Food diary JULY and AUGUST

Red velvet cake from Sweet Infinity. I love having black coffee (or black tea) with my sweets as it balances off the sweetness. This cake is the prettiest cake in the display. The red colour  and the cream cheese oh my goodness I just have to have one :)

Mini macarons (salted caramel, peanut butter milk chocolate, green tea latte) from Sweet Infinity. I love their macaroons because they are not sickeningly too sweet. They are spot on and just the right sweetness for me. All threes are so addictive! :-)

King salmon salad from Cloudy Bay Fish Co at Sydney Westfield. Fresh, tasty, healthy and the salmon tasted beautiful. If all salad is this good, I can imagine myself having salads more often haha :) The offices and park view is quite lovely too :) . All and all a beautiful lunch.

Now back to pizza :p At least there are some salads on the side :p. Moroccan Lamb Pizza from Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar, Sydney Westfield. Hmm I love lamb and yoghurt together :p

Adriano Zumbo's V8 cake (black sesame dacquiose, brown sugar crunch, lychee gel, raspberry sponge, raspberry jelly, liquorice cremeaux, rose chantilly patisserie). 

Pretty in pink (omg) and tasted so divine!! And look at the rose petal. Look. Look. Oh I wish I can bake a cake!

Adriano Zumbo Macarons (or as they say it Zumbarons) : Salted butter popcorn, Malted milkshake, Peach ice tea, Pancake & maple syrup. This is cuteness and awesomeness in a box. I especially love the salted butter popcorn as (you may know or you may not know) I love butter like the french chefs love butter and even a tiny bit more. Butter rocks!

Elvis The Fat Years (peanut butter gelato with banana jam and fried brioche bits) & Chocolate absinthe.

From Gelato Messina. YUM! I love love Gelato Messina because they always have new interesting flavours like every freaking day! I always go to their shop (either in Darlinghurst or The Star) at least once in week otherwise I would feel sick.

I just have to take picture of this!

From Gelato Messina. Bread & Butter pudding (cinnamon and sultana custard gelato with buttered vanilla brioche) AND Persian rocky road (white chocolate & rosewater gelato with rosewater & pistachio rocky road).

Butter, custard, rosewater (and gelato) ! They are like my favourites! I am so sold and converted!

Also from Gelato Messina. Salted coconut & mango salsa, Sexual chocolate (dark chocolate gelato with white chocolate fudge and freeze dried raspberries).

Sexual, chocolate, fudge and gelato all in one sentence. How could you not stop and take notice?

Pasta marinara from Flying Fish & Chips at The Star. The squids are so so so sooo tender (almost as tender as fish) . Seafood and pasta and a glass of white. I am a happy lady!

Movenpick Double cream & merengue flavour ice cream. 

Damn, I forgot to ask for extra whipped cream on top ><

Peanut butter chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins. My absolute favourite no1 ice cream flavour! Sometimes I would buy them in a take away pack and would eat them daily while watching the news. Kidding! I don't watch the news :)

Baskin Robbins strawberry cheesecake thickshake. I know this is super fattening but I can't help it ( please don't judge me) it just tastes so good beyond words and sentences. The strawberry cheesecake ice cream is my no 2 fav after the peanut butter chocolate ice cream. I've had the no 1-10 favourite sorted, noted and remembered :)

Coffee eclairs from Becasse Bakery at Sydney Westfield. Have I told you how much I love the coffee at Becasse bakery? (Yes I have in my last post!)

Coconut frozen yoghurt with yoghurt chips and mochis. From Wowcow.

Oh man! It's winter and yet I eat lots and lots of gelatos, ice creams, frozen yoghurts, ice peach teas and icy cocktails! I don't understand but you know as they say YOLO ^^

I love having the donut at Deus Ex Machina Cycleworks at Bourke St for breakfast. It is big, fresh, warm, sugary. I don't normally use the knife tho I just use my hands. Life is good :D

And afterwards, I love walking down/along Bourke st and go to Bourke St Bakery to have the Ginger brûlée tart. I love this place and I love this tart! Sometimes there is a queue but I don't mind queuing for food at all. I always bring a novel in my bag just in case I need to queue so I can read.

