Lately I’ve been a train girl instead of a bus girl. But today I took the bus to work.I forgot how nice it was to sit on a slightly empty bus looking at the scenery, thinking of nothing.
It’s been a terrible week. Even the weekend looks stark.I’ve been poached to go back to my old organisation. Should be happy but I have to admit, my first thought was ‘yeah can drink low down coffees again’. Pathetic lah.
Sometimes after a long working day, cooking in the kitchen can be a bit of a chore. I love cooking days when I have the whole day to myself, the kitchen to myself and all the time in the world to prepare my lunch bentos.
I also love cute bento boxes. When I was in Japan, they had so many pretty bento boxes of different shapes and sizes. I wanted to bring them all home.
Lunch bento with ossobuco and belachan kangkung with rice.
Stir fried chicken with basil, cashew nuts and button mushrooms.
Added with kailan and steamed rice, tomorrow’s simple lunch bento.
It’s been a while since I last made tamagoyaki so they look a bit wonky (^__^).
Teriyaki beef and tamagoyaki rolls with rice lunch bento.
Hooray for bento days!
I had a really lovely weekend! Too bad it only lasted till Saturday since Sunday was black assignment Sunday again (T____T).
But the weekend started early on Friday night when we celebrated Xinchen’s belated birthday. Recognize the handwriting on the cake? I made the birthday signs myself, haha, very DIY right?
Can you guess what Xinchen is wishing for? I hope he struck the lottery this weekend.
He didn’t win any money at our mahjong game though, because we don’t play with money. But it was still fun learning the rules, chatting, drinking sweet wine and playing round after round. The night wrapped up around 3am! Our latest mahjong night yet!
Saturday ramen at Arigataya. This ramen store just isn’t very consistent, we had some good ramen before on a Wednesday, but this time their broth wasn’t as flavourful, weekend diluted effect?
My first time at a German restaurant in Perth. I’ve passed by Beethoven many times and remarked ‘we should try this place some day’. And so we did on Saturday. The pretty lights at the restaurant were very welcoming and felt like it was beaconing to us a good night ahead.
I was pleasantly surprised at the cosy and warm atmosphere inside the restaurant, the mid circle booths were comfy and the candles romantically lit. I could already imagine coming here with friends and family.
My veal wiener schnitzel with mash, braised red cabbage and mushroom sauce. With a squeeze of lemon, this schnitzel was surprisingly tasty with crispy breadcrumbs, tender veal mopped up with a yummy mushroom sauce. This gently spiced vinegary red cabbage gave the whole dish an acidic touch and lifted the oiliness of the dish. It felt like comforting, homecooked food. I’m not sure whether that’s what German food is like, but it was nice.
This Schweinebraten was pot roasted pork leg served in a pepper corn gravy with sauerkraut and mash. The slices of pork leg were tender and flavourful, not too rich and delicious. Another meat dish with a home cooked feel to it.
My favourite part of most meals, dessert! I don’t usually like apple strudel but this one was yummy and easy to polish off with vanilla icecream.
I really liked Beethoven, it was such a pleasant surprise and I would recommend the place to friends who like hearty, homemade, slowcooked food (Wendy and J, it’s buy one main get one main free on the Entertainment card!). I overhead a girl who had the whole lamb rack exclaiming that she was eating so fast because it was delicious, I’m going to try that next!
Beethovens
4 Sleat Rd
Applecross, 6153
It wasn’t all eating out during the weekend. It wasn’t bulk cooking because I didn’t have time, but it was my first attempt at cooking Ossobuco, which is braised veal shanks with vegetables, white wine and chicken stock. Ligament King liked it.
I’ll cook more bentos today and blog about it next time.
Thursdays used to mean ‘suburb shopping’ nights. Walking around Carousel where you’ll inevitably end up bumping into friends. Everyone in Perth flocks to shopping centers on Thursday nights just to revel in the joy of shopping after 5pm. Ya, we’re pretty sad here in Perth. But at least we’re getting some sort of extended trading hours now. Maybe in 20 years the shops will open on Sundays.
Nowadays Thursdays don’t signal the shopping fever in me anymore. They just mean early hours in the office and slogging away till.. till it’s time to go home. Even worse than not being able to go shopping after work, I find myself *SIGH* hitting the books and studying (or pretending to).
I swear I wasn’t such a studious person back in university. Actually my parents would swear to that. In fact, I was a very very lazy student. I’m still lazy now, but maybe as you grow older you get more guilty and study conscious. The idea of failure at a ripe old age feels much more scary. So there I am, indulging in a bowl of beef noodles (ok lah, that was R’s bowl, I had my favourite indo mee) and trying not to fall asleep while reading my heavy textbook (why do they make them so thick ah?). I can read novel after novel day by day, my Agatha Christie murder mystery collection is quite staggering (just at the thought that I’ve spent so much money on those books), but god, textbooks are the most boring things on earth. How do they manage to squeeze so many meaningless and boring terms in one sentence?!
Ok, I’ll stop whining now. At least it’s Friday tomorrow and I know roast duck is on the menu. Whheeee.
Today I met up with the boys for lunch. It’s been a long while since we’ve had an impromptu gathering like this.
