Brunetti..

i've found another place to head to for a cup of coffee and desserts to chill out. it's nowhere new, it's brunetti. you can find the one along swanston street, 214 flinders lane. it's open till 12 midnight during fridays and saturdays. if not you can head to lygon street, there's another shop at 194-204 faraday street, carlton. they have lots of choices from gelato, cakes, biscuits, sandwiches and of course coffee and tea. casual environment to have a catch up with friends or maybe a light high tea session with a book during the lazy weekends.

i've tried the custard tart, opera and chocolate mousse. the mousse was yummy!! love that one. as for opera, i guess the ones from lindt is nicer. custard tart was too sweet for me. love the environment there.

Cupcakes fever..

i've been having a bit of cupcake fever lately. there are a few cupcakes shops around. it'll just make me happier whenever i have one. something to cheer me up when i'm down or stress. well i should say it's suppose to be easy to make your own cupcake, but unfortunately i haven't done it before. i shall work on that soon and definately will share with you when i do. i should say buying cupcakes from the shops is bit of luxury indulgence, cause it's kinda pricey. health wise, there's lots of sugar contains, not good for everyday consumption. however, i'm happy to do it once in a while.

the one at melbourne central, the cupcake bakery. this shop originated from sydney. i had it once when i was sydney and was so happy when i knew that they are opening in melb cause i brought back the cupcakes all the way form sydney. :P

the cupcake family at QV central. absolutely win my heart. love the shop design, the packaging, and the cupcakes! totally in love..

look how many varieties they have there. the berry moon and green tea are my fav. the berry moon has chocolate base and with raspberry toppings. the chocolate base is simply fantastic. they have slight bitterness with the chocolate which i love. one interesting one is the blueberry cheesecake. it's really good too! presentation wise, two thumbs up!

little cupcakes that i had recently. it's the same one along degraves street and another one which is close to my workplace along bourke street. there are lots of flavours there too.

i bought only four flavours from little cupcake. mint choc, white chocolate, orange choc and carrot. i should say the chocolate base isn't as good as the ones i had in the cupcake family. however, the good thing is that it doesn't taste too sweet. i've tried the mint choc, it was just right, the mint flavour wasn't too strong to overpower the chocolate flavour. lovely touch with the decoration too.

Reaun Thai Restaurant..

a couple weeks ago i went try out a thai restaurant at Mount Waverley, it's called Reaun Thai Restaurant at 323 Stephensons Road, Mount Waverley. it's a small restaurant, rather quiet atmosphere. looking through the menu, i was tempted to order the usuals. however, we did end up with some interesting ones. yet, the servings was quite small. most of the main dishes are around $20 per plate. it's considered as slightly pricey thai restaurant.

something to start out with. fried won tons with sweet chilli sauce. nice presentation.

my favourite! tom yum soup with chicken. it was pretty delicious. the flavour was concentrated and strong sour taste but not spicy enough.

green curry with chicken. very nice to eat together with the rice. the coconut milk made it really creamy and smooth.

sweet and spicy prawns. it would be great if they used fresh prawns.

fried barammundi fish with in house sweet and spicy sauce. i enjoyed eating this one. the sauce just added on the flavour of the fish. even though it was fried, you can't really tell the oilyness.

Laurent Patisserie..

i know that i've written about Laurent before but i can't help it to share with you this new thing that i found out at Laurent - Macaroons. i don't really know much about macaroons so i went to google it. it's actually a variety of light, baked confections, described as either small cakes or meringue-like cookies with different flavourings and it's cream-filled.

when i stepped into the cafe, this caught my eyes. they all looked so delicious...

this can be a lovely gift. heart melts..

there are alot of flavours, like orange, mango-passionfruit, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, pistachio, lime and others. a little bit of luxurious treatment here. it's $2 per piece and extra charge with the lovely box.

