Flying Home...

Holiday came to an end and it's time to say "So Long!" to Melbourne! We packed our belongings and flew home last night. The face of Melbourne changed quite a bit over the past years and I am sorry to have to say that I like the city more in the past than the present. The changes in the demography of the city have changed the friendliness and the beauty of the place. The strength of the currency makes everything more expensive and less interesting. Having said that, I still had my getaway from home and it is always great to have an occasional break from our routines, from time to time. More importantly,  the five of us were together as a family and experienced all the goods, the bads, the frights, the fights, the laughs and so much more. We are also proud to have prevented ourselves from being cheated by an Indian money changer who tried to take away A$300 from us, in the form of 12.5% commission fee that he created by himself for himself. What a jerk! The last jerk we saw in 2012. 

Goodbye 2012, we are waiting for the arrival of new year in less than three hours.....

I try to make myself comfortable in the plane during a rather long flight, this one included. I put on the slippers from the hotel and sipped up some Solitaire Dreams served by a nice Flight Attendant of Singapore Airlines.

Queen Victoria Market

It was the day after Boxing Day and it was our plan to check out Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne. It a within walking distance from the hotel where we stayed.

Boxing Day

It's Boxing Day and our intention was to stay as far away from the shops as possible, we had no plan to go the malls and try to get good bargains. Let other people have them! We went to St. Kilda beach instead. Absolutely not to swim! It's windy and too cold for us and many people. We strolled along trying to enjoy the scenery and took some pictures. That's all. And had lunch. And did a bit of window shoppings.

Christmas In Melbourne!

Merry Christmas from Melbourne! A view of Yarra river on Christmas day. Peace on earth and good health to everyone and their loved ones!

Christmas Cookies

They were baked, decorated and eaten!

Chicken Espetada From Nando's

This was our first and maybe the only time eating at Nando's at the Star Vista. I tried their Chicken Thigh Espetada with selected grilled vegetables and spicy rice for the sides. The food was okay but the service was really poor. Despite many empty tables, it was hard to get the attention from the waiters. When two out of the three meals ordered were served, nobody provided us with utensils. We had to ask and we could not get any waiter to do it until a while. We asked for water and the order was forgotten.  Very disappointing!

Yakitori Bento At Nanbantei

Back in the beginning of our marriage years when we were working in Singapore (before our adventure for many years in Jakarta!), we had started frequenting Nanbantei, a Japanese restaurant specializing in Yakitori, located in Far East Plaza. For more than 20 years we keep on coming here and we also take our kids and friends to this place. The Obento that we always order is still as good, the location is still the same and the price is still inexpensive. Our recent visit was last Saturday. These days, we always request that our quail eggs to be substituted with vegetable, we normally get grilled ocra.

A Drive By

Living here does not mean that we have been to most of its attractions.  We are aware that this island has a new place for people to go to namely Gardens by the Bay. We just have not make it there yet. One Saturday morning, when we tried to check out Marina Barrage, we ended up passing by the Gardens and decided to drive around a bit and snapped some pictures from our car. That's it. Maybe we will be able to go there and walk around. One day. One fine day.

Sambal Chicken

Sambal Chicken is one of my favorite dishes that happens to be well liked by DH and Miss K too. I normally made the dish using the cut up chicken but this time, I only used the breast. No picking bones needed and that just made Miss K's day. I mixed in some Kaffir Lime leaves, simply because I love them. We had them with homemade Nasi Lemak. So wonderful!

Saba Shio

Saba Shio or Grilled Mackerel with salt is simple, but tasty. The dish is widely available in many Japanese restaurants around. When I find myself in a situation where I just do not know what to order, I tend to get this one, together with a bowl of salad. This Saba Shio was from Sushi Tei at Raffles City.

Driving In The Rain ...