They all felt a little older. A little more stressed out. Ok, make that a lot more stressed out. Most All of them are in job hunting mode and job hunting is tough. But it was still nice just sitting in the typical Chinese restaurant and chomping on chicken rice while trading meaningless conversation.
I was waiting at the Curtin bus station before heading to my meeting location. All the uni students that trailed out of the bus in their sneakers, jeans, tees and messy hair. They all looked so young that I felt like a fossil. Then and there, I almost wished I could go back to my uni days, but then again, I don’t remember my uni days being all that much fun anyway.
Sigh, I wish I could feel settled and secure with where life is heading, but it’s been so many years, and I’m still insecure and have no idea what I’m doing. I think I’ll still not know when I’m 50. 🙂 So moral of the story is probably just stop thinking so much and just live day by day. Haha, really lame right?
Long gone are the days when I cooked different meals everyday. I still remember that I used to decide on the menu depending on what was looking good in the grocer’s on my way home from work. Nowadays, with the long working days and part time student life, I have *gulp*succumbed to bulk cooking. As in preparing the week’s lunch bentos and dinners in one day. Sundays have now become my study cramming plus bulk cooking days.
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the cooking process. But I do miss the fun of designing and planning each day’s dish in advance, of buying my ingredients daily and scouting new recipes and lunch bento ideas. I always pack my lunch bento in my little red checked lunch bag that my mum bought for me, it’s just so cute and happy and I do believe in the slogan that that it’s a pleasure to eat lunch.
So what did I cook today? A whole roast chicken! It was juicy and tender, a large bird enough to go around for a few dinners.
Also a large pot of sweet corn chicken soup. Despite this being one of my favourite soups, I’ve never actually tried cooking this from scratch and have always had it out of a can or at restaurants. It’s actually super easy to make and obviously much nicer than the Campbell version. (^___^).
This is my ‘ quick and easy’ category of lunch bentos, stir fried sweet soy pork fillets with tomato and spinach omelet.
This one is not so quick and easy but very sinful and tasty for an otherwise terrible work day (haha already predicting my work week in advance). Thai style slow braised pork belly with mixed vegetables and tofu slices with rice.
Leftover roast chicken slices with roasted carrots, braised soy half boiled egg and szechuan pickled vegetables with rice. East meets West style lunch bento.
I love souvenirs from interstate! Adriano Zumbo’s macarons. I’m not a big fan of macarons and have never been into the macaron craze that’s hitting Perth.
Rose flavoured macaron. These macarons were quite nice and interesting with different flavours, I remember eating a eucalyptus one thinking it was green tea because it was green in colour! I still think the ones that my foodie sis Jan brought over from Paris were much nicer though, I can’t remember where they were from though. Was it Pierre Herme? or Laduree? Jan?
Sigh… and the weekend is over again.
I didn’t know what to do with our big bag of plums and nectarines that were getting soft so I googled for a plum cake recipe and came up with this Plum and Vanilla tea cake.
The cake turned out really ugly, sunk in the middle with oozing plum and nectarine juice . I couldn’t take a good photo. I thought ‘oh oh… disaster’, then I had a sample bite, and another. The cake was moist and creamy, the topping of the cake was like a polo bao, sweet, crispy and crumbly. Ugly cakes can be yummy too! I think I might like baking after all.
Lunch bento tomorrow is Thai green curry chicken with turmeric rice! Don’t know what to do with your leftover coconut milk? Add it to your rice cooker (^___^)Y.
Ok, I’m going to get fat and have another slice of cake. Hehe.
This weekend I didn’t have just one but two foodie adventures. Somehow weekends have evolved into ‘trying out new places’ with my makan gang. I already have a breakfast place scouted for next Saturday, anyone up for it?
This Saturday it was the Dizzy Witch cafe which I’ve passed by many times(en route to Phi Yen) and always wanted to try because of their cute name. The cafe itself is spacious and comfy, definitely a good place to have coffee or breakfast with a bunch of friends.
Weekend coffees always taste especially good probably because I’ve given up on my daily work coffees. I’m also partial to coffees made from Five Senses coffee beans and nice latte art, so this one went down well.
My breakfast was a fetta cheese and spinach muffin, nothing to shout about but it satisfied my craving for a spinach something.
The Warlock’s Last Meal ($18.50) is actually the Dizzy Witch’s version of the big breakfast, came with the usual condiments of bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms etc. I didn’t try this but had a bite of the potato rosti which was pretty good.
Half serve of the Griselda’s Egg Benedict ($12), I know Jo enjoyed this dish.
Dizzy witch’s signature dish, Moroccan eggs ($15) which was fried eggs with home-made dukkah and hommus, mint, red onion and tomato relish on Turkish bread. I think Jason said this was pretty good but he has had better hommus elsewhere. I had a bite and found it refreshing (must be the mint) with a distinct spice (cumin?) flavour to it.
Sometimes you just need a pie … and best if it’s a hot piping lamb curry pie. This was yummy and comfort food. Overall, the Dizzy Witch cafe was alright, the food wasn’t outstanding but it was standard breakfast fare with pretty good coffee and a nice relaxing atmosphere.
