Christmas

You know it's a big event when..

1. The flowers make a twice in a year appearance at my home (yeay, we finally got a hallway table we liked for our hall! Now our hall doesn't look like a hospital corridor no more!) Here the flower of the event is lily, my absolute absolute absolute favourite!!

2. The lobsters are slowly retreating and gives Gaz worried looks...

3. The table is decked with shining cutlery and servingware that has been hiding in the top corner of the cupboard for the past 11 months.


It is Christmas!!! We had the family over and had lobster in XO sauce, cous cous salad, turkey, and baked chicken wings. We also had the pop pops you see on the table to add to the festivities. I love fancy dinners...

Cherry Season

Cherry season is here again! Gaz and I took a drive up the mountains in search of some ripe, juicy cherries. Not to pick them, but to buy them wholesale off the growers. Unfortunately the cherries this season are not very sweet... the ones pictured below are the white cherries which in the past we have found to be sweeter than the red ones.

We bought 1 kg of white cherries, and 1 kg of raspberries. Then we went to Silvan Reservoir park for a picnic. I had prepared some ingredients for egg and ham sandwiches which required some assembly work, with the fresh fruits we'd just purchased as dessert. We laid out our picnic rug, took out all all the bits and pieces and started eating, then it started drizzling! @#$ So I stuffed everything back into the picnic basket and ran for cover. A minute later it was fine again. Out came the bits and bobs, and a minute later it started raining again. The weather was playing hide and seek with us. Grrr...

In the end, we had enough good weather for us to finish our lunch, enjoy the scenery of reservoir for about 10 minutes and a brief look through my weekend newspaper.

Detachable Bowl

My new detachable bowl...



It was not always like that.. curious? That's why you should always listen to mommy... never pour boiling water onto glass - otherwise it will break and cause you countless hours of mopping the floor, cleaning the nooks and crannies where the water has seeped into!

The Marshmallow Test

The marshmallow test was ran in the 1970's by a professor Walter Mischel at Stanford University with a group of 4 year old children. Each child was brought into a room and given one marshmallow and were told that if they waited for 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow, he/she will be given another marshmallow. Some children ate the marshmallow, the others waited in agony staring at the sweet, fingering it, and licking it for the full 15 minutes to be rewarded with another marshmallow.

Interestingly later in life, the children who waited showed they were more more successful in life, were more popular at school and scored higher in school tests compared to those who had not waited.

The point of the test was to show that self discipline was a major key to success. Instant gratification may be sweet in the fleeting moment but making the conscious choice to wait and focus on a better outcome in future is a mark of emotional intelligence.

I thought this test was quite interesting. Although conditions do matter, for instance if the kids had learnt from an early age they could not trust adults therefore a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or if the child simply does not like marshmallows! I probably would have done deceptively well at the test, because I didn't know what a marshmallow was till the age of 13 and I don't like sweets so I would have no objections of waiting!

U2 - Melbourne 0312

Simply ELECTRIC!

Gaijin, South Yarra

Gaz enlisted the help of his brother to join us in an All You Can Eat effort at Gaijin Japanese fusion restaurant. It was $35 pp (without sashimi) for all you can possibly eat. There were about twenty five items on the menu, consisting mainly of sushi rolls with what looks like a staple in Gaijin, creamy mayo!

The rolls were delicious, and just the right size. We must have had about 15 of those rolls between the three of us. We also ordered miso soup (which had a some chilli oil as a twist) although that's a big no-no in All You Can Eat's.

Seaweed salad
Agedashi tofu
Grilled Crab salad
Prawn tempura roll

When..

When life scares the life out of you,
When fear terrorises you and would not give up,
When people turn into zombies and meet you at every intersection hungry for your blood,

When your life seems like a blur in the dark, dark night...

Think about the good, good things...

Beauty
Innocence
Home and Joy
Peace
All is well, all is good. God is in control.

Send Him an Envelope

This morning I woke up at 1am thinking about work. Not my favourite thing to do, but it happens sometimes and keeps me awake till about 2 hours before I have to go to work. When I wake up like that, there's one thing I'll always try to do - I wake Gaz up to share in my sleeplessness! I shake him, tickle him, but he just doesn't open his eyes.

