Hyde Park Barracks Cafe and Night Noodle Markets

i like buildings with history, and since i've never had eggs benedict before, i decided to go the hyde park today (:

service was so slow. they had quite a long coffee line, even at 9.30ish. pairs of people got there food before me, even though i arrived earlier than them. i guess they would rather one person be annoyed then 2 people.

tissane tea, normally $6.50

i had my mind set on a chai latte (5.50, which was under the tea category), but the person said only normal stuff. so i saw some teas at 6.50, and chose the tissane one. didn't know what it was until i googled it. it's just healthy tea. defs tastes healthy. tea pot is so cute (:

fruit salad with yogurt and manuka honey, normally 9ish.

wish there was more yogurt and honey.

eggs benedict with salmon and avocado! normally 17.50

chose this one over the bacon (16) and vegatarian (15ish), since it's healtheir and more expensive. i would have liked more sauce, but looking at other people's photos, some people's sauce didn't even cover their whole egg even though they probs pair full price. smoked salmon wasn't too smoked, but for once i liked it less smoked, since it balanced the hollandaise sauce. again, first time having cafe/outside hollandaise. i've had other people's home made, not that great, and i remember Masterchef said it was hard to perfect. kinda hard to cut the crust, but it was so crunchy (: bread was a bit too oily for my liking. overall, $20, pretty satisfied.

perfectly poached egg, something i can't do.

the night noodle markets aren't cheap. average around $13 for a cardboard bowl of noodles, and it's not a big portion. i think i would rather trek to the store and get a bigger portion on a plate and pay about the same price. basically i would rather spend 20 on cafe food than 15 for stir fried in a box food. the novelty of the markets imo is that there's so much variety in one location. that only happens overseas, like in hk, food everywhere. in aus, you have to drive to places (unless you live in the city, even then, stuff aren't that close together). the cheapest was thai riffic's pad thai, at $10. i went at 5, and when i left, it still wasn't opened. other stuff like those shangainese buns etc are like 4 for $8, and viet rolls are about 4 for $10, so not cheap. the desserts aren't worth it imo. coconuts are $6. there was this icy drink for $5, and with other sugar syrup/coconut milk etc, but i thought if i got it, i would be even more thirstier. i want to try some stuff, but it's best to go with other people. i don't want the whole thing, but a bit of everything, if that makes sense. there's variety, but at a cost.

i got a free box a prawn crackers from taste of shanghai (been there once, way too oily, but shang stuff is oilier...), and free newspaper from smh. first time holding the "tablet" sized paper. 

feel sorry for the people working there in this heat. i didn't get anything was that it was too hot to eat stir fried stuff. i was still full form the breakfast. the only reason why i like summer is that when it gets hot, i don't eat much. today i had the above, then a mandarin, and water. dinner i had two pieces of meat and just heaps of veggies, and a tiny bit of rice. for summer, i think i can survive on just water, fruit, cold drinks, veggies, ice cream and dessert.

i love instagram. well, it's really good since if you want to know what a dish looks like, it's on there. eg, some desserts for good food month don't have a photo, so just search it up, and someone's been there yday/few days ago so you know what it looks like. photos on urbanspoon are hard to navigate, and for temporary stuff during good food month, ig is the way to go. btw, the quay's degustation for 165 is actually pretty cheap. too bad i can't eat spicy stuff. a day out with gilmore and another guy from Noma, (previous no.1 restaurant in the world) was 595. that's pretty cool, but with that money, that's about 3 degustations of hatted restaurants.