Thursda 18th February 2010

Lunch at Work
Basa Fillet with Leek, Tomato, Chilli & Coriander

A nice, quick and healthy lunch.
It made sense to eat it out in the fresh air.

Kok's back in town so I took him along to my second ZUMBA class and we had an awesome session working up our appetites for dinner.

Dinner
Yong Tau Foo in spicy Sambal Soup

Wednesday 17th February 2010

Tonight we had dinner at home for Chinese New Year. Mum was busy preparing everything for us to have steamboat, which I had been looking forward to all week. However, when David arrived, we found out he's given up meat for Lent.

*gawk*

Mum busied herself trying to find and defrost seafood. We ended up just cooking dinner on the stove and foregoing the steamboat. Next time.

Bee Hoon soup with Yong Tau Foo

After dinner, we did Lo Hei. Instead of having raw fish, Mum used smoked salmon. I had a bad feeling about this. It ended up tasting rather smokey. I didn't like it at all. But the mango in it was great. I also love the colours in this dish!


You can read about the year I made Lo Hei myself here.

Tuesday 16th February 2010

Basa Fillet
What can we do to spice up this piece of fish!?

Slices of roma tomato, coriander, sambal belachan, coconut milk.
The coconut milk was from the freezer so I only managed to scrape a bit out. At work, I cooked it in the microwave on high for two minutes.

Lunch at Work
Sambal & Coconut Fish with Rice
It doesn't look pretty, but it sure smelled and and tasted delicious!

In the afternoon, a few of us went for a quick coffee at Cafe Amaretto on Hutton Street, Osborne Park. We were trying out a ZUMBA class. Awesome fun!


Dinner
Portuguese & Chilli roasted Chicken
Buttered Potatoes and roasted Garlic

I marinated the chicken with
Masterfood's Portuguese Chicken spice, chilli flakes and olive oil.

Sorry babe, you can't have any.

Monday 15th February 2010

Lunch at Work
Tuna & Cheese Salad

After work we gathered to have dinner that would take us back to the ol' days when we were back in uni.

I had a chunk of sashimi grade salmon that I bought a few days ago that we had intended to make sushi with yesterdy, but Ivy's Mum said it would be bad lunch to have sushi that day. I wasn't sure of the superstition behind this, but my sister pointed out that it might be because you're not supposed to prepare food on the first day of the Chinese New Year.

So, I brought the salmon over with a knife from home. We were gathered at Benoit and Ivy's vacated rental place so it's empty of everything. Ivy bought some takeaway rice and we ate the salmon with the rice. How very 'uni days' of us.

We tore the lids off the styrofoam containers to make extra bowls for the rice!

Does it surprise you that we went for a Macca's run straight afterwards!? hee hee

Sunday 14th February 2010

It's Valentine's Day and the first day of the Chinese New Year today.

After entertaining some visitors for the New Year at home, I headed out to visit Ivy at her parents' home.

We went for a drive, armed with a bucket of deep fried fish crackers.

After stopping by Veba's, we went for an afternoon snack at Macca's.

Ice cream!

With the weather being so beautifully warm, we stopped by Point Walter for some fresh air and a stroll.

You'll notice that we're wearing red. No, it's not because we were getting all lovey-dovey for Valentine's Day. Red is an auspicious colour to wear during Chinese New Year. It's for good luck, fortune, prosperity, scares away evil spirits, and so on and so on. When I was younger, my wardrobe consisted of mainly black so Mum was always horrified when we had to go out visiting relatives and would try to find us something coloured, if not red, to wear. Nowadays, I try to wear a bright colour, especially when visiting people because it's respectful to the tradition and culture. I wouldn't want to wish bad fortune on any of my friend's families!

Ivy's parents asked me to stay for steamboat for dinner. How could I refuse!?

I love Ivy's Mum's fried egg plant stuffed with fish paste.

What a nice, laid back way to spend a Sunday.

Saturday 13th February 2010

I woke up today to find my favourite Chinese New Year biscuits on the kitchen table.

