Australian Day: Jim’s Thai Feast.

Yesterday citizens, non-citizens and all living things were celebrating Australia’s national day.  Don’t we all just love to celebrate?  What gets better than kicking back, and booze up instead of suiting up on a weekday?  Australian day is also known as “Invasion day” which is likely to be a portrayal of the day the Brits brought the Beatles to the land down under.  Now not only the Brits have arrived, Jim has bragging rights too.  Jim has officially become a citizen of Australia in what I would describe as a bitter-sweet occurrence.  Now who’s going to hook me up with Thai chicks? jkjk! ahah

Jim’s mom was nice enough to invite us to have a small celebration in his apartment located in East Perth.  It was going to be my second time here and I just couldn’t let Jim’s mom do all the cooking again so I suggested that we all should cook a bit and bring over anything.  But alas in an inevitable outcome, Jim’s mom pretty much did 80%. lol.  From his balcony which is super shit big, we were guaranteed a view to the firework display.

The peeps chilling.  Vil, Elizabeth, Vanessa, CR, Sister, Jim and I hmm felt like there was more?? Oh Yobi too!! Rwarrr!

A summer day’s elixir of cool-downs.  Booze? Checked! Soda? Checked! Juice? Checked! Chilled? Checked!

While I was snooping around the balcony, my sister went around shooting pictures of the plane about the size of a fly buzzing all around the sky.

Can you see the smoke? eheh!  After drinking and chilling we were all starving and yeah we got the food out and it was time to eat! rwarrr!

Tacos, Salads, Noodles and sort!

Sister’s guacamole was gastronomic with the tacos.

My crumbled chicken was no lesser either! Had approx 25 pieces or more for 20 sheets of tacos.  But by the end of the meal there were 0 chicken and 10 sheets of tacos left =.=!

Jim’s mom made for us Thai style fried kuey teow which was pretty damn yums!  But the pickled radish that packs one hell of a flavour was absent.  I guess they just don’t use it for this dish.  But the last time Jim’s mom used it for the pad Thai, it was orgasmic! For all that matters, I recall having 4 Kingkong sizes when Jim’s mom made it!  After our meal we were typically lazy to do anything.  Sat around, kick back and chatters of ridiculous jokes could be heard.  With me contributing some pretty lame dirty jokes @@!  I’m pretty sure I was having an awesome time considering I had to think twice about what day it was.

Fireworks was up next when the sun switched off.

30 spectacular minutes of fireworks with several intermissions where Vil went like “Oh, finish already!” and seconds later the fireworks would go on as if defying Vil on purpose ahah.  But fireworks being fireworks, there really isn’t too much to shout about.  Not to mention my skills to take firework pictures really suck ahah.

What there was to shout about is dessert that came after the fireworks :D!!

Slurrpss!!

Jim’s mom did her ultra awesome sticky rice for us!  The savoury glutinous rice infused with coconut milk was insanely flavoursome which each spoon urging you to take the next till you can’t even stand up! MMMMMh! It really was sooo yummy! noooooooooooooooooooooooo @.@!! Jim gets it every week once!!

The glutinous rice went with Durian paste as well as mangoes but because the mango came when I was halfway through it, it didn’t have a picture from me ahah.

Durian flesh cooked with coconut milk to dawn an orgasmic paste that even the heavens of Australia would cast its jealousy upon. Slurps! The durian flesh seems to be the real deal here.  Not sure whether it came canned or did Jim’s mom make it out of frozen Thai Durians!! Loved every bit of the sticky rice regardless of whether it was a durian or mango combination!  Brings back memories in Thailand where the night is often filled with lovely desserts like this one!

By the end of the day, I left happy, fat and tired!  Glad to have a holiday like this in the middle of a working week! Really works to keep the mind free from boredom.   Oh and how much did I eat? Well I pooped 4 times in the last 12 hours since I finished my meal @ Jim’s place.

WenY

Twos a pair: Nudie Jeans

Ever since I got my first pair two years ago, this jeans has always been my addiction.  Perhaps its because in M’sia there was this trend  for me to wear oose jeans which really didn’t feel fitting or stylish unlike slimmer straights or slims which always felt debonair.  Loose fitting jeans always felt sleazy if you don’t have to body to go with it.  The body to go with it?  The BECKHAM body does well in that really. ahah.  Not HK-Malaysian skinny chicken body definitely.