I was lunch-ing, having a mezze plate out in the sun overlooking the beautiful Darling Harbour at Georges Mediterranean Bar & Grill. Gosh Sydney is so beautiful. And I was so full.

The other day, I was having a lunch yumcha at Palace Chinese Restaurant. Their yumcha is one of my favourite as the place is nice and they have lots of varieties of dishes. I was having this super huge steamed oysters with XO sauce. I've never seen oysters that big!!!!! I couldn't stop talking and telling people about it after (and writing about it now). Not big but huge!

My favourites to order are the sesame prawn roll and the prawn toast. And my friend loves to eat salt and pepper squid so we ordered that :) I also on occasions order and love the panfried rice noodle (I love the peanut-y sauce. Are they peanut? who knows!) , the dumplings, the dimsim, the tripe and of course the chicken feet :)

Baked Corn Tortillas, queso, beans & chorizo grits from Reuben Hills Surry Hills. This place is always buzzing with people! The food is great, reasonably priced, the coffee is awesome and also since there is not many good mexican place in Surry Hills, so I love to come here. 

Ohh btw I ordered this one because I thought 'baked' means healthy? What are your thoughts?

My awesome cappuccino at Reuben Hills. And Yes if you have to ask, I love Jackie Collins novels :)

Brioche dipped in kirsch syrup with custard and raspberry, covered with soft merengue. From Le Breton Patisserie, Mosman. 

I can't (yet) pronounce the name of the shop but I can point at the cake and I also know how to put the cake in my watering mouth.

I am so proud of myself for being able to hold my appetite and take these 2 pictures first. That's called self-resistance. I can now include patience among one of my characters ;-)

Maharaja Thali at 9 Marys Modern Indian food, Sydney Westfield. I love the butter chicken. Man I just love butter. Period. I can definitely devour a big bowl of butter chicken sauce with naans. 

Period.

Reuben sandwich (Wagyu salt beef, pickles, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, mustard mayo on rye bread) with some duck fat roasted potatoes. At Reuben & Moore. 

This is the/my perfect/the ultimate sandwich. I tried to balance the fat and carbs by drinking some coconut water but who am I kidding!!!

Yes as you can see, I go to Sydney Westfield food court a lot. That place is like my second home. Sometimes I would walk around the food court ten times before (?!?!?!) finally deciding what I want to eat on that day. The choices are endless and I can't help but feeling confused and overwhelmed! And when I (finally) decide on one stall, I then have to think long and hard (10-30 min) on what I should order.

Then I eat. I am happy. The end.

27 WAYS TO MAKE ME SWOON

Taken from :
"41 Ways to Make a Woman Swoon" at www.menshealth.com

These are the 27 that are my favourites :)

1. Ask her to dance.

2. On windy days, brush wayward strands of hair from her eyes and mouth.

3. When she's coming down the street, across the room, or up the stairs to meet you, walk toward her as soon as you see her.

4. Put your arm around her when you introduce her to your friends and family.

5. Grasp her hand when a scantily dressed, beautiful woman walks by.

6. Call her when you're feeling sad.

7. Ask to see a picture of her when she was a child.

8. If she's crying on the phone, go over to her place. Immediately.

9. Buy her your favorite rock album of all time on vinyl.

10. Order coffee for her, remembering exactly how she likes it.

11. Put her to bed when she falls asleep in the car.

12. Mention your upcoming anniversary before she does.

13. Send her something in the mail. Anything.

14. When she's feeling insecure, stare into her eyes and tell her there is no one in the world who could be as right for you as she is.

15. Call her just before you get on the plane.

16. Pick her clothes up off the floor.

17. Try desperately to make her laugh when she's feeling down.

18. Take her to see your favorite sport live. Pay more attention to her than to the game.

19. Touch her arm when you leave the table to go to the bathroom. Touch her again when you come back.

20. Hug her when she gets jealous. Hug her hard.

21. Hand her two towels when she gets out of the shower. (The second one is for her hair.)

22. Keep her favorite cereal on hand.

23. In the middle of a conversation, tell her you love her.

24. Take her to a cabin with a fireplace. Build her a fire.

25. Offer to fix something in her apartment that you realize is broken.

26. Notice when she's wearing something new.

27. Kiss her hand in front of your most die-hard bachelor buddies.

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”
— Anatole France

I'm going to start MY WEEKLY DIARY again :)

This week I love reading :

Tynan's Rules for Living: (8 out of 15 that I really like)

1. When you say you’re going to do something, do it. I believe that without his word, a man is nothing. This rule applies to things I tell others I will do as well as things I tell myself I’ll do.

