Dragon Beard Candy - Friday night markets

One of my favourite things at the night markets is Dragon beard candy!

I'd stopping going to the night markets because the stall had disappeared. It wasnt until a friend told me she'd seen the stall again that we ventured out to the night markets again in search of glorious candy!

The stall was somewhere in the middle of the street and it was packed out. Mostly by people watching the two men making it and darting forward now and again to buy a piece of candy.

The two men are making them fresh throughout the night and I love watching them make it. It is an amazing process where they take a disc of palm sugar and work a hole into the middle. Then he stretches the palm sugar, turns it and stretches it again until it becomes fine strings of sugar. He then wraps it around a mixture of peanut, coconut and sesame.

Some mates enjoying their firsts tastes of dragon beard candy!

It's always best the eat it straight away so the palm sugar floss is still soft and it melts in your mouth. After a while it gets a bit harder and chewy. Still good, just not as good

You can find the stall at the Friday night markets in Chinatown and they also have a website.

Visited 11th May 2012

 

Posted with Blogsy

So many things to write about so little time

Thanks to everyone that's been missing my posts last week. I've been a little caught up researching a new hobby and trying to get it setup. I've been taking lots of photos so updates are just a matter of time! :)

Happy mothers day to all you mothers out there.

I'll try to start posting again soon.

 

Iron Sky = free lobotomy with every viewing

Have you ever watched a trailer and thought "that looks so bad it's probably going to be good?". Well in this case that statement did not apply.

Rating 1 out of 5

The movie starts with a couple of astronauts landing on the moon and coming across a hidden Nazi base on the dark side. A Sarah Palin like US president is running a re-election campaign and decides that sending astronauts ( one being a black model - that's right a model. Quote " can't you see I'm pretty") to the moon would increase her popularity.

The expedition team run in to Nazis who had migrated to and colonized the "dark side of the moon" in 1940 to live out the orders of hitler. To return to Earth in the future to bring peace and perfection to earthlings, or so some of the naive Nazis thought.

A few of the many questions we thought of throughout the movie are; how are they surviving on the dark side of the moon without being detected, wheres food coming from, where is the air being generated from, how did they get so much metal to create their buildings/ ships/ mining and storage equipment.. etc.

The movie is full of interesting tidbits of BS, like the Albinoiser, turning the black model white "as a snowflake". The whole pretense of Nazis living on the moon and incorporating an iPhone into their largest ship and be able to use its processing power to start up and run the ship.

The only factor of the movie making it watchable is the comedy and the fact that it is so bad it is hilarious. Though I guess that was the goal of the filmmakers.

A few more recent topics were touched on; The UN treaty of not militarizing space was made fun of with all countries, except Finland, arming their space stations. The Russian MIR, one that should have been destroyed, makes an appearance and it had pretty nice weapons. North Korea attempted to take credit for the military base on the moon, an obvious jibe. Incorporating some internet memes, such as hitlers downfall, blowing up part of the moon to get a clear shot at the Earth and the ridiculous things the PR manager comes up with are just a few hilarious things that cropped up.

Definately an onion movie! Good for a temporary lobotomy. Not a movie I would see again but I can see it becoming a cult classic. Not as memorable as Spaceballs but I haven't seen that movie in a long time :).

Achtung! Do not drive after viewing, may experience temporary brain and sensor impairment.

Nazis on the Moon!

Also does anyone else think that halfway through the movie the main female German starts looking heaps like Shakira?

Watched: 11th May 2012

 

The Avengers 2012 - Joss Whedon is a genius!

We saw The Avengers the night it came out at the cinemas and since then I've been thinking of how I should write a review for it.

I would rate it a 5 +++++ out of 5!

No review I write could do justice to the movie. Just to indicate how much we loved the movie, we watched it again the week after and may potentially see it in the cinemas again. I've never watch a movie in the cinemas twice let alone 3 times.

It appeals to fans of the Marvel franchise, fans of Joss Whedon and people who just like to watch movies, it was brilliant. Checking out forums after opening night there were many posts of " It was Awesome!!!" ( my thoughts exactly) and the only complaint we came across was that other people in the cinema were laughing too loud and applauding at the end of the movie, something that I agree with ( why applaud to a cinema screen?).

The Avengers was a prefect mixture of character interaction, bit of back story from the previous marvel movies, action - and not just action for the sake of action (transformers!), technological eye candy + hunky male (& female) eye candy and perfect comedic timing.

