Wisdom Teeth: Part 1

i know right? part one. turns out i have to get the 2 upper ones pulled out as well, when they pose a problem.

i thought i would be teeth pain free and problem free after getting 4 teeth out for braces, but no, got 2 wisdom teeth taken out. the painnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

yes, it's even more painful. and horrible. i shall describe the horrific experience. so glad i never even thought about being a dentist. i have no problem with blood since i used to get super long nose bleeds, but teeth and blood is different.

so one of my wisdom teeth was there since you could see it from the xray, but didn't emerge from the gum. i went to the dentist not hospital to get it pulled out since he said they weren't that bad. so horrible. feeling the needle going into you mouth (i had to get an extra needle like last time since it didn't feel numb enough) and then argh, i pretended i "went under" with drugs. you could hear him sawing my tooth in half and then all those other dentisty noises. my other teeth was half emerged and not as slanted, so it didn't need to be sawn in half. then you could see the string and getting stitches. first time ever getting stitches, and what's worse is that it's inside your mouth where you can easily get infections and right now, i can't even open my mouth properly, nor do i want to, don't want to see bloody gums with stitches.

luckily i stuffed myself with food the past few days, since i hardly ate any dinner. hellooo congee and mashed up stuff for the rest of the week.

used the noggie voucher before i got my wisdom teeth pulled out. tried the cherry, and it wasn't that nice. anyways, i'm banned from eating glacier cherries, if you still don't know, the cherries in sugar/syrup produces worms, and it's not only in china/us, it's also in aus.

got taro and biscotti with lychee pearls, kiwi and mochi (which is pretty nice). i was thinking of getting strawberry, but they didn't looked fresh, you know the colour they turn if you put them in the fridge for too long, yeah that colour, which is why "gourmet"froyo like yogurt world is the best, you can see them cutting up fresh strawberries/other fruits. they are so cunningly deceiving. the voucher was for $10 worth of stuff. the maxi was 7.50, the next size up was $14+ so either we lose some value or have to put in extra. they had honey butter bread for 9 but they said it wasn't available at that time (nor would i even eat that stuff at froyo place) same with over price $8 one waffle. you can get nicer waffles for that price/make them yourself. so we just got maxi w/toppings included and a green tea latte and ended up paying an extra dollar. it was so bad. too much matcha (and it tasted like bad quality matcha), we forgot to tell them to not add sugar, so it was super sweet, and milk was not frothed enough. yeah, pretty bad latte. also, the green looked like a leafy green =/ 2nd time having noggi, and it's not that great. 

i still have one more voucher. i didn't expect from the time i bought the voucher to next week (the expiry date) that i would have had 5 free froyos and 2 other discounted froyos. i think i'm sick of froyo, so if anyone wants to buy the $10 voucher for $5 for george st off me, tell me! or else i would probs have to force myself to eat it. and if i do end up going, i would calculate the prices with different sizes and not have toppings like my 1st time, and get as close to 10 bucks as possible. i thought 10 bucks would get me a massive bowl/pyrex jug, turns out they cost 19.50. rip off. apart from yogurt world this year, i've onyl bought 1 full priced froyo, and i would like to keep it like that (again, yogurt world doesn't go into this exception, since their froyo is actually good and worth the price tag)

also, their packaging has gone cheaper since march. their logo on their cup isn't as green as it used to be, and their serviettes are just normal ones, they used to have their logo printed on it. everyone's cutting back on costs these days. so am i. staying at home for the whole week, which means i also don't have to waste expensive petrol going to places.

feeling so out of it from all the pain etc that i accidentally knocked over a cup, and it was a new one. my dad accidentally broke one as well, so now we only have 2 cups left form that set. can't even talk.

