PAVE at Emerald

It seemed like last weekend was one of the last warm days of the season. It was lucky then that we spent it outdoors enjoying the sunshine and warm weather because it has been raining, overcast and cold ever since!

We took the opportunity to attend the Performing and Visual Arts in Emerald event obviously held in Emerald, a town in the Dandenong Ranges. PAVE is held over 4 or 5 days each year since 2005, and events include art exhibitions, open gardens, musical events, story telling, live comedy and street stalls on the town's main street.

We joined the historic tour of Emerald, conducted by a very knowledgeable gentleman accompanied by a first aid man, in case we tripped and fell on the way around the small town. The town's beginnings went back as far as the 1900's. Oddly, there are two townships in the town, one at each end of the town. He talked about the Puffing Billy (why it was named Billy I'm not too sure. Why not Puffing James?) and the railway. In the old days, Puffing Billy would take livestock in its cars and they will be unloaded at Emerald and rested in one of the nearby farms before being shooed onto the main street to begin their journey to their final farms. Can you imagine the clip clop of their hooves down the dirt path of what would have been the main street?

This building is more than 100 years old!

Puffing Billy

After the tour, we went to the Lake. There were two parking spots - one closer to Puffing Billy and the other closer to the Lake. We opted for the one closer to the Lake, and paid $2 for an hour's parking to walk the park.

Emerald Lake Park

We were greeted by loud band music when we entered the park. The Cardinia Civic Band was playing popular songs, and judging by the crowd that seated themselves on rugs on the slope facing the band, they were very successful in picking their songs! The band is part of the PAVE fest.

We stopped for a while enjoying the music before doing a loop of the park and the lake. There were many paddleboats on the lake competing with the ducks to see who can paddle faster. Most times the ducks laugh at the folly of the humans in their brightly coloured contraptions who lost the race once again.

View of the Ranges

The festival was not as busy as I thought it would be, perhaps I just wasn't at the right place at the right time. However, it is more enjoyable not being stuck in a crowded place. With the views on offer, it was just marvelous to have a little space, some music and lots of sunshine to pass the day in Emerald.

Viva Mexico Croydon

We haven't had Mexican food for some time now so we decided to try out Viva Mexico in Main Street, Croydon yesterday. The first thing that caught my attention was the tiled floor. Somehow the floor and the metal frame chairs made the place look sparse and cold. But enough of that, we were there to try out the food.

I ordered an enchilada suprema, which had chunks of beef, frijoles (refried beans), cheese in an enchilada topped with tomato salsa, guacamole and sour cream. It was served with a side of rice.


The beef was real nice... they were chunks of beef which was tender and melted in the mouth. The beans were also cooked beautifully to melt in the mouth. I have absolutely no complaints about this dish. I loved the guacamole which tasted like it was freshly made on the premises.

Gaz ordered a burrito with beef. He had all the same ingredients as I did, sans guacamole. I did not try his dish since it looked the same, except with burritos. But he did try mine and said that my beef sauce was a little better than his. I was too full with my dish to ask him what he meant. There really was a lot of food on the plate!


I really liked the food and service at Viva Mexico. The waitpersons were very efficient and informative. If we get a hankering for some Mexican food, this will be the place to go back to!

Fishtank, Brighton

Some people's weak spots are for chocolates, while me... my weak spot is deep fried foods. If I am good, I can go two weeks fighting my cravings for a KFC original recipe chicken drumstick, or a plateful of crisply fried potato chips from Giorgios without touching them.

Sometimes however, I waver and succumb to my cravings. Like last Sunday when I passed by my favourite chicken store in Box Hill and bought 5 deep fried spiced chicken wings. I had full intention of leaving 3 wings for Gaz, then the number shrunk to 2 for Gaz, and then none at all. We'll just have to keep this a secret between us, shall we? Or Gaz will be annoyed I ate something and did not leave him any.

It is not surprising then that I was looking for a decent fish and chips store on our trip to the beach two weekends before. And I did find one.

Fishtank Brighton on the main street sells fresh seafood, in addition to cooked seafood. There are grilled, fried or crumbed scallops, prawns, fish, calamari and chips, potato cakes, dimsims.

Evidently the shop is a favourite among the locals because it was full when we got there. We placed our order for a Seafood Delight $15.50 which consisted of two fishbites, king prawns, calamari, scallops and chips; and a piece of fish (Catch of the Day was Blue Grenadier) $5.90 and took a seat in the restaurant observing the buzz in the shop.

