Epic Friday night hotpot!!

The weather has been getting colder and so we thought it'd be perfect to have some friends over for hotpot.

Little did I know that everyone else would agree it was a great idea and we ended up with almost 20 people rsvping yes. Luckily we recently acquired some folding tables and I borrowed an extra chair and the special hot pot nets from my parents.

I did a huge grocery run on Friday afternoon. The list of ingredients were:

• Chinese spinach (波菜)
• Choy sum (菜心)
• Kai lan (芥兰)
• Noodles
• Dumplings
• Thinly sliced beef, pork and chicken ( one pack of lamb as well but it has a very strong smell when cooked in hot pot that I don't like)
• Tofu
• An assortment of mushrooms including shiitake and enoki mushrooms.
• Fish balls!!
• Beef balls
• Fish tofu. There are a few hot pot assorted packs available.
• Hoisin sauce
• Soy sauce
• Chili sauce
• Pork bones for the broth

I made a huge pot of broth with the pork bones.

I like to quickly blanch the bones with hot water first then bring to boil. Then turn down to a simmer and skim off the froth as it is simmering. The longer the bones are boiling the more flavoursome the broth will be. Season with salt and sugar if needed.

Once the broth is ready everything else is cooked as you eat! Keep an eye on the meat you put in in case someone "accidentally" picks up your hot pot net ;)

Add hot water as the soup starts to evaporate or if too many people are drinking it :). Dumplings float when its ready to eat. Try not to leave them in too long or the skin starts to break up and turn to mush.

Our epic turnout!

Hot pot is a great way to gather friends and it's less stressful because everyones essentially cooking their own food. We'll be having a lot more hot pot now that its getting so much colder.

Enjoy!

Event: 27th April 2012

 

Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock and more?

Trying to decide who gets the last of dessert we played rock, paper, scissors. This reminded me of the rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock game made popular by The Big Bang Theory. The clip below shows Sheldon explaining the game to Kripke.

 

Here's a blooper clip of his first attempts :)

 

Back to trying the find a nice diagram to simply illustrate the game I came across some interesting results.

There are plenty of shirts printed with the game diagram. Some with just the Vulcan greeting, with a photo of Spock and even cute cartoon illustrates of him. The Sam Kass website even has a merchandise section.

But who would have thought the game was too easy? If you're one of them maybe you could try your hand at rock, paper, scissors, gun, lightening, devil, dragon, water, air, sponge, wolf, tree, human, snake, fire. Phew! I'd like to see someone try and explain this game as well as Sheldon explains RPSLS.

All hail Sam Kass! (and Karen Bryla)

 

Homers cafe, Eastwood

Homers cafe is a very popular place among the locals of Eastwood. Homers is best known for their desserts and late night opening hours. They have indoor as well as an outdoor dining area, situated close to the fountain in Eastwood square.

Homers has a huge menu offering salads, burgers, pastas, steaks and fish and chips. The dessert menu is just has big offering deep fried mars bars (delicious but I've had my quota of 1/year!), sundaes, parfaits, cakes, tarts and pancakes.

Intending only to go out for a coffee with a friend before dinner, we got a table inside and spotted the delicious looking Mexican pizza ($11.80).

Ground beef, onions, cheese, topped with sour cream, salsa and corn chips, it was just as delicious as it looked! Luckily it was only medium sized and that ended up being our dinner.

We also got our coffees as intended. A mocha for me ($4.50)

Ayano had the hazelnut latte ($4.50)

Linda joined us a bit later and she ordered the banana pancakes for dinner! Tut tut :) ($11.80). The pancakes where really big and very filling. They were served with ice ceam, lots of whipped cream, a banana and what seemed like a quarter of a strawberry haha. The pancakes were thin with a nice texture and not at all doughy. Very good even if they were a little stingy with the fruit.

Eastwood Homers Cafe

172 Rowe Street

Eastwood, NSW

Tel: (02) 9858 3203

Open : 7 days, 9am-11.30pm

Visited: 23rd April 2012

 

Middle ear effusion

Special post to my doctor :)

I've had a blocked ear for about a week now and its been very irritating not only because I can't hear properly but because it feels unbalanced like one side of my head is underwater.

I went to see my doctor today and he had a cool gadget, a Welch Allyn digital otoscope. It's the instrument they use to look in your ear and it was hooked up to his computer. He took a couple of snaps for me and suggested I put them up on my blog.