S0 for entertainment, I wait till he gets into a deep sleep and then I ask him questions. His answers are quite funny sometimes. And sometimes they're quite true... once I asked him what I should do about a particular nasty person at work, and the nugget of wisdom he dished out in his sleep was to 'send him some shit in an envelope'. Nothing else could top that! Now, I must add a disclaimer here in case Gaz sees this - he's not that kind of person to send people poo in an envelope. He just has a wicked sense of humour.

I think I just might take a break now and get some sleep now. All the sleeplessness is making me sleepy.

We Passed!

3 months of worrying, 1 month of working back, 1 week of intense of pressure... we PASSED audit! It was touch and miss but in the end with lots of prayer and work we scrapped through. Although there was some disparaging remarks from certain people about the quality of work done on certain of my files, I'm just glad that I have survived another round of audit...

What to Cook?

So I've been going from cooking on the weekends for the weekdays to cooking for dinner on the day itself, after I return from work, to... NOT COOKING!

So tired of thinking what to cook, rushing to make dinner, washing up etc. I'm tired also of doing housework. My wrists have been giving me some problems, I wonder if I have an early case of carpal tunnel?

My plan for this week is to load up on fibre to satisfy hunger. No fancy proteins, just vegetables which I can zap in the microwave, add some oyster sauce and sesame oil and voila, dinner! I'm sure Gaz won't be too happy but he can eat what I make, but I'm on a strike this week!

Nobu, Crown Southbank

So where did Gaz decide to bring me for my birthday? Nobu! My manager at work thought I was going to No Bull Restaurant when I first told him. Nobull turned out pretty good but a noisy dining experience.

When we got to the restaurant, we were escorted downstairs (ground level bar) and the rest of the staff shouted the usual welcomes in Japanese. That's OK, as long as I understood the menu it's fine.

I couldn't believe how noisy it was with the lack of sound control and how close the tables were situated from each other. I could lean over and picked a bite out of the next table's nice looking cod fish dinner if I was feeling up to it. But perhaps it was what the restaurant aspired to be - a contemporary American restaurant with a Japanese twist. Or was it the other way round?

Gaz ordered the warm sake $18 and I had water.


We ordered tacos $18 - which was a mix of lobster, prawn, raw king fish and raw salmon (from left to right) accompanied with tomato salsa. The salsa was a little too acidic for Gaz but he finished it all anyway.


Of course we had to order the signature the cod with miso dish $43. The two sticks of red coloured stalks are pickled ginger. I don't like pickled ginger very much, but I disliked this one even more as it was very sour. It was meant to cleanse the palette so I didn't complain. The cod as usual, melts in the mouth.

Next came this very small but delicious duck hot pot with green tea soba. The duck was absolutely DEElicious! Such a nice delicate sweet flavour to it. It looked like bacon too, my fave in the world! The duck was nicely cooked, sweet and smoky, just perfect!

I had to have my fill of deep fried food so I ordered the tempura dinner $25. 4 pieces of the longest prawns and 7 pieces of veges which included sweet potatoes, onion, zuchinni etc. It came with a bowl of rice, our only carb for the night. When the lady brought the tempura to our table, I asked her for the accompanying bowl of rice to which she misheard and told me enthusiastically that the tempura was very nice!


We read lots of bad reviews of waiters being terrible etc, but we had no such problems that night. Our waiter was very attentive and he remembered our orders even when we ourselves have forgotten what else was to come next!

But don't tell Nobull though... we were walking back to the car and wasn't feeling very full so decided to have a savoury dessert from rival Colonel Sander's 11 Secret Recipes Wicked Wings.

Teak's Thai, Scoresby

Gaz and I visited a new restaurant, Teak's Thai at 10, Darryl St, Scoresby on Thursday just past. The restaurant was previously a Malaysian restaurant, one of those where you have to order at the counter and pay, then they'll bring the food over to you. It was ages ago that I was there, so while I was hopeful of adding another M'sian eatery to my list, I did not expect it to still be around.

Although this place is but a stone's throw from our place, I do not frequent this area and was pleasantly surprised to find a Chinese grocery store on the same row as the restaurant. So if the restaurant is a gem, then it's two birds with one stone. We can eat dinner and shop at the grocery store afterwards, just great!

These were the dishes we ordered.

Pinky in the blanket - What a cute name for an entree. It's prawn, wrapped up in spring roll pastry then deep fried. The prawns were very tasty, the sweet chilli sauce was also very good. The proprietor said it's made partly with pineapple, which explains the unique texture of the sauce.

