Espresso

I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED THE ABBOTSFORD/RICHMOND AREA. It's only 6km to the city cbd. It's an area that have pockets of residential and commercial properties. There are tram routes and train stations. Bridge Rd is trendy, Victoria St is Asian, other areas are mixture of old, renewed, and new homes. The older homes can be Victorian designs. If ever I could afford to own a property again I would very much like to have a smallish townhouse in the area ..... However I am reminded it's better to live simply .....

Today I am seeing the beginning of a building transformation on Nicholson St, of life-breathing possibilities and something good is going to take place. This old building is being renewed by a client and they will be roasting coffee beans here in a few months' time and I am sure it will be lively and trendy, again .....

Espresso, I just love them.....

Whilst in the area I chanced upon this shop selling antique French furniture and art decor pieces. I "discovered" it when driving past the Nicholson St area. Rohan Fielding Decor has some nice pieces of furniture on display. I like this 6 place dining set, and this oil painting of a nude woman .....

Back to work and reality, Gotta get some good things going this month and next ......

Mamak

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO EAT ROTI CANAI", I asked SM. She took a look at the Mamak menu and said she would have the nasi lemak instead. I was doing some research on Mamak, touted as a true blue Malaysian street food restaurant. Today we pick up my folks and head out there for lunch. The restaurant at 1.30pm is packed but we are shown our table within 5 minutes. 

I hope this is a good change for us because we've been going to the same restaurants and cafes for years so I am interested, from now on, to try out new restaurants.....

Roti Canai, 5.50, is crispy and cooked through, but not hot enough. 

The nasi lemak (8.50) is not lemak enough for our palette, again not served hot. I think the rice should be steaming hot when served.

Mee Mamak is not hot, again, and tastes sweet! OMG. Not a dish to go for at 11.50

Ikan kari is nice, served hot, spicy and authentic Indian. Eat it with steamed rice. At 17.50, it's a fair price.

The decor of Mamak is minimalist, with somewhat darker tone walls and warm lighting. The restaurant is packed, with lots of Malaysian and Aussie diners. Would we go there again ..... we would probably give it a wide berth for 6 months, at least! Although the sign on the wall says they open till 2am Fridays and Saturdays and so if we are starved and wanting Roti Canai we might have a place to go for our supper. On the way out of the restaurant we are laughing at ourselves that if our friends find out we spend RM200 on lunch today on Malaysian mamak stall food they would flip!

Love this FJ Cruiser

A cup of coffee later in Northcote.

Have a laugh ..... If you read on. I got these from a FB friend.

South Melbourne Market

I CANNOT REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I WENT TO THE SOUTH MELBOURNE MARKET AT Cecil St. It must have been more than 10 years ago. I have no recollection what the place is like. SM says, "This is like Chatuchak" because there are quite a number of art and crafts stalls inside the market on this Sunday morning; minus the heat and throngs of people as one would find in Thailand.

"Do you want to have coffee at St. Ali?" I ask SM. She says, "Nah we will have coffee at the Market." I think she wants to feel the atmosphere here. South Melbourne is a pretty mixed suburb with commercial buildings, Victorian houses, and small businesses dotting it here and there. We are liking it this Sunday morning.

SM is like a kid in a candy store when she sees the many stalls selling patisserie products; the cakes, tarts, macaroon, loafs and fresh breads. She buys this fruit loaf at 7.95 and we agree the bakery items are dearer that similar ones at Queen Vic market.

I buy us 2 croissants at 1.80 each from one of the bakeries and order "hand crafted coffees" for us so we can sit on the the sidewalk and talk and watch. So far an interesting day out because we are seing different things but we find Vic Market offers better choices of cheaper seafood, meat, fresh produce, vegetables and fruits. We struggle to buy seafood that we normally pay with "reasonable" prices but here we find green banana prawns at more than $23 a kilo, rockling at $31 a kilo! In the end we get a baby barramundi and a pacific salmon fillet, a kilo of cherries and some corns.   

Latte and flat white at 4.0 each that's the highest price we pay for coffee anywhere.

Lovely croissant, not oily; probably baked with margarine rather than with butter, according to my chef partner

As we leave the Market we walk past this "Meetbowl" cafe on nearby York St and I hear Indonesian spoken by the some people inside the cafe. I immediately invite SM to go in to try their food.

I ask the guy manning the counter what he would recommend. "Try the Bakso Special";which I did. It's 8.50 and I like the combination of meat balls (pork and beef) and the coup. I would have preferred it brought to me "dry" 干捞 like they do in Java or Jakarta.

SM being SM, orders the chicken laksa. She goes for safe territory. As it turns out it's a disappointment to her. She should have realized and agreed with me that Indonesians don't make good laksa but Malaysians do!

Meetbowl is 100% a cafe, so you find things in a cafe; simple tables and chairs, minimal decor, patrons who go there because of their food. There's nothing wrong with these with us. We are cafe-goers. As long as there are great food.

SM did not enjoy their laksa but I do the Bakso. If I had a chance I would go back there for their food again. I LOVE INDONESIAN FOOD!

