Bye bye Oz

The ending of my Journey in Australia, it is an emotional moment that I feel excited about my future. 

In these two weeks, I have been closing up my subscriptions and accounts one by one. It is the most annoying waiting on the phone and went through the recording systems to press all the buttons possible on the keypad on your phone. An hour later, you finally reach to the corresponding staff. Sometimes, 2 hours later, the phone just turned itself off because of overheating, or the person from the other side hung up. 

Well, my folks are coming up next week and thinking they are harvesting their investment of 2 decades. Well, fair enough, so I am expected to do all the booking and organisation for them to feel comfortable on their trip. I feel like my life has ever been this busy before when I have been in Australia for six years. 

Also, when I am going to leave Australia, I left my boyfie behind as well. The person I met to help me paddle through my life. I am going back to Hong Kong, which means I will be shocked by my family, and all the changes again. Personally, I do not mind the changes, the only thing I care is that my boyfie is not with me to be my language shield towards my parents, so all the Asian nagging will be straight on my face once I back. You always find your Asian parents have two-sided faces, the face towards their immediate family is always the most ugly, and the other face towards any guests is always so kind and freindly. To have said that, I have experienced all the Asian bullshit that I never been happened on me in my Aussie family. I know that feel bro. I am actually anxious about the fact that my visa could not be extended due to the stupid reason that I have been here for way too long that the government think I should either keep contributing my parents' money into the education system, or I should have the skills they want, such as hairdressing or even a hooker, but definitely not a scientist. 

Posted by Editorial Team on 06:14 in

Gooseberries Cafe | South Perth, W.A.

Gooseberries Cafe | South Perth, W.A.

Gooseberries locates at a residential area, across from a primary school, like an old house changed into a cafe. The first impression for me is like a normal cafe. The internal has divided into 3-4 areas by the old walls in the house. It is a nice environment. Tables and chairs are distributed through backyard, front part of the cafe. The menu is not that variable, just a few dishes for burgers, salad, and all day breakfast. 

The two pictures below showing you the signature dishes.

The salad was definitely a fusion dish to me. I think the inventor of this dish loves Asian food so much that he has added the Asian elements into the dish. There were two parts of the salad. The first part was the cooked and hidden in the picture, with finely chopped and mixed veggie wrapped in a pancake thingy-me-bob. The second part was the raw veggie bit, which shows in the picture: coriander, shallot, grape tomatos and baby spinach. What does not show in the picture is the patch of sour cream, very Western. This mix and match between the cold sour cream and warm authentic Asian style cooking amused my taste bud. However, when I have finished consuming the patch of sour cream and left with raw veggie, The transition of the veggie texture made me uncomfortable, not sure what texture of veggie have higher chance to stuck in between my teeth, but will be either the chopped or not processed one. The Sambal sauce at the bottom of the dish left with the raw veggie was very salty and unpleasant to me. As Sambal sauce was too concentrated. However, the hidden pancake was crispy at with the finely chopped veggie. It was rich of flavours. I liked it until I found that I finished my sour cream, and the pancake. 

This dish tasted authentic and Indonesian to me. I am used to the taste of the sauce in this, that makes me remember my childhood brought up by an Indonesian maid. I am not from a rich family. I am just from a place where parents have long working hours, not even have time to cook their child a meal or do any chores for the family so we all have maids (not going to lie, it's the best). 

The next main dish was the Gooseberries burger, the pettie was made with lambie (my friends cute way of saying lamb. "you can have lambi, but no bambi") and beef, and an added a layer of thin bacon. Dude food is always nice on the first bite to me. Boyfriend was highly recommending this burger, as do I. 

I also had a lemon ice tea with mint and lychee. I did not expect a lemon ice tea with whole lemon in it will taste any less sour. I could not taste neither the mint nor the lychee, until I ate the 3 lychee inside the drink. You could just tell they gave you the lychee in tin coated with syrup (but still good). The reason that lychee prevents from the sourness infection from the lemon, or it would not still taste sweet when you ate it. The science knowledge told me that diffusion does not work that way. Epic sour and fail. Sorry for the mean comment, just too sour for me, but I like how colourful it looks. Nearly poured the whole bottle of sugar syrup in the drink. But again boyfriend loved it.

