Snapping Kangaroos

Chives & Cheese Scones

2009-01-18T22:49:00.000+11:00

Chives & Cheese Scones, originally uploaded by serenie.

We first tried chives and cheese scones when we were in NZ, South Island and we really took to it. I was surprised that I actually didn't mind chives in scones as I am really particular with spring onions and coriander in my food.

This is my first attempt at baking scones and it was a combination of a couple of recipes and some make do. I am really happy with the final product as its light and fluffy :-) Can't wait till I make some plain ones to go with jam and fresh whipped cream *sinful*

Veg Out St Kilda Farmers' Market

2009-01-03T13:20:00.003+11:00

Veg Out St Kilda Farmers' Market, originally uploaded by serenie.

Two weeks ago we bought a punnet of cherries from Smiths of Taminick at the Gaswork Park farmer's market and they were so good that we were craving for more. So this morning we decided to head down to the Veg Out St Kilda Farmer's Market just to get the cherries. We ended up with 2 punnets of cherries (1kg/punnet), 2 kg of Tree Riped Yellow Peaches, 2 punnets of big juicy sweet strawberries and some roses. More photos here

Moonlight Cinema

2009-01-02T23:54:00.001+11:00

Moonlight Cinema, originally uploaded by kswh.

The summer 08/09 Moonlight Cinema is back again. Although it was summer, the temperature last night was down to about 14ºC with everyone wrapped up with scarfs and fleece blankets on the lawn. A very relaxing way to enjoy a picnic and movie on the lush lawns of the Royal Botanic Gardens. We will definitely be back again to catch another movie at the Moonlight Cinema.

More photos here

2nd Last Sunset of 2008

2008-12-30T22:28:00.001+11:00

Sunset @ St Kilda Beach, originally uploaded by kswh.

Took a walk at St Kilda beach this evening, the second last day before the new year. We did not stay long on the beach as it was really windy and chilly (not an excuse to not exercise), however we did manage to capture the beautiful 2nd last sunset of this year.

More photos here.

Day trip to Sorrento

2008-12-27T21:10:00.004+11:00

Sorrento, originally uploaded by kswh.

The day after boxing day, we decided to take a day trip down to Sorrento, Mornington Peninsula. Traffic down to the peninsula was heavy and there was a slight congestion. Along the coast, all campsites and parks were filled with tents and caravans. People of all ages were welcoming the summer sun with open arms as this December has been Melbourne's wettest since 2005 and coldest December in 7 years. So we only stayed for a few hours roaming along Ocean Beach Road, Sorrento for lunch and gelato and headed back home.

More photos of the trip here

Christmas Dinner 08

2008-12-25T23:20:00.003+11:00

Christmas Dinner 08, originally uploaded by serenie.

Wishing everyone a Blessed and Merry Christmas.

On Christmas eve, Serena baked a Fruit Cake. It still remains to be completed as we have to wait till the supermarkets are open tomorrow in order to get the ingredients needed for the icing.

This is what we had for dinner. We decided to keep our Christmas dinner simple this year. Check out the other photos here.

Been A Long While

2008-11-30T02:01:00.002+11:00

Hot Air Ballooning, originally uploaded by serenie.

It's been a long while since we updated this blog. Guess we just got tired in having to update it frequently with what we are doing. Instead of words, we decided to just let our pictures do the talking.

To find out what we have been up to or where we have been to, just head on to our flickr pages. Serena's flickr stream can be accessed from here and you can have a look at our latest NZ trip photos and some photos from the Tulip Festival from my flickr stream. Cheers!

Lazy Sunday

2007-10-21T22:40:00.001+10:00

This morning on our way to church, we saw some interesting Human Powered Vehicle along Southbank Boulevard - Swan Street Bridge. Heh and only upon updating this blog then did I realised that this weekend was Melbourne Cycling Festival.

Summer seems to be approaching fast. It was 31°c today hence we had a lazy afternoon by the beach. We were suppose to be playing frisbee but I guess most of the time we were goofing around in the water trying to retrieve the frisbee and admiring dogs. Yeah we were decent enough not to oogle at bods. ;-)

Siew Yok

2007-09-18T00:50:00.000+10:00

Siew Yok aka Roasted Pork. Finally after 2 tries, we managed to get it right. The thing is to get the right cut of meat (pork belly) and also to monitor the grilling to ensure it is perfect. Nice crispy skin with a layer of fat just beneath it and nice succulent meat that is cooked well through. Would anyone like to order a plate of it?

What a nice rack

2007-09-14T10:36:00.000+10:00

I love my baby back... baby back... baby back ribs... Well not exactly baby back ribs but good enough. The nice juicy and succulent meat covered in deliciously sweet tomato sauce seasoning and a whiff of charred burnt meat. Served with a side of toasted garlic bread, baked sweet potatoes and lettuce. For dessert, we have a gorgeous Chocolate mud cake that Serena had baked. Rich chocolate cake covered with a layer of ganache and a generous sprinkle of chocolate powder topped with strawberries and lined with almond flakes. Taste as good as it looks! Mmmm..... no wonder both of us seem to be putting on weight. :P

Lunar Eclipse

2007-08-29T00:26:00.000+10:00

We had the chance to witness a total lunar eclipse on August 28 2007 and decided that we should not miss this chance to watch it since we will be able to get a great view of it here in Melbourne. So off we went to the event hosted by The Astronomical Society of Victoria on the roof of the Victoria Gardens shopping centre, in Richmond. The guys from the society had telescopes of different optical ranges and provided lots of knowledge about details of the event and about other stars and planets (eg. jupiter) We took a number of photos but these are the only few shots that turn out reasonably well.

Cuisine Series Return

2007-08-12T09:46:00.000+10:00

Alright we now return to our routine transmission. As you will always expect from us, we post photos of Singaporeans favorite topic. FOOD! These are pictures accumulated over the past few months and are just some of the dishes that Serena whipped up. International buffet anyone?

Food glorious food

2007-08-10T14:55:00.000+10:00

Getting back to what we do best. Taking pictures of FOOD! Our second round of Sukiyaki. Have a hearty time everyone! More of it here Sukiyaki

Big Day

2007-08-07T23:07:00.000+10:00

To celebrate Serena's big day last week, we decided to have Sukiyaki. We bought 4 big prawns, thin beef slices from the Japanese supermarket, mushrooms and a whole lot more and had a wonderful feast. What's a bid day without the all important cake. Instead of having the usual 1 cake, I decided to get 2 smaller ones for her so we have a variety, one of its is a white forest cake and the other is Tiramisu. Will just let you all feast over the pictures.

Visit from a Friend

2007-08-04T18:53:00.000+10:00

Recently, we drove to Great Ocean Road when Serena's friend Audrey made a trip down from Sydney. She was here over the weekend to catch Phantom of The Opera with Serena and stayed over with us. Besides the G.O.R, we also brought her to Brunetti (they have an amazing selection of cakes and delicacies) Definitely a must try when visiting Melbourne! Some pictures of the trip and also of the both of them making pancakes for breaky and of course dinner at Sophia's. Enjoy :)

Buller Ski Trip

2007-08-01T21:21:00.000+10:00

It's been awhile since our last update and since then we have accumulated quite a lot of photos. Instead of blogging about food again, I guess its good to have something different to post. Since its winter here in Melbourne, what better way to enjoy this season then having fun with snow. In the last week of June we made a weekend ski trip up to Mt Buller with our friends. We stayed at Mansfield, the biggest town closest to Mt Buller, at Chris's place and was welcomed with great warmth and hospitality by Chris's family. The weather was terrific and there was a good amount of snowfall to coat the slopes of Mt Buller (45mins away from Mansfield) with a nice layer of soft fluffy whiteness. I guess there is no better way to describe the trip, so we will just let our photos do the talking.

The photos shows us having our scrumptious dinner at Mansfield Hotel. We can clearly see why its been voted one of the best country pub & restaurant in Victoria. The food was amazing especially the hot-stone beef that I had. After dinner we, went back to Chris's place and had a wonderful time playing with Axle, his cute playful jack russell , and Muffin, his very affectionate cat. Finally you will see the amazing pictures of Mt Buller and the gorgeous snow filled slopes. So sit back and enjoy the photos. Cheers!

Sweet

2007-05-16T23:37:00.000+10:00

... Another year younger ... Kekeke

Tonight the birthday boy had great company - Fir, Chris & Me! We went to Sofia's and Fir ~~hungrily~~ ops I meant excitedly ordered away & we ended up with an obscene amount of FOOD!! Anyway, we had our fill and enjoyed ourselves - so much so that I forgot to take pictures of our hearty meal. Anyway here's the picture of the birthday cake which we later had at our place. Yes, despite a "FULL tank" we were sinful and still glutton ourselves with a small slice of the cake.

The cake (Bacio) was lovely! The chocolate sponge was infused with kirsch liquer and the chocolate wrapping around the cake is not too sweet either. However I felt that it has too much chocolate/hazelnut cream. Overall it is still a splendid cake!
Aesthetics: 8.5/10 Taste: 8/10

Fir, Chris: Sorry forgot to take pictures with you guys! Thanks for the ride and of coz the great company!

Home Café

2007-04-15T00:12:00.000+10:00

We finally manage to get our new "toy" 2 weeks ago and we have been playing with it ever since. Anyone up for a cup of cuppacino or latte with fresh home baked cookies or hot cross buns (seasonal item - only applicable during Easter).

Skate or Graff

2007-04-14T00:01:00.000+10:00

NoComply Festival Main Show Federation Square Atrium 7th - 14th April 2007 The main NoComply show is a collection of 150 skateboards by graphic designers, artists, fashion designers, photographers and tattooists from around the globe. We made our way down to Federation Square last sunday to check out the exhibition. It's amazing to see all the different styles of art on the skateboards from pen sketchs, stencils to digital prints etc. After that we walked over to Hoiser lane across the road from Federation Square. Hoiser Lane is one of the awesome lanes in Melbourne city. Its filled with lots of street art from people like Reka to Meggs and even Fafi. Its like walking through an open art gallery. Just check out the pictures.





























Hoiser Lane, Melbourne

To Eat Is Divine?

2007-04-11T17:41:00.000+10:00

Fresh ingredients = Beautiful food. We try to use the freshest ingredients to create simple dishes full of flavours that we enjoy. Our taste-buds vary throughout the week and we try as much as possible to have different dishes everyday. As such, this week's à la carte menu will differ from next as we try to have a variety, much like what you would get in an international buffet. Sounds like some restaurant menu? Sometimes I do wonder if both of us are in the wrong profession. :P Anyway I guess there aren't many interesting things/events for us to blog about since we do not go to the city that frequently. (the number of times we head to the supermarket and grocery store far outnumbers the time we are in the city) So besides the odd event coverage or so you see here, all you will see is food and more food. So if any of you are on a diet, I hope we did not whet your appetite too much till you have to give up on it. So this is what we present to you guys this week. A'LA'CARTE MENU Pasta We will start off this week's series with a couple of Italian dishes. First up, Tortellini Carbonara. Tortellini with fresh button mushrooms and chicken in a cream sauce sprinkled with italian herbs.

