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The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton

Thursday 29 September 2005

The Pavillion on Aberdeen St, Northbridge

Rob and I actually had planned to have a nice dinner date on Saturday but then I suffered from a really bad tummy bug on Saturday morning and couldn't eat the whole day. It was a very sad day for me without my food. In fact, my appetite didn't return until Tuesday (on any other day you'd see me eating every two hours (sometimes every hour) - I had to force myself to eat the last couple of days). A little of my appetite came back on Tuesday so we decided to go out for the dinner that kept being postponed from Saturday night. I went to dinner straight from work so obviously I didn't have my camera with me.

The Pavillion is one of those 'fusion' places that attempts to make 'east-meets-west' kinda dishes. I am always wary of these places as I much prefer places that makes authentic dishes, and not bastardised mixed-up versions. But there is a buy-1-main-get-1 free voucher available at The Guide, and we ride past it on my way to and from work, so I couldn't resist trying it. The restaurant itself is lovely. Very nice atmosphere with water features - great for a place to relax after a bad day at work (long story involving a tick and a tetanus shot).

We settled for the seafood platter ($32). It was served with chips, but due to the fragile recovering state of my stomach, we requested the chips be substituted with potatoes instead. After placing our order, I realised that seafood platters invariably always has something battered and deep fried, so we asked the waiter if that was the case. He informed us that the scallops would be battered and deepfried, much to our horror. Aaagh! How can any chef do such an abominable thing! Unfortunately the chef had already battered the scallops when the waiter put in our request not to batter and deep fry it, so we settled for it to be pan fried instead.

The platter was reasonably sized, but we were pretty disappointed with the quality. Too much batter and grease. I think we were most disappointed with the fact that the scallops were battered and fried. Seafood has a very delicate taste, and I believe that you should not make seafood too 'noisy' with too much ingredients, nor overcook, nor coat them with sauce, batter or grease which tend to mask the delicate taste. The prawns on skewers were done pretty good, but the fish (battered and fried) was a little too greasy and overcooked for us. I hate to say it, but the quality of the seafood platter was similar to the food you get from fish 'n chips places. We've had much better seafood than this for a cheaper price too. Rob and I cannot understand anyone's obsession with battering and frying seafood.

We may go back to The Pavillion, but definitely not for their seafood.

Tuesday 20 September 2005

Death by Chocolate Cake



This is one very rich and decadent cake. I made this cake as a dessert to accompany the yummy chicken roast dinner that Rob's mum cooked for us last night. When Rob saw a Death by Choc Cake on display at a cafe last Sunday after our lunch rendezvous at Siena's, he mentioned he was curious to try that type of cake out, so I told him I had a recipe for the cake, and hence the reason why it was chosen for dessert last night. I had a smaller cake tin than the one suggested in the recipe below, so I halved the ingredients. Besides, there were only four of us at dinner last night, so it made sense not to make too much. As a result, the cake wasn't thick enough to cut the cake in half to frost, so I used the frosting instead to cover the cake, as you can see in the photo I took. Rob, his mum and grandma all liked the cake. I could only handle a tiny sliver of it - it was much too rich for myself.

[Sigh, gone are the days when I could polish off a whole packet of timtams in one sitting - now I can only eat two or three biscuits before I start feeling sick. My healthy eating has turned my body against me! It's not just psychological either - I can no longer enjoy my parents' greasy dishes without my stomach suffering :(]

I followed the recipe as given on Cacaoweb:

Ingredients
8 oz (225 g) dark semisweet chocolate (40-50% cocoa)
2/3 cup (140 g) butter
1 cup (210 g) sugar
4 eggs
4 heaped tablespoons (1 dl) all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1½ teaspoon baking powder or 1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons sour cream
Ingredients for frosting
2/3 cup (1.6 dl) heavy cream or whipping cream
9 oz (260 g) semisweet chocolate (40-50% cocoa)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 deg F (Gas mark 4 or 180 deg C).
2. Line a circular 10 inch (25 cm) cake tin (3 inches tall) with greaseproof or other non-stick paper and grease the tin. (Please note that the cake will rise to 3 inches and collapse somewhat when cooled. If your cake tin is less than 10 inches wide and 3 inches tall we recommend that you use two cake tins.)
3. Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt it with butter over hot water.
4. Beat the eggs with sugar, mix with flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and vanilla extract.
5. Slowly fold in the melted butter and chocolate and the sour cream.
6. Bake at 350 degrees until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, approximately 50 minutes.
7. Cool the cake. Remove the crusted surface on the top of the cake, and cut in half, horizontally.