2. Don’t lie, don’t exaggerate, don’t withhold information, don’t mislead. This rule exists mainly because it affects my performance in every day life. If I know that whatever I do will be related with perfect fidelity to others, I do it better. It also allows me to show proper respect to the people in my life. The one exception is authority figures who have the power to enforce rules but make them. For example, I might lie to a police officer to try to get out of a speeding ticket.

3. Show up on time, always. This rule is pretty recent, maybe a year or so. I’ve decided that when I commit to being somewhere at a particular time, I will always be there at exactly that time. The trick is to just get there five minutes early every single time and wait. It’s a very very minor inconvenience in return for being much more reliable.

5. Walk out of movies, stop reading books, leave parties. If I’m participating in some sort of entertainment and I realize that it’s not going to be worth the additional time spent, I leave. The fact that I paid $10 and watched half of the movie is irrelevant. The real decision at hand is: how do I want to spend the next hour of my life.

7. Listen to people. I used to be bad at this and I hate it when people don’t pay attention in conversation. So when I have a conversation with someone, I make sure I’m really listening and not just waiting for my turn to speak. Sounds basic, but I’d say 50% of people don’t do it.

12. Do things other people aren’t doing. This one is more of a heuristic than a rule, but I include it because it defines so many of my decisions. When making a choice, I will greatly favor the unknown over the known. I feel like this is how you contribute to society, even if it’s in a very small way.

13. Always be learning something. I always have at least one learning project going on at all times. Right now it’s Violin. Soon I’ll be as good as I want to be (able to play one full Mozart song poorly), and I will move on to either Chinese or Japanese.

14. Never have debt. I would suffer way before having debt. That doesn’t mean I won’t borrow $20 from a friend if I forget my wallet, but I would never finance anything other than a house, and only then because I can get a higher return on my money than a mortgage would charge me.

Read the other 7 at http://zenhabits.net/tynans-rules/

His blog at http://www.blogger.com/www.tynan.com

From Cleo August 2012 :

-About Facebook and other social media:

Studies show a link between the use of social media and feelings of anxiety, low self esteem and inadequacy. "Very few people publish their wobbly moments or failings. As a result, we get a false reference point for normal." Clinical psychologist Catherine Boland says it's about trying to prove something to ourselves than others. "Some people are reliant on having the best of things in order to compensate for feelings of inadequacy or self-worth," she explains.

-Life Advice :

FromLife Coach Lisa Phillips (amazingcoaching.com.au)

"We all make mistakes in life. They aren't a reflection of your personality, but how you deal with them is. I don't beat myself up when life's shitty!"

From Relationship psychologist and author John Aiken (johnaiken.com.au)

"The key to making a relationship work is making it a priority. I do little things daily that make my wife feel special, like giving her compliments or being affectionate. Remember it's okay to argue but it's how you fight that's important. Listen to their concerns first, then make your points calmly. "

I love these :


Ring with hidden love messages, made in France 1830-60.
Source : http://m.vam.ac.uk/collections/item/O118638/ring-unknown/


"Opal should be the stone for engagement rings. Opal is so much more gorgeous than diamond. Love isn’t clear, it’s cloudy. And the colour should be kept inside, not reflected all over the place. Just a thought. "
Source: http://pixelpapers.tumblr.com/

I Love Rapunzel/Tangled and these just amaze me !!

Rapunzel has 70 feet of golden hair and more than 100,000 individual strands :)
Picture from : http://www.disneylicious.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=883


Tangled concept art by Claire Keane. WoWW.
Picture from : http://princessdisney-princesasdisney.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/concept-art-de-rapunzel-por-claire.html

By Claire Keane. Amazing !




These 4 pictures are from : http://www.fanpop.com/spots/tangled/images/31303146/title/rapunzel-concept-arts-made-claire-keane-photo.

I love the idea of this Cruise!

I love these 2 articles. They are brilliant!