Oh I’ve  grown.. I guess? lol I remember dad commenting on the jeans the kids wear nowadays all being not trendy at all and I was like “oh no! Its cool! Its cool” ahah fckin hell @@!  Dad was happy with me rockin my nudies along with some nice Court Force or AM.  Even allowed me to get more new ones ahah. Yeaaahhh!

Side by side! 2 year old Average Joe along side the 1 day old Slim Jims.

The phenomenal Nudie orange stitching never fails to complement the ultra chic dye!  Can’t believe both of my jeans have the same colour! lol.  But its ok.  With one almost 700 days old and its 14.25 oz dye bleeding very so heavily before this, you wouldn’t even guess they were of the same colour. :)!

Now I’m on a lag anticipating to welcome more Nudie greenhorns.  Probably we’ll have Jasmine  & Jim poppin in soon ahaha.  Nudie has really lovely fits and can never have a cover.  Having Levis doing Nudie jeans would be like Vanilla Sky singing Under My Umbrella a Rihanna cover.  Bloody gay.

WenY

20 dollar Monster: Harry’s Bar @ Northbridge.

I’ve been eyeing this place for quite a while already since I saw it on Perth – Sixthousand a fortnight ago.  Hmm, but since we all have fairly tight schedules we only managed to make some opening yesterday!  Plus we were occupied with Caesar’s last week  mmmm lol.  Harry’s have this really good pledge to their customers every Wednesdays where you can get unlimited ribs for 20 dollars per person.  Pretty damn cheap no?

Found the interior very comfortable.  Very clever in space despite having so many proper seated places.  The booths had especially relaxed cushion to the extent that after our meal, the guys were like “..can I have a nap here” @@!

There to is this waitress here that really looks like Penny from the big bang theory! Chick stuff hoho!  I ordered myself a cocktail for the warm summer but I drank less than half! Too full from the main that came after! 

Tequila Sunrise.  Was ok but felt really bitter :S! Maybe I didn’t give it  proper stir when I started!

Had some time to get pictures of the guys who refuse to give me a normal pose bzzzzzzzzz.

Hobo Yobi

Feng the Engineer.

3 hungry stomach were rumbling! Where’s our meal I wondered.  And bammm the ribs started rolling out.  Saw the large family opposite us getting their serves. And I’m like omg this is insane.  Really big ass.  After 10 more minutes of waiting the ribs were in babehhhhh!

Ribs with coleslaw and spud! Finally arrived.  Seeing the food that was on the plate had my eyebrows raised without hesitation! Hunger was about to be axed.

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP..

Bone yard.

Hmmmm Hmmm The coleslaw was disappointing :(  Dry and the cabbage wasn’t juicy :S!  The spud didn’t taste too good by itself too.  Definitely needed some meat from the ribs to help it out.  But more vital to the very reason we had our meal here was the ribs.  If you’re not to particular about your ribs lined up nicely with meat swelling about the bones evenly then you’d probably be fine with these.  The meat was hell of a lot.  Biggest ribs I’ve every eaten.  As for the taste, there was a bit of draught happening on the plate.  Too much meat but not enough sauce so we got the waitress to get us a small serve of sauce.  The sauce was a mix of barbecue and herbs if my taste buds recall correctly.  And the ribs weren’t barbecued, instead if was more of braised.  I however would prefer my ribs bogged down with delicious sauce.

My verdict is that if you’re a meat lover than you’re a Harry’s lover. They probably butchered 1000 pigs just for Wednesdays.  So BE KIND! DON’T WASTE. Oh and they could do with some improvements to the side.  More mayo to the coleslaw? Perhaps a squeeze of lime for increased acidity?

PS: We tried to have seconds but god that second serve was insane.  They gave us one slice of pork belly about 10 cm thick + 2 ribs. @@! It’s been 24 hours and I can still imitate the texture and taste of pork by rubbing my tongue about. Ackk! 

