Eaton Mess
Beautiful dessert! Tasted even better than it looked :)
2. Red Lantern, Surry Hills
One sunny afternoon, I went to Red Lantern for lunch. Red Lantern is a beautiful Vietnamese restaurant which is located at the busy street of Surry Hills. There are alot of great restaurants at Surry Hills and Red Lantern is one of the busiest place, especially on Saturday nights. Red Lantern promotes ethical eating and as much as possible, uses the freshest in local sustainable and organic produce. Red Lantern was voted Top Ten Most Environmentally Sustainable Restaurants Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2010. Red Lantern was one of my fav restaurants in Sydney!
Goi Cuon $16.50 Soft rice paper rolled with prawns, pork, vermicelli, perilla leaves and garlic chives
Yummm!! This is the best rice paper rolls I've ever had. The rice paper is so thin and smooth, the filling is so fresh and the dipping sauce is so delicious. Such a perfect entree because it makes you even more hungry!
Mi Xao Voi Vit Quay $36.00 Roasted Thirlmere Duck Maryland with wok tossed egg noodles and tamarind sauce
So Last year I went to Red Lantern and had their duck salad. That thing is one of my favourite dishes anywhere ever. I couldn't stop thinking and talking about it for months, but unfortunately they don't have it anymore :( (they change most of their menu every season)
So I thought this time I ordered something duck again just to make up for it :p (Well I like duck anyhow anyway). I'm glad I ordered this because it tasted great.
Note : But I still love the duck salad more (our bond is that strong) ^ ^
Bo Luc Lac $35.00 Cubed pasture fed Black Angus sirloin wok tossed with garlic, sesame and black pepper
The beef is sooo tender (yet fully cooked/ well-done)How is that possible achievable?? Hmm.. I remember I had this exact same dish last time, and back then, it was actually a bit chewy. But this time, Oh My God! so tender! and the salad is refreshing and fresh. YuM!. And I don't normally like salad that much!
3. Manta Restaurant, Wooloomooloo Wharf
A week before my birthday, my flatmate took me to Manta Restaurant for my birthday. He was heading overseas so he took me out early. Manta is a fine dining restaurant with views of the beautiful Wooloomooloo Wharf.
We started with some bread which we soaked with some delicious olive oil and (seriously) the most amazing balsamic vinegar! We ordered half a dozen of oysters (from different regions) to share and an entree, a main and a dessert each.
Manta's oysters are hand picked and delivered directly by the grower to ensure proper care all the way to the plate. They are opened to order and tasted so fresh!
Lemon and pepper seared yellow fin tuna, lime, wasabi, avocado mousse and gazpacho salsa 28
Yum! I love Tuna!
Steamed mud crab – bottarga, parsley and lemon butter.
The crab is so juicy and perfectly cooked! Probably the best crab I've ever eaten!!!
Textures of amedei dark chocolate and piemonte hazelnut 18
Hmm this dessert has so many different textures. There are other chocolate stuffs underneath the square chocolate disc (which can't be seen from the picture). Everything is so amazing, It is smooth, luscious, yet refreshing and not too sweet (which I like) and the chocolate ice cream is so delicious!
"Enjoy yourself. These are the good old days you're going to miss in the years ahead."
So, I haven't written since last year. and I am not going to say that I'll write more often (Because that's what I said last time) lol so I'm just NOT going to say that again this time. Ok let's just read this page :)
In the past few months :
1. I've moved to my new place.
view from my new room
Oh how I wish I did this ages ago, finding the perfect room, perfect apartment, perfect flatmate. I always thought that since I am not at home most of the time anyway, I don’t need to spend alot on rent. But since I moved, I’ve learnt that a good place make such a huge difference. For me personally at least. Because this is the place to wind down, to relax, to rest, to read, to dream, to think, to reflect, to recharge.
The slight higher price is definately worth it. I love my new place now. My room and living room overlooks the Hyde Park and a bit of the St Mary Cathedral. It is close to Oxford St, Chinatown, Sydney Myer & DavidJones, about half an hour walk to Kings Cross, there are regular buses nearby that can take me straight to Circular Quay, The Rocks, Newtown, Glebe, Balmain and my place is just opposite of the Museum Station. It is also only a minute away from World Square which the monorail/tram can take me to Darling Harbour, Star City and Fishmarket. So the position is perfect. I share this 2 bedroom apartment with a male flatmate. And he's perfect. He doesn't get bothered if I get home late and take shower at 3 am. We have our own bedroom and our own bathroom. We keep things to ourselves but we are friendly to each other. He travels a lot so I often have the place to myself. Well which can be nice :) hint. hint.