Sorry to the rest of you that feel this is a little TMI. I couldn't refuse :).. And it is pretty cool.

Photos after the jump

Sinma Laksa House - Singapore Chili Crab!!!!

Our friends invited us to Sinma Laksa House specifically to have the Singapore Chili Crab. Even though I've visited Singapore before I'd never tried the famous dish. Being a huge fan of crab I was very much looking forward to trying it.

Situated on the corner of a big roundabout, Sinma Laksa House is a fairly decent sized restaurant, it looked a bit like 2 smaller restaurants joined together. We showed up for lunch on a Sunday afternoon, luckily we booked because the place was pretty packed. The waitresses were in true Asian fashion, snappy, efficient and indifferent.

Since some of our group rocked up late (us included) we were all pretty hungry when our starters came out (excuse for my lame photo to come ^.^). To start we ordered a huge plate of roti and 2 servings each of beef, lamb and chicken curry (total $58.80). The beef and chicken curries were rich in flavour and the meat was tender and infused with the flavours from the curry. I favored the lamb curry though because it had a spicy kick to it, I'm not usually into chili but this just gave it that little bit of extra flavour that made it even more delicious.

I also wanted to try their teh tarik ($3.50). It was good and not as sweet as the teh tarik you get at mamaks which I prefer. Kens one didn't come with as much froth as mine though.

The advantages of going with a large group is that you can order so many dishes! We ordered a few noodle dishes, Char quay teow ($10.50). It was a seafood versions, with octopus and tiny oysters mixed in... Om nom nom...

Wart Dan Hor (Slimy egg noodle combination, Kens favorite, $11.50)

Guinness Chicken ($23.50). Crispy chicken goodness covered in sweet sauce, capsicum and pineapple chunks. A bit like sweet and sour pork but with chicken. It was a really nice dish but I found some of the chicken bits were a bit small so it was all crisp. Nice at first but I would have liked a little more chicken.

Veggies ($14.80). Proof that there was a bit of greens with our meal :)

And for the main event!...2 crab dishes!! A 1.3kg Butter Crab. So very tasty it's making me salivate looking over the photos again. The crab meat was so sweet, you could taste the garlic and buttery flavours the crab was cooked in. In case anyone was wondering the chilis were not chili.

Mantous ($33 - about $0.70 each), 22 freshly fried sweet buns. Slightly oily.. Oh so good.

And the dish I was very eagerly awaiting.... The Singapore Chili Crab! 1.4kg of crab smothered in delicious sauce! The mantous are for mopping up the sauce and we definitely did just that. The 1.3kg butter crab and 1.4kg chili crab was $140.40.

Very full after all that food the restaurant provided us with a sweet potato soup. Slightly sweet soup with small pieces of sweet potato, tapioca pearls and taro. A good end to a fantastic meal.

Sinma Laksa House

3/391 Anzac Parade, Kingsford, NSW 2032

Tel: (02) 9313 7663

Visited: 22nd April 2012  

Battleship - Review

Battleship is an epic-scaled action-adventure movie based on the Hasbro board game, battleship.

I'd give it a 3.5 out 5.

Directed by Peter Berg, the movie stars Taylor Kitsch (John Carter) as Lt. Alex Hopper, a US Navy Tactical Actions Officer on the USS John Paul Jones; Alexander Skarsgård as Hopper's older brother, Stone, Commanding Officer of the USS Sampson; Liam Neeson as Admiral Shane, the commanding officer to Alex and Stone Hopper; Brooklyn Decker as Samantha Shane, a physical therapist, Admiral Shane's daughter and fiancé to Alex Hopper and Rihanna as Petty Officer Raikes, a weapons specialist on the USS John Paul Jones.

The movie introduces Alex Hopper and his brother Stone having a drink at a bar. Alex tries to pick up a women, Samantha Shane, in a most unconventional way, illustrating his impulsive and crazy decision making skills.

Skipping forward a few years Alex has join the Navy with his brother and they, along with a fleet of ships are embarking on a training exercise. After investigating some strange debris, the fleet is attacked and a force field is erected around enemy forces, cutting off contact between a few naval ships the rest of the fleet. Alex Hopper is left as the highest ranking officer and needs to take command. Leading the trainees against an unexpected enemy invasion.

Considering they'd based this movie on a game created almost 70 years ago, I think they did quite well. There was an easy to follow storyline broken up with a lot of action scenes and speckled with comedic relief.