It has been raining quite a bit here lately. We still some sun, especially in the morning, but then, rain will come in the afternoon before it clears up again later on in the day. We went out for lunch a couple of days ago and by the time we finished, it poured heavily. The traffic was affected, as always.

Back To Sweet Potato Chips!

I have been making conscious effort to live more healthily, I try to minimize the amount of less healthy food than I make and consume. Occasionally, I still indulge myself with more sinful snacks like these Sweet Potato Chips. They are deep fried (!) but eating just a bit, I hope, won't hurt too much.

Char Siu Su

It has been one of the longest weeks I have ever had and it is only Wednesday! My downstairs neighbor has decided that their place was not good enough so they are demolishing the whole house. The wooden floors were removed, the ceilings were torn down and the granite flooring is being hacked. All the works resulted in just super horrible noise and unpleasant vibration from the drilling and other machinery or tools the workers used. Other than that, my life is wonderful and as perfect as any other human being's life. Thank God for that!

One of my favorite dim sums is Char Siu Su or Baked Barbeque Pork Puffs. I love the combination of buttery-flaky pastry and the sweet barbequed pork inside. We had dim sum on Monday in Crystal Jade Dining In in Vivocity as we attempted to the get away from the nuisance coming from the unit downstairs.

Are We Close To Friday Yet?

That was the question I asked to Miss K when she was about to leave the door for school this morning. For a brief period, I had memory lapse, a glitch in my brain, completely forgetting what day today was. My daughter said, "Fat chance!" and I suddenly was made aware that it was only Monday. Which turned out to be a Manic Monday, thanks to The Bangles. What an utter disappointment! 

I happened to be in the neighborhood of Tanglin Mall after running the first errand of the day and took some pictures of their Christmas Decoration that the Mall put outside. It looked like it was not quite completed yet, I saw some work-in-progress nearby. The tree stood tall and the elves above were already there too, guarding the (fake) presents. They looked adorable, but warnings not too touch were pasted all over the place. Just look and be content!

Tahu Sumedang

Back when I was younger, wayyyyyy.... younger, I used to eat a lot of this deep fried beancurd from a place in West Java called Sumedang. Sumedang is about 40km away from the Capital City of West Java, Bandung.  Today, after many years not eating them, I had the privilege of having some, courtesy of my sister who lives in Bandung. These are not the original ones, but I am grateful to have something close to them. You can read more about Tahu Sumedang from this Wiki page. Thanks to DH for bringing them to Jakarta and all the way to Singapore. Some of them are in my tummy! Yum. Yum. Yum.

Bread Pudding

I made this with two slices of leftover wholemeal bread. Miss K sprinkled some sugar on top and used a blow torch to caramelize the top part.

Cheese Buns!

The fastest way for me to have Cheese Buns that I like is by making them myself at home. I had some leftover refrigerated sweet dough that I needed to clear and for filling, I used a combination of both white and red cheddar and some mozzarella cheese for that gooey effect! Yummmm.......

Sauteed Monkey Head Mushroom

I jumped at the chance to eat Monkey Head Mushroom when the waitress of Jiang Nan Restaurant of Four Seasons Hotel, mentioned it when we went last month. We went again last Sunday and had the same dish. They were sauteed and served on a bed of green vegetables. The menu says it was Kung Po style, whatever that means. Not only it sounded interesting, it tasted good as well. This dish was part of the Buffet Weekend Brunch at the restaurant which I like. A lot!

Macarons

These macarons were gifted to DH for his birthday. They came together a small birthday cake. We are not big fans of macarons, we had some of them and still have a couple left. 

One Of Those...

By now, wherever I go in the city, I can see Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. Here's one of them. The tree is in front of Paragon Shopping Centre in Orchard Rd.

Chicken Rice At Killiney Rd

Having some errands to run, DH and I decided to have a quick and easy lunch in a place nearby. It was my first time eating at this restaurant. I ordered a set of chicken rice that came with a plate of vegetable and a drink for $6.50. DH's had a soya chicken set.