Pad Thai - I always thought ordering noodles with rice is so weird, doesn't mix at all, but when there's only the two of us and we wanted to have the best of both worlds, this is what happens...

My only argument with this is the lack of 'liu'. Only a couple of pieces of chicken and tofu in the dish.
Spicy chicken with basil and chilli. The sauce was very good but the bamboo shoots is not something I like. I had the leftover for lunch and it stank up the whole lunch room. Those not accustomed to Asian food must be wondering what it was, so smelly.


This isn't one of the dishes we ordered that night. Just merely something I cooked at home during the week. Braised mushrooms and oyster with blanched lettuce. I must say it's one of my more successful dishes!

Overall, we enjoyed our dining experience at Teak's Thai. The dishes were good, and the service was quite fast although the wife was the only one serving. It was a good find indeed.

Cease from Anger, and Forsake Wrath

Every once in a while, we lose it. It's not a good thing because once the beast is released, there are usually irreversible repercussions. Although we know this, it's not an easy thing to control. I am referring to anger.

The other day, someone on the phone made me really angry. He wanted me to help him with something, which admittedly I haven't been able to look into for him. Never mind that I was doing two person's job, never mind that we were going through a very turbulent time at work. He started being really angry on the phone which made me even angrier. And did he say he needed my help?? You gotta be kidding...

I controlled myself until the part where he said, 'I want an answer by tomorrow night.' I lost it then. I told him I'll do my best, and then without waiting for his answer, I BANGED the phone down in a fit of rage.

Time stopped for a split second. Everyone in the office stopped what they were doing. It was a very unexpected reaction coming from me. Luckily they casually brushed it off - although they were quite surprised to learn that a mouse can sometimes roar too.

It's Spring!

September is Spring! There is definitely a change in the air - yes, the smell of manure is in the air... It is time for revitalising the garden.


The tomatoes have totally dried out from the winter frost and the strawberries are being attacked by the snails. The two stalks of coriander plant (grew out of nowhere, miraculous since the coriander seeds were sowed about a year ago) aren't doing too badly although the snails are also at it. I read somewhere that corianders are good deterrent for snails because of their smell which is somewhat true because although I see snail trails the leaves are still intact.

The only flourishing vegetation in the garden at the moment are the weeds. So sad...

Joke

The CIA had an opening for an assasin. After all of the background checks, interviews, and testing were done, there were three finalists - two men and a woman.

For the final test, the CIA agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun. "We must know that you will follow your instructions, no matter what the circumstances. Inside this room, you will find your wife sitting in a chair. Kill her!".

The man said, "You can't be serious. I could never shoot my wife." The agent said, Then you're not the right man for this job."

The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about five minutes. Then the man came out with tears in his eyes. "I tried, but I can't kill my wife." The agent said, "You don't have what it takes. Take your wife and go home."

Finally, it was the woman's turn. She was given the same instructions to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one shot after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman.

She wiped the sweat from her brow, and said, "This gun is loaded with blanks. I had to beat him to death with the chair."

Libertine, Victoria St CBD

To celebrate Gaz's birthday, we went to Libertine for their degustation menu. No pictures here but we had

1. Globe artichoke, caprifeuille & toasted walnuts salad
2. Hervey Bay scallops, boudin noir & eggplant relish
3. Confit ocean trout, carrot mayo & salmon roe
4. Grilled grass-fed eye fillet, braised rib & juniper sauce
5. Whisky caramel creme, frozen banana toffee & sable
6. Rabbit & truffle tortellini in consomme
7. Palate cleanser of apple granita
8. Petite fours with coffee

Our favourite is the ocean trout confit - the fish was excellent in texture and the carrot mayo was very flavourful. It was something interesting and new to me as I've never even thought of making mayo with carrots. And of course... salmon roe always appeals to me.

The scallop dish was another favourite, not so much for the scallop but for the boudin noir (blood pudding).

Honourable mention to the rabbit tortellini - although we can't detect much of the truffle the rabbit meat was delicious. I've never had bunnies before.

The one dish I didn't like, and this is not a surprise since I'm not a big fan of sweets is the whisky caramel creme and frozen banana toffee which was a little bitter. The caramel creme was smooth with the whisky but overall the dish didn't appeal to me.