There were implausible parts of the movie (aside from aliens invading.. Maybe) like being able to drift a 100 year old steam powered battleship but not so much that it wasn't expected in this kind of action film.

Surprisingly Rihanna's first debut into film was not terrible. Her character is a tough girl, weapons operator with more common sense then some of her fellow crewmen. She could have been a bit more animated but I'm not sure if thats the way she was trying to play her character. All in all I was expecting worse.

I'd watch the movie again if I wanted to see an action flick that you could just sit and enjoy without having to think too much about where the story was going.

Here is the battleship goldilocks featurette - Explaining what goldilocks planets are; spoiler alert!

 

Watched: 16th April 2012

 

Oceans Seafood and Bakehouse Cafe, Drummoyne

Heading out for a late lunch on a Thursday afternoon, K and I found ourselves in Drummoyne with a craving for fish and chips. Oceans seafood has been open since 1984, they've won awards for outstanding seafood outlet, champion fastfood/take-away place and proclaims having the best fish and chips in the universe. They renovated several years ago adding in a nice dining area, perfect for eating in and enjoying a drissly afternoon.

The food was cooked to order and after about 5 mins, we were enjoying some fish and chip goodness! (with tartar sauce of course!)

I got the fish of the day, crumbed pacific dory ($8.90). Perfectly fried to crispy goodness the dory was sweet you could tell the fish was fresh. Didn't really need to tartar sauce but I love it!

We also got a serving of large chips ($4.50). They were great! Crispy and best of all didn't go stale as they cooled, what all chip standards should be! Only thing is it could have used a little more salt, most of it was just sparsely sprinkled on the top.

K got the marinated barramundi in chilli, garlic and capsicum ($15.90). The marinade was really tasty, we started dipping the chips and a little bit of my crumbed dory into the sauce but the barramundi was slightly overcooked so the fish was a little tough/ chewy.

Unfortunately I spotted that they had sweet potato fries on the menu when we were leaving so I'll have to come back to try them some other time. Though the food was nice I think it was overpriced, great for if you've got a seafood craving and can't be bothered to head into the city or up to the beach areas.

Two doors down there's the Bakehouse cafe, I used to come here with a friend to get fresh bread for breakfast and some tarts. Too full from lunch we got a small fruit tart ($4.40) to share and a small pecan pie ($4.40) to share with my parents after dinner.

Tiny and very yummy, the custard in the middle was light and complimented the fruit and pastry base without being overpoweringly sweet.

I love pecan pie!

Oceans Seafood

154 Lyons Road, Drummoyne, NSW (corner Gipps Street)

Tel: (02) 9181 4336

Open: 7 days a week 9am-9pm

Drummoyne's Bakehouse Cafe

150 Lyons Road, Drummoyne, NSW

Tel: (02) 9719 1118

Open: Tues-Sun 7am-6pm

Visited: 19th April 2012

Nerf Wars?!!

Recently we acquired some Nerf guns from our friend. She gave us a couple of pistols (N-Strike Maverick), a machine gun with a few chain refills (N-Stirke Vulcan) and a clear long one that I've not sure what it's called.

Neither of us ever had Nerfs as a kid so we had lots of fun shooting each, using furniture for cover and trying to get to the higher ground! Target practice was the most fun though (my poor plushes ^.^) and target practice makes it heaps easier to find the darts again.

Going a little Nerf crazy, and getting one as a gift for a friend, we found someone selling a couple of N-Strike Longshot guns on gumtree. It was a good deal, two guns plus accessories for $60. Of course as soon as Ken took them to his best friends place they started modding it. They removed the air compressor and now it shoots much more accurately and with more force.

My plushy target.

Our arsenal of guns, ammo and "opperators" haha or victims I guess.

Party!

 

 

Discovering Pinterest!

Reading around the web I discovered a photo sharing site called Pinterest. It's an online pinboard where you can "pin" photos you find on the web or on other peoples boards to your own boards. There are some really great photos on there and it's great for categorizing things that you might want to refer to later like home decor ideas, recipes, travel destinations or just some things that are really funny.
At the moment it's an invite only site but I was able to get an invite pretty much the next day. If anyone would like to follow my Pinterest boards it's http://pinterest.com/chibisuke8/
Below are a few of the cool things I found on there.

Cafe de Hong Kong

A great place to get congee, Cafe de Hong Kong is a Hong Kong fusion style restaurant in Carlingford Village. It's a place that's been around for ages and it's usually pretty full. Not sure if thats because it's situated at the top of the stairs for if people actually like the place.

