say your p's and q's

end-of-term bag cleaning: found two scraps of paper from three months ago, some pods chocolates in a...

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 10:52:59 -0400

end-of-term bag cleaning: found two scraps of paper from three months ago, some pods chocolates in a biohazard bag, two cannulas, five blue and four black pens- so that’s where all my pens went!

Business Idea #1: www.pornomore.com This porn site is guaranteed to put your porn-addicted loved...

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 22:11:00 -0400

Business Idea #1:

www.pornomore.com

This porn site is guaranteed to put your porn-addicted loved ones off porn forever. Wives can now help their husbands subscribe to our weekly newsletters featuring a link to what looks like the hottest porn site in town! Pants drop, hearts race as naked people get down and dirty until… a big cartoon bunny walks in and comments on how your carrot is old and unappetizing, your two young children walk in on you, or you suddenly succumb to a fulminant case of fournier’s gangrene…

The website’s name is a play on “more porno ” and “no more porn”.. and is specially designed by experienced psychologists to make you think of random moment-ruiners every time you try and enjoy some porn in the privacy of your bedroom. No more shall porn ruin happy marriages and allow socially odd people to sit at home all day rather than go out and make real friends.

Although that said, the world just be about to may see a rise in cartoonophilia..

criterion for marrying

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:41:58 -0500

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

going to nepal! super excitez.

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:05:24 -0400

going to nepal! super excitez.

things to buy

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:48:00 -0400

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...

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 03:53:56 -0400

things i learnt from ria

게랑빵 gye-rang bbang; egg-bread

들깨가루 deul ggae ga ru; wild sesame powder

포장마차 pojang macha; tent restaurant

quay

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 04:42:00 -0400

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

데림감자국...best frickin' potato soup in seoul

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 02:06:00 -0400

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.

korea

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:20:00 -0400

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 :)

gu-E 구이

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:53:00 -0400

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/

mitarashi dango

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:33:06 -0400

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.

melbourne

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:58:00 -0400

procrastination is the devil. finally, here are pictures from melbourne, aka snapshots of charlotte. internet kept cutting out while i uploaded pictures and i was a little cbf’d to keep restarting the upload. anyway! here are about half the pictures. don’t think the other half are ever going to appear, so don’t hold your breath.

thanks so much to charwong who kicked her boyfriend out for me, fed and amused me endlessly, and showered me with much love! love you x10!

i love to eat luk chup. they’re so small and pretty and taste like ang ku kuay without the...

Tue, 03 May 2011 08:45:53 -0400

i love to eat luk chup. they’re so small and pretty and taste like ang ku kuay without the gooey stuff. it’s really hard to find good luk chup. these were from a thai convenience store and the shapes were rather indelicate and the jelly a bit too thick.

LOOKING FOR MY MENTAL BALLS

Mon, 02 May 2011 09:33:32 -0400

LOOKING FOR MY MENTAL BALLS

oh hello again.

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 14:38:29 -0400

for a while i forgot that i have a blog. will be more dilligent because next week is the easter break.

and i realised that my legs are really gross and unshapely therefore i will try and sculpt my calves more this year. like every year before.

sigh.

overkill: using a steak knife to open a pack of raisins result: pointy end of steak knife in finger....

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:36:38 -0400

overkill: using a steak knife to open a pack of raisins

result: pointy end of steak knife in finger. but also an opened packet of raisins :)

life's little lesson

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:18:44 -0400

if you have time to load up on eyeliner, you have time to pencil in your brows.

omg i actually applied to be a foot model. on hindsight my arches are really collapsed so no one will want me :(

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:20:00 -0400

Japanese language classes were a he’ll lot more fun when I had bucketloads of difficult med...

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:48:45 -0400

Japanese language classes were a he’ll lot more fun when I had bucketloads of difficult med study stuff to do, plus it was a get source of procrastination.

Now it’s the only thing restricting my timetable, the homework is getting harder and somehow it’s not so fun anymore.

pass!

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 08:51:00 -0400

to celebrate me not failing my exams (yeah i’m that hopeless), my parents took me to yoshii, which is supposedly famous for kaiseki. except that my friends are probably among the top 1% of food-crazy people in sydney and no one had heard of it before.

when calling to make a reservation, i was warned that there would only be kaiseki courses available, and no ala carte. which was fine because i love, LOVE kaiseki, and so far have had trouble finding decent ones out of japan. i had even given up hope of ever finding decent japanese food in sydney, besides ramen and conveyor belt sushi bars.

sea urchin egg cup three-layered dish consisting of a bottom layer of one whole soft-cooked egg yolk, followed by a middle layer of fresh uni and finished off with a layer of bonito stock topped with a strip of seaweed and a flake of gold

from the top and moving clockwise:

tasmanian smoked salmon with passionfruit kimizu sauce
kingfish sashimi marinated in wasabi oil
duck foie gras and kelp “tsukudani”
deep fried crystal bay prawn mince in potato strips

beef carpaccio served with japanese mushrooms warm dressing

toothfish tempura citrus pepper flavour, served with pickled palette cleanser

spinach egg custard in bonito stock served with seasonal vegetables

lemongrass granita

sushi moriwase sake, maguro, crystal bay prawn, hamachi, hotate, some random fish, hamachi aburi, unagi

misoshiru

soybean milk sorbet but i ate it all before i remembered to take a photo. so here is a picture of the bowl it came in instead.

yoshii is currently at the top of my restaurant rankings for good service, great food + presentation, good ambience and even at a hefty $140, worth every darn cent. it was pretty empty, with only a few japanese businessmen at adjacent tables. no noisy, raucous crowds so that’s a bonus. the teacups were changed with every course to ensure a good supply of hot tea. and there were about 5 different cup designs. all the food came in petite little portions and beautifully decorated with edible things. very pretty and very japanese :)