Masterchef Live Event..

After watching two series of Masterchef and one series of Junior Masterchef, I'm definately one that is totally hooked by the show. The love, passion and talent in food by the contestants are just admiring. Following the series, and looking at the growth of the contestants in the show is just amazing. I felt so empty after the show ended. It also encouraged me to venture more into cooking and baking. I've attempted the black forest cake before and it turned out unsuccesfully. *sad* Oh and I'm a huge fan of Marion and Adam in series 2. So I saw this advertisement through Ticketek that they are organising a Masterchef live event in Sydney and off I bought the tickets. Can't wait and so exciting!

It was at Moore Park which is at the other side of the bridge, it was an early start for the day. Off we go!

 Legendary logo at the main entrance.

 Lots of different stalls with samples and great products for sale.

 The one hour live theatre show hosted by Matt Preston, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris had hands-on selected audiences to the stage to cook, masterchef class, insights of the show, fun, fun and more fun!

 Guests on the show were Donna Hay, Adam and Marion! They are looking great and best of all, Adam's restaurant is opening in April 2011. How exciting news is that?!

Cooking demos, pressure tests by the audiences and judging time. It was absolutely great fun and I've enjoyed the whole show.

 Anna Gare at one of the demonstration theatre.

 Proud sponsor of the show, Coles had a huge stand there and ex-contestants, Courtney, Alvin and Jimmy were there to demonstrate cooking and they tried really hard to answer all the audiences' questions.

 Other than that, there were lots of fresh products for sale and samples to try.

Organic chips. 

 Fresh coffee beans.

Varieties of fresh breads.

Chocolate dipped strawberries. They looked gorgeous and mouth-watering.

 More cooking skills and tips to share by the celebrity chefs.

 Signing event by the three judges.

 Kylie Kwong sharing her thoughts.

 Hands-on cupcake decorating demostration.

 There's a junior masterchef stand for the kids as well.

 For lunch we had Charlie & co wagyu burger for $10. Yum! I'm not a fan of beetroot, but it was really delicious and I didn't taste the strong beetroot flavour at all.

 And chilli sausage roll for $8.

 I'm definately going to their stall at Westfield to eat that again. *slurps*

 More stands outside the Royal Hall of Industries.

 Sunbeam sponsor stand with hands-on cooking demonstrations by Skye Craig.

 Oh I met Alvin in real person!

 Adriano Zumbo, the legendary pastry chef in the show, was giving out tips in piping skills when baking.

He was telling us that you just need to practice and practice to master the skills and getting the consistency that you want.

Lastly a Merry Christmas tree with macarons for you. I really think that the event was really good, letting the audiences getting up close with the chefs behind the screen, sharing the basic skills and tips in cooking and baking, encouraging people to know more about food and cooking, exposing the audiences with the real effort that is given by the well known chefs in real person, and to know more about different food products and cooking utensils. It was really an awesome festival of cooking event and I had lots of fun!

Malaysia Fest 2010..

Last weekend I went for the Malaysia Fest 2010 at Tumbalong Park around at Darling Harbour area. It's a festival hosted by all the Malaysian Student Societies around Sydney. I was committee of the Malaysian society back in uni and I've never come across with such a huge Malaysian celebration in Melb. Great job for the Malaysian community in Sydney's universities. It felt really awesome to see so many people enjoying the Malaysian culture and food. Best of all, the weather was just awesome to hang out under the sun with lovely cool breeze. I went along with Jen and two other friends. 

Look at the crowd.. Isn't it amazing?

 This stall caught my attention straight away!

 Ta-da, apam balik, aka kap biang! My old time favourite back in my hometown in Sabah. Miss it so much! There's peanuts, sugar and butter in there. That's what normally we have back home. They also put some creamy corn in there with this one, which was equally yummy too! It was $7 for two. Who cares when I'm craving for it? 

 Satay chicken with peanut sauce. 

 More satays and sambal pulut from other stall. These satays wih the peanut gravy were awesome! Sambal pulut is simply glutinous rice with sambal prawn in banana leaves. Love it too. 

 Traditional nasi lemak with coconut rice wrapped in banana leaves. The coconut rice was totally rich in flavour, just like the ones we have it at the mamak stalls in Malaysia. Mouth-watering!

 Martabak with curry sauce and peanut sauce as well. I've never really had martabak before, it was like roti canai wrapped with some meat in between. Nice one to try.

 I have to admit that Jen and myself were bit greedy at that time and we wanted to try it all. So this is what we bought just within minutes despite of the long queues. Amazing! Oh, also to mention that we've tried the sambal fried vermicelli, sugarcane juice, roti canai and popiah. Little disappointed with the sugarcane juice cause it was rather diluted. All the others was great!

Yes this is what four of us had for lunch on the ground under the sun. Good food, good company with nice weather. We were all full and satisfied with all of the food. Of course it was not cheap for that, if you want to compare it with Malaysia. But to be able to have these lovely food with such similar taste in foreign land, what more can you ask for? Awesome festival! 

Birthdays..

Yay! Happy Birthday to all the Leos out there! A month of celebration for me. It means more good food to explore around Sydney. Can't wait!

Love,

Mel

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.