Giulia

Moco took me for a brunch the next day after the hens night. He's been to this cafe before and he thought I might like it too. From outside it certainly looked promising, from inside it also seemed to have all the factors that I like for a cafe. Cozy venue, extensive menu, and friendly waitress. What else can I ask for? Let me think. Hm..I'd like my meal to be fully cooked please.

How disappointing. My meal looked so great but when I cut through the sausage it looked so raw! And I am not a fan of raw food period.

At least the poached eggs were nice.

The friendly waitress took it back to kitchen to be re-cooked. It looked better when it came back but still when I cut it, the meat was so red! As I said the waitress was friendly, but I didn't say anything about the cook did I? Well that's because the chef was a snob. He obviously was not happy when I told the waitress the sausage still looked uncooked. He even came to our table and was a bit defensive of his cooking. I didn't want to make any drama so I waited for Moco to finish his meal and I just left the sausages.

Moco's haloumi omelet

Such a waste to leave the sausages untouched, but what can I do? I paid the meal and I believe I deserved to request the meal the way I wanted it. Cooked.

I know it might be just one of those days when it's too hectic and you just can't control your day, if only the cook was more humble and more understanding. But obviously that was not the case. Shame, but I shall hold back the temptation to go back there. As much as I wanted to go back there and try the other menu. Surely there will be plenty more cafes who offered cooked meals.

Joy Cafe and Superbowl

My first Indo's hens nite here! and to celebrate it we had dinner in an Indo restaurant =p

Well that's what happened but we actually didn't plan to have dinner there, initially we just wanted to have a snack!

ragout rissole with peanut sauce

But looked what we ended up with..

lontong sayur (rice dumplings and chicken with curry sauce)

nasi uduk (coconut rice with fried chicken and side dishes)

signature chicken noodle - my friend put way too much chili. Too hot for everyone!

Tongseng (goat curry) - this is surprisingly yummy hehe

After dinner we went to buy some snacks and got back to the hotel. However at 1am we decided it's time for another snacks. So we head back to chinatown to get some chilli fish balls!

Fishball attack!

Refreshing drink for the heat

I guess it always started as a snack but again look what we ended up with...

Salt and pepper deep fried tofu (quite pricey though $16.80 for this?)

Pork mince congee - never say no to congee :)

Never ate so much for a hens nite before!!

Kura

Our usual Wednesday dinner out, this time we decided to get some Jap in Chinatown. Hm..so many options and we ended up going back to Kura. We haven't been there for so long actually, the menu was new and of course the prices went up!

For starter we had the salmon salad, always a refreshing treat in summer.


I missed the tsukune here, I guess it's the main reason we picked Kura that night. So it would be a sin if I didn't order it.


Moco once again decided to get a new dish that night, which was the burger/ prawn tempura combo

To be honest I didn't find it special, the prawn was too small and the burger was just - a burger lol

But I got what I wanted it so no complaint from my side :)

China Grand and Kebab's Night

I'm not sure how many posts I could do today but let's see how we go :)

I haven't seen my girlfriends for a while so we decided to had a catch-up brunch, i.e yum cha. For some reasons we always had yumcha everytime we met up, but at different locations - should really think of something else for next time!

But anyway who am I kidding, I love yumcha - let's just keep the ritual.
This time we picked China Grand's restaurant just above Market City. That restaurant kept on changing name for the past ten years, I wonder why..

Me and my other friend are a big fan of tofu so we always ordered this one!

Tofu and eggplant with stuffed mince pork

Moco and I rarely ordered fried stuff in yumcha, so these dishes are a treat for me =p

Deep friend scallop dumplings with mayo

Deep fried seafood dumplings

Prawn rice rolls with soy sauce

Prawn har gau - my mandatory yum cha dish

Egg tart - my mandatory yum cha dessert!

One of my friends was late so we didn't order as much as we normally do, but it's okay that just meant we had more room for coffee. And especially I had to prepare myself for the kebab night..