Frosting

1. Heat 2/3 cup (1.6 dl) of heavy cream or whipping cream in a sauce pan.
2. Remove from heat, add 9 oz (260 g) of finely chopped dark semisweet chocolate, stir until smooth, and let it cool until in thickens.
3. To test that it will thicken sufficiently, transfer a tbs of the frosting into a chilled cup and place in the fridge for 15 minutes. If it is too thin, add some more melted chocolate. It it is too thick, add a few tablespoons of cream, stir until smooth, and test it again.
4. This cake should have room temperature when served to have soft frosting.

Monday 12 September 2005

Siena's Leederville

I have tried Italian food at many places around Perth, and have concluded that the best place to have pasta dishes is at Siena's on Oxford St in Leederville, and the best place to have woodfired pizzas is Caffe Martino on Beaufort St in Mt Lawley (few mins walk from our apartment). The woodfired pizza isn't really that great at Siena's (they are good though, just not great), and likewise, the pasta dishes at Caffe Martino, while nice, are not outstandingly fantastic. There is another Siena's on Beaufort St in Mt Lawley (close to Caffe Martino), but we only had their main course dish like chicken and seafood, not pasta. A friend who has been to both Siena's mentioned that pasta used to be very good at Siena's Mt Lawley but the chef moved to Siena's Leederville. She also confirmed that the pasta is nicer at Siena's Leederville.

There is a buy 1 meal get 1 meal free voucher readily available at voucherbank for both Siena's Leederville and Mt Lawley. Yes, I do love my vouchers and coupons, especially when I can get them for free! Do check out Hot Dockets website for more free vouchers..

This Sunday found us at Siena's Leederville for lunch. I work nearby, so have often had lunches here with collegues, family and friends alike. I have tried the lasagne, spaghetti marinara, spaghetti carbonara, pumpkin ravioli, gnocchi sorrentino and canneloni, all of which were done really yummy (no bland, soft, soggy pasta here unlike some other cafes I have tried). Siena's have recently done up their menu too, so there were more offerings than those mentioned on their website. I have also tried some of their woodfired pizzas, but I can't remember which ones. From the new menu, both of us went for the special items. I was so eager to eat that I forgot to take photos of both our meals before we touched it. Good thing Rob reminded me before there was nothing to take photos of!


Rob's selection was Scallop Linguine for $17.50. The pasta was dressed with a tasty creamy sauce, and there were lots of scallops with it! It was yummy :)


I chose their Salmon special for $26.00, and it comes with salad and chips (I requested roast potatoes instead). This was nice, maybe a bit too well done for me but I do prefer raw salmon (I love sashimi!). Rob liked this dish too.

All up, it was a good experience, and we paid only $27.00 with the use of the voucher. Pretty good deal, if you ask me..

Sunday 11 September 2005

Risotto



Yay! I had my first go at making risotto. It is really quite a simple dish to make from scratch.. Quite surprised at how much they cost at restaurants. I followed the basic risotto recipe using chopped onions, arborio rice and chicken stock. I then added chopped tomatoes, shredded chicken breast, peas and herbs (parsley, basil and chives). I would have added mushrooms if I had some in the fridge. Like fried rice, you can add anything you want to risotto. Most recipes add parmesan cheese or some cream of some sort, but I don't really have a taste for those two items. I used the recommended quantity of rice for 2 servings (1 cup of uncooked rice), but this batch lasted us 2 meals (i.e. 4 servings) - however, we did have additional dishes to accompany the risotto.

One thing to note about risotto is that you cannot stray far from the stove. It requires your attention for 20-30minutes while it's cooking otherwise it can be a recipe for disastrous results. As a general rule, make sure you have on hand at least 3 times the amount of stock as you do for the rice.