We found ourselves there on a Monday night (girls night) because my best friend and I are sick and we were too lazy to cook dinner.

Thousand year old egg and pork congee, 皮蛋瘦肉粥 ($6).

Sick people food! The only good thing about being sick is having this congee. I found a great recipe for it but it was a bit late to go out to get all the ingredients and we were hungry :).

We ordered one each and when one HUGE bowl came out we thought they'd combined our servings. Oh how we were wrong! Gladly, it was delicious, could have included more thousand year old egg and pork but still enough. Just to be a little naughty we also ordered a serving of Chinese doughnuts ($1.80)

Warm and exceptionally crunchy, it was a perfect accompanyment to our congee. Just to be a little more naughty we ordered another. It was probably a bad idea, the next one was a little burnt and more oily then the first.

K decided to join us for dinner and called ahead for us to order for him. And extra serving of food when we had so much on the table got us some pretty surprised looks from the surrounding patrons and the waiters. ^_^" we don't eat that much!

Yum! Baked pork chop in tomato sauce with rice ($9.20). It smelt delicious, usually one of my favorite things to order. It'll be one of the first things I order when I get better.

A little note about the restaurant. It's a great place to get Hong Kong style cafe food, its fast, they do it well (most things) and its quite resonably priced. However, they don't have very good service. We were sitting at the tables being ignored for quite a while before they brought us a menu and the "tea". Knowing what to expect I still gladly return when I want some hong long style food.

Cafe de Hong Kong 香港茶餐廳

Carlingford Village Shopping Centre

Level 1, Shop 2372 Pennant Hills Rd, Carlingford NSW 2118

Ph: (02) 9871 1878

Open: 7 days 10am-10pm

Visited: 16th April 2012

Gerrigong! Beautiful little town.

We attended a wedding in a coastal town called Gerrigong. A local told us that the name means windy place, luckily it wasn't very windy that day.

I love exploring little towns because I find they have the most interesting shops. Usually a place to find cute and unique items in the same shop. The town was surrounded by rolling hills and a beautiful coast, a pleasure to explore... At least for the short time we had.

Of course we stopped for ice cream :)

Very tempted to take a perspective photo and pretend like they were doll houses, but I would have missed the bus :)

Also a funny sight as we were heading there.

We passed through Blackbutt.. Teehee

 

 

 

 

Money bag - Thai food

Making more of an effort to use our entertainment book vouchers before next years comes out, we tried out a place that we've always driven past but never tried. Money bags is on Old Northern rd, Baulkham hills.

We started with a serving of curry puffs ($7.70). The filling was delicious and the outer pastry was nice and crisp. Though it was tasty I would have preferred pastry that wasn't ass (as*) thick.

There were 4, we were just too hungry :)

There were a few dishes for mains. Duck in plum sauce ($25.90). The duck was succulent with not much fat. You could taste the seasoning of garlic, cinnamon and star anise.

Papaya salad with BBQ pork ($19.90). Great dish! The papaya wasn't spicy at all which is a good thing for us but it would have been nice for a bit of chilli.

Lastly, Pad Thai chicken ($14.90) and a serving of rice. We were exceptionally full after this meal.

 

Money Bag Thai Restaurant

3B Old Northern Road, Baulkham Hills, NSW 2153

Tel: (02) 96862202 or 0431 638167 Fax: (02) 96862883

Open: Daily 5.30pm-10pm

 



 

 

Misty's Diner

Our last night in Melbourne we braved the cold to visit an old favorite of K's, Misty's Diner. An American style restaurant, Misty's is decked out in 1960s memorabilia including pictures of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, neon route 66 signs, American candies, products and a jukebox.

For a Wednesday night, I was surprised to find Misty's so busy. Dispite the amount of people, we were greeted by Misty herself and promptly seated (in the warmer area as well, yay!). There were so many choices on the menu, it was hard to decide.

First to come out, our bucket of pork ribs with added buffalo wings! ($32.90+$4 for the wings). Served in a big bud light bucket, the chicken wings were crisp and moist on the inside. The wings came with a side of celery sticks and bleu cheese dip, we also got the hot sauce on the side!

