Strawberry Saturday!

The weather has been a little bit erratic lately- one moment it's thunderstorms and hail, the next moment it's sunny weather for the rest of the week....which is also weird because it's now autumn and it's supposed to be cooling down in anticipation of winter. But then again, this is Melbourne we're talking about so I guess it is perfectly normal weather in Melbourne terms. 

I flounced around in my Strawberry dress (from Tea & Sympathy) on Saturday! Perfect weather for bright colours :D

The boy saw me painstakingly try to take a picture of myself so he offered to help hehe (I think my version is better still!)

Never noticed this before, don't know why it's out-of-focus and blurry, but <3 hearts and sparkly cupcakes!

Frozen yoghurt with mochi and strawberries (can never get enough of mochi mmmmMmmMM...) photographed against one of the many graffiti-ed laneways of Melbourne.

Decided to whip up a quick dinner- so Mexican fiesta at home it was! 

rar rar rar!!!

What I had for brunch today...the bf named one of them Mr.T -_-

The Ezard Experience!

The bf decided to spoil me one day so he made reservations at ezard and boy, was I excited! We opted for the 8-course tasting menu (degustation) and selected a dessert tasting plate to finish off our meal. The 8-course degustation was priced reasonably at $140 per person and some extras cost us a bit more. I'll explain as I go along....btw I'm very impressed with the camera on the Iphone- all pics were taken using that in low-light.

Haha, looking scared cos he has to foot the bill :D

Dips for our bread. L-R: Olive oil infused with parmesan and rosemary (already very yummy and flavourful on its own), seaweed and sea salt (I really have no idea cos I couldn't really catch what our waiter was saying- there were too many ingredients!), brown sugar lumps and chilli (my favourite- this was sweet and spicy) and bonito ... ok I give up. No idea :\

Course #1: Japanese inspired oyster shooter. I loved the oyster, it just tasted AMAZING. The explosion of flavours in my mouth was sooooooooooo yum. The oyster was nicely accompanied by a sweet and sour (maybe vinegar?) juice. I think that's a sushi roll next to the oyster shooter (it sure tasted like one). And I think what's on the spoon could be kingfish sashimi.

Course #2: Sesame encrusted kingfish sashimi with panna cotta and toasted coconut. Again, this was SUPERB. So delicious, but I may be biased because I absolutely love sashimi. Mmm, just talking about it makes me feel like eating it right now.

Course #3: Steamed crab and ginger wonton dumpling with tom kha (that's the sauce you see on the plate) and finger lime. I'm not lying when I say this dish is also....AMAZING. The flavours in the dumpling was sooooooooooo yum. The sauce tasted a little bit like laksa sauce but it was delicious and I mopped everything up because they put little lime sacs in it which provided a nice constrast to the creamy texture and flavour.

Course #4: Coconut roasted ocean trout with asian gazpacho, tempura avocado, creme fraiche and hot and sour salad. I liked the hot chillies they added to this dish. The ocean trout when eaten on its own was very flavourful. However, being served two creamy dishes in a row meant that the palate was not completely satisfied nor introduced to new flavours as the taste of this dish was quite similar to the previous one.

Course #5: Crispy white polenta with sauteed mushrooms, peas, poached egg and soft herbs. If you're a fan of fried polenta (btw The Mess Hall on Bourke Street does AWESOME polenta chips) like me, then you'll love this. Not a big fan of the jus, but having something 'western' was a nice change to the asian flavours we'd been enjoying with the earlier dishes. To my surprise, the peas were not that cooked (on purpose), but I really enjoyed the texture as it went well with the polenta.

Course #6: Five spiced bangalow sweet pork belly with yellow bean and peanut dressing, apple and coriander salad. Don't shoot me but my favourite thing on this dish was the coriander. I found the pork belly too fatty, and again- having been served two dishes with the same sort of jus in a row meant that my taste buds were not tantalised by the flavours on this dish.

Course #7: This required an additional $20 per head if you included this in the menu (the other option was duck and you didn't need to pay extra for it) and we were very eager to try it because it listed wagyu and truffle as some of the ingredients. This was actually seven score wagyu beef with creamed truffle potatoes, foie gras, king brown mushrooms, sticky shallot sauce and mache salad. This tasted pretty ordinary to me although I did enjoy the beef, but I thought the foie gras should star as a main ingredient in a dish on its own. At this point I was getting quite full so I let the bf finish off what I couldn't. The boy thinks I drank too much water throughout the course of the meal :s

Palate cleanser before dessert- yuzu and ginger (?) foam with a piece of rambutan. It would have been nicer if it was spicier or more tart....I could only taste sweetness.