Bee's Nests

My Aunty across the road had made them. As the years go by, Mum gets less and less enthusiastic about spending hours on end making Chinese biscuits. They are alot of work. When we used to live up north in Goldsworthy (a small mining town in the Pilbara) Mum had to make alot of things. Nowadays, so many traditional Chinese foods are available in the Asian supermarkets. Although they don't taste quite as nice as the homemade variety, they do save alot of time and effort in today's busy times.

I remember we used to help Mum make pineapple tarts. In the first few years we lived in Perth, Mum would make the 'nian gao'. She even sold them in a local Chinese store one year! I love when she used to sliced it up, wedge a paddlepop stick into it, dip it into beaten egg and fry it like french toast. So delicious.

Since Mum wasn't feeling up to making dinner - steamboat requires a bit of preparation - we went out to eat at Burswood.

Roast Lamb dinner in the Emporium.

We were all running on tight schedules so it was a quick dinner in the food court. Afterwards, we went into the casino where I won $31 on my first bet on the Rapid Roulette and I was very quick to cash out! I would rather see the New Year in on a win than on a loss. The Chinese are very superstitious when it comes to matters of prosperity during the Chinese New Year.

Later, I went to a singles night at the Library Nightclub in Northbridge.

Friday 12th February 2010

We spent the first few hours of work simply talking about food.

Sponge cake with jam and cream.
Donutes with jam and cream.
KFC.
Pasta.
Pizza.
Curry.
Red Rooster.
Chicken Treat.
Hot chicken rolls.
Grilled fish.
Fish and chips.

The list goes on.

Needless to say, we worked ourselves up to the point where our stomachs were growling and I had to call in a favour with Ramona to do a coffee and pie run for me when she started work at noon.

Morning Tea at Work
Proscuitto Caesar Salad

Lunch at Work
Jesters Spud Deluxe Pie
After several bites, all I revealed was mashed potato. Creamy, delicious mashed potatoes. I began to suspect that perhaps Ramona had gotten me a mashed potato pie. But no, a few more bites later I could just make out the rest of the filling - beef mince gravy, bacon and cheese. *drool*

I needed some chocolate. I searched my locker and found one that's shaped like some reagent cards that we use in the lab. It was produced by the company Diamed, who supplies diagnostic laboratory materials to us. At some point they were giving these out in their showbags. Cute. They tasted even better. Dark chocolate.

I met up with Benoit and Ivy for dinner tonight.

JAWS
Hay Street Mall, Perth CBD

	Takoyaki
	Chuka Kurage (seasoned Jellyfish) Ghunkan
	Crispy Fried Chicken Really crispy crumb with juicy tender meat!
	Not sure what this was... Unagi (Eel) Nori?
	Maguro (Tuna) Nigiri

EXOMOD CAFE
cnr Murray Street and Barrack Street, Perth CBD
This cafe used to be the chocolatier. I would always pop in to buy some lollies whenever I was in the city. Now it's a neat, tidy looking cafe. We went there after dinner. Firstly, we began ordering and then a middle-aged Asian woman came up to the counter and started rattling off her order. The counter staff thought she was with us so she continued to take the lady's order, thinking she was ordering for us. Ben did say something along the likes of "We're not together" but she obviously didn't hear us. We could only wait, tapping our feet impatiently. I was rather irked. How rude.

Anyhow, we ordered our coffees and sweets and then went to the far end of the cafe to sit. Our sweets were brought out first.

Then Ivy's coffee.

Then mine.

The presentation is gorgeous and professional.
Too bad I asked for a soy macchiato and what I got was more like a latte.

Benoit and Ivy shared the mud cake.

*ahem*
I was really in the mood for an eclair, but it was disappointing.
Dry and leaning towards the stale side.

The coffee didn't sit very well with me. I think they burnt the milk. Not going back there again.

They do offer free wireless for customers though. Up to forty minutes.

We popped in to see Long and his saltwater aquarium. While he's been away on holidays, the tank has been overtaken by algae.

I was trying to take a photo of something inside the tank, but with the camera on macro mode, all I could pick up was all the algae growing on the inside of the tank on the glass.

I spotted a hermit crab with algae growing off its shell!
Soooo cute!
Yes so keh lian.

It reminded me of those troll dolls that were in fashion back in the 90's.