Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Modern family tree

A colleague was browsing one of those gossip mags during an afternoon tea break and there was an article on Mel B and her new baby Madison. The convo progressed to her daughter Angel with Eddie Murphy, who has other children as well, and Mel B's new husband, who also has a daughter from a previous marriage. My colleague then remarked it would be an interesting family tree.

After a quick wiki (which mean quick!) search, I was able to put this together (only because this is such important information...):




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Monday, January 30, 2012

Dog-Friendly: Marriner Falls [at] Apollo Bay, VIC



Almost 2.5 months ago, we spent Cup Weekend down at Apollo Bay, and Angus came along! We went for a couple of walks, but Angus had to stay home as dogs are not allowed in the Otway Ranges (General rule - no dogs in National Parks). We did, however, take one walk to Marriner Falls and Angus had such a ball!

 

The walk wasn't too long; we took our own sweet time - probably took us, maybe, 90 minutes? I may be wrong. Either way, a very pleasant walk.






The interesting thing about this walk, is that, instead of bridges, the only way to cross streams were on stepping stones. Be prepared to get your shoes/feet wet!


When we got to the waterfall, we let Angus off-lead as the waterfall was pretty much enclosed. He had such a ball exploring!


I wasn't too impressed when he found himself a jellybean (!). But I'm sure he felt mighty pleased with himself!

Can't remember how I came to know about this place, and that dogs are allowed. Not an easy walk to find online.


DIRECTIONS: At Apollo Bay from Great Ocean Road, turn onto Gambier St and follow along Barham Valley Road. Keep going; the road gets narrower and there aren't any signs until you are there. Doubt you would miss it once you're there.

Food-in: Ngo Hiam (Lobak) and Pineapple Tarts

Decided to make the Husband's ultimate dream come true (no, not THAT dream ;) ) by attempting to make ngo hiam or what we call as lobak, essentially a fried meat roll wrapped in bean curd skin. Ended up buying the WRONG beancurd skin (as M pointed out - the COCK brand is only for 'pak khor foo chook yee mai' @gingko beancurd skin barley dessert broth) - it broke so easily and pretty much started disintegrating :( I tried my best, and it turned out pretty ugly with foochok (beancurd skin) pointing in every direction, but thankfully, edible. Thanks C for pointing out which ones I should have bought - maybe next time I'll experience more success!!

Ugly ngo hiam

In order to make it seem more "Chinese New Year"-sy, I decided to make pineapple tarts.

Too bad I didn't have the pineapple tart mould (the one that makes each tart shaped like a flower)- I remember helping grandma making these ones for CNY; helping her make CNY bikkies was one of my strongest CNY memories from childhood.

Anyway the ones I made were pretty ugly (are you sensing a pattern here?)- hardly any consistency. Taste-wise, pretty good for a first attempt though!

Made the filling from scratch- fresh pineapple (hurray for food processor), sugar, cinnamon and cloves. Took forever to reduce and caramelise (forever meaning 2.5hrs)

I combined two recipes; I wanted to make one recipe's filling but not the pastry as it had too many ingredients I'd have to go out and buy (eg. Cream cheese, shortening, ghee etc etc etc). The pastry I ended up making had a filling recipe using tinned pineapples, which I wasn't keen on.

Overall turned out okay, but I'd love to get the pineapple flower mould next time!
 
Ugly Pineapple tarts

GONG XI FA CAI!

FOOD-OUT: Lentil as Anything [at] Footscray

I've been talking about wanting to come here to try for ages and ages - had made plans with an
ex-work colleague to catch up here since last year (last year, being a month ago :) ) but we ended up having to cancel on each other.

FINALLY, about a week ago, we managed to find ONE day when neither of us were ill and we could actually meet up!

 How it works (apologies for the bad photo)




I've never actually eaten at any of the outlets before, but I've noticed that the Abbotsford Convent one does get busy. I like the concept, about how you pay what you can for your meal. Those who can afford to pay, pay; and those who can't, don't. Unfortunately I have heard that the business has not been doing well, which is a pity - it makes you question how it may be possible for a business to show grace but still be sustainable.

