gav's birthday - food fest

auntie treated us to a nice dinner tonight at "jade dragon" restaurant in templestowe. above, the banana fritter with ice cream. it wasn't like pisang goreng coz the batter wasn't in many "crisps" but rather one smooth shell, somewhat like the batter used in fish n chips. the ice cream was good and creamy though.

scallops with fried garlic.
in the arvo we had a barbie with ivan and ee lane, we barbecued chicken wings, corn, pork sausages and onions. somehow things taste better when barbecued than pan fried. i can't explain why! must be the burnt bits.
the gorgeous cakes they brought us from crown bakery were lovely.

fish head meehoon

Auntie decided to make fish head meehoon but using salmon instead [i'd never heard of such a thing but i love salmon so it can't go too wrong!]
she got a couple of salmon heads from the market.
the fish got coated with cornflour and fried in oil, then she
boiled them up with some salted veg, tomatoes, ginger, fish sauce, pepper and carnation evaporated milk.of cousre the meehoon had to be soaked and scalded before serving.
then garnished with spring onions. it turned out pretty okay!

here and there in Victoria

we went to monash clayton just to have a little look around.we have so many malaysian friends who came to study here so i wanted to finally see the famous monash clayton! aesthetics wise, i wouldn't say there was anything that fantastic about its buildings/grounds. i've seen much prettier uni buildings/grounds.... but when it came to food! whoa this place was like a shopping centre!

i was really amazed to see how diverse the student body of monash clayton is. there were students from ALL over the world. the food in the cafeteria reflected this too with a nasi lemak and sushi station alongside the usual pizzas/sandwiches/fried stuff.

these wraps and sandwiches looked yummy but nothing beats a nice hot steaming bowl of noodles or rice for me, especially in cold weather!there was even an asian grocery right in the student centre that stocked ready made nasi lemak, nasi goreng and mee goreng! and a little microwave in which to heat it up in.
yinchi loves her chicken chips.
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i have a love hate r'ship with macca's - i love the taste of its greasy/salty food at the same time loathed how it is the epitome of commercialization and how [in malaysia] the prices keep going up and up while the average m'sians income [hence, quality of life] spiral down and down.
the beef burgers here are juicier than in malaysia. also we loved how you can opt for bacon in your burger! yum. gav doesnt look THAT happy here in the picture but i can assure you he liked his burger very much.
their McCafe also intrigued me, with every manner of muffins, cakes and desserts alongside the usual gourmet coffees. somewhat like what you'd get at starbucks or coffeebean.
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sponging off my aunt and uncle here while being unemployed leaves a certain amount of guilt in my system so every opportunity to "give back" I jump at willingly.
She had big dreams of making the most ginormous cake ever for someone's 94th birthday last Sunday so gavin and I got to work on this chocolate cream fudge cake.

with this cold weather the frosting set before I could smoothe it our properly so looks "textured". thank God it tasted good. although I personally wouldn't eat those sugar flowers coz who knows how much artificial colouring there is in them!

kanga banga

Gavin and i tried these kangaroo meat sausages. i didn't like them. they had a wild gamey smell when you bite into them. reminiscent of... liver that's not been cooked properly. although i DID cook these bangers very very thoroughly. apparently they're very good for the environment as roos don't consume as much energy as cows do in producing their meat. also they have less fat and cholestrol...hmm maybe THAT's why they don't taste as good...

porky chinese lunch

gav loves his rice and dishes. he's very Chinese in that way. and he MUST have it with soup! ideally a pork bone soup with watercress or lotus root or old cucumber and dates. but if that's not available he'd settle for a bit of vegemite dissolved in hot water.

i made this steamed pork mince dish in the centre. it couldnt' be easier to make, just mix up some pork mince with a beaten egg, chopped ginger and garlic, a bit of soy sauce and pepper and sesame oil and chives and steam the whole thing until cooked! [about 15 minutes] you can experiment and add whatever else you want such as oyster sauce, a salted egg instead of a regular chicken egg,onions, chinese rice wine, those jarred preserved vegtables from china. think of it as a chinese meatloaf.

this time though i just microwaved it for 10 minutes. it was tasty.

opulent court

Opulent Court in pearl international hotel on old klang road isn't that famous but their weekend dimsum promo is really good! for a flat rate of RM27.90 nett you get to order anything you want off the menu and it'll be made fresh for you. it's all the benefits of a buffet minus the having to serve yourself bit! every item we ordered was excellent. i was enjoying the food too much to take photos but here're just a few things i ordered.

above: the woo kok, cheecheongdun and har kow
below: the spinach soup. i ate the whole thing by myself.
this yam dessert thing was yummy. it was warm when it arrived.

and of course heaps of other things i didn't take photos of!
the frog porridge was excellent, and so were the braised pork ribs. the pao was great too however i must say the best item there was the guillinggao [a black herbal jelly that's sweetish and slightly bitter] i had 2 helpings because it was so good.

one thing to watch out for though is the extra "tit bits" that they put on your table without you asking for it. that's charged separately. it was a disgusting plate of preserved lotus root slices.

one lady server however was quite annoying. when i asked one to take the plate of disgusting preserved lotus root slices away she kept trying to make me keep it, saying it's delicious, it's so cheap anyway, blah blah. i told her i didn't want it. of course i didn't want it! because it's charged separately and honestly why should i bother eating some disgusting preserved lotus root slices when i can order as much fresh steaming hot dimsum as i want from the menu? then she got rude and said "if you'd tasted it you can't give it back"

i got really annoyed and told her i hadn't touched it. so she took it away reluctantly.
sheesh!
what is it with these people? later she came back to me and asked if i were japanese. when i said no, she asked what kind of chinese did i think i was, not being able to speak it?

i didn't bother replying this time because obviously nobody ever taught her that your customer is not someone to be lectured/quizzed about one's personal life.

so, the verdict is :

food taste/quality: 10/10
service: 5/10 [bcoz the other servers were great!]

home cooked

gavin and i like home cooked food the best. we cook whenever we can and enjoy trying out new recipes. even more so now where eating out is so expensive! to eat in you can have a nice square meal with meat, veg and carbs for just $3 a head, but eating out is a min of $9 a head. perhaps in malaysia some had good excuses for not wanting to cook but here we definitely have no choice! it's healthier anyway since you can control the salt/oil.
this is our fav way to cook green veg - with ikan bilis! all these were taken at my aunt's hse in macleod. she loves to cook too :D
i love mushies.

Papa gino's pizza on lygon street

the pizza here was excellent with a crispy yeasty crust and cheesy topping. gav didn't like the salty anchovies but i loved them. we had the gino's special ($18 for a large one which was large enough for 4 people!) which was one with ham, capscicum and mushrooms, and potato wedges ($6) on the side.
the crispy wedges came with sour cream and a sweet chilli sauce which i didnt like very much.
the service was prompt and efficient but we didnt like how they wanted to charge us 50cents for a cardbox box to takeaway the leftovers.