The Vogue Cafe Take 2

Back again, this time with relatives and food (and not just drinks)

They also ordered before I got there, so don't really remember the prices.

specials that week

 

O.M.G smoothie (description above)-$13

Yes, probably the most expensive smoothie (don't think it's a milkshake since it didn't have ice cream...). This is definitely not as sweet and as thick as the nutella milk shake, so it's easy to sip. Best to share these drinks with others unless you're a massive chocoholic since there's just so many toppings on top. 

Peach as bro-$8

Good acidity from the berries which helps cut down the sweetness from the smoothie. Really refreshing drink, would have preferred more peach flavour. 

 

small latte-$3.50, large capp-$4

Pasta w/ salmon-$23ish

Pasta is nice and al dente. Decent pieces of salmon throughout the dish, and not overly salty.

Yea Shanks (description above)-$18

The lamb fell right off the bone <3 Nice and flavourful and so soft. The broccolini was a bit hard to cut with a normal knife. Pretty decent price for a lamb shank :)

Eggs Benedict w/ ham-$15

You get 2 pieces of bread, 2 eggs, 4 slices of ham plus the sauce. Would have liked more hollandaise, but the eggs were cooked to perfection. The toast was hard to cut with your knife, so we ended up using our hands, haha.

foood (too many lights on this table=shadows everywhere)

argh feeling so disheartened about stuff. hate arguing.

snapchat's new updates are so fun, esp with the sound effects.

originally had 3 assignments due next week plus disease test, now only 2...but that means still have 4 assignments due after mid sem break...

back logs of food posts...probs the reason why i'm so fat now...

Zumbo-Zonut and Other desserts

I've actually never had a fake cronut before. Cronut is actually a trademarked name by it's inventor-Dominque Ansel (which is a post for another day, one which I have been planning to write since my trip to NYC last year)

 Zonut filled with Maple Syrup Whipped Ganache, blackberry gel and topped with Cinnamon Oat Crumble-$5 each

got the last 2 for the day. (the previous week I went they sold out early arvo)

inside

A lot more doughy and not flaky enough compared to the real cronut, but I guess all chefs out their own spin on things. Not as buttery either, more on the doughnut side. Toppings were really nice.

Zonut filled with a pancake lemon and maple custard, topped with a buttermilk pancake and lemon butter-$5 

Drunken peak and New York Passionfruit Cheesecake Macrons-$2.80 each 

Salted caramel tart: A pate friable base, salted caramel, caramel sponge, salted caramel cremeux with a caramel glaze, topped with a quenelle of caramel chantilly-$9

Passionfruit tart-$6

Macarons were delicious as always and full of flavour.

inside

Caramel tart wasn't really salty enough. The caramel had a more bitter flavour than sweet flavour which gave it more depth :) So yum. The real winner was the passionfruit tart, this one has been on Zumbo's inventory since he had his first shop in either Rozelle or Balmain (I forgot), and finally decided to try it. Passionfruit curd had a good balance of acidity and sweetness. The base was a tad hard to cut through though. Have yet to get the Tuesday Tarts deal-buy one 2nd half price. Tuesdays are my super late days ):

inside

It was strange having a pancake on top. By the time I got home, the butter was already slightly melted. Preferred the other flavour since this was predominantly just lemon.

The slice of green tea cake was from Pishon (late birthday cake/gift).

Decided to get these sweet before my relatives flew back to HK.

Bondi Pizza (Take 3 and 4)

One of the things I love most about being a Bondi Pizza VIP is the free pizza! They actually send you decent deals/freebies, so everyone should just sign up, and it's free.

First time going to the Parramatta one, and it's actually quite big. There's a Macquarie Centre one opening soon, I was hoping to use my birthday voucher there, almost a month after my birthday, they still haven't opened it yet...

dinner time!

Marinated Chargrilled Lamb: Tender marinated lamb backstrap fillet, fetta, balsamic onions, roma tomatoes, rocket, sweet potato crisps & our creamy Caesar sauce 12" pizza-$25.95

Lamb was cooked/grilled to perfection. Still pink in the middle, soft and full of flavour. Didn't get much onions, and would have preferred more caesar sauce and potato crisps. I think since dinner service is busy, they just dumped a whole heap of rocket on it rather than spreading it all out, but I don't mind, feels like there's more rocket than normal, which has a nice bitterness to complement the savoury parts.

Succulent grilled chicken, baby spinach & creamy porcini mushroom sauce tossed through linguini served with crispy pancetta (bacon)-$23.95

Was slightly disappointed with the serving of this dish, seemed to be on the small side compared with other people's pasta dishes. The sauce wasn't overly creamy/rich, smelt really fragrant, and loved the pancetta crunch element. Pasta was cooked well, but some parts of the chicken was a tad bit dry.

loved how to food came in 10min after we ordered (the bill took longer than getting the food)

Lunch views at Bondi Junction

Smokey BBQ Pulled Pork: Smokey BBQ & tomato base, parsley, cheese, balsamic onions, pulled pork, finished with a drizzle of smokey BBQ sauce, coleslaw, coriander & a lemon wedge 12"pizza-$25.95

This was another one of there new flavours which VIPs can try for free! It's convenient to go after uni if I end not too late, and Bondi Junction has amazing views of Sydney Harbour. I always opt to sit inside since outside is always either too hot/windy/sunny. The lemon wedge did make you hands smell a bit like lemon...pork was slightly on the dry side but they may have changed it slightly since this was on the menu....but overall nice thin base and some salad on top to go with it :)

       

Massive congratulations to Happy Apple!

