Ms: It's My Birthday! (Session 1)

Hi ^^ Officially another year older!

Birthday is THE Time when you have a valid reason to ask your friends to buy you dinners in an atas restaurant and thick face-ly order the most expensive dish from the menu; 

It's THE Time when you are allowed to indulge awesome cakes one after another like nobody's business; 

It's THE Time when you can voice out and demand your boyfriend or girlfriend or friends or even family to buy you that special gift you've always wanted but too kiam siap to buy using your own money; 

It's THE Time when you have the perfect excuse to splurge and buy everything new from head to toe just for that specific date so by the end of the day you won't have to feel guilty for spending money again; 

And it's also THE Time to look back and see what have you achieved and failed over the year and to think what's it gonna be for the upcoming year. Time flies and you can never relive the moments of your past in the future.

Some might think "what's all the fuss about birthdays? It's just another day anyway" but to me, I must celebrate birthdays. Not only mine but friends especially family members's birthdays, doesn't have to be a fancy party but a simple dinner with a cake is a must! The point is to gather every love ones together for some quality time =)

This year, I celebrated my birthday with my melbourne's love ones. Malaysia's love ones I miss you all!!! I chose malaysian cuisine for dinner because whenever we eat out we'll definitely go for korean or japanese or western food but hardly chinese food and I'M CRAVING FOR CRAB! 

 So here we are, at Omah's

Feels a bit like home

Le bosses

 My Mr, got him to wear a blue shirt

To match my dress xD haha

Miniature teapot is cute!

Chilli Crab

Wok fried with semi thick, sweet and savoury tomato and chilli based sauce

Roti Bread

Whenever a Chilli Crab is ordered it must be accompanied with deep fried buns/steamed buns in this case Roti Bread as a side. You dip the buns/breads into the sauce and put it into your mouth with the buns/breads full of sauce. It is so yummy our Roti Bread keep coming non-stop.

Black Pepper Crab

Seasoned and wok fried in fragrant curry leaves then spiced up with cracked black pepper

Omah's Duck

Half deboned duck braised in honey soy, herbs and served with bokchoy

Sweet and Sour Barramundi 

The one and only improvised "cake" of the year for yours truly =D

The "cake" consist of :-

~ Chocolate, Pear, Hazelnut & Caramel Cake (Poached pear & choc hazelnut biscuit / chocolate hazelnut spread / roast pear cream / buttery caramel / vanilla cream / dark chocolate mousse / dark chocolate velvet spray) from Burch & Purchese

~ 3 different flavoured cakes in tube also from Burch & Purchese

   - Raspberry, White Choc, Honey, Lychee (white chocolate & raspberry mousse / raspberry & lychee jelly / muesli & honey oat sponge / raspberry & hibiscus jam / honey lychee syrup / exaggerated raspberry cream / white chocolate velver spray)

   - Explosive Raspberry Milk Chocolate (rasp & milk choc mousse / raspberry custard / raspberry compote / explosive milk choc chip cookie crumb / exaggerated raspberry cream / raspberry marshmallow / milk chocolate mirror glaze)

   - Rhubarb, Raspberry, Ginger, Chocolate (rhubarb compote / raspberry cream / ginger soaked baba / ginger cream / chocolate nitro poached chocolate parfait / raspberry & white chocolate mousse)

~ Two Lychee Soho shots

Ohh gosh imagine all the above ingredients becoming a part of me, summer is coming but my fats are growing too. Have to cut down on eating desserts for a period of time already =( That's so sad, quote our chinese saying "Indulge now and suffer later".

 Thankiuuu dear Mr boyfie for planning my birthday celebration =D

Tao Tao House 陶陶居

Yuuhooo~~ It's saturday!! What else to start off a good weekend with a good brunch! We had Dim Sum this morning afternoon in Tao Tao House located at Glenferrie, it's one train stop away from our place so we took a 20 mins morning afternoon walk to there instead. Actually we had been craving for Dim Sum since last week but when we were there on a Sunday around 12.30pm, it was full house and we weren't able to get a table, we were told to go back at 2.30pm ==" What are we gonna do for 2 hours with a hungry stomach so we end up having english breakfast at a nearby place which was quite good. Will be blogging about that soon but today let us share with you our happy and satisfied Dim Sum brunch experience in Tao Tao House =D

Chili Chicken Dumpling

Pork and Prawn Siu Mai

Vegetarian Spring Rolls

Spare Ribs in Black Bean Sauce

Stuffed Bean Curd

Char Siu Pastry

Mini Custard Egg Tarts

The Mini Custard Egg Tarts were AWESOME!!! The best egg tarts that we've had in Melbourne so far! It was sooooo goooood that we ordered two plate and left us still wanting for more after consuming three each. It was fresh and HOT out of the oven, we both burnt our tongue just because it was too tempting and we cannot wait any longer to get a taste of it xD

Shanghai Pork Dumpling (soup filled dumplings)

All the dim sums were very good except for this Shanghai Pork Dumpling aka Xiao Long Bao, sad to say that it's the worst that i've(Ms) had. To make a good Xiao Long Bao, the skin, it's meat filling and soup filling are all equally important, i've heard that even the fold count at the top is also a part of what makes a very good Xiao Long Bao. Back to this particular Xiao Long Bao, no comment on it's meat and soup fillings BUT, the skin is...yucks. It should be tender, smoother and somewhat translucent but it is not, it felt like wet-supposingly-fluffy-white-buns which is thick and mushy. Also, from the picture you can see, one of the dumpling's skin has split so where's the soup filling? Gone =(

Nicely decorated interior

Pu Er Tea lovers

The place is not as spacious as you see from the pictures above, it's actually small and cramp. There are only two carts circling around the restaurant and the time frame that they serve out dim sums from the kitchen takes quite a long time so base on our experience in Gold Leaf, don't expect dim sum carts to keep coming to your table every few minute. This is slightly hard to accept at first cause we were used to getting whatever we want the moment we sat down in a dim sum restaurant and next minute our table will be full of dim sums so we can dig in to fill our tummy. So, we had to keep waiting for new dim sums to come out and that is a bit frustrating as we were both very hungry.

The bill came at the price of a total of $62+ for nine dishes (average of $6~6.50 for one dish) and a pot of tea. Honestly we weren't expecting this much as the average price for a dish in Gold Leaf was about $4, oh wells.. what you paid is what you get. At least eight out of nine dishes we had was pretty good so we don't mind paying more for better qualities dim sums (sigh..imagine how many dishes of dim sums we can have back in Malaysia with the amount that we're paying now, ($6 x 3) / 3 x 9 =54 dishes!) 

Oh! Do make reservations in advance. We can't even get a table for Sunday 1pm when we called to make reservation yesterday so remember to call and book before going to Tao Tao House! We learnt our lesson by getting turned out at the door with empty stomach and that does not feel good at all. 

Dimm summm!

The long wait has finally come to an end for you readers and followers (if there is even one...hahaa!). Sorry for taking so long to post something up. We've been busy lately which we cant think exactly why are we busy but anywaysss, Ms has started class already and for Mr is still having his holidays. Life is still the same for us, peaceful and all.

Remember our usual movie date? Well, we had our usual movie date again this week and we decide to go for Wolverine. It was GOOD! The show provides adequate action scenes, not too bad story line and love the robot-samurai idea. Hopefully they'll come out more x-men movies in the future! =D

So, one of the typical thing about us chinese-malaysians is that we love having dim sum. Whether its on a Sunday with the family or Saturday super early morning after a long party on friday night. Sadly for us malaysians in Melbourne, the dim sum stores here doesn't provide the same standards in KL in terms of the pricing and quality PLUS, it doesn't open at 6am in the morning....hahaha!

However, we still manage to find a good dim sum called Gold Leaf. And apparently, Gold Leaf serves one of the good dim sums in Melbourne. And that was the reason why we had to go and have a try...