Degustation as degustation meant we waited for about 15 mins between each course. We only took about 5 mins to finish each dish! Sure, we talked and enjoyed each other's company while waiting but for us who are used to completing a full meal under an hour, being at the restaurant for nearly 3 hours is a drag! Although, I did enjoy the degustations we had at Hajime and Shira Nui because of the chef interaction and 'live action' as they prepare our food while we waited.

Update: This restaurant is now closed.

Lazy Dinner

With the crazy hours I've been putting in lately at work, nothing appeals more to me than a lazy dinner with minimal fuss. Ironically, I've been put off frozen meals lately. I used to cook a huge batch of food during the weekend, freezing and progressively thawing as and when required for dinners and lunches. Now I prefer to prepare meals fresh for the night's dinner despite having just worked 11 hours for the day.

This was one such meal I prepared recently, I just love the wannabe status of the meal. It's an imitation of a Vietnamese rice vermicelli salad with prawn spring rolls but I've replaced some ingredients with what I have in the fridge and with what I like to eat.

Basically there's the boiled rice vermicelli in the bowl, topped with fried SPAM (yum... lurve SPAM!), fried prawns, poached chicken shredded to small pieces, and torn pieces of mint. Omitted from this picture was the sauce, which we poured over the dish just before we ate it. The sauce I made from combining fish sauce, chilli sauce, and sugar.

Taste of Melbourne 2010

Seeing the wonderful culinary experience we had last year at Taste of Melbourne, we decided to go back this year. It seems like the food last year was much better. These were what we had:

Organic slow braised pork cheek, white polenta, raisins and marsala sauce from Mezzo Bar & Grill $8. Pork cheek was quite stringy, but I liked the creamy texture of the polenta.


Oyster tempura with local condiments, dressing and dipping sauces from Esposito. Ermm.... what local condiments?? I think I like the oyster tempura Gaz makes better! $10 for one.



Esposito's Italian skewer of seafood with seasonal produce. A compilation of salmon, onion, pork, and other seasonal vegetables, chargrilled and wrapped in a flaky bread pastry, a typical Sardinian taste. That was the official description on the menu but.... what flaky bread?? It was more like papadums!

I also didn't like the salmon, it was quite fishy. $12

Seven hour braised leg of lamb with a mushroom and potato pave and glazed baby carrots from Koots $12. The leg of lamb was quite good, and the pave was very mushroomy. This was probably one of the best paid dishes we had that night.

Free entree sponsored by Tassal salmon, served during an interview with the executive chef from Stokehouse during a Chef's Table session. As we walked into the Exhibition Hall, wafts of fishy smell reached our nostrils. Not surprising since Tassal was one of the major sponsors of the show.

We wanted to get a wagyu burger from The Palace but Gaz was turned off by the loooong queue for it. When we queued up for real the second time round, it was sold out. So we got a Salted western plains pork & prawn sweet roll with pickled vegetables from Longrain $10.

The crackling was nice and crispy, but there wasn't much pork nor prawn. I think I can get a better roll from the local Vietnamese shop. Though it wouldn't be labeled as gourmet, at least it would have more flavour and filling!

Calabrian prawn sausage, pickled cucumber salad from Sarti $8. This one was quite good, we enjoyed it. The prawn sausage is similar to what the local Chinese r'ant does when one orders kai lan fried with prawn cakes.


And the winner dish of the night was.... free! Barilla's creamy canneloni, so good we went for thirds. There was Ben & Jerry's ice cream for free too, and I just loved their chocolate flavour. Made with dark chocolate it was rich and delicious!

I probably would not be going to any of the restaurants whose food we had sampled that night, just because none of the dishes really jumped out. Moreover, I don't feel they were really worth the price we would have paid if we had gone to the restaurant and ordered as mains.

Longest Lunch

I came across this in The Age today, thought it was pretty interesting:

HONG Kong stockbrokers may lose their traditional two-hour lunch break, the longest among the world's 20 largest markets, as the exchange seeks more business from China. The exchange wants trading to begin 30 minutes earlier at 9.30am with a one-hour break at noon, keeping the close at 4pm. Shanghai's trading hours run from 9.30am to 3pm with a 90-minute break between 11.30am and 1pm.