Heat Beads Hawkers Market..

yesterday i went to the heat beads hawkers market at Queen Victoria Market. it's one of the event uner the melbourne food and wine festival 2010. i'm keen to write about this event so that you can still catch up with the event tomorrow night. it's open for 3 days from monday to wednesday with two sessions, 6pm-8pm and 8.30pm-10.30pm. you can get 4 plates of meals with $48 entrance ticket per adult. i went with a few friends, so we ended up sharing our vouchers and lucky enough to try most of the favourite food. there are quite a few stalls to choose from and all of them serving their best signature dishes.

this is the japanese chicken skewers. it tasted good, but not enough. can i have more please?!

the fried baby mussels with egg and bean sprout. authentic hawkers food in malaysia. it was delicious eating it with the hot chilli.

this is my fav of the night. 'ikan panggang', it's grilled fish with pandan leaves, if i'm not mistaken. the curry flavour of seasonings with fresh and moist fish inside, adding some lemon juice to it would be great.

curry laksa.. lack of a bit of spice there.

vietnamese fried spring rolls and beef sausage.

roti canai with some curry sauce. love it!

vietnamese beef noodles. it was delicious! the soup was superb.

japanese okonomiyaki with sweet potato at the side. nice one too!

chinese dumplings. i miss the ones from bob's kitchen.

banana fritters with sparkles. it was rather interesting one! i was happy like a kid when i saw the sparkles. thankfully i managed to take a shot with one hand.

bubur chacha dessert.

and with some entainment music for you to enjoy with the lovely food.

SUT Korean BBQ Restaurant..

i'm a korean food fan as well. absolutely love kimchi. last few weeks i went to SUT korean bbq restaurant, 970-972 whitehorse road, box hill, vic 3128. Su:t means charcoal in korean and as the most certainly not your average suburban restaurant. Su:t offers a traditional korean cruisine in a modern designed setting. the service was really attentive and looking after every small details. food wise, it was pretty good too, slightly pricey but large servings.

as entree, you get free soup too. it was like pumpkin soup, and it tasted great. good way to warm up your tummy before the meal.

and of course you get free appertizers and best part is you get your own serving, don't have to share with others and you can always ask for more of them. fantastic!

you also get a huge bowl of salad at the side to share. and you'll get to ask for more of that too!

my favourite kimchi chigae soup. lots of ingredients in the soup, but for my preference, it was not concentrated enough.

this is the beef bulgogi with vegetables. it was really a huge serving. it had a strong peppery after taste. slightly different taste as compared to the ones we normally eat. i still like that too. i felt really full after the meal. it was about $60 for the dishes and rice that we had. i saw other tables eating the bbq, it looked awesome too. will try that some other time.

Petaling Street Cafe..

this was my second visit to petaling street cafe at 111 kingsway, glen waverley. if you're after for some authentic malaysian hawker's style food, you can find it here. i can say that there's definately varieties on the menu.

the authentic feel as wall design..

ban mian. the soup was pretty good. but nothing similar to the ones we have in malaysia. miss this one alot!

nasi pataya. honestly i haven't even tried nasi pataya in malaysia. hah! spicy fried rice. nice presentation here.

chicken curry noodles. yum! i love dry noodles alot, and this one is pretty good! curry was equally delicious.

lau shu fen or it's called silver needle noodle with minced pork. it was just average.

one of my fav. hainanese chicken rice. the chicken was soft and tender, and tasted good together with the rice. my personal preference, i still like the hawker's cafe chicken rice.

that day i had bah kut teh. well the soup was too mild, lack of a bit of the spices flavour. but there was alot of meat inside, a fulfilling meal. the restaurant is always packed with people when i was there. prices of the food there is average, slightly higher than the other restaurants around. yet still, it's another option of place for some authentic malaysian food. i still miss the real malaysian food.

Puff pastry..

I had a party at my house the other day. and i made some puffs to serve as entree. it's very easy to make and i'm going to show you how easy it was. i'm always a fan of puff pastry. love it! and the fun part is that you can always change the ingredients to suit your taste and preferences.

the ingredients are a few packs of pre-made puff cases and honey leg ham depending on how many puffs that you want to make. i've used the lazy way to do this. alternatively, you can make your own pastry cases from scratch.

then pasta sauce, corn and button mushrooms. maybe you can go for the fresh mushrooms which might be nicer. and instead of tomato sauce, you can go for cream based sauce.

then you need to cut the mushrooms and the ham thinly. and also some onions too.

heat up the pan and start with the onions first. when it's golden bown, then simply put in the ham, after that add in the mushroom and pasta sauce together with the corn.

it's done! just leave it there for a while to cool it down before putting into the cases.

next just put in some of the sauce and also equally split the ingredients into it. sprinkle some cheddar cheese on top. don't put too much cause the cheese would be melted out of the cases. while doing this, remember to heat up your oven.

after around 15-20 minutes in the oven, depending on how burnt you want the pastry to be, it's ready to be served.

hot and crispy puff pastry with a can of root beer. a nice way to start my dinner. yum!