-"Life is for living, not productivity."
http://zenhabits.net/kill-time/

"Experience is irrelevant. Accomplishments are everything.

Successful people don't need to describe themselves using hyperbolic adjectives like passionate, innovative, driven, etc. They can just describe, hopefully in a humble way, what they've done."
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/9-beliefs-of-remarkably-successful-people.html


I love these sayings/quotes:

"The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.”
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self."
-Charles Dickens

"To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”
-(I can't remember who said this > <)

"What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning!”
-Charlie Chaplin

"When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much.”
-Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.”
-Abraham Maslow


Picture from: http://unadoptable.tumblr.com/

Until next week! x

Food Diary JUNE

AFTERNOON TEA

I had this at Park Hyatt Sydney.
The menu:
-Cucumber sandwich
-Smoked salmon, herb crepe roll, salmon caviar
-Roast beef, rocket, horseradish tortilla roll
-Alaskan king crab finger sandwich
-Tiramisu macaron
-Chestnut profiterole, vanilla Chantilly
-Mandarin Imperial tart
-Five layered dark chocolate cake
-Freshly baked scones with jam and clotted cream.
The tea that I have is Jardin Bleu, described as: This union of two dark teas sourced from China and Ceylon combines fresh, lightly acidic notes of rhubarb and wild strawberry. These fruity notes make a perfect afternoon tea.

The amazing five layered chocolate cake. Another standout is the tiramisu macaron. So soo sooo good !!

The beautiful view from The Dining Room at Park Hyatt.

HOT DOG Spicy Cheese Kransky with semi sun-dried tomatoes, sriracha mayo & cheddar cheese on a toasted brioche roll from Snag Stand at Westfield Foodcourt. The chips are so good and crispy :)

Pork ribs from Pancakes on The Rocks.

Seafood from The Fishmarket.

CHINESE Clams from Red Chilli Sichuan Restaurant. The foods here are spicy and amazing!

Fish with chef special sauce from Red Chilli Sichuan Restaurant. Hmm spicyyy (but good).

THAI Fresh spring rolls of smoked fish sausages, chicken and crab with caramelised tamarind relish. My favourite dish at Chat Thai.

KOREAN pan-fried dumplings :)

RAMEN Ramen with chasu, chicken karaage, tenderous ribs and egg from Ajisen Ramen.

Volcano ramen from Ajisen Ramen.

After it is stirred. Hot hot hot :)

Spicy beef tongue ramen from a Japanese place near Capitol Square (which I forgot the name) >.<

JAPANESE Beef and cheese curry from Menya Mappen.

VIETNAMESE Roast Duck & banana flower rice paper rolls and Peking Duck Pancake from Miss Chu.

Banh Cuon - Steamed Vietnamese Rice Crepes with minced pork from Miss Chu.

Oh Man Look at these cute little dessert boxes!

LATE NIGHT MEAL Sampan congee with chilli fishballs from Supermeal.

Sweet tofu in puff pastry from Supermeal.

SWEETS Zokoko Chocolate Jaffa Tart from Becasse Bakery.

I don't even know what this is called. But loved the pretty colours! ^^

Bannoffe Pie. I loveeeeeeeeeeeee Bannoffee Pie ^o^

Cinnamon Roll. YummMM.

The Ultimate (Crepes filled with cream cheese and sultanas, erved with raspberry coulis and cream and vanilla ice cream) from Pancakes on The Rocks.

Vanilla & Choc Surprise (Buttermilk and chocolate pancakes, with vanilla and chocolate ice cfea, drizzled with chocolate sauce and cream). Monte Cristo (Chicken with smoked ham and cheese on a bed of lettuce and topped with chilli sour cream and shallots)from Pancakes on The Rocks.

Rich walnuts caramelised in a butter-syrup sauce served with cream or ice-cream on two buttermilk pancakes from The Pancake Parlour,Canberra.

Tiramisu from La Spiaggia Italian Restaurant, Coogee.

Mille-feuille from Made in Italy, Pyrmont.

FROZEN YOGURT Blueberry frozen yogurt from Yogurberry.

Taro frozen yogurt from Yogurberry.

GELATO Red Velvet (red velvet cake with cream cheese gelato) & Breakfast of Champion (milk gelato with homemade milo and honey joys) from Gelato Messina.

