Strange sightings in Ocean terminal

Cartoons on clothes (adult sized), life sized statues and an abundant variety of products with cute cartoon characters on them are a common occurrence in Hong Kong and from what I remember, quite a few asian countries as well.

Even with this knowledge I was still surprised when I came across this in Ocean terminal shopping centre. A counter for Hello Kitty perfumes and jewellery?!

A few floors down in the main kids area we came across a barbie clothes store :) It was so pink!

Chocolate bunny seats in one section.

And eclair seats in another.

There were a few cool looking window displays. Interesting, if not a bit strange.

Something that looks familiar?..... It's mothers crepe but here they call it mazazu crepe. Smelt good but I didn't try it.

This one was the funniest of the day. It's a place called faces but they've spelt it on their signage with 3 Ses. It really wasn't that funny at first until my sister told me that her friend said it looks like it says feces. What is seen cannot be unseen @.@.

 

Hello Hong Kong!

A long awaited holiday, I'm in Hong Kong visiting my sister (and her babies of course! Bring on the chubba bubbas!).

She warned me it was hot here, so I was only semi surprised by the wall of heat that assaulted me as I walked out of the airport. Luckily I had acclimatized slightly in the airport while waiting for my luggage.

I received this message from 3 as I turned on my phone :). What a lovely message.

View from the airport. Hello smog, hello heat, hello Hong Kong! Oh how I've missed you :).

Passing a complex built on an island where you're not allowed to drive. All the apartment buildings looked the same @.@. The trees and mountain surrounding made it look less........... Borg. You know what I mean.

Can't wait to play with my niece and nephew, eat lots and getting in a bit of shopping.

 

Pho Ben - Parramatta

Pho Ben a great place to get Vietnamese food in Parramatta. This is a place we frequent a lot, so much that the staff knows us.

Our usual starter, vegetable curry puffs and spring rolls ($8 each). The curry puffs here are still one of the best curry puffs we've ever had.

Duck egg noodle ($12.50), I love egg noodles the soup and noodles is always nice but after about half of it the soup starts getting salty.

Chicken Laksa ($11.50), a usual order for one of my friends. It's a little bit too spicy for me and the soup is less creamy then I'm used to but she loves it.

Pork chop rice noodle ($12). The best of both worlds, soup and grilled meat!

Crispy noodle with beef ($12). Crispy crispy noodles, I used to love getting this dish but I've cut back just because its a whole packet of fried noodles.

Thai drunken noodle ($12.50). A dish usually seen on the lunch menu but they make an exception if we ask for it :). I like the large flat noodles, it's always cooked just right, not too dry.

They've also got some nice drinks. We ordered chendol (in a glass) and a grass jelly drink.

Pho Ben

55 George Street

Parramatta

Tel: +612 9689 3310

Open 7 days

11.30am - 3pm and 5pm - 9.30pm

Visited 24th April 2012 and many times after :)

 

Banana chocolate pecan pie

Pecan pie, my first baked good to win my hubbies tummy :). This is a recipe I've had for years but it always bothered me that the filling is just mostly maple syrup. So this time we added a layer of banana in it, which I worked out great!

PAC man pie :)

Ingredients:

Pie crust:

200g/ 1 3/4 cups of plain flour

75ml/ 5 tbsp caster sugar

90g of unsalted butter, softened

1 egg, beaten

Finely grated rind of 1 orange

Filling:

1/2 cup of golden syrup

3 tbsp of brown sugar

150g plain chocolate, chopped into small pieces

50g of butter

3 eggs, beaten

5ml/1tsp of vanilla essence

250g pecans

1 banana

This is my tweaked version of the recipe. If you plan on microwaving the butter when making the pie crust I recommend using less butter and adding it in small doses. The crust turns out a bit harder but then it doesn't take as long to knead the dough. If you've got time do it the long way, I'd do it that way.

1. Sift flour into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Work in the butter evenly with your fingertips until combined.
2. Beat the egg and orange rind in a bowl, then stir into the mixture to make a firm dough. Add water if the dough is too dry.
3. Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface and line a 20cm loose based pie tin. Chill for 30 mins.
4. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius/ 350 degrees fahrenheit.
5. Melt the syrup, sugar, chocolate and butter in a small saucepan.
6. Remove saucepan from the heat and beat in eggs and vanilla essence
7. Thinly slice the banana into 5mm discs. Line the bottom of the pastry with pecans, then a layer of banana and another layer of pecans
8. Carefully pour chocolate mixture into the pastry case and bake for 50-60 mins or until the filling is set
9. Leave it in the tin to cool for 10 mins before serving.

 

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Pie in the sky

We've been visiting pie in the sky for more the 6 years now. It was one of the first places Ken and I ever went together. The place is situated above the F3 freeway overlooking the hawksbury river. It's very peaceful, especially when the sun's out and there is a slight breeze.

Aside from the nice winding drive up, we love visiting pie in the sky to have our old favourites and to try out lots of pies!

Love looking at the lined up assortment of bikes and cars.

First up our pies! Yum yum. Beef burgundy, thai chilli chicken, lamb honey chilli garlic, lamb honey and rosemary, chicken and corn (all pies $5.50).

Bowl of fries with tomato sauce ($5). The fries where crunchy and soft on the inside and the best part is that the fries don't taste stale after a few short minutes.

A great place to chill out for a lazy afternoon.