Buffet setup

Anyway - Lentil as Anything, Footscray, has a buffet set-up - you grab a plate and pile on what ever you can (I can just hear my mum right now, "make sure you finish everything on your plate! Do you know how many starving kids there are?!")


My plate o' dinner

Oh - did I mention that it's a vegetarian restaurant? 

I piled on some salads, some curry, some pasta but loved the dhal best (that's the orangey-red blob of lentils on the bottom left hand of the above photo). Dessert was apple-crumble - not a massive fan.

Had a coffee after dinner (espresso machine present) and it was actually not bad!

My friend J and I had a discussion during dinner about what would be considered a reasonable amount to put in. After discussion, we agreed that if you could afford to pay, anything between $15-25 would be a reasonable amount.

What do you guys reckon?
Lentil as Anything on Urbanspoon

Sunday, January 29, 2012

FOOD-OUT: Waffee [at] Altona

Having heard about this Waffle and Coffee (hence, Waffee) place from friends who travel all the way from the city, I decided that it was definitely a must-try place. After all, it's only a stone's throw from work!

So far, I've been here twice, and the coffee and waffes have not disappoint.

Do my eyes deceive me?! A rosetta this far out in the west??!!! Hurray hurray!!

Waffle display

Half-dozen assorted waffles served

Initially I had expected to see large waffles serves with syrup and ice-cream ( I suppose these are the American ones that I'm more familiar with, rather than the Belgians ones that these guys make); so I was surprised to see neat and dainty looking ones. Textures are lovely - crisp on the outside, dense and a bit doughy in the inside. Flavours include the raspberry & white chocolate (a tiny bit more expensive, but it's pretty darn special - think jam donut in a waffle form drizzled with white choc!), chocolate (stick or glaze), cinnamon, blueberry, coffee, amongst a few others.

There's pretty much nothing else apart from  waffles and coffee (or tea/chocolate/etc) but it makes an awesome morning/afternoon tea break! Or an early morning (think they open at 7:30am on weekdays??????) more-than-decent coffee.

Yum.

Score 1 for 'da west side! 


Waffee Waffle+Coffee on Urbanspoon

Friday, January 27, 2012

House-Building: Our patch of dirt

Yay- the titled, ready-to-be-built on land! Hurray hurray!



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House-Building: New Blog Alert!

I know I've been blogging about our house-building process on this blog, but now I have decided to create another blog with the specifics of our house-building.

Because no one who isn't building a house with volume builders would be interested to know that Category 4 Mocha bricks cost an additional ~$4000, off-white mortar costs ~$1400.

So.....

I now have TWO (2) blogs, one solely to track progress about our house-building. I may cross-post related-entries, so there will still be house-building updates here, but for the full (sometimes ugly) detail, visit From Paper to Brick !

Sunday, January 22, 2012

House-building: build a house at your own peril!

House-Building is no easy feat - understatement of the year!

I've been on such highs and lows about the house that one would think I'm manic-depressive.

Porter Davis (and I suppose other builders) haven't been really clear and transparent with us, that now, post-contract signing, there's another $6000 we need to fork out that we don't know exactly what for. The general heading of "site costs" just will not suffice! Especially when you signed up for a promotion that specified, "complete site costs included-just add land!"

Did someone say false advertising?

Prove that "someone" wrong, Porter Davis!

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Monday, January 16, 2012

House-building: Interior plans

We didn't have to upgrade much inside, and made some minor variations. Our only variations were the addition of our alfresco, external window kitchen splashback, closing off our formal lounge area with plaster so it can be a home office, and enlarging some bedroom windows. Oh yeah, we also added a door to the walk-in robe, and sliding door to our master bedroom ensuite, 'cos no one wants to be (and should ever be!) seen doing a Number Two.