Fast forward to the night, we got invited to Moco's friend place. His friend's neighbour was kindly brought over his own kebab machine. Check this out..

Home-made tabouli

I've never known anyone who owns a kebab machine before so it's pretty cool, a private platter in the backyard :)

The Lot!

The oil residue..ouch.

Home-made tiramisu

Chat Thai

Wow more than two weeks ago since the last post. I left my camera at a friend's place and just got a chance to get it back yesterday! So unfortunately some of the food during the camera-less period were taken by my mobile :(

I think we're about 20 entries behind so let's get cracking yea? Traveling back in time to dinner two weeks ago when my cousin and her husband came to visit. She heard of this place highly praised by her brother when he came last time, so after lining up for more than an hour she decided no food is worth that wait.

Well I personally tend to avoid to line here but got no choice that night. And besides I prefer to go here at supper, simple reason: less queue, better menu.

For the starter we had satay - two chickens and two porks


Moco decided to try something new that night, so he ordered the bamboo shoots salad. I personally not a big fan of bamboo shoots so my opinion could be biased. But Moco said it was okay, a bit spicy but not too bad. As for myself I tried it only one bite and that was it. It reminded me of artichokes which I also disliked. My cousin also felt the same so the dish was shared between Moco and my cousin's hubby :)


Next couple of dishes just standard dishes that we normally ordered in here. I barely remember the original name so I'd just write mostly the ingredients =p

Prawn and omelette with tamarind based sauce

The dry suki is one of my fave dishes, and they cooked it so well here :)

The basil chicken that made me sweaty (it's so spicy!)

It's quite lots of dishes for four people especially since my cousin didn't eat too much (at least not as much as I did) hence unfortunately we had to call of the dessert. Till next time cuz!

Beef in Balinese Spices

Indo instant sauce is my best friend when I have a sudden craving of Indo food. Well this one was actually planned since we went to an Asian grocery store yesterday and decided to try the Bumbu Bali (Bali spices) paste. We also picked up some fresh kankong for $1.79! - this is why I always feel ripped off when I order greens in the restaurant. My heart sinks whenever I see a $13.90 kangkong stir fry.

The instant Bali spices turned out to be lovely, it has a little bit of chili but not too hot. And it smells so goood!

I added enormous amount of fried tofu due to the fact I adore tofu. I also added hard boiled eggs just because I can.

Dinner with garlic kangkong and peri-peri sauce on side

Hm..this has gotta be the shortest entry by far =p
SO tired! Nitey all x

Hainan Chicken Rice with Sweet and Sour Chicken

In contrast to yesterday, I was on fire today. (Read: I wasn't being lazy...)

After a quick swim on the beach I went grocery shopping with just $15 in my pocket. Whilst on the beach I couldn't stop thinking about Hainanese chicken rice so we'll see if I could pull of dinner with that budget. I suppose the Chinese food strike didn't last too long..

I normally get fresh ginger supply from Moco's mom so imagine my shock when I saw the price of $24.99/kg for the ginger on the rack!

As the companion for the rice, I prepared sweet and sour chicken with not just pineapple, but also peas and carrots (yes home cooking = free fall recipes)

I've seen Moco's dad cook a similar dish before with tempura fish, but with my limited budget I could only afford chicken this time. I also followed his step to coat the chicken first but I'm pretty sure his dish tasted way better than mine ;p

smokin hot..

the combo with stir fry Chinese broccoli with garlic and oyster sauce

I'm so glad my shopping basket made the budget and it covered not just the dinner but I've also packed Moco's lunch for tomorrow :)

Here comes the burritos..

I had a very lazy day yesterday, didn't feel like cooking nor to get dressed and eat out. Good thing Moco agreed to bring home some take away.

I was expecting some Jap bento as per our last phone conversation but look what he brought home!

Apparently the nearest Jap place is still closed on Mondays and as a result Moco grabbed two different burritos from two different places (I didn't even know I was surrounded by Mexican restaurants..)

