say your p's and q's

i will never marry a man who is afraid of insects.

going to nepal! super excitez.

running around on my knees

stupidly forgot to fasten the neck guard, and came within a hair’s breadth from rupturing my carotids. thank god for my sternocleidomastoid.

rainbow on my inner thigh. paperclip for scale.

went to play at sydney indoor paintball for georgina’s 19th birthday. pretty hectic, very painful but heaps of fun. place was small which made the game fairly fast and intense. took a beating on my knuckles but it doesn’t look bad enough to warrant a picture. freakin’ hurts though.

we started out cautious but soon we went full-out into paintball war, with all of us taking hits like old heroes. some of us got pummeled with pellets and needed ice for our injuries, which they surprisingly did not stock. but they were really nice and sent someone out to buy a bag of ice and even gave us a free bottle of water in the meantime.

can’t wait to see how the bruises develop, will update this post if any great floral patterns appear over the next few days. my thighs hurt like a mofo from crouch-kneel-walking and i think i will have to hobble to hospital tomorrow, in long pants and a turtleneck shirt.

pat and i went to arisun for super late dinner afterwards and the manager jokingly asked if he was my boyfriend, and why i was covered in hickeys (#’.’#)

update: hip bruise development.

knuckles. a lot less swollen, but a lot more blue.

bookends

http://www.rawspace.com.au/images/P/horse%20book%20ends%20500.jpg

http://www.zuny.info/collection_show_c.php?protypeid=47&protypeid2=50&pro_id=83&Page=1

wall decals

http://www.homestickers.com.au/products/little-garden

cardboard taxidermy

http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/bohemia/product/emperor-deer-trophy-head

things i learnt from ria

게랑빵 gye-rang bbang; egg-bread

들깨가루 deul ggae ga ru; wild sesame powder

포장마차 pojang macha; tent restaurant

amuse-bouche no idea what it was, but it was warm and comforting, like hot chowder on a cold day

entree sashimi of sea scallops, smoked eel flowers, apple, organic crosnes, horseradish, sorrel shoots, virgin pine kernel oil

entree poached king george whiting,  winter melon, lettuce heart, warrigal greens, native angasi oysters

main course berkshire pig jowl, maltose crackling, prunes, cauliflower cream, perfumed with prune kernel oil

main course milk-fed suffolk lamb leg, artichoke emulsion, pantelleria capers, confit lamb belly, citrus marmalade, nasturtiums

special poached wagyu, oxtail, morel, black pudding, farro, buckwheat, hazelnut, ezekiel 

sweets eight texture chocolate cake

sweets jackfruit snow egg

petit fours

gluttony pie from la renaissance

it was our last day in seoul, and craving something epic, we decided to traverse the hostile land searching for the best gamjatang in seoul and this is what we found.

데림감자국.. 응암동 데림시장 감자국골

daerim gamjaguk shop @ the entrance of daerim market, eungam-dong.

apparently gamjaguk is different to gamjatang, in that guk has more potatoes where as tang is mainly made from pork bones.

this shop only sold *drumroll*… gamjaguk. we ordered a medium-sized one to share amongst us and the food arrived shortly after in a cauldron, piled with fresh veggies. after what seemed to be the longest wait of our lives, the soup finally boiled, engulfing the now-wilted vegetables and we dug in delightedly.

now, if anybody is a fan of large chunks of meat, this is not the dish for you. one must truly work to enjoy their gamjaguk. every morsel of pork has to be dug out from a maze of pork spine. we worked our way through a pile of dinosaur-eque bones and even dug out the spinal cord to savour. ohmnomnomnom. the soup was full of flavour beyond any description i can come up with, and must have been boiled for hours to achieve its rich heartiness.

definitely a must-try for visitors to seoul and totally worth the 30min taxi ride each way.

seoul was a trip of epic proportions. we ate, we shopped, we conquered. but mostly we just ate. what we saw, we ate. fancy meat restaurants, hole-in-the-wall stew shops, tents and even off dodgy street carts. and when we could not fit anymore into our overstuffed bellies, we shopped all the energy back off. finally, we masked ourselves from top to toe to rejuvenate us for another day of craziness.

many thanks to nat and char for putting up with me for 5 of the best days in my life, love you guys :)

so pleased that i’ve discovered an awesome new korean restaurant in the city! totally beats my old favourite, madang, which doesn’t carry unmarinated beef ribs.

we ordered some F1 waygu fillet, which had a marbling score of 9! that’s really high by sydney standards, and the meat sizzled on the grill, giving off puffs of fragrant uh.. meat smell.

I LOVE MEAT.

and unadulterated meat that falls off your chopsticks and melts in your mouth is a total win in my book.

we also ordered wagyu ribs which were so tasty and chewy, each chew revealing a burst of yummy fatty flavour which explodes on your tastebuds and sends you to culinary heaven.

le sigh. so good. i could eat there every meal of every day until my bank account goes into the red.

to balance off our meal, we had a nine-delicacy crepe which was interesting, tasty and healthy. delicate strips of miscellaneous veggies and meats wrapped in a soft fresh pancake skin and drizzled with a honey mustard dressing.. mmm. certainly gives a new dimension to korean food other than your run-of-the-mill bbqs and hotpots. with the korean food fad rapidly spreading across the world, it seems like a shame that most people have never imagined, let alone tasted korean fine dining.

we also ordered a seafood pancake which was good and simple, filled with tiny sea critters.

unfortunately the beef carpaccio was disappointing. rather than raw beef, we had seared beef which was very.. beefy? the taste was a bit strong and the sauce didn’t draw out the taste of the meat, nor did the chopped leeks mask the gamey smell. i guess i would still prefer the good ole carpaccio with rocquette or tataki-style.

overall this restaurant is a WIN! normally i would procrastinate for weeks before blogging but this was so amazing and awesome and different i couldn’t wait to put it up and tempt all my melbourne friends to come visit me sooner.

price-wise? AUD$125 for the 5 dishes above, and bearing in mind that the F1 fillet was $39… very reasonable indeed. maybe cheaper than madang even…? they also have traditional degustations ranging from $45 to $100ish which i will definitely return to try soon. they also own the restaurant Arisun next door which is a bit more down-market and looks like it might be hiding some other hotpot treasures so that’s another must-try for me :)

http://www.thegue.com.au/

attempt at mitarashi dango. we used the tofu dango recipe from cookingwithdog but i think it was a bit too chewy, so next time will use a better recipe which calls for joushinko to give it a more ricey flavour and softer texture.