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I’m not a huge fan of coffee, but Jen loves his coffee very much. I haven’t had coffee for a long time until the day I went out with my group of coffee addict friends to Cornersmith cafe at Marrickville early in the morning. I was still in the midst of studying for exam. So I thought I should have a good breakfast to kick start my day. The cafe gets really packed with lots of local patrons when we arrived and had to wait for a while to get a table. Well since I wanted to wake myself up for the day, I’d ordered a weak flat white, attempting to learn to enjoy coffee at the same time. I did add in some sugar to sweeten the coffee bitterness and it was good.

 Kids version of fresh juice. So cute!

 Latte

 Enjoying my flat white!

Poached eggs, homemade baked beans and tomato relish with toast. Yumm! The baked beans was superb!

 Ham and poached eggs with relish sandwich. What a healthy choice for breakfast.

 I’ve told you that I went out with a group of coffee lovers. And we went to the next stop, Coffee Alchemy, for more coffee! Very interesting to know that they serve coffee on tap. But I didn’t have a go with that.

 Coffee roasting on the spot, so you can smell the strong fragrant coffee when you step into the shop. You can also buy their coffee beans.

 No joking! I had another cup of mocha and oh dear, I was in caffeine high for most of the day. Even though I don’t really drink coffee, but I think it was good. Smooth, creamy and fragrant coffee with chocolate powder in my mocha. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I had an effective study day with all the caffeine. Cheers with coffee! Can’t wait for the weekend to come already!

Cornersmith

Ratings: 8/10

Address: 314 Illawarra Rd, Marrickville, NSW 2204

Coffee Alchemy

Address: 24 Addison Road, Corner of Cook Rd and Addison Rd, Marrickville NSW 2204

Heyo guys! Finally I’m done with exam and next up was moving into a new place. So it was all crazy and hectic for the past two weeks for me. Still in the process of getting the internet fixed and oh you know how efficient the internet company would be right? I was so desperate to blog, so time out from all the packing and cleaning, and some personal moments with you! Regardless of my hectic schedule, I’ve been treating myself with good food. During one of the weekend last month, I woke up with Japanese food cravings, and thought of going somewhere close by. I’ve heard of this place from my collegue and off we go for a quick lunch at Japan city, Top Ryde.

First thing that caught my attention when I sat down.

 Nice deco everywhere and I couldn’t stop myself from snapping more.

 Hot green tea to warm up and get ready for the food.

 Soft shell crab salad. There was a limited amount of soft shell crab, but it was nice and refreshing.

 Jen ordered the sushi plate and he was happily indulging all of them.

 I had the tempura udon and it was simply delicious. It might not be the best Japanese meal but it did satisfy my little craving without travelling a long way for it.

 It’s actually a shop that sell all sorts of Japanese items from matcha powder, bento boxes to kitchen cutlery. Love the nice deco there! Anyway hope you’ll have a great weekend!

Ratings: 6.5/10

Address: Top Ryde City Shopping CentreLevel 1Cnr Devlin Street & Blaxland Road, Ryde NSW 2112

Helllooooo! Anyone there?! Yes I’m still alive! I’ve been busy with work and study, with exam in just less than two weeks to go. So excuse me while I procrastinate and just share some random food photos that I’ve been munching on. I’ve missed blogging and attempted to do that quite a few times but unfortunately failed. Actually, my little confession.. I’ll crave for more food when I’m under stress. Thanks to my dearest for helping me to fulfill all my needs and wants. I’m still coping well, or I should say I’m at the border line. Anyways I hope that everyone is fine after all the wet and gloomy weather in Sydney. I was right in the midst of the downpour when I just got out of the library yesterday and thank god that I made it home safely. Okay it’s a food blog afterall, no more rambling please!

I’ve heard about this place, Cafe BOM at Eastwood from a close friend and how could we reject a waffle and gelato indulgence? Ordered an American waffle with vanilla and black sesame gelato with fruits and chocolate sauce. ($17.90) Be sure that you come here with a group of friends so that you could try on more cause we couldn’t finish it between the two of us. The waffle was bit dry but the crispyness and freshness of it was really enjoyable. The gelato was surprisingly smooth and creamy. Yum! I think I want a waffle maker soon! There’s a little quirkiness in the interior of the shop, with different styles of furnitures and best of all, it’s open till late. So you can always head there for a late night catch up and dessert fix. They also serve Korean dishes as well.