The food finally arrived about 15 minutes later but we were well rewarded by the crunchy batter on the seafood, fresh seafood and crispy chips. The quality of the seafood was very good. The batter remained crispy throughout the meal. I really enjoyed our lunch at the Fishtank. Gaz who is not a deep fried food fanatic like me thought it was all a little too much for him towards the end of the meal but I happily gobbled down the chips he left on the plate for me.

Wetlands Mini Golf

Who would have thought that mini golf was so fun? If it was not for my friend's suggestion I would have cast mini golf aside as a kids only entertainment. I was proven wrong, so wrong. The venue was a last minute choice, but I was very happy with the pick because Wetlands at Wheelers Hill is awesome! There was two courses, one indoors and one outdoors. Due to the beautiful weather, we chose the outdoor course and paid for one game ($11).

There were 18 holes altogether in the course. We were given a scorecard and a pencil and off we went to the first hole. My first hit was quite a shock, I totally misjudged the weight of the club and the weight and the ball travelled a few cms and stopped. My second shot was worse, it bounced off the green into the woods. Third shot was a little better. By the time we reached the fourth shot I doing OK.

We enjoyed being out in the sun, chatting, hitting the ball and figuring out strategies to get the ball up raised hills, around obstacles and into pipes. It was so very fun. Some of the holes were quite tough especially one toward the end which had raised green in the shape of a cross and the hole in the intersection of the cross. We took about 8 shots and decided to abandon it. We had stopped keeping count of our score since we were both chatting so much. We did see a family with two girls who were religiously keeping count though! The younger one who would have been around 7 years old was crying because she thought the elder sister recorded her score wrongly, against her favour.

At the end of the course, we were supposed to hit our ball into a hole where suction and luck will allocated the ball into slots determining whether we would get a free game, or goodbye see you next time. Amazingly, my ball won me a free game! The man at the counter remarked that it was almost impossible to get a free game. I redeemed the free game on the spot and the man generously gave my friend a free game too.

This time, we tried the indoor course, also 18 holes. Instead of woods, there were little streams, pools to serve as rough. The course was also much more difficult. There were different holes that channel into different pipes causing the ball to roll into different places. It was all a feast to the imagination. There is a lighthouse in the middle of the course with a bridge you walk on to get to the other part of the course. Once the bridge is activated by weight, the water surrounding the lighthouse spurts out which was quite interesting.

At the end of the 18th hole, we came to a similar board where we hit our ball and suction pulls it up and allocates it to different holes. One of the five holes was a free game. Whaddya know... my friend hit his ball and won a free game. The man who gave me my free game token was nearby watering the plants around the course and he could only shake his head in disbelief. Twice in one day!! What are the odds of that happening! Anyway, my friend already had a free game and so did not redeem another one.

Lilydale Palace

Gaz found a voucher in the local papers one day, a buy one main get another free discount voucher for Lilydale Palace restaurant and suggested we gave the restaurant a try. We were quite apprehensive about going to the restaurant since there were some mixed reviews on the net. Some reviews were quite complimentary about the delivery service, and there were some downright negative about rude service, bland food and long wait.

I was quite excited on finding another local Chinese restaurant nearby our hood so we made our way there for dinner. There is actually another Chinese restaurant right next door, also serving Hong Kong style cuisine, and there were about three or four tableful of customers dining there. I got a little side tracked peering into the restaurant but eventually we went to Lilydale Palace. It looked like an old timer in the place, and possess a certain familiarity. The decor, music, ambience is what you will expect of an old fashioned Chinese joint which may not be big in aesthetics but great on food.

We ordered the deep fried salt and pepper calamari, and steamed duck with mushrooms and seasonal veges. The duck came piled with veges and mushrooms covered with brown sauce. The duck was meaty and not too fatty. The veges were fresh and was great with the sauce and rice.

The batter on the calamari had little burnt patches here and there, but overall the dish was tasty. It just became a little greasy on the palate towards the end but that is expected when we had to finish the whole dish between the two of us.

I had expected a long wait for the food because of the feedback from the reviews, but was pleasantly surprised when our dishes arrived at the table less about fifteen minutes after our order. Overall the food tasted quite good although the prices are slightly higher than other HK restaurants closer to our place.

Brighton Beach

The weather on first day of the Easter holiday was quite good, rumoured to be the only 30 deg day we will have for the next 6 months. We took full advantage of this by going to the beach. To Brighton Beach to look at the bathing boxes and for a general stroll.

Believe it or not, I have not been to see the famous bathing boxes of Brighton Beach before this. These iconic, brightly painted little sheds have graced many a brochure on the highlights of Melbourne yet I have not seen them in person. Not difficult to understand why since I am not into the beach culture like many Aussies here are. I am afraid of large bodies of water, and am not particularly fond of sand between my toes.