Food  3.5/5
Drink 2.5/5
Environment 4/5

Overall 3/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 20:52 in food review

Vasity Bar | Crawley, Perth, W.A

Vasity Bar | Crawley, Perth, W.A.

If like me, you are a student at UWA, you would know the guild tav at the broadway. A place for late teens and young adults. great for the udual; instagram, facebook, and twitter for us to follow their updates.

 Tonight, I went to the Vasity Bar for dinner instead of normal social gathering in there. To me, I am really not a big fan of American food. The first reason is because American food portions are near my intake for my three meals. The second reason is because of its style of cooking, is often opposite to the ideal clean eating. I always struggle to finished all the food on my plate. This struggle will only convinces me to share my dish with my other friends instead of having a chance of tasting other dishes. 

Anyhow, my boyfriend had been feeling homesick lately, and he always loves to order excess food and heat it up later in night time for super (And in his own words "thats why I'm fat", love you boo). This enhances the physical differences between me and him. I tried to make him know that food in Australia is never cheap like in the U.S. He has difficulties in ordering the right quantity to eat. And of course, adding loads of ketchup onto whatever food he has to eat is another way for him to soothing his homesickness like the big baby.

According to the F&Q in Heinz website, ketchup is thicker and richer in flavour as there are more tomatos content per 100mL.Ketchup is traditionally made of vinegar, spices, sugar and onion, which serves in cold.; whereas Tomato sauce is made with vegetable stock or meat, oil, no spices and serves in hot. and of course, in Asian countries, tomato sauce and ketchup are both being referred to the red sauce most of the time. In western countries though, the frequency of the American will call their keptchup in particular, while in the Britain and Australia, people prefer to call it Tomato sauce.

Anyway, enough talking about the sauce, I ordered chicken waffle on that night. There is always a special secret sauce that they are using that make everything taste uniquely the same, that you can't find in another place, or maybe it just called an American style. Everything is so tasty, rich and eventually I found I was really thirsty and I have to drink couple of glasses of water following several intense chewing, grinding, biting and swallowing.

When I finished half the waffle accompanying with the chicken, I holding onto my white flag to surrender. The richness of the sauce and the juiciness of the chicken drowned in the oil. I could not believe how much my boyfriend love this place, and how could he finish the whole  burger with chips and clear all half the basket of hot wings. The hot wing with cheesy sauce is another bad idea for me, which against my clean eating approach. Worth mentioning, my boyfriend has lactose intolerance, I could foresee him dying in the toilet for the night. 

Undoubtedly, it is a good place to spend time with your friends, with pool table and other entertainment equipment. The dim light environment is definitely a good idea for bringing your date for a meal. I am just kidding. The environment is more bromantic than romantic, as different American sport channels were on different screens and TV. 

Environment 4/5
Food 4/5
Drinks Not applicable, did not order any drinks, as water is the only solution to my thirst
Overall 4/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 03:51 in food review

Kitchen Inn Cafe, Kardinya | Perth, W.A.

Kitchen Inn Cafe, Kardinya | Perth, W.A.

Nothing was fancy on the first day and first meal of 2015. I was craving for Asian food today.  That's what I got. The price is reasonable and pleasant food. Nothing much to complain about. I found that the drink was syrup , by syrup, I mean really sweet. Although I come from an Asian country, I found the taste of the drinks were genuine authentic asian style, with too much too sugar/ honey in it. Maybe just the blogger not originated from where the food come from, that taste differences between Cantonese and Malaysian food can be justified. You can taste the mushroom ball used the real dried mushroom, and there was aftertaste of the mushroom balls as well. The one thing I would complain is the chili oil is not hot enough for me, as I put a few spoonful in my noodle, and whole bowl of noodle soup become red in colour. Just my opinion as an typical Asian. I understand that chili oil on the table has the responsibility to satisfy the taste bud for multicultural background people.

