Having finished work and going home to an empty house, I guess it's time to sit down, sip some tea and... start blogging as though I have a life. Since I have a big pot of tea sitting right in front of me, this might just be a super long post... long enough to update this blog right up to the present~

The tea I'm drinking now is actually from Singapore. My sister bought a sachet with many pearls of tea and this is one of them:

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Dried, it's just a big ball of tea leaves.

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Infused in water, the outer leaves drop off, revealing a bright pink flower! It's a very fragrant tea too.

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Now I'm ready to blog. The very pretty teacup set was given by J&M when I celebrated my birthday again for the hundredth time ^^~ they said it's because I seem to enjoy high tea (though I've only been to high tea once, and that was with my high school friends too, where we sat for hours on end chatting and never really getting to the top tier of scones), so now I can be sad and have high tea by myself at home =P shan't be emo, I'll just use it as a teacup.

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Sheraton Four Point buffet- round 2!

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It's basically a seafood buffet, but after looking at some pictures from Las Vegas and the buffet at Wynn Hotel, my standard for a "good" buffet has gone up =( I have been craving to go to Las Vegas for a while now... not to gamble of course, because I'm too poor and I'd rather spend the money eating. They have such nice-looking hotels and buffets there, it's like a food paradise.

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Lots of fresh sashimi and smoked salmon at Sheraton Four Point though~ apparently, salmon is really good for the skin (ladies, take note~) same with avocado. Unlike the coenzyme q10 or whatever it was in the last post, salmon and avocado are actually proven to be very healthy for you, so next time, opt for a salmon/avo sushi roll for lunch maybe? ^^

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Dessert never fails to make people happy!

After coming back from Singapore, we were craving Singaporean food so badly, we went around Sydney actively searching for typical Singaporean/ Malaysian food. Came across a few, some were disappointing, some were OK, but still, I guess the best is still homemade...

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Nasi lemak from Mamak's. This was pretty good actually, the ikan bilis were crispy, but look at the miserably small puddle of chilli sauce. Would have loved a little more chilli to go with all that rice. We ordered a plain nasi lemak, but for a little extra, you could also order beef, chicken or seafood rendang to go with it.

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This was Mamak's rojak. I don't know what sort of rojak it is, I'm guessing it's mamak style... but the ones we had in Singapore were totally different, so this was quite a major disappointment. We were after the dark brown (made out of tamarind and prawn paste) rojak with fruits and cucumbers... this was just weird, can't say it tasted very good either... =(

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This is Nasi Lemak No.2 from Makan Alice, Thornleigh. Went there after work on afternoon for lunch and it was quite nice. Came with chicken or beef rendang, and I chose chicken, tt chose beef... and it's quite obvious that beef rendang tasted nicer =P It was good, and cheaper than Mamak's, but for some reason, I didn't feel too well afterwards. Not sure if this was the culprit, but I'll definitely think twice before going back.

Nasi Lemak No.3 doesn't have photos. It was homemade by Uncle Robbie's wife at a Christmas dinner for the Wednesday night badminton team. Verdict? It was really good! Really spicy, really authentic, and she's a really good cook. We had satay sticks that night (I had about 5), and Uncle Robbie put on a show with his wok skills making char kway teow. I had a go after him... of course, I'm no pro with the wok (heck, we don't even own a wok at home... and we call ourselves Asians T T) but it was still edible! No one's complained of food poisoning... yet...

So I think after that, our food hunting for Singaporean food kinda died off as we sank back into reality of being back in (the hole of a) Sydney...

I can't remember which day this was, but we were wandering around Hornsby Westfield and went into T2. They actually have a cafe as well as a store for T2 there, and the cafe has high tea... which we didn't go for. Instead, tt wanted something sweet... like... Turkish Delight.

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Whenever someone mentions turkish delight, the book of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" automatically comes into mind, when Edmund asks the White Witch for a box of turkish delight and becomes enchanted by her evil magic into betraying his siblings. I never really liked the sweet after reading the story.

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This thing was what we were given as our "table number".

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It's been so long, I cannot remember what we ordered. They were both strange concoctions. One being passionfruit, orange and some other stuff added to it to make it absolutely alien-tasting, the other was strawberry and some kind of flower flavored... interesting flavors and blends, but they don't work.

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Flowers and strawberries look nice in a drink though.

