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

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?

Dead Man Espresso - South Melbourne

It was great having a short week of work (only 4 days of work!), but I was so tired everyday after work because we had 5 days' worth of work to get through in 4 days! Once I get home and step through my front door, all I want to do is lie in bed and watch TV shows and do nothing at all hee hee. The boy and I felt like it was time to resurrect our weekend brunches that we used to do quite frequently (until I put on like 7234545kgs and demanded we lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling till our hunger pangs subsided....*jokes) 

South Melboune still wins hands down for the many good breakfast cafes it has (plus given that it is so close to my house wins it extra brownie points!). Today's choice was Dead Man Espresso on 35 Market Street. Their blog has a nice personal touch and tells you what they've been up to. The cafe itself feels very cosy and makes you feel right at home.

I was seated right opposite the kitchen- <3 watching chefs work their magic

Best known for their Communal Dining Area

Apple, Strawberry & Cinnamon

Watermelon, Cucumber & Mint

Sadly, both lacked the 'kick' or 'zing' required in fresh juices

Kitschy sugarspoon. Apparently, they've got good coffee there (seven seeds, anyone?). Kinda kicking myself now for not trying the chai (yes, I know...nothing to do with coffee)

Panzanella- your typical breakfast made up of sausages, poached eggs heaped with pesto on top, heirloom tomatoes and bread

My pork belly 'BLT'- hohoho, I really liked this. People who cringe at the sight of layers of fat in food- Look away now! The pork was soft, tasty and tender- mmmm, so yummy. The bread was so good too (I happily pretended the fat in pork belly was 0 calories and gobbled everything down). It just suddenly hit me that I had pork sandwich at Royal Mail the week before. Hmm, do I sense a trend? I didn't realise this till the boy pointed it out but this dish was nicely intepreted the Dead Man way. Tomato in a glass, Bacon = pork belly and Lettuce = salad leaves on the side. *lightbulb moment!

Not a good shot but this is what it looks like from outside. These people were sitting on the walkway and if you look closely in the background you'll see people dining in the outdoor area of the cafe.

Update time!

Yeah I ran out of title ideas cos obviously I haven't done anything exciting for a while (but that is about to change in the next few weeks- yippee! More on that later...). In other totally unrelated news, more than 14 people at work have resigned over a period of...one week. Yes it's a mass exodus and we're literally bleeding people. In other, other news, I have yet again purchased 2 more bottles of nail polish- bringing me to my grand total of 12 bottles in less than a month :D

allure turned out to be a pretty colour <3

Cooking last week produced drunken chicken a.k.a chicken in wine with black fungus, goji berries and heaps of other stuff. Now I know to use ginger wine or glutinous rice wine instead of normal Chinese cooking wine. 

Sis got a lil busy in the kitchen as well and made an onion/cheddar/egg tart (Picture #1) and focaccia from scratch (Picture #2)

Ok so now on to the exciting stuff...in the next few weeks I'll be heading to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

to check out Arj Barker! One of the top comedians of our time, and one of the more popular ones too.

Then it's off to Dunkeld which is a 3-hour drive from Melbourne (260km west of Melbourne) to visit the Royal Mail Hotel and taste the culinary delight that is the Royal Mail Restaurant. It was booked out the last time we tried booking and this time we made sure we booked 3 months in advance for a chance to eat at this famed restaurant. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) the average waiting time is 2 months if you want to make a reservation.

Look at how beautiful this dish is. Pic credited to Tummyrumbles. The Royal Mail Restaurant has been touted as Australia's answer to El Bulli. 

Here's a little snippet about El Bulli from trusty Wikipedia: "El Bulli (as of 2008, the restaurant refers to itself with the orthography elBulli^[1]) is a Michelin 3-star Spanish restaurant run by chef Ferran Adrià.

The small restaurant overlooks the Cala Montjoi bay, in Roses on the Costa Brava in Catalonia, Spain, and has been described as "the most imaginative generator of haute cuisine on the planet"^[2] and does a great deal of work on molecular gastronomy.

Restaurant has judged El Bulli as Number One on Restaurant (magazine) Top 50 list of the world's best restaurants a record five times — in 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.^[3][4]

The restaurant has a limited season: the 2010 season, for example, will run from June 15 to December 20.^[5] Bookings for the next year are taken on a single day after the closing of the current season. It accommodates only 8,000 diners a season, but gets more than two million requests. The average cost of a meal is €250; the restaurant itself has operated at a loss since 2000, with operating profit coming from El Bulli-related books, and lectures from Adrià.^[6][2] As of April 2008 the restaurant employed 42 chefs.^[3]" 

^{Now I really want to eat at El Bulli too! But one step at a time :) It will go on a 2-year hiatus from 2012 and reopen in 2014.}

And after all that, I come back to watch...