Course #8: The boy is a greedy pig (hehe, only jk) and he opted to go for the dessert tasting plate (an additional $15 per person) and it was so beautifully made! When I saw it being brought out of the kitchen, my face lit up and the waiter laughed at me lol. This was certainly the Pièce de résistance. Sadly, it looked prettier than it tasted.

Clockwise starting from top left: Some apple dessert with a cookie as its base, pistachio cake with fresh figs, some banana dessert which tasted like tutti-fruitti, no idea what this is with fairy floss on top; and honeycomb ice-cream with gingerbread and  caramel candy on top (this was my favourite- it is simply delicious). In the middle is a chocolate marquise with hazelnut biscuit and blood orange sorbet- this I liked too, except for the chocolate marquise which tasted like it had a bit of rum and raisin.

Overall it was an amazing dinner which started off very well, but when we were served the pork belly and beef it sort of plateaued. Ezard does asian flavours very well but where they fell apart was with the meat.

Ok, time to head to bed...it's 1am and my eyes are struggling to stay open. Till the next eating adventure, kids!

Happy Friday- outfit post!

Fridays automatically induce a happy feeling in people- the sky is bluer, the weather is lovelier, the working day is more bearable...and it makes me feel like dressing up a bit more for work sometimes!

I love the flutter sleeves and exaggerated shoulders on my pink polka dot top <3. I teamed this with a high-waisted skirt and statement patent belt. I couldn't stop staring at my nail polish all day (it's Jazzle from Ulta3- seen in this post)....I guess this tells me I really am attracted to shiny things. 

See how pretty the top is. Makes me feel bouncier on my toes when walking...yes it does give me that light feeling!

Bows and pearls have always been a favourite of mine :)

Look what came in the mail for me? One of my many Asos orders! Can't wait to wear these on the weekend.

I've been wanting a pair of brogues for some time now, and I got these for a steal. Question now is....what do I wear them with?

I also bought a pair of stockings which were quite unique. Picture taken from asos.com. These are now out of stock, and so are the two pairs of shoes above (well, in my size at least). Good thing I got in quick! :D

Pekopekopekopeko!

So.... I had been living a block away from this restaurant- Peko peko, for almost 3 years before I actually ventured into it. It's located at 190 Wells Street in South Melbourne and serves up pretty decent Taiwanese food, and they have specials which change every now and then. I've never given this place much thought but since it's convenient and close by, we decided to head there for dinner one night. I am surprised everytime I head there as it's always packed full of people, and there's always someone waiting for a table. Even at 9pm today it was packed. 

Spinach dumplings. These are vegetarian- they are stuffed with spring roll/ popiah filling and served with vinegar-ish soy sauce. The boy thought this was average, but if you like the dumpling skin more than the filling itself (like me!), then you'll like this. 

Prawn & mango spring roll- I liked this...thought the mango gave it a nice contrast in flavours and the skin was crisp to the bite.

Don't let the pic fool you....I really, really liked this. It's wasabi mayo beef strips. Although next time I might ask them to add more wasabi to the mayo.

And every single time I go there, I never fail to order the green tea latte. I know it's made from green tea powder, and not fresh from the leaves... but it's yum with a lil bit of sugar! Nothing beats the green tea milkshake from Samurai on Glenferrie Road though.

We really wanted to try the earl grey tea panna cotta with black sesame ice-cream but they ran out! :( So we settled for black rice pudding with green tea ice-cream. I've never had anything like this before but I have to say, it didn't make me go wow as it tasted just like any other dessert....sweet! :D I guess as long as it does its job...who's complaining? 

Happy Friday for tomorrow everyone! Off to Ezard for dinner ..can't wait to try their degustation :)

Lunch breaks are....dangerous!

They make me do things like buy 3 more bottles of nail polish when I recently bought 7 bottles less than 2 weeks ago.

On a side note, I just looked at the pictures in my previous post and boy, do they look unappetising! I might post better pics up if I get the chance to.

Off to paint my nails for the weekend! That's a celebration in itself :D

Fragrant rice

Texted Mom in the morning for the recipe to make 'Yau Mei Fan', literally translated as fragrant rice. I was apprehensive when I pressed the Cook button on the rice cooker because I wasn't sure if there was enough water, or if the taste was ok. I gave it 15-20 minutes or so and scurried to the rice cooker to taste once the button popped up to indicate it was cooked. To my surprise and delight it tasted a-ok!

