Le Petit Gateau

I've never been a fan of sweets or desserts (this is the ONLY course I'll willingly share as I never finish my desserts :D), but you have to make your way to Le Petit Gateau quicksmart if you LOVE cakes and sweet stuff. 

Between the three of us (Mom, Sis and me) we shared (haha, I use the term 'share' loosely because we each had one to ourselves) a Chocolate Coffee Creme, a Freshy Cup (chocolate mousse and banana creme topped with cookie crumble- I thought this was absolutely fantastic YUM YUM YUM) and the perennial favourite, Black Forest. 

Forget Cafe Greco and their cheesecakes (they've gone downhill lately)....so pay LPG a visit the next time you're in the CBD, they're at 458 Little Collins St.

Golden Dragon Palace, Lower Templestowe

Instead of having yum cha at the usual places- Sharkfin House and Crystal Jade in Chinatown, Tai Pan in Doncaster East and Plume in Doncaster (these are the good restaurants with good yum cha), the boy suggested we try Golden Dragon Palace in Lower Templestowe. Being the greedy pigs we are, we agreed quicker than you can say 'Dim Sum!' This restaurant has had its share of good and bad reviews, but we soon discovered that the food was actually not too bad and was comparable to the other restaurants mentioned above which were famous for their yum cha. However, Golden Dragon Palace has a reputation for being pricier than the other restaurants.....but their service was great. We were seated in a corner where the carts couldn't reach us, but we weren't ignored nor did we have to spend ages waiting for food or for our teapot to be refilled.

Us, making use of the mirror in the lift.

The restaurant is nicely decorated and there's ample space between tables (compared to the other restaurants where you feel squished between the table next to you and the back of someone's chair). See the stack of dishes in the pic below? Yeah, that's a grand piano they've used as a table -_-

We had 14 dishes between the 4 of us (is that A LOT??!?!?)

Cutting into the medicinal-tasting ball...please do not order the pink ball!

Yum, this was really good and I don't usually eat this.

Snowball mochi with ice-cream filling, which my sister took one look at, and ordered straightaway cos it looked cute.....

.....only to spend forever picking out the desiccated coconut on the outside cos she hates coconut HAHAHAH 

it was yummy though :)~

Took advantage of the fact that it wasn't too cold that day, and wore things from my wardrobe that hadn't seen the light of day for a few months....or in the case of the shoes (a few years!).

Pretty love heart sheer stockings from Asos

These shoes have only been worn once......2-3 years ago!

Paid bargain price for a pretty cardigan from Valleygirl. I love that store- you have to wade through heaps of ugly clothes, but then here and there you'll find some pieces that actually look great and are quite decent.

Okbye! See you all in a couple of days!

Little Cupcakes

If you've never heard of Little Cupcakes on Degraves St you have to come out of your hiding place under that huge rock! Only kidding :p. Took Mom for a lil visit but unfortunately they were out of their infamous Red Velvet so we tried Mint and Jaffa. Their cupcakes aren't cheap, they cost $2 for a tiiiiiiiiny cupcake but I guess it's good cos then you don't overindulge on that sinful, buttery creamy icing which probably takes a century to work off.

This is another scheduled post so by the time it's up I'll be at Crystal Golden Palace Golden Dragon Palace (haha, oops...their name is so confusing) to try their yumcha! I hope it's as good as Sharkfin House or Crystal Jade in Chinatown. We'll see how it goes *excited.

O frosty nails

Wearing this colour makes me feel so cold everytime I look at my fingers...brrrrr! Haphazard application as evidenced by paint on the cuticles...but who cares? I'll prolly have a new colour on tomorrow :D

Brother Baba Budan

If you're a serial coffee drinker and/or serious coffee aficionado, you'd know (or heard of) this jaunt by now. It needs no introduction- the first pic should have been a dead giveaway as to which place this is. I had a soy latte and it was yum (Soy chai is still my fav drink by far though- the ones made with real tea leaves and spices, not the rubbish syrup/powder concoction). We sat behind the baristas and they worked so quickly in tandem to make coffees for the perpetual crowd. One person would leave, two would enter, three would leave, five would enter...you get the gist.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm still trying to figure out how these coffee places are connected to each other. So Brother Baba Budan in the city on 395 Little Bourke Street is run by the same people that run Seven Seeds in Carlton. We sat next to a man in Brother Baba Budan today and he told us to pay Seven Seeds a visit....I wonder if he was invested in BBB and Seven Seeds? How about Dead Man Espresso? The last time I went I didn't have any coffee, but I know they use a Seven Seed blend.

Anyways, Mom and I paid St. Ali a visit two days ago but I wasn't that impressed with the coffee...it was a bit too lukewarm for my liking. Is there a reason why they make it urmm...not extra hot? The devine citrus and coconut slice more than made up for the mediocre coffees though, it was deliiiiiiiciiiiioussssssssssssss!