 Interior plans - ground floor

 Interior plans - first floor

Our promotion package included Caesarstone benchtops in the kitchen, which is great, but we did have to pay to have Caesarstone tops in the bathrooms. Upgrades include (from what I can remember at the top of my head):
  • upgrading toilet bowls! (hehh!)
  • Caesarstone benchtops in the bathroom
  • carpet and underlay
  • downlights downstairs
Choosing colours again wasn't too difficult. We're both into lots of neutrals and earthy tones, and anything that we didn't cared much for remained as the standard option provided (like skirting and architraves!).

Kitchen colour sample
Below my external window splashback we decided to go with the dark brown tile, instead of the glass splashback offered in the promotion. Latte Caesarstone benchtop atop white cabinetry. I would have loved to upgrade the kitchen cabinets to gloss vinyl wrap, and have thicker Caesarstone benchtops with waterfall edges but it would've blown the budget. oh well!

Bathroom colour sample

Again - lots of browns and whites. Floor and wall tiles a light brown; pebblestone feature tiles; Caesarstone Ice Snow benchtop atop white cabinetry.

Urghhh! Blogging about the house now makes me so excited about seeing it in 3D!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

House-Building: "look out for the orange door..."

It wasn't too difficult to choose a house design. We quite quickly settled on building the Moreland 27 with Porter Davis (Access Range); it fitted on our small block, and met our needs and requirements. I realised that within a year Porter Davis had decided to remove the house design from their range. Hmm... maybe this will mean our house will be rare-ish and less of a mass-produced, cookie-cutter house then!

Exterior - Cardiff Facade

This is how the exterior will be, ground floor would be exposed brick; upstairs will be weatherboard. I have a tendency to like a mix of textures and materials, so really like how there's a variety of materials used in the exterior. Plus it turned out that it was cheaper than having both storeys brick; so yay - on an extremely rare event, my first preference wasn't the most expensive.

Exterior - colours

The Husband and I almost never disagreed on the design, look or colours when we had to select our materials and colours; for which I am incredibly thankful! Possibly because we either (i) have the same style vision for our home, or (ii) he has not much style, but I'm just ridiculously convincing and can sell ice to an eskimo.

The biggest decision we had to make for our exterior was the brick. We had driven around across town like idiots looking at different houses that were being built with different bricks etc. But on a walk, we had seen a gorgeous riverfront house which expressed what we had in mind, and luckily we brought a photo of it into our Colour Selection appointment. Our Interior Designer who helped us with our colour selection took a look at it, and reckoned we could achieve a similar look by upgrading our brick to a Category 4 brick, i.e. Mocha, and upgrading our mortar to off-white.  This was fantastic, as prior to the appointment, we were thinking that we had little choice but to upgrade to a Category 6 brick (i.e. Espresso) to get what we want.

Ooh, and I was adamant that I wanted to have that orange door.....

House-Building: From paper to brick

Guess I should finally start blogging about our house-building!

I don't know what possessed us to embark on this adventure of having our first home built. I am pretty certain neither of us knew what we signed on for, so for now, we can only sit there, hold on tight, and hope for the best! (with a helluva lots of aggression assertiveness developed along the way).

It will continue to be a challenge to have a house built whilst balancing being assertive (so you have a good quality build), with being able to live a life that represents love, hope and faith (so you don't simply see everyone else as a means to an end, i.e. the house).

We had decided months and months and months ago how our house will look like; we've had the plans and designs for almost a year now, but since we are looking to start our actual build soon, I decided that I should finally start blogging about it, and hopefully can make regular-ish updates on it!

If you are building or thinking about building, and have questions about specifics, e.g. upgrading selections at Porter Davis; feel free to place a comment or send me a message and I'll do my best to respond.

Hope it won't be too difficult to get our house from on paper to brick!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Nuthin' on TV



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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

FOOD-OUT: Reverence Specialty Coffee and Tea, Ascot Vale (VIC)

 Busy for an opening weekend

We paid a visit the first weekend these guys opened shop - a coffee buff friend, E, knew that the owner(s) has something to do with Atomica Coffee (or something or rather), so the coffee was going to be good. It's always exciting to witness the growth of great coffee on 'da west side.