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This might look familiar. I posted it through my phone a couple of months ago, when JT from work bought this for me =) I told her I wanted to make rojak when I came back from Singapore and she gave me a recipe for it along with some hard to find ingredients (JT, you're so sweet~ thanks!) Sad to say, we tried once and it was a horrific failure... funny, because JT was talking about how she is currently living with a difficult housemate who would come and cough into her food when she's preparing meals in the kitchen. Suggested she should just make rojak, or something that smells similarly foul with the shrimp paste, and see if the housemate dares come into the kitchen to disturb her ^^~

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This was from a Chinese restaurant called "Ming Hai" that tt took me to randomly. Food was mediocre, their claypot rice was quite nice, but... they do use msg, and we were both not feeling too well afterwards (no, it's not cos we ate too much~! It's the food, honestly!), so I actually prefer the cheap and fast Chinese meals from Tim Tim House. Going to be a bit skeptical of random Asian restaurants from now on... they're not exactly known for good hygiene too...

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Dessert break- mocha from Lindt cafe. At the first few sips, this mocha tastes heavenly- possibly the best mocha you've ever tasted. As you continue past the halfway mark of the glass, you start feeling like it's never going to finish. I guess this is the typical scenario where "too much of something good makes it bad". It would have been perfect in just a smaller glass, but I guess with iced mocha, it always comes in a tall glass like this... I'm usually good with sweet stuff, but it's simply too rich and too much.

Lunch at another day saw us sitting at Roll+ (Roll Plus is next to Arisun, China Town). It's a small izakaya that's pretty close to Kasumi and Kura. Tt has something against Kura, so whenever I suggest going to Kura for lunch, I get dragged into Roll+ instead.

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Their gyoza with sweet chilli sauce.

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Their bento are slightly on the expensive side for lunch, but it's big and it's actually quite worth it. Their sashimi salmon slices are hugeeee. I think because I keep suggesting Kura and we keep ending up in Roll+ that the waitress there even knows which table we will sit at. (I don't care, we ARE going into Kura next time!)

Then there was the Sydney event, Sugar Hit, where a number of places sold dessert plates for $20, which comes with a glass of wine. Unfortunately, we didn't see far enough to book in advance and didn't manage to try many at all.

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This was at Sheraton on the Park. We were actually going to take a look at the Noodle Night Market, but it was quite badly organised. There were massive queues going from each stall and people were lining up amongst the tables. There weren't nearly enough tables either, and I think people will be queuing up way past 8 for their food, even though the night markets were technically meant to finish at 8. We did manage to get free Ferrero Rondnoirs though- the dark chocolate ferrero rocher. As we decided against buying from the food stalls for noodles, we headed to Sheraton on the Park and had some hot chocolate and tea before the Sugar Hit.

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Warm chocolate molten cake. Inside is liquid chocolate~

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Been having lots of blueberries lately because it's blueberry season and it's quite cheap for a punnet... though with blueberries, the cheapest it can get is about $3.50 each... it's full of antioxidants! It's actually kinda rare to see food that's naturally blue, but they are super healthy~!

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Ah, this place! I feel kinda obligated to advertise for this restaurant because they were so nice =) This was at "Miso", a Japanese restaurant at World Square, known for its crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the-inside katsu.

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Nyotan's katsu set. Miso soup bowls are really smooth on the side because of its lacquer, so when I picked mine up... I kinda... spilt it everywhere ^^'' thank goodness there was a tray with all the food, so most of the miso were caught on the tray, some went onto my bag which was thankfully on my lap, so none got on me (poor bag had to go for a wash though) and the staff there replaced not only my tray, but also gave me another bowl of miso soup~ for free. That, is what I call good service. They were all apologetic towards me, even though it was entirely my clumsy fault, to the point where I started to feel bad... so I shall highly recommend this restaurant, because not only is there good food, there is also good customer service =D

I realise this is a very random blog post, because nothing is in order, but this is a "fast-forward" post so I can get back to the present while catching up on all those places missed. Went to Campsie one evening for a family dinner.

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"First Taste" at Campsie. I just had some trouble spelling "Campsie" because I forgot what the restaurant name was and had to ask my dad, and I didn't know how to spell "Campsie"! Was it "Campsey" or "Camsey" =_= googlemaps to the rescue! I wasn't actually hungry that day and was getting a sore throat- first sign of the flu... so my dad ordered something light for me.

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This was my mum's seafood clay pot.