The Dizzy Witch cafe
197 – 199 Brisbane St
Northbridge Perth, Western Australia, 6000
With all the new restaurants and cafes popping up around the Victoria Park Albany Highway cafe strip, Ying Thai is a bit of blink and miss. Having spotted it quite a few months ago, I’ve been meaning to try this Thai restaurant for quite a while
The restaurant space is tiny, fitting maybe around 10 or less little tables. The lunch menu featured usual favourites such as green curry, red curry, pad thai etc. Almost all the guys ordered Pad Thai ($9.80) and found it alright. It wasn’t the best Pad Thai I’ve had, but all the guys agreed that it was tasty.
HC and I had the Kao-Mon Gai-Tod which is crumbed fried chicken with coconut rice and sweet chilli sauce ($10.80). I enjoyed this dish and found it really tasty, I mean how can you go wrong with fried chicken AND coconut rice, surely one of the most fattening combinations of all time? The coconut rice was fragrant and lovely, going well with the sweet chilli sauce and crispy salty chicken. I would order this again.
Jo had the Kway Teow Tom Yum Seafood ($11.80) which I thought was quite nice but she says she prefers Toto’s Tom Yum which I agree is more flavorful . I personally think Ying Thai is a great addition to the Victoria Park cafe strip, there aren’t enough little Thai restaurants around offering affordable individual meals. Their ala carte menu looks extensive and pretty good too with main dishes hovering around the $14 – 17 price range. I will definitely return.
Ying Thai
Shop 3/895 Albany Highway
East Victoria Park
It wasn’t all eating out during the weekend. I also cooked a big pot of mei chai kou rou which was more mei chai than belly pork. I thought about buying a pressure cooker which would save so much time on braising these harder cuts of meat but then there’s the satisfaction of biting into the oh-so-tender texture of belly pork that can only come from hours of braising. Perhaps a pressure cooker would yield the same flavours and texture? I’m not sure. Ah Ma?
The lunch bento the next day was soo comforting and good.
Tomorrow’s very traditional Chinese cooking bento of minced pork and mushroom in bean paste and stir-fried bittergourd with eggs. I never knew I would like bittergourd but now I’m a convert, I’m looking forward to it to lunch tomorrow(^___^).
On Monday I cooked the most unauthentic spaghetti and meatballs in the world.
Doesn’t look remotely like Italian pasta right? Actually I was cooking a Japanese style pasta, as in my meatball was really teriyaki braised mini hambagus and my tomato based pasta sauce was mixed with beef stock and and my teriyaki sauce. It was surprisingly pretty good, very light and tasty. I will cook this again.
My lunch bento tomorrow is another Japanese-y dish, miso and mirin marinated pan fried basa fillets with kailan and steamed rice. Healthy or not?
When I told my mother that I was baking friands, she originally thought that I had spelled ‘friends’ incorrectly. Then she realised that I was talking about friands, a popular Australian pastry which is based on the French financier. These little cakes are very cutely shaped, made with almond meal, butter, icing sugar, egg whites and flour.
I only decided to bake them because I sampled a delectable friand over the weekend and discovered that they’re really easy to make and can be baked without using any machines! Yeah, no cleaning! I didn’t have a friand mould so made do with my muffin tray, the friands still came out looking very cute. I mixed orange zest, orange juice and blueberries in my friand mixture, the mini cakes were moist, buttery and yums. Haha, so happy that I found an easy baking recipe.
Nowadays I love being in the kitchen because it means I’m away from work (-___-). Two more days to the weekend …
The only thing better than weekends are long weekends! It’s a bit ironic that it was the Labour Day long weekend because work was getting me really depressed and I really needed the break.
Mine started off with brunch at Cranked again, the service was still great and the coffee good as usual. This was the french toast with bacon and maple syrup. Tasty combination.
HC’s short stack of pancakes with mascarpone and strawberries looked yummy.
Then there was my own adventures in the kitchen, nothing new or interesting but the foolproof delicious bak kut teh which becomes more flavorful and intense overnight. So good and comforting with a bowl of steamed rice.
I must be craving Malaysian food because I also had curry laksa over the weekend. I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about Rasa Nyonya before. I think maybe I have a secret urge to keep it away from the Perth crowd, because it’s such a nice little place for good, affordable Malaysian fare. I really like their version of curry laksa which is $8.50 a bowl and just not too heavy for a nice curry coconut milky session.
It’s fantastic that Rasa Nyonya is so close to home, the place is getting popular I can tell, I hope this doesn’t mean a dip in the consistency of the food and service which so far has always been really good. Their version of Penang Char Kway Teow is my favourite in Perth, the first bite and you can taste the ‘wok hei’ (err how do I describe this?the smokiness and heat from the wok?) which is an essential element of every good place of char kueh teow. Rasa Nyonya does that so well, add in the right balance of seasoning, crunchy beansprouts, fried egg, bounciness of prawns, it’s lovely.
Ok, time to indulge in some final long weekend moments of TVB drama watching, bye!
Rasa Nyonya
Shop 6&7 1019 Albany Highway East Victoria Park
Perth, 6102
daitaoha 
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