Personal | Perfect

Another post with just crappy iPhone photos, but can I just say that this past week has been one of the best weeks of the year? Since exactly last Friday, both me and Nick have gotten jobs (I work at Moochi Bankstown, guys please visit me if you're in the area!) + my tutor lesson was significantly better than last week's + I had heaps of fun at the final week of senior Access where we just had pizza and played board games + I finally asked Commonwealth Bank for a debit card (since I lost mine ages ago) + stayed up till 4am making my friend's birthday card for her 18th, and we celebrated with a yumcha brunch, then dinner and karaoke in the city (and got kicked out... LOL) + at my 9 hour shift the next morning I met heaps of great people and when I took my break, I was met with an influx of messages congratulating me for being an all-rounder for my HSC results + the morning after that/yesterday I got my ATAR and am proud to say that I've made it to my dream course + me and Nick celebrated his 21st in the city with Oiden for lunch (pictured above, and I would NOT recommend their green milk tea there but everything else, especially that curry, was amazing), shopping for chinos at Topman, dinner at Hurricanes, watching Miss Universe in our hotel room and having Ippudo for brunch (today), and while I was in the city, helped my brother out with some last minute Christmas shopping.

Basically: I love my life right now.

Meanwhile...

Churros for two with dark and milk chocolate, latte, choc-banana sundae with churros, milk couverture hot chocolate, Adriano Zumbo's zumbarons, cappucino, caramel ice cream, tiramisu with white chocolate

Just a quick update about dessert two nights ago to celebrate my sister's birthday! We had dinner at Hurricanes and decided to walk down to San Churros after. Before dinner started, me and Nick literally ran down to Adriano Zumbo's pattiserie at the Star to buy some macarons as a small present for my sister, to accompany the Pillow Pet we bought her ... LOL. At San Churros, I ordered the hot chocolate which was so so so nice and frothy, ahh I love frothy hot chocolates, and it was nice and rich. If anything, it got a bit sweet near the end, but that wasn't even that bad. I didn't actually have much of the churros on the night, but Nick kept asking if I could pass him some from across the table.. LOL. I remember a few years ago, my sister's friends surprised her at our house for her birthday, and her friend (who was working at San Churros at the time) brought over all this chocolate and dough and made churros on the night. How cute! Anyway, I'm hoping to blog about dinner at Hurricanes and Hurlstone's 2012 trivia night (which was last night) very soon!

Bentley bar

King fish w. roe, juniper and baked potato broth


Tuna, pickled mussels and octopus w. squid ink, quinoa and sea grapes


Balmain bug w. lamb sweetbread, black bean and coconut curd


Pork cheek w. fennel, black garlic and calamari


Fillet of black angus beef w. Jerusalem artichoke, Rosa radish and burdock


Creamed Brillat-Savarin w. pretzel, celery and hazelnut


Chocolate custard w. coffee, red currant and fig leaf ice cream


Macadamia parfait w. white chocolate, mint and lemon meringue


Frozen goats cheese mousse w. violet, buckwheat praline and passionfruit ice cream

Decided to quickly blog while my liquid paper dries (and it pretty much already is dry already, so that was a pretty poor excuse to take a break from studying, Genevieve), so last Saturday, Nick and his cousins invited his family plus me for dinner at Bentley Bar in the city for a fine dining sort of experience. I think it was an 8 course meal, but I'm not entirely sure. It was pretty cool, but the food took ages to come out, especially since the portions were so small, since yknow we were only tasting the food because we're obviously really fancy and stuff. The best dish of the night was the desserts, the frozen goats cheese mousse and macadamia parfait. Heaven in my mooouuuth. Normally I'd be the one grossed out by goats cheese cos it tastes so strong and zz I don't really like it, but this mousse was amazing and very very pretty and ahh just really nice. Since I don't really eat new things a lot, all the places I usually go are places like just in local areas and I don't really try anything new, Bentley has so many little elements in their dishes, things I'd never eaten before, and I can tell there's so much technique put into these dishes. So that was nice. Even though you could obviously buy like half a year's worth of $1 cheeseburgers from Maccas with the money you spend at fine dining (okay not literally), I'd say it's worth it for the experience, and it's not like you'd go like every day of the year, so it's worth it for like special events and stuff. But on the way home we still went to Maccas for drive-through soft serves and medium cokes LOL which was f, anyway trials are in less than 5 days so I should get going. Also sorry for the shit quality of these photos, there's a yellowish tinge on everything argh I hate eet

Perfect snack

Met up with Nick in Padstow yesterday and to hide from the wind, we had a hot chocolate at Gloria Jeans then tried these chicken and cheese quesadillas at the cafe across the road from the station. They were served with sweet chilli and sour cream, and were soooo good. I don't know if that's just because this was my first time having them, but they were a good light snack to share over two people. Oh, and my bottle of pink lemonade looked really cute too!