WenY

Sister’s Birthday!: Spaghi’s @ South Perth

Yesterday night I celebrated my sister’s birthday with Jim, Feng and Vil.  She’s so lucky to have 4 capable engineers with her that night.  But on our side, she gave us the honour to celebrate it with her ahah.  Felt funny xD! Four of my buddies hanging out with my sister, but truth to be said she knows them very well since we normally have dinner together on Fridays, Saturdays and whichever days that are suitable!! And really, with her getting younger each year, there really isn’t any evident age gap between us. 

Jim and I met up in the city before pickin up some icy cool drinks.  I had a Strawberry Daiquiri mocktail from Boost juice while Jim got some BBT from Utopia.  Definitely a must have on a scorching summer’s day!  We then headed down to the pier near the Esplanade to catch a ferry across the river to South Perth.

Delicacies hmm WenY Wonders..

We were the first to reach the restaurant, but of course with the requirement of having all guests present before being seated we were pretty much left stranded on the other side of Perth @@!  Not much of a problem, Jim and I just chatted the 20 minutes advantage we scored against them for being early.  Feng was next, while sista and Vil pretty much got there the same time!  When we went in the restaurant, we were greeted in a respected manner which is quite different from what I’ve heard from the internet which claims that the lady boss is unfriendly.  Really decent if you’d ask me.  But then again I mean coming from Italy if they were a bit showy I guess I can’t blame them.  The green-white-red flag nation hosts the origins of great designer stuff, automobiles and super chic models ahah.  Their daughter was uh-ohhhh! Chick material!  But Feng thought she looked weird ahah.

5 of us shared an appetizer called Pizza Bianca, something that definitely doesn’t fit into your typical everyday pizza description;

I lol’ed even though I expected it to look like that ahah.

My sister’s pasta:

A super strong resemblance to the clam filled spicy pasta @ Zanmai but this one was different.  Generous on clams this dish actually looks good. Didn’t really ask my sister how was it @@!

Jim’s;

Hard to make out what his dish actually is.  But its actually sunflower shaped pasta filled with bacon, bla bla bla! Had quite a lot of things in it.  Asparagus was also used.  Hmm now that I think of it, I really didn’t ask the peeps how the meal was today omg @@!

Vil’s';

Crumbled Veal with roasted vegetable and savour rice or was it saffron hmmm?

Shao Feng and I ordered the same thing;

Pollo Alla Griglia (half chicken marinated and charcoal grilled)

On mine, I think the chicken was pretty good and I really like the roasted vegetables and the rice.  But the chicken needs more marinade.  The breast meat is totally bleakkkk! OK only. Could have been better ahha.  But one thing is for sure, their half a chicken is really large than a normal half a chicken.  Generous serving!

And ok since most people say my blog is mainly dominated by food pics I’ll get some human pictures up too! :P

Vil & Feng

Sista & Jim!

The End!

P/S: Sherlock Holmes is omg, not as good as I expected it to be!

WenY

HK Trip Final: Old Spice.

Time to wrap up the last part of my trip to Hong Kong.  To help ensure a smooth transition from holiday to reality, we made sure that our trip would have covered as much of this small country as we can to avoid regrets that is.  Being said that this country isn’t all that big, it really shouldn’t be too hard to visit most of the places within a week. That is unless you’re too caught up with shopping ahah.  To finish off the last day in Hong Kong, we had a choice of either visiting Macau or Lama Island.  But a trip to Macau is quite ripoff and having heard there isn’t much to do, there really wasn’t a point for the ladies to suffer a 1 hour boat ride considering they both suffer from sea sickness.  So Lama Island it was.  Just had to take a train to central before getting on to the jetty for a 20 minute boat ride.  It was quite short really and my sister was already dying ahaha. 

Just got off the boat @ the Lama Island Jetty.  The architecture is pretty well aged in Lama Island.  Loved how there would be mosses growing on the buildings.  There was also a certain effect on how the houses were positioned as if they were arranged on terraces to especially provide this “effect”.  This place is really a good change of environment when you’ve been in the concrete jungle for too long.  Sometimes in the city all you see is metal framed boxes that really just get you nauseous especially with loud mouth people everywhere, 360 degrees.

