Good Food and Wine Show

When I stepped off the train, I had the biggest shock ever..

Southern Cross station had gone green! I have no idea how long it's been like this since I rarely pass by this train station.


Anyway, I've never been to the Good Food & Wine Show before. It usually happens during exam period, but seeing as I don't have exams.. I decided to go on my one and only day off of the week.

The lines were huge when it opened at 10am.

Manu Feildel and Pete Evans.

George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan.

Bought some rose nectar and rose liqueur. I love the bottles!

Large soft pretzels.

Chocolate tools. Haha

Wilton products are so expensive in Australia. Sigh.

Chocolate and walnut tart with salted caramel from the Good Food & Wine Show Restaurant, $8. This was too rich and really required a dollop of cream to offset the chocolate!

Vanilla pannacotta with rhubarb compote from the Good Food & Wine Show Restaurant, $8. It wasn't that great really.. But at least they used real vanilla beans!

I also bought some Reeses peanut butter baking chocolate chips and some Hersheys cinnamon chocolate chips. Now I just need to find the time to bake with them! Sigh...

I wanted to do the Sunbeam cupcake making or Sunbeam Coffee session (which was $30 each I think), even though I know it was tacky enough and a waste of money. But it was sold out before I could make a decision anyway.

Overall, I think I wasted the day. It wasn't that great. I hate crowds, and the crowds were horrid. Maybe it was because it was a Sunday. And the last day of the show. I don't know.. I'd probably still go next year I suppose.

Acquiring an expensive taste

Do you know what this is?


It's a durian. Haha. An exotic Asian fruit, and an acquired taste. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. I personally like it. I've eaten it as a child, so I don't mind it. People say there's a pungent smell from it, but I don't smell that. I think it smells nice? Haha. Like I said, it's an acquired everything.

Weirdly enough, Woolworths has been stocking durians. Unfortunately for them, they don't know how to store them properly. I mean, they're frozen in the first place, but they don't even refrigerate them on shelf so they go off.. I've seen a few moulding at times, and bugs crawling... GROSS!


It's pretty expensive if you think about it. I decided to analyse its fruit content.


I took the flesh out of its 4 compartments and weighed it.


823g of durian flesh.
Now, this weight includes it's seeds. Which would probably weigh 100g give or take.
The whole durian was 2.597kg - 823g of flesh = 1.774kg of inedible durian carcass! O_O
So basically, you pay about $7.06 for the shell only! So only $3.28 is edible. Actually, not even. It's less than that after you remove the seeds.

So there you go. Durian is an expensive fruit. Buy it only if you like it. Eat it whenever you can. :P

Oriental Spoon

I wanted bibimbap. I haven't eaten it before, but I wanted it. Haha. It's a Korean dish of rice with seasoned vegetables, egg, beef and chilli sauce/paste, in which you mix through before eating.

I went to Oriental Spoon for dinner. I haven't been there before but I've heard about the place from several people. (I don't eat out much anyway.. probably because I'm a bit picky with food. :P)

So we all got beef bibimbaps except for one person, who got the special tteokbokki.


This is the "Special Dokbokki". What's so special about it, you ask? Well.. there's the 2 pan fried dumplings and the 2 halves of boiled egg sitting with the normal composition of tteokbokki (rice cakes, sliced fishcakes, ramen, chilli sauce). But. There was something more to it.

I'm not sure if it was intentional or not.. but.. from where I was sitting (and L noticed this too)..

What does this look like to you?


Hehe. We flipped the eggs around so that the crab would have some pupils on it's eyes. Haha :P

I thought that was so cute, intentional or not. Hehehe~ :D

And this was my "Beef Bibimbop".


Such pretty colours~ OH. And not to forget the chilli sauce!


You have no idea how much sauce I put. What you see here is only about 25% of the amount I put in. I was craving for something spicy. I used to not like chilli but now I seem to like spicy things. Anyway, it's perfect for Winter! Yes, it's the season to eat spicy! :)

I don't have a photo of when I mixed the whole thing through. It doesn't look like much, but under all of that is a heap of rice. It's a pretty big serving and I did get full before I reached half way though. But I finished it all in due time (as to not waste food.. I've been brought up this way. Haha). Yes, I was the last to finish my bibimbap. -__-

Oriental Spoon is now my favourite Korean food restaurant. The prices are okay and I like the taste of the food. I like their kimchi and side dishes also. Plus, they speak Korean there. Haha. I wish I were Korean. :(

I'll most likely be back there when I want Korean food. ;)


If you were wondering, the "Grape Bong Bong" is the green canned drink in which appears in the photo with the tteokbokki. It's a carbonated grape drink with real grapes inside. I don't know what it tastes like though.

