This past week of food adventures - home made + out & about

Here's to another week of delicious food adventures - both home made as well as from restaurants in Melbourne.

Warning: the following images may induce hunger and cravings. Viewer discretion is advised, especially if viewing late at night.

Starting with dessert at the Laurent cafe at the Chaddy branch. Chololate ganache, mini macarons, coconut and raspberry and cake filling. 

Then jumping to the morning after hangover food at the Pancake Parlour. Pancakes, whipped butter, eggs and bacon. Need I say more?

Jumping over to the Japanese side of things. Unagi don at Uzu in Caulfield. The unagi was delicious, but I still cannot believe the rice was soggy. Hmph. Don't skimp on the rice!! :(

This baby still saved the day. Otherwise, I would have been very unhappy. 

Now for fruity chocolates that look like Drawing/Colouring Chalks from HappyLab! Love the presentation of this little box! Plus, they were yummy too. My favourite one was the lychee flavour (far right, baby pink color).

My home made spicy fish stew with caramelised leeks and cucumber.

And lastly, last night's late night dinner: A warm salad of tuna, tomatoes and green beans in a brown butter and balsamic reduction. Crackers on the side. Yum!

xoxo

Part 2 - Food Porn Dining Out: Pancake Parlour, Laurent Bakery, Crown Casino

Here's Part 2 of my food adventures - Dining Out Edition

Pancake Parlour Lunch Special is a dish with chips, potato pancake and fried fish. Yum! And it was less than $12, which isn't that bad :)

The fish itself was cooked nicely, given the number of people at the restaurant that day, I'm glad it wasn't overcooked. The potato pancake was delicious, and so were the thinner crispier pieces of chips! I kind of wished I had ordered the Salad option though. The chips (or fries, actually) were thick cut so they weighed down the meal in general. The potato pancake on its own is a good amount of substance for me, so having both was a bit excessive.

Pancake Parlour: Fish + Chips and Potato Pancake

Onto pastry! This was a pear danish or pear puff from Laurent Bakery.The pastry itself was nice, and the pear was  naturally sweet, so it didn't feel like too much sugar at all - just about right. I like it, although it's not life-changing. The shape is so cute though!

Pear Puff Pastry

After a long night at work, our boss took us to Crown Casino for late night! So I went for a large bowl of noodle soup with crispy pork. Let me first say that I was shocked when I saw the size. It's humungous, like my jaw drops a bit kind of big. There was so much in that one bowl for me that I could not finish everything. The soup and the actual noodles were nice, but I still find that the crispy pork was waaaaaaaaaayyy too salty, unlike how they make it back home in Thailand. Boo. Oh, well. It was still a pretty good meal in general.

Crispy Pork Noodle Soup + Corona, because I can

And what did I have with it? Why ask? A Corona >__< hehe

Alrighty. Off to bed for now (It's 5 am oops). Back tmr with more!

Shyun (Japanese Restaurant) in Carnegie

I went to this restaurant around about 2 or 3 weeks ago with some of my friends after a meeting. I am already a sucker for Japanese food, so I was super excited to go!

The ambience was cozy and welcoming - which reminds me of the restaurants I had been to in Japan. We were there a bit late, so there weren't any tables save for the couple of spaces at the counter. I actually quite liked sitting right in front of all the sushi-making action :)

There was a special for the Shake Rice (Salmon Rice), so being a raw salmon lover, the choice was easy. If memory serves me right, I believe it was around $9-10 but definitely no more than $12

Rice topped with Shake!

This was absolutely delicious!!! Yum yum yum yum. The raw salmon was cut into thin strips then mixed with a sauce (with traces of sesame oil as well?) then placed on top of sushi rice and sprinkled with fresh spring onions. The bowl didn't seem that big, but once you actually start eating it, you get full faster than you think. The freshness of the fish was good, especially at this price range, but don't expect it to be as fresh as e.g. a sushi store selling chirashi sushi @ Tsukiji market. Still, I really enjoyed it!

My friend knew the owner so she ordered some additional sushi that wasn't on the menu -

Torched Salmon Sushi with sweet miso sauce

This was again another wonderful dish! The colors in the above picture have been altered a bit, given that I took this picture with Instagram. But hey, you get the idea. :) The torched salmon went really well with the sweet auce (I'm thinking something along the lines of miso, shoyu, mirin) and I would definitely order more if I knew how to order it! lol

I shared a little bit of my friend's Soy Corokke (not pictured) as well, which I personally liked but my friend did not. I might have been a bit biased though, since I do like soy milk in general.  I also had the tiramisu daifuku for dessert (not pictured - it was way too messy to hold the camera and eat the sticky dessert at the same time) which was awesome! The soft and gooey layer of the mochi matched well with the cool and creamy tiramisu ice cream inside. Yum! Will definitely try other flavors next time.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to visit there again soon. When I do, I'll definitely share my experience here. For now, this restaurant has definitely gotten a thumbs-up from me! :)

xoxo

- Hearty Chicken Tomato Sauce Bake -

It was near Christmas time, and outside the snow and cold winds were raging. In such times, what you want for dinner is comfort food. Now usually, my comfort food would be something along the lines of chicken soup with rice - Asian style. But I wanted to do something different this time, just for the heck of it, and so I came up with this dish :) It's something easy, yet hearty and satisfying. If I remember correctly, I think both my bf and I thoroughly enjoyed this!

~ Hearty Chicken Tomato Sauce Bake ~

I took some pictures of the steps as well, although I don't have any recipe. In fact, unless I'm baking (in which case exact measurements are crucial to the end result), I don't usually use recipes. I just look around in my kitchen, think in my head what kinds of flavours I want to achieve, add a bit of this and that - taste it - and VOILÀ! 

Step 1 - Marinade/Prep Chicken

Step 2 - Pan Sear

Step 3 - Make the sauce

Step 4 - Smother sauce over chicken and bake in oven.
Add cheese to broil a few mins before serving.

~ Yatta! ~