The ribs we had were alright, they were a little cold by the time I got to them and there was a lot of cartilage on them. The dry rub marinade was nice but the meat didn't seem like it was cooked enough, I did get a small end of it that wasnt cooked. I like it when the meat is cooked til it falls off the bone or at least comes off cleanly. All in all not the greatest ribs we've had before.

We also got the half serve of gourmet fries to go with the ribs and they were the bests fries we've had... ever! So nice and crispy on the outside with a soft fluffy centre, they also have a great seasoning.

Next, we had the 24hr pulled pork roll ($19.90). A French roll filled with BBQ pulled pork, smokey BBQ sauce, red onions, American pickles and skinny fries.

After the gourmet fries the shoe string fries just did not compare. Good but not as good! The first bite of the pulled pork sandwich was fantastic, the BBQ pork flavor was so rich and the meat very tasty. The taste was a little too much to chow down the whole roll so we definitely needed to have the chips and pickles to break up to flavour hit.

Just as a little dessert we ordered a brownie thickshake ($7). It was very sweet and oh so chocolately! Delicious!

Misty’s Diner

103-105 High Street

Prahran VIC 3181

Tel: (03) 9510 0033

http://www.mistysdiner.com.au/

Visited: 11th April 2012

Wrath of the Titans - Review

Hello fellow movie-goers,

Recently we went and saw Wrath of the titans which is the sequel to clash of the titans. It is a 99 minute feature that in my opinion, was way too long. Generally I don't care how long a movie is, I've even seen a couple of 3 hour Bollywood movies that were great! However, 20 minutes to go I could not wait for the movie to be over.

I'd give this movie a 1.5 out 5.

The CG and a sprinkling of humour was just about the only good things about the movie. So if you're interested in watching an action movie without much care for a storyline then this is it! But watch it on DVD.

There's a bit of a synopsis below and then major spoiler alert so anyone still keen on seeing the movie. Please read it after you've seen it.

The story takes place about ten years after Perseus (Sam Worthington) saved the world from the Kraken. He is determined now to spend the rest of his life as a simple fisherman with his son, Helius (John Bell). Meanwhile, people have lost faith in the gods and stopped praying leading to the weakening of their powers and in turn, their ability to imprison demons and of course their Titan father Cronos. Zeus (Liam Neeson), Perseus' father, tries to enlist his help but he is reluctant until Poseidon (Danny Huston) appears instead of Zeus and informs him that Zeus has been captured by Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Perseus' half brother Ares (Edgar Ramirez). To save his father he must travel to Tartarus, a prison deep in the heart of Hades' realm. Along his journey he enlists the help of Poseidons' son Argenor (Toby Kebbell), Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) and the Fallen one, Hephaestus (Bill Nighy), a god stripped of his powers.

Here are some of the things that totally ruined the movie for me: SPOILERS!

1. There was no development of characters they were just thrown together in a pitiful attempt of a storyline. The relationship between Perseus and his son Helius was a sham used to imply a vague message about loyalty between fathers and sons. Which was truly a stupid idea anyway because all of the main male characters are related.
   
2. Sam Worthingtons Australian accent was once again star of the show. Maybe it was deliberate but there was no attempt to standardise any of the accents. Ares and Zeus both had American accents. Hephaestus and Helius spoke with british accents.
   
3. I dislike it when movies are inconsistent, they've outlined the rules of the world but they don't stick to it. An example; when he has the two headed monster in a hold in the beginning of the movie. "The venom is flammable don't let it get on you", fair enough. One of the heads is spitting venom on him and has fire clearly churning in the back of its throat why isn't it covering him in flames trying to get away or if he can't, why hasn't our hero also caught on fire being so close to the flame and covered in the venom, especially when he somehow manages to get it to set itself on fire.
   
4. When they're in the labyrinth to tartarus and Perseus is split up from Andromeda and Argenor. If even gods cannot navigate the way without the map how is he so lucky to stumble onto the right track and be able to meet up with his companions.
   
5. When he is battling Cronos, how is he and pegasus able to fly through a wall of fire with out a scratch or burn. The amount of times Perseus is severely and seemingly life threateningly injured but recovers in the next scene gives no substance to the reality that the movie is supposed to create. Especially since the gods seem to be dropping like flies.
6. And at the end, what are they preparing for, if he already destroyed Cronos? There was nothing said about the other titans. No armies to be spoken of what are they preparing for? Is it like spaceballs? "preparing, your always preparing, just go!"
   

 

This movie was really just a huge waste of money, for us to watch and for them to make. The only thing good about it was the CG.