Snapping Kangaroos

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

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.

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 (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

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