Stan Lee also does his customary appearance in the movie.

The only movies necessary to watch before watching the avengers would be Thor and the story of Captain America. Anyone who still hasn't seen it... YOU SHOULD GO SEE IT!! IT WAS FRIGGING AWESOME!!

Hulk smash!!


 

 

 

Brilliant dominos advertising Netherlands

Dominos Pizza in the Netherlands is making an effort to be more eco friendly by switching to 100% electric scooters. The only drawback is the they are completely silent which poses a safety hazard.

Dominos marketing team in the Netherlands, lead by manager Carolien ten Cate, came up with am ingenius way to improve road safety and incorporate road safety. The scooters are all fitted with speakers that play human made engine sounds as their delivery scooters whiz around the cities.

As you can probably make out the guy is making car noises and intermittently saying dominos! Pizza! and it also say lekker which is Dutch for nice/delicious/tasty. Great subliminal messaging.

 

Reddit - oh no!

Ken installed the reddit app on my phone yesterday. Reddit along with so many sites on the web, including fml, is a huge black hole for time. Well maybe not black hole, what has less gravitational pull then a black hole? Not near impossible to get out of and there is a time dilation thing happening.

Surprisingly I haven't been spending lots of time on the site but time will tell. At the moment i'm still being easily suckered into the cutesy overload pics...

Not usually a fan of rodents but I like that their flying squirrels eating peanut butter left out by someone.

Anyway let's see how long I can resist the little alien and all the karma it could bring :)

Kazbah - Top Ryde

For a long time now I've been wanting to go to Kazbah. We've been there once before and I loved the bread and dips we ordered. This time was no exception.

We started off with the large serving of bread and dips ($16 - $8 gets you a serving of one of the dips)

Starting from left to right the dips were, tzatziki ( wonderfully cucumbery and refreshing), babaghanouj (nice but oily), hummus ( very smooth), carrot!! ( my favorite and Kens) and taramasalata (tasted like it was made from black olives, it was very nice, bit of a salty kick to it).

The dips were served with three kinds of bread; char-grilled Turkish bread, fresh and crispy Lebanese bread.

Shredded lamb topped with pistachio sauce served on a pita crisp ($17). This was absolutely delicious! The morsels of lamb were so succulent, not at all oily even though it looked a bit oily. The pita crisps were great, even better when I let the lamb juices soak in a little so it was still a little crispy and had the lamb flavour.

Fried cauliflower, eggplant jam, pine nuts and yoghurt tahini sauce ($15). The cauliflower by it self was a bit dry but when you eat it with the eggplant jam and pine nuts it tasted awesome.

And lastly our main, Harrisa marmalade beef, sticky pearl couscous, Moroccan eggplant, tahini sauce and red wine onion marmalade ($36). The beef was very flavoursome but a little tough. I loved the couscous and it was very very filling. Overall it was a bit of a sweeter dish because of the marmalade.

Kazbah is a nice place, it manages to create a nice quiet ambience even though it a faces the courtyard of the piazza and is next to the walkway towards to bathrooms and library. Its a bit expensive but once in a while is ok.

I love the bottles they serve water in and the leaf is a nice touch.

Kazbah Top Ryde

La Piazza, Top Ryde City Shopping Centre

Ryde, NSW

Tel: +612 9555 7067

Open: 7 days, from 8am

Visited: 2nd May 2012

 

Glass Brassserie

After a fabulously gluttonous meal of all you can eat ribs ( see Tony Roma post) we just had to find a dessert place. We headed to the Glass brasserie at the Hilton hotel for the dessert share platter ($90 - recommended share between 3 people).

The place a beautifully laid out with an open kitchen and a feature wall stacked from floor to ceiling with bottles of wine as a room divider. There were a few wait staff stations and there was always attentive staff close by.

Busy busy chefs in the kitchen.

Our giant platter of desserts! .. Yum!

Caramel sorbet and salted peanuts. Sounds strange but it works.

Milk chocolate bavarois. The filling on the inside tasted like hazelnut but I'm not sure what it was.

Mango and coconut bombe Alaska, lychee salad. The lychee salad had a strong citrus taste, very sour but not unpleasant.

Churros, chocolate sauce and orange marmalade. The Churros we're warm and fluffy on the inside and tasted fantastic with the marmalade. The marmalade was smooth with a strong orange flavour, by itself it had a slight bitter aftertaste. I wasn't a fan of the chocolate sauce it was very salty.

Toffee souffle with pecan butter ice cream. The souffle was soft and eggy but my favorite was the pecan ice cream! Just the right balance of sweet caramel taste and pecan.

Vanilla creme brûlée with macadamia biscotti. Thin and crisp biscotti it was delicious, went well with the creme brûlée which disappeared very fast!

Just looking at these photos again makes me want to go back. We'll definately pay another visit when we have enough people to share the platter again :).

Glass Brasserie

Level 2, 448 George Street,

Sydney, 2000

Tel: +612 9265 6968

Visited: 1st May 2012

 

Tony Roma's - Sydney

All you can eat ribs promotion is back on at Tony Roma's. Normally $39.90 for pork riblets and more for lamb ($49.90) and beef ($59.90).

We all chose the pork and a side of fries, yum yum. The ribs were cooked til the meat came right off the bone and not too saucy just the way I like them.

The aftermath of our carnivorous efforts. This was after ordering an extra serving of riblets, in total I think I had almost 5. Though I gave some of mine to Ken as well.

After all that meaty goodness we went in search of dessert and ended up at the Glass brasserie (check out the post).

Tony Roma's

121-123 Sussex Street

NSW, Sydney.

Tel: +612 9299 8500

Open: Monday - Thursday 11.30am-3pm, 5pm-10.30pm

Friday - Sunday 11.30am - 10.30pm

Visited: 1st May 2012

 

Sushi Tei - Sydney

Sushi Tei is a place I've been meaning to try out for a while. We heard about it almost two years ago but for some reason just never got around to trying it out. There are a couple of franchises in the city and we headed to the one on Liverpool st.

The place was quite, though I guess it was late afternoon on a Sunday. It was a nicely decorated place with a sushi train in the main area and a split level sit down dining area off to the left.

They had a nice selection on the menu but the desserts were what caught my eye :). I can wait.

We started off with tempura eggplant (Nasu Tempura $1.80 ea). It was a little rubbery where the skin was thicker, soft and crispy it tasted very good with the tempura dipping sauce. The eggplant didn't seem like it was marinated in anything so without the sauce it was little bland.

Meat Gyoza ($7.20) and Aburi Hotate Misomayo Roll ($14.80). Meat Gyoza was cold by the time I got around to it, the filling was good but I prefer the vegetable ones.

The scallop aburi was delicious, the scallop was fresh and the mayonnaise did not overpower the taste of the scallop. It was so good we ordered 2 ;)

Tempura prawn ($3.20 ea)

Karaage Don ($9.80). Not as crispy as other places but still nice, can't go too wrong with karaage.

Aburi Salmon roll ($16.80). My favorite! Seared salmon sushi topped with roe and teriyaki sauce it makes the salmon slightly smokey and the teriyaki sauce adds a sweetness to the overall flavour.

Katsu Don ($10.80). Nicely done pork, must have been a favorite amongst everyone because it went fast.

Hanasaki Ika Tempura ($7.80). Delicious little morsels of calamari with crisp tempura batter. Definitely something I'd order again.

Kens must have at all Japanese places, teriyaki chicken ($9.80). The chicken was a little dry but they didn't put too much sauce on the chicken, something I prefer because it makes the chicken really salty.

Even after such a filling meal we still had room for dessert ( its another stomach didn't you know :p) . The guys shared a Creme brûlée ($4.80).

Tezukuri Nama Dorayaki ($4.80). Pancakes and red bean filling.

Tezukuridorayaki ($5.80) a deconstructed pancake with green tea ice cream and a side of fruit. It also had a sprinkling of kinako which I love having with ice cream... Oh I miss Japanese ice cream.

And lastly the one I ordered, Mochi crepe with black sesame ice cream and green tea flavored crepe ($5.80). Delicious! The crepe was light and not gooey but I couldn't really taste the green tea in the crepe.

You can choose either plain or green tea flavored crepe and either black sesame or green tea ice cream. even though 3 of us ordered the same dish we all ordered different variations, just to make things difficult :). They got it right, no mistakes.

Overall I nice place that I'd come back to. The service was really good and aside from some of the dishes being a little cold all the food was yummy, especially the desserts :).

Sushi Tei

127A Liverpool Street

Sydney, 2000

Tel: +612 9283 7889

Open: 7 days, 11.30am - 10pm

Visited: 29th April 2012