Tortellini Carbonara

Next we have Spaghetti Marinara (Seafood). Al dente spaghetti with succulent scallops, prawns, squids and mussels in a tomato-basil sauce sprinkled with cheese, herbs and chilli flakes. Mmmm... Mama Mia!

Spaghetti Marinara

Mains I think this next one should classify as a Mediterranean dish. Baked Scallops coated with bread crumbs and Swordfish Kerbab. Marinated (lemon, capers, olive oil) swordfish with bacon, mushrooms, capsicums, grape tomatoes and onions. The aroma and taste of the marinated swordfish is enhanced further with the jucies absorbed from the bacon, making this a mouth-watering simple dish that is full of flavour.



Working hard before eating	Ready to be grilled

A dollar each	Perfect Entree



Desserts This should be the part of the menu where everyone goes ga-ga over. Desserts always seem to make anyone drool and never fail to put a sparkle into anyone's eye. Some people actually flipped to this section first before deciding on what to have for their entree or main. Are you one of them? Since we are able to get strawberries pretty cheap now (3 punnets for A$2) , Serena decided to try her hands on a Strawberry Shortcake (Biscuit) recipe. This was a recipe that Ellen taught Serena when we were visiting them in Beijing. A really nice dessert dish to serve and I guess its healthy too since wheat flour is used to make the dough. Some other desserts we had were, Raspberry Rapsady (smoothie), Raspberry Swirl and Peach Delight.







Strawberry Shortcake

Frozen Raspberries	Raspberry Swirl

Rhapsody	In motion

Peach Delight

Other dishes that we had during the course of the week were sashimi and california roll, caesar salad, rindless bacon with eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes, and baked kingfish wrapped with middle bacon.

Sashimi - Hapuka, Tuna, Tamago-yaki, Avocado, Cucumber	Caesar Salad- Lettuce, Cherry Tomato, Cheese, Ham & Croutons

Fish - Meat	A hearty breaky

Did you know? According to a study from Indiana University, USA, "Four hours after that high-fat meal (eg. bacon & eggs), your arteries look just like those of a person who has heart disease." This is due to the fact that a high-fat meal causes your arteries to lose their ability to expand in response to an increase in blood flow and this may lead to cardiovascular disease in the long-term.

300 at Imax

2007-04-08T00:03:00.000+10:00

It was awesome!! We finally wacthed 300 in the Imax on the opening night. Yes I know, we are 1 month behind here in Down Under, but who cares, I had the Imax 300 experience. :P

It was a SOLD OUT session so we decided to go 1 hour before show time to get better seats (yeah free seating kinda sucks). Anyway, never have I seen such huge biceps, triceps, erm what else .... Everything was so huge that I think I could do without my contacts :P The sound system was excellent too hence with this experience, most likely we are going to catch Spiderman 3 at the Imax! Okie, for those techies - 300 has been digitally re-mastered into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with proprietary IMAX DMR® (digital re-mastering) technology. Yes and Spiderman 3 has been digitally re-mastered for The IMAX Experience®!! Can't wait .... this is so exciting ;-) especially having seen the trailer at Imax.

Do yourself a favour, try watching 300 at the Imax. It is worth the $$!

LATEST UPDATE: Ok, Ken could not resist it ... Today we took a nice pic of our dear friend ... remember the same special friend from the FHM party. Ahhh sweet memories ;-)

Fifteen on 30th March

2007-04-07T12:25:00.000+10:00

Fifteen (Melbourne) seems to be THE PLACE to check out for everyone who has watched Jamie’s Kitchen Australia which premiered in September last year. Although it has received a few bashings online, we decided to take the opportunity to experience it ourselves to see what the hype and media hoopla is all about. We had made a reservation months in advance, before we left for our trip to China and Singapore. A good day (as it was our second wedding anniversary) or rather we have the excuse to indulge in a nice meal :). Serena had Roasted Berkshire pork with fennel seed and rosemary, Mt Zero lentils, baby chard, crème fraiche and pan juices for mains and I had the Grilled Wagyu Beef (medium rare) with rosemary potatoes, large leaf rocket and swiss chard. The pork was perfectly roasted to such a tender texture that the meat and fat literally melts in your mouth. With the soft tender meat infused with all the flavours from the herbs and pan juices it was absolutely lip-smacking. An absolute bonus was the layer of crisp pork skin roasted to perfection and intense flavour. Although the Wagyu Beef was grilled just right and the slices were succulent and juicy, it just wasn't gastronomically satisfying somehow. For desserts we had Chocolate and star anise tart and Vanilla Panacotta. The chocolate is thick, rich and luscious and the Vanilla panacotta has just the right tinge of vanilla infused into it. Simply divine! Mmm.... All in all the food is excellent but it doesn't scream "I want more and I will be back soon!". I guess the expectation shouldn't be too high since most of them are still trainees learning their trade. Value for money wise, there are other restaurants in Melbourne that can offer much more. As some people put it, "Fifteen is a dining experience for the curious."


Entrance to Fifteen	Stairway to gastronomy haven

The Wine Bar	Main Dinning

Plating Area	Action in Kitchen

Roasted Berkshire Pork	Grilled Wagyu Beef
Star Anise Chocolate Tart	Vanilla Panacotta

A pity our pictures of the mains and dessert didn't turn out as good as it should look. We were seated in a dimly lit corner (I know its no execuse) but lightings can do wonders!!

City Folk Exhibition

2007-04-06T01:51:00.000+10:00

Outré Gallery (Melbourne) held Nathan Jurevicius's City Folk exhibition from 23 March till 11 April 2007. We didn't had any invites to the opening night (Fri 23/03) so we went for the Meet-the-Artist session the next day (Sat 24/03). Since it was a meet-the-artist session, we had anticipated there would be a crowd in the gallery but there were only a few people queuing up for his signature. In a way its good for a change to be able to get up close to an artist without having a crowd jostling for his attention. As we can't afford any artwork or print, we decided to get 1 blind box toy and the Scarygirl book. Nathan was a really nice guy. We chatted with him and even got him to do a sketch in the Scarygirl book, on the toybox and a sketch of one of his previous characters Dr. Maybe in my sketch book. (hmm.. I sound like some kid who just got a lolli from the candy man) Anyway, back to the exhibition. Outré Gallery is small but somehow it has this very cosy vibes to it, which made it feel like you have stepped into someone's room with lots of gorgeous artworks. Nathan's original artworks and prints were top notch. It follows Scarygirl as she makes her journey to the city. The latest artworks were a little more 'sinister' then his previous works but the colours were still as vivid. The pictures don't really do the artworks justice, you have to see it in person to admire the beauty of it. Serena really liked *Walk in the Park Study (pencil and watercolour paper)* but it was sold. In fact all the artworks were sold except for prints (editions of 30 - 100). If we were both working right now I bet we would have bought a print or 2. You can view all the artworks that were put on sale on Outré Gallery's website.

CITY FOLK - NATHAN JURECIVIUS





Serena's Favourite

The Cuisine Series II (Melbourne)

2007-04-05T00:36:00.000+10:00

Ok so I know I should be posting more often but I guess I was just back to my old LA boy. Anyway, over the past few weeks, both of us had cravings for different types of food after reading ieatishootipost. So what do we do when we have cravings and not many places to savour what we want? We cook them ourselves (or rather Serena cooked them :P). So first up we had Tandoori Chicken with Yellow Rice and Kachumber (something like a cucumber salsa). Too bad it ain't the mango season else we would even add Mango Lassi to the menu :)

Tandoori Chicken	Tandoori Chicken with Yellow Rice and Kachumber

Next on the menu is Rivoli Carbonara to satisfy our Italian tastebuds. Cheese & ham rivoli, fresh button mushrooms and bacon with carbonara sauce = Squisita!

Rivoli Carbonara

Tuna Cannelloni was a dish that we saw on TV on one of Jaime Oliver's program. It made us drool so we decided to try it out since we had the recipie too and the ingredients needed. The cheese was a little burnt on one side but overall it was pretty good for a first attempt. Cannelloni stuffed with smoked trout, tuna, capsicum, chives , ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt.

Tuna Cannelloni	Smoked Trout & Tune stuffing

Besides 'real' food, we all need our comfort food from time to time. So Serena decided to bake some cookies. Its much healthier then potato chips or even cookies bought from the supermarket as she has a say of what ingedients to use. Flour, nuts, raisins and cereal. The final result? Crunchy, tasty, can't-stop-eating cereal cookies!







When we found out that the Japanese Supermarket near our place was having a 3 day 20% off sale on everything in the store, we decided that we will drop by just to get the stuff we need. As usual, we end up buying more than we should. The both of us just love buying and stocking on food so the total amount we spent in there was almost 3 times what we had originally wanted. Slightly higher than the amount we spent last year when they had a sale. :P But this time round we bought frozen Wagyu Beef! Here's what for dinner that night.

Steamboat Spread









I had cravings for Prawn Noodle (Hae Mee) after reading ieatishootipost (it's an "evil" blog to visit if you are on a diet :P ), so we decided to buy some prawns and pork ribs when we were at Queen Victoria Market. We wanted to boil our own stock for the prawn noodles but alas looking at the small amount of prawn shells and heads, we were afraid the taste would be very bland. So we thought it will be wiser to get the prawn noodle paste from the chinese grocery store to supplement the taste. Too bad the prawn noodle paste had chilli in it and the spiciness overpowered the natural tase of the succulent sweet prawns. The first round (we had enough stock for 3 rounds) of prawn noodles tasted more like a spicy hot pot with noodles. We left the remaining stock in the fridge so that we could have another round for lunch the next day. We manage to discard the chilli oil before boiling the soup base again, so the second round of prawn noodles tasted so much better. The last round (we had it again for dinner) was the best as it was as close to the kind of prawn noodles that we wanted. Take a look at the picture, does it look like what you will be having for lunch tomorrow?

Pork Ribs, Fish Cake, Prawns, Beansprout & Noodles

Moomba WaterFest 2007

2007-03-12T23:10:00.000+11:00

Moomba WaterFest , one of the largest and longest running festivals in Australia, was held over the Labour Day long weekend, from 9 to 12 March 2007. Kids carnival rides, Moomba Masters International Water Ski Championships, Moomba Parade, the Birdman Rally, Bathtub Dash and many more. But the highlight has always been the Moomba Fireshow held daily at 9.30pm. Barges filled with pyrotechnics lined the section of Yarra River, between Princes Bridge and Swan Street Bridge, ready to explode into a splash of light and colours to the oohs and ahhs of the crowd.
Spinning LIke no Tomorrow	Carnivàle Spectacular

Yesterday, we made our way down to the Birrarung Marr along the Yarra River to try and get a good spot for some photos but alas the pyrotechnics performance was cancelled due to windy conditions. So today being the last day of the festival, we were sure that the organisers would definitely not disappoint the crowd and the performance will be on. We manage to get ourselves a pretty good spot even though we only arrive about 30mins before the Fireshow (definitely not possible when if this was Singapore) Check out the video and photos that we took. The crowd were treated to 9mins of amazing pyrotechnics performance with brillant light and sparkles splashing over the Yarra river. What a way to end a festival!
Melbourne City from Birrarung Marr









Click on the photos for a larger image.

