Happy CNY Eve!

Ello Ello guys!  Happy Chinese New Year Eve!

It is my study week and my daily routine goes: wake up around 9am, breakfast, dramas for an hour, revision, lunch, gym, dinner, another 1 hour drama session, revision again (T.T) and sleep around 1-2am.

I am surprised by myself because normally I can't stay up late till 2am. Last year, I sleep around 10-11pm! What a big change throughout the summer semester aye.

A little update about life, I've been spamming my own Dayre but neglecting this site. :(

So yea, it's the CNY eve, finally! Although there's nothing to look forward to when I am here in Brisbane, at least I have my family accompanied. Oh well, i'm actually looking forward to the reunion dinner tonight, it's been so long since a big food feast. The last one was... three weeks ago the pre-CNY party? lol

It is funny like I have literally become the 'house property agent'.  I was helping three friends for their houses inspection since summer holidays and this morning, i received a text about house rentals from my coursemate. In fact it is my pleasure to help, visiting different houses/apartments are one of my hobbies. oh weird hobby, which is developed throughout years of helping my dad to inspect property.

I have a big discovery on Echo360 (it is the site where we can listen to all lecture recordings) - I can adjust the time to run 1-3 times faster! It makes me happier and less annoyed while listening to the recordings because I know time passes faster than it normally does. That simply means the suffering time is shorter.

Then I finally installed Spotify in my Mac! My friends used to persuade me to try it instead of keep buffering on YouTube last semester, but I refused to cos I love YouTube lol lol. Finally I have it in my lappie and I'm falling in love with Matt Wertz's voice.

- Apparently my little brother is too bored and trying to tickle me. -

I have to decide which camera to get! Sony Nex-5R, Sony Alpha 7 or the Panasonic Lumix GM-1. urghh. Who hates decision making?

lol this is another random post from Clare. I am typing this just like how I write my diary. I write it once a week and try my best to recall everything that I have done throughout the week. I wish I can go into details, but I can't. I can only remember what I eat (LOL?) and the weather.

And sometimes, my feelings of the day.

So i'm not too old aye?

Okay lah, bye for now! It's 2pm already and time for lunch! Also, I must finish week 6 lectopia by today. Too lazy to go to gym but have a strong urge to swim.

I have my tummy ready for nice food tonight!

Once again, Happy Chinese New Year in advance.

Lure on Latrobe @ Paddington

The summer is back. uhhh. 

Thank God I'm done with my summer courses assignments! And there comes my final exams in two weeks time. :( Clare has been slacking throughout the whole summer semester and she is now regretting while doing her last minute work -.- AGAIN, I am again doing last minute revision. 

I should never ever do that again next semester - the promise that I should not promise aye? 

Anyways, brunch / / Lure on Latrobe

It started with a random text: HEY I'M SO HUNGRY let's go for brunch.  Okay so on the sunny and windy Saturday we rocked up to Paddington with an empty tummy and camera.  Lure on Latrobe it is!  It rolls out a new menu in the beginning of the year and we decided to give it a go. 

Paddington is a great place with beautiful scenery and good food. It definitely provides a feast for the senses!  Check out my previous brunch @Paddington here: Anouk Cafe

Firstly, beverages to wet the whistle!!! It wasn't a hot day but we were craving for cold drinks.  Summer coffee and Mango Smoothies are refreshing to wake us up.  Initially I wanted to order Iced Coffee with no ice cream, but the waiter recommended me this summer coffee, which is basically the iced drip cold coffee with skimmed milk.

Oh the staffs are super approachable and treat customers like their friends!

 We were asked to wait for a couple more minutes when they were getting ready for lunch menu. Both of us had opted for a healthier version!

Rootveg and Slow Roasted Lamb Salad. 

I have my heart set on this plate of salad, oh well, I love salad.
The roasted pumpkin and sweet potato can fuel you up; the roasted lamb was smothered in the sweet and tangy mint yoghurt dressing and hey! there's my favourite chickpeas :p

Slow Roasted Lamb and Baked Atlantic Salmon Salad. 

I reckon salmon is the most versatile fish to work with in the kitchen, one can simply baked a perfect salmon after trials and errors.  I personally think that this atlantic salmon was over baked - I like a thick band of light pink in the middle, ahaha, I love sashimi, I could have them RAW. roarrr.

It is a great lunch deal! You get to choose two salads for a small salad plate at a price of $16 while three salads for large salad plate at $20.

Truly satisfying. Definitely worth a revisit!

A Sunday well-spent brings a week of content!