I miss the macarons and green tea cappuccino from Cre Asion.

I’ve made these super easy chocolate mousse for a gathering session at a friend’s place. I wanted to make an easy dessert and found this recipe from NotQuiteNigella without using raw eggs. I’ve also added some frozen cherries at the bottom of the glass to add some sourness to balance off the richness of the dark chocolate that I’ve used.

I had this Malaysian style fried radish cake, homecooked from scratch by my darling friend. OMG! It was so mouth-watering, and delicious! This is one of my childhood favourite, and I haven’t had it for ages. I can almost felt tears in my eyes when I had it. Thanks for the extra effort cause it so damn good and I wish to have more. I didn’t ask for the recipe because she did mention that it is alot of work in making, lazy!

Huge dumplings with lots of ingredients. I think my friend had a name for it but I don’t remember that. I can only remember how yummy it was. mmmmmm… I’m getting hungry again. xx

Cafe BOM

Ratings: 6.5/10

Address: 15 Railway Parade, Eastwood, NSW 2122

The one thing that I love about Aussie is the cafe and coffee culture here. Even though I’m not a huge fan of coffee, I have a boyfriend who loves coffee to bits. For me, fresh and simple ingredients yet wholesome food and topped with a cup of smooth and strong hot chocolate, its the best for a weekend morning! Since we’ve got our own car recently, we are happy to wake up early and venture out for a good coffee and breakfast. So tell me if there’s any good ones worth trying. We were around Ultimo area last month and decided to try out Mecca Espresso. But we were there too late and breakfast menu was sold out, so we had a simple brunch.

 Mecca Espresso Ultimo Cafe was listed as the winner of SMH’s cafe of year 2011. I really like the simple and clean environment with a slight artistic touch.

 Iced chocolate for a hot day. Milky, creamy and chocolatey.

 Cappuccino has latte art as well. It was good but not the best, according to Jen.

 Roasted pumpkin, pine nuts and spinach toast was simple and delightful.

 A simple and healthy one for me. I don’t quite remember what was it, but I did like it.

 Nice quick breakfast to start out the day. Easter weekend is around the corner, can’t wait! I am going to enjoy it with my books, study and of course food. Have a great one!

Ratings: 7/10

Address: 646 Harris Street, Ultimo Sydney 2000

Aloha! I hope that everyone is doing well. I’ve been terribly lazy lately with blogging but I’ve been eating around, some nice food here and there. Life is good! It’s that time of the year that I need to dig into my boring acct. books and study again. Wish me luck and I have to study hard! By the way, I’ve been following on My Kitchen Rules as well, so which team do you think is going to win? I’m loving Nic & Rocco, the dessert kings! Anyways I should really share with you on what I’ve been munching on. Thanks to my dear foodie friend who accompany me for the day. Finally I’ve stepped foot into this small amazing cafe, Cre Asion after reading so many good reviews about it.

 The cafe is located in a small alley, away from the busy crowd in the city. Love the simple design and peaceful environment inside.

 Get ready for some macarons!

After our lunch, we had these for desserts. We had few flavours like (from the top left): green tea, peanut butter, chocolate, black sesame, yuzu, guava, caramel, dear chris (milk chocolate & hazelnut), roasted soya beans, tonka beans, passionfruit (not too sure cause there were too many!), and pistachios. $31 for a dozen.

 Mmmm.. green tea flavour! I love the macarons there cause its not too sweet for my liking and also some of their interesting flavour choices.

 Can’t help it but to order the flourless chocolate cake. Oh my goodness! It was so rich and chocolatey with a strong bitter after taste which I love.

 Our afternoon tea session with great company on a rainy day with superb green tea cappuccino which was thick and frothy, just the way it should be. Life can’t get any better than that, maybe apart from the studying for exam part.