The coffee was good, which is great! Always exciting to see a COE (Cup of Excellence) on a coffee menu!! But one of the wait staff seemed to struggle with the more complex coffee questions, e.g. "what would you recommend on the filter?" Response, "er... black coffee" or something to the same extent. She did quickly go and ask someone else and came back promptly with a more appropriate response. So we'll let that one slide as it was only their first weekend!!


Being a brekkie person, I was keen to give the breakfasts a go; but turned out the lunch items looked way better, but we couldn't yet order them :(
But we were mightily impressed that the coffee and drinks menu was equally extensive as their food menu (drinks menu overleaf of food menu) :)



Breakfast Roll - Bacon, fried eggs, housemade BBQ sauce

I must admit - we weren't too terribly impressed when this came out. For starters, the roll wasn't warm nor toasted. I'm sure some people would prefer their roll as-is, but perhaps offer the option of having the roll toasted? S, who ordered this, felt it was okay, but nothing fantastical. I'm still wondering how they fried the eggs so prettily :P



Scrambled Eggs w/ Sausage and Mushrooms

As usual, the Husband ordered the big breakfast. The sausage was so delicious! It really tasted like meat, instead of those highly processed cr@p. One thing that would improve this and make it really good is to serve it with a tomato relish. That'll really add some freshness and tang to the dish.


Ricotta and Buttermilk Hotcakes w/ Coconut, Lime and Fresh Berries

If I had ordered this, I'd happily finish it up. The toasted coconut and lime did make this a special dish, but J, who ordered this, felt that the hotcakes could be improved on. I was very happy with the flavours when I had a taste, but looking at the photo now I do think they look a wee bit flat. Making them a bit more substantial (fatter hotcakes, or an additional hotcake) wouldn't hurt either.



Heirloom Tomatoes w/ Avocado, Feta, Basil on Garlic and Shallot Toast

I had no regrets ordering the heirloom tomatoes - I thought I had the best dish on the table. The flavours were delicious and fresh. The freshness of the tomatoes was balanced by the creaminess of the avocado and the cheese. Great tasting dish. Only gripe - the bread. I don't know why, but I wasn't too impressed with the texture of the bread. The flavour was yummy, but I could not help but think the texture of the bread reminded me of what people usually get from the local supermarket. MAYBE it was just too light, instead of the denser bread we get at fancy restaurants or the ones made by Phillipa's? Apart from that, yummos! I'd be more than happy to eat it again.


Overall, it was very busy for their first weekend, so well done for getting everything and everyone served with minimal issues! Great coffee; good-ish food; but at least for now, if you're from the other side of town though, it's likely that you'd find several cafes with more impressive food on the way. 

But it's a wonderful cafe to have in your neighbourhood - a blessing to the Ascot Vale community and nearby surroundings. And by the looks of it from that first weekend, Ascot Vale has embraced it with open arms.

All the best, Reverence!

Reverence Specialty Coffee & Tea on Urbanspoon

Thursday, January 5, 2012

FOOD-OUT: Rockpool Bar & Grill, Southbank (VIC)


I must admit, I was feeling apprehensive about our visit to Rockpool. The Bar Menu seems to get great reviews, but opinions about the restaurant itself seem to be quite polarised, and I generally feel a wee bit apprehensive about 'chain' restaurants. Wanting to make the most of our visit, I spent a good few days perusing the menu and blog posts.


It was relatively quiet when we got there at 6.15pm, but it filled up very quickly. We were soon joined by our friends and were ready to order.

Hand-cut Linguini with with Spanner Crab and Spicy Prawn Oil ($30.0)

Bloggers had talked about this dish, and their other pastas favourably, so we decided to give it a go. The crab and linguini were both extremely fresh and delicious, but it tasted tomyum. This was very unexpected; I had tried to steer away from anything Asian-inspired. Hmm, unfortunately as much as I loved the way the linguini and crab were cooked, I could not help but imagine that if Rockpool had a "spicy prawn oil" disaster, they could have subsituted it with the flavouring packet from this:

MAMA's tomyum-flavoured instant noodles

As much as I loved the linguini and crab, needless to say I wouldn't be ordering it again; certainly not for $30 a plate.