Dinner at Hallah

THURSDAY'S A 36 C DAY, WHEN IT GETS HOT we don't feel like eating at home because it gets uncomfortable; tonight we decide to go to Little Africa for dinner. Little Africa was featured in The Age as an Ethiopian restaurant in a terrace in North Melbourne. I was taken in by its charming, ethnic food eaten with hands, great for sharing. However it is booked out tonight and so we look for the next available restaurant that we think offers good food and good value.

Hallah contemporary Korean is some 20 doors away, still on Victoria St in North Melbourne. We are famished. We decide to go for their mixed BBQ menu, served with beautiful sauces, kimchi, bean shoots, onions, salad, kimchi pancake, and bean paste soup. The restaurant is busy with diners, the aircond is working hard and keeping us really cool despite the stinging hot weather outside. The service is impeccable and we feel very pampered by the waiting staff.

The spread, minus the bbq.

On top of the hot charcoal a wire rack is placed, and the beef is cooked in it

The gas/smoke suction is working really well in siphoning away the smoke.

The pork belly is on the barbie. After it's cooked the waiter slices them into smaller pieces and they taste like 烧肉, just like bbq pork crackling sold in Chinese restaurants。They are best eaten dipped in Korean bean paste sauce or sesame oil sauce. Hmmmmm......

My favorite bedtime game .... Sudoku. Nothing like a few good games before going to bed, for me. It relaxes me. Often SM threatens to kick me out of bed because the light from my bedside lamp would disturb her sleep. Oh well ....

Australia Day dinner at home with Mun Teng and son - steamed Chinese wine 腩酒 Lilydale chicken with Goji, stir fried morning glory with fermented tofu, baked mushrooms, and pork ribs soup with carrots, onions and beet root.

Another plain jane day

MY BREKIE TODAY ..... Vienna bread, King Island Brie, tomato, coffee; and my favorite - soft boiled egg.SM learned how to make the perfect soft boiled egg from Heston Bluementhal. I love soft boiled eggs but I don't have eggs very often, may be 1 or 2 eggs a fortnight.

Dinner tonight - fried Hokkien Mee

At this customer's site today. he wants to replace this aging Turret Truck.

This other customer wants to replace his 2004 Toyota battery electric forklift which has done nearly 20,000 hours of lifting and 46,218 hours of driving in all those years. I talk to my co-workers who have many years of working in the material handling industry and they are all very amazed by these figures .....

Heston Blumenthal - The Perfect Boiled Egg

Pier 35 Port Melbourne

MORNING BREKIE IS STONE BAKED RYE AND CURRANT VIENNA, cucumber, tomato, and lovely Tassie smoked salmon.... hmmm. That's a change from my usual oat porridge which is fast to cook and easy to consume before darting out to make it to the office.  

At work Abbie is showing us her new Corolla which she bought new at some $5k discount because she got a discount as part of the TMH family.

  

Before going to meet Specialized Alex and I have our lunch in Port Melbourne at this Marina place called Pier 35. Today feels like a 25 deg C day and so we sit out the front of this cafe - people watching and enjoying the blue sky and sun.

I like this tug boat which is parked out on wheel dollies on dry land - it's not big, made of fibreglass, has a little cabin. It feels and looks like a timber boat but it's not. Bruce and John in the office own a boat which they use for hanging out. Bruce parks it in his holiday home in Lochsport, and John uses his boat for his diving.  I have never thought of owning a boat and floating in it for fishing or relaxation but it's kinda nice to look at boats for me.

 

This picture of the marina and the pier is so picturesque to me. So appealing to my senses. I enjoy being here today but not necessarily having nothing to do. Today I am in this perfect picture for less than a minute yet I am happy to have seen it and experienced it.

One of my 叔公 from 万里望

SUNDAY 19 JAN 2013 is the weekend before the Australia Day long week end. It's been a very productive week for me at work with deals lined up to close. Not all weeks are good, some weeks are bad, just like life itself; some days are shit, some days are wonderful .....

My dad asks us to take them to meet a 远亲 this morning in Chinatown. He is my 叔公 who hails from 万里望 literally "ten-thousand-mile-lookout". I don't know him at all but we have been to his son's restaurant "Laksa King" in Flemington a few times. All right. he is my 叔公 from a long time past and he hasn't even been to Fenshuicun our village in China; I don't think he knows a lot of our ancestral history .....

We leave the two of them alone to have their lunch so they can catch up on their news from their kampung; and mom, SM and I have yum cha at  王朝. As it is, the older one gets, the more one wants to know every little details about the kampung happenings. Who passed away when and so on.....

This is the first time SM has been to this restaurant. The ambiance at 王朝 is at very comfortable, with elaborate decor settings, thick carpeting, and has lots of spaces between dining tables allowing for privacy between diners. But I think the yum cha at Sharks Fin Inn is better.

After lunch I send the 叔公 to Laksa King to meet his son. We have a cup of coffee at the nearby Pepper Cafe on Pin Oak Crescent whilst waiting for his son to come meet us. The son is the Head Chef at Laksa King. The time is 2.30pm and diners are still streaming in to the Restaurant to have their late Saturday lunch .... the food must be great. The patronage is very strong.

 Have a cuppa and read the weekend news