sydney bites

the husband's been out and about in sydney and this is what he's been having. he says it's great!

in just one afternoon

Jennifer came over and asked what I had in fridge and proceeded to cook up a storm. she's a chef you see. so today i had my own personal chef to cook for me while i relaxed and watched.
anyway so she dug up some pesto, sundried tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, pine nuts, basil, olives and beef mince.

this is how it turned out!


it was really delicious. tasted like something you'd pay a lot for at L'opera or itallianies.


the olive oil from the pesto and sundried tomatoes brought a really fragrant fruity flavour and the beef made it so tasty. after lunch we made anzac cookies.these are oaty coconutty cookies made with golden syrup and brown sugar so it has a really deep caramel flavour and chewy texture from the coconut.

jaring at mentari sunway

the nasi ayam at jaring is pretty good. the sourish pineapple and onion "salsa" [acar?] was good. gav said the chilli sauce was good too. the helping of roasted chicken was quite generous, it tasted quite similar to chinese roasted chicken but the soup was distinctly malay.
I had some fried things that I regret taking. the round cucur thing was not what i expected so i didn't finish it. the sugary doughnut was also not what i expected, it was full of sweet potato or something! i thought it would be a flour doguhnut. the popiah was okay but it wasn't crispy.

anyway we're definitely gonna come here again to try the sup "gearbox" that has a huge bone sticking out of it.

al nafourah at le meridien

this restaurant is so beautiful. located on the 8th floor at le meridien, it smells good the moment you step in. sunlight streams in from the floor to ceiling windows draped in rich brown and gold curtains, the ceiling lamps cast a nice glow.
we'd not usually find ourselves at posh hotels having posh meals as we're not affluent folk but we were given this coupon for a free set lunch.

i was really looking forward to this meal because i envisioned typical arab fare - hummus, baba ghanoush, koftas, roast lamb and briyani but i was disappointed because the set lunch was already "Set" and it wasn't anything near what i expected! the 1st course was a bland bean salad, a few leaves and cold "seafood" rice cake with mushed up bits of "seafood" [which i suspect was crabstick and tuna] that tasted as if it were made from the leftovers from last week's buffet. it was so bland/tasteless that we had to eat it with the salty olives to make it taste acceptable. i highly doubt that anything in this appetizer was middle eastern at all, save for the olives. since when did arabs have a tradition of crabstick?
however i loved the decor. this lamp looks so quaint and antiqued.
our main course was a roast chicken fillet with vegetable pieces that also tasted as if they were recycled from another restaurant's buffet spread. the chicken wasn't terrible but still not as tasty as ayamas'. it was rather bland after the skin had been removed. i surely wasn't expecting to have roast chicken at an arab restaurant! if i'd wanted roast chicken i would've gone to dave's deli. there was nothing arab about this at all.
the only thing i enjoyed about this meal was the milk pudding and orange jelly layered dessert. it was creamy and flavourful, also the coffee was aromatic. the scary looking red cordial was revolting. perhaps just the colour of it put me off.
we lingered around quite long because we were enjoying the arab R&B music that was playing.
overall this meal was quite disappointing although the decor and music was good.the service was also impeccable. but really! all that hype and the food is so disappointing! how can this be?

apparently they do serve very good middle eastern lamb dishes, and mezze platters and dips and sheesh tawooks, all from the ala carte menu which of course, cost an arm and a leg. their buffets are priced around RM108++ per head. i think it's a sin to spend that much on ONE meal when that amount can feed a poor family for a week.

after reading the experience of this other blogger,
my suspicion is that this "Set lunch" came about specifically for the sake of "rewarding" the starwood privilege card holders or something of the sort, so they had to make something up that looked as if it's worth a lot but in reality, is nowhere near the standard expected. only those with these free "privilege" coupons would eat the miserable set lunches so since they're not paying anything, they can't complain, so might as well serve them up something cheap but make it LOOK impressive.

very crafty plan i must say.

burger joint

everyone's addicted to mcdonald's burgers. you can tell by the booming business they're doing and how outlets there are. in subang jaya alone there are .... 4 outlets! [including taipan] but their prices are skyrocketing and eveyrone's still eating there! the recent prosperity burger sets came to almost RM20 all for just ONE fast food meal. perhaps now i'll think of going to macca's as a special occasion treat instead of a "FAst food meal".
it's interesting to note that macca's started out as a small stall too somewhere in the US.

recently I had the opportunity to sink my teeth into one of these homemade burgers at this stall in SS14's tanjung mamak bistro. unlike macca's they're only open at nights.
we had the mushroom and cheese burger which was REALLY REALLY good and meaty, and full of beefy flavour. these burgers are made really nice and thick and go really well with the mushrooms, onions, cheese and ketchup. and with the fries it came up to RM7 which is pretty good considering these are homemade burgers. I'd consider these more like the burgers one would get at TGIF but in a mamak place.

there are several types of burgers on their menu so i havent tried them all but i do intend to! I highly recommend it. they're open every evening until 1am except sundays.