinner. I think they enjoyed the trip and I hope they did. :)

I definitely learn something from their trip. Really ponder when I and CL will be ready to start a family. We know it's not the time now but when? Hmmm don't think we will ever have an answer for it. At present, we love our freedom too much. (He definitely agree with me on that)

I preparing to have a tight schedule month ahead. For work, it's finishing up the project and commissioning(Cadbury want to start production 1st June). Outside work, I'm attending a wedding, bbq, yum cha, dinner gathering all organised by Club Alfred. Also at the same time start preparing, cleaning, shopping for my in-laws arrival in June.