Just not the same

I had nasi lemak for lunch. And it was kinda disappointing. The taste wasn't want I wanted. It was just not the same.. There's this spicy sauce that I liked. But this didn't have it. :( It's just not the same as the nasi lemak I had in Kuala Lumpur. Booo.

Nasi lemak (beef) $9.80

The taste of this was average. It was okay, but not the greatest. I wouldn't come here for nasi lemak again though. My search for that taste will continue..

Rice Bar (Not Only Rice)
Shop 1, 121 Grattan St
Carlton VIC 3053

Pancake Parlour

Last time I was at Pancake Parlour, would have been over 10 years ago in primary school. I used to think it was a great place and that the pancakes were yummy. They either used to be better, or I didn't know what a good pancake was..

10 years ahead, and I must say, that the food wasn't that great. And worst of all, it was dirty. Now, how dirty? And what do I mean by dirty? Well.. utensils, plates etc.. weren't all that clean. Even the plates from Food Republic in Malaysia are cleaner than it was here! Yuck. Most diners were old people as well. -__-

$12.50 Fare
Comes with tea, coffee or fizzy drink.


Lunchtime Wild Barramundi fillet.Barramundi fillet balanced atop a potato pancake served with side salad and tartare sauce.

2 Course Fare $17.50


Lunchtime crepe escape. A crepe made with organic flour filled with thinly sliced ham and melting cheese and garnished with grilled pineapple. Served with a side salad.


Dessert size Barvarian Apple Pancakes. Warm spiced apple on two baby pancakes with ice-cream dusted with cinnamon sugar.

You call them baby pancakes? I was quite surprised by the size of it. But.. they were the same size as the pancake beneath my fish! -__-


Lovely? No. I don't think so. The food didn't taste that great, and everything seemed and was oily! I don't like Pancake Parlour. I could save my money and make better pancakes. I'd be much happier that way as well.. Sigh.

Pancake Parlour
Bourke St Mall (down the escalator)
Melbourne

Big Ma Ma, Korean & Japanese

Takoyaki

This wasn't the best takoyaki. A bit on the oily side.

Agedashi tofu

The tofu was smothered in the same sauces as the takoyaki basically.

Tteokbokki (with ramen)

Why.. was there ramen in this? It looked like they added someone's left over ramen from lunch. -__- Oh well. I like ramen anyway, so it didn't matter to me. Haha. It wasn't really spicy though. I've had better tteokbokki before..

Seafood pah jeon (Korean seafood pancake)

Ahhh! There were mussels in here! >< I didn't quite like this though. It was a bit oily.. So I ate it with the tteokbokki sauce. Haha~ Made it taste better actually! :P

But overall, it's an okay place to eat at. The garlic prawn (I think it was with fried rice or something) that they have is nice. It's convenient as it's near uni and we don't have to go all the way down to Chinatown. (I don't like union house food really.)

Prices are average, food is average, servings are average.

Big Ma Ma
Korean Japanese Restaurant
466 Swanston St
Carlton VIC 3053
11:30am - 9:00pm

When drinks outweigh food

When it comes to birthdays, there's got to be food, drinks and cake.

@ Phoenix Bar - 82 Flinders St, Melbourne.

This was the cake:

I think it was a Monte Carlo mousse cake from Laurent.
Chocolate mousse, creme brulee coffee on top of a chocolate flourless biscuit, with a milk chocolate and dark chocolate glaze. And coffee beans! :D

It was nice, but a bit too much mousse for my liking. Small servings are good when it comes to mousse cakes. It was a gigantic cake. Very large slab.. very very large. Expect to feel sick if you consume it all yourself.

The food (you should never drink without food in your stomach!):

Spring rolls.

Pigs in a blanket. (Sausage wrapped in puff pastry)

Chips.

And last but not least, the drinks:

Vodka sunrise.

Vodka and lime.

Vodka and mango nectar.

Gin and tonic.

Straight vodka & vodka and orange juice.

Different bartenders make the drinks differently. Sometimes the drinks are stronger, weaker, served more neatly..etc. But I suppose, a drink is a drink and variation is good? Well, a lot of drinks were consumed by all (that aren't all pictured), so of course you'd know the aftermath of it. Haha. Alcoholics. Tsk tsk.

