Bakehouse Garden and Cheeky Chocolate

First time coming to eat in this part of Sydney. I didn't realise this used to be the old Arnotts factory, but I like how they've tried to keep the old factory walls for the local car park, and walls inside and out for the restaurants here. Came here on a hot Autumn evening for wollamsam, the Korean version of rice paper rolls.

Wollamsam. $22 pp

love the vibrant colours

rice paper roll

It is definitely cheaper to have it at home, but you're essentially paying for someone else to wash, cut and prep all the ingredients for you. There are heaps of veggies to choose from including avocado, and 2 types of meat. It's a decent price for a buffet style restaurant, and it's relatively healthy. I don't think I ate $22 worth of veggies, but at least $4 worth of avo, if one avo is $2.50-$3. I ate heaps of rolls that I forgot how many...Was so full at the end.

Blueberry Cheesecake: white chocolate mousse, green tea sponge, blueberry jelly, yogurt cheesecake-$10.50

It's more expensive than your average piece of cake, for an average cheesecake. It was quite dense even though the cheesecake is only about 1/3 of the height of the slice. Wished there was more acidity from the blueberry jelly to cut through the denseness. It wasn't too sweet luckily. Couldn't taste the green tea at all. The bottom was sort of leaking some moisture, looks like from the sponge but tasted creamy. I like this cafe as it also kept features of the old factory within the walls inside. 

   

Possum Magic

It's been a whirlwind of a week even though I only had 1 day of uni, ironically. Excluding last sem when there wasn't any lectures, this past week was probably the first time ever having just 1 day of uni during the semester. From food expos, catch ups, 'networking' events, so here's a compilation of photos from the week, because why not?

For those wondering, I ended up getting iPhone 8 in Gold. It's really the same as iPhone 7 but I can't hold an 8 Plus and X I would rather wait for the one after since I don't need all these fancy functions. Pre orders started from 5:01pm, but couldn't order it till 5:07pm. Reminded me back in 1st/2nd year of trying to get the best timetabled classes, and just waiting for the not so trusty UNSW servers to load.

view from L'Aqua, Cockle Bay Wharf

If I wasn't so lazy and decided to walk those extra steps, that damn light in the middle wouldn't be in the way.

Trivia Night

Speccies always chooses a decent location with catered food/drinks, and of course persuading people to work for them. Thank goodness for other friendly people so not too awkward to just join the table. Came last in trivia, but it was still good fun. So embarrassing taking the above photo. I slightly stood up and said just wait to the table, but because our table was at the front, the person thought I was telling them to wait so I could take a photo of the slide lol. I actually don't really care what they think, just funny how they thought I was trying to take a pic of the slides. Not many people came this year compared to last year though, at least the food this year wasn't all deep fried.

Some friends are worth trekking to the city for, even if it's just for 2 hrs. It's always nice when others make an effort to catch up esp from interstate. Who knew ordering drinks for 6 people is actually quite complicated (another post to come).

Yesterday was pretty hectic in a good way. Met up with my cousin and uncle's friend for drinks/food.

capp and mocha from Lindt Cafe

I actually haven't been here since they had some free mocha thing back in 2013...Still found the dark choc quite sweet though.

sushi train!

One of our relo's friend came to Sydney literally for a day for this sushi and to pick up stuff. More on that later....Then went back home to bring more stuff out so he could take more Aussie food back to HK.

iced chai lattes whilst looking at diamonds...

2 days after I paid, they said students could go for free, so they are 'compensating' me with a free ticket to the Xmas party...So I guess more free food?

Mercure Sydney Hotel

I am so glad I went to this networking event to just hear about all these super experienced optoms who come from all over the place. People in research, started up their own practice, people who do more business/management and not see patients, others moved from overseas,  some moved 4/5 jobs, and just their overall passion gives me motivation. Although I was a bit confused as to where I want to head in the future, but I have another year to think about it, just gonna get through this sem first...I knew the food wasn't gonna be amazing, but it was nice just chatting to people and seeing how they got to where they are. Pretty much with so many grads it's almost impossible to achieve what they did since back then they could pick the jobs they want, whereas now it's a bit flipped...It's also a tad bit more reassuring to hear they have a life outside of optom/work. Even as a Christian, it's always a struggle between life vs study vs work...and it's only going to get harder...

it's a purple and pink $2 coin! 💜

I actually forgot what the book Possum Magic is about, but I do remember reading this classic as a kid. This is indeed my fav $2 coin though. Perks of working in retail sometimes...just switch my boring $2 with something like this. Quick Google search says only Woolies supplied these limited edition Possum Magic coins. The Anzac poppies were nice, but this is another level- can't get over the prettiness and cuteness. 