Every now and then though I do visit the beach and cast my eyes over the large expanse of the sea and find it soothing to the soul. The ebb and flow of the sea, so steady and inevitable provides a sense of certainty in this world of uncertainties.

But I digress. We got to the beach at about 12pm and was astonished to find that we have to pay for parking in the public car park. Even on public holidays like these. In the city, when it is a public holiday, parking is free. Every hour costs $3, which is exorbitant. We were lucky enough to be provided a half used ticket so we got some free parking yeay!

We took a good long walk along the beach and stopped by several bathing boxes to admire the vibrant colours. Each box is painted in different colours by their owners. Did you know that some of these boxes cost about the same as some houses? Yes... the record price for a bathing box was $260K in 2011, and owners pay the council $600 pa for the right to have a box on the Brighton Beach. Not bad for a 2.4m x 2.0m x 2.0m wooden structure eh?

After the walk, we sat for a while on a bench on top of a hill overlooking the beach with the city skyline in the background. The scene looked so peaceful, enough to forget the troubles of the world. If just for two minutes.

Straits of Malacca, Glen Waverley

How do I put this? I finally found the dish I have been looking for in Melbourne for a very long time. I am really excited with this find, and so close to home too. It's a really simple dish actually, a fried noodle dish called yin yong in Cantonese. I suppose translated it means yin and yang presumably called that because it consists of deep fried rice vermicelli which is white, and fried hor fun in a litle light soy sauce which turns it brown, and united with a creamy eggy sauce.

It is common to find 'Combination Hor Fun' in hawker style restaurant menus but as the name suggests, these only have fried hor fun and no rice vermicelli. The dish is essentially the same, just minus fried rice vermicelli. So why can't I just be content with hor fun and forget about the rice vermicelli? Well, for starters it adds an extra crunch to the dish which blends really well with the soft silky nature of the hor fun. It also provides a differentiation to the taste of the hor fun, no matter how subtle it may be.

I managed to stumble upon this find on accident. My friend and I had decided to grab a bite after our golfing session and settled upon the newly opened Straits of Malacca restaurant in Kingsway, Glen Waverley.

We also ordered the Indo Fried Rice which came with spicy fried rice, acar, salad, and satay chicken skewers. It tasted very nice, and the fried rice was not too spicy even though it's done in the Malay style. My only complaint about the restaurant is that the serving plates and bowls are massive yet the food portions are not that big. I just could not get enough of the yin yong. It had enough wok hei, the creamy egg sauce was tasty and the vermicelli was fried just crisp but there was not enough of it!

But I will return to Straits of Malacca, if the yin yong remains as good as the one I tasted this afternoon.

Update: This restaurant is now closed

Lockton Farm Gourmet Sausages

Now and then, Gaz and I would wake up early enough on Saturday morning to go to the farmer's market held at Jell's Park about 15 minutes away. This spread in this market is considered quite good because not only do they sell fresh organic produce such as vegetables, mushrooms, honey, there are also hot food such as Dutch pancakes, dumplings, and hotdogs. The stalls also sell pre-prepared food you can take home such as dips, artisan breads, pasta and sausages.

Usually I look for two stalls when I get there - the pasta stall and the sausage stall. I bought the most delicious carbonara from the stall in the market. It was delicious, creamy, just magnificent! And others love it too because if we're late we almost never get a packet of carbonara.

The second stall, the sausage stall has prepacked packages of exotic sausages with combinations that I'd never imagined in sausages. They sound like complete dishes themselves. Duck L'Orange, Chicken with Pinenuts and Basil, Turkey and Cranberry, Pork Pumpkin and Leek and Hoisin Duck are just a few of the varieties they have.


This time we bought Hoisin Duck to try. It was a flavoursome rich savoury duck meat with sweet Hoisin combo. I really enjoyed the sausages. The pack of 4 cost us $9.20 which is more expensive than the ones from Coles by a yard but nowhere would you be able to find such terrific flavour combos anywhere in Coles.

Abrasive People

I must say that I have done pretty well by keeping my post holiday glow for so long. Unfortunately who should disrupt it but an old nemesis. I have spoken to several other people and they concurred with me about this man's ability to rub people the wrong way.

He wrongly accuses others of not being cooperative when he himself does not place the same importance on others' requests of him. He believes others to be incompetent fools who waits around to help only him. The funny thing is that he acts like our VVIP external customer when he works in a back office role in a cost centre.

Some people just need to get their mirrors out sometimes and take a good look at themselves!