Happy Leap Year

Happy Leap Year! February 2008 seems to be a very busy blogging month for me. This will be the 19th post, the most I've posted in a month since joining blogspot. Yay to that :)

My Childhood Photos

I stumbled upon an envelope containing a handful of my childhood photos. Unfortunately the condition of the photos are terrible due to water marks left. Thanks to Keith who used his digital camera to retake the photos, I can now post them up. He did some photoshopping, touching up and cropping but not much can be done to salvage some of them. Don't I look like a tomboy in my younger days? And look, I'm not playing with barbie dolls! I'm playing warriors and soldiers instead. hehhehe...

Crab spaghetti

I found this old photo taken 4 years ago or so. I thought it looked cute although I had to take the crab shell away from my plate before eating as I didn't feel comfortable having the crab stare at me. It was a very delicious meal made by Keith and it was also about the same time he got cured of his allergy to seafood.

Australian Youth Orchestra

I had the pleasure of attending the Australian Youth Orchestra with Keith and Andrew at the Melbourne Town Hall last Tuesday. Andrew invited us as his guests as it was sponsored by his company Accenture. It was conducted by Rossen Milanov and we listened to 3 pieces by Rachmaninov, Mozart and Mahler over a length of 2 1/2 hours. I enjoyed Mahler's Symphony No. 1 in D Major the most. It was a most enjoyable experience.

After the performance, we proceeded to the cocktail function. There we met the conductor, performers and the Melbourne Lord Mayor John So with his wife. We got lucky and chatted with the Lord Mayor for a bit. The couple were very friendly and down to earth. We listened to some thank you speeches from the organizers and congratulated the conductor and soloist, Lin Jiang who played Mozart's Concerto for the Horn. I hope to attend more classical performances in the near future :)

Yee Sang or Raw Fish Salad

Being Chinese New Year and all, I had a craving for Yee Sang. I started googling up restaurants in Melbourne that serve the dish. It was quite a tough job until I stumbled onto a blog by a Malaysian in Melbourne. She didn't provide the name of the restaurant she went to except that it was a Malaysian restaurant in Chinatown. So I googled up Malaysian restaurants in the vicinity but still didn't have much luck. In the end, I sent her a private message to ask her about it. Thankfully, she replied within 24 hours. Her recommendations were Banana Palm Curry House (first preference) and Westlake. The great lengths I go to in looking for food!

Two days later, I got Keith to get the Yee Sang for me. Banana Palm was closed so he got it from Westlake. It didn't come cheap but I finally got to eat it. However it had too much sauce, wasn't sweet enough, a bit too sour, no pomelos, not enough turnip and peanuts. Maybe because Westlake is HK owned and not Malaysian hence the slightly different taste. Banana Palm would have been a better choice being a Malaysian restaurant. Here's photos of the takeaway yee sang.
Verdict : I much prefer the ones in Malaysia including my Mum's homemade one. I should ask her for the recipe next time. However, it satisfied my craving for Yee Sang so I'm happy to wait for another year before my craving comes back ;)

Through googling, I learned that it's a Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese community thing to serve Yee Sang on the seventh day of Chinese New Year. It's slowly gaining popularity in Hong Kong but not as widespread yet.

Coated Chicken fillet with goats cheese and pesto

While surfing the forums we came across this recipe. Curious to try, we went to the shops and bought the ingredients. The coating consisted of Kelloggs bread crumbs, finely chopped parsley, little bit of powdered parmesan cheese and a beaten egg. The chicken fillet was butterflied and flattened with a heavy roller. We added goats cheese and pesto into the centre and folded the chicken over the fillings, securing it with toothpicks. After that we coated the chicken, sprayed some olive oil and popped them into the oven. The outer layer turned out crispy and golden brown while the goats cheese and pesto added flavour to the chicken. Having tried it, I would add some ham into the filling to make it tastier. We served it with Greek salad (bought readymade from Safeway) which paired off well with the chicken.

Road Trip from Perth to Melbourne

Here's a map of the roadtrip Keith and I took in Jan 2006. Pity, I didn't have a blog back then. Our trip lasted about 3 weeks as we made many stops along the way. The red line shows our exact journey. It's definitely something you MUST do if you live in Australia.

Beggar's Chicken

Keith made beggar's chicken a while ago. Here's some shots I took.