The Cuisine Series (Melbourne)

2007-03-12T22:09:00.000+11:00

Asian, Greek, American, Italian ....
What's the secret ingredient?	Otah Paste

Nasi Lemak	Spaghetti

Steak & Oven Baked Mushroom with cheese	Caesar Salad with Pastrami

Trans Fat Galore	Make your own wrap

Stack'em	Roll'em

Home-made Burger	Beef Patty, Mushroom, Onions, Spinach, Tomatos, Cheese, Egg

Beer Batter Fish & Chips

The Cuisine Series (Singapore)

2007-03-11T22:10:00.000+11:00

Just realised that I have some photos that I was supposed to post on the blog when I was back in Singapore. But alas, I couldn't get my lazy ass into doing it. Well since I do have some new stuff to blog today, I thought I might as well put up some of these old photos taken while we were back home. Waraku at Central Mall Waraku opened their latest outlet at the new Central Mall (located above Clarke Quay MRT Station) and was having a promotion which gave 50% of what you spent on that day, as voucher for your next visit. Not wanting to miss such a good offer, we took the opportunity to check out the new Central Mall and also fill our stomach with a spread of delicious Japanese dishes.
Clarke Quay & Riverside Point	Clarke Quay

Seafood Kaminabe	Sashimi 5 Kinds

Yakitori Touban Yaki	Maccha Shiratama & Maccha Ice Cake

Night view of Riverside Point	Night view of Clarke Quay

MELLBEN SEAFOOD Don't worry there's no spelling mistake in the above title. It's a place with great food but you must have an equally great patience to get a table. The queue here is crazy. In the 2 hours that we were having our dinner, the queue did not change, not even when it started pouring. Take a look at the pics ;)
Crowd growing restless	The Queue

The Famous Mellben Seafood	Man Tou

Cereal Prawns	Yam Basket

Seafood Fishcake	Braised Sea Cucumber & Mushroom

Hokkien Noodles	Crab Bee Hoon

Red beauties & treats for the eye

2007-03-05T11:05:00.000+11:00

Ferrari is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year and we were treated to a unique car display in Melbourne. This includes the first Ferrari to arrive in Australia. On Saturday (03/03/07) Lygon street was close for this event and a convoy of Ferraris (new & vintage models) rolled through the street to the cheers of the thousands of fans who turned up. A Ferrari F1 even zoomed through Lygon Street although it was only at 60km/h instead of the 100km/h that the proposed by the organisers. Too bad we only knew about the event at about 3pm so it was too late to make our way down. We only saw the amazing line of Ferraris on the evening news. The only consolation is the display of 6 vintage & new Ferraris at the Crown Casino. So yesterday after church, we decide to make a trip to Crown Casino to feast our eyes on these gorgeous red metallic beauties that have attracted people from all over the world.
1951 Ferrari 212 Inter

1959 Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet

1967 Ferrari Dino 246

1984 Ferrari 288 GTO

1987 Ferrari F40

2006 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

After the red beauties, we decide to wander around Crown Casino's shopping area. Nothing caught our attention except ...

High on sugar anyone?

Giant crabs

The carnivore in all of us

Made in Australia

Last day of the Lunar New Year

2007-03-04T21:28:00.000+11:00

And so the last day (04/03/2007 Sun) of the Lunar New Year has passed. Counting back I think we have taken Yu Sheng for at least 8 times over this 15 day period. We are already sick of it by now but had to finish the last of the ingredients for the Yu Sheng that we brought over from Singapore.

Anyway just so some of you are not sure about its significance, Yu Sheng is a must have delicacy during the Lunar New Year to usher in good luck. Each ingredient has its own significance.

1) Salmon (Or any raw fish)	Abundance
2) Peanuts & Sesame Seeds	Gold & Silver
3) Pomelo	Prosperity
4) White Radish & Carrot	Youth & Good Luck
5) Chinese Crackers	Gold

As each ingredient is added to the plate, chinese idioms celebrating the new year is be mention to wish everyone a good year ahead.

1) Presenting the dish to the table		"Gong Xi Fa Cai"恭喜发财 (Blessing everyone with happiness & prosperity) or "Wan Shi Ru Yi" 万事如意 (Everything in life to be smooth sailing)
2) Adding in the pomelo pulps		"Da Ji Da Li" 大吉大利 (Blessing you with an auspicious year ahead)
3) Sprinkling the different spices - Pepper, Cinnamon		"Yi Ben Wan Li li" 一本万利 (To be blessed with a flourishing business)
4) Adding the raw fish onto the radish & carrot		"Nian Nian You Yu" 年年有余 (Surplus of everything inn life for the years to come)
5) Pouring in the plum sauce & oil		"Tian Tian Mi Mi " 甜甜蜜蜜 (Life will be sweet and happy)
6) Adding crushed peanuts		"Jin Yin Man Wu" 金银满屋 (Abundant wealth for the household)
7) Adding toasted sesame seeds		"Sheng Yi Xing Long" 生意兴隆 (A flourishing & prosperous business)
8) Adding chinese crackers		"Man Di Huang Jin"满地黄金 (To be blessed with abundant wealth)

Yu Sheng

Pickled ingredients for Yu Sheng

Carrot, radish and other stuffs

Raw fish

Spicing up your year ahead

Crushed peanuts for abundant wealth

Sweetness of life

All the good things in life

Health

Wealth

Happiness

Summer or Autumn

2007-03-03T22:58:00.000+11:00

Autumn is here but Summer seems reluctant to budge. We had prepared chicken stock for steamboat (Hot Pot) but we were shocked to hear the forecasted weather to be 36ºC for today. Thank God that the weather did not turn out to be that hot. It cooled pretty much as the day went by and we had a great steamboat dinner. As usual we had prepared more food than we could handle. I guess we will have to finish the rest tomorrow.

1) Beef Slices	6) Fishballs
2) Pork Scotch Slices	7) Skinless Cocktails
3) Chicken	8) Enoki Mushrooms
4) Fish	9) Chinese Cabbage
5) Scallops	10) Vermicelli

Yes. I know we are crazy to prepare so much food just for the 2 of us. But we like to have a variety. Bad habit I guess.

HOT HOT HOT....

Overview of the spread

Fastest hands first

Scallops!

Sliced beef coooked to perfection

Happy Birthday everyone...

2007-02-25T00:43:00.000+11:00

Happy Birthday everyone! For the uninitiated, yesterday (Sat 24/02/07) is the 7th day of the Lunar New Year and is also known as Ren Ri (人日）. So I am sure most of you back home are having Yu Sheng today, we won't be doing it today but will save it for the last day of Lunar New Year (15th day) to enjoy it. Anyway here's wishing all of you good health and success in whatever you do!

Ok so we are backin Melbourne now. As usual we love Saturdays, as that's when we can induldge in our favourite past time. THE FISH AUCTION.

Our very first auction of the new year at our favourite Claringbolds Seafood in Prahran Market. Nothing beats cheap, good and fresh seafood. Where can you get A$5 for half a dozen of sweet tasty oysters, A$5 for 400g of Patagonian toothfish (taste so much like codfish - YUM!) or even A$5 for a huge 1kg bag of live mussles.

So what did we get this time round? Well, before the auction we agreed that we should only spend A$30 between the both of us but as usual, when the action starts we got carried away.

Our catch of the day:

1) Lobster (500g)	5) Kingfish fillet
2) Half dozen of scallops on shell	6) Mary perch
3) Pantagonian toothfish	7) Sushi and Sashimi (ocean trout)
4) Snapper fillet

Took some pictures of the lobster back at the apartment and some how it reminded me of a chinese dragon head. Love the red orangey colour of the shell and the pattern on it.

Spikes all round

More Spikes duh...

Reminds me of a dragon's head

Dragon of the Sea?

Red orangey patterns

And so our dinner for the night was baked lobster with 3 types of cheese, sushi and ocean trout sashimi

Dissected lobster ready
to be eaten anytime

Adding the cheese
prior to baking

Baked lobster with
3 types of cheese

Lobster witth hot sticky cheese
Yummmm...

Sushi with ocean trout sashimi

A dozen sushi roll and counting...

Don't envy us, just salivate at the pictures and also be thankful to God for the food that you have everyday. :) More pictures to come .... So enjoy and have a Great Week Ahead!

Fa Cai Yu Sheng ...

2007-02-24T00:09:00.001+11:00

... at 35,000 feet above ground level! Yes this year hopefully we will "HUAT" since Chinese believe that the higher you "lou" (toss) the Yu Sheng, the more prosperous one will be.

We were served Yu Sheng on board our flight (SIA) back to Melbourne. It was a pleasant surprise despite having like more than 6 rounds of Yu Sheng during our time back in Singapore.

SIA introduction to Yu Sheng

Yu Sheng with smoked salmon	Pouring in the plum sauce to signify sweetness in life

Lou Hei. Tossing the Yu Sheng!	Enjoying the Yu Sheng

Tarts No More!!

2007-02-09T04:53:00.000+11:00

This is the best lot. Not only is it made using homemade pineapple jam, the flour and butter proportion is more accurate than our earlier batch. I couldn't believe it, we actually used 8 pineapples to make the jam and over 1kg of flour for 219 tarts but I must admit we had a generous serving of pineapple jam per tart. Our factory line (Ken and myself) worked non stop for 4 to 5 hours to produce this lot (excluding time taken to make the jam which my dad helped to grate). Now my index fingers are sore! No more making pineapple tarts for me for the year! Time for FEASTING. :P

Cooking the grated pineapple to make jam		Pineapple jam balls
Buttery dough		Hard Work!
Working as fast as I can		Generous heap of pineapple jam
Spot the odd one		All done at long last

Pineapple tart factory line Officially CLOSED for the year!

Today's count: 219 pineapple tarts!
To date's count: 329 pineapple tarts!

Pineapple Tarts & Ping Pong

2007-02-05T01:08:00.000+11:00

We decided to get our hands dirty today. After church we made pineapple tarts but we took the easy way out and used ready made pineapple jam. Needless to say ready made pineapple jam is no where comparable to home made jam. Finally Ken is convince to sweat it out and grate and squeeze the pineapple for me to make the jam! Yeah!!

