Afternoon tea @ Koko Black

After shopping around at Chadstone, we decided to have afternoon tea at Koko Black.

This winter, they have this Chocolate Choux Pastry as the special.

It's a chocolate choux pastry with raspberry.

This is how it looks when you cut it up.  It has custard and some raspberry coulis inside.  I really liked it.  But god it's expensive.  $5.50 for one.

This is the Chocolate Florentines.  It basically a chocolate disc with almond, pistachio, and dried raspberry.

And since I was getting hot after shopping around, I decided to have the iced chocolate, which I kind of regretted afterward... It's not that it's not good.  It was very very delicious.  But it was so rich and so big that I was so full after finishing it...I could barely walk...

Birthday lunch @ PappaRich

For this year's Birthday lunch, we've decided to go to a Malay restaurant in Chadstone - PappaRich. 

And we ordered loads of things.

The first to come was the Seafood Laksa. I always love a good Laksa, and had been searching around to find one that I like.  This one at PappaRich, I found that I quite like the soup.  It's creamy, and you can taste the peanut butter and coconut milk, all to a good balance.  It also had a sufficient amount of seafood with it.  If we didn't order so much other things, I think I probably would be content to have this all to myself.

This is curry chicken with coconut rice.  When this came, I was so busy with the Seafood Laksa that I probably didn't pay enough attention to it.  But luckily I still got to have a taste of it.  The curry chicken was very nice and I loved the coconut rice.

Then came the Roti with curry sauces.  I really do love those Roti.  Crisp but soft.  Lovely.  And the three curry sauce were all different but all tasty too.  I personally loved the one in the middle, which I believe was standard common curry sauce.  The reddish one on the right was kind of sweet, but had quite a chilli after taste.  I don't remember much about the yellow one on the left...

This is the infamous Deep fried chicken skin.  Really crispy.  It tasted good, but to tell the truth, it's more like, well, fried crisp.  You can't really taste any chicken or chicken skin.  But it really really was crispy and I did quite like it.

Then came the Chow Kuai Tieu, which we ordered just in case we didn't order enough...  It wasn't bad, but I certainly have had better else where.

Satay Beef, a must where going to Malay restaurant.  Since we ordered curry chicken already, we decided to have beef with the satay.  The satay sauce was really good, you can taste the peanut butter, a little sweet, everything to a very nice balance.  The beef was a little dry, but I guess that's just how things always will be when you have skewer out in restaurants.

And this is the drink I had, sesame milk with sesame ice-cream.  The ice-cream was quite nice, but god this drink was so cold.  Nice, but I guess next time I won't order it.

In general, the food and sauces are all very tasty.  This is definitely a place I would return to.

Thursday night dinner

Dinner on Thursday night.  God I was so full afterward.  

Saturday Roast Pork

Last night, mum made roast pork for dinner.

This was how it looked when it first came out of the oven.

One big slice with crisp pig skin crackling.  It REALLY was nice and crisp.

And it was served with delicious roast vegetables.

Soup downstairs, take two

Soup downstairs this Tuesday was Tomato Soup.

A bit sour, but full of real ingredient.  Not bad.  Wonder when can I actually have the Pumpkin soup...

Straits of Malacca @ Glen

Weekly lunch.  This week, it's Straits of Malacca at The Glen.  A Malay place.  Nice and cheap place.  But you do need to come early on weekends because it is always pack full around lunch time.

This is the Seafood Laksa.  I always wanted to find a good laksa.  I wouldn't say this one is the best, but it's not too bad.  One that I can go back to.  It did came with quite a bit of seafood - mussels, prawns, fried fish, etc.  And the noodle was also a mix of Hokkien thick noodles and the thin rice noodles, which is how I always like my Laksa to be like.  I must say though, the bowl that they used for the Laksa was probably not a very good choice.  It was a bowl that is kind of flat, so the soup did get cold very fast.  Not good for soup type noodle, especially when I wanted to drink all the soup...

This is the Satay skewers, three beef, three chicken.  The beef was a bit dry and tough, but the chicken was quite nice.  The satay sauce, though, was a bit too much to the sweet side, and not enough peanut taste in it.

This is the Malacca Lobak.  Don't ask me what that's suppose to mean.  Anyway, it's three fish balls, a few pieces of deep fried tofu, and some tofu skin roll (腐皮巻).  The fish balls were good, the tofu was okay, but the tofu skin roll (腐皮巻) tasted a bit weird.  Not something I'd have again.  Guess I'll go for either just the fish balls, or just fried tofu.

This is, obviously, spring rolls.  Not much ingredients it seems, but it was fried very good, very crisp.

Overall, not a bad place.  Cheap.  Guess I will go there again when I go to The Glen.

Soup downstairs

Once in a while, I would go downstairs to the cafe at ground floor to add something to my lunch.  Yesterday, I decided to have some soup.

This the Cream of Mushroom soup from downstair, in a foam bowl to keep in warm.  Loved it that the lid fits good but is also easy to take off.  It actually tasted quite good too, with lots of blended mushroom bits.  Full of real taste.  Instant soup just can't compare to it.

I want to try the Pumpkin soup next time.

Weekly lunch @ Spread Eagle

This week's weekly lunch was once again at Spread Eagle.  Nice food, and cheap.

This time I decided to try the Lancashire Hot Pot.  I kind of expected the potato on top to be grilled a bit more, with a bit more "burned" feel.  But this wasn't bad, tasted good.

The fillings was braised lamb, which I quite like also.  But I guess I still liked last time's Shepard's pie more.

Mum was going to have the ribs, thinking that it was like the ribs at Meat & Wine, only to find out that this rib is not that rib.  The ribs here was actually a steak on the bone.  So instead of that, mum decided to have the Grilled Calamari, which she quite liked.

RMB again

Local day, so we went to RMB again.

Mum had a Chicken Parma.  Obviously it cannot compare with Mrs Parma, but I guess it's okay for a local cafe.  The chicken was still quite moist, but the cheese was only just melted.

I couldn't think of what to have, so I had the Lamb Cutlet again.  It still tastes good, but.....is it just me, or does it looks like it's smaller than the same dish I had a little while back...

P.S. This was how it looked last time.