Welcome Back Day

nooooooooo. i missed ozharvest free food yesterday ))): i remembered the project mentioned it earlier in the year, and i remembered roughly it was around the middle of the year, but i didn't put it in my diary/register in my head that it was yday, and i had plenty of time! why did i choose to go to a hip cafe...

we had a farm at uni today, well i petting zoo. didn't touch any, but it's kinda cool have animals on campus. they also had this bull where you ride on and it tries to throw you off (onto the inflatable stuff). got a free bbq, but couldn't be bothered to line up for popcorn.

so many people went melbourne last week to watch soccer. mcg looks bigger than scg. next time i go melbourne, i will go to a few of george's restuarant and gary's boathouse, which is on masterchef tmr....and the people who use oasis dating site in melb, how lucky, (i think) they all got a free meal of masterchef food. these few weeks until it finishes (and if uni doesn't get too hectic, which is a joke in itself...), i'm watching masterchef online. hate those ads online.

slowly compiling my list to go places for next break. hopefully i'll find a job, since when you cafes and you buy something decent with a coffee, it costs at least 20 (and completely trashes my whole less than 10 dollar thing). but i must go soon! looking at food, and prices from last year to this year for almost all "hip" cafes have gone up $1-3, for the same, if not smaller portions.

instagram has given me "inspiration" on where and what to eat. i can only day dream since i have no moneys ):

Element 6. sem 2, day 1

woke up later than i should've, so was late 5min to lecture, which was ok since they just did an intro lesson for phys. i know i will get mind blown with phys this sem.

as expected, visn got straight into teaching. seems to be more people this sem, probs because i people repeating....i never mentioned this, but last sem when they posted up supplementary exams for visn, firt years had about 10 people, 2nd years had about 20, third years had around 30, and they don't have many people in their year, only around 80, so there's almost a 50% chance you almost failed one of the exams and have to re-do it. ahhh, must work hard. that's what i say, but doesn't really reflect what i do...

went to Element 6 for lunch today! it's a "hip" cafe at West Ryde, nice decor. heaps of church people said it was nice, but like all hip cafes, it's overpriced imo. i have yet to go circa, need to go there before they increase prices, but parra is such a trek to get to. without a car, and with a car, parking is bad. element 6 also had clipboard menus like the Baron and circa, but The Baron didn't have weekly specials. my cousin went on sat, and she ordered this big plate/frying pan of stuff, except they didn't have that today...

cappuccino-$3.50, honeybee smoothie (banana, cinnamon, honey, yogurt, milk)-$6.50.

they made it into the good food guide. i know what bad coffee tastes like, but i can't say that this was good. it was not too strong, froth was good, but the coffee wasn't hot enough (and i have a low-heat tolerance). i've always wnated to drink out of a cute jar. this smoothie was a nice consistency, not sweet (compared to other smoothies), strong fresh banana flavour, not enough cinnamon though. (oh, the other day i found a packet of ground cinnamon =D. more baking next break).

top: bacon and egg roll w/ pumpkin, salad and aioli-$9. bottom: chorizo baked eggs w/ roast potatoes, tomato relish and gremolata.

i prefer the baron's Bacon and egg roll since it has avo and the egg had grounded pepper (element 6 has no pepper on the table/they don't put it on), but they have salt flakes in a mini container. this one had really good aioli and pumpkin was nice. the baked eggs take 15-20 to cook. this was pretty expensive for a dish of its size. it kind of reminded me of lasgana, but heaps less fattier. it wasn't overly oily, i thought there would be heaps of oil/cream. still feeling fat after dance tonight...it was good, but they should have given more of that flat bread to soak up more of the tomatoey goodness instead of just spooning it. oh, they don't have spoons on the tables cutlery tins...

"specials" menu.

free mini desserts! saved up my card (buy x amount of cakes, get some free stuff). from top left: pina colada, pear and almond, mocha hazulnut, blueberry flan, lemon meringue (my favourite!), cheesecake

just had a look at the good food guide on sydney's best desserts. i've had about 3/11! the watermelon cake is easily accesible, just have to find time. Sweetness the Patisserie, they have the best marshmallows! they're not the typical supermarket ones, they have this light fluffy texture, nice flavours and not heavy on the sugar (: we bought this bag once, but it expired before we finished it and it actually went off since someone shoved it at the back of the pantry ):

lol, tonight's pressure test, you can go to her shops and buy the ingredients which are pre-measured, it probs cost at least $50. for one component, they used at least 10 metal bowls-i don't even have that many metal bowls at home! most of the ingredients you have never even seen. same with the messina cake, you can look at the 25+ steps, but you probs won't even have a tenth of the ingredients in your pantry/most you can't buy in normal shops. if you want, a masterclass for that cake is $260 pp. you know in the 1st season, they only had one blast chiller, and it was only in "special episodes".

