Breakkie and Tea Date : Two Birds One Stone & Lindt Chocolate Cafe

Is Melbourne having pms today? Early morning it was wet and drizzling, noon time it's sunny and warm(went up to 21 degree celcius) and blows strong wind with heavy rain near evening. Mr said "now this is Melbourne". Lucky we decided to go out yesterday instead of today. Yesterday, Melbourne was stable, warm and sunny! Perfect day for outing so we went to Chapel St hoping to do some shopping and of course brunch hunting!

Happy girl wanna go shopping so badly =)

Our pick-of-the-day cafe was Two Birds One Stone, located at a small lane along Toorak Rd that we'll have to pass by while heading to Chapel St, just a few 10 mins away from South Yarra Station.

Two birds but where's the stone?

Camwhoring while waiting for our food to arrive

Mr's choice: Roast Chicken Sandwich with house made sausage, aioli & rocket

Ms's choice: Eggs Benedict, house smoked ham hock & béarnaise on toast

Le common table

We had a nice loooong chat while waiting for our meal to be served, they certainly took quite some time in the kitchen. Ms enjoyed her Eggs Benedict, especially the smoked ham but Mr was not happy with his Roast Chicken Sandwich, the bread was abit too elastic for his liking. 

After brunch we went to shop around and then we walked pass this chocolate shop and to our surprise it's Lindt's chocolate! Lindt chocolate is one of Ms's favourite chocolate brand, eating Lindt's chocolate itself is already so good, imagine eating cakes and desserts made from it. Oh So Yum!!!

Waffles!! Mr's favourite <3 nbsp="">

Crunchy waffle topped with melted Lindt milk chocolate and white chocolate vanilla ice cream 

Happy kid decorating his waffle

For Ms: Hot Chocolate of course!

DIY Hot Chocolate, you can adjust the thickness suit to your liking

Ms had her hot chocolate in one shot, melted chocolate pot was emptied and yet the steamed milk was still 80% there, YAY for THICK THICK HOT CHOCOLATE =D

Looking into emptied cup while Mr is still having his own sweet time with his waffle, hot chocolate finished in less than 90 seconds =(

There's a few Lindt cafes around Australia and sadly Australia only but fret not, it's as simple as 1 2 3 to make your own hot chocolate or waffles or fondue with Lindt chocolate bars that's available in most supermarkets. Just heat it up and mix it with hot milk and there you go, now you can enjoy Lindt cafe under your own roof.

Formula to a perfect Tuesday

*singing* ~Cannn you feelll the guilttt tonight...~

Perfect Tuesday = Movie + Pizza + Doritos (or any other junkies/snacks) + Alcohol + Ice-Cream

Honestly, this is definitely one of the best combo on how to spend your Tuesday night at home. You tell me, what could be better? To have a Tuesday night like this means that we do not have to cook which means, no dishes to wash (Yay!). Another best thing about this especially for Ms, is that she doesn't have to care about the calorie consumptions. However, the guilt will definitely kick-in tomorrow. But oh wellsss...eat first, worry later, thats our motto for today. Haha! 

Our Tuesday is pretty chilling for us today. Like any holiday, woke up without any alarm, started our day without any agenda to rush to, take our sweet time to do whatever we want, online, facebook and just do whatever we want, whenever we want and however we want. I guess the reason why we decided to stay-in today is pretty much because we've been going out alot for the passed few days to save money and to just not do anything. So yeahh...thats all for today! 

ps: For those, yeahh...YOU, that has been following us, Mr & Ms, thank you for reading! =)

Mr: Cory Monteith

~R.I.P~

As many of you may already know, Cory Monteith, one of Glee's leading actor was found dead. It was a shock when I read the news about his death a couple days ago. Hearing and knowing one of your favaourite charracter in one of your all-time favourite TV series has passed away definitely doesn't make your day any better. So here's a little post about him, for him and hope that he may rest in peace in a better place. 

Ms: Cooking Experiment #2 - Cantonese Style Fried Yee Mee

I can cook and not fail! Wheee~ =) We were missing malaysia's hawker food so badly so I searched the internet for failproof recipe that even beginners like me can manage. I went through a few recipes and came up with my version of recipe, the recipes are basically similiar, you can add in or take out ingredients that you like or dislike to suit your likings. In my case I loveeeeeee veggies so I put in more cabbages. Pardon my broken yee mee in the picture, it's so hard to get yee mee here, not every asian grocery has it! Lucky for us we found the second last pack of yee mee at a very secluded corner in one of the store and both pack were not in good conditions either. Oh well~ Better than none!