Pie in the Sky

1296 Pacific Highway

Cowan NSW 2081

Australia

Tel: +61 2 9985 7018

Open 7 days:

Mon - Fri 9am - 5pm

Sat/Sun/Public Holiday 8am - 5pm

Visited: 28th April 2012




 

Holy Basil - Thai food

A trendy place in canley heights. Holy Basil is well known for their version of fried ice cream. Busy even on a Wednesday night, we waited for about 10 minutes before being seated.

The restaurant is open with seating inside and outside though if you're trying to get away from the cold it might be nicer to sit outside with the heaters.

The staff were pleasant and our food came our pretty quickly. Probably because thy were busy but not chokers like usual.

We got some awesome fruit shakes, one of the most awesome things about dining in the west. Pictured are two jackfruit shakes and a watermelon.

For starters we got curry puffs! Crispy and had a great filling, not too spicy it had a nice kick to it.

Deep fried marinated chicken wings, succulent chicken inside and the outside was crisp with a nice savory flavour.

Pad Thai, our stable Thai food gauge. It was delicious, not tomatoy like other places and a nice noodle to meat ratio.

Salt and pepper calamari. This was more just battered calamari then salt and pepper. It was still delicious and probably the best we've had.

Next we got a complimentary spoon of sticky rice topped with sweet pork, onions and a mint leaf. A very tasty morsel.

And lastly, the star of the show, the reason why we came when.. De de de da! Fried ice cream! Vanilla ice cream wrapped in filo pastry. It tastes as great as it looks. Sitting on top of a spread of caramel, sweet muesli, strawberry and sprinkled with icing sugar the vanilla ice cream is nicely complimented.

Definitely a place to try for the food and dessert!

Even easier now that they've opened up a new place in the Sydney CBD. Though I haven't been there yet I've been told its just as busy.

Visited: 16th May 2012

Holy Basil

Canley Heights

233A Canley Vale Rd

Canley Heights NSW 2166

Tel: 9727 7585

Lunch: 12pm - 3pm

Dinner: 5pm - 10pm Sun - Wed

5pm - 11pm Thu - Sat

*No bookings available

Sydney CBD

Shark Hotel, 127 Liverpool St

Sydney NSW 2000

Tel: 9283 8284

Lunch: 12pm - 3pm

Dinner: 5pm - midnight

*Limited bookings available

 

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Tong Chicken - Chatswood

A place recommended by a friend, he discovered the place because it shares his last name.

It's a small korean style shop, fitting no more then 5 tables. They have a few varieties of fried chicken and a range or rice dishes.

First up we ordered a couple of dons to share. Teriyaki beef, it was a size good serving And a just a right ratio of sauce to rice, very tasty!

Chicken Katsura don, this was good too but I liked the teriyaki dish more.

Original flavoured boneless fried chicken, our main course, we ordered two plates of it. Cooked to a crispy golden brown, it wasn't too oily, the chicken was moist and the outside so crunchy! The batter was tasty on its own you didn't need to dip it into the salt and pepper mix that came with it.

A very satisfying meal and the service was great. The owner was very friendly and he was happy to meet someone with the same surname :)

Tongy super happy after a meal of fried chicken!

Tong Chicken

Ground floor, Victoria Plaza

369 Victoria Avenue

Chatswood

Visited: 19th May 2012

 

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Awafi Charcoal Chicken

*Awafi is open down the street from their normal place of business and sharing a small place with Chalk.

Granville is the place to be if you want charcoal chicken! A soon as you get out of the car you can smell it. There are two charcoal chicken places in Granville a few blocks apart. El Jannah is very popular and has almost the same menu as Awafi but I like the chicken more at Awafi, because it is more moist.

Recently we headed there for dinner and to our dismay Awafi is closed for renovations. It's expanded twice now and this time it has taken over what used to be an arcade next door.

Needless to say El s was packed out but luckily we found Awafi has opened a small place down the road. It's shared with a place called chalk. The menu was the same but a little more expensive so we got take away.

Bread, garlic sauce, pickles and charcoal chicken. Yum!

Visited: 5th May 2012

 

Bulgogi Beef pie

My pie machine is one of my favourite kitchen appliances. It's so easy to use and it's quick!

Yesterday, we were a bit lazy and couldn't be bothered picking up more groceries so we had a look in the fridge and decided to Iron chef it.

Turned out well. We had about 300g of bulgogi ( frozen from the last time we got some bulgogi mix from Costco), puff pastry ( usually try to always have some around for pie), broccoli, happy cow cheese and some potato gems. Hmmmm poTATOoooo!

First we stir fried the bulgogi and mixed in the chopped broccoli.

Cut out circles of pastry for the base and lid of the pie crust. The cutters come with the machine and the cut pastry is about 12cm in diameter and the smaller one is about 10cm.

Load up the base with filling, cheese on top. Put the pastry lid on top and close the machine.

It takes about 5-6 minutes depending on how brown and crispy you want the pastry. Voila! Yummy pie.

We got 11 pies out of 4 sheets of puff, that's plenty for three people and we were hungry! We used the left over puff and squished the edges together to make more molds (hence the manky looking lid in the uncooked pies photo) but as you can see in the above photo the pies turn out just fine, just don't make them too thin or dense or they won't puff properly.

So an easy way to use a pie machine. And remember you can usethem for dessert pies too. If you don't have one, request one for the next present giving event :). They're great!