Ms with her egg tart~ *happykid*

Mr with the dim sum kakis AKA 'the bunch'

The final verdict for this so called 'good' dim sum restaurant for us is....its GOOD! Hahahaaa! It was a Sunday that we went if we're not mistaken, the resturant was so busy but the quality of the food they serve was still fresh and nice. We really enjoyed our dim sum experience there that day. Love the ambience, the interior, the food and mostly, the company. If we or even you, have any craving for dim sum and you're in Melbourne, this is a good place for you, good quality and its not pricey. 

Having said that, we just found another dim sum place called Tao Tao house and based on the reviews we found online, apparently it is even better than Gold Leaf. So, we are gonna try that place soon to verify that comment so....stay tuneeee! 

Our Usual Movie Date

Have you watched Pacific Rim? If you do, you'll understand how 'satisified' and happy I am after watching this movie. But if you dont, PLEASEEE go and watch it tomorrow or something. Dont be a cheapo and wait for the pirated dvd or download it online. A movie like this MUST be watched in the cinema and trust me, it is worth it. I am not gonna be a spoiler here and tell you about the movie but there's one thing I would like to ask those people who have already watched it, does this movie reminds you of Ultraman? HAHA!

So...relating to our post title, Monday is usually our movie date and as you know, we've decided on Pacific Rim. We've heard so many good reviews about it so choosing to watch this movie was inevitable. 

 Pacific Rim

After the movie, we wanted to have Nandos for dinner because we've been craving for it for a couple of weeks but in the end, we changed our minds. Typical us, so fickle minded. Hahaa. And we went back to Shophouse Kitchen for another go.

Mr's Fried Pork Chop Rice Set

Ms's XO Sauce Noodles with Prawns

Those above was our choice of dinner. And our conclusion after this second chance was not to go back anymore. To be fair, the food wasn't terrible or something, it was just really average. With the same amount that we are paying, Mr would rather go to Paparich or Hanaichi which serves yummier food with the same price. Plus, the food we ordered during our first attempt in this restaurant was average as well so we thought maybe we ordered the wrong menu or something, thats why we wanted to have a second go. But in the end...oh wellsss, time to look for a new place to try!

The last thing for tonight is.....

*drumrollinggggg*

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TADAHHHHH!!! My minion collections =D 

Well technically our 'Project Minion' is still not complete, we are trying to collect as many as possible but this 3 is what I have so far. Heheee. Good night!

Late Night Supper Series: #1 Monga Dessert Lounge

One late night, our friend was feeling bored so he picked us up and we went to Box Hill for Tong Sui. It's our first time being in Box Hill during such late night, we saw some restaurant were still open offering supper till late night 2am. Next time we know where to find food during midnight. Le friend introduce us to Monga, actually there's not many Tong Sui shop around Melbourne, one of the most recognised one's for Tong Sui would be Dessert Story but their desserts were kind of disappointing. Monga has quite an interesting concept, it looks like your typical hong kong-ish cafe and it definitely makes you feels like you are in Hong Kong.

Le menu board

Le stairs leading up to the shop, every little details reflects the old chinese household design

More nostalgia stuffs as decorations along the stairs

Typical! Hong Kong!

Tong Sui means sweet soup in cantonese pronunciation, common Tong Sui that most people cook it themselves at home are green bean soup, red bean soup and sweet potato soup. We love to cook red bean soup and sweet potato soup at home so we ordered the kind-of-hard-for-us-to-cook Tong Sui.

Water Chestnut Sweet Soup with Osmanthus

Black Sesame Sweet Soup

We wouldn't say Monga offers very good Tong Sui but it's so much better than Dessert Story, at least their hot desserts are REALLY hot, sadly the hot desserts that we had in Dessert Story was not even hot at all, they should categorised it as warm dessert instead. The Water Chestnut Sweet Soup with Osmanthus was good and not overly sweetened. As for the Black Sesame Sweet Soup, the taste and sweetness was okay but it could have been better if it's slightly thicken. We will be back for more of their desserts some late night, our late night supper series is up and let's keep it going!