2. I saw 2 great musicals, The Boy from Oz and Dr Zhivago.
Oh how I love musicals! And the music from Dr Zhivago is just so so romantic and beautiful. I almost cried as the lyrics are quite sad. The songs have such deep meanings and the Russian winter costumes are lush and gorgeous. Anthony Warlow is so perfect and I so love him ! :)
The Boy from Oz, on the other hand, is very entertaining. And the fact that it is based on a true story of Peter Allen makes it touching and heartfelt as well. I am a fan of Liza Minelli and there is a bit of Liza Minelli and that Fosse style dancing in here which I soooo love. Also the ending (the Rio number) is so amazing!!! Probably the best closing any musical can have. It is such a high! It makes you happy and want to get up and dance and leave the theatre smiling. I saw the version of Todd McKenny as Peter Allen. And he is fabulous.
3. I’ve discovered Indian food.
To be honest I wasn’t a big fan of Indian cuisine in the past and maybe that’s because I’ve never been to a really good Indian restaurant in Sydney. What I ate Indian-wise is just something in food court which is rarely fresh and the meat is often hard and the aroma is too strong.
Since then, I have now been to two of the best Indian restaurants in Sydney, Aki’s at Wooloomooloo and Abhi’s (which is owned by the same family). The food is fabulous. How can curry be so fragrant? And the bread soaking up the sauce can be so delicious! Seriously if you don’t like Indian food, go to Aki’s or Abhi’s. They will change your mind :)
4. I saw a few movies at the Sydney French Film Festival.
OH How I love French movies! If you've read my list of favourite foreign movies, most of them are French.
There is one movie in particular at this festival which I really really love. It is charming and magical and it touches you and leaves you with something to reflect and think about while at the same time entertain you with its characters, imagination and story. It is THE AGE OF REASON.
It is a story of Margaret (who is played briliiantly by the amazing Sophie Marceau) who is a high-powered executive, who manages her career with steely determination. Her hyper-structured life revolves around Blackberry appointments, business dinners and a secret sexual relationship with her colleague Malcolm. But on her 40th birthday, a retired provincial solicitor delivers a package of long-forgotten letters from a long-forgotten stranger: her seven year-old self. Margaret quickly finds herself overwhelmed by hidden memories of her childhood that throw her worldview into chaos, as she realises she's become the exact opposite of what she hoped for herself.
Watching this movie makes me think of what matters to me now and when I was 7 years old. what I want nowadays is success in career, and to have lots of money, to buy beautiful clothes, bags, jewellery (doesn’t every girl?), and to dine in nice restaurants, and to live in a nice place. Money to me now is very important. It allows me to have private dance classes with the top teachers, private skating coaching and to experience art such as seeing a ballet or musical in the theatre and having the best seat.
But when I was 7 years old, I was so simple (perhaps everybody is), all I wanted is to spend time with my family out dinner on Saturday night, to go to ballet class, to visit my grandma up the mountain, to read ballet comic books. It was never about material stuffs really. So watching this movie is quite nostalgic and somehow sad. I guess it is also because my family and relatives are so far away so I don’t get to spend time with them anymore.
5. Other great movies that I saw the past few months are :
- The Black Swan (Natalie Portman is so perfect as the obsessed perfectionist beautiful ballerina)
- King (Indonesian movie about this boy who wants to b a badminton athlete and his dad who is too poor to support him) It is really a touching and inspiring movie :)
- The Way Back (a gorgeous, beautiful movie)
- New York I love you (a lot of different love emotion in this star-studded movie and every story is quite magical)
6. I also saw a few great Tv series on DvD :
- Heston feast Season 1 & 2(THIS GUY IS A GENIUS !)
- 6 Wives of Henry VIII (I love historical drama and all its ancient costumes and settings) Love it Love it LOVE IT!
- Nikita Season 1(Since I saw 'SALT' starring Angelina Jolie, I became obsessed with female spy/action hero type of movies/Tvs :) )
- Top chef Masters season 1 & 2 (I love cooking shows especially when all the contestants all award-winning chefs)
- Modern Family season 2 (I love all the casts, they are so hilarious and I love how the scripts are so clever)
- The Good Wife Season 1 & 2 (I love the characters, the actings and the whole great drama/law/criminal story)
I like this picture (from http://lovequotesrus.tumblr.com/) awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww how cuteeeeeeeee !! ^_^
And I like these words :
“You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.” Audrey Hepburn
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
“I have noticed that if you look carefully at people’s eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away.” The Secret Life of Bees
“In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn; color your hair; watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five.
In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world; or you can just jump off it.” -Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)
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