''God knows if that would mean ordering McDonald's for company lunch presentations,'' said Francis Lun, general manager at Fulbright Securities in Hong Kong. ''No more long lunches at the Conrad or Shangri-La hotels.''

Extending trading hours ''would make a lot of sense in bringing Hong Kong in line with the majority of global markets'', Mr Lun said. ''I'd counter-propose a 1½-hour lunch. Even though our liquid lunches will be gone, there'll at least be semi-solid lunches.''

Whingers!

Circuz, Glen Waverley

Gaz and I tried out a new Japanese restaurant tonight, called Circuz at Glen Waverley. Before it became a Japanese restaurant, it was an Italian/Spanish restaurant with the same name. The new owners took over the operations recently and added some lanterns, sakura to the decor and hey presto, it's a Japanese restaurant!

We decided to order an entree from the Specials list - sashimi salad. It consisted of strips of raw fish marinated in sake and soy sauce atop a bed of seaweed salad. As you can see from the picture below, the fish are of irregular size, one piece even had some skin stuck to it. This 'special' was definitely NOT a special dish.

Most of the fish pieces are very chewy. It looks like the restaurant decided to turn their reject pieces of fish used for sashimi into some quick bucks. Because the quality of the fish is not as good, soy sauce and sake is used to mask the fishy taste.


The only decent dish in the whole evening - takoyaki balls. Although I'm not too sure how the big piece of tomato fits into the whole dish. Even as a garnish it seemed out of place. The takoyaki balls were perfectly cooked, and bonito flakes gently curling in the heat.


My order of unagi don. I am happy that the chef made the effort to grill the fish, which is most probably sourced frozen from stores. The texture of the egg was good, soft and creamy. I found some vege (peas, corn, carrots) mixed with the egg alongwith strips of onions. Confusing I thought...


Gaz's order of ten don - tempura prawns, tempura sweet potato, tempura carrots on rice. The prawns were all batter. On the positive side, the batter was crispy even though it had sauce all over it.


Circuz' only saving grace is an attentive team of waitstaff.

Overall rating 4/10

Update: This restaurant has closed.

Golden Chopsticks, Glen Waverley

Gaz and I decided to try out a new restaurant yesterday. The one we wanted to go to was closed and we were en route to another restaurant when we spotted this one in Glen Waverley we've not tried before. So, in the spirit of things we stepped into this place serving northern chinese cuisine to have a try.

The first dish that arrived was crispy pork spare ribs with garlic ($15). It smelt heavenly, but was a tad too greasy.

It wasn't a 100% lookalike with the picture shown on the menu but then we were warned that the actual dishes may differ from pictures shown in the menu, and 'please allow for substantial!'. I didn't really know what the last bit meant, but anyhow....

Gaz ordered a serve of potstickers - 12 for $7.50. Golden Chopsticks' way of preparing these dumplings are similar to Hu Tong but taste wise, Hu Tong's are better. I thought it was a little bland but the texture of the dough was relatively better than other restaurants. Not as hard.

Lamb with cumin... If you looked closely it was as though someone had accidentally tipped the whole container of cumin seeds into the dish. I've had better dishes somewhere else... the cumin overpowered the taste of everything else and after a few bites I was too nauseaus to eat anything.

Gaz bravely picked at pieces of the otherwise tasty lamb but even he couldn't persevere in the end and we left half the dish uneaten which is very uncharacteristic of us.

In fact, this last dish left such a bad taste in our mouths that we left the other dishes unfinished too. I just wished the chef hadn't put so much cumin in the dish!!


I don't think we ordered the right dishes because after we've ordered, we noticed many people had ordered big bowls of soupy stew. We did not ask what they were, but whatever it is, it looked like the popular dish there. Our dining experience was definitely marred by lamb dish and perhaps my overall rating of 3/10 would be substantially increased if we ordered the 'right' dishes.

Update: This restaurant is now closed.

Paul the Octopus

I wonder if Paul the Octopus will be able to predict who wins the Australian election this year? Will it be the Labour or the Liberal party?

Like a Hamster

The past week has been really tiring for me. Working 12 hour days is far from an ideal situation but it must be done. It has been quite challenging with me juggling 2 persons' jobs and being new on the team myself. I feel much like one of the people ascending the neverending staircase in Escher's drawing below! This situation will likely continue till end of August, when vacancies can be filled. I truly hope I don't burn out before then!!