Mornings

Hello pancake. Hello strawberries and vanilla whipped cream. Hello orange segments and orange syrup. I'd forgotten how good Shaker pancakes were, and how good some freshly whipped cream tastes with strawberries. Strawberries aren't even in season, but my sister went out to buy some so we could have a nice breakfast while I was still on holidays. ^___^

Food adventure

Salted caramel and strawberry and lychee macarons from Coco Noir in Westfields Sydney 




Quick snack before brunch: a lemon tart from Via Del Corso Pasticceria e Caffé, and quiche lorraine from the Becasse Bakery


From the Snag Stand: passionfruit and blood orange mineral water, amazing chips with wasabi mayo, chipotle mayo and fresh herb aioli; the Greek (with lamb, rosemary and oregano, fresh tomato, onion and olive salsa, crumbed feta and tzatziki); and the Wagyu beef with horseradish (with sauteed onions, spicy horseradish mayo and beetroot salsa) 




My future Lambo 


Amina, Julia and I outside Jamie's Italian (Sydney) *w*


From Ichiban Boshi: curry chicken katsu don, and yakisoba 

Oops, looks like I totally neglected my blog again.. Expect more of this in the upcoming months, probably until November 6th when I finally finish my HSC. :( Anyway, today me, Steph and Nick went to the city for a little 'food adventure', where we'd just splurge on whatever we wanted to eat or drink. I can already feel my future self crying and wondering where all my money went, but today was heaps of fun with a few, good surprises along the way. :) Initially, the whole plan for today was literally to explore the city in search for the perfect salted caramel macaron, which is seriously one of my faaavourites, but after lunch, me, Nick and Steph were way too full to even walk too much.. LOL. But for the record, the salted caramel macaron from Coco Nior was amazing, and so was the one from Via Del Corso Pasticceria e Caffé (level 5 food court)! Salted caramel with a distinct bitterness, oooh man. I don't even like macarons that much so I don't even know what the texture is meant to be like, but they were so perfect and the filling was chewy (kind of), but in a nice way. Oh, and the macaron from Coco Nior had like a gold dusting on it! So pretty. :3 And I also tried the peanut butter macaron, drawn to it almost solely because it was a pretty pale bluey-green colour, and it actually tastes like a macaron version of Snickers.

We were also supposed to meet up with one of my sister's friends, and we'd have dinner at Jamie's Italian. I had even looked up the menu the night before to figure out what I would order (because I'm absolutely terrible at making decisions), and while we were waiting outside, Amina and Julia from Masterchef lined up right in front of us! Yes, I'm addicted to Masterchef, I make sure I catch up on whatever episodes I miss because of tutor/other commitments the night they were aired, have allocated myself time to chill out, stop studying and watch Masterchef, yeah yeah yeah.. hehe. Anyway, when I saw them I knew I absolutely HAD to get a photo, and later, we even saw Audra walk past into the restaurant. Ahhhhh it was so unexpected, best surprise ever! *w* But unfortunately, we had a two and a half hour wait just to get seated, so we decided to have dinner elsewhere (Ichiban Boshi in the Galleries), which wasn't too bad - cannot get enough of their melon soda, and their yakisoba is satisfying. :) Anyway, I am dead on my feet right now. And speaking of my feet, I bought new sandals (gasp- my first pair of shoes in I don't even remember how long that aren't black or white, that aren't boots, slip ons or heels. My feet haven't felt this naked in so long...) for $26 down from $90, woohoo! I'm so tired, it actually feels like I've just done a 4km cross country rather than just walk around in the city for a long long time.. LOL. Argh I really need to get myself into bed (and catch up on Masterchef, if I can stay awake), happy Thursday, everyone!

Haute dogs

Chilli cheese fries, the Toulouse and Wagyu beef haute dogs, grapefruit mineral water 


Toulouse: freshly grilled Berkshire pork sausage w/ sauteed onions, rosemary mushrooms and truffle aioli on a toasted brioche roll
Wagyu beef: wagyu beef sausage served up on a rustic roll w/ butter and garlic mash, herbed gravy and topped with sauteed onions 



When I first saw the Snag Stand while exploring Westfield Sydney, me and my sister swore we'd eat there one day, and we finally did yesterday. We went to the city with the intention to rape the end of financial year sales, eat at a nice restaurant for dinner and see the Vivid Lights light show, but when it started getting dark (i.e. when Vivid started), it started raining pretty badly and it was freezing cold outside. So instead of eating at a nice restaurant and going Vivid, we decided to just eat in the food court and finallllyyyyy tried their haute dogs. I'm assuming 'haute' is pronounced just as 'hot', but in my mind I keep saying 'haughty', which is kinda embarrassing.. :( I ordered the wagyu beef and my sister had their Toulouse, and we shared a side of chilli cheese chips. The hot dogs were gooood, a million times better than the shit we'd buy at the school canteen, and seriously satisfying when you're tired and freakin hungry after walking around Pitt St mall and Westfields all day. The chilli cheese chips sounded so unhealthily delicious so we bought them without really thinking about it that much, and they turned out to be reeeally heavy. But worth trying. But I probably wouldn't order them again, or if I did then I wouldn't get both a hot dog and chips. :( But overall, these hot dogs were totally worth it and my sister and I have decided that we have to try the rest of their menu, ahehehe. With such dreary weather, me and Nick have been watching the Jurassic Park trilogy over the three-day weekend, one movie a day. Hope everyone's enjoying their long weekend!

Hello Crinitis

Crinitis' blackboard menu with huge jars of Nutella, assorted bruschetta, antipasto, mussels cooked in garlic, chilli, olive oil and shallots with crusty olive oil bread, marinara pizza (prawns, mussels and clams), 1kg pork ribs with chips, rocket, pumpkin, beetroot and goats cheese salad, risotto marinara, creme brulee with berries and almond bread 

Had my birthday dinner at Crinitis with the family plus Nick. It was a nice night, even though it was raining. Crinitis has good service, and the waiters and waitresses would even get some drums and tambourines and sing happy birthday to customers while they took the birthday cake out, so cute! The camera my dad brought (which took almost all of these photos) has somehow made everyone have insanely perfect skin, too. And also, I finally satisfied my creme brulee cravings! I even remember last year, how Nick took me to Gemelles and I had planned to get their creme brulee, but got way too full to order dessert. :( But to be honest, in terms of price and value, I'd much rather the creme brulee at Gemelles, hehe. After dinner, we walked around for a bit and there were so many cute and cozy cafes, really need to go exploring Parramatta sometime!