In the later part of the afternoon we headed to Serangoon Gardens for Roti John and had table tennis session with my cousin. Yeap you must be wondering why we are full of energy today ;P

Home econs paid off! Rubbing in method		Kneading the dough
Our first lot out of the oven!		Yes it does taste as good as it looks!
100% Hand made!!		Ken got creative with left over dough
Piglet for the Year of the Pig

Table tennis session!

Warm up!		Getting friendly Bebe!
Bebe feeling really comfortable

Oh btw, orders for pineapple tarts are FULL :P
Today's count: 110 pineapple tarts!

Lazy Saturday

2007-02-04T03:18:00.000+11:00

Saturdays has always been the laziest day of the week for us, more so when in Singapore. As usual we did nothing much except work our tummies (the unhealthy way). For lunch we had Katong Laksa and for dinner we met some friends at East Coast Lagoon. We had a huge and hearty meal - Salted Vegetable Duck Soup, Sambal Kang Kong, BBQ Sting ray and, Sweet and sour pork chops!!

I forgot about taking pictures of the food we had today as I am trying to change the perception of our blog (HAHA ... as if). Anyway it was a good Saturday especially catching up with our friends!

Shop houses along Katong

I guess the doggies pretty much sum up our Saturday mood. Btw, we are 2 posts behind - Ken is suppose to blog but it seems like everyday is Saturday to him ;P

True Singaporean?

2007-01-20T01:58:00.000+11:00

Our first breakfast in Singapore and of course in a hawker center at New Upper Changi Road. Ken had his kopi-o while I have my teh-c. We were greedy and had mee rubus and fried carrot cake. We were so happy as breakfast was not only good but it cost us about A$5.00 which is cheap! Yes for all those food!

Teh-C and Kopi-O (Tea with Carnation Milk and Black Coffee)		Fried Carrot Cake! My favourite!
Mee Rubus (Malay noodles)

Durain. Yes Ken finally had his durain after a long time and I must admit, not because we were in Australia but rather I would avoid him if he eats that fruit! *Evil Grin*

King of Fruit - Durain		Savouring it with his mom
Finally, I get to eat durain!		I am satisfied hence I am happy and grinning away!

... We LOVE our FOOD don't we? ...

Good Genes ....

2007-01-18T20:01:00.000+11:00

...comes from the family. Naturally!

Monday, December 25, 2006

As you can see, all the food on the table are prepared by my parents. Yes the Christmas turkey and ham too!! My parents prepared the turkey, the stuffing and ham from scratch. The turkey was huge, about 6kg or 7kg and it took my parents about 4 hours to cook it and our family devoured all of it in just one evening. I guess this spells how yummy the food was.

We had a good time playing with the fire sparklers and we even had a mini project with all the cousins! It was no easy feat however we succeed and I will make it into cards (special edition) for all the families this (2007) Christmas!

Family Feast		Look at that Leg Ham
Huge turkey		Fresh Oysters
Ham slices		Baked potatoes with dill
Little cousins getting their fill		Playing with fire sparklers
Trying to form a word		Having fun

"Chinglish"

2007-01-18T04:08:00.000+11:00

November 25, 2006 to December 17, 2006

I know I shouldn't be laughing at their English but I thought it may be worth sharing. We captured these during our 3 weeks in China.




Taken in a train carriage		Taken in a train carriage

Policeman's Cue Please Take Care Of Your Own Property Prevent Lose		It's actually a hairdressing salon
A shop name that sticks in your head?		Spoof of the brand Crocodile?
All the lights actually turned green at one point leaving me confused

Part I - Shanghai, China

2007-01-14T05:08:00.000+11:00

Hopefully we are not too late in wishing all of you a Blessed, Healthy and Prosperous New Year! I know we have been lazy and have not been updating the blog thus many of our friends are asking "what have you been up to and where are you guys now". So I hope the next couple of post we will be able update those interested what we have been up to! Highlights would be the China Tour and Family Christmas Party back in Singapore!

November 25, 2006 to December 17, 2006

We were in Shanghai for 2 weeks and Beijing for 1 week. Serena had classes to attend in Shanghai while Beijing was a holiday for us both. However Serena did manage to squeeze in time for some sightseeing and feasting in Shanghai as well. We did enjoy ourselves however by the second week we were missing pizza, spaghetti, salad, cereals ... We got really sick of Chinese food and eating out! We were missing "organic" food i.e. food without MSG and too much oil. I've got to admit this trip to China really made me home sick in a way!

Serena attended lectures from Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade (SIFT) and Fudan University. Pictures shows how massive the campuses are and they indeed have splendid facilities.

SIFT Songjiang Campus		SIFT Canteen.
RMIT won the basketball match against SIFT		Top Uni in China-Fudan University
Lecturer & Classmates

Sightseeing and feasting around Shanghai.

The Bund		Oriental Pearl Tower
Nanjing Lu		Yuyuan Gardens
Yuyuan Gardens @ Night		Famous Xiao Long Bao @ Yuyan Gardens
TangBao (Soup Bao)		Black Sesame Tang Yuan with a tinge of orange peel taste. Yum!
Mince meat tang yuan. Unique but not to our liking.		Offerings @ Jade Buddha Temple
Lady selling fishes @ Qi Bao Gu Zhen

Look out for Part II - Nanjing, Hangzhou and Suzhou and Part III - Beijing in the next couple of days.

Part II - Nanjing and Hangzhou

2007-01-14T05:07:00.000+11:00

November 25, 2006 to December 17, 2006

Over one of the free weekends, we travelled to Nanjing and Hangzhou by train with her classmates and lecturer. Taking the train and just being at the train station is indeed a truly China experience. We had to first take the subway to Shanghai Railway Station and from there we take the train to Nanjing. The subway itself is so crowded. We were travelling in a group of 10 and all of us could not squeeze (or should I use the word jostle) into the train. Ken was smart he managed to stand in the front and the crowd simply just pushed him into the carriage when the train arrived.

The journey from Shanghai to Nanjing was good and it took us about 2.5hrs. However the train journey from Nanjing to Hangzhou was a nightmare! We kept asking each other "Are we there yet?". The train was not only slow but it kept stopping in between stations and so our ride was freaking 10 hours long instead of at max 5hrs. Yes and we were grumbling that we could fly from Melbourne to Singapore and even have enough time to clear immigration and head to East Coast Park for a feast!!

Well despite the "endurance test" we decided to make the best of our time in Nanjing and Hangzhou. In Nanjing we were treated like VIPs, we had the best dinner upon arrival and later was checked into one of the finest hotel. Its a pity that none of us had cameras with us when we had dinner as each of us had a 24 course dinner!! The next morning I thought I was dreaming as I had smoked salmon (in China) for breakfast at the hotel!! And we were chauffeured around sightseeing.

Purple Palace Hotel, Nanjing

Our suite		Nice fluffy beds
Lakeside - Hotel's permises		Sunrise with purple hue
Hotel rooms were facing the lake

Train Ride

Train Platforms

Train Class-Hard Sleeper

Sightseeing

Nanjing - It is a pity that we had less thabn 24 hours in Nanjing. With the little time we had, we visited Xuyuan Garden, Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum and Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum. Xuyuan Garden is very pretty at night and it was in one of the restaurants there that we had a 24 course Nanjing dinner!

Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum

Hangzhou - We had 2 days in Hangzhou and was able to explore more. We enjoyed West Lake best and sunset there is so beautiful! And of course no trip is complete without feast at Lou Wai Lou restaurant along West Lake.

Sunset		Sunset from West Lake
Boat ride on West Lake		West Lake
Sinfully sweet candy		Doctor consultation anyone?
Chinese Herbs

Feast at Lou Wai Lou restaurant.

Famous West Lake Vinegar Fish		Begger's Chicken
Ken's special order Dongpo Meat		Serena's Fav - Eel with shrimps
Not for the faint heart. Make a guess what this is!!		Everyone satisfied! Ken can't get enough-still looking at menu.

Qinghefeng Jie Food Street. Lots of delicacies or should I say Fear Factor type of foodie segment. Well I belong to the faint hearted so I stayed clear of such foods and also gave Ken the no go. I would say that the Begger's Chicken here is should be the authentic Begger's Chicken unlike the one at Lou Wai Lou which had yummy beef and vegetable stuffings.

Of course we didn't eat these! Yes they are Duck Heads.		Ken unwrapping "the real Begger's Chicken".
This is the real Begger's Chicken. No frills.

Look out for the final installment Part III - Suzhou and Beijing, China's Capital. Shesh I got hungry after updating the foodie section.

Part III - Suzhou and Beijing

2007-01-14T05:02:00.000+11:00

November 25, 2006 to December 17, 2006

Suzhou

We went to the Venice of the East - Suzhou with the school group. Visited The Humble Administrator's Garden, Tiger Hill and Suzhou Museum. Humble Administrator's Garden represents the architectural styles of Song dynasty. This among 3 other gardens in Suzhou is added to the World Heritage List in 1997. The garden is massive and it is such a serene sight (minus the hordes of tourist). In Tiger Hill, we felt that the timber pagoda is the major attraction there. It is the oldest pagoda in Suzhou. It is viewed as the Leaning tower of the East and and for the past four hundred years has leant towards the northwest.

Picturesque Suzhou		Tiger Hill Pagoda
Gongfu Duel

Beijing

Beijing was freezing when we were there. Temperatures range from 0 to 6 degrees celsius in the day. However this did not deter us from doing some sight seeing and besides no visit to China is complete without a trip to the Great Wall, Tian An Men Square and Forbidden City. Besides these places we also went to Jing Shan Park, Summer Palace and Ming Tombs.

Great Wall of China - Ba Da Ling		Forbidden City
Forbidden City Moat		Jing Shan Park People playing shuttlecock like thing
Which bicycle is mine?		Famous Mao potriat
Chairman Mao's Mausoleum. Embalmed body of the Chairman is displayed.		Sheng Dao (Spirit Way)-Ming Tombs
Stone statues along Sheng Dao		Inside one of the underground tombs-Ding Ling
Summer Palace		Mighty Warrior?
Fishing on frozen lake		Ahh another Fear Factor Challenge. Food street stall along Donghuameng Night Market

Finally we tried authentic Peking Duck from the place of origin. However we preferred the Singapore version as the Peking version has too much fat content. It seems like the fat is fused together with the skin and I am unable to scrap it out. We had Peking Duck twice during our 1 week in Beijing, we tried 2 restaurants - Beijing Dadong Kaoya Dian and Quan Ju De Kaoya Dian. We enjoyed the food, duck and service at Beijing Dadong Kaoya Dian better and it was more reasonally priced. The latter shop is over priced and over rated.

Look at the number of condiments for the Peking Duck		That's 1/2 a duck
Nothing goes to waste Duck head (Delicacy)		Process of making the Fattest Duck Roll!
Cute edible sparrows Filled with red bean paste

Both of us got tired of Chinese food and we doubt we will visit China in the next 5 years.

