Ahhh, it's been a few days of Merry Eating.

On one of the very rare days that mom didn't cook dinner, the boy and I headed to MyCUBE on Lygon St to have some pretty decent Malaysian/ Singaporean food. This is what we had for dessert, so so good! It's called 'Pandan Ninja'. Or 'Panda Ninja' ? Either way it's yummy.

What do parents buy when they come over for a visit? PLENTY of vitamin supplements! Just look...

You'd assume that Woolies know their items insideoutupsidedown but I think they need a bit more education in the Vegetable department.

Sister made cheesesticks with puff pastry (if only you could try some, they were so tasty!) and decided to put the gingerbread cookie cutter to good use...

The gingerbreadmen cheesepuffs came out PUFFY! Hahaha, so cute. Mr. SuperPUFF to the rescue!

Mom cooked the tumeric fish she'd been talking about since touching down in Melbourne on Day 1. We bought a snapper from trusty Queen Victoria Market and carried it around the CBD with us so it saw a bit of the world before it ended up in our tummies. Behold the awesomest tumeric fish ever consumed by humans.

 

 After which we went to Williamstown for some crepe flambe! Look my crepe is ON FIRE!

Bacon for breakfast again <3. Bacon is my personal alarm clock. Works everytime!

Sister was reunited with her Gingerbread bfs since meeting them in HK one Christmas ago...This time they were in a shop window in Glen Waverley.

I still have no plans for NYE and it's tonight!! The city's gonna be packed, the weather is a scorching 35 degrees and storms have been predicted for later in the night. Sounds like it's a good idea to stay in. Spent the day (ok, fine...mom made them. My sis and I just decorated them since we have the combined talents of Picasso and Dali) making and creating these..

Here's wishing everyone a happy 2010!!

Polyvore #1

Trying my hand at putting outfits together (outfits which I can only dream to own), but nevertheless every girl can..and should dream of pretty things :)

• Jill Stuart Aspen dress: so sweet, romantic and girly
• Etro Collarless Macram Coat: for when things get a lil chilly
• Sergio Rossi Peep Toe shoes encrusted with Swarovski
• H&M flats: for the end of the night when your feet hurt!
• Alexander McQueen infamous skull clutch tinged with gold
  

STILL in the Christmas spirit!

It's hard not to still be in the Christmas spirit when shop signs are screaming Boxing Day sales everywhere. However, I believe I'm a smarter and more seasoned shopper these days, hence I spend less by not buying crap things that I don't need; AND I don't buy things just because they are cheap- I've done this so many times and they've always ended up being thrown away a few years down the road.

So on Christmas Day itself, after an awesomex1000000000 Christmas lunch/dinner prepared by the mom (assisted by sous chef Sis), we found ourselves with time on our hands (cos we had dinner at 5pm!) and decided to venture out to Crown to watch the infamous yearly Christmas light show. But first, I'll have to show you our Christmas food (how can I not!?) :)

Yummo Cauliflower au gratin- full of cheesy goodness mmmMmmmm..

Other supporting actors- Coleslaw, Champagne made with 100% strawberries (tasted smooth but a tad bit too sweet), and stuffing which was removed from the turkey and cooked again to enhance its flavour.

The main star of the day- Turkey a la roasted! :D

 The Carebear family had a little reunion of their own too.

My sister's and my Christmas pressie from the boy!

Prior to heading to Crown.

A very pretty Candy Cane Christmas tree at the foyer in Crown.

Robot-looking reindeer (who didn't have to turn up to the North Pole that night, lucky him!)

It's been a while since I've been on a merry-go-round..

The glittering gold Christmas tree.

And then we saw the BIGGEST CRAB EVER!

And also the BIGGEST LOBSTER EVER! (look, it's the same size as the giant crab)

Just outside one of the entrances to the Casino which was recently renovated and the ceiling was filled with mirror-like floating butterflies.

New Year's in a few days! What will YOU be doing?

I has a black tongue!

From eating this...

Can you guess what flavours they are?
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Licorice licks and Ginger (from some ice-cream shop in Williamstown)! You might go 'ergh, what ice-cream flavours are those?' but they are really surprisingly good.

Being a cheapo is good because...

...you get buy 1 free 1 meals! Hee hee hee (and this fed my whole family).

Patience has never been my virtue....

So- a big FAT oops, I have been shopping! What's that you say? Boxing day sales? But but but that's 2 days away!!!! Spot the pair of shoes on the top right? I got them for steal! Lucky me too, since that was the pair I didn't get a few days earlier as I needed to take into account the fact that $$ would not be guaranteed next year.

And we had Tong Yuen for Winter Solstice- yum black sesame and peanut :D

Not forgetting Gingerbreadman cookies for Christmas! Accompanied by insanely overdecorated gingerbreadman and Fuzzball-shaped cookie.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody! Have a great break and happy holidays to all!

xox,
JT

MIA............cos parents are here!! Yay!

What I've been up to during my absence...
Eating cherries :)

and then becoming cherry bobbleheads :D

Today I saw...