It was a normal Sunday to be thankful with. Normally my Sunday is the day for God, friends, family and dramas!

But today was a special one. A Sunday well-spent brings a week of content!

First of all, the day started quite badly.  It was the pair of heels that I wore to Sunday service this morning.  It hurts my feet and I looked so clumsy and awkward while walking. I should never wear heels anymore.

Second, it was so embarrassing that my index finger started bleeding while I was playing bass guitar during praise and worship this morning at Sunday Service. LOL at myself, like seriously! It's because the wound I had few weeks ago has not yet fully recovered.  Thank God I managed to finish the whole session! All glory to God.

Then I had lunch with my family.  My grandma and two sisters.  A funny conversation that we had in the cafe and we laughed out loud - still can't believe my grandma can be so humorous lol lol

And I baked the Matcha Chiffon Cake with red bean.  It was my first attempt on Chiffon Cake - I've never tried to bake it because according to my mother, it is very challenging to bake a perfect chiffon cake! My sister and I decided to take the challenge since we had nothing to do, but we left a mess in the kitchen.  Following steps by steps till the moment before we needed to fold in the egg whites, we realised that we forgot the most important ingredient - BUTTER! #!(*$(#$)$(%__!#$@(*#$!@*&$(*%@(#  My sister was pissed off by my carelessness. haha no wonder the mixture looked like dough lah! Okay, at least we got a not-so-perfectly baked chiffon cake at the end. it doesn't look photogenic, but definitely nice to taste :p

THEN I GOT A HEART ATTACK. I have a paper review due at 8am tomorrow morning, that weighs 10% of my overall grade.  I couldn't log into the course resource page to upload my file! Apparently everyone's having the same problem and the lecturer has eventually extended the deadline. Good or bad, nah, don't judge it lol.

A few minutes later, I had to make my decision on my courses in Semester One 2014 and arrange my timetable as well! Guys! Help me, should I do a course which is assignment based, that has no any lectures, tutorials or prac classes. What I need to do is to write three research reports and work under supervision of an academic staff!  No lectures?!!! Sounds so tempting to me, but three research reports which add up to 10,000 words don't sound too good lol. While the another course, I have 2 hours lectures and 3 hours practical classes every week! What should I do? :(

Sigh.

After that I lied on my couch and fall asleep till an incoming FaceTime call. It interrupted my afternoon nap, I grumpily threw my phone to my sister and continued sleeping.  Bah bah, I guess this was when I started feeling grumpy.  Somemore I woke up by a sudden starvation - time for dinner!

DINNER? DINNERRRR?! Tell me what should I have for my dinner.  Had nothing left in the fridge except those unhealthy food and I didn't really want to eat them after the unhealthy lunch this afternoon.  This boosted up my grumpiness level and KABOOMM, I ended up shutting myself in my own room and watched 天才冲冲冲.

HAHAHA, it was definitely the best decision I've ever made throughout the day. It successfully cheered me up.  Meanwhile, the random twitter tag by my friend made a bright smile on my face too.

Last but not least, I made a house inspection for my friends and heyyyy that is a really nice property.  I wish they can get that property as it is really near to my place - PARTY'S ON! Fingers crossed.

So la, overall it is a great day, I'm sipping my peppermint tea to get rid of that unpleasant stomach bloatedness. I hate PMS, I hope this hatred will not develop to a mental illness.

It was yesterday, I guess my friend sensed my grumpiness while I was chatting with him. Then he sent me this.

You have PMS and a handgun. *Hands up* I surrender. 

LOL LOL LOL.

Okay, done for today.  Normally I will do this on my dayre cos it's much more convenient to type on my phone, but there's too much to say today! Too much ranting is bad for my soul, so I should stop now. I'm pretty sure I will have a great week ahead even though i have to countdown to my finals.

For those going to back to their hometown for Chinese New Year, Happy Chinese New Year in advance!

The Perfect Match - Cupcakes and Cream Cheese

2 more weeks to Chinese New Year; 3 weeks to the summer course final exams; 4 weeks till family trip to Sydney; 6 weeks until my mystery trip ( :p ); 7 more weeks until our Year 2 uni! Sounds pretty interesting right? :D

Another post about food for you guys again, I have no shame. 

Red Velvet Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

After the storm, the weather went better, but this arvo, the sudden heat in the air made me crave for comforting food. uhhh, I guess the 'binge-eating' week is coming soon, lol lol. To control my appetite and to prevent myself from sabotaging my new years resolution (feeling guilty after eating out yesterday and today!), I scanned through my old photos in my camera, got them transferred to my laptop.. muahhaha. It did successfully outsmart my desserts craving. 

And I decided to blog now while waiting for my lecture recording to finish loading. (My house internet has gone insane since yesterday, it took me forever to upload/download everything)

It was about a month ago when I baked this red velvet cupcakes. I was tossing between baking a super rich cheesecake or the super cutey cupcakes. It was a battle I had and finally I had a lightbulb moment - what about cupcakes with cream cheese frosting? 

After discussing with my sister, we decided to go for Red Velvet Cupcakes. Awesome. 

 Just in case you don't know I really dislike dry and crumbly baked cakes, and that is why I heart cheese (They never get dry). I did some research online and found this recipe really nice ---> Recipe

The recipe includes coffee, which makes the cakes more moist.  Since I had no instant coffee at home but this caffe americano capsule, I made a cup of coffee by using the nescafe coffee machine!

 I wanna keep the coffee taste down so I chucked in more cocoa powder. My sister hates coffee, ahh.

 Apart from the coffee, the apple cider vinegar takes its role to moisturise the cakes too!

They are super mini cupcakes lol, I couldn't find any larger cupcakes liners. 

 I played around with cream cheese, sugar, heavy cream and colourings while waiting for the cupcakes to cool down. hah, I'm terrible in piping frosting onto the cupcakes. At the end I left the kitchen in a mess. hehe.

Oh hello!

Decadent-tasting Super moist Red Velvet Cupcakes!

Needless to say, a cup of earl grey tea is surely needed to pair up with this adorable cupcake.

That's all! I might need to get myself a panadol pill to stop this headache that I have since morning. Growing older now I need more sleep - 5 hours ain't enough! and Monday Blue tomorrow awwww. 

Good night! Have a really blessed week ahead, Cheeeeerrrs! 

Food Hunting Trip 250613

Yes, 25062013.

JUNE 2-0-1-3.

It is not a typo

Well well, this food hunting trip happened last year in June. Forgive me for finally having it up here after 7 months.  Frankly this draft was completed the week after the trip, I was just too lazy to finalise everything. While I was editing my blog template (as you can see, a whole new blogskin!), I spotted many drafts being saved and they have become the eye sore on the dashboard - it demonstrates my procrastination. To clear the drafts list, aha, there you go!

It was the trip that Esther suggested. We have always been wanting to try different kinds of cafes in Brisbane. Finally in June, after semester one exams, we made it! Along with us, there were Ivy, Vincent and Yap Huan.

It was definitely a difficult job to plan the route, as well as reading the google map. Specially thanks to Vincent who helped a lot in reading the maps too! Also, the rule of this trip was to eat only one dish per cafe, so that we had more spaces saved for more food. 

Before the food hunting trip, we headed to Wellington Point for sunrise. We left home around 5am so that we could enjoy the sun rising moment at 5.48am! 

1. Southside Tea Room @ Morningside

Smoked salmon on toast, with bacon added on.

This was the original portion! Since we had 5 people sharing this, we divided it.

and plated it. :p

Smoked Salmon on toast, per serving. 

LOL LOL. our plating skills improved by the end of the trip.

2. Bungalow 4171 @ Hawthorn

We had opted for the sweet potato hash cakes after asking for recommendations from the owner.
It comes with two perfectly poached eggs, sauteed spinach and toasted wholemeal bread.  Also, some butter to go with the toast? 

I'm not a big fan of sweet potato, hence the hash cakes were just okay for me. However, all of them said it was pretty good!

3. Pompidou Cafe @ Balmoral

Savoury mince. Splendid!

We faced difficulties plating this dish, apparently a poached egg can't be divided into five portions.
In fact, the egg was a little on a solid non-goeey side. The mince are cooked with sweet potatoes and potatoes, as for the topping, there are baby rocket and sour cream. It turned out really well. In fact, it is an eye catching dish, having the mince in a 'basket'! That tastes more like a crispy but thinner pizza dough. 

4. Bunker Coffee @ Milton

We did not include this on our list! Someone just randomly suggested that we should have a cup of coffee after all the savoury food. Having urbanspoon apps on your smartphone is convenient, but we tried to google 'The best coffee in town' and it brought us here!

I love how they camouflage the store with real leaves and twigs! It seems to be the smallest cafe in Brisbane, but hey, don't judge a book by its cover. Trust me, the coffee is really good. I've been there for several times after my first visit, and I will definitely visit them again. soon, yes soon.

[I'm actually drafting another post for Bunker Coffee, too much love to express. Yes, too good]

So, stay tuned lah!

5. Grill'd Burgers @ Paddington

Hot chips from Grill'd. Okay, the trip weren't meant to be like this. I guess the guys were just too hungry as we only had three main meals throughout the morning, and the meals were shared with 5 people!

6. Grub Street @ Gaythorne

Smoked salmon bun, accompanied by baby rocket and cucumbers.

Nothing special, but the staffs were friendly. They were really patient to explain to us their recommended dishes.

7. Willow and Spoon @ Alderly

It took us more than 15 minutes to find this cafe. Apparently GPS isn't that pro enough, but Thank God we found it!
Here, we found our emergency dessert stomach and powered through!

Dark Chocolate Brownies.

THIS IS AWESOME. I'm serious guys. This is really really nice. 

It is rich, dark and fudgy. Full of chocolate flavour, with a hint of bitterness, so it is not overwhelmed by glucose. It has pomegranate as the topping. Who knows pomegranate and chocolate pair so well? The flavours simply marry together and forms a perfect union creating this sinful brownies. 

And it was freshly baked! We waited for 30 minutes, and it was worth waiting :)

As for the icecream, it was quickly devoured by us, leaving no traces to prove its existence. 

8. Gelare @ Southbank

This was our last stop! Because it was a Tuesday when there is this 50% off promotion, we all agreed to have waffles before our dinner time. It was my first time trying Gelare, nice, but the best waffle in Brisbane is dedicated to Passione @ Teneriffe (which is temporarily closed now :( )

I have to say it was a unforgettable day. Besides the food that we tasted, there was this surprise birthday celebration for my 18th at Southbank along the street! They successfully made me burst into tears and laughters, but too slow to cam-record it. bah :p

It was indeed one of the sweetest memories I have in 2013!

Before I end, the cafes that I will definitely visit again are Pompidou Cafe, Willow and Spoon and of course, Bunker (haha, you know how much I love coffee)!

p/s pardon me for my English, not well enough to perfectly describe the tastiness lolloll. I blame my lack of scrumptious food tasting. :D SO! I have to eat more of them in order to get to know more about them.

What's the plan for Cafes in 2014? One more tomorrow, perhaps? 

My Superhero , 2014

Hello 2014! Finally up here on my blog! Dayre has made everything much more easier - I have been blogging on dayre everyday but am always lazy to blog them here. yes yes, on dayre you can just talk nonsense and nobody cares lol.

Here's the screenshot on one of the most nonsense thing I have been telling on my dayre. I apologise for my obsession on superhero film based movies. Somehow I don't live in fairy tales - the prince on the white horse will never be my superhero. The wolverine is my kind of man. muahhahaha. look at his claws, too charming.

lollolll. okay im just joking.

Finally I watched The Wolverine 2013 last night. It was awesomeeee! Am really looking forward to X-men 4: Days of the Future Past.

ohh too much on movies. It is time to get back to studies. The clock is ticking, my final assignments will be due on next Friday, 800 words to go. Yet I have no motivation to do it! I miss those time when we were all together, crashing each others lectures; being bad friends persuading each others to skip lectures just for lunch; dragging each others along to different tutorials etc etc. I need you guys back!

My friend just whatsapp-ed me this photo and I can't stop laughing. and along with the picture, he said, "Look at the wolverine that you love, the veins. omggg so not healthy" 

-.- 

okay sorry lollolllll. I'll stop now. 

Today's been a productive day! I woke up from a 6 hours sleep, had my brunch and headed to the market for some groceries. I felt so tired and lethargic, haven't recover from the muscle pain caused by kickboxing :S and I made some curry puffs to pamper myself.

what a sumptuous indulgence. 

deep-fried some of them but baked most of them as a healthy option. 

Do you hear me?
I'm trying desperately not to.
Promise me you'll remember.
I thought you just told me to forget? Make up your mind. 

Currently reading Bellagrand. A friend of mine really inspires me a lot: her passionate love affair with books. I remember we used to share our Chinese novels in high school! After moving here, I  slowly abandoned my books as I have more access to the Internet. I have always wanted to find my enthusiasm of reading back. Fight for one of my 2014 resolutions - READ MORE!

Okay, time to go. I hope tomorrow will be a productive day in the library - at least 300 words okay? Please. Please Please.

Bye lah! :P

Oh, before that, Pacific Rim is a really nice movie. I would have to watch it again. Raleigh, I love Raleigh too. :p