Obviously from the paper bag, one of the burritos was from Mad Mex. But which one was it?

Is it the pork burrito with salsa rice and black beans?

Or is it the lamb burrito with corn and lime rice and a hint of jalapeno?

For some reasons I guessed Mad Mex' burrito would have a similar presentation and taste as Guzman Y Gomez.

So which one is your guess?

second look of burrito A

second look of burrito B

Whatever your guess is, I'll let you know one lil fact. I really enjoyed the quick dinner (take away = no dishes to be washed)

Good choice Moco!

Balti Fish Curry

We realized two things over these last couple of days, we had:
1. eaten out too often
2. eaten too much of Chinese food

So we decided tonight we'd like to cook something at home that's not too Chinesey. We somehow came up with the same idea. Curry. But which curry. Thai curry? Indian curry? Indo curry? Malaysian curry? Wow aren't we lucky, at least those options are available for us.

Wandering around the grocery shop we stumbled into the Indian isle and saw this curry paste that we've never heard of before. Balti curry. Hm..interesting. We've gone through butter chicken, beef vindaloo, and other dishes that India has created for Western world, but not this one. So as you may have guessed we took the challenge and decided to cook our version of Balti curry.

Who could tell that barramundi, green beans, baby corn, Lebanese eggplants are not the original ingredients of Balti curry? If it's not then they should really consider adding those ingredients in. Curry never tasted so good when you can just chuck everything you wanted in.

After all that's the joy of home cooking right when you can just throw anything you like in the pot :)


The instant microwaveable pappadums certainly make life easier. It kept myself up all night coughing though, so I guess in that case it has made my life not that easy :(


Moco decided to be pretentious with his plate..


Whilst me as usual can't be bothered to do so..

And what could be more perfect that a home made banana cake with chocolate ice cream for dessert?

Din Tai Fung and Wow Cow

Taking out a visitor for dinner is always a good excuse to eat out. This time my Junior HS friend came visiting from Melbourne with her bf. She requested to have some xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung. But unfortunately they don't take booking for less than 10 people, so in the gloomy weather we took a number and lined up joining the rest of the queue..

But the wait was worth it if you came here for the xiao long bao. The skin was beautifully made and had the perfect texture, not too thick and not too thin.

Moco chose drunken chicken and beef brisket noodle that night. The drunken chicken had quite a strong 'drunkeness' than what Moco and I expected. But again the beef brisket was more tender than we expected, so I guess that evens it out. Moco claimed the noodle didn't taste like a traditional la mien hand made noodle though, whilst me on the other hand whose not a big fan of la mien - couldn't really taste the difference..



The string beans and mince pork was quite nice and added a pleasant green colour on the table but just ordinary like what I normally have in Chinese restaurants.

Didn't find anything special with the spicy dumplings either. I got the same reaction from Moco, he agreed it would be a dish that you wouldn't order twice.


I think the prawn mayo dish was a bit over the priced. I liked the description that they have on the menu (I mean what could go wrong with prawn, mayo and pineapple?) but it certaintly wasn't the best prawn dish I've had and certainly wasn't worth $22.80 for just 8 prawns.

Overall it's only the xiao long bao that managed to impress me. And if I wanted to just have xiao long bao, I'd rather go to Ashfield where there would be less of a queue and less $ to spend with extra dumplings to munch!

After some cliched photo shots around The Rocks we headed out to Darlinghurst for some dessert. I'm amazed with how quick Wow Cow has grown in popularity. I still remember a couple of months ago when they first opened me and Moco barely saw anyone visit the shop (we were the few daring ones to try the samples and lured to buy more. tsk) But last Saturday the tables had turned, the inside and outside spots were full and there's quite a line after we ordered. I guess the frozen yoghurt hype has finally reached Sydney...


Ah I feel healthier having yoghurt as dessert as opposed to the normal ice cream I have. But of course healthier food just doesn't taste the same. The baked cinnamon bread sticks didn't even come close to these sinful deep fried churros!