i've slept a lot these holidays, more than post-hsc break...

manage to complete most of my "to-go places to eat". some left, hopefully i can go to them this week before next week gets hectic.

not looking forward to uni. 9am start tomorrow. ceebs. receiving emails about some hand in assignment thing needs to be due on thurs. we haven't even learnt anything yet.

i get to dissect stuff this sem! i thought that would be the first thing i did when i got into uni....but excited for dissecting stuff (:

love looking at food/cakes on websites, but ceebs going places to buy a cake for my birthday, like it would melt/slant when i'm going on/off buses, and people might bump into you in the city esp during after work peak hours, and it's too dangerous to bring a nice cake back home.

they say a textbook is prescribed, but last sem i bought one textbook and hardly touched it.  have not bought any books/course packs/textbooks. yep, totes prepped up.

PLUS Outing with Johnny's Pizza

the title of this post isn't a reflection of what i ate today.

breakfast: toasted wholemeal bread with avocado and some chunks of cream cheese with chives. just missing my tomatoes and we just ran out of sourdough, but outside it would cost $7+.

lunch: toasted croissant with honey roasted leg ham and tasty cheese. outside at cafes it would cost $6+ this was accompanied by sweet potato fries and a fresh coconut drink. in restaurants it would cost $5/6+, at the shops it is normally $3.50, got it for $1.50 on special (: it was also really fresh and the inside was refreshing whilst the flesh was fun to scrape and eat.

had PLUS (uni youth group) girls' outing at friend's house
before dinner. junk food.

dinner: pizza

the bottom pizza, thai sea, was 11inches. a quick google search told me the "big pizza" is 25 inches, heapsss bigger than costco. we made it have 4 quarters, so the big pizza had 4 flavours; ham and pineapple, four seasons, mexicano (it had chilli and i survived it guys!), and something else. 

i always get their menu's in the junk mail, but finally tried it out today. it was alright, nothing that special.

dessert: fondue. chopped up some strawberries/banana/pear/apple and dipped in milk and dark melted nestle cooking chocolate. pretty good (: no wonder why they always have candles underneath the chocolate since it does harden up pretty quickly.

so unhealthy today D=

did more make-up shopping today, and buy "shopping" i mean trying things in store, then whatsapping to tell my aunt what i want (figured this out after i realised the thing i bought this week is so much more expensive in aus than in hk, luckily i got a free gift with it or else i would've felt even more ripped off....) like mac lipstick in aus is 36, in hk, even if the dollar has dropped, it's 20. i don't mind the dollar dropping, but it better rise when i go back overseas (hopefully america) at the end of next year. need to make the most of every dollar. i have quite a lot of aunts, so having a "make-up" aunt is good. last time she was like "so sorry Elisa, can't take you out for make-up shopping, will do so next time you come". well, she's "retiring" this year to assist with her children's homework/monitor her son's work/exams to go into high school. yeah, asian countries competition into high school/uni is more competitive than aus since they have more people, and they're all asian. 

Creme Brulee

first time making creme brulee. used the masterchef recipe, and it's so good! they have a video for it (wow, you can really see that george has lost some weight this series), and the measurements are better than other sites. they use 6 egg yolks, and i decided to try it out and make half the recipe, so it was easy to have 3 egg yolks. some recipes use 5 egg yolks, and how do you get 2.5 egg yolks? also, masterchef's one uses the less sugar.

it was so simple making it! the hardest part was probably washing the whisk (and the sugar crust on top...will get to that later). no fancy equipment needed. i decided to not use my precious vanilla beans since i was halving the recipe/testing this recipe out. instead of using paste, i used essence. it still worked out pretty nicely (: the vanilla flavour was there (: couldn't be bothered to get rid of air bubbles because you need a blow torch, or else you put it in a ziplock bag, then pour it into the ramekins-ceebsss.

