Vego lunch bento

Sundays are always very productive days for me in the kitchen. I know friends and family think I’m a bit nuts cooking or baking after work even when it’s been a crazy week, but really, it relaxes me, I call it cooking therapy.

This was a while back, making a tray of ricotta and spinach cannelloni.

Finally managed to tick off one of my 2013 kitchen resolutions, also my first time baking a layered cake, it wasn’t as pretty as I would have liked it to be, but I will get better I hope :). This was a double ginger cake with cream cheese lime frosting.

It was actually fragrant and moreish. Double whammy of ginger with fresh ginger in the batter as well as crystallized ginger pieces as garnish. The lime zest and lime juice in the cream cheese frosting cut through the richness of the cake. I’m not sure I will bake this again because there are so many more cakes to bake, but I did like the combination of ginger and lime.

R’s favourite pork belly loh bak again. With braised eggs and tofu.

I have a good friend at work who is vegetarian and a sweet tooth so I’ve been bringing her lots of sweet treats. But tomorrow I’m making her a vegetarian lunch box! Teriyaki tofu, tamagoyaki and grilled eggplant dengaku style (sweet miso sauce) with rice. I hope she likes it Y(^___^)Y.

I will be trying chocolate caramel slice and macarons next!

Upside down Sundays

Jo’s request for this weekend’s family dinner was Thai themed. Every now and then she gets a craving for Thai food and will request old favourites like pineapple fried rice.

Surprisingly, this time she felt like pad thai! It’s been a while since I’ve cooked pad thai so this version wasn’t as good as it could be, I didn’t have any crushed peanuts which I feel is so essential in a good pad thai and I ran out of fish sauce!

Thai green chicken curry which I loaded with lots of vegetables including carrots, eggplant and mushrooms.

Sunday brunch at Gordon Street Garage in West Perth (opposite Harbour Town). It was my second visit to the much hyped and popular Gordon Street Garage, unfortunately the second visit wasn’t as good as my first. It was a beautiful day and we didn’t have to wait to get a table.

While service was friendly, they seemed rather flustered with no water offered and a wait for menus and ordering. It was even more disappointing to be told that they had a ‘huge breakfast crowd’ which meant that they could only serve pizzas for the next half and hour (we were there around noon) and the full lunch menu wouldn’t be available.

Pizzas were not what were were there for so I had a banana muffin instead. It was a sad muffin, not warmed up, dense and dry. I left half my muffin behind :(. Luckily their coffees were fantastic and made up for the lackluster muffin.

Lamb and sumac and basil pizza. It was just average.. I don’ think I will be returning to Gordon Street again, maybe for a takeaway coffee?

Our office is on a sugar high and everyone’s been bringing baked goods in so I’ve jumped on the band wagon and have started baking more frequently. This will be my contribution tomorrow, an upside down orange cake drizzled with orange syrup. I couldn’t resist baking it because it is such a pretty cake and I love baking anything orange and made with almond meal. Yummy with vanilla icecream.

Tristan has had such a bad run with all sorts of illnesses but he is on the mend and was all smiles for his yee yee this weekend. I did miss his smiles and giggles while he was sick so I’m so glad he’s better now.

Day 7 Hongkong: Rubber Duck@Victoria Harbour, Sham Shui Po, Lan Kwai Fong,

It’s Sunday night and I’m sipping on my leftover apple cider (Strongbow sweet) from dinner and watching a rerun of You’ve Got Mail showing on tv.After so many years, I still love that movie and the combination Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in romantic comedies (remember Sleepless in Seattle? So good!).

At dinner tonight, yet another sister commented ‘Your blog is dead’. Seems like I don’t blog unless someone gives me a bit of pressure nowadays (= T _____ T=). Ok, back to my long ago Hongkong holiday posts. It feels so long ago that my posts are probably all inaccurate now and I’m getting the days and places all mixed up, so bear with me.

I remember on the first morning when we returned from Guangzhou, we headed to Lai Chi Kok for the fashion wholesale markets. Many years ago this was my shopping heaven and I remember coming to the Hong Kong Industrial Centre with my mother and my mum bought many lovely suits. This time, the wholesale market was lackluster and there was nothing to buy. I guess I’ve been spoilt by the likes of Bangkok’s Pratunam shopping centre.

Since we were travelling along the Tsuen Wan Line, we stopped by the Sham Shui Po district made famous by many TVB dramas. The famous Apliu Street known for its electronic devices.

We wandered around, looking at the stalls selling batteries, second hand electronic gadgets.

Stopping at a side street cafe in Sham Shui Po to have a bowl of noodles. This was R’s noodles with pork intestines. Lots of veggies. I remember he quite enjoyed these noodles.

I spied some boys at the next table thins having this yin yang fried rice which came with two gravies for those that can’t make up their minds, a sweet and sour tomato gravy and a creamy egg white gravy. It was actually pretty tasty.

Stopped by Kam Wah bakery again to have another polo bun (why didn’t I have more of these?!) and also tried their egg tarts which were very good.

In the afternoon we went to the Harbor City Shopping Mall at Tsim Tsa Tsui in search of a certain yellow rubber duck. But it wasn’t so easy and we couldn’t find the duck anywhere.

But we did find a Hongkong celebrity Ella Koon who was promoting FANCL in the mall. She was actually very pretty, just like tv :).

Little rubber ducks in sight. But still not the big one we were looking for.

Found! There was a huge rubber duck craze in Hongkong caused by this 54 feet rubber duck which just happened to be in the city while we were there (I’m told the ducky is docked in Taiwan now). It was quite funny how loved this duck was and how there were rubber ducks souvenirs sold everywhere, but I have to confess, the duck was pretty cute.

It started getting very hot and we wandered around the Avenue of Stars under umbrellas.

Statue of Bruce Lee, more Malaysians know it now (at least R does) because of the political figure ‘Superman’ who was involved in establishing this structure and is a big Bruce Lee fan.

Victoria Harbour waterfront panorama.

Stopped one of the many Tsui Wah restaurants for a drink and feed before we wilted from the heat. I don’t remember much about my fishball noodles but I think they were average.

One of our nicer dinners at the two michelin stared Good Hope Noodles 好旺角麵家 located on Sai Yeung Choi Street in Mongkok, conveniently located near our hotel. We were very hopeful after reading the raving reviews on their noodles.

My braised beef brisket noodles were very nice and the noodles were great and springy in texture.

R’s mixed innards noodles with soup. We decided that the noodles were even better in soup.

Late night clubbing at the nightlife district of Lan Kwai Fong located in Central. Haha, R and I were trying to be trendy and dressed up for the occasion.

It wasn’t too late, close to midnight but the the streets were already buzzing with beautiful and slightly drunk people,

We ‘cool cats’ only had a cocktail each, visited a couple of pubs and called it a night. But it was a really fun night that I will always remember fondly. Watch out for the next post because that’s when my parents arrive!