A reindeer car!

Liar, liar pants on fire! Liar, Liar- Hawthorn

This weekend we decided to pay Liar,liar in Hawthorn a visit and I have to say, it's a good breakfast place that'll definitely keep me going back!

Small lil girl who seemed inseparable from her doggy. This is how the shopfront looks like by the way, we were seated outside as the weather was lovely and the sun was out.

No idea what's going on here.

Unique chairs that were pleasantly and surprisingly more comfortable than normal chairs.

I started of with Refresher (a mix of fresh juices- apple, strawberry, watermelon and mint) and the boy had his usual cappuccino. Coffee's nothing spectacular and I didn't think much of the juice but he really liked it.

Yum!! This is what I had. Not telling you cos then everyone would go there!

The aptly named Pants on fire- which was quite yummy with some chorizo mixed in. I thought this tasted strongly like a mixture of ingredients from an antipasto platter.

The mess which was our breakfast table. Ok, we got there and started eating around 12 but it's still breakfast!

And because this is so pretty it deserves a pic of its own....this is the banana bread (with coconut- so if you're not a fan of coconut you might not like this) with labneh (which is the yogurt you see on the top), rhubarb, raspberries and pistachios.

Look closely at the bread and you'll clearly see the bread chock full of banana and desiccated coconut.

Quite happy with how the pics turned out! The boy and I are slowly getting the hang of a DSLR (all pics taken with Canon 1000D using the 18-55mm basic kit lens - I'm not a big fan of the lens but I guess its a matter of mastering the functions of the camera and then upgrading the lens huh?)

One more sleep to a Monday (yuck)! I guess the only consolation is the fact that I'll be working from the office and its only 2 weeks to go before my Christmas party and 3-week break! Awesome, can't wait for that.

Till then, take care and keep your tummies full people!

Meet the (Rolls) Royce of the chocolate world

Have you had fresh Royce choccies before? If not, you might be missing out. I personally don't see what's so special about them except that they really do melt in your mouth but I need to try more to be able to judge without bias HEE :D *hinthinthint

These were flown in from Singapore by one of the friends of the boy. Packaging says Champagne on the front but I couldn't really taste it at all. And apparently when you buy them from the shop they wrap it up with ice for you. Or was it in an ice pack? Hmm same difference :)

They look really good though, with a layer of dusted chocolate powder on the top. I was hoping they would be bitter, to contrast with the sweetness of the chocolate but since I ate like a greedy pig ie. popping a whole chunk in my mouth at any one time, I couldn't really savour the taste. That said, eating them that way made them taste like caramel fudge 0_0- I'm sure my description is totally butchering what it's really meant to taste like woops. And since they're so fresh, they can't be kept for long so I guess they aren't staying in my fridge long enough to grow moldy!

It's been a week filled with...FOOD! (what a surprise eh)

Decided to cook pork belly rashers which were sitting in the freezer. Now we all know that the longer something hibernates in the freezer, the sooner it is forgotten. I've had things grow mold in my fridge...dadada now moving on.
Fluffy buttery mash (cheated and used instant mix haha)

Painstakingly marinated pork belly rashers with five spice and heaps of other random stuff. Was hoping it'd turn out nice like siew yuk (yummmmmm cracklingggggg) but unfortunately they were chewy :(

Issa ok issa ok, still edible. Quite flavourful too :D

Ready-made roast vegies are yuck, next time I'll make them from scratch! I liked the pairing of apple sauce with pork. I made stewed apples for the first time too, but was a little too heavy-handed with the sugar.

Decided to make white choc cranberry cookies today...what was supposed to be an 8 minute affair lasted an hour!! And not to mention the cookies were mega-fail presentation wise too. You shall see...read on.
Lined up prettily, ready to be baked in the oven. Oh may I add that the boy was involved in 80% of the preparation! Pretty impressed with his efforts considering the only thing he probably makes in the kitchen is boiled water hehe.

He even chopped up the 3 cookies in the pic below as the cranberry and white choc chips were too humongous. The two blobs at the top belong to me...cos I got lazy making the tray above shhh.

Sitting duck cookie. Not knowing the fate that awaits it HA HA BURNNNNNNNNNNN in the oven!

They came out all joined together!!! Wahhh *cries.

And became mutant blobs!!!! But it's all good, cos sis just had some and said they were nice. The world is good again yay.

Gummi bears drowning in doughnut ice-cream from Cold Rock Ice Creamery. The ice-cream there tastes so so bad I'd never go back again. I guess it's fun the first time just for the novelty factor cos you get to pick your flavour and what you want to add in it, and they chop and mix your ingredients and ice-cream on a cold stone slab.

Very yummy dandan mien from Xiao Ting Box in Richmond.

But don't have the Xiao loong bao...they were just..dumplings with no soup!

And then my sister decided to make stuff too...Bruschetta with yummy topping I have no idea what, but I could definitely taste bacon bits and tomato and other unidentifiable stuff.

Salad sitting on baked potatoes topped with cheese. Yummmm!