Shangri-La Buffet-Cafe Mix

Christmas in July is closer than last Christmas, but here are just a few food pics from the Christmas seafood buffet at Shangri-La. There was a decent selection of seafood, meats, sushi, salads and dessert. As I'm older, I can't eat as much as I used to, so I really do select a small bit of each dish, since I still want to try everything.

seafood

I found the oysters lacking the good quality/fresh oyster taste.The crabs and prawns just lacked that extra freshness. Found the salads were all a bit overdressed/way too creamy. I know it's a buffet, but I expected more from a 5 star hotel. 

meats and other buffet style food

dessert, they change it pretty regularly since it goes quickly

chocolate fountain, but the chocolate as you can see at the bottom looks off...

plate 1

2

 
3

dessert (ended up sharing this)

Also had creme brûlée and creme caramel

 

Chinese Dragon: blue curaçao, grenadine, melon liquor, soda-$16

Tastes like my cough medicine. Do not recommend

cute coconut

Charcoal Mine BBQ House

Korean is one of those cuisines that I don't know much about, and hardly have a chance to eat. Lovely catch up on this night with old high school friends at a KBBQ. I guess the good thing about KBBQ is that it's quite a social thing, so you can talk while you eat/cook.

Whenever I go to Parra, I always drive past this place/never knew it existed. It's not in the Parra CBD, so best to drive there and park on side streets (free parking after 6pm on the usually metered-streets during the day). On a Friday night, it was packed, with some tables leaving and more people come in/2nd seating. It's priced at $35pp buffet style for Fri night, I guess it's the average price these days.

There's not a lot of variety compared to previous experiences I've had. Some of their meat was marinated but would have preferred more flavour, particularly with the Bulgogi. I guess that does mean less sodium, so slightly healthier...They also have unmarinated meats as well. The food started to come out slowly but more batches came out throughout the night. They didn't change the pan thing a lot in the beginning until later in the night as well it was changed a bit more...Would have liked to see some more Korean food/side dishes available.

meeeeat

Skyline Gondola and Buffet

dinner on the first night was up at a fancy restaurant. the gondola or cable car is the steepest in the southern hemisphere. we couldn't make it to any of the lunch times in our trip, so booked a dinner sitting. originally it was $88, but i booked through an online discount site, and payed around $60ishpp including the gondola and dinner. lunch is a lot cheaper, but there's less variety of food, and strictly limited to 2 hour sittings. then again, in the daylight you have a clearer view. a gondola ride itself is $30, so i guess the buffet is worth it. there's also a Luge during the day time, but i've been on one of those before.

restaurant is the tiny thing on the top left. walking up to building here, we had to walk up a lot of steps and a very steep hill.

going up

its pretty steep.

snow

snowww. don't even have to go to the mountains/snow fields for snow (: this snow up here was the nice powdery snow

yay

later did i realise that i took off my right glove to take a photo, and realised going back to the hotel that i must have dropped it ): it was a touchscreen glove, so you could still use your phone with the glove on, but i took it off since i wanted a better grip of my touchscreen camera.

that night view <3

buffet!

we originally had an 8.30pm sitting, but got there at 7pm to take photos and luckily there weren't many people that night, so they let us in at 7.30pm, and could stay until whenever we wanted. food was really good. i now understand what my dad says about RSL buffets being 'rubbish.' i haven't had a good buffet in ages, and this was filled with fresh salmon, mussels, scallops. i didn't have too much meat since i wanted to save space for desserts, heaps of salads and cold meats as well. loved the pumpkin and ginger soup of the day. loved the window seating, and the waiters were very efficient in collecting dirty plates (:

dessert!

finally had a creme brûlée! it didn't have the really loud crack, but it did have some crack which is commendable for food which has been mass produced. New Zealand ice cream is a lot creamier and less milky than Aus, and also not as sweet. all these dessert were definitely not as sweet as here in Aus. like the pavlova has a lovely crunch on the outside, and usually the inside is just a bite of sugar after sugar, but this one was soft and not too sugary. only disappointment was the fondant which didn't ooze out, so i didn't finish that. didn't bother trying all the cheeses and desserts since i was that full.

last to leave (: they have tiered seating so everyone can have a good view outside

coming back down

so full that we didn't have breakfast the next day, and a little bit of lunch. a really good place to chill if sightseeing is on your things to do list.