Ratings: 9/10

Address: 21 Alberta Street, Sydney NSW 2000

Happy weekend! I hope everyone is still doing fine after the crazy rain we had during the week. It’s good to have some bright sunny weather today. Enjoying it! I’ve been to Randwick the second time to visit my friend, and we went into a really interesting pastry cafe and I thought of sharing that with you. Its called Kurtosh Cafe. I think I really like the whole concept of the cafe, even with the marble tiles, metal chairs, small wooden tables, pastel coloured cups and everything else. When you entered into the cafe, you’ll see the corner making fresh kurtosh and samples to try. Pastries are selling by weight, so we’ve ordered 3 kinds of pastries and it was only about $3.

A nice start for me with a glass of hot chocolate. Milky and smooth chocolate.

Cappuccino and latte for the guys. Look at the pink and light blue coloured saucers! Coffee was really good as well.

Three cheeses bureka, potato bureka and cheese and spinach pastry. All the pastries were so crispy and light, loving it! Can’t wait to go back for more next time. They also offer wide selections of cakes as well. It was all so tempting but we were only there for a light morning tea session.

Cinnamon flavoured Kurtosh, around $8. It was so hard for me to resist from the interesting look of kurtosh and had to order one and try it out. They also have a few other flavour choices, eg. chocolate, pistachios, almond. It was such fun thing to look at the process of how they make the kurtosh. Just a bit of background of kurtosh, its a Hungarian pastry also called chimney cake, stove cake or Hungarian wedding cake. Ohhh! Its a thin yeast pastry ribbon wound around a wooden cylinder. It tasted so flavoursome, crispy and light. Simple and elegant. Loved it!

Ratings: 8/10

Address: 20B-20C St Pauls Street, Randwick NSW 2031

Hey I’m finally back! I’ve missed blogging so much! Anyways I went back to my hometown, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah after Taiwan. Whenever I’m back there, I always eat all the food that I’ve been missing much. Perhaps I should put it this way, I’ll eat like there’s no tomorrow. I was sick the whole time when I was back, so I had limited food choices. Anyhow these are all the food that can’t be missed for sure, well it’s my personal preference. Or perhaps you want to update me with more new yummy selections so that I can try it out during my next trip.

KK is blessed with fresh seafood, and they are cheap. Simple cooking will make the seafood taste gorgeous. I even had the chance to have freshly caught crabs in Kota Belud, home cooked by my uncle! Our family favourite restaurant is Luyang Seafood Restaurant. Delicious and mouth-watering crabs and prawns!

 Hainanese Chicken Rice. Well you probably can eat this anywhere, but one of my favourite shop that serve delicious chicken rice is at Wiya Chicken Rice, Segama. Mmm..

A must eat in KK is definately “sayur manis”. Its also known as sweet leaf, katuk or star gooseberry. It has a special sweet after taste, stir fried with eggs makes it even better!

A hot bowl of ban mian with generous servings of sayur manis, textured egg noodles and superb broth. Slurps! My childhood memories.

Homemade boiled chicken with dry noodles and fried onions, only can be found in Kota Belud, a small town away from the city.

This is a tropical fruit native to Borneo called tarap or marang. It has a strong fragrant smell, soft textured and sweet taste when it’s fully ripe. I think it’s something like durian, it’s either you like it or you don’t. I love it!

Fresh, crunchy and sweet jambu. (Syzygium samarangense)

How would I go pass this? Its dry noodles with soya sauce and pork lard accompanied with a bowl of strong fragrant pork broth with meatballs and sliced pork at Jia Xiang, Lintas.

Tuaran mee, a traditional noodle dish from Tuaran, northwest of Sabah. Fried homemade egg yolk noodles with fried egg rolls, char siew (barbeque pork) and local vegetables, sawi. The noodles has a nice crusty texture. Salivating!

Hawker food is everywhere in Sabah. One of the best is Hokkien fried noodles. We went to the one at Beverly Hills. OMG the noodles was so good! It was fragrant, flavoursome and scrumptious. Oh look, crunchy fried pork lard! Can we have more?

Homemade grass jelly with evaporated milk is the best dessert for me in KK. Nothing beats that during a hot humid day. I had that in Jia Xiang when I was enjoying the delicious noodles. I’m one proud Sabahan! We grew up with all these local delicious food and will always have this soft spot for the great food in our hometown. Happy leap year!