Lady Gaga in the flesh!!!

Can't wait for next weekend- let it begin already!

Healthy kickstart to the weekend!

Slept early yesterday (yes, on a Friday night!) but it felt so good to wake up at 7.30am on a Saturday. This allowed me to roll around in bed for half an hour before deciding to wake up. It's now 10.18am and I've already done so much! I've washed my clothes, hung them out to dry, ironed the creased items which came out of the wash, made brekkie, ate brekkie, blow my hair, cut my nails (am about to put nail polish on them) AND update this blog! *proud of self :D

Mmm can you guess what I made?

Spinach, apple & walnut salad

1/2 cup walnuts

1-2 Royal Gala or Red Delicious apples

1 tbsp lemon juice

2-3 stalks celery, finely sliced diagonally

75g baby spinach leaves

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

Honey to taste

1. Preheat oven to 180 or 160 (fan-forced) celcious. Spread walnuts on an oven tray and roast for 4-5 minutes until fragrant. Let it cool.

2. Core apples and cut length ways into thin slices. Toss with lemon juice (to prevent oxidisation). Combine apple, celery and spinach leaves in a large bowl.

3. Place vinegar, olive oil and mustard into a jar and mix. Pour over salad and toss to coat. Add walnuts and honey and serve immediately.

Enjoy peeps! Have a good weekend :)

ETA: Here are my painted nails

This went on my toes

I know my toes look like the silhouette of Bart Simpson's head somehow...and they're quite tan due to all I walking I do in my Havaianas.

I've got envy on my fingers! They're a bronze base with very very fine silver glitter in the bottle but look more silver on the nails. I <3 ulta3! They're easy to apply, dry within 5 minutes and only cost $2 a pop! What's not to love?

Off to Ikea soon to buy another shoe rack (if you looked in my apartment and saw the shoes you'd think 20 people lived here) and a breakfast-in-bed table for lazy old me. I can foresee that I'll be having Swedish Meatballs for lunch, yummay!

More noms...it never ends, does it?

Le Petit Gateau on Little Collins Street- heard so many good things about this place but have yet had the opportunity to try. My sister brought home some cakes one day and it is awesome. So very very awesome!

Look at this Cosmopolitan goodness- made up of layers of carrot cake, white chocolate cheese cake and topped with delectable raspberry jam. The boy and I gobbled this down in under 5 minutes at 11pm on a Monday night. *guilty face

I made peanut butter cookies today, but they taste more like the peanut cookies we usually have during Chinese New Year than actual peanut butter cookies!

Just had the most awesome ice-cream mochi ever.

10 fingers painted plum violet by ulta3 to induce happiness for end-of-week relaxation, why not?

Time for a little bit of Financial Review before hitting the bed in anticipation for HAPPY FRIDAY! :D

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

Happy Pill Monday! :D

Giant pill for mega-happiness. Just drop one whenever you feel down. Side effect: May foam at the mouth.

Happy outfit for the weekend (but it turned into a freaky day!)

Accompanied by happy colourful nails which reminded me constantly of Mentos everytime I looked at them :D

If you guessed Moonlight Cinema...

a hundred points for you! We decided to take advantage of the good weather (it's gonna be cold and stormy for a week from tomorrow) and make good use of the Moonlight Cinema vouchers I pre-purchased a few months ago. 'In the Loop' looked to be a good flick (verdict: it was funny! The dialogue cracked us up) so we bought 2 large pizzas for the 2 of us, and a bottle of Rosemount Shiraz to wash it all down. 

I highly recommend pizzas from Crust (www.crust.com.au). Very yummy and chock-ful of ingredients. L-R: Smoked salmon pizza with avocado, capers, spanish onions etc. Peri-peri pizza which we'd expected to be a lil bit more spicy but the chicken and mayonnaise combo was delish.

We sat behind the gold grass area which made viewing the screen a tad difficult as they were seated on bean bags which meant some heads were poking out. If we go again next year we'll probably camp right in front of the screen (but also near the speakers!). In the pictures below you can see the screen slowly being inflated.

Finally!

You can see the city skyline lighted up behind the trees.

We brought pillows and blankets as it got a little chilly when the sun set.

Crazy bird who wouldn't shut up until it got fed. I was afraid it would peck at our pizza boxes. Someone threw it some food and it ran away to eat it, without bothering to share with other birds nearby. Greedy bird!

Random note: Bought 7 bottles of nailpolishes on my lunch-break today :D