Hog's Breath Cafe... Not to my liking at all. But nice outing

Last Sat, we went to meet up with Gladys' USYD classmates at Vivocity. Had dinner at Hog's Breath Cafe, and what a disappointment it was.

Although we ordered medium rare steak, the first time it came, it was well-done. Of course, we rejected it and asked for it to be changed. The second time it came, it was medium-done to well-done still. Finally, the third time it came, it was still OK (medium rare to almost medium-done, but we felt that if we rejected it again, we'll never get our food). By that time, the rest of the group were almost done eating!

And honestly, the steak wasn't nice. Definitely not worth the price that we paid for it. Mind you, Hog's Breath does not charge cheaply.

And then there's the bill. I paid with my AMEX card and so was supposed to enjoy a 10% discount. When the bill came, I decided to check my bill properly. On the bill, it came up to about 190+ (after discount), but on my AMEX bill slip, they charged me 200+! I was quite pissed by then. After the waitress brought the bill back, I went over to the counter and asked for the manager. The guy at the counter just raised up his hand like saying he's the manager (very unprofessional way). So I complained about the food and the bill, and all he could say was "I'm so sorry" in a rather insincere manner. So I complained further saying that they charge us service charge, and yet give us this. I don't know what I'm paying the service charge for. Again, all he did was to say "I'm so sorry" in an insincere tone again. Finally Gladys also couldn't take it when he presented the bill to me again, and also commented that "Wah. Service charge of $16+, so much." Finally he mentioned that what he can do for us if we want is to take off the service charge. So of course I told him, yes, please do that.

No more Hog's Breath Cafe at Vivocity for me anymore. Bad experience...

What was good though, was the gathering. And we took so many photos!

As usual, the photographer is missing from most of the photos. :)



Strong wind... from the ventilator.






Rather random shot of a kid playing.

Ermm.... What are they doing?!?!

Just a sample of the many photos we took that day. I conclude that photo taking is the number one activity whenever this bunch of girls meet. Haha.

Red Rock Deli and a new hairstyle

Knowing that I really liked the Red Rock Deli potato chips, Gladys actually bought 3 packets and got a friend who was stopping by at Sydney to bring them back to me. Haven't had the time to get them from him until recently. Thanks a lot dear for buying the snacks for me! Now at least I'll have something to snack on while working during the weekend. Haha. It's been a crazy week, and it'll probably be for at least 2 weeks to come.

Today I went for a haircut at Ashley Salon at Far East Shopping Centre at the recommendation of an image consultantant firm who did the Business Etiquette Seminar for DBS MAP. It's not actually expensive. $30 inclusive of wash and blow. Ashley is really quite good, and he gave me a rather funky hairstyle:

According to him, I can style it either a bit more funky by making it more messy, or more pro by making it neater. Haven't had a funky hairstyle for quite some time. Haha.

If I don't go back to Singapore soon...

...I'll forget what a normal fruit looks like! Went grocery shopping today and bought some kiwi fruits, 10 for $4, and they're ALL this big!!

My Singaporean fruit knife is feeling a little intimidated...

In my palm...

Speaking of going back to Singapore, I'd better go back soon so I'll stop cutting my own hair and making a mess out of it! I was just trying to trim my fringe A LITTLE the other day cos it was poking my eyes, but I think the result looked more like a traumatic amputation. Emotionally traumatic, that is. (>_<) I had to layer it A LOT to make the shortness look intentional! I'm a mental health hazard to myself...

My new hairstyle. Sorry 'bout the dirty mirror! (^^;)

50 DAYS TO GO!! =)))

Update on purple cabbage

Yah. I know. I haven't been updating on what's been happening. Well... Other than the limited bandwidth, I had been rather tired, cutting trees, doing all sorts of other stuff etc. I'll just try to do some updates, and only on the more interesting ones for now. Hopefully when I get back to Singapore, I can post more with the unlimited bandwidth. Haha. Anyway, it's only 11 more days before we head back to Singapore! And I feel that there's still so much of Sydney to explore. Damn.