Lots of bicycles just outside the jetty.  Most of the roads here are no more than 3 metres wide.  Obviously there won’t be any cars here at all.  But there were some other pests that looked like an ATV “pick-up” truck version.  They were roaming all over like stray dogs. SO annoying.  But I guess they didn’t have much of a choice considering they were upgrading the infrastructure on the island.  Then there were this three ladies sitting by the jetty showing their fine fishing artistry.  Approx 1 small fish every 10 seconds. @@!

It didn’t take long for us to feel hungry!  We were looking for food and started looking around the restaurants near the jetty and let me tell you its a fckin rip off!  But at times like this I somewhat felt like succumbing to their ridiculous pricing.  O well, at least my mom had her principles right.  280HKD for 2 miserable mantis prawns lol.  And just because this is an island, it doesn’t mean the seafood is fresh. It’s shit FYI.  So we headed towards a beach area to see what we could find. Walked through all the small lanes which really feels so nice for some reason :S! Am I a village boy? omg.  Walked for like err 2-3km and we finally reach the beach but there wasn’t any seafood barbecue happening because we didn’t know they only have it at night unless you’ve booked beforehand!

The beach!

However, although the restaurant did not have decent meals for us, they did have something else :)!

The cheapest and smoothest tau foo fa mmmmm! It was like err 6hkd or 7hkd per bowl.  Really cheap as I remember the one @ the Buddha statue was at least 10! Put some cane sugar powder and yumms!!

Walked around Lama Island for awhile and we didn’t really know where our destination was.  Just pretty much walked where the roads would take us. And by the time we know it, we were kinda lost.  But dad and I just kept on walking while mom and sister panicked a little ahah.  Walk through to some lanes which we saw large machines putting large rocks by the shore to prevent additional erosion.

Wicked machines!  Imagine them suddenly transforming into those big badass robot in Transformers!  Probably sink Lama Island hehe!

I didn’t get too many pictures of this trip to Lama Island.  There wasn’t really much to take truth to be said.  Not to mention the weather was cloudy with cool moisture streaming in from China.  This place however has a good environment to get absorbed into for awhile ahah.  After walking for a super long time, we headed back to the jetty for a rip off meal which was crap! O well.  Learnt our lesson :P!!  We headed back to central to check out my jeans @ Harvey Nichols but disappointingly there weren’t any.  HK is too Japanese inspired.  I don’t see those low-key cult European brands in HK!  A bit disappointing but it’s fine.  Now that I’m back in Perth I can indulge in denims I want! Ksubi? Nudie? hmmm.

WenY

Hangin Out: Caesar’s Pizza @ Leederville.

I believe you’ve heard of Caesar’s Pizza tones of times if you’re from Perth.  The only thing wrong about the heading is that Leederville is only 5 minutes from Perth instead of the 45 minutes Mundaring.  But hell yea people, my protest about ridiculous distance have finally been heard!!!… and answered!! Caesar’s Pizza one of the most famous Pizzerias has opened a branch in Leederville just located a few shops from the Green & Co!! Without much hesitation Yobi and I decided to give it a try.  

WORLD FAMOUS – AWARD WINNING. Nuf said.

Bragging rights clearly framed on its bright red walls.  I was expecting an old skool pizza place but they had a different approach to this one it seems.  A more up market modern look to captivate the younger generation it seems.  But the old man and his mates were attracted too! ahah. Fakkkkkk, what’s with “seems” and me today! Dammit!

Yobi and I ordered a Pizza called Jane’s Addiction.

Loved: The crispy proscuitto, tasty garlic cream sauce, & yummy prawns.

Dislike:  Typical dry Italian crust.

Nonetheless the edges which were dry really isn’t a bother.  It was just a waste.  Maybe next time they should have the option where diners are allowed have toppings all the way to the edge!  After that we waited for our dessert pizza which took ages to come.   Look around, and realise the place was a chick magnet.  Plenty of em there! And oh I met a uni friend there too.  Didn’t get to chat too much though ahah. 

Severe sugar overload.  Felt like dying after I had three slices of this pizza.  Total killa!