Pizza Party

2006-11-22T01:02:00.000+11:00

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Today's weather was no better than yesterday's. Both of us felt so stuffy and the air around us was hot. And tonight in the city and around our place it seem smoky so we are suspecting there's a fire nearby.

Tonight we are having a pizza party with a few of Ken's classmates at our place. Alrite don't drool ... (We've got a couple of "complaints" ops I meant compliments.)

Pineapples		Fresh Mushrooms! My Favourite :-)
Ham and Salami		Home made pizza
Final touches		Going into the oven
Good thing we have a huge oven		Home made strawberry cheese cake
Cross section of strawberry cheese cake		Serving
Our guests busy tucking in		Oishi!

FHM Party @ Carlton

2006-11-21T03:23:00.000+11:00

Monday, November 20, 2006

Melbourne's weather is really really crazy. Today we are experiencing a high of 34˚C and tomorrow will be a high of 36˚C and believe it or not just last week it was freezing cold. Oh well no complaints as the weather here is better than that of Singapore's anytime with the exception of December and January!

Anyway today we went for FHM Party and boy was it HOT! Besides hot babes and cute guys, the food served was HOT, SPICY HOT too.

On the menu:

Main
Chong Qing Hot Pot Stock
Beef slices
Chicken slices
Pork slices
Squid
Sausages
Fish Balls
Beef Balls
Egg tofu
Vegetables
Vermicelle
Udon

Dessert
Ice Milk Tea

Hot Babe serving us :-)		Hot Babe ensuring we are contented!
Spicy Hot		We did a good job
Everyone is contented		Sexy Hunk Fir trying to do a dance?

FHM Party @ Carlton
Firdaus's Hotpot Monday Party. Haha!

One thing for sure, its better in terms of quality and quantity as compared to the one we had along Russell Street. Loads of meat and balls!

Steamboat

2006-11-19T18:14:00.000+11:00

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Last couple of days we have been experiencing freak weather here in Melbourne. It is late spring now and we had two days of snow in the highlands which is uncommon and the city was freezing cold. The news reported that Mt. Baw Baw had 30cm of snow and Tuesday, 14th November 2006 was the coldest November day in 53 years!! It was hailing in the city and there was gusty winds so we thought steamboat with some friends over at our place this weekend would be perfect. However, Melbourne's weather lived up to its reputation of being unpredictable. The weather changed so quickly that it was hot hot hot at 26˚C and a BBQ would have been perfect. Unfortuantely we had planned for a steamboat and went ahead as planned.

We had the following on the menu and used Marcus' huge rice cooker as a steamboat:

Entree
Nachos with Salsa and Cheese
Fresh Oysters with Lemon and Tobasco

Main
Home made Chicken Stock
Fish slices
Chicken
Squid
Sausages
Fish Balls
Home made Shrimp Pork Dumplings
Egg tofu
Vegetables
Vermicelle
Steamed Rice

Dessert
Home made Mango Pudding

Home made pork shrimp dumpling		Taste and look pro!
We need a bigger pot?		Waiting, waiting ...
Yummy		Whose big bowl is that?
Home made mango pudding! Yeah its mango season once again

We ALL got too carried away eating and enjoying ourselves and playing good hosts that we forgot to take pictures of our guests in actions ;-)

Tezuka - The Marvel of Manga

2006-11-19T17:24:00.000+11:00

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Today we went for the Tezuka Osamu exhibition at National Gallery Victoria with Ken's classmate, Yoshiki.

Above image is taken from http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/tezuka/

For many of us who grew up in the 80s (living in Singapore), will remember the time where we would sit in front of the TV at 6pm to have our dinner and watch Kimba the Lion or any other cartoons :-)

Ken and myself was wondering Disney's Lion King and Kimba have so much similarities ... Hmmm what are your thoughts?

Above image is taken from Madman Entertainment

For those who don't know ....
TEZUKA Osamu is heralded as an icon of the Japanese manga movement; acknowledged in Japan as an artistic master, and revered as the figurehead of the manga and anime industries. Creating over 700 manga titles during his lifetime, he is best known in the West for his cartoons of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, which were serialized for television in the 1960s. Tezuka’s work is acclaimed for its complexity and originality and his drawings showcase an extraordinary calligraphic dynamism. His prolific manga work contains two main streams: manga ‘comic pictures’ for a youth audience, including Astro Boy, Kimba and Princess Knight; and gekiga ‘drama pictures’ – more seriously-toned, adult oriented narratives such as Song of Apollo and Ludwig B, that stress realistic effect and emotional impact. This exhibition features both aspects of his work, introducing Western audiences to the complexities and extraordinary range of the manga form.

Above text taken from http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/tezuka/

Botanic Gardens in Spring

2006-11-19T16:38:00.000+11:00

Friday, November 10, 2006

Exams and assignments are all finally over for Ken and myself. Hurray! We decided to get our senses in touch with nature and off we went to Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. The flowers were all in full bloom and the garden smelt so fragrant. The weather was excellent around 18˚C with good amount of sunlight.

We took so many pictures of flowers without knowing their names ;-) So don't ask us what is that flower called else you will be answered with "orh ... that is the red coloured flower". Erm actually I wanted to show off my macro skills. Haha!

The garden was so quiet, serene and beautiful!

Scrabble

2006-09-28T22:54:00.000+10:00

You can call us "bo liao" (which means bored) ... I actually cut up a sticker promoting a radio station Vega 95.3 and had some fun (or you can call it creativity too). YAHOO was the starting word (not that we are being paid) but it was the first word on Ken's browser at that moment. :-) Now if only we get paid for advertising as well ;-)

I was pretty amazed we made use of all the characters. The black colored stickies are wild cards and the 'J' and 'Mushroom' like stickies are Joker (You can tell I am not a very good artist haha) which you can use it when its your turn and change for another stickies. The full stop allows you to form abbreviation. Like in our case Ken formed R.A Haha so much for Serena's version of scrabble :-)

Term Break

2006-09-27T00:41:00.000+10:00

*Above image taken from http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/

Today was a nice day so we decided to get out of the apartment for some sunshine. We started the day with breakfast at home - Chwee Kueh (YES! Home made!). After breakfast, we went to see the Picasso exhibition at National Gallery Victoria. Unfortunately, no cameras allowed so we didn't take or try to sneak any shots. Before heading back home, we decided to head down to the newly opened Krispy Creme outlet in Melbourne CBD. Yes they are open today, 26th Sept 2006 at 8:00a.m.

Home made Chwee Keuh. Finally I can control the amount of oil in my chwee keuh.		Yes that's the queue!! I think the last person in line will get theirs 1 to 1.5hrs later
Our lot after 1/2 hour		EVIL! SINFUL!
House Rule: Whoever wears that cap will then be allowed to eat!		Ken taking his first bite!
Serena's Fav. flavour - Traditional Cinnamon		Ken love them ALL. Haha kidding he likes the Original Glaze.

Oh when it was our turn they actually SOLD OUT on their House Flavour - Original Glaze. So instead of buying 1 dozen of Original Glaze and 1 dozen of Assorted at $24, we had a choice of 2 dozen of Assorted at $24. HAHA which was good for me coz I don't really dig the orignal glaze flavour and I get to choose 2 dozens of assorted flavours at $24 instead of $30. Cool ... and this means I got to work harder in the gym too. ;-)

Chinese Eat ...

2006-09-23T14:33:00.000+10:00

... Everything and Anything.

Last week at the market, this Asian lady (from Hong Kong I suspect) bought a packet of 10 shell things (we are clueless what it is till today) and she gave us 1 because I asked her what it was. She told us we had to hammer the shell to break it so that we could take the flesh out and later to boil it.

Nice Shell		The flesh is orangy with some small yellow rings
After some hammering		Gross! Intestines and organs.
The intestines were twirled around the shell.		Trying to pull out the flesh. Ken said it was slimmy.
Finally he got it out and it smells. Disgusting!		Really disgusting and slimmy.
I think that is the organ, stomach and dont know what.		Wanna puke yet?
On left is the flesh.		Boiling the flesh.
Water actually turned orangy.		Cooked.
Underside.

We boiled the stuff too long coz we weren't sure and Ken took a bite (not taste) and said it felt rubbery. Anyway we were too disgusted to try eating it after pulling all the guts out and me photographing the process.

Spring is here

2006-09-10T14:18:00.000+10:00

Spring is here but last week it felt more like winter. It was wet and cold. Well it will get warmer next week - 22 degree celsius on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Nothing much has happened except tons of school work hence we haven't been updating the blog. We are half way thr' the semester and October will be a tough month for us. Well, we are still uploading pictures taken (from meal to meal :P) just that there isn't time to format it nicely here. Oh well we still need to eat so the kitchen is not close nor have we caved in to take aways.

Chocolate cupcakes

Yummy - Freshly baked about 1/2 hour ago

Since we had a voucher for a free DVD rental, we decided to rent the movie, Thumbsucker and have popcorn and coke while watching.

Microwave popcorn - Buttered flavour		Didn't really like the taste of it
Coke & Popcorn

Krispy Kreme is gonna open in Melbourne City at long last :-). Is the malay spelling for cream = kreme? LOL Anyway its an American brand for those who don't know. We had a bite when they were having some launch in the city last Thursday. We bought a dozen of their famous Glazed Donuts and finished it all in a day. It is real sinful. I can only have 2 pieces max each time coz they are too sweet but Ken can go on and eat them all. So I had to "write" names on them. HAHA

Krispy Kreme

Famous Glazed Donuts

Yesterday (9 Sept) we bought 1/2 dozen of the BIGGEST (Australian) oysters we have ever seen. It was almost the length of a teaspoon.

HUGE Oyster		Almost the size of Ken's palm
Baked with some garnishes		Ken gonna slurp it!

Some misc. pictures :-)

Playing chess along Swanston St.		Making the next move
Bought some freshly made Bagels		Strawberry as BIG as the kiwi.
Ken's iron on		Cute? He created this character.

Consistently inconsistent ...

2006-08-13T00:42:00.000+10:00

Yeah you read the title correctly, we've been consistently inconsistent in updating our blog and it will be that way for a while. Both of us are busy with our school work and assignments are piling up. But we do occassionally get our butt out of the house and enjoy the freezing cold weather. Here are ~~some~~ a whole lot of snaps that we took since we are back in Melbourne. As usual FOOD takes centre stage in our photos. So sit back and wipe the drool off your mouth and enjoy the appetizing dishes.

First thing after we came back to Melboure was to head for the supermarket. Cheezels, Oats, Milk, OJ, mushroom, garlic bread, mince pork, salad, cherries, bacon, ham, apples
Beef with carrots & long beans		Tandori Chicken with chapati

A guy's gota learn how to cook sometimes. So I cooked Ee-Fu noodles for Serena on her birthday. Not bad for a first try, Serena can vouch for it. Well i guess you can't go wrong following a recipe book :P

Ee-fu Noodles		Happy Birthday! 1 year older 1 year wiser (really?)
Chocolate mousse cake		Yummy Drool :)~~~~

A$10 sushi and sashimi dinner from our usual saturday 'auction'

Fresh! Oishi!