(all my post these days are super delayed)

We all knew you would get there in the end. All those years of determination, perseverance, hard work, dedication is truly spectacular! Praise God that prayers were answered :)

Never giving up despite what you were faced with, and now at the end where you're going into Usyd Med! Feeling proud and happy for you :)

It's amazing how you still managed to keep up super good grades for uni, placements in different places, still had time to go events/outings, serve at uni and church, lead Bible studies, work both outside and at home...those time management skills, and never sleeping past 7am...pls teach me

Now you can relax before intense things start again next year :)

Yay, I have super smart friends :)

how ironic. today was r u ok? day. 

no, i'm not ok. got smashed.

40% mid sem, and 5% disease all within an hour of each other. no time to study since still had to attend classes, pracs etc. had a day off yday, but still not enough time.

pharm doesn't make sense. it's so dry, worse than physiology or babs. like disease kind of links, but pharm has a million drugs which i can't pronounce, mechanisms, actions, side effects etc. disease names are hard to memorise, but they eventually sound familiar. so glad i never did pharmacy. i like my chemistry, but the pharmacology we do isn't really chemistry related...MC was hard ): i think if i studied harder/more time to study, the test was doable. but unfortunately my study time flew by, and i bombed out on the test. people writing a whole full page, whilst me trying to ramble and just filled 1/2 a page.

diseases, well, no one really studied for it since phar was worth so much. hard to make up for diseases since i'm still averaging a fail, and if these module tests are already hard, i know finals is going to be a nightmare. last year they had a 96% pass rate which is pretty good, but our lecturer keeps telling us we're not as smart as the other grade. well, our structure has slightly changed...

so aqua s has become my post exam sadness pick me up. well exams over 20% weighting...

worst looking ice cream yet. it was already dripping when he started to swirl it. probably the parts of the edge wasn't 'cleaned' off properly from the previous ice cream, so it was just melting...

English breakfast tea and strawberry milkshake in a cone-$3.80

they don't swirl the 2 special flavour anymore ): so the bottom pic was just to show i did have the other flavour. both were very sweet. i prefer my teas strong, so the tea was overly sweet and not much tea flavour. the strawberry one tasted like artificial strawberry milk shake, so if you have a sweet tooth go for it...otherwise probs wait for next week...

still 3 assignments, 1 disease test, 1 presentation, 2 quizzes, 1 major prac exam to go before mid sem break. probably lost track of other things...

and now i'm not sure if i should get the new iPad or just get a macbook...

Tung Tong Roong Thai

First work dinner of the year (and of all time, not incl Xmas dinner)

Went to a Thai restaurant in the surburb next door. Pennant Hills has changed so much. Got off the train and the old stairs weren't there but new stairs in a completely different location and lay out. Walked out of the station and didn't see any opal poles to tap off. I think since it was a Friday, people just don't bother with tapping off since it's supposed to be free after 8 journeys, but I needed to tap off or else I would reach the daily cap. Had to walk back up the stairs into the station, and found poles on the other side of the station (and I was already running late)

pad thai w/ chicken-$14.90, iced milk tea-$5

I've been to the other thai restaurant at penno, but first time going here. It was quite packed for a Friday night. Pad thai was average, decent serving, more on the pricey end (but average for the Hills area). Asked for no chilli on the side. They mixed the peanuts in so you do get some crunch. Chicken was probably a bit dry. The good thing was this dish was quite hot when they served it to you. After waiting for over 5mins for all the dishes to come (turned out to be 10min), still was fresh and piping hot.

They didn't specify if the milk tea was Thai or not. When it came I was disappointed at how thin the glass was. Not really authentic with the whipped cream and choc chips which was hard to drink/mix with just a straw. First sip and wow, all I tasted was sugar, and this is coming from someone with a sweet tooth and high sugar tolerance. Other drinks were pretty boring, but next time won't order a drink at all. Could hardly taste the tea.

ice cream-$6, fried ice cream-$7.50

Wasn't going to get ice cream, but everyone got it (so peer pressure). Desserts are good to just talk over work stuff with the tables mostly cleared. $6 for a normal, non homemade vanilla ice cream is super expensive. They put some whipped cream and sprinkles on it. Tried a bit of the fried ice cream, unfortunately it wasn't the nice filo pastry stuff you find at other Thai places. It was like the Chinese version, but not as doughy. The dough was quite thin and had some crushed nuts. You do get ripped off with ice cream, but the manager had stuff to tell us...Work paid for dinner, so can't complain :)