Le Pain Quotidien

first time going out to the city to have breakfast. belgium breakfast.

the cafe is pretty good and it was cheap! originally it was 16, but because i like to save money, used group on vouchers, so the whole meal was $6. it was really good!

bro had the hot chocolate with belgium chocolate. tried a bit, so good. unlike normal cafes, this one did not use chocolate sauce. people say "oh, this hot choc is so good" because it's sweet and they use chocolate syrup (which is cheaper than using actual chocolate), but this isn't normal plain choc sauce. this is belgium chocolate, and it's been melted in a nice mini jug. it's actually not sweet, since you can taste the dark chocolate, so if you have a sweet tooth, this won't be nice for you. the milk was frothed to perfection! after my bro finished pouring it out in his bowl, i scraped the rest of the froth stuck to the jug.

cappuccino 

mocha. i'm used to my mocha being a bit sweet, but since it's dark chocolate, it kind of cut out the coffee and sweetness.

story is, the waitress set down the bowl of coffee and said it was mocha, so i started drinking it. then i'm like "this isn't barely sweet at all" so i started to add some choc from my bro's jug, then my mum said her coffee was too sweet. turns out the waitres got it wrong, and i started to drink my mum's cappacino. the thing with mocha is that it can vary in shades and taste, so i was thinking my "mocha" didn't have enough flavour...we swapped coffees after a few sips.

i asked for the juice to be take away, since i knew i wouldn't be able to finish it.

i got the almond croissant. so good! it's nice and flaky and not too sweet even though it has icing sugar, and unlike woolies/coles/costco croissants in which all you can taste it butter, you could taste the almond in this one, so the butter wasn't overpowering! there was some coconut/almond paste inside. it was subtle since i couldn't really taste the coconut until after a few bites, but i didn't mind. 

my mum has 2 slices of 5 grain organic toast with 3 organic spreads (normally $4 which is a massive rip off. $4 you can buy a loaf of bread), and my bro had a blueberry muffin. the muffin was alright, nothing that special. my bro decided to add heaps of blueberry jam to his blueberry muffin-blueberry overload.

they don't have cups of coffees here, they have bowls. when we were waiting for our food, my mum was looking at other people (heaps of people used vouchers) and she was all like why couldn't we order soups instead of coffee, but i'm like the deal only included coffee and juice. then she saw this person putting in "pepper" in their "soup". turns out they serve their coffee in a bowl, a massive bowl. it's hard to take a photo of the massiveness, i was full form that coffee from the whole day. we all had regular sized drinks (normally $5.50 hot choc/mocha and $4.75 other coffees) and small is one of those normal sized asian rice bowls. so yes, that voucher was worth it. ended up taking the juices home.

went to Asian Express for lunch, again, group on. half priced lunch. the asians there were all so frantic about scanning our vouchers (to see if its legit i guess). food was wayyy too salty, even my bro said it was salty and he loves flavouring in his food. i only had a bit since i was still full from coffee. not that great there, even though it's cheap ($6 for a plate w/ dumplings or pan fried buns), wouldn't go there again. not worth putting up a photo.

the masterchef truck isn't at world square today. it was yday...oh wells, my bro said it was overpriced, but i still would like to buy something mastercheffy....

thanks batter for hosting the dinner! food was so good. would have eaten more if i wasn't so full from the morning. everyone's foods were so good! here's a pic of the dessert (: better's choc tart looks so professional (: and thanks Happy Apple for the bell haha.

so full. hopefully the fullness would last me tomorrow.

Church Anniversary

24yrs.

all five congregations together. they did most of it in english and mando. but the sermon was in english, canto and mando. damnnnn, let me tell you, it's really hard to keep track of what the pastor was saying. then they did the last part of the service in english.

this year was different. no cake. even last year there was cupcakes. and no activity after the service.

and then i found out why the whole service was so "flat" this year....some things you hear about but don't actually think it's true until it happens....

i hate murray. he's actually getting better, and he has the crowd behind him ))): wimbledon: so sad this year. their centre court seems so much more crowded than aus and i wanted to say their stadium seems slightly smaller but their clear, newer roof is cooler. also, the umpires don't have a shade thing with their chair, luckily they don't have the aus sun upon them.