Salmon, prawn & cucumber

TODAY'S MENU: Serena's Lunch Special. Mince beef and pork meatballs with fruit salad. IMHO home-made meatballs are much nicer than those at IKEA.

Home-made Goodness		Fruit Salad with yogurt
Meat boulders		Meat balls, salad & a nice glass of OJ

We went to the city 2 fridays ago to catch The Lakehouse. Then we had a different kind of pizza for dinner at Max Brenner.

Chocolate Pizza		Chocolate Belgium Waffle
Double Hot Chocolate		So sweeeet!
Fir eyeing my pizza		Fir giving me a load of crap for eating the last slice
Lord of the Fries		Fries with Italian dressing
Serena conducting the orchestra		I better finish it before Ken grabs them all
Flinders Station from Elizabeth St		Flinders Station from Princess Bridge
South Bank - Yarra River		Victorian Arts Centre
National Gallery Victoria		Picasso Exhibition @ NGV

Some snaps on our way to church on a sunday morning. We had Yum Cha at Shark's Fin House for lunch then we took a tram to Fitzroy.

NGV on a Sunday Morning		Empty Street - St Kilda Rd
Serena doing a kawaii shot		Window display @ Suga Candy Kitchen
Window display @ Suga Candy Kitchen		Police on horseback
The 4 horsemen & a lady		Anti-war Peace protest outside State Library
YUM CHA!		Yummy Char Siew Pau
Inspection time - Any FATS?		Definitely not dainty!
Victorian Houses along Collins St		Victorian Houses along Collins St
Where the bloody hell is the tram		Graf seen along Johnston St - Fitzroy
Kaws Twins?		Amazing skills
Can u see the word?		Mussels & meatball for dinner

TODAY'S MENU: Club Sandwich, Breaded chicken with pasta and Strawberry with dark chocolate

Ham & Cheese		A second serving for you?
Slurrrrrp!!

Absence

2006-07-25T23:19:00.000+10:00

Well its been a long long while since we updated our blog. Firstly it was due to assignments, then exams and lastly our trip back home to Singapore. Yes I know its no excuse BUT ...

Our trip back home was good and gosh 1 month seem to have gone by just too quickly. It was good that we spent most of the time we had with our families and also some time with friends. Oh and we feasted a fair bit, ate all the local food that there is and put on some weight for winter in Melbourne. ;-P

School has started for both of us and I am finding it hard to get the momentumn back despite a 1 month break. Can't imagine when summer holidays are here. Anyway time to hit the books and the kitchen once again. This time we must make it an effort to hit the parks or gym for a healthier well being too.

Alrite that's it for today's posting. There should be some updates during the weekend when we "pet sit" our friend's pets (2 kittens and 1 Alsatian) this weekend.

P/S: Haha I nearly forgot the password for the blog. ;-)

You calling me Colored??

2006-05-22T14:23:00.000+10:00

Well nothing much has happened lately as we are all busy with assignments. Yes 1 more month to go for me and 3 more weeks for Kenneth and we are through for this semester. :-)

I've receive this poem from my friend, Kat (No she didn't write it but an African kid did) and I thought it was pretty neat to share.

This poem was nominated poem of 2005 for the best poem, written by an African kid.

When I born, I Black,
When I grow up, I Black,
When I go in Sun, I Black,
When I scared, I Black,
When I sick, I Black,
And when I die, I still black.

And you White fella,
When you born, you Pink,
When you grow up, you White,
When you go in Sun, you Red,
When you cold, you Blue,
When you scared, you Yellow,
When you sick, you Green,
And when you die, you Gray.

And you calling me Colored??

I am not too OLD to have a Birthday Cake!

2006-05-13T23:42:00.000+10:00

Today we had dinner at Fir's place. He was the chef tonight! I especially like the tofu with mince chicken dish. I could just have that with steaming hot rice. The other dish was chicken pieces with mushrooms and capsicums in some spicy sauce.

After dinner we played texas poker & blackjack. Hah Ken and myself was cleared of all our chips twice. Ahh then just before we left for home, Ken had a surprise!! Fir bought him a birthday cake :-) Thanks Fir!! Awww Ken was touched because it has been sometime since he had a "birthday party" and friends singing him Happy Birthday.

Fir preparing dinner. We like his kitchen!		Chef @ work
Look at the colors. Yum!		Ken's Birthday Cake. Black Forrest Chocolate Cake
Ken grinning away		Yummy Drool
Fir & Ken trying to remove the banner		Cheese :-)
Fir & Fiona, Ken & Serena		Cross section of the cake

What did you have for dinner?

2006-04-29T19:47:00.000+10:00

That's the most often asked question by our family and friends. Seems like our blog is turning into a foodblog or has it always been one since the start? Everyone keeps salivating over our pictures. Maybe both of us should go work in the F&B industry or even start a food business. :) Here are more photos of today's dinner to whet your appetite. Bon Appetit!

Slab of Sashimi Tuna (A$2.50 + LUCK)		Not sure what Sashimi this is
Chef at work		Sashimi Platter
Anyone getting hungry?		Stack'em Up
Where are you Caleb? We left you a portion!		Today's catch
Tommorw's dinner

I hope the photos are making you all hungry and salivating. Well here's a peek at our fridge and cupboard. War is definitely looming, look at the food that is stored! We definitely won't starve if we were locked up in our home for a month.

Freezer - Stuff to the max!		WE NEED MORE SPACE!
Anything for you sir/mdm?		Nothing much here
Spices, can food, noodles, drinks Will we ever run out of food?

Can you smell what the chef's cookin..

2006-04-24T00:14:00.000+10:00

It's been awhile since we posted pics of what we have for our meals but rest assured we are still eating well despite the head chef being in school. Well one has to eat well to do/perform well right?

Last night's dinner was superb. We had chilli crab with man tou(steam chinese buns). Surprisingly Ken managed to find some frozen man tou from the asian grocery across the street from our apartment. Too bad we have no pictures coz we were too busy tucking into pipping hot food. Food gets cold real fast now as its getting real cold in our apartment. Yesterday's temp. ranged between 8 - 17˚C.

Anyway here are some pics of what we had over the past few weeks.

Spinach Fettuccine with Creamy chicken, bacon and peas sauce.		Cross Section of Lasagna. I made it from scratch.
Lasagna		Tuna Curry with (frozen) Roti Prata
Ken having fun with pancake mix		Smirk
Ken's Mi Jian Kueh		Peanut(butter) Mi Jian Kueh
Luxury		Seriously huge scallops
As HUGE & THICK as an egg		Seafood (haha see food for all of you) Shang Mee
Tonight's dinner! Yummy		Seafood Shang Mee

Moving the furnitures

2006-04-23T22:23:00.000+10:00

Since I have started school, things have been getting a little messy around the house. We had to rearrange the furniture and today we bought a new book shelf as too many books were lying around the floor. Hazardous! The white table which was once used to put all our kitchen appliances is now my study table.

Our new book shelf. Imagine before that all these books were on the floor.		Our study area
Mini office?		Half the living area is now our study area
This is our biggest chilli plant. Not bad!

Bunny Treasure

2006-04-23T21:50:00.000+10:00

We have been eyeing all the wonderful Easter chocs in the supermarket since early March and patiently waiting for the sale to come. :) See how pretty they are! Unfortunately we were up in Bright during the Easter break and only got back to Melbourne on Monday night and were surprise that almost all the Easter chocs have been cleared. We did manage to get a Lindt Easter Bunny from Coles though and also a few other chocs from Darrel Lea in the city.

The Lindt Bunny is so adorable!		Darrell Lea Dark Choc Rocklea Road Egg
Filled with mashmallow and has light coconut taste to it. Nice!

A weekend up in Bright turned nasty

2006-04-23T21:38:00.000+10:00

Here in Australia Easter is a pretty big thing. Workers have a super long weekend while us university students enjoy a week long holiday that started on Thursday (13/04) till the following Wednesday (19/04). Effectively its not really a break as both of us have loads of assignments on hand and some are due the friday after the break. So it was more of a "catch up" week for us. Assignments Assignments Assignments...

Well, all work and no play does make Jack a dull boy so we decided to give ourselves a well deserve rest since our friend, Jocelyn and her family invited us to join them in Bright (The Alpine Region).

This will be our 2nd time heading there but we are still pretty excited since it is Autumn and the trees will be in a splendour of colours. An amazing sight to behold for us who only have Summer all year round in SG.

We arrived around 7pm that evening and proceed to have a simple dinner of chicken stew which Serena had prepared and frozen before the trip. Pipping hot chicken stew and dinner rolls on a cold autumn night makes you feel all warm and good inside.

Next morning (Sat) we woke up to a meal of toasts, bacon, scrambled eggs and coffee for breaky and proceed to the Bright town centre for their monthly market (3rd Saturday). We bought some nuts, a cheap fleece blanket and some sweet amazingly fresh boysenberry conserve (jam). Its so nice to be able to have fresh jams compared to the ones you buy from the Supermart.

Market Scene in Bright Town Centre		Look at the wonderful colors
A Musical Easter Bunny		Serena like this shot of a tree in the Bright Resort where we were staying

In the late afternoon we went on a Chestnut “hunting” trip. Its chestnut season now and we were eager to buy or pick some, but first we had to spot how the tree looks like. We found some but it was in a private property but manage to pick a few as some branches were creeping over the fence (yeah typical Singaporeans). On our way back to our resort, we pass by a farm that had chestnuts and other nuts for sale and bought a 1kg pack of medium size ones. In front of the store were 2 huge chestnut trees with an enormous amount of chestnuts on the ground around it. Of cos as typical ‘sua ku’ (mountain tortoise) Singaporeans we took some photos :P since we don’t come across it back home. Then we realise that along the road there were a few chestnut tree that were just outside the farm’s fence. Guess what? We went and picked about 5-6kg of chestnuts haha talk about being greedy. So I would say the A$7 spent on that 1kg of chestnut from the farm was pretty worth it after all, as we manage to pick so much more. You can imagine the grin on our faces.

Pessimon tree in one of the farms		Is there a pot of gold over the mountain?
The chestnut tree in front of the store		Look at the number of chestnuts!
Huge big chestnuts. Too bad we can't pick these as it belongs to the store.		Chestnut in its outer spiky shell
Chestnuts bursting out of its shell		Picking FREE chestnuts
Our bountiful harvest		Fresh and Big

Sunday started bright and early for both of us and we wanted to go for a morning walk but decided to take the racing bicycle, that Jocelyn had brought along, for a ride around and also to the town to get the day’s newspaper. A wonderful Easter morning turned REALLY BAD when Serena fell while she was trying out the bike. She fell sideways and hit her head on the ground. The impact must have been really great as she suffered 2 broken tooth, swollen lips, and wounds on her chin, elbow and knee. Blood was flowing from her mouth and knee and I was really shocked. I helped her up and to the resort and she seem alright while I was cleaning her wounds but all of a sudden she burst out crying. She kept telling me she couldn’t remember what happen to her but I brush it aside as I thought she was just in shock. Then when she told me she do not know where we are at and what we were doing there, only then did I realise it is serious and we quickly brought her to the Bright hospital.