Mmmmm, Mom's hard at work in the kitchen- I can smell wafts of Assam fish and it's making me hungry even though I just had a Tim Tam and a Royal *guilty face. Shall go for a swim/splash around in the water this weekend.

Tree tomato

I bought a tamarillo (formerly known as the tree tomato) from the market- can't wait to try it. Apparently the best way to eat it is to slice in half, give it a sprinkling of sugar and scoop away.

I haven't been shopping much and needed to blow some moolah on useless stuff so I added 3 more bottles of nail polishes to my already growing collection :x Off to Chaddy VIP sale tonight :D

ETA: Sweet Violet has been on my nails for 2 days- I'm actually really liking it.

Gave this a go with a sprinkle of sugar on top. It tasted really tart and was quite similar to how a 'fruity' tomato would taste, if that makes sense. I wonder if it's meant to taste sweeter when it ripens a lil bit more?

Soul food

Mom's been cooking up a storm and we've been eating to our hearts' content. Here's what she's made since she got here on the weekend:

Dinner #1: Hainanese chicken rice balls *slurp

Dinner #2: Curry laksa with prawns and sliced chicken breast

Waiting to see what's in store for dinner tonight :)~~~

Nobu- Crown, Melbourne

I've been to Nobu Melbourne a couple of times and everytime it's never failed to disappoint so I decided to treat everyone to dinner there on Sunday night. We had the usual suspects.....if you've ever dined at Nobu, you'll know what to order. Did I hear someone shout 'Black Cod with Miso'? :D Right, let's get on with it. Pics are rather blur as the digital camera didn't take pics well under yellow lowlight. 

Of course we had the Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapenos- YUM x1000000000000. Love the coriander- the mixture of flavours just makes this dish pop. A definite must-try for a party in your mouth.

Haro it's me again (since Mom says there's no pics of me on this blog in most of my posts).

I'm sitting here looking at the pic below and wondering why I have such a huge head+face :s Now, onto more appetising things- next pic please!

Spicy miso chips, tuna and scallop. This dish was rather forgettable- I probably wouldn't order this again but the spicy miso chips were actually fried lotus root. I can imagine myself going through a whole packet of fried lotus root chips in one sitting watching 30 Rock.

Cripy rice with spicy tuna- I loved this dish as well. The cubes are fried sushi rice (although they do tend to stick to your teeth a lil) and you're meant to have it with the spicy tuna in the little bowl, topped off with a dash of light soy sauce. If you're a big fan of spicy tuna like me (if you haven't tried the spicy tuna sushi rolls from Kenzan GPO you're missing out BIG TIME), you'll enjoy this cos half the fun is mixing all the elements of this dish together and eating it.

Another dish that's on the must-order list- Baby tiger prawn tempura with ponzu sauce. These were great prawns- fresh and juicy to the taste, however the sauce made the batter on the prawn soggy :( I think the chefs have a best mate in this ingredient called Salt and were a little too heavy handed with it and we all ended up with wrinkled lips hahahaha.

The star of the menu- Black Cod with Miso. Yet another popular dish but once again, so salty! It used to be so much better when they first opened the restaurant. Majorly disappointed with this one.

Duck hot pot with green tea soba- I would've prefered the duck to be a bit more cooked but thought the soup was tasty enough, and the green tea soba was the right texture and went well with everything.

We were of the opinion that most of the dishes had an element that screamed TOO MUCH SALT- maybe the salt overload made us stay back and order dessert? When in doubt, choose to have everything! Lol, we opted for the Nobu tasting platter and this certainly redeemed the whole meal! From L-R:

-Suntory whisky capuccino layered with crunchy coffee cacao, coffee milk ice cream and Yamazaki whisky foam (this was good!)

- Tofu cheesecake with green tea crumble, berry compote and tuile (what is tuile? I only just found out that it's a type of lightweight, dry, crisp cookie. this was also delish)

- Green tea trifle mousse layered with vanilla almond and coconut meringue and milk chocolate ice cream, with lime and vanilla foam (yummmmmmmm- I seriously would have all these desserts in normal size)

- I seriously have no idea what the sorbet on the spoon is....

- Warm chocolate satandagi filled with pistachio and chocolate ganache in a Japanese bun (similar to  a chocolate fondant but Asian influenced with something that resembles a doughtnut)

Seriously this dessert platter surpassed my expectations. I'd have this over the Black Cod with Miso anyday, and I'm not a huge dessert fan.

Off to bed- ready to face another Monday! Have a good one peeps. ( In case you haven't figured it out yet- this is a scheduled post so the Monday comment might not make sense :D ) Good night!