it burnt... ):

the sugar layer on top was thick. that shouldn't have been a problem if i had a blowtorch since the heat is more intense and you can control where the heat goes, and the crust would have had more of a "crack". i have three ovens at home: the one which comes with the kitchen, a mini oven and a round convection oven, all of which are capable to grill. i decided to go with the mini oven and see how the grill is on it, since i never grill stuff. after about a minute, it started to caramelise, nek minnit-it's black ): next time i'll put less sugar on it, and not use that grill. that mini oven is getting really old, like the heating tube thing is starting to "bend" on the right, resulting in the right side being hotter than the other side, thus it came out blacker. maybe caster sugar would've been better than brown since it caramelises slower...i would love to invest in a blow torch (even though you can get it for less than 20 bucks), but i would rather buy more macarons with that money. or i could just borrow someone's...i don't know anyone who has one though. otherwise, they still tasted fine.

every time i've made something from masterchef, it actually turns out better than expected. this series george/gary's stuff are super complicated, like most of the time, you can't buy their ingredients in coles (they used to claim that everything they made came from coles, but as the show progressed, dishes get harder, and not everything came from coles). now that matt's cooking this series, his recipes are simpler for the super duper amateur cook, and they're healthier. when they all made mousse, matt's one had the less sugar, chocolate and no cream, and it was the simplest method. even his mash potatoes yday had no cream or butter! will try that mash when if i get a chance to buy that types of potato...

i've been looking at a lot of food lately. that simon guy on urbanspoon-where does he get all the money to go out and eat? he's been everywhereeee. i think food blogs are cool, but i don't have the money to go out to eat (apart from during the breaks since i don't go out during semester). 

uni starts next week, and i still have unknown locations for some lectures/tutes/labs. noooo, biological chemistry and taught by half chem and half babs staff. noooo babs, worst subject. all that bio chem we didn't have to know for chem, but did for babs, well we have to do more deeper chemy-bioey stuff. chem itself is alright, but mixed with bio =/

side note: 

-finding the perfect bright red lipstick is harder than i thought it would be.

-where does everyone buy there ink from? it seems like getting a new laser printer is cheaper than buying the ink cartridges ): 

800-Mother's Crepes, Chat Thai, Pho Pasteur

i've been eating out all day except for my avo toast in the morning, and all i've had to is rice noodles, but i love rice noodles, so no problem today (:

day started off with walking to "thai town" the chat thai closest to Capitol. same dishes but cheaper than   Westfield by about 3/4 dollars for almost most dishes, turns out they were renovating ):

so we walked back to world square and decided to have dessert first (twas a good decision)

used group on vouchers, $2-crepe w/ ice cream, sauce and drink, pretty cheap. last time i had crepes was a long time ago.

left to right: crepe with green tea ice cream and blueberry sauce, i had crepe with baileys ice cream and chocolate (hershey) sauce), orange and mango soda, pink grapefruit soda.

the green tea had a soft seve texture, and it looked nice visually, and tasted pretty nice. baileys was pretty good, although i would have preferred it to have more alcohol (but obviously they can't put more in or else it would go over the limit of how much an underage person can consume alcohol in foods i guess...). ice creams in both crepes were generous servings. the orange and mango was kind of sweet, but the slight sourness of the orange balanced it. the pink grapefruit was more sour than sweet, and didn't have much "grapefruit" flavour. these sodas were more sodary than normal soft drinks. bad thing is that it's all take away, so you have to find a table in order to take a photo of both stuff. the crepes had this plastic packaging on the outside which is good since sometimes the ice cream goes/leaks through the crepe. mine didn't, but my mum's did....i would never buy crepes full price in aus. 

chat thai at The Galeries-Raadt Naa-$11.90 and Padt Thai-$10.90

chat thai looks good if you get the expensive stuff, but it's overrated imo. the galeries don't have much seating since it's in a food court, so the few dollars you save comes at a cost of a least pleasant dining experience compared to Westfield, but at my stage, i don't really care about ambience, i just care about food. we went after peak hour, during peak hour they have those ropey lines, and have lines of about 20 people from about 12-2. 

servings were very small compared to my last thai experience at pennant hills. luckily we filled ourselves up with dessert before. the raadt naa had very fat/thick noodles, thicker than chinese ones. the sauce had this sweetness but salty at the same time and not as thick as how chinese people do it, but there wasn't a lot of noodles, and after a while, you crave water. this pad thai was again, smaller than The Seat by a half. no joke. there wasn't a lot of peanuts, so you don't get that crunch/texture whilst having the noodles. the flavouring was less than my last padt thai, but this also had less oil which is a plus. 