Baroque Macarons

thanks sabina and ophelia! 

yay, baroque macarons, late birthday present, but as i always say, it's the thought that counts. this completes the three places of macarons i wanted to try the most (:

jasmine and white choc, pistachio and sour cherry, strawberry and poppy seed, rosewater and buttercream, passionfruit and milk choc, dark chocolate, salted caramel

strawberry-i would have liked more strawberry flavour. very subtle. poppy seeds were cute. the ganache inside was kind of transparent, but not like a jelly centre.

passionfruit-you could taste the passionfruit, but it wasn't as strong as zumbo's packet mix. the milk choc was surprisingly not sweet, just good quality milk choc.

pistachio-i love that purple glitter on top! just like a real pistachio, the outside skin is purple, then green, and when you bite into it it's yellow-ish. couldn't taste the sour cherry, and a quarter of one shell was hollow.

jasmine-subtle flavour again. you could taste the white choc. most disappointed with this since both shells were half hollow. this one wasn't evenly sandwich with ganache, so it toppled a bit inside the box.

rosewater-i think this was the best overall. good flavour, strong fragance. i think the butter cream was a bit heavy on the butter, but at least it had good flavour. 

salted caramel-really loved this flavour. not as salted as other places, but the caramel was good. this would've been my overall flavour if not a quarter of one shell wasn't hollow.

tbh, it was ok. the texture wasn't as nice as laduree, and the flavour is not intense enough, especially compared to zumbo's. sweetness and flavour intensity are two different things, something can be flavourful without being super sweet. for something so small, i like it to be more flavourful and perhaps a tad sweeter.

the most annoying thing is the box, especially compared to the other places. zumbo's 6 macarons fitted PERFECTLY (i actually accidently squished one whilst pulling the box out, even the box was a tight fit), laduree was also a good fit, not as tight so you could still pick one out of the box without trouble. the baroque 7 pack box is a bit awkward. there's this gap which you can fit only half a macaron if you squished the others, but not eight, so you could feel the macarons move a bit inside the box. the width of the box was also bigger than the macarons, and it was deeper, so taking nice photos was a bit trickier. i saw some bloggers post that they had macaron machines at baroque, hope that's not the case. each macaron did have perfect feet/height...

free tea came! just go oz bargain to find the link. i was a bit weary about putting in my address, but meh, free tea (: nek minnit it turns out my mum already bought two boxes of lipton pyramid tea...

went to Yummy Chinese BBQ for lunch with mum/cousin. it's normally 20bucks, but they did a promotion so now it's 12.80, and with the group on it was $10pp, so technically didn't save a lot. they said they were booked out on sat until sept, which is the end of the deal, but they probably only booked about 4 tables, and the other tables were for full priced customers. going to stay away from group on booking things for a long time. also, that's one of the main reasons i refuse to buy hatted restaurants group on because 1. it's going to be super hard to book a good time (ie weekends) 2. quality is going to be a bit worse 3. portions will be smaller (and hatted restaurants already have smaller portions)

i don't recommend this place. not all the food was hot enough, some skewers were luke warm, until half way through the guy put more effort in and they came out hot. it's supposed to be diy bbq, but since we went on a weekday, they did it. some chilli dishes i couldn't have. i ate sooo much though. over 12 skewers, and heaps of other stuff. their ice cream was horrible, so was their cake. actually, hardly anything was good, but it was cheap and filling, and i didn't even eat dinner/supper at PLUS (youth group) at night. i now fully understand why my dad hates buffets. what is the point of "abusing/stuffing" your body with so much food at one time? it doesn't feel good physically/mentally. unless you go high class buffets, which i've only been to about two in hk. feeling so unhealthy, since i went out to eat last night.