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Eel clay pot for my brother~

Then one Wednesday, I had a catch-up session with JC. I haven't seen that girl in months. We were actually scheduled to graduate on the same day, except I ditched her and chose not to go for my graduation... ^^'' I'm sorry.

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Lunch at Musashi. Blurry photo... whoops.

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We scored free green tea ice cream because the first 50 customers get it~ and we were greedy and also had their tofu panacotta, which JC recommended. It was actually really nice and the mango puree on top went well with the otherwise bland tofu pudding.

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Completed with strawberries and whipped cream =D

Keeping with the dessert trend, Nyotan and I have been going to Azuma patisserie fairly often for their cakes and house blend tea. They have really pretty and interesting cakes on display which changes each time we go, so don't be surprised if you don't see the same cakes there as these:

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We got attracted by the colours =) Presentation does matter when it comes to food. It's a berry and mango mousse cake with a thin layer of sponge in between, decorated with various fruits on top. The two flavors went really well together. (Just a random note- I see all these Asian aunties buying multiple boxes of mango jelly powder recently... and by multiple, I mean more than 15 boxes. I got talking with one of them and as I thought, it was for making mango pudding. There's this awesome recipe which I wrote down as a small kid and it seems all the aunties know it too. It requires mango jelly crystals, cream, carnation milk and some other ingredients I can't remember. This auntie bought ALL the boxes of mango jelly we had in the store!! Apparently, mango flavored jelly crystals are quite hard to find... I agree, I could only find it from Bi-Lo last time...)

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This was Azuma's strawberry shortcake. It was really really nice. The sweetened cream, the slices of strawberries, the sponge cake... altogether, it was so nice, we want to attempt making it ourselves. Haha.

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See what I mean by going to Roll+ all the time till the waitress recognises us? This is their soft shell crab sushi~

Since the weather has been pretty hot lately (it is summer now- officially~ summer during Christmas, talk about being in the mood for celebrating Christmas...), one can't help but feel it's too warm to have hot food, which is why you don't. You get cold food- like hiyashi chuuka. There's actually a really good hiyashi chuuka sauce recipe on youtube, from a channel called "cooking with dog" (no, they don't use dog as an ingredient...) along with other recipes. Recipe for the sauce: 100mL hot water with 1/2tsp chicken powder stock and 2 tbp raw sugar dissolved in it, then add 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and then finally, dash of sesame oil. Chill, and pour it over dry cold noodles. I've been making the sauce in record time and pouring it over instant noodles for lunch during those hot spring/summer days. Works well =D

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This was from Ichiban Boshi, the chain that is at Bondi Junction. Came with mustard and mayonnaise- very traditional Japanese style with the egg, tomato, ham and cucumber.

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To compare, we went on another day to Ramen Kan, the one next to Oportos in China Town, where you have to take the elevator up... and it's a really easy to miss entrance. This was their soft shell crab salad~

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Their tsukemen... which I have to say, loses to Menya. More on that one later.

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Their hiyashi chuuka differed from the traditional one because this one came with karaage. Verdict? Pretty good =)

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This random... rather horrid looking mess... was a new creation from New Zealand Natural Ice cream. It's called.. I forgot, some misspelt form of "sushi"... and it's meant to look like sushi, but is actually ice cream. I don't know... it came rather unprofessionally packaged in a takeaway box, looking quite out of shaped despite coming straight out of the freezer, and the taste just doesn't work. The "seaweed", they used something similar to the Uncle Toby's rollups, and the ice cream, they used flavours like choc chip and cookies/cream, with jam in the "centre", but 1) the flavours of the ice cream gets totally owned by the sweet and sour wrapping, 2) it looks horrible and 3) the jam, ice cream AND wrapper don't go well at all together.

After that, there was the premier and start of the 13th Japanese film festival. One of my brother's colleagues gave him free passes to the premier and the movie, so~

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Free finger food and drinks, compliments of Azuma restaurant. Wine, beer, sparkling water or OJ?~

The movie, "The Handsome Suit" was a comedy- entertaining, with lots of well-known supermodels and actors/actresses in it. The story is... maybe a little lame and predictable, but it's a very light-hearted movie that is good to laugh at after a long day at work. It has a good moral too =P I'd recommend it.

I ran out of tea. People are in the house and I no longer have the peace and quiet to blog. My cat just scared the living daylights out of me by running out from a dark room which I was just going into >____< bad Scary... (yes, that's her name... "Scary") Soo... I shall conclude the rest of the entry some other time. Ice cream? =D