I hope you had a great night Tracy! Once again, happy birthday!! :)

A local tourist

A tourist in their own town. Does that make sense? Of course! I mean, I live here. Been here all of my life.. but I've never really gone around taking photos and acting touristy. But things really have changed in Melbourne over the past few years. Over the past few months actually. New places opening, slight changes here and there. But then again.. there are things that have always been there and I've just never really noticed. You really can be a tourist in your own town!

I guess I don't know Melbourne that well after all.

[Warning: there are a lot of photos in this post.]

Ventured into Harbour Town, a newly built precinct (that opened late last year) in Docklands. Lots of shops are open now with some that haven't as of yet.

Koffee at KFC? I've never seen this before. Since when did KFC have this? And why the spelling using K's instead of the proper C's?

The Southern Star Observation Wheel.

Then off to lunch at Your Thai on Swanston St.

Papaya salad. $8.00 or $9.50 combo with a drink.

(Drink costs $3.50 if separate)

Thai pineapple fried rice. $9.90.
The plate arrived in front of me as shown. Notice the gap on the right corner? I'm pretty sure something is missing from it! Doesn't it look awkward like that? Something's supposed to be there! This just makes presentation and impression bad. It makes me wonder why there is a gap there and gives me the impression that something is missing. What's missing?! And another thing. There was very little pineapple in this. About 5 tiny pieces in this large serving of rice (in which I could not finish). The photo in the menu gave me the impression that there were more pieces than that. I was very disappointed. Otherwise, this was okay tasting. Not great, but not too bad.

Your Thai four colours drink. $3.50.
Mung beans, kidney beans (I think), cendol (jelly), coconut milk/cream and ice. Mmmm! :D I love the mung bean and coconut milk/cream mixture.

Phat thai fried noodle (beef). $8.90
This.. didn't taste like pad thai. Tasted more like char kway teow.. I would not recommend eating this.

Durian smoothie. $3.50.

The total bill. $35.30 for 3 people.

There was the Antipodes Greek festival along Lonsdale St, between Swanston St and Russell St.

Rides.

People.

Food! Sadly, we had already eaten lunch and were too full to eat anything from here. Aww.. I like Greek food! (I haven't had much of it in my life time though. I'd love to have tried a few things from here..) :(

Yoyos from International Cakes (I think that's what it's called). They're just doughnuts I think.

A bag of 6 for $6.50. And no, I didn't try them. :(

Some sort of baklava.

Another type of baklava.

Lots of people!

Do I see Asian food at a Greek festival?

Yep. It's that jerky meat. (Bak Kwa). $3.00 a piece. Hrm. It was only $2.50 a piece during Chinese New Year! Is it a price rise? Or are they trying to rip these Greek people off? Haha. They even have Greek writing on their banner..

Grilled meat. Does that guy's shirt say "Made in China"? I'm pretty sure he isn't made in China. The t-shirt probably is though. Haha.

More doughnut things. I suppose they're called loukoumades?

Ahh! Souvlaki! I want some! :(

More meat grilling..

More Asian food.. Mind you, not many people were buying from these Asian food stalls anyway.

Weird Asian food? That's not Asian.. is it?

Then at Federation Square, there was the Thai Food Festival.

More food stalls that I couldn't buy from because I had just eaten lunch.

Thai frozen desserts. $4 each. That icecream cup that lady is holding is $3.

It was very crowded. More so than Antipodes.

These costumes freak me out.. :S

Kickboxing as well?

Oooh. And I found this at Borders, Melbourne Central.

Do you want a Hotman? I want a Hotman! I think Hotman is cool! Hotman is $22.95 near the cook books! Haha. He holds up your pots and pans for you! :D (I didn't buy him though)

And there are other things too!

These are cool! Hehe. Not sure how much they were though.

Mmm. Ferrero Rochers. :D

I've heard a lot of people talk about this infamous bread. So I went specifically to BreadTop to go see it. Again, I was too full to buy anything further to eat. It costs $2.00 and doesn't look that appealing.. The ones in Singapore/Malaysia look better. This one looked savoury whereas the other ones were sweet. I'll try this one day though. There were also quite a few new things in BreadTop as well.

Ice-cream cakes being one of them. Hrmm. I still like BreadTalk better than BreadTop. The breads are more appealing and are cheaper as well. I miss BreadTalk. :(

So that was my day exploring Melbourne.

I'm going to make sushi sometime this week. And I'm going to bake a cake as well. :)
I can't wait! Hehe.