Happy weekend! So what’s on the menu for this weekend? For me, it was all about blogging and some house chores as usual. And I’ve also finally made a switch with my host server. Phew, that took me whole afternoon to do that. Anyways all good now. More about Taiwan today, I better quickly get this over with so that you won’t get bored about it. But I think the food that I’ve tried in Taiwan is probably enough for me to write for another two months. Just kidding! Thanks to sis for the great photos as well.

I’m a huge fan of hotpot and Taiwan is pretty famous for it. So I was keen to try out, we went to a hotpot restaurant called Mala in Ximending. It was around NTD$500 (A$17) per person for all you can eat in two hours time.

Look at the beef! The meat was so thinly sliced and absolutely superb for hotpot. I like it how they put a small label sign to show the name of the beef that we were eating.

All types of sauces for you to choose. Drooling!

Yummmm.. You get to pick two types of soup base and also the level of spicyness that you like for the spicy soup. We had a combination of medium spicy and clear soup. Let’s get started!

A huge selections of fresh seafood with crabs, prawns, fish, salmon, clams and more.

Fishballs, cuttlefish balls, scallops, taro, vegetables and others. We were so overwhelmed by all the choices. We could only start from what we normally like to have.

More beef goodness.

Unlimited drinks as well, including hot herbal tea in a small teapot, cold drinks like iced coffee and orange juice.

Desserts and fruits. Can you imagine how much food selections there are?

Last but not least, unlimited Mövenpick and Häagen-Dazs ice-cream with waffle cones. How awesome in the world can that be? I actually had to spare out some space in my tummy for this cause we were all pretty full by the end of the hotpot session. It was definately one of my highlights of my whole trip. Loved it and will do that again next time!

Ratings: 9/10

Address:  2nd floor of No. 62, XiNing S. Road., Xi Men Ding, Taipei

Hooray! It’s almost weekend! Oh my, this week has been a long one, looking forward to the weekend to have some good rest, away from work and perhaps some baking time. I’ve been starstrucked by the cuteness that I’ve found in Taipei! They have quite a few shops around, the one that caught our hearts was at the Taipei Main Train Station.

Awwww how cute is that?! Hello Kitty shaped green tea sponge cake with white chocolate. *heart melts, and so does my camera* It tasted awesome as well, light and moist. But I guess I was probably too wow-ed by the cuteness.

Hey! Finally we’ve got some bright sunshine last weekend. I was in a great mood to share more about my Taiwan local eateries adventure until my web server failed on me. Anyhow here’s to show more photos to make you hungry and perhaps fly over to Taiwan and try them out yourself! One thing that I love about in Taiwan is their lovely bakeries! We’ve been to a few of them and they were all so good!

Mister Donut which you can find it anywhere around Taipei. I went passed by the one in Taipei Main Station everyday during my time there. How can I ignore them?

Yummy green tea donut. Around NTD$40. (A$1.30)

 When you’re in Rome do as the Romans do. And so I had a Taiwanese bento before my express train ride to Taichung. It was around NTD$200. (A$6)

Simple, hearty and delicious lunch box with fried pork chop with shallots, fried beancurd and stew egg.

This shop in Shifen has the most delicious vermicelli soup that I had in Taiwan.

Simple yet full of flavours, you can straight away tell that the soup was boiled for a very long time and the vermicelli just melted in my mouth. Loved it!

Side dishes like boiled spinach with pork mince sauce, stew stinky tofu and fresh bamboo shoots. It was my first time trying out the stinky tofu and it tasted pretty good despite of the smell. Okay fine, maybe cause it was a small bite.

Yum! Sliced pork with cheese sandwich. We tried this at one of the bakeries that we came across when we were waiting at Keelung bus stop, on our way to Yeliu Geopark.

It was so good that I don’t even remember this! I was too busy trying out everything.

Sesame sandwich. It was an amazingly soft and fluffy bread. Oh god we missed the bakeries there so much! I shall dream about it later. Have a sweet dream and hope that you won’t get too hungry.