Goat cheese gelato with date and walnut brownie & Breakfast of champion the sequel (Yoghurt gelato with croissant n plum jam) from Gelato Messina.

ICE CREAM Maggie Beer Vanilla and Elderflower ice cream.

MACARON Roasted soybean macaron, yuzu macaron and Dear Chris macaron from Cafe Cre Asion, Surry Hills.

This little cafe, which is located just a minute from where I live(!!!) makes amazing macarons with unusual fusion flavour. The Japanese owner used to work under Christine Mansfield and the 'Dear Chris' macaron (chocolate hazelnut ganache) is dedicated to her. This place also serve great Single Origin Roasters coffee.

TUESDAY WITH MORRIE

"Be compassionate. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place. Love each other or die" -Morrie's final interview, Page 162.

Tuesday with Morrie is a beautifully written book about the relationship of the author (Mitch Albom) and his mentor (Morrie Schwartz) before Morrie passed away from cancer. They met up every Tuesdays on his last precious weeks, when Morrie passed wisdom, thoughts, insights, experiences and guidances in which Mitch shared in this book.

This book has so much honesty, love and warmth. Have you ever had a mentor or a teacher who give you guidance and advice throughout your life and someone whom you admire deeply?
Growing up, I've always been a quiet and shy kid. I asked friends for advice on little things, but for personal things, I always think it through myself. Maybe because I'm not comfortable sharing my problem and showing my weaknesses.
Reading this book feels so personal and I feel that I can personally relate and be grateful to all Morrie's advices and that I can apply it to my life and that I am a wiser and better person after reading the book. I almost feel like Morrie is my personal mentor. This book speaks to me.
Ohh, don't you just love that? :)

He was eight years old. A telegram came from the hospital, and since his father, a Russian immigrant, could not read English, Morrie had to break the news, reading his mother's death notice like a student in front of the class. "We regret to inform you . . ." he began.

Some of my favourites from the book:

"To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living. "
How can you ever be prepared to die?
"Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?"
"The truth is, Mitch," he said, "Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live. "
-Page 83

If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.
-Page 119

"Mitch, it is impossible for the old not to envy the young. But the issue is to accept who you are and revel in that. This is your time to be in your thirties. I had my time to be in my thirties, and now is my time to be seventy-eight. "
-Page 120

Mitch, if you're trying to show off for the people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.
-Page 127

"When Morrie was with you, he was really with you. He looked you straight in the eye, and he listened as if you were the only person in the world. How much better would people get along if their first encounter each day were like this- instead of a grumble from a waitress or a bus driver or a boss?"
Being fully present-you should be with the person you're with and thinking about them.
-Page 135

"People are only mean when they're threatened and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture."
-Page154

It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandeis gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, "We're number one! We're number one!" Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of "We're number one!" he rises and yells, "What's wrong with being number two?"
-Page 159

"When you're in bed, you're dead. "
-Page 131

The New Year came and went. Although he never said it to anyone, Morrie knew this would be the last year of his life. He was using a wheelchair now, and he was fighting time to say all the things he wanted to say to all the people he loved. When a colleague at Brandeis died suddenly of a heart attack, Morrie went to his funeral. He came home depressed.
"What a waste," he said. "All those people saying all those wonderful things, and Irv never got to hear any of it."
Morrie had a better idea. He made some calls. He chose a date. And on a cold Sunday afternoon, he was joined in his home by a small group of friends and family for a "living funeral." Each of them spoke and paid tribute to my old professor. Some cried. Some laughed. Morrie cried and laughed with them. And all the heartfelt things we never get to say to those we love, Morrie said that day. His "living funeral" was a rousing success.
-Page 12

When the final moment came, Morrie wanted his loved ones around him, knowing what was happening. No one would get a phone call, or a telegram, or have to look through a glass window in some cold and foreign basement.
-Page 140

"As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you
were at twenty-two, you'd always be twenty-two. Aging is not
just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative
that you're going to die, it's the positive that you
understand you're going to die, and that you live a better
life because of it."

“If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.”
— Benjamin Franklin
Well, Mitch Albom did the first one and Morrie Schwartz did the second one :)

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.”
—Carl Sagan