Yin Yang

Yin Yang has often been use to name food of mixture but it's probably more meaning full if they were opposites ie the 'black and white' drink although it's more often use for coffee and tea mix or mix noodles.

I had the luxury of enjoying the Yin Yang crab because the restaurant had insufficient mud crabs:
Mud Crab and Snow Flower Crab in Ginger Butter Black Pepper Sauce on Egg Noodles

Certainly not the kind of dinner that I'll be having on a date but the dish was lovely because you can appreciate the difference in the crabs. The Mud had a stronger sweet flavour but the Snow Flower although more subtle in flavours had a more delicate texture but boy do you have to work to savour these beauties. I've never appreciated crabs more.

Sydney's Offer

Sydney Harbour Bridge













The Opera House













The Three Sisters,
Blue Mountains














Coogee Beach











Deep Fried Mars Bar, Coogee Beach Fish & Chippery - Extremely unhealthy, this baby packs your entire daily caloric requirement. This Bar is very well done though. The batter on it is both fluffy and crunchy and the centre gooey but still semi formed. Dusted with icing sugar that hides the oil as your lips pressed against it, the only thing that's lacking is a good scoop of ice cream.

We know that it's only the originals that we can get them freshly baked. This is the baking of fresh assorted Krispy Kreme where the whole solid doughnut will eventually be pumped with lemon or raspberry. I ate em while they were single so it's the original


doughnut without the centre ring. It's really beautiful, different in texture. Without the weakness of the ring, you can appreciate the fullness of the soft body with the light crisp on the outside. I then had a fresh raspberry.

Sydney's famous Passion Flower Ice Cream
- Black Sesame and Rose Petal Lychee
So yummy that I devoured half of it before I realised I haven't captured it











Breakfast at Bills, Darlington
- lovely ambience, very pricy









Corn Fritters with Avocado and Salsa Fluffy

Ricotta Hot Cakes with Honeycomb butter and Pure Maple

Cooking Spree

I hardly ever cook and if I do, it's usually instant stuff since my brother and I are simple people who derive more pleasure in savouring desserts. However, for some reason, I have been cooking most of the week. It started of with a sudden desire to make ice cream which sprung from out of the blue. I've never made ice cream before and I don't even have a maker. I thought I'd make Green Tea ice cream since my sister in law loves green tea and thought if someone ate the ice cream, it'd be worth making. The green tea bags weren't very strong and the preliminary round of my ice cream freezing tasted like frozen egg cream. Working with what was around, I then melted a block of dark chocolate to it and added loads of honey to it and refroze it. When it was about set, I crushed up some honey roasted macadamia and almonds along with some raisins to the ice cream and it turned out surprisinly beautiful, like some gourmet ice cream.

The next day, I made an all time fettucine carbonara and to everyone's delight, despite a large quantity, the pasta was al dente and the bacon crispy, giving my egg cream sauce plenty of flavour. To complete things, I took the effort to add spring onions. I was touched when Jolene took seconds. It is after all, a cream based pasta. Given that I've still got cream left from the ice cream and pasta, I thought I'd finish it up with some bread and butter pudding. This didn't turn out as good as I would like but Jolene had seconds too. The butterscotch sauce I made to accompany it was lovely though. I know, it should've been vanilla custard or ice cream.

Following that, it's back to my Asian roots. I made Hainan chicken rice. It's amazing how good things taste when you use fresh complete ingredients. This was my second time making it and the last was years ago but this time I thought I'd give making the soy sauce accompaniment a go too. Although a tad salty, but still probably very flavorful as we drowned our rice and chicken in it.

Tonight, inspired by one of the best salmon I had at a English bar on my way to Sydney, I decided to re-create something similar.

Perfectly grilled salmon on a bed of mash, soft roasted vegetable topped with fried sweet potato chips, garnished with parsley

My perfectly baked then fried trout (pink in the middle) on a bed of butter-herbed mash (not as smooth and creamy) over asparagus spears along with well roasted desirees

My brekky: Butter sauteed spinach with scrambles and soy & linseed toast with a side of chilli chicken and English Hot Chocolate
- was told to add protein and cut down sugar and fats in my diet. I will try

Super Tuesday

I really wanted to go somewhere with my days off, to feel like I've done something. Not that I've got plenty of time but even one day...it needs to be fully utilised. Most people would say that I don't know how to relax, that I always have to do something. It's bad. I'm probably driving myself so much that I'm causing myself to look older than my biological age.

Anyway, travelling at the moment is too expensive but time back in Melbourne nonetheless was far from ordinary.

I started the day with some errands, proud that it was actually accomplished, followed by an intense Body Attack session. Lunch was nothing to boast about so I decided to have a self coffee session. The Hot Choc Float was sublime, plenty of rich belgium dark chocolate mixed through steaming hot milk topped with some drowning coffee ice cream and chocolate curls, with overflowing froth to slurp... Now that's my version of an Ice Mocha. Perfect for the cool late spring.