My boyfriend orderd kimchi noodles, and then he regretted it. He normally likes Korean food, but the kimchi in here had mixed with the salty chinese cabbage pickles, which did not blend well with the sour and spicy kimchi. Therefore, My boyfriend had picked all the pickles out the bowl and just had the noodles. To be honest, he could have ordered the plain noodle in order to save few bucks lol. However, I was surprising with the pork belly crackles in it. It tasted pretty good, but I would never expect to found the whole piece of pork belly in the kimchi noodles without blending in properly. Anyway, his bowl of noodles looked pretty dry to me, same as the photo above. I have not tried the egg, my boyfriend finished it before I had a chance. Just assume it was okay Lol

p.s. When I was reading the comments on urbanspoon of people saying that it was unbelieveable for them to have other acquaintances share the same table with them, without the waitress asking their permission in the first place. I think those customers just encountered a culture shock, It is normal at least in Hong Kong, for strangers to share the table in busy hours in a restaurant selling practical food.

Environment 3/5

Food 4/5

Drinks 3.5/5

Overall 3.8/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 19:55 in food review

Zapata's Northbridge | Perth, W.A.

Zapata's Northbridge | Perth, W.A.

On the last day of 2014, my boyfriend and I decided to go to Northbridge to celebrate, and to watch the fireworks later, Zapata looked nice on the outside with how they serve their dishes up so in we went. I think they have improved since starting as reading through how bad it was on UrbanSpoon, i disagreed. However, waiters and waitresses were pretty grumpy tonight. I thought the main reason was because of the night of New Year's eve, everyone just went out and celebrate. When they serve the food, cutlery and serviettes were flying around. The customers had been calling taxi for the waitresses, not because of they are drunk, but just dishes flying around. Maybe that is why they had a sticky floor as the comments mentioned. 

The atmosphere was quite festive on that night. There was a dance floor next to us, but no one in the restaurant were on the dance floor. Everyone was communicative with their loved one on that night. Sometimes, there was a random guy selling roses to the guys in the restaurant. I saw a guy bought a rose for his partner, That's romantic and tacky. 

I ordered a pina colada ($15), a chile con queso  ($15) and a Chicken and beef mixed Fajitas for 2 people ($54). When my boyfriend paid for the bill, I just found out how overpriced the meal was. 

The drink was a nice cocktail, with a good flavour of coconut. However, the chile con queso was nothing rave about, but just some good corn chips with the cheesy sauce.  

The Fajitas were above average. I liked how they served the sides (salsa, cheese, lettuce and sour cream) in a wooden plate, You can see the real condition in the photo above. The beef was tender in texture, and actually it was tough to me to some degrees. Personally, I don't really grilled chicken, as they are always dry after grill. I like the juiciness in the meat. Worth mentioning, I am not a big fussy meat eater, I prefer clean eating in mains and fattening dessert after that. However, when I put the onion and the chicken together in a wrap. The onion compensate the dryness in the chicken pretty well. 

Overall, I like this place on the New Year's eve, but the price was steep for me. Also, the special occasions menu was so limited in several dishes only, This turn me off as well. 

Environment 3.5/5

Food 3.5/5

Drinks 4/5

Overall 3.75

Posted by Editorial Team on 19:06 in food review

Taylor's Art & Coffee House | Perth, W.A.

Taylor's Art & Coffee House | Perth, W.A.

This coffee house is in Swan Valley, and next to the chocolate shop. Once you finish your meal, you can walk to the chocolate shop, have an ice-cream or fudge. It was a relaxing experience. The cafe House is composed with a studio, a workshop and a gallery. When you come to the entry, you are greeted by what feels like a secret outback garden, except the fact that the mismatch and table chair distributed evenly over the gardens may give you a hint that they are serving customers.

There were also different types of rusty art installed, acting as the tables. It is another rare experience in Perth.

Inside the cafe, you can see the mismatch of chairs and tables. There were even school chairs, looked like they picked up the furniture from the streets, where people ditched them (just my opinion). Also, the roof is made out of tin. My boyfriend expected to have his meal inside the oven, but again, out of expectation. It was cool inside the cafe.