Yum Cha at Granville and Yogurtland Take 2 + Hot Pot

all i've done today is eat. literally. woke up and ate a tiny bit of brekkie, than read. oh, the book i'm reading is so ridiculous. easy read, finished the 2nd book in a day. the author puts his name as the "ruling elder" and he is some mythical legend. lol, what author uses their own name in their own books as a character? and the font is horrible. there's at least 3 different fonts to show different character voices. i swear that was something we were told not to do, same thing with present tense. it's so colloquial as well. the plot of the first book was alright, but hen the 2nd and 3rd was kind of repetitive (yet i still read it since i wanted to know more...). how handy, i have the first 3 books with me from the library, and now the fourth (and possibly final) book comes out in august, which means that by the end of year break, hopefully there still isn't a queue of people reserving (unlike inferno...probs have to wait till next break to read that without reserving as well)

family outing today. usually we have it after our church anniversary (tmr), but decided today was better.  i think it's the first time this year that my whole family has been in the same car at one time. so rare these days. 

yum cha at granville today. it's relatively cheaper than other places, servings are bigger, and pretty good, but pretty packed. got there at about 1.30, waited over half an hour. last time i went on a weekday and half the restaurant was full, so the long wait was expected. it's not small inside either.

7 people, we had about dishes. was sooo full. also, i hardly go yum cha in aus, less than 5 times a year since it's not worth it in aus. i like yum cha, but not a massive fan, so i don't really mind if i hardly go in aus. (have it almost everyday in hk that i get sick of it).

since we were at granville, i told family friends and my family to go yogurtland opening at parra. waited for a but over 30mins, which is pretty good (compared to 1 hour for $2.50 froyo at unsw moochi-totes not worth it). but this one was heaps worth my time! seriously, self serve is so much mroe efficient. 16 machines, 16 people at once. line was a bit shorter than george st and there was entertainment at parra with people break dancing etc. and they have more seating at parra (since rent is cheaper i guess).

i have improved guys! $9.25 right here! again, i didn't want to make it too high, but i made sure i didn't have random gaps. i shall master this next time (if there is another store opening...). they had some different flavours this time like dutch chocolate, mango, korna coffee bean, frosty vanilla (they also had french vanilla, but the frosty one just has sugar), coconut, guava grapefruit (which ran out quickly after i got 3cm worth). i also tried plain tart this time, their plain is pretty good. i've changed my mind, their pistachio isn't good. and i mix swirled it with coconut, so together they tasted like mint =/ wowcow pistachio tasted like pistachio. and tried the chocolate one, except it just tasted like normal choc yogurt, can't distinguish it to be "dutch". korna coffee had a weird coffee taste, don't know how to describe it. it wasn'r espresso coffee, or normal coffee, or even tiramisu, it was a different coffee taste =/ this time i got heaps more sorbet, to get a real taste of it. in small portions like last time it was good, but this time i got too much and it was too sour. my bro got about 10cm worth of sorbet, but then ended up transferring some to my dad's cup (which he ended up chucking). mango flavour wasn't strong enough.

on second thoughts, yogurtland tastes less natural than other stores. i mean, there's no such things as natural sugars from ny cheesecake/red velvet cake batter, so they defs added sugar to it. (disclaimer, they only claimed natural sugars for their fruity flavours), but idk, yogurtland is different to other places, so you should try it and judge for yourself. they had cheesecake and brownie toppings there, which is different! i just managed to shove a piece of cheesecake in my froyo...the brownie's were pretty big pieces, but not a massive fan of them, so didn't get it. 

Elisa's tips on maximising free self serve froyo:

- for a flavour you haven't tried before, put a tiny bit in. lick it to see if you like it, if yes, then put more of it in, or you lick it since it will create more space for other flavours while you wait for people in front of you to move on to the next flavour. only works if froyo is free (or else you are "stealing" by eating something you have yet to pay for)

- if you're like me and want to try every flavour, then keep banging the cup against you hand so it flattens out more. 

- for flavours you know you'll like,  swirl the froyo by keeping it close to the edge, and keep a steady stream so it's easier to control where your froyo will end up in the tiny cup.

- do not make those fancy points that other stores give you. it is a waste of space!

i have yet to try this, but next time i will:

- to pile it super high-layer it. spiral from the edge to the center. once one layer is complete stop the flow of froyo and start a new layer. if you keep on putting more into the center, you only get a peak (like a cone) but we all know that a cone is a third of a cylinder, so you have potentially 2/3 of wasted space.

- once you reached a desirable height, start to swirl on the edges and keep tracing the circle. this should create a hollow "hole" for you to put the toppings in.

- do not get chocolate as a topping. it's not worth it, even if it's free (and takes too much space). pearls are good since they are easier to shove in the "hole" (or random gaps).