After all the sugar, I went for a free private dance lesson which was thoroughly enjoyable despite my rigidity and lack of coordianation. The instructor was not only cute, he was very patient and encouraging. My day only gets better. Since it's a Tuesday, I thought I'd make the most of what the day had to offer and took myself to the movies. Watched a chic flick 'Prada Wears Heels' which is somewhat entertaining but shouts the message that girls should be thin, and not eat carbs. What a devil...

I had to rush from the movies to view an apartment that I was rather keen in securing for next year. I am looking to move at the end of the year. When we arrive though, the agent said that the tenants had to cancel at last minute for personal reasons but suggested we attend another viewing at another similar price unit that was suppose to be gorgeous that was scheduled for this Friday. I have work. My brother and I decided to drive to this apartment to check out the outside but since it turned out to look so good, I shamelessly buzzed the door bell and asked if I could view the inside. The guy inside was surprisingly pleasant and not only did he show us every little detail of his gorgeous place, he asked us to stay for dinner. He was cooking when I interrupted. We couldn't. He got my number because I said I could introduce him to a potential housemate.

Finally, dinner time. Famished. The previous agenda took longer than expected. We were looking forward to dining at the new modern Japanese restaurant in Docklands that I've been eye-ing for over a month because of the beautiful menu choice with a 2 for 1 tuesday offer but when we entered and ask for the special, we were told the offer ended last Tuesday! Argh! Why? No Sushimi cheesecake. Because it's a Tuesday and with 3 other restaurant offering a Super Tuesday offer where they spilt your bill, we decided to give one of them, Saganaki a try. It's a modern Greek restaurant. My first time in a nice Greek place and it's great. The main fare was a suckling pig slow roasted with sage, prunes and honey, and milk fed lamb slow roasted with thyme, rosemary, olive oil and garlic chips. Their roasts are premium free range grain and grass fed stock cooked to perfection between 15-18 hours, served in their own jus with baby potatoes & vegetables à la grecque. Salivation and gastric secretion over-rode any thought and before I had anytime to consider a picture, I devoured my meat, veg and potatoes. Just to add, just before dinner arrived, pleasant guy at gorgeous apartment texted to say thank you for saving his risotto and that it was great meeting us. How sweet. He's relatively cute, keeps his place clean and cooks. Wow. I'm not desperate, just a single girl who's had some sugar, watched a chic flick and dining with her brother and his wife, yeah...I'd be forming thoughts about guys.

The dessert was completely Greek. Interesting.

Yianniotiko se Formakia - A pasty dessert from Ioannina
Coarsely chopped walnuts and kataifi pastry soaked with sugar syrup in a filo pastry cup, served with pistachio and white wine poached pear

Galaktoboureko
Served with berry compote and apricot & kiwi couli

Creamy Rice Pudding
A traditional dish topped with crumble and served with a crunchy pistachio cinnamon tuile and candied orange

- this pudding is lovely. The crumble is loose but formed and very crunchy, having more texture than the average fruit crumble which is a fantastic compliment to the creamy rice pudding beneath. The occasional bite with the pistachio ice cream brings joy to the warmth and the orange is fine, but adds so much flavour.

Friendship

Sixteen pieces of priceless friendship gems - crafted with love

Monday Sunshine

Monday is apparently the most dreaded day of the week. The highest incidence of heart attacks occur on a Monday more than any other day. A reminder to employ appropriate stress reduction strategy to face the day.

Sunday night: plan Monday morning.

Monday morning:

Breakfast at our all time favourite, La Camera, Southbank that beautifully over-looks the Yarra River and where for a price of $6.50, you'll get a good decent hot breakfast.

Moments before Yii Vern test the quality of her brekky by breaking first into her poached eggs. With much satisfaction, her eggs were perfect, well formed whites encasing the glorious yolk bursting to ooze out

We had the luxury to indulge in some retail therapy after breakfast, at Armani Exchange. The day cannot be complete without sweetness and before either of us headed off for some real work, we got pancakes.

Ah...the beauty of planning and who says you need to be a rich housewife to 'lunch'

Forest Berries
Two freshly made fluffy buttermilk pancakes, packed with strawberries and blueberries, topped with a generous scoop of (not melting) vanilla ice cream, finished with plenty of maple syrup

Mon Ami

The French cuisine is creative and rich, delicate in nature and next to the Japanese, it is probably the most recognise cuisine where you can feast on not only the full 3 course but starting with wine and ending with coffee and feel just right.

After a really long week at work, we went to Mon Ami (My Friend), a little cosy french restaurant in fitzroy apparently well known for their duck where they've sold over 6000 ducks. We did have the duck...but first, we started with the Souffle.

Twice baked cheese souffle, baked once, then turned upside and re-baked over a cheese and sun-dried tomato

To follow...

Brelleux
- Double roasted chicken breast with truffle mushroom porcini. I must say, the duck is very well cooked, medium so it's pink inside but with a nice crisp skin.

Cassis
- Grilled duck breast with game sauce and raspberry
This was absolutely lovely. Although usually tart, the plump berries provided such a sweet rice flavour to the game

And finally...

The Mocha Pot
Dark chocolate and coffee creme brulee topped with kahlua and cream

Tarte Tartin
The traditional French upside down apple cake served with creme frais

The dessert is usually the highlight but I think at for Mon Ami, their duck reigns supreme.