trekked to parra at night for outing dinner. went to pho pasteur. nice seeing fellow bloggers (:

rare beef pho and sides (for 4 people)-$11.50

not rare enough. i remember in hk when i had pho, it was so delicious and big and tasty and cheap and the beef was actually rare when they gave it out, and the soup was hotter than the one above so it still cooked fine. this soup wasn't as hot, and servings was smaller than Thai Riffic when i had rice noodles in soup. there were a lot of sides though, and the broth wasn't overly flavoured, so it was drinkable to an extent (i try not to drink too much broth since it's really unhealthy). it was alright. i have yet to go cabra and have pho there.

i would have loved to stay longer, except i don't drive to parra since I don't know where to park and traffic is bad around westfield, and the last bus back home was at 7.25. last time i trained it from parra to penno, took 3 trains, and it took over 2 hours. it's supposed to be a 30ish min drive/40/50ish min bus ride depending on traffic, and my dad went on a business trip today, and my mum doesn't no how to drive to parra, so busing it was my only option...how was the cake? haha.

i've broken my "less than $10 a meal/plate/drink/item" today. personally, i think city food is cheaper than castle hill/parra. their cafes are so expensive, even if they're just normal cafes. like 13 for only a sandwich at a cafe in towers, and it was pretty basic. so yeah, if you know where to look, city food is "cheap". ie for day-to-day lunches/dinners, not including high class restaurants. there's this new thai place i walked past today, 6.90 for a curry/meat with choice of sauce with rice, and they were pretty big dishes. i had my mind set on chat thai, but should've gone there (even though out of the 10 things on the menu, only 1 thing had no curry or chillies)

re-watched masterclass online and NOT A SINGLE AD DURING THE WHOLE EPISODE. i've missed masterchef the whole week this week and have been watching it online at like 11pm, and every ad break they have on tv, online they have 3 minutes of ads. last year it wasn't like this, they sectioned off the episodes so you could quickly skip the middle talking parts, and there were way less ads. people always comeback, except in professionals when they said there was no second chances, and no one actually came back.

you know the fam of will, kate, and george, they have really generic names. boost has their name game tomorrow for those names. and wow, kate looks no different facially before and post-preganancy, and she still has retained her skinniness in her legs etc. i wonder what they feed her to be so healthy and able to wear heels at 7+months and also a day after she gave birth. you know what i wonder, do they bother to do her hair/make-up when she was giving birth...?

updated my zumbo's post, so if you would like to know what i thought about the other half of the box of zumbarons, well scroll down (:

The Baron

finally went to The Baron in Castle Towers today. i've literally walked past there for years but never went inside.

tbh, i think those "cute/hipster" cafes are overpriced, but i hardly go, so it's ok i guess. when i got my SMH Good food/cafe guide, the baron was the only one in castle towers. coffee was good, still no expert in describing coffee, but it was nice and silky and the coffee taste came through despite it being a  latte (which are usually mild).

latte $3.50, bacon and egg roll:double smoked bacon, free range eggs, avocado, housemade aioli & tomato relish-$10.

damn, on the website, the bacon and egg roll was $9, so i went at a bad time when they increased prices. better to go now than later...it was good (: the egg was cooked nice and runny and not over salted, same goes with bacon-wasn't too salty, avo nice and fresh, if there was a bit more sauce, it would've been even better.

elvis slider (the kings dirty little secret) - crunchy peanut butter, double smoked bacon & aioli-$5.50

this brioche was tiny, smaller than an orange, but it was the cheapest thing on the menu (apart from the sides). it was actually really good. somehow, peanut butter and bacon matches perfectly! next time i have some peanut butter in the house (we almost never do since the nuts themselves go off quite quickly), i shall pair some bacon and peanut butter. the peanut butter wasn't as thick as the jars, it was slightly liquidy and became another sauce. i'm not a big fan of peanut butter, but this one was good.

wasn't full from that, so i don't understand how big grown men are full from this type of stuff. this was probs their second lunch or they were going to go somewhere after as well.

went make up shopping today. as most of you know, i don't bother with make-up. forgot how expensive good quality foundation is. i don't think i'll go back to "cheap" make-up like revlon, even though it's cheaper, the quality is not as good as "bigger brands". a tiny bottle for so much money. well i did get the person to do a two moisturising creams, two different foundations, powder, blush, this other non-reflective powder (forgot what it was called), then tried other creams. also, they gave us free hand cream since we spent over X amount and the cream itself was $25 (even though we have heaps of cream at home), so i guess the one item i got wasn't too hard on the wallet.

i finally bought a super slim kitchen scale! yay $12 from kmart (: cheaper than ebay.