So was this place worth all the hype?  Well, overall I found this place to be quite a nice eat.  Quite rash to judge them so as I’ve only eaten here once.  HOWEVER, if this were to be in Mundaring, I wouldn’t be too pleased then ahah.  Also I’ve seen reviews online claiming that the waitresses weren’t too friendly and I HEREBY refute all those statements.  I mean really, which waitress would so happily refill you water without even having to ask AND which pizza place would actually change your plates when you’re moving from your main to your dessert? NONE for sure.  Loved the service!  Or maybe it was just today. ahaha

While waiting for the bus!

WenY!

Hunger by the Harbour: HIP Katsu @ Harbour City.

After travelling all about Mongkok following the guide book, my sister and I finally decided its time to do something not visiting.  While my parents headed back to the hotel to get some rest, my sister and I headed over to Harbour City to do more shopping :D!  Pretty happy with my shopping bag although I only spent about 25% of what I would have like to spend during my trip to HK.  Tommy Hilfigher was having some pretty sick sales as well as Polo By Ralph Lauren, hmm some really premium brands like Seven for All Mankind were having sales as well. Hmm I think Diesel was on sale as well.  Sister got a pair of jeans from there.  The jeans at Sevens were rather disappointing considering the promotion the media gives it.  Saw a guy trying on a pair of Sevens which were disgustingly similar to what Obama wore in some event that gave him bad publicity the next day as the press compared the jeans to “granny pants” ahah.  Along the way we also stopped by a massive I.T shop in Tsim Sha Tsui where I was looking at the clothes that they had. NBHD is a whopping 5000 HKD a pair. 1 word, SICK.  But I like my jeans raw untouched unworn untorn.  So yeah, I’m gonna get more Nudies! We were famished and the stores started to shut their doors about 8.  With my sister close to hitting her gastric limit, we were careful to have something asap.  There aren’t many food stall in the mall and one of it was HIP Katsu.  We got a number and waited for awhile before being guided by the captain to our seats. (that’s after me questioning why the waiting numbers are rolling back! Bitch!)

I was takened back by the prices on the menu really.  A bloody katsu for 130HKD? ohh ok @@ Its like 20+ aud Or 65 ringgit.  Damn!!  Luckily there was this other set menu which seems fairly prices @ 150HKD per person!  Not sure whether to consider ourselves lucky or not but yeah, take a look;

For starters, Miso, pickled radish, Chawan Mushi, and salad.

After that our mains took about 20-30 minutes to come so I waited an got myself a few more pictures!

The chef carefully preparing the crepes

And from our seats at the bar we had some view which was nothing to shout a bout for sure.

The view of Central.  These are the few picture worth noticing ahah.

And jeng jeng jeng, the food started pouring in one by one;

Thinly sliced beef with udon in Japanese Curry soup base.  I liked this because it tasted good but there wasn’t really a “wow” factor in this.

If presentation was everything, then this tasting platter of the menu really quite makes the mark. Its well presented, everything looks so neat on one plate.

Upon closer inspection:

I just love scallops.  Have a scallop with a small slice of mushroom and celery. Wow really nice aha.  Maybe I’m just a sucker for scallops ahha

Baked Oyster was well errr ahah ONE TO EACH OWN. I personally don’t like this fancy shell thingyy.  But I did scoop the cheese of the oyster.  When I asked my sister how did it taste, she said “OK”.  So then I kindly offered her the oyster and she said “Just because I said it was OK doesn’t mean I like it”. HAAHAHAHA fakkkkkkkkk

Lastly was this crispy pork from the USA. You heard me people the USA.  That is why this whole HIP Katsu thing is so pricy. But I have to be honest, I don’t like the USA.  They f*ck up the Reds, the World Economy, the Harmony, err what else did they NOT f*ck up?

Dessert was jelly with red bean paste.  Quite nice even though it was a bit too sweet!

All in all my dining experience here was nothing to shout about.  If this restaurant was supposed to specialise in serving Katsu as its name suggests, then I have to insist that this place is a failure.  Akira-san @ Kanta does his katsu at half the price, and doube the serving.

I’d go back to Kanta anytime rather than this place.

WenY