HazyDaze

Just in case I lose it.

Bak Kwa

1 lb (450g) minced meat
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce or light soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp cooking wine
1/2 cup sugar

1. Put minced meat in a big bowl. Add seasoning. Use chopsticks and stir in one direction until the meat becomes gluey.

2. Put meat on a piece of parchment paper and flatten out with the back of a spoon.

3. Bake the meat in a preheated oven at 125 deg for 20 mins.

4. Then increase the temp to 180 deg and bake for another 20 - 30 minutes. (If you want harder bak kwa, then bake for a longer period of time, but watch that it doesn’t burn.)

5. Let it cool.

Experiment and adjust the seasonings to find a flavour that you like.

The Unagi Don I ordered yesterday, came like this.

Hmmm…. BS would have a field day.

We hosted a steamboat party on CNY reunion dinner at our place. First we had only invited 8 people because we had a total of 8 chairs in our place. The guest list got as high as 12 when people called to ask if they can bring either a lonely friend or a date. Well, I guess the reason for the CNY dinner was mainly to home lonely friends who are not back in SunnyLand for some reason or another. Besides, the party last year was close to 20 people and we were invited.

The prep work for the big night started 2 weekends ago, stocking up on steamboat supplies because we are kiasu. The night before, we extended our amazing table to a 6 to a comfortable 10 sitter.

The above picture shows half the table filled with food. We had doubles of everything including an extra steamboat.

One of our friend’s boyfriend doesn’t take red meat and a couple others have some sort of weird eating habits. I had to resort to labelling our food. Okay, I’m just anal. It was fun anyway.

Oh, CNY is not completed till we have Lohei (Yusheng)

Pictures are courtesy of GO.

I’m quite upset that its the end of season for Cherries.

Yesterday, we had Korean BBQ with the CTs and Co at this place near Vic Mart.

I thought it was pretty authentic seeing so many Koreans there. Plus, it looks like those we see on Korean movies/drama. They use hot coal instead of electric BBQ grills. It is strangely standing on top of what is seems like a metal oil barrel. Wish we tried the wide variety of Korean alcohol in the menu

We had our favourite Salmon and Soba dish last night. I think KL’s cooking improved immensely and I’ve been out of touch lately.

We went Mt Dandenong today. Had lunch at Pie in the Sky.

We had pies for Australian Day. How Aussie is that?

I had the Steak and Mushroom Pie with chips and salad. Yup, even with a sore throat, I still had to have my chips.

KL had the Floater - Classic Meat Pie with mash potato on top, floating on Ham and Pea Soup. *Yucks! If you ask me.

Too bad, I wasn’t feeling too well to enjoy the rest of the day.

We slept in today and went lumch about 1pm, maybe later, not sure. Drove to Brunswick Street and had lunch at Blue Chili.

It was our first time there and we ordered the Seafood Laksa and the Thrice cook duck. Sorry no pictures because we were busy stuffing face again. I love it. The laksa was really lemak, the nyoya sort I love. And the duck was fabulous. Highly recommended although it was a little pricey.

KL ordered this weird Ice Tea with lemongrass and mint. Taste too weird for my liking. What makes it special was that they used gula melaka - I’m sure coz I recognise the taste.

After lunch, we walked about and I had to go to my favourite shop - Kleins Perfumery. We bought quite a bit there with includes a blardy expensive candle that we have been eyeing on for a long long time.

Diptyque’s Freesia. Apparently, it is one of the best candles. For that price, it better be. I can’t believe I’m one of those people who spent so much money on candles. Gosh!

And, we spent more money at T2. Must be the weather, we got us some tea to make iced tea as well as a Bodum Iced Tea Jug with filter.

Oh, I FINALLY saw apples growing on trees!!! Yah, cheap thrill. Even if its in a nursery growing in a pot, who cares.

KL makes the best fried rice!!!

Woke up and had a splendid meal at Malaysian Garden Cafe at Clayton. Sambal Kangkong, Malay fried Chicken, Assam Fish and Chicken rice just for the two of us.