The basic risotto recipe:

Ingredients
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups (~400g) Arborio rice
6-8 cups of chicken stock, heated
salt and pepper to taste
herbs and other ingredients you'd like to use (eg white wine; chicken; veges like peas, mushrooms, leek; chopped tomato; parmesan cheese; cream)

Method
In a wide-based pan, or shallow-sided large saucepan, saute the onion in the olive oil on medium high heat. When the onion is cooked, add the rice and stir to coat. Cook for 1-2 minutes until the rice grains are translucent. If using alcohol, increase the heat and add it now and stir until liquid has evaporated. Add tomatoes, mushrooms etc and stir for a minute. Reduce heat to medium low and add one ladle of stock and stir until the rice has absorbed the liquid. Repeat this process – adding stock ladle by ladle and stirring continuously until three quarters of the stock has been used. It should take 15-20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. If using peas and cooked chicken, add them now and stir. Add the last of the stock (again, ladle by ladle and stirring continuously) and check the rice is cooked (al-dente with a little crunch in the middle). Remove from heat and stir in cheese, cream and herbs if desired. Serve while hot.



Next, I'm gonna try making paella (spanish rice dish). Can't be much more difficult than fried rice or risotto, right?

Monday 5 September 2005

Dimsum lunch for Father's Day - 4th Sept 2005

We took my dad out for dimsum lunch at Emperor's Court on Lake Street in Northbridge. Pretty pricey, but we wanted this to be a nice treat for my dad (Hoi's Kitchen on William Street in Northbridge is our favourite, but is one of those places that serves great food but presentation is somewhat lacking). Being Father's Day, the restaurant was packed and we waited for about 20minutes before a table for our size was available (I shudder to think of the queue at Hoi's Kitchen - during lunchtime on a normal weekend day there is a wait of at least 1/2hr).


Waiting outside the restaurant


Early part of the meal when the table hadn't yet filled up with dimsum dishes


My family! :)

It was a nice meal, but pretty pricey. We paid close to $20pp, whereas at Hoi's Kitchen we'd pay closer to around $12pp for the same amount of dishes.

Friday 2 September 2005

Finlays Seafood BBQ in Kalbarri

During my internet search of things to do in Kalbarri, I'd heard about this place called "Finlays Seafood BBQ" which served good affordable seafood in an unusual setting. Several locals have also recommended this place, so we decided to go there for Saturday's dinner. Toilet paper for your napkin, and a tub of margarine for your damper if you wished.



I ordered Red Emperor fish fillet, which was served with stirfried rice and chips for $17:


Rob went for the Seafood Mix for $20, and got prawns, fish, squids and mussels with stirfried rice, chips and spring rolls:


Food was alright and quite affordable, but I think the novelty of the place is the main attraction.

Kalbarri Trip - 26-29 August 2005

Our wedding anniversary falls on 28th August and it was a good excuse to take a couple of days off work on a short trip up north to Kalbarri last weekend for our first anniversary. While the rest of the Perthites were suffering in the cold rainy weather, we had great sunny weather. It only rained on the Monday as we headed back home to Perth. This is a long post with lots of pictures (ah the beauty of an online-journal - no paper wastage!).


Thursday:

Fell sick with a sorethroat. Was damn sudden too, and I was spewing that I had to get sick the day before my holiday! By midday I clearly wasn't getting better so I took the rest of the day off from work to recover (heh, one of my collegues thought I wanted my holiday to begin sooner). I wish it was just sorethroat, but I felt foggy-brained and lethargic too. Sigh. Went home and had about 2 hours sleep. Got up, did some grocery shopping, went to my friend's house to borrow her Game Cube and her Pikmin and Legend of Zelda games and a few animes - just making sure we had stuff to do in the evenings whilst in Kalbarri. Got home, did some packing during the ads of an episode of Alias. Didn't go to bed until about 23:30. Geez, I was glad I had that 2 hour nap. Set the alarm for an ungodly time of 05:30am.


Friday Morning:

I woke up at 05:10 and couldn't go back to sleep. I also felt worse than yesterday but dragged myself out of bed, had something to eat before doing last minute packing of food and toiletries. We were armed with lots of snackies for the long ride north. We wanted to reach Kalbarri by 13:00 because we had a booking for horseriding at 14:15. Kalbarri is about 600km north of Perth, so assuming our average driving speed was 100km/hr (limit on the country road is 110km/hr), it would take at least 6 hours to get there. We packed everything into the car and started out at 06:30.


The Drive to Kalbarri:

The drive was somewhat pleasant. I was planning to nap while Rob was driving, but I was also eager to know the basic operations of the camera - at least the auto functions - so that I could take photos at our first activity later that day. So I played with the camera, taking lots of pictures of the road, Rob, and the landscape. Nothing too exciting really..



