Dessert Kitchen

This dessert cafe is actually based in HK. Even though I've been to HK multiple times, I actually haven't been to or heard of this cafe. Thanks to a friend for recommending this place for dessert, it was pretty obvious from photos that I would want to come here.

The menu is quite extensive and there a lot of staff making the desserts. They have parfaits, sundaes, shaved ice and heaps of asian style drinks. Decided to go with their most popular options. I would have liked to try more, but our stomachs wouldn't have been able to fit more in.

 

Blue ramen-$10.80

Look at that vibrant (artificial) colour! It's essentially flavourless gelatine, with some melon scoops and asian sweet potato balls with some milky shaved ice. The ice melted very quickly and wasn't milky enough. There peach syrup on the side, and you can add to taste. It's kind of messy to eat, and probably not worth the price for some ice and jelly, but it's a fun concept and kind of cool to eat artificially coloured food in a different sort of ramen.

 

kitchen

Wouldn't mind coming back to Chinatown to try their other desserts. I hardly ever go to this side of town...

 

first time having Emperor puff's

'The Gap Year'

i.e. bleak year

I actually do enjoy blogging since I can say everything I want and not care what the person on the other end thinks. I know a couple of people who still do follow this (shoutout to Happy Apple for commenting haha), but to all those other followers who come drop by, well you know I rant. Probably the reason I ceebs turning this into a proper food blog, because then I won't be able to rant.

Travelling did help put things into perspective. Cliche and all, the world is your oyster. There is a life apart from uni. Other goals in life, well, pretty much travel the world. Even with valentines single appreciation day last week, and if I were to be single my whole life, well then it's the perfect excuse to splurge without feeling guilty. It'll be another stage in life like now where I'll just deal with it, and life goes on. I can imagine if I'm allowed to take leave once I hit full time work and if I don't have other commitments, I'll actually will be ticking off bucket list destinations.

Clinic skills will hit rock bottom as they probably won't allow us to practice. Practicing on other students isn't the same as practicing on patients. Equipment will be covered in another layer of dust. Even if I did find another job, no one would hire someone for 3-4mths, or even give their precious business time into allowing a student to practice.

After 3 months, I think I'm over the heart break and heart ache. But as a I mentioned before, there will always be that part of me which hates.

I am not used to so much time. It is the complete opposite from so many years of education. Even back in primary school, I would have so many after school activities. I guess I am pretty blessed that my parents invested sos much into my co-curricular activities. Now over 10 years on, I'm just kind of lazy to do anything...It sort of kills me to be a couch potato for a few months... Time to train into a domestic goddess.

Uncle Tetsu Angel Cafe

A cute little cafe with mainly desserts and drinks on the lower level of Regents Place. It sort of transports you to those cute Japanese 'maid cafes' as all the waitress were dressed in maid uniforms. It also has an open kitchen where you can see them bake cakes and the tarts (the cheesecake is made upstairs, again you can see through the window.

One tart-$3.80 (from memory)

inside

They had a promotion initially where if you dine in you get a free drink from a limited option. I just went with an iced green tea. Not too sweet but would prefer more green tea flavour since it was a tad watered down. Probably because it was free. The tart itself was very nice. Not too cheesy and pastry not too buttery. I don't think I had a cheese tart when I went to Japan around 9 years ago (wow, can't believe how fast time passes). I have yet to do a complete a proper Japan food tour so can't compare this to the ones in Jap (but you don't need to be a genius to figure out Japan obviously will taste better). 

 

 

Maybe I'll come back to buy an Angel cake.

West Ryde Hotel

Apparently this place used to be $10, but with all things, prices do go up. It's a fun concept of cooking your own meat without the need to clean your own BBQ if you were at home. You can opt for them to cook it, but then your meal would cost $20+ and just takes away from the novelty of it. Even on a weeknight, this place was packed with heaps of families. Once you paid for your piece of meat, you cook it then go back to get roast veggies or salad and chips.

Rump steak w/ roast veggies-$15

Cooked mine medium-rare since rump can easily get tough. Roast veggies were decent, but chips were a bit soggy. If you go earlier in the evening, I felt that portions were larger looking at other people's plates, and lines weren't so long. It's a good family place to go out to eat, without the need to prep things or clean the BBQ after. 

Wolfe & Co Take 3

(Currently catching up on all my draft posts. Travel posts to come-hopefully)

Probably the first time waking up so early for breakfast at a cafe, but it was lovely catching up with a high school friend. Decided to come to this cafe since the other one wasn't opened that day. Local is good (although more expensive in the Hills area).

 
Spread

 

Truffled mushrooms: herbed local flat mushroom, mushroom pâté, ricotta salata, black truffle, nasturtium, five grain sourdough-$15.50

I didn't really want anything too heavy for brekkie, so opted for this mushroom toast. Normally I don't have toast at cafes, but couldn't resist after seeing truffles next to it. It smelt amazing with the truffle oil, but the white truffle obviously isn't as fragrant as your typical black ones. Mushrooms were so juicy.

  

Avocado: heirloom tomato,beetroot goats curd, beetroot textures, lemon salt, sourdough w/ smoked salmon-$14.50+$4.50

Probably the prettiest avo toast I've seen, and topped with heaps of other stuff. 

 

Regular soy latte-$4, cap-$3.50

Good coffee with a decent price. 

I really thought I escaped the heat, but looks like I arrived back just in time for the massive heat wave. Dying in 45degs. Still don't understand how people like summer. This weather 10 times hotter than what I was used to for the past 3 weeks. I never ever take naps, no matter how tiring uni is, but this weather forced me to nap. Couldn't even do anything, too hot to move. Even with air con, doesn't compare to 0 deg European winter. This heat also means ceebs properly unpacking and going over photos.

Overseas phone plans are so cheap. I sill have 9gb left on my UK sim card and good thing it can also roam in Aus, but how to even use that in 5 days...

It's weird to think how only recently I was in Iceland getting pushed around by gale forces, but I missed the wind so much driving back from church I ended up sticking my hand out the window. Felt so good. Missing the cooler weather already.

Spontaneous Europe Trip

Hello! Back from my spontaneous trip to the other side of the world. I think travel does (partially) cure the heart. Spontaneous because flights and everything was booked less than a month to departure date. Probably never again since it was quite hectic, but good stress.

I'm not sure how I'm going to blog this, either by day or combine days, or do separate food posts. I mainly went to eat there and did minimal shopping. The amount spent on food, I could've brought a really nice LV...but obviously didn't...next time I'll spend less on food lol. Probably going to take so much time, so might do a few blog posts each day...plus my back log of food posts in Sydney...

Straight back to work today but I'm not complaining, my bank account and card is empty.

How to fight off jet lag: just try to sleep a lot on the plane, then come back home and sleep for over 12 hours.

I didn't actually gain a lot of weight over the 3 weeks even though I ate 4 times the amount what I normally eat. Maybe because averaged 20 to 30 000 steps per day, a lot more than the recommended 10k, which balances out. Normally I eat without exercising, but I ate 4x the amount and walked 2x the recommended and normally I don't even walk 10k...go figure...If I went to eat during high school, I bet I couldn't eaten twice what I ate this trip...but the older I get, the less I can eat. Sorry not sorry for all the snaps.

First impressions:
Iceland:
- Everything is soon expensive, even the supermarket is expensive. Nothing is cheap, even if you go looking for cheap things
- Definitely relaxing and such a cute country
- Umbrellas are 100% useless, just deal with the falling snow and rain, and get a good raincoat
- Their number 1 income is tourism, and they're expecting triple the amount this year. Guess I went before the crowds lol. Hotels are being built everywhere
- No Asians anywhere

Europe:
- Do you really need to have money down to the single cent?
- Manage to not get mugged
- Didn't end up paying a single cent on toilets
- I can never go to any Sydney museums. Even museums over there displayed signs that stuff was sent to a Sydney exhibition
- Their architecture and history is amazing, I can see why people visit Europe time and time again
- Primark is amazing
- Going to miss the cold weather and the every minute trains and also inter-country trains

Amsterdam:
- Smoke, smoke, smoke everywhere. Way more than Syd
- Even in a foggy winter, the houses and canals are so cute
- Alcohol is sooo cheap
- Love the free candy overtime you pay your bill

Brussels:
- I don't think I can ever have chocolate again, after eating Belgian chocolate. I feel like the exported Belgian chocolate here has added sugar before Aus imports it. It tastes way too sugary here, like even places like Oliver Brown who have 'Belgian' chocolate, it's nothing compared to the authentic thing there
- They do have the best beers in the world. My time was limited, so couldn't try a lot, but they have all the beer flavours/combinations that you can and even can't think of. They even have charity beer-like what?
- Also can't forget their waffles, fries and mussels

Paris:
- Dirtiest subways ever, and I thought NYC was bad, until I saw Paris...Their train doors aren't even automatic
- Streets are pretty unclean as well
- Didn't manage to get any dirty glares from the waiters
- Not being racist, but those black people who sell eiffel towers are so annoying, like I'm not going to buy stuff off you, so can you please just go away?
- Managed to escape the touristy restaurants, but lucky most local places have an English menu
- Never paying for an $8 coffee ever again
- Back to seeing Asian tourists
- Will be back for the food, definitely.

London:
- Reminds me of Sydney in terms of prices. If you eat three meals a day out in Sydney CBD it's pretty much similar in terms of prices, probably just a bit more expensive over there.
- Their markets are a million times better than Sydney
- The weather there isn't too bad. Was lucky enough to go to all the sightseeing places with no rain. Mainly rains a little in the morning or night, but super, super light rain.
- Didn't manage enough time to do my tax, so nts: get there 2 hours earlier even in low season. So many Asian people with 1m long receipts stacked like 2cm high. That is a lot of stuff to process. Luckily I didn't buy any luxury goods so wouldn't have been too disappointed if I didn't get my tax back. Although the total for my tax back if I did leave enough time would probs be equivalent to a day's pay...Oh well, I went to enough free museums, so I guess I maximised the tax I paid lol.

There were still so many places that I didn't have time to eat, and really rushed through a lot of the museums and sights. Special shoutout to Connie for the food recommendations! Yes, I have decided, I will be back!

People value different things, and I value travel, experiencing new sights and trying new food. Even though all my savings were poured into just a few weeks, I know time is limited. When I do have money I won't have the time, so it really is yolo. It would be a different experience to travel when you're older and literally just relaxing. So glad I did this spontaneous trip. More to come (hopefully)!