We spent New Year’s eve at Aunty Stella’s place waiting for the fireworks and then went home to have steak as the first meal of the year.

Cheers!

This year, we had a quiet Christmas eve. KL made roasted chicken and salad, while I was busy finishing wrapping the last bit of presents.

Don’t you think that the salad looks very christmasy?

KL grilled Salmon brushed with Hoisin sauce served with soba seasoned with fried garlic. I steamed brocolli and carrots in the microwave.

That was dinner.

We have been hanging out with CT and CT. They are our only couple friends who we can honestly hang out in long stretch of time without being bored.

We’re already been doing weekly double date dinners with the CTs

Last Friday, we made a reservation for dinner at Limors. KL and I went there about 5 years ago when we first came to Melly. We had the BBQ Platter.

Yes, we nearly died. The 4 of us can’t even finish it.

It came with a bowl of salad and a plate of fries, which we barely touch.

We decided that it is good training for this coming week’s Christmas BBQ. CT ordered about 1/5 of a cow. Seriously!

Oh, we since we all had separate stomach for dessert, we ordered the dessert special - ‘Death by Chocolate’. There was near death, I say.

After the huge dinner, we caught Borat at the movies. Laughing with a full stomach is no joke.

We had our “Hot Date” at Yu-U tonight. Its very popular and elusive so I booked it a couple of months ago and nearly forgot about it.

I think the food is alright. Fine dinning (aka small portion), so we had to keep ordering. We had yakitori (including chicken skin, chicken liver and chicken giblet), waggu beef, gyoza, salmon salad, grilled king fish head, grilled salmon, grilled calamari. Still it wasn’t enough to fill our expanded tummy, we ordered a grilled rice roll (it came in triangle shaped) to share. Come on, we need our carbo. Oh, and I had green tea ice cream and KL had black sesame ice cream.

The bill came up to about $120+. I don’t really mind going there again, but pre-booking way ahead is such a chore.

Btw, I finally tried Umeshu and I’m LOVING IT!

We bought some very good hydroponic Truss tomatoes on Sunday for only $5 a tray. It would normally cost more than $5 for a brunch of 5.

We’re having plenty of tomatoes for the next week or at least till we turn tomato-red in the face.

KL doesn’t have to worry about Prostate Cancer.

KL and me been on the CSIRO diet and I have been sort of skipping lunch because of stress at work. I thought I was losing weight until Aunty Stella asked us to go to her place for dinner every other night. Her nanny (Thai) came for holiday and cooks FANTASIC dishes.

I think I’m bloody fat now! Shites! Was planning to lose some weight before going back so I can eat more in SunnyLand.

We baked a “loti” today.

Yes, I know, its not exactly very pretty. What do you expect? Its a casalinga!

After lunch at Mekong, I went to the Asian grocer and bought some “sng buay”. And because I am currently sitting in an open concept office, people are curious about what I’m snacking after lunch. A few daring few tried and had their face shrivelled up. Hahaa… It is so funny

Asian. We eat strange things apparently.

Last Saturday, we did a very spontanous thing - we drove to the Yarra Winery to have lunch.

Lots of livestock on the way. I love cows!

The weather was great and sunny. Spring has somehow crept up on us. We had lunch at this winery place. Too bad, KL drove and had juice while I drank alone. Bought some wine and moved on to another place.

Went to the a Dairy farm and had the cheese platter, coffee and ice cream. Yes, barely a hour after we had lunch, we ate again. The cheese were damn super duper smelly. Not cheese-smelly, but cow-smelly. Hard to describe.

While KL stuff his face with cheese, I went out to say hello to the goat.

Just when we were about to leave, we saw the cows queuing to get milked. Too bad, can’t get to witness the milking process.

I hope there will be more outings like this more often. I really had fun…. stuffing my face.

I bought 2 boxes of Krispy Kreme for KL a couple of months back. We had so much, we wanted to vomit, so we had to bin the rest.

Looking back at this picture makes me want to have just one more.