A nurse quickly attended to her and did a check on her situation and inform us that Serena has a concussion. However she assured us that she is fine and she will update the doctor (who is in another town) on Serena’s condition and he will decide if he will need to attend to her. I got even more worried when Serena started to not remember more and more things (where we were, what she was doing, what year it was etc.) but the nurse kept reassuring me that she is fine and that it’s normal for a patient who just had a head injury to have a short memory lapse and she will recover from it in 4-5 hrs. Still I couldn’t stop worrying as Serena kept repeating the same questions that she had ask me earlier. At about 3pm the nurse did a final check on her condition and said she was alright to leave but if she has a persistent sharp headache, I need to call them immediately. Serena rested back at the resort and her memory was slowly returning. She was able to have her dinner of porridge and even learnt how to play various card games from the girls.

Next morning Serena was feeling much better but she still could not remember the what had happen on that Sunday morning. Her headache was on and off and she was still feeling pain in her gums area above her 2 broken tooth. Good thing was we manage to make an appointment with the dentist on Tuesday and had her tooth fixed. No nerve expose so the tooth is still alive and it was a pretty fast reconstruction of her tooth. The whole procedure lasted about 45mins and cost us A$345. The money ain’t important so long as Serena’s tooth was fixed and she wasn’t going to feel any more pain and also her condition and health is fine. I do Thank God that Serena is fine right now and that the situation was not worse. I am grateful that over here in Australia, it is compulsory to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle and I feel that we should adopt the same rule back in SG especially since there are so many cyclists in ECP during the weekends. This first hand experience does make me not take things for granted even with a simple task like riding a bicycle.

The nasty incident aside, we did manage to take a few photos on monday morning.You can view more photos here

Yellow Brown hues of Autumn		A view from the slopes
Serena looking much better		Tree lined roads leading out of Bright

Make shift photo studio

2006-04-10T12:00:00.000+10:00

Oh last week was a crazy one for us but more so for Ken and as usual Murphy's Law never fail to happen during critical periods. Due to some unfortunate events, Ken couldn't do his product photo shoot in his school's studio hence we had to make one in our alcove. The alcove area has indeed proved it's worth once again. We have converted it from a study area to a bedroom to a store room & a place to hang dry our laundry to a photo studio. I wonder what is next. Heh

Ok anyway below are some pictures of the make shift studio. Sorry pictures are taken by me not the pro! We had to buy the lightings and paper. Sigh Ikea takes about 15 minutes by car from our place but yesterday when we took the tram and it took us 1 hour EACH way. :-(

Alrite, we are looking forward to the Easter Holidays! We will be heading up to Bright over the weekends! Can't wait to see the autumn leaves and also hopefully we can get to see some snow! Last week there was a snow storm in Mt. Buller or was it Mt. Buffalo. ;-)

Ken designed all the labels and made all the packaging himself except of course for the glass bottles, fresh rivoli and dried spaghetti. Something cool about this project is I get to buy some of the Italian ingredients like sun dried tomatoes and the tomato sauce from Italian delicatssen shops instead of Coles and Safeway. Haha

Innocence

2006-04-03T01:32:00.000+10:00

I was on MSN with my cousin (12 years old I think) today and when I asked her to guess the time over at my side, she promptly replied 12:05pm (we were 3 hours ahead of Singapore time). Then I told her nope its 11:05pm now (2 hours ahead of Singapore time, effective 2 April 2006). She was amazed and asked why is that so? I told her it was because Daylight saving is over and she replied "I thought God can change time only". Little children never fail to amaze me. :-)

Below is a newspaper clipping from Friday's (31st March 2006) MX. MX is a free newspaper publication that is available in the city during the weekdays. It is similiar to Today back in Singapore. I thought this clipping is rather cute since we are on Daylight Saving. :-P P/S: Daylight hours are so much shorter now.

Ken's Scribbles

2006-04-02T23:04:00.000+10:00

Ken's scribbling. I couldn't resist to show it off haha I thought it was pretty neat ... his mad, he scribbled these on the back of an used envelop when the advertisment is on!

Well nothing much has happened for the last few weeks. Saw some great fireworks during the opening and closing of Commonwealth Games from our apartment. Slogging real hard with school work as the last 2 weeks was tough! And this week the Grand Prix is on and imagine I could hear the vroooomm, zoooomm from our apartment. I woke up on Friday morning thinking oh my neighbour's home entertainment system is excellent but later when Ken came home from school he asked me "Did you hear the Grand Prix? I could hear it from school." Hmm ... Well the Grand Prix is in between our place and the city, Albert Park and we didn't expect to hear anything. Amazing. Too bad we couldn't make it to the Grand Prix.

Oh well dinner tonight was home made pizza. OK we cheated we bought the base from the supermarket. :-)

Make A Guess ...

2006-03-18T22:35:00.000+11:00

what this is.
Answer is in the below post.

So what do we have here ...

2006-03-18T22:24:00.000+11:00

Yes we bought 2 bags of them from Prahran Market. We have never eaten them before and thought it would be fun to have a go at them.

We spent about 1hr plus cracking them, scoping the uni and washing it. Hard work and now we know why its going for so much in the market. Hmm not sure if I will have the guts to pick some and crack it underwater the next time I dive. :P

Some super smelly liquid that came out of the sea urchin		That's the mouth
The orangy stuff is uni (sea urchin roe)		Got to wash it under running cold water
Our harvest		Uni. Hmm wonder how much is that worth?

We have not eaten them yet as we had chilli crabs for dinner. Most likely we will have them on Monday for dinner along with some unagi. Yummy! Tomorrow's night dinner is mussels!

That's our dinner tonite

Today's marketing

Answer: Sea Urchin.

Commonwealth Games - Queen's Baton Relay

2006-03-15T12:36:00.000+11:00

Yesterday we had a chance to see the Queen's Baton Relay as it came through Chapel Street. We were on our way back from Borders then so the pictures were taken using our mobile phones.

Some lowdown on the traidtion of The Queen's Baton Relay ....
The Queen’s Baton Relay is one of the great traditions of the Commonwealth Games. The relay symbolises the gathering of people from across the Commonwealth at the four-yearly festival of sport and culture. The relay traditionally begins with a commencement ceremony at Buckingham Palace, London, which coincides with the city’s Commonwealth Day festivities. There Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II entrusts the baton containing Her ‘message to the athletes’ to the first honorary relay runner. The relay concludes at the Opening Ceremony, as the final relay runner hands the baton back to Her Majesty, or Her representative, and the message is read aloud. At that moment the relay ends and the Games begin. The Melbourne 2006 Queen’s Baton travels an epic journey of more than 180,000 kilometres in a year and a day, and visits all 71 nations of the Commonwealth – home to almost one third of the world’s population.

Passerby waiting for the Baton to come thr'		Heh we thought the Queen was coming thr'
They were jogging real slowly		Alrite that's the best shoot but I bet you can't see the Baton. Sorry guys!

Ah tonight there will be massive fireworks as it is the opening ceremony of Commonwealth Games.

Week 2 of school

2006-03-11T21:55:00.000+11:00

Yes that's fast we are into week 2 of school. Ken had some assignments due this week and my turn will come pretty soon. Hmm if only we could just sail thr' school by showing our enthusiasms and be graded on it. LOL! :P

Anyway we managed to stop, breadth and enjoy. On Wednesday evening, we went to Queen Victoria Market for The Suzuki Night Market. It's a weekly event and will last till the end of this month. There was live entertainment, world food, drinks and weird and wonderful wares. And on our way home while waiting for and in the tram I took some night shots of Melbourne City.

Friday night we had dinner at Mark's place (Conner of Swanston and Grattan St). We had 2 large pizzas (In Singapore's context that would have been HUGE), 1 plate of pasta and 1 plate of chips. No pictures too bad you got to eat (not see it) it to know what you are missing HAHA! Fir ordered the food as he knows the place and he wanted chips! I like the chicken pizza (I forgot the actual name as I didn't study the menu and place the orders), it had a sweet and creamy filling and it's unique. Yummy!

Saturday - Since it was the weekend, we decied to put in more effort for our meals so we made popiah! Wah so much time and effort was put into cutting the turnip, bamboo shoot and other ingredients. Hmmm...I guess paying $1.50 for the effort put into making popiah is pretty much worth it. Hmm isit still that price back in Singapore's hawker centers?

The Suzuki Night Market		Rows of food stalls
Yummy Look at the meat! Stall was selling Souvlaki		Ken & Fir enjoying their Chicken Fajitas
Stalls selling weird and wonderful wares		Melbourne City Baths - Health, fitness and wellbeing centre
Nay that's not our tram		RMIT City Campus
Junction of Swanston and La Trobe St. State Library		Flinders Station
Popiah Filling		Other ingredients
Deep Fried Popiah		Popiah

Next week will be interesting. Labour Day is on Monday but unfortunately Ken still has school. Weird right? There's also Moomba Parade along Swanston Street on Monday at 11am. Wednesday will be the opening of Commonwealth Games. Bascially for the next 2 weeks, Melbourne City will be full of life and activities and also bursting with people. So next 2 weeks I will bring my camera along when I go into the city for classes. :-)

Summer Holidays ....

2006-03-04T19:53:00.000+11:00

Summer holidays are over, school has started for both of us. Ken is into his final year and I've just started on my postgrad program. After 1 week of school, we found 1 word to sum it all up - SIONG! "Siong" is a singlish term which means Tough.

It's not so much that we have lost momentum during the 3 months of summer vaccation but more so the work load. Ken has at least 1 assignment due every fortnight and for me tons of research, reading, presentations and papers to write. Oh well so you wouldn't be expecting much from the kitchen or this blog till the holidays are here again.

Since this was my first week at school, I've realised that there are many Indians and Mainland Chinese enrolled in the unis that are located in Melbourne City. Hmm makes me feel like I am not studying in an Australian Uni. :P Text books are also real expensive. A price check I've done - Believe it or not, one of my text book cost $35 plus Singapore Dollars back home (Singapore) and it cost nearly $80 Australian Dollars here. MAD!

Today we visited the Information Centre at Federation Square and was amazed by the number of brochures available and the centre itself. It is very nicely done up and most of the brochures are not only informative but of good print quality. Hmm makes me wanna visit the Information Centre back in Singapore and see how we fare. Personally I don't think it can be comparable to the one here but then again I wouldn't mind being proved wrong! ;)

Oh well nothing exciting has happened or worth mentioning ... got to get back to preparing a quick dinner and hit the books.

Psst ... Commonwealth games is less than 2 weeks away! Bet Melbourne City will come alive with fireworks and lots of activities. Ahh I remembered I've something to tell since we are along the line of Commonwealth Games. There was this guy who raised his hand during one of the lectures and asked "Is RMIT closed during Commonwealth Games?" Wow I couldn't help but burst in laughter! And of course the lecturer smiled and said "No, not as far as I know". Hmmm ....

Great Weekend

2006-02-26T00:00:00.000+11:00

Weekend started early for us although Friday morning and afternoon was kind of hectic. In the evening we had a great BBQ (or should I say Barbe - the OZ way) on the roof top of our friend's (Firdaus aka Possuman. LOL) place near Queen Victoria Market. The city scenary was simply great and we could see the sun setting. It was a terribly hot day but good thing I could feel this gentle breeze blowing from the roof top. After the barbe we had Blackjack marathon (10pm plus to 4am. This activity was not planned!) at his place. Imagine we didn't know time was passing so fast so you could guess the amount of fun we had. No money was involved but still we had all the fun.

Saturday - Our body refuesed to leave the bed having gone to bed at 5am. So we finally woke up at 1:30pm and did a quick wash up and rushed to the market. It was raining super heavily and parts of St. Kilda road was flooded. Traffic was bad too but anyway we managed to get our stuff from Queen Victoria and later seafood at Prahran Market.

I usually like Saturday's dinner coz it is not planned. It is dependent on what we can get from the auction at Prahran Market and us being creative on how we cook or prepare. Today's was fun - Ken bought LIVE Western Australian Yabbies! Good thing coz we wanted to go visit a Yabby farm which is 1.5hrs drive away from Melbourne City so now we are not making the trip.

Live WA Yabbies		Became more active when we sprayed water at them
This particular one was real active		Whole Perch. We are going to steam it for dinner one of these nights.
Boiling the LIVE yabbies. Cruel?		Turning red
Yum!		Our only meal of the day!

Possum Feeding

2006-02-22T12:19:00.000+11:00

Late last night or rather early this morning we went possum feeding at Carlton Park. Basically we wanted to finish the bread that was left from the previous feed.

For those who do not know what a possum is ... well they are marsupials and are native to Australia. Some people treat possum as pest. Anyway they can be found commonly in many trees and they are nocturnal creatures. We notice that their vision is not very good but gathered that they have a keen sense of smell.

Oh this time round, we saw 2 possums and we pressume that they are mothers as we suspect in their pouches are baby possum. I googled and confirmed -
"The possum spends the first four months of their lives in their mother's pouch. By the time they are six months old the young possums are living outside of the pouch all the time."
Source:http://www.kcc.org.nz/pests/possum/resources.asp

Approaching us with caution		They can get real friendly (Hmmm...well there's food rite)
Possum talk?!?		Aren't they cute?
Feeding on white bread		This particular possum is very shy and it seems smaller in size as compared to the others
Baby possum in mother's pouch		Foutain and a colonial style (i think) building in the park. Nice

Orange Sunset

2006-02-12T22:43:00.000+11:00

This evening the sky was filled with hues of orange. The sunsets in Australia is simply breathtaking. This is the second time we saw such awesome sunset in Melbourne.

Pictures were taken from our apartment and the carpark. It was about 8:40pm then.

8:38pm-First shot from our apartment		8:39pm-Sky was illuminated with hues of orange
8:46pm-The sun was going down real fast. Shot was taken from our carpark		8:47pm-Another shot from the carpark

FIRE! FIRE! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

2006-02-12T00:45:00.000+11:00

Time 12:02am. Location Pran Central. Fire alarm in our building went off and within minutes 2 fire engines arrived. We looked out of our window and saw people looking up but the firemen seem calm and were not in a hurry. So we just ignored the alarm but eventually Ken went out to the corridors to check and decided that we should make our way down just to be on the safe side. Thank God it did not affect the residential apartments.

The luggage shop on the ground level was filled with smoke when we arrived at the scene. 2 firemen were trying to break into the shop to investigate. I guess the sprinklers went off as the streets were wet.

Fire Engine parked beneath our apartment		Another fire engine parked just outside the scene with alot of onlookers
Firemen at work investigating		The luggage shop was filled with smoke
Streets are wet		Firemen crew

Italiano

2006-02-11T21:37:00.000+11:00

Dinner tonight is Italiano. We had a successful "catch" this afternoon! Besides getting some assorted fish fillets and whole trouts, we also managed to get our hands on some scallops and mussels at bargain prices. I will be embrassed or rather I will be spoiling market if I wrote how much I paid for them. ;-P

1/2 dozen of Scallops		2 dozens of Mussels
Lite seasoning and some herbs		Stir fried mussels
Garlic and olive spaghetti with tomatoes and mushrooms		Ken's lot - Spaghetti con Mitili
Serena's lot - Spaghetti con Pettini		Mamamia!

What's for Dinner tonite?

2006-02-11T00:35:00.000+11:00

Tonight we have company! Our friends Andrew and Jocelyn are popping by for dinner. So we decided to go simple and just bake everything!

On the menu were baked sweet potatoes, pumpkin, herbed chicken drumsticks, marlin kebab and coleslaw. For dessert I made mango pudding and they brought a lovely cake. The cake was splendid but unfortunatley we have no idea what cake it is.

Not much pictures though coz we were busy running around today besides cooking. Come on we have other business to do besides cooking all day! We have a life man! LOL

Lot of Marlin Kebab		Can you make out what other goodies are there?
Look how beautiful and sinful the cake is

We were too engrossed in the cake that we forgot to take pics of the inside but I guess it was good coz we would have prevented you from wetting your keyboards! *EVIL GRIN* Texture of the cake was soft and moist with tinge of oreo cookie flavour. Yummilicious!

Oh for those who want to attempt the Onde Onde ... One tip you've got to eat them all the day itself coz what happened was when we tried it today the skin was hard. We thought of steaming them briefly so that the skin may get softer but have not tried it yet. So best bet - make them fresh, eat them all on the same day and share them with your neighbours!

Tea Break Specials - Onde Onde & Wu Kok (Yam Puff)

2006-02-09T16:53:00.000+11:00

There are so many local snacks that we miss back home and the only way to feed the crave is to make them ourselves. It's amazing coz we didn't know we could cook before we arrived. :P Well, I guess back home in Singapore, we are too use to driving to the hawker center to feed that crave.

We made 90 plus onde onde today. Can't imagine I use to buy them (10 pieces) for S$3 from Maxwell Market and I need to pre-order! Now I can be a glutton and eat till I am sick of it for the next couple of years.

Verdict: Excellent! I am not kidding.

Ken filling the onde onde with gula melaka (palm sugar)		Waiting to be boiled
Once its cooked, it will float		Coat them with some grated coconut
Yummy		Should I sell 10 pieces for A$5? Labour is expensive here

Yesterday we made some Wu Kok with some left over steamed yam. Hey I know you must be thinking ain't we eating too much? Well we had only wu kok and yu sheng for dinner!

Verdict: Not bad!

Savoury filling		Yam balls
Trying to squeeze more filling in		Yam puff No. 1
Final Product. Shape ain't like those commercial ones coz it's homemade. Haha		Delicious

Royal Botanic Garden Melbourne

2006-02-07T23:24:00.000+11:00

The weather is turning cold again. Yesterday evening was 16 degrees celsius and we gladly welcome it! We finally went for our walk after 1 week plus of break. Hah blame it on the heat wave we've been experiencing.

Doesn't this look like a scene from some kung fu movie with swordmen and swordwomen floating around		Vibrant colors. Lily family I suppose
Dusk		The Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden
Observatory		Sunset

Dinner tonight was Japanese! Yeah at long last I manage to get my hands on some Unagi!

Too greedy!

Our feast

Awesome Sunset

2006-02-06T22:53:00.000+11:00

Last Thursday's (2/2/2006) sunset was such a beautiful sight. We have never seen the sky illuminated with such colors - orange and purple. This photo was taken from our apartment.

Yeah I know, we should have gone out to take in the sight and better pictures! Bummers! :-P

Gyoza Galore

2006-02-06T18:18:00.000+11:00

On Sunday after going to the Chinese Grocery in Chinatown and having seen some frozen Gyoza for sale, we deiced to make our own! They were selling 10 or 12 pieces of frozen Gyozas for $6 plus to $10 plus depending on what the filling is (Vegetarian, Shrimp or Pork) we thought it was too expensive and not sufficient to fill 2 tummies. As a result, we bought those ready made skins (1KG) for $2.50, a bunch chives for $1 and minced pork (1.5KG) for $7 plus. In our first attempt, we made use of 1/4 of the skins and about 500 grams of minced pork and made a total of 32 gyozas for dinner. Not bad and pretty easy.

By the way, did you know that Gyoza (Japanese style dumplins) is originally a Chinese dish and has become very popular across Japan?

Marinated minced pork with chives		Frozen Gyoza skins
Ken is efficient & good with folding		Gyoza galore
Close ups		Ken browning the gyozas
Steaming the gyozas with a little water after they are browned		Steaming it for a couple of minutes
Pan frying the gyozas again to make them cripsy		Looks good eh?
Gyozas with ginger and vinegar dip		Taste good and juicy on the inside

初一

2006-01-29T23:29:00.000+11:00

Sigh no one RSVP our invitation for dinner on 初一. See what you have missed ... Don't drool!

Another round of Lo Hei Yu Sheng		Lo Hei with Sashimi Ocean Trout
Chilli (Blue Swimmer) Crab		Yummy! True Blue Singapore Signature Dish
Great Dinner!

新年快乐, 万事如意

2006-01-28T22:45:00.000+11:00

*Image done by Ken (2005)

Reunion Dinner Down Under

2006-01-28T22:07:00.000+11:00

Ah ain't it fast it's Chinese New Year again! Well this time round, Ken and myself will not be too busy eating but rather we will be busy preparing an assumptious reunion dinner meal! Food wise, we did well in preparation but we are lacking the festive noise & atmosphere. Come on, bring some noise over ;-)

Ok below is our menu, Ken created it! Not bad yah? Think we can open an eatery here?

Raw ingredients for our Satay Bee Hoon		Lo Hei
4 types of Raw Fish going into the Lo Hei		Preparing the Raw Fish
Home Made Lo Hei Yu Sheng		Let's toss it higher, higher & higher
Yummy		Aerial View of our Reunion Dinner - 3 courses here
Entree		Main Course
Very Satisfied :-)		Wow look at the huge prawns
Dessert		Wow we did a good job! Food was enough for 4 persons.

Anyone keen to join us for Round 2? Psssst ... Blue Siwmmer Crab I heard will be next *Slurp*