Vietnamese

After reading a random blog's recommendation to try the 'pho' or Vietnamese beef noodle in Richmond, I pestered Keith to take me there. There's easily 20 over Vietnamese restaurants in the vicinity. We've only tried one other shop so far. I went for the traditional beef special whereas Keith was more adventurous in ordering the Vietnamese beef stew. The traditional beef was good whereas the stew was a bit oily. I don't think I'd rate this shop as my favourite so I'm still on a hunt to find the best 'pho' shop in Melbourne.

This is a sushi sponge cake with pork floss from BreadTop. It's really good. I'm a fan of it now :)

Valentines Day Dinner

We had grilled field mushrooms for dinner on Valentines. It was most delicious as I'm a big fan of mushrooms or mushbiliks like what me and Keith call them ;) One of them had a mushroom pate spread while the other had the pesto spread with breadcrumbs on top. They were grilled in the oven and then served on a bed of rocket and spinach leaves. Absolutely delicious although the photos may not do it justice :)

CNY in Melbourne Chinatown

We went to the CNY celebration held in Melbourne Chinatown this afternoon. They closed Little Bourke St and Russell St and had lots of CNY stalls set up. The food stalls were the most popular. I wanted to get some yong tau foo and satay sticks but the queue went on forever so we gave that a miss. There were also 3 lion dances and a dragon dance going on with lots of red firecrackers going off. The atmosphere was definitely lively. We bought lots of CNY junkies as well :) Here's some lame shots I took of the lion dance.

Top 100 Restaurant in Australia

I couldn't resist taking a photo of the top 100 restaurant list compiled by the Australian Gourmet Traveller.

Thank you from Brigid and Ben.

We had to return Willow to Brigid and Ben on Sunday night. *Sniff*sniff* I love that pup so much. Look at what they got us in return.

The card reads :- Dear Swee and Keith, Thank you so much for the lovely meal on Thursday night and taking great care of our little Willow while we were away. She loved being around you guys, especially the cuddles and special meals!!! From Brigid and Ben. Hi Aunty Swee and Uncle Keith, I had lots of fun at your house and hope I can come and visit again soon. Love from Willow.

Isn't that cute? Thanks so much guys! Really love it.

Willow's Blog

Ok ok, take my photos. Make sure you give me a treat though!
Hurry up!!! Are we done yet???? I'm getting bored... I think I need to wee....
*Phew* Out in the garden at last. Now, where shall i mark my territory?? *Look left*Look right* Can I pretty please have my foodddddd? Pleaseeeeeeeeeeee? *YUM*YUM* Steak and hash browns!!!
Pork chop with parsnips and cucumbers with my name on it! *Yipee*
Ahhhhhh such a yummy bone! Leave me aloneeee. I want to enjoy my bone in peace. No more photosssss.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

I would like to wish my family and friends a very Happy Chinese New Year. It's bye bye pig year and hello rat year in two hour's time. It'll be my second time missing out on CNY celebrations with my family. Thus, I'm feeling a bit sad and lonely.

Reunion dinner on the eve of CNY is what I always look forward to with mum's delicious cooking and the whole family reunited and eating together. Today, I had a solo meal of leftover indian curry with saffron rice for dinner as Keith had to go to Melbourne. How sad is that. Well the lack of festive spirit over here makes it easier and it'll just be another working day in Australia.

There'll be a CNY celebration in Melbourne Chinatown on Sunday 10th Feb so I'm hoping to go. I bought some pineapple tarts and love letters as comfort food for the festive period. I miss eating the sweet mandarin oranges or "lo kam" as the Chinese call it. I can easily eat 3 in a day if they're really sweet and juicy. Here's wishing Gong Xi Fa Cai to everyone. Love, peace and prosperity throughout the year :)

P/S: On an exciting note, we had two fire alarms going off at work today. One was in the morning and the second in the evening. That took about an hour off work just standing in the field waiting for the firemen to give us the green light to go back into the building. Turned out to be a faulty cable. Well, at least everyone's safe and we know that the fire brigades here are very efficient as they got to the office swiftly on both occasions.

Dinner at Empire Grill

We had dinner at Empire Grill in Geelong last night. Surprisingly the food was quite good. Keith had onion soup as his entree while I had king prawn with avocado flan and rice wine jelly. I forgot to take photos of them. For mains, I had wagyu steak with mashed potatos, caramelised onion, and tomato. Keith had the rib eye fillet with roast potatos and herb butter. I thought mine was better. We shared a frozen nougat with strawberry and raspberry glace as dessert. Too bad the photo turned out bad as it was overexposed. Wouldn't mind going back to sample more of what they have to offer.

Photos of my house

Here's some shots of my new house which KatKat asked me to take. Pics aren't that good as I'm using my old Olympus camera.