I took over the driving after two hours, and although it wasn't my first time driving on a country road, boy, did I have fun! I think my speed averaged about 135km/hr when I wasn't stuck behind some vehicle. Rob needs to relax a bit more with my 'country' driving. He seriously has an anxiety attack almost everytime I make an overtaking manouevre. Okay, I admit, sometimes I take risks, but then Rob even sometimes has an anxiety attack when he himself makes an overtaking manouevre..

We stopped for fuel and toilet break after driving for another 1.5hours, and we swapped seats again then. We reached the reception of our villa accommodation at 12:30 - total of 6 hours driving! Poor Robbie was so sick of driving by then. We had time to have the fried rice I packed for lunch and to unpack and relax before heading out again for horseriding.


Horseriding:

Horseriding was mostly fun. There were two other couples in our tour group. The girls at the ranch were foreigners from Germany and Switzerland - obviously doing a 'farm stay' of some sort as part of their holiday.

Now, this was my first time riding a living animal. So I was somewhat apprehensive and nervous. Alf is the name of the horse assigned to me. Mostly obedient, but like all smart animals, this horse had his own mind. If he wanted food while we stopped for a rest, he'd happily wander over to a grassy patch to munch, despite my commands to stay.

Trotting was difficult. The girls got us to practise while we were on the ground - "down-up-down-up-down" while bending our knees and doing half squats (amusing to watch). I can tell you that little exercise didn't really help me at all while I was on the horse itself. When we started trotting, I was bumping on the horse like a ball. It was tough. One of the girls had decided to rope Alf to her horse in case I couldn't control Alf (geez, it was that obvious from the start? I was the only one who was roped to one of the instructors). During the first couple trots, she kept saying, "down up down up down up" whilst demonstrating and I kept saying, "I can't do that because my foot is stuck in the foothold thingie!" in between my "I'm gonna fall off!!" and all the while fearing that I would fall off anytime. Anyway, eventually I got it right. It was more like "down-down-up-down-down-up" which explained why I was bopping like mad on my first try. Heh, it didn't help that my safety strap was broken too - took the girls awhile to fix it, but even then it wasn't as secure as they'd like it..

Cantering (running) was fun and easier than trotting. The others had 3 goes, I missed out on the first two canters because I was too chicken. After I found out that it was actually easier than trotting, I wanted to try it out, but the girls were concerned about my broken safety strap so they said it was probably better to wait until the break when they can have a go at fixing it. Rob's horse was psycho! Apparently the horse kept trying to zoom past the instructors down the front during the canters.. On the way back, on the last canter, my horse did a scary stunt when another horse bumped into it, and Alf went up the side bank of the road (which would have been about 1m higher than the road). Eeep! I thought I was gonna fall off!!! Of course, I witnessed Rob's horse zooming past all the horses while it was still munching on the grass it still had in its mouth! So eager to get up front - must've been an ex-racehorse.

Crossing the river was kinda scary. The water got up to the horse's shoulders, and we had to position our legs in an awkward *unstable* position (to keep them dry). I was seriously hanging on to the reins and what was left of the 'safety' strap and hoping and praying that I would not fall off..

Anyway, got some purty piccies while the horses happily grazed along. Hehe. Rob's horse farted. Man, can the horses piss and poo!! So much and so often!




Later on Friday evening:

We finished our horseriding and got back to our villa after 17:30. By then, I was exhausted and my sorethroat made me more tired than I would normally be. I had a little bit of bruises on the inside of my thighs where it rubbed the saddle, but other than that, it was all good. My brother Ian had warned of having a sore bum, but I think our frequent bike riding had already toughened our bums quite a lot.. We went for a walk before dinner in search for an ATM for cash, but we didn't go far before turning back to our villas simply because I was too tired and grumpy to do much else. Took some gorgeous sunset pictures with my camera though, so that was worth the walk.



I took a nice hot shower while Robbie prepared dinner (so sweet of him!). We went to bed early around 21:00 because we had another early start the next day, and we did only have about 4-5 hours of sleep the night before.


Saturday Morning: Abseiling Tour

Set the alarm for 06:10 because we were being picked up for abseiling from the resort's reception (which was 10mins walk) between 07:00 and 07:15. Woke up at around 05:00, and couldn't go back to sleep. Damn insomnia. I didn't manage to catch up on lost sleep after all.