- quickly eat the froyo above the height of the cup before it melts. use serviettes to hold on to the cup so that if the froyo is spilling over the rim, your hand won't be as messy.

bro on left, he got $13+ (but he didn't finish it all, since we were super full from yum cha), and friend on right, he got about $12. i saw this guy with $15, and then i saw this other guy with a tower of about 20cm froyo in the tiny cup. would have taken a photo, but my hands were too starting to get a tad sticky...

over 70 bucks right here. for freeee! my mum got the least with $8.20 (she went for the "pretty" froyo finish approach with a peak, but it still beats my $6 from the other day. why didn't i get more on wed!?)

first hot pot of the season:

with other family friends, but we were still full from yum cha and froyo from earlier that day. i hardly have hot pot, hardly. at home, i am 100% sure, as just one fam, we have had it less than 10 times in my whole life living in this house. i don't even think our stove works anymore. last year, we had people over, and i think my dad ended up getting our camping gas stove/gas container to connect it to our super old stove with an empty can of gas, so it was just him cooking meat since the whole pot had to be perfectly balanced on the gas container thing. don't think we'll invest in a fancy electric induction stove thing (like the one above) since we hardly ever hot pot. my mum hates all the washing heaps of veggies before hand...

the thing is, going out with people to eat hot pot is dangerous. some people are really clumsy and jusy chuck things in, and boiling water splashing over the place, and then there's the whole cross contamination things. even if going out to eat hot pot is about $20 in syd, i still don't think it's worth it. i'll rather go hk to have more hot pot. i like hot pot, but not a massive fan since you can get scarred from that water. 

whole day with the fam. even in hk i hardly went out together with just the four of us. (only in overseas trips we do. it's that point when i'm getting old...but most go to america whilst i'm still "young"!)

so tomorrow is my break from eating and will resume on monday haha.

i have no idea who the players are in the women finals. worst wimbledon ever. and i hope murray loses, or else it really is the worst of the worst. 

Running Man and Ribs and Rumps

thanks so much Bitter for organising! so much effort that you put into it <3

haven't played games a a party since...primary school. we should do a running man part 2, since i heard you didn't finish some games...

lunch at ribs and rumps! first time (:

onion rings and salad. pretty nice 

pork ribs! not as meaty as hurricanes, but still yum (: and i hardly made any mess on my hands this time, only the fingers of one hand was saucy (:

steak! except i was a bit disappointed with this one, since it was a bit over well done. maybe they cooked it beforehand and it just rested a bit too long before it came out. rump steak is a "cheaper" cut of meat, so you would need it medium to medium rare (what i like) to have it melt in your mouth. this one had a tiny bit of pink, but really needed sauce. oh, that mushroom sauce was so good! i had it with some steak, and chips of course.

cake! so pretty (: i love the colour. and the flavour was good. maybe i should not get a cake from my local patisserie (i've already had most of the ones i wanted to try) and go french this year. and it had a good balance of sugar.

mocha cake. not a big fan of cakes with cream, but korean cream is better than chinese cream. i was originally going to halve my slice of this cake, then thirded it and quarted it. still tried some, and it was nice

i think cake is important for birthday's, and the number of candles. so when i'm 50, yes, i do plan on having 50 candles (and a massive cake to accompany it)

2nd leg of the party. i managed to get 2 out of 6 sticker things. they were stuck so tightly onto the poles and signs. the first one i ripped turned into 10 pieces, but second one was better. i only know of one playground in westfield, and the shop was a pretty obvious clue.

and tracy is pretty good at getting people's tags. when she caught up to me, i already saw a few in her hand. if i was at towers, i would know the place by heart and know all the escalators/lifts, but i don't even know parra, so i just blindly ran to an escalator and it was filled with people, so i was trapped, and yeah, got out lol. i kind of wanted to be on the capturing team for the bells. it was a fun day though (:

El Loco and Bourke St Bakery

i bought my first piece of clothing since eofy sales this year. everything else i got, my mum bought it for me. bought a dress originally 90 down to 30 (: also the other day, i went to a normal bloch store, saw the exact same pair of flats but they were black, and asked how much they were-$170! does anyone even buy that full price? yay for 170 down to 20 (:

