Weekend

This weekend I made my favorite brekkie - two soft boiled eggs (each 60g free range) and toasted sourdough. The eggs are from Tamarix and the yokes were really orangey red and full of flavor. SM are always nagging me about eating too many eggs but I only have them on weekends and I rarely eat two eggs at a time..... For dinner she made Penang har mee, complete with pork ribs and kangkong (water spinach). A rare treat indeed.

On Wednesday we had an episode. Mom had elevated BP and complained of dizziness like the room was spinning. I rushed her to St V and they admitted her for a slew of tests; chest x ray, ECG, blood tests, then echo (heart ultra sound). The tests took a whole day and the results were inconclusive. She might have had vertigo or she might have had something else.... 

Sausage Day

IN A RARE MOMENT WHEN 3 OF US - GRANT, DARREN AND  et MOI, DECIDE TO dedicate this Saturday morning to make ourselves famous, fed, and happy; all rolled into one. Moments de bonheur entre amis. We gather at Darren's at Croydon on a wet, rainy morning - to make his version of gourmet sausages .... Darren has gone to the market like 6.30 in the morning to buy the meats, sausage casings and spices. By 8.30am he has already got the meats; beef and pork, minced. He has done the hard yard. There are all together 30kgs of them. I request for the pork sausages because SM does not eat beef. In the pork mince he puts in the bratwurst spice mix, crushed garlic and a good measure of port wine. In the beef mince we have got jalapeno spices chucked in so we make sure they are spicy and hot. Then it is on to making the sausages. Gracie helps out as well and she does a great job. Music is playing in the back ground in the kitchen, Poly has been put in the garage so she cannot disturb the men at work. I dislike dog fur anyway. Je suis l'homme who gets the job of cooking the end products on the barbie and everyone agrees that the sausages have got to be the best - tasty, firm, and not fatty ( only 2% fats) but the beef sausages are quite dry  due to the extremely low fat content. Les saucisses sont étonnamment savoureux. voilà!

Darren, being an ex-butcher, opines that commercial sausages sold in butchers have up to 40% fat content and have preservatives added. Mon Dieu .... We each get allocated more than 10kg of sausages and there is no way SM and I are going to finish eating them so we give bulk of them away to neighbors, friends and family and the rest are in the freezer....

Le tout dans une journée de plaisir et mMemory.

Consulate General of Malaysia in Melbourne - get our new passports done

We took a day off Monday because Tuesday's Melbourne Cup Day. That made it a 4-day long weekend for us. By 10am we were at the Consulate General on St Kilda Road. Malaysians who live in Melbourne are lucky because we no longer have to get our new passports done in Canberra.   

This Consulate also processes birth and marriage registrations, renunciation of citizenship, tourist and holiday visas, and translations of Malaysian drivers licence.

There was a reasonable crowd at the Consulate for a variety of reasons. I got our queue number, 35 and got our photos done at a photo kiosk. Naturally I have already done my homework and so things went without a hitch for us. By 11am we had already submitted our applications. 

My tips for a trouble-free passport renewal application are as follows:-

1. Photocopy two copies each of your Mykad (front and back) and your required passport pages (front page and Australian PR page) beforehand. There is a photocopier your can use to do your photocopying but it is an outrageously ruthless $ making machine. It will set you back $1 per A4 page.

2. Have two recent approved-type passport photos ready i.e. ones with 大头 and blue color background. However there is available another $ making machine there in the form of a photo kiosk if you do not have your own photos with you. It's service with a cost.

3. Download a passport application form from the Malaysian Immigration website and bring it with you; or get a copy from the friendly lady at the counter.

4. Make sure the day you rock up is not a major Malaysian or Victorian public holiday.

5. Bring Aussies with you, $110 per 32-page passport as EFTPOS is not accepted.

6. It will take 3 to 4 weeks before you get your new passports.

 

The Consulate details are as follows:-

Level 1, 432 St Kilda Road

Melbourne 3004

P: 03 9573 5400

F: 03 9866 6204

E: malmelbourne@kln.gov.my

Mondays to Fridays 9.00am to 5pm

Applications & submissions: 9.30am - 12 noon

Collections: 3pm - 5pm

Immigration Department Office announcement:-

The High Commission of Malaysian, Canberra announced that the Immigration Department Office based in Canberra will be moved to The Consulate General of Malaysia in Melbourne from 02/12/2013.

From this date Malaysians can have their new passports done in Melbourne in 1 hour. Bravo!

It's a long weekend

Some 400km later we are back home on Sunday, tired out as a result of the long drive. My plan of taking a drive up to scenic alpine mountains Bright was noble but unrealistic as it turned out because by the time we reached Yea for lunch it was already 12+ and Bright was still 237km away. OMG.
We did stopped for chocolate tasting at the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery, though. They were doing roaring trade as it was a long weekend. And we enjoyed our leisurely lunch (slow food + newspapers) at Marmalades - wagyu beef burger, avocado & pancetta bruschetta. Great service.

                              
We sojourned on after 2pm and changed our tracks. No more Bright it was too far away - conscious of the time factor too. We headed up to Mansfield and went up to Mt Buller for a look see. Did not expect to see anything worthwhile as it is Spring and all the ski resort is closed. At least we can say have been to Mt B. Back home I checked wikipedia and found out its elevation is 1805m whilst Genting Highlands' is 1740m. On the day we were there the ambient temp dropped about 9 deg C at Mt B compared to Mansfield. My car's outside temp indicated Mt B at 3 deg C that day .....
  

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Miss Chu .... we are not impressed with your rice-paper rolls

We went to Miss Chu on Exhibition St last Saturday for lunch because of Nahji Chu's reputation of being Australia's queen of Vietnamese rice-paper rolls. We ordered tiger prawn and mango and egg omelet, avocado & balsamic caramelised onion. They were a little dry and we were not impressed. Their traditional Hanoi seafood spring rolls were so so.

On the other hand their wild rice and quinoa with lemongrass beef was superb and tasty. we did not try their beef pho because we believe the best pho is the tuck shop we frequent in Springvale when we feel like a pho. So much for the queen.