No Bake Granola Bars With Chocolate Chip

Made by Miss K, eaten mostly by her too! Photographed by yours truly using iPhone4S.

Prego Lunch!

To begin with, we were served with bagel-lookalike bread, the size of a big bagel with a couple jars of Ricotta Cheese mix. We requested olive oil anyway, since we always love to have our bread with olive oil. I fell in love with the two-in-one olive oil and balsamic vinegar bottle they had. I wish I could take it home.

What each of us ordered for our lunch was so predictable, everyone was sticking to what they like and what they normally would like to have. The birthday boy had, I think, pan-grilled Sea bass, which he had before when he came to Prego with his business friends.

Miss K had Ravioli with Buffalo Ricotta and super creamy sauce. It was really good but I wonder how many calories it has in one dish alone. Absolutely a very rich dish!

I was still quite full from my breakfast, that's what happens when you take proper breakfast, you are not hungry yet by 12. I chose Rucola Salad. It was a simple salad, mostly dominated by green Arugula, but the presence of sliced pears brought some niceness to the whole salad. I personally do not care much about the shaved parmesan cheese there. I wanted more pears!

DH is actually a Pizza lover and loves to have a slice or two whenever he goes to an Italian restaurant.We had what they called Gustosa Pizza with thin crust. It has Ricotta, Arugula, Pine Nuts, Mozzarella and Parmesan Cheese on top. We took home most the leftover, we had definitely too much food.

Prego For Birthday Lunch

It's big 50! The birthday boy was scheduled to leave the country in the afternoon, therefore we needed to have an earlier lunch for a little celebration. Our appointment was 11:30 and I was not too happy when told by the staff of Prego that they will only start preparing lunch at 12. I protested that. Why then, they put their lunch time on their website to start from 11:30. 

Anyway, here are some pictures we captured while we waited for the food. The restaurant was almost empty, there were a couple of tables that were occupied. I saw the head chef talking to two guests sitting quite near us, almost the whole time we were there. Sure, that made us wonder why he was not in the kitchen making our food, huh?

A Turning Point!

I am not sure how it feels to be 50, I am not there yet. But for DH who will be qualified for fabulous 50s tomorrow, this is something that he could look forward to, a big fat 50% discount on his meal. This ad was found on the wall of a Japanese restaurant in Great World City. Not so bad for turning 50!

Chicken Salad Wrap

Nothing fancy here, just a simple chicken salad wrap that I had for lunch at home yesterday. DH and K were out for lunch at their favorite Japanese restaurant in Funan, the one that I dislike. So much.

Lunch At Mezza9

I do not get too excited about having lunch at Mezza9, Grand Hyatt, as I used to. Like Miss K, I can't really find anything that I like to have on their menu. But here we were on one Thursday afternoon last month, trying to have lunch as DH was looking forward to dine in the premise. There were a lot of customers but there were some empty tables, we got a table for three with no problem. I noticed that the staff moved about, fast, towards being frantic, which almost immediately made me feel uneasy. It's unpleasant to eat with busy and noisy surrounding when your expectation was to have a relaxing lunch. Mezza9 that I knew delivered good service, but that day was not one of them. It was hard to get their attention and they constantly moved about and failed to give attention to our table.

I ended up selecting a two-course meal, choosing the salad above and cheeseburger. The salad was simply ordinary and the burger was just okay. The fries was nice, tasty and crunchy on the outside.

It was an easy pick for DH, this Fried Soo Hock Fish had always been the one that he ordered most of the time and the same one he had that day. together with a bowl of steamed rice. He was happy with it.

Miss K had a Green Chicken Curry, served with a bowl of rice, which I guess was okay too. Since hers was a two-course meal, she also selected a dessert of the day. I can't remember its name. I am certain, she enjoyed the dessert!

DH had a slice of his favorite cake and we ended the meal with both DH and I had Cappuccino.