Batter's 18th was at El Loco, but that was the weekend before visn exam, so i couldn't go, but i went today! 

i got a $5 beef taco. lemongrass beef which was nice, the cheese was really finely grated so (: and not too spicy. the guacamole was pretty good, except i couldn't taste any tanginess from the lemon/lime, oh wells, avocado itself it nice (:

originally we were going to find a cafe, but we didn't. we actually trekked our way up the hill to bourke st bakery. i've heard from friends their tarts re really good, and they are renowned. well even in urbanspoon, they're one of the top hits.

i got a lemon curd tart and a ginger brulee tart. something sour, something sweet. they survived all the way back to home! yay.

the pastry was so good. buttery (as expected) but crunchy and "light" at the same time, unlike those asian fruit tarts where there is 1.5cm of pastry which is not crunchy and just feels dense and hard.

lemon tart not too sour. i just had to buy the ginger brulee tart, since i've never heard of one before. the burnt sugar was a bit bitter, and surprisingly the filling wasn't super sweet. there was a subtle hint of giner, which is good, since i'm not a massive fan of ginger and i don't think this would be very popular is all you could taste was ginger. yum (:

look at how thin the base is! when i cut it open, there was this satisfying "crack" (:

ended up walking down and back up the hill to gelato messina. i didn't have the hands to google it, and i thought people new the way....i didn't get anything since i only wanted the small cake gelato or nothing. i just had outside home ice cream on sunday, so i want to "spread out" my ice cream tasting experience.

random park in surry hills (:

Yogurtland

walked by yesterday and say free froyo. so glad i got there 15mins before opening time. that was the line in front of me, the line behind me was two times that length, all the way to Bathurst st. and according to their fb page, the line right now (at night) is still that long.

IT WAS SO EXCITING. why? because it was freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. unlike other grand openings where it's half price, or cheaper, this is better since it's self serve, free, and free toppings. THE FLAVOURS THEY HAVE ARE ALL SO UNIQUE! just looking right now at their website, oh wow, so many flavours that weren't there in store. they have 52!! there were about 15 flavours today, and they gave us a "mini" sized cup. i didn't want to make it too high since it would topple over and you'd end up getting froyo hands. heaps of people had really messy hands.

i think i managed to fit about 12 flavours inside. you see that gap on the right hand side? it was so hard to control the self serve since if you pull it down then quickly release it, you still end up getting about 5cm froyo ( i wanted a smaller size to sample all the flavours).

from memory, i got: red velvet cupcake, pistachio, taro, french vanilla, madagascar vanilla bean, new york cheesecake, cookies and cream, strawberry, strawberry lemonade sorbet, guava grapefruit sorbet, hazulnet latte, peach. i avoided the chocolate ones since i didn't have enough space. i think it's impossible to try all their unique flavours. really like yogurtland because of their unique flavours (((:

my favourite? i think ny cheesecake. it actually tasted like cheesecake unlike moochi (sorry). red velvet was pretty nice. also, their taro was white, and tasted better than the taro i had yday. sorbet not bad, but i would obviously go to an ice cream shop for sorbet. i think out of all of the ones i tasted, strawberry tasted artificial, like you could kind of tell it didn't taste like real strawberries...not a big fan of toppings, but since it was free, i got some pearls, tried to shove it in the gaps, but they had big spoons, so it was hard to put the toppings through the gap without the spoon touching the froyo. there was a topping called "delish" and it looked/texture was like mochi, but the pink one was super duper sweet i think it ruined the froyo. so if i go there again (probs will since they gave out vouchers for "your first 3oz free"), defs not get toppings. 

texture wise, it wasn't bad (yogurt world is still better). not too yogurty. except it melted pretty quickly, but that was expected, since they have to church so much froyo in such a short time span.

also, they measure the mass in oz. i think 60c per oz, something like that. they made us measure it. the above was $6.15, so aww yeah, totes worth my time! i only waited for about 15mins.

just looked at their page again. grand opening at parra. am i bothered to trek there early? possibly.

they have stores in sydney already, but i think george st would be the most popular (for obvious reasons). went on a froyo liking spree on fb. must keep up with that free/discounted froyo (: