Part 2 - Crown Entertainment Complex

After lunch at Red Emperor, we walked along Southbank which was crowded with people as they were having the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. There were many participating winemakers who set up booths for wine tasting. This did not come free. One had to purchase a ticket costing $25 before being allowed to try the wines on offer. Rather reasonable I would say. However, we did not stay as we were on our way to the Melbourne International Motor Show held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

On our way, we walked through Crown Hotel/Entertainment Complex to escape the scorching sun. It was a good move as there was an interesting photographic exhibition and gourmet experience displayed in the atrium by New York photographer Melanie Dunea. She had gathered some of the world's finest chef and asked them, ‘What would you eat for your final meal?’ It was pretty interesting to read what the chefs had to say. Among them were Tetsuya, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Neil Perry and Nobu. I couldn't help posing for a photo with Gordon Ramsay in the background. His show "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare" is one of my current favourite minus the F*** word he loves uttering. Here's a photo of me and him.
Moving on, I couldn't resist getting my favourite durian ice cream from a Japanese food stall in Crown's food arcade. They make the best durian ice cream in Melbourne. Enough to satisfy my durian craving. Their sweet corn is delicious too.

Part 1 - Lunch at Red Emperor

Sunday 2/3 was a lovely bright sunny day. We went to Southbank for dim sum at Red Emperor. It was our first time as all the other times we went by, they were fully booked. We would then end up in Miyako, a Japanese restaurant just next door. I especially love the green tea and seafood fried rice. It's one of the best I've eaten.

Anyway back to Red Emperor, we got there at 3:15pm. On Sundays, their kitchen stays open until 4pm for lunch, so there were still trays of hot piping dim sum being pushed out on trolleys. We got about 9 different dim sum dishes, mostly steamed. It's the best I've eaten so far in Melbourne but it's quite pricey so you get what you pay. It costed us $72. Red Emperor is owned by the same owners as Taipan in Doncaster East.

I like the dim sum in Taipan too. Taipan serves bigger portions at cheaper prices, wider variety of dim sum to choose from, more tables available albeit the further driving distance. So it depends on what you are after, both are equally good. As usual, I was too hungry and forgot to take photos of the dainty dim sum dishes at Red Emperor . I would definitely go back for another meal.

Hello March

First blog for month of March 2008. On Saturday 1/3, we stayed home as we invited 4 guests over for lunch. We bought 2.5kg worth of eye fillet to feed everyone. Keith had the honour of cooking again. He served the steak with scallop potatos and roasted beetroot. For dessert we had apple pie and vanilla ice cream. I managed to take photos of the steak and potatos.Look at the amount of steak!!!

Yummy baked scallop potatos.

I also had my first taste of vodka cruiser cool lime drink by Kristov that sell for $4 a bottle. It was refreshing and sweet. It comes in various flavours such as passionfruit, raspberry, lemon, pineapple, orange and blueberry. Back in uni days, we used to drink subzero as that was the only ready to drink pre-mixed alcoholic drink available. These days we are spoilt with so many choices.

Anyway, some of our guests stayed on for dinner and Keith made a salmon caesar salad. I was too sleepy and tired by then to take photos of dinner. The meal was perfect after such a heavy lunch. Needed more veggies to balance off. It was close to midnight by the time we had the house to ourselves again. I'm so thankful to have a dishwasher!!! :)

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.