Anyway, Gladys asked me to post this update about the purple cabbage we bought for $1 and I blogged about some time ago. We still have yet to finish it! We bought it on 27th May, so it's been like more than 2 weeks now? Really huge... Haha.

Good Food in Sydney

OK. Some textual updates. No photos. Because limited bandwidth! Wait till I'm back in Singapore.

Although the costs of living is rather high in Sydney compared to most other places, you can find cheap good food in Sydney if you know where and know how. There's this pub at this hotel opposite Unilodge that has $5 meals if you order a drink. And the drinks are quite cheap. I got this James Squire Golden Ale (really good, smooth ale) and a steak burger meal (steak burger with chips) for just $9.50. Gladys got lemons and bitters, and a pizza (actually, we just shared out the food) for just $8.80. And the food was good.

Groceries can be really cheap too. Today, we went to this Flemington market to get groceries. It's a wholesale market. We bought a lot of stuff for just about AUD$40. We bought a kg of really sweet and nice cherries for just $12, FOUR kg of fresh mushrooms for $12, 2 boxes of sweet strawberries for $7, 8 bunches of green/red oak lettuce $4 (we saw the same things selling for about AUD$2.50 per bunch in another supermarket), a kg of salmon bellies for $4, 3 boxes of cherry tomatos for $2, and 20 HUGE eggs for $5.80. Really cheap. I think we bought enough to last us for the next 2+ weeks we have left here. Oh. And I don't think we ever saw any eggs that can be compared to the ones we bought. We had one for lunch, and there were two yolks in it. It was so big that the two of us shared the one egg.

And then there are the cheap bread if you get them after 8pm ($1 for a big roll, or $0.50 for 6 hamburger buns), the cheap purple cabbage we bought etc. There was one day we had kangaroo meat burgers, with cheese, egg, mushrooms in them, and we estimated that each burger cost us around $1.50 each.

For those of you who are wondering after all the cheap and good food whether I put on weight, yes, I did. I put on about 2+kg since I came, and my waistline... erm... Haha. With all the gardening and groceries shopping, luckily my upper body became bigger as well.

Love is in the Air~

David's is gonna be here in Sydney with me in just 1 more week and I'm ecstasic!! I went out to Coles today after mass to pick up some of the necessary junk that he eats, like biscuits, coffee etc, and guess what I found there? Hehe... Check it out!

A mushroom that's feeling as lovey-dovey as I am!! XD

Brussel Sprouts

When David was studying in Canada in 2005, he had nothing but endless praises for the taste of brussel sprouts. Since it's almost winter and brussel sprouts are in season now, I had to buy some and try them for myself in a stir-fry with some ginger, garlic and salt. Turned out pretty tasty. I was a little disappointed though. From what I read online, brussel sprouts are supposed to be slightly bitter, and some people find it simply repulsive. However, they just taste like a tastier version of baby kailan to me. They even resemble baby kailan! Oh well...

In case anyone has never seen brussel sprouts...

Happy Birthday to Me! =)

Just a few weeks before my birthday, I was wondering if I'll be spending it alone this year, cos I'm away from my family and David, but thankfully NOT! Charlene, Clara, Xinhui, Harry, Martin, Charmaine, Geneieve, Mong Ling and Jasmine celebrated my birthday for me! Thanks guys! *MUACKZ*

They gave me a treat at Hanabi, which is a Jap & Korean restaurant along Pitt Street.

@ Hanabi

We had a spicy sausages hotpot,

Spicy prawn, squid and octopus hotpot,

Teppanyaki beef,

And Korean sausages, which turned out to be GLASS NOODLES sausages! WTH! Lol.

After the wonderful dinner, Martin and Harry went home, and the girls brought me to Mickey Cafe at Newtown for cakes! Jasmine even brought birthday candles! How thoughtful! =)

We told the waiter that it's my birthday and he served our cakes with a sparkler!


Clockwise from left: Tiramisu, Strawberry Cheesecake, Mortal Sin

Blowing out the candles

Babes group photo! =)

Last photo, just for kicks. Haha.

For more of my birthday photos, CLICK HERE!

Another Broken Double Yolker...