Unfortunately, it was a hot day today. Flies are inevitable in Western Australia, not sure the flies make the place more close to the nature environment or annoyed the hell out of me when I was enjoying my meal. I have ordered a coconut water, unexpectedly surprise that they use a real coconut instead packaged coconut water that you buy from the supermarket. My main is spinach pancake. It was the first time I gave savory  pancake a go. I decided that I love it so much. I highly recommend this lunch dish to all my vegan or vegetarian friends. The pancakes were full of flavour, with garlic paste on top of it . Lemon brought out the freshness of the vegetable in it. Although the dish was mostly dark green in colour, and did  not look appetizing, especially to those carnivores, like my boyfriend, but you know, it just showed the real spinach colour when it is cooked. The colour that indicating of rich iron level in spinach.

I think the rating of Taylor's from Urbanspoon is quite reflective on the environment and the quality of food and drink. Sometimes, I found that the rating is extremely low or high and improportion with the services and quality of food and drink of a particular restaurant. If you are going to Swan Valley next time, and sick of chocolate factory and winery tour, Cafe food may be your other option to enjoy your day. Not sure what the studio in the cafe for, but there was a hotline on the sign for enquiry, I have included that sign in my photo slides below. Enjoy!

Food 4.5/5
Drink 4.5/5
Environment 4/5
Overall 4.33/5

Posted by Editorial Team on 01:33 in

Movie Review: Big Hero 6

Spoiler alert: If you want to know everything by watching the movie yourself, please do not read the review below. I am sure you will be pissed after reading this.

Big Hero 6 is a funny-action superhecartoon. There were some touching points in the movie as well. The main character Hiro, was a smart kid, graduated high school at 13 years old. Started doing illegal robot fighting and earning his first lot of money. Hiro's elder brother called Tadashi Hamada, he was going to college and spending most of his time in the nerd lab, inventing Baymax, a personal Health care companion, and an inflatable and huggable robot. This robot was invented to serve in health care industry. 

The movie is based on an original Marvel comics (loosely at best), but it is not anything close to the Big Hero 6 in the Marvel original comic series. There were some disagreements between Disney and Marvel on the Poetic licence aloud. But what was the movie like?

Much of plot and quality gave it a Hollywood feel. For example, the quality of the artmentship. The fluidity and the graphic were high standard and believable, increasing the immersion feeling, nearly forgot I was watching a cartoon at some points. 

It made me sad a few times to the point that I become teary (yea, I admit that I am an emotional person, but still it is a good film). 

Tadashi had inspired Hiro to become a college student by bringing him to his nerd lab, and introducing him with his nerdy friends. By encouraging Hiro to become a college student, Hiro invented Microbots that controlled by neurotransmitter headset. This invention had been attracted to high tech company and the professor of the college, who asking Hiro not to sell it. However, the professor eventually stole the invention and created an incident, that made people believe he died in the fire after revealing Hiro's latest invention of microbot. The touching point is when Hiro found out the one who indirectly killed his brother and stole his invention was not the boss of the high tech company, but his admired professor. 

So there was backstory between the professor and the boss of the high tech company. Hiro  needed to follow the clues in all the plot to find out what was actually happening between revenge plan of the professor and the new invention in the high tech company involving the professor's daughter. 

Baymax comes across as a true caring robot, as Tadashi has put a health care chip (of his design) into the control board. His responsibility was more than a nurse to Hiro, and it connected the plots throughout the story.  The existence of Baymax was to care people in need of medical attention, if the patient had never satisfied with its service, then it could not deactivate itself. In the story, Hiro was Baymax's patient, and his emotional state were incorrectly diagnosed as puberty hormonal bullshit. Hiro had been modifying Baymax, which made it more compatible in achieving Hiro's goal for find out who killed his brother, but at the same time, be responsible to not injure other human beings. As injuring others was conflicting with the previous coding that invented by Tadashi, aiming at caring.

Hiro and his brother's friends had soon become really good friends. The nerds became a team of super heroes with different abilities (from their love of science), and working together to find the one who killed their beloved friend and brother. The abilities include the laser cutter hands, the magnetic resonance running shoes, the super jump and firing through the monster head costume. 

I recomend this movie and agree with the ratings at Rotten Tomatoes

  

Posted by Editorial Team on 19:55 in Movie review