Our guide's name is Nick, and he is such a good guide - very easygoing friendly personality. There was only one other couple in our group, and they were probably in their late forties, early fifties - very adventurous for their age and very likeable.

As part of the abseiling activity, we were given a tour through the touristy part of Kalbarri National Park - went to Nature's Window and to the Loop. Then it was time for abseiling in the gorges! That was fun - we got three shots at normal abseiling, and two shots at 'forward' abseiling. Nick said that the abseiling part of the tour would be the safest part - the most dangerous part would be the walking because you have to be careful with your steps on rocky surfaces. There were a lot of climbing up and down rocks when we reached the gorge areas. The abseiling was super good! Of course, it was kinda tiring, coz after abseiling down the face each time, you had to climb the rocks and hike back up to abseil back down. Surprisingly I managed to do the hike AND the climbing AND the abseiling eventhough I was still sick. I was damn knackered by the end of the day though.



Rob performing an abseil stunt - upside down!


Forward abseil:


Shots taken during our lunch break after our abseiling activity (we were still wearing our abseiling harnesses during our hike back to the coach):





View of part of the Z-bend (shot taken after a huge climb):


Saturday evening

We got back to our villa around 14:30, all knackered, but we still had to go in search for an ATM, and had to book our next day's activity at the Tourist Centre, which we hoped to be sandboarding, depending on the weather (a cold front was forecasted to affect Perth on Sunday, and I didn't know whether it would affect Kalbarri much). So off we went to do all that, came back to the villa, and had a nice hot shower in preparation for dinner at Finlays. Then it was back to the villa for bumming - we were too knackered to do anything else but sit and play Pikmin.


Sunday Morning

Ah, the weather was great! The cold front affecting Perth was only due to affect Kalbarri late Sunday arvo, so the day was ours to enjoy as we sandboard the huge dunes! We got picked up in a huge 4WD (a 14-seater I think) at 07:45am, and two other groups of three were part of our tour group as well: 3 Malaysians and 3 Israeli girls. Part of the tour was 4-wheel-driving thru the dunes. We went down a pretty steep dune, and I have photos to show:

View through through the front window: looks like we're approaching a hill, doesn't it?


View through the side window: Level horizontal ground to the left of the shot:


Slope: Admiring in awe...


Ah, the sandboarding itself. That was sooooo fun!!! It was so tiring, because after each ride, you had to trek back up the dune to do it again. You can do as many times as your body allows you to do. The first dune we tackled was small in comparison to the next one, but it still was very fun (especially when you haven't done it before). There are four ways to sandboard: lying on your tummy facing forward and backwards, sitting facing forward and backwards (no control/braking for the backwards sit). We also learnt how to sandboard standing up. We took lots of sequence shots, but I will only show some shots here.

This one is of Rob and me sandboarding at the same time on the first "baby" dune:




This was the biggy dune. It was so huge that we were only allowed to sandboard it one way and that was on our tummy facing forward. The trek back up the dune was so damn exhausting! Still, it was sooo much fun that we both did it seven times! One of the guys gave up after about 3 goes.


I held the record for going the furthest (even Ian, the owner of the business, was surprised I went that far), until Rob swapped his board for mine, and only then he took the record just by a bit on my board. That's me way down there - that black 'dot' in the middle..


We had about 1hr's lunch break at Lucky Bay Lagoon. It was absolutely gorgeous. I took several shots that I can stitch together to make a panoramic photo, but I haven't yet figured out how to use the camera's software to do that. Here's one shot:



Here we had the chance to have lunch and go snorkelling if we so desired. Ian, our guide, informed us that there are nice fishies at the rocky reef edge of the lagoon.. It looks deceivingly warm and summery doesn't it? The air temperature would have been a nice 23degC (perfect for sandboarding under the sun as it wasn't too cool nor too hot). The water was freezing - which was expected in the midst of winter!! Went in about waist-deep (took us probably a good 10 minutes just walking in gradually), then I said that it was too cold, especially when I was still sick.. So out I went and took some piccies of Rob snorkelling. Then after lunch it was more sandboarding, but by then I was tired and could only do a few more before I called it a day. We got to our villa probably around 15:00, rested, showered then made our way to the fish and chips place for our dinner.




Monday morning:

We packed our stuff and started from Kalbarri to Perth at 08:30. Did I say I like driving? Arrived in Perth at 14:30. Ah, that was a fun trip. Eventhough I was sick, I still managed to enjoy myself :)