I just cracked open another high cholesterol, high fat, low protein double yolker egg but I broke one yolk again! Shucks! But oh well, I took a photo anyway, so here goes nothing...

You can see that the yolks r stuck together.

Double Yolk!

Wow, I was cooking lunch just now, and i cracked open a hen's egg with TWO yolks inside! Unfortunately, one of the yolks broke, so I din take a picture of the egg. If it happens again, I'll definitely take a photo. Now I'm wondering if i'm getting double the cholesterol from the double yolk though... Lol.

Tom Yam Beehoon!

I was kinda missing Pek's (my preceptor in SGH MOT) tom yam beehoon today, so I decided to cook it myself with the tom yam paste I bought at Market City! Turned out pretty yummy, altho the ingredients were different. Couldn't be helped, cos it's really hard to find squid here, and the prawns r really expensive. I used chicken instead. Hehe.

Skipped Orientation!

Today was SUPPOSED to be our first day of orientation, but after a couple hours of presentations and lunch, we got too bored and decided to just go exploring Sydney instead. Heh!

First off, we decided to make our way down to Haymarket. Saw St Benedict's Church on the way, which is where I'll be going for mass on Sunday. It's just 5 mins walk from Unilodge.

St Benedict's Church. Don't you love it's Neo-gothic architecture?

After another 20 minutes walk and taking a left at Hay St, we finally found outselves at Market City, which is in the heart of Haymarket. We've always thought tt Haymarket is a flea market, but it turned out that Haymarket is the name the suburb, and Paddy's, which is the flea market there, is not open today. So we decided to take the light rail down to Sydney Fish Market before it closes at 5pm instead.

Market City

The light rail

The Fish Market is only a couple of stops away but it costs $5.70 for a round trip ticket! The one-way ticket cost $4.60, so doesn't make much sense to buy a one-way. I'm missing how cheap public transport is in Singapore now. I'm never complaining about Singapore public transport fares again...

Sydney Fish Market Stop

Sydney Fish Market

This was quite a sight. Lotsa seagulls chasing the guy who's transporting the fish!

The market was closing by the time we got there (4.30pm), so this was the ONLY shop that we managed to go into.

Lotsa gorgeous fresh seafood!

We bought all these stuff for AUD$30! Sashimi, oysters, abalone... The oysters were especially delicious! Never tasted oysters this good before. Really really tasty!

The view from the pier after dinner was great too. That's Anzac Bridge in the background.

Took the light rail back to Haymarket and made our way to Chinatown. Sadly, there wasn't much to see, although it seems like a pretty good place to buy souvenirs. Not sure if it's the cheapest, but it's the best price we've seen so far. Singapore's Chinatown is much more interesting.

Chinatown

After a short walk thru Chinatown, we took the underpass and walked to Darling Harbour, which was just a stone's throw away. On our way, we saw lotsa birds resting at the fountain outside a shopping centre. Sometimes it's just hard to believe that you get such beautiful sights right in the heart of the CBD.

Pacific Black Duck

Silver Gull

Enjoying the evening sun at Darling Harbour

This gull is obviously very well-fed!

By the time we reached Darling Harbour, it was already evening, so we went home shortly after that. Everything here closes by 6pm and it's not very safe to be out after the sun sets!

Anyway, the abalones that we bought at the Fish Market ($4 per piece) turned out to be too hard to be eaten raw, so I brought them home to cook, Chinese style!

Turned out pretty yummy! =)

Song Fa Bak Ku Teh

Today we went to a famous Bak Ku Teh stall opposite The Central called Song Fa Bak Ku Teh to meet some friends (Deyuan a.k.a. Terry, Skee, Ruby, Desmond, and Xiaofen) for dinner. I've always wanted to try it since it opened since there were quite a few newspaper articles and awards about it. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a disappointment. Not to say that it was bad, but it wasn't especially nice either. We felt that it was just normal. And it's not cheap.

If anyone of you ever go there, please don't be cheated by the waitress if she says that the small portion is enough for two people. Honestly, the small portion is quite small, and not enough for two people.

But oh well... The whole point was to meet up with friends over a meal.