Cape Grim dry-aged 36 month old, grass-fed,
Rib-Eye on the Bone, 350g, 65 days ($60.0)

We'll begin with the steaks. My online research indicated that the Cape Grim Rib-eye would be a good one. I was not let down. Although I've eaten nicer textured steak elsewhere, this steak is amongst the most flavoursome I have ever eaten. It must've been the wood-fire that really adds the flavour. The steak, with the tiniest bit of harissa, was ultra-flavourful. Yum yumm yummos.

J and K ordered the Cape Grim dry-aged 36 month old, grass-fed, Fillet 250g ($55.0) - J ordered his rare, which came out fine. K on the other hand, had asked for medium-rare, but felt it was more medium to medium-well. This was slightly contentious, so it wasn't sent back, as the steak was cut into 3 pieces- the middle piece was certainly medium-rare, but the other two were indeed more medium to medium-well. M ordered the Cape Grim dry-aged 36 month old, grass-fed, Scotch Fillet 220g 4+ Marble Score ($49.0). Being Asians, we were happy to share food all around, and the general consensus was that the steaks were incredibly flavoursome. But I was extremely satisfied with the rib-eye.

Grilled Rock Flathead Fillets
with Wood Fire Grilled Vegetables and Olive & Caper Salsa ($49.0)

Being incredibly bossy, I made The Husband order a non-steak dish, just so we could go halfies and try something different. We both enjoyed the fish, together with the salsa.

SPECIAL: King George Whiting with rocket, chilli and something salad

S opted for the special - and he did enjoy it. I had a taste, and remembered that the fish was tasty, but nothing too remarkable. Personally, at fancy restaurants, I don't like seeing fins and tails on the plate.

Side Order of Onion Rings ($9.0)

This was another dish I read online that we had to get. They were seriously crunchy and yummy! They COULD have drain it for longer though; the last onion ring at the bottom of the bowl was sitting in a small pool of oil (which was kinda yuck, but I still had no trouble smacking it on my (by-then) empty plate a few times just to shake off some oil before shoving it into my mouth)

Side Order of Potato and Cabbage Gratin (S $9.0/ L $12.0)

OMG - this was 'eye-rolling'-ly good. I would have used my spoon and scraped the sides and licked it clean if I had been at home. So creamy, so flavourful - my-oh-my!

Caught a quick snap on the way out. Chef on the left: "Whatchu lookin' at?"

After dinner, I uhmmed and aahed over my overall opinion about our visit. It was enjoyable, and the food, especially my steak, were super-flavoursome, but I wasn't too sure about how I felt about the whole experience. Until I woke up this morning and kept thinking about the flavour of my rib-eye steak with the harrissa. 

Overall, the Cape Grim dry-aged 36 month old, grass-fed, Rib-Eye on the Bone, 350g, 65 days steak with side orders of Onion Rings and Potato and Cabbage Gratin are absolutely worth the visit.

Rockpool Bar and Grill on Urbanspoon


The food was good, but the company even better. A special shout out to the wonderful, M and S, one of the fantastic-est couples I know, who shouted all of us dinner on this very special night out! THANK YOU and MUAKSMUAKSMUAKS!!!

Monday, January 2, 2012

welcoming 2012

It's so much easier to blog about food, than it is about life. Food is physical, tangible and easily involves the 5 external senses; life is so much more abstract. Or rather perception about life is more abstract, to be more exact.

On New Year's Day, I was asked to share what I was thankful or grateful for for the year 2011. When you're asked such a question, there really isn't much choice but to reflect on the year.

I am thankful for an unremarkable year.

Nothing our society deems as a great success or accomplishment happened to us this year. We didn't strike the lottery, we didn't have a baby, we didn't get married. Neither did a great tragedy befell us - all have been healthy, and well.

Events in 2011, for us personally, hadn't been particularly significant. But not needing to be overly preoccupied with our situation allowed us to focus on working out our faith, trying to understand how God is working in this chaotic world, and trying to understand the roles we play in global issues, or even just the roles we play to have a positive impact in our community's lives. 
 
An unremarkable year isn't normally something people are thankful for. But this reminds be of Proverbs 30:
7-9 And then he prayed, "God, I'm asking for two things before I die; don't refuse me— Banish lies from my lips and liars from my presence.Give me enough food to live on, neither too much nor too little. If I'm too full, I might get independent, saying, 'God? Who needs him?' If I'm poor, I might steal and dishonor the name of my God."

I haven't been able to put much of our reflections, conversations,thoughts into text this year. Hopefully I would be able to pen down my thoughts more this year, to help gain more clarity. 

I am certain 2012 will be a new adventure.

Cookies supplied by the talent at The Buttercup Bakeshoppe

Happy New Year!

The purpose of life is a life of purpose - Robert Byrne

Gastronomic P0rn0gr4phy of Sydney

Thus ends my intense bursts of blogging about our food escapades in Sydney. I haven't blogged about each and every meal; just writing about the highlights have been exhausting (though fun!). The detailed eating itinerary was as follows:



Maybe some time I will think about my wishlist for our next Sydney trip, but until then, I shall end the post with something we encountered on the last of our NUMEROUS visits to Chatime in Sydney:

HARD WORK - is obviously not a phrase in this person's vocabulary

Sunday, January 1, 2012

FOOD-OUT: Red Lantern, Surry Hills (NSW)

We decided to make Red Lantern one of our food-stops on our Sydney food trip, after having watched Luke Nguyen do a Friday masterclass on Masterchef. He had talked about master stocks and how the master stock in Red Lantern was at least 10 years old, and so this intrigued me. Apparently in China, some master stocks are several centuries old and can be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars!

After having made our reservation about 3 weeks prior, we rocked up on Sunday and were seated outside at the front of the building. The restaurant was far smaller than I expected - Red Lantern is situated in a Victorian terrace, below a block of apartments.

True to its name - so red, and so many red lanterns!

We ordered some herbal tea to accompany our meal, and it was very nice. Had lemongrass, ginger, licorice (I supposed very subtle, as I'm not a fan of licorice, and I still liked the tea).

Using the Husband's actual birthday as an excuse to pig out, we ordered 3 entrees and 2 mains.

ENTREE: "Goi Cuon" - Soft rice paper rolls
with prawns, pork, vermicelli, perilla leaves and garlic chives

We ordered the standard rice paper rolls to try how 'good traditional rice paper rolls' are meant to taste like. Everything was just very fresh, and had such fresh textures about it. Lovely.

ENTREE: Chef's Special - Fried school prawns with coriander aioli

We decided to go for the school prawns because I was drawn to the coriander aioli. I really liked this too - we were able to eat the whole prawn, shell and all, and it was all just so very flavourful.

MAIN: "Ga Chien Don" - Crisp skin Burrawong pasture raised chicken
poached in master stock with ginger, shallot and oyster sauce 

Now this was the dish we came to try - chicken poached in master stock. And the verdict: Nice, but not awesome. Tasty, but not wow.

 MAIN: "Bo Luc Lac" - Cubed pasture fed Black Angus sirloin
wok tossed with garlic, sesame and black pepper.

Uhmm... the taste was oh-kay. I liked how the salad did add variety to the dish. But the beef I felt was not tender enough. I suppose I expected the beef to be cooked medium-rare, which it certainly wasn't. I felt this dish did not hold a candle to the ones Crystal Jade in Melbourne does.

Overall, it was a slight disappointment. I really really did enjoy the entrees, but that was part of the problem. The entrees were significantly better than the mains, so that we didn't, couldn't, end on a high. I'd maybe return to Red Lantern to enjoy the entrees, tapas-style. I also probably wouldn't mind coming back here if the majority of my dining party wanted to dine here (say for a reunion, or a birthday, etc) but I doubt I would voluntarily return on my own volition.

Red Lantern on Urbanspoon