This was taken while it was still in the rice cooker so it looks a lil bit dark but the colour is exactly how I imagined it to be. I added sweet potato instead of taro as I couldn't find any today. The recipe's fairly simple (thought I'd jot it down here so I don't have to keep asking Mom everytime I felt like cooking this!):

Ingredients:

2 cups white rice (wash, drain and set aside)

2 thigh fillets (cut into small cubes) 

Strips of shitake mushrooms

2 cloves garlic (chopped and minced)

Yam (chopped into cubes)

Dried prawns a.k.a 'Har mai' (soak before frying)

3 dried scallops (soak)

3-4 dried oysters (soak)

2 tsp light soy sauce

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tbsp abalone sauce

1 tsp caramel sauce / sweet soy sauce

Chinese cooking wine

Sesame oil

Method:

- Put uncooked white rice in rice cooker together with shitake mushrooms strips and taro

- Heat up oil in frying pan

- Brown garlic in hot oil

- Add dried prawns and dried scallops to the garlic and fry together

- Add chicken to the above ingredients and fry till brown and fragrant

- Add sauces, cooking wine and sesame oil into the pan and fry everything together

- Transfer all the ingredients and sauce to the rice cooker

- Add water to the rice cooker (ie. same amount of water needed to cook 2 cups of rice + a bit more to take into account of the other ingredients in the rice cooker)

- Here comes the critical moment: Press COOK!

Thought I'd whip up watercress soup (Sai Yong Choi) too. I added soooooo many things into the soup- goji berries, dates, dried figs, pork bones and dried oysters to give it flavour. Once again, taken in the pot hence looks like it's from the dungeons. From this, you get...

This! The dried figs I added made the soup so deliciously sweet. That's a fig right there in the pic below and you can see some goji berries floating in the soup.

Do your hear my resounding *burp*? :D

Sister's Birthday!

It's my sister's birthday tomorrow and the boy suggested that we get her a cake. So off we went at 8.45pm- hoping cake shops were still open. Our first choice was Brunetti as we knew it closed late, otherwise we'd have to trawl the city and Lygon St for other options. It was a good decision as I spotted a very pretty cake! I haven't seen cakes decorated this way before. The sign said it was a chocolate sponge cake with milk chocolate mousse and hazelnuts but when we cut into it we saw it was made up of 90% mousse and 10% sponge! I thought it'd at least be more sponge than mousse. However, it tasted surprisingly nice and even the boy (who is fussy over everything) agreed. The mousse was light enough, and not overly sweet. The sponge in the middle, bottom and side on the cake provided more texture to the cake. This is the type of cake you savour slowly, not devour in under 1 minute.

See what I mean by the pretty deco?

One more for the album.

Knowing that what I wanted to get her because she loved them and chances of finding a nice one in Australia were close to nil, I bought her a pressie while I was back in Malaysia. This is a jigsaw puzzle consisting of 2000 pieces (measuring a whopping 72cm x 103cm or something like that) and the best part of it is that it glows in the dark- well at least the yellow-ish bits do! I've seen the completed puzzle in the showroom and it just looks amazing. Too bad I couldn't cart the frame back here...it was too big to carry with me and I wasn't sure if checking it in would wreck it.

Remember from my last post I mentioned that I would use our hotpot leftovers to cook today? I bought some chicken stock, added leftover abalone juice from one of the days we ate abalone and made Yee Mee. Very simple and fuss-free. Not much to clean-up too, which is always a plus in my books.

Yummmm. The red baby chillies were particularly hot this time around. I couldn't eat more than 5 :s

Nothing Dainty about spicy sichuan food

The torrential rain and windy days have made me crave hotpot so the boy and I went to Dainty for some spicy sichuan food. The term 'ma la' is frequently used to describe Sichuan food and it literally translates to 'numbing spicyness'. Dainty (with branches in the CBD Chinatown, South Yarra and Smith St) serves up very authentic Sichuan and when we left the place, our faces were flushed red. Here's a picture of our order. Normally a hotpot is best eaten with more people so more dishes can be ordered (hence more variety), however there were plenty of tables with just couples tackling a gigantic bubbling hot pot.

We opted for mixed soup. In the pic below you can see that the clear soup is in the middle and the fiery red soup sits on the outside. Pre-boiling stage:

Post-boiling stage...our food is ready to go in!

Our dishes- which we didn't finish as the rice cakes were a lil too filling, so we took the rest home and I guess it'll serve as ingredients to the dinner I'll be making tomorrow. From L-R, top to bottom: Potato noodles, oyster mushrooms, lotus roots (very nice when boiled in the spicy 'ma la' soup), rice cakes, pork slices, black fungus, coriander beef balls and spinach. We also ordered yummy sesame dipping sauce.

Moomba was held over possibly the worst weekend ever as the weather did nothing but hail and rain, but guess what we saw? A giant plush!

And since my contract with Optus has expired, I transferred my number over to 3 and added-on an internet package..... I'm now a brand new owner of this:

Pic credits: Here
I finally get to surf the web on my phone :)