Homemade Cantonese Style Fried Yee Mee - presentable and edible!

Ingredients: (for 2 pax)

- 2 fried yee mee
- 1 chicken breast (cut slice)
- 4 prawns
- Carrots & long beans & baby corn (small portion each)
- Cabbage
- 2 eggs
- Garlic & onion (finely chopped)

to marinade:

- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/3 shao xing wine
- white pepper & salt
- 1 tsp corn flour

For sauce:

- 700ml chicken stock
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/3 shao xing wine
- Salt, sugar and white pepper to taste

*Corn starch (mix 1tbsp corn flour with water)

Directions:

1. Marinade chicken and prawn for at least 1 hour.

2. Fry garlic and onion till fragrant.

3. Fry chicken breast and prawn till brownish.

4. Add all vegetables and fry till cooked.

5. Add mixture of sauce and let it boil. Adjust to taste, add some oyster sauce if the taste is not strong enough or add some water if the sauce is too salty.

6. Pour in slightly beaten eggs while stirring the sauce over high fire.

7. Add in corn starch to thicken the sauce.

8. *If you prefer your noodle to be crunchy, place yee mee in a thick plate or a big bowl and pour the sauce over the yee mee.
    - The heat from the sauce will soften the yee mee
    - If the sauce is not enough, add some water before removing from stove

    *If you prefer your noodle to be softer, cook the yee mee with the sauce in the pan.


Thoughts:
- Our plates are not deep enough so we cannot pour enough amount of sauce over our yee mee to soften the noodle. So, we cook our yee mee with the sauce until it's almost soft but still slightly crunchy then transfer it to plates.

- Test the sauce before adding salt as chicken stock itself is salted.

Little Ramen Bar

Last monday night we had ramen for dinner at Little Ramen Bar along Elizabeth St. We were there at around 7+pm and there's already few groups of people forming a queue at the entrance, it took us about 20 to 30 minutes to get a table. The restaurant is small, with seating capacity of approximately 30 pax and tables very near to each other.

Menu guide with pictures and descriptions for you to have a clear idea of different kinds of ramen that they are serving

The counter 'slash' beverage bar 'slash' kitchen entrance

Classic 'Shio' Tonkotsu Ramen topped with seaweeds, bamboo shoots, spring onions & BBQ pork

There's 3 varieties that you can choose for your soup base: Shoyu (special soy base), Miso (soybean) and Shio (light salt base).

Hokkaido Ramen - rich and flavourful miso broth with mixed vegetables, BBQ pork, spring onions and corns & butter

Housemade Gyoza Dumplings

These juicy on the inside and crisp on the bottom pan fried pork and veggies dumpling were good. A very classic side dish to go with your ramen. We were both satisfied and happy with our choices of ramen, can't say that it's the best ramen in Melbourne but they are definitely good and worth the wait! 

Dinner @ ShopHouse Kitchen 大食家

ShopHouse Kitchen is a newly opened asian eatery in QV, whenever we walk pass this restaurant, their Char Siew/叉烧(honey glazed barbecue pork), Siew Yok/烧肉(roasted pork belly), Siew Ngap/烧鸭(roasted duck) and Siew Gai/烧鸡(roasted chicken) seems to be so tempting. So one day since we're already in the CBD and have no plans for dinner, we thought of this place and decided to give it a shot plus we miss hongkong-ish food.

Le menu

Typical hongkong-ish big menu - lot's of food choices with attractive photos

Soya milk with soya pudding/豆浆水加豆腐花

Ms : This soya milk with soya pudding taste so so only, i miss mum's homemade soyamilk ='(

Few tables of patrons at around 5.30pm on a weekday 

Mr's choice : Asian Roast on Rice - Roasted Duck/明炉烧味 - 烧鸭饭

Ms's choice : Barbecue Pork and Fried Wonton with Dry LaMian Noodle/炸云吞叉烧干捞面

Candid shot

Both our food was okay, wouldn't say that it's really good cause there are better ones but they have varieties of food and a lot of it looks yummy from photos so we don't mind going back to try out some of their other dishes. 

Brunch @ The Hardware Societe

At last, here we are at The Hardware Societe! It has been on our to-try-list for quite some time. Mr had been in Melbourne for more than a year but didn't had the initiative to try it out so we, along with Mr's buddies from KL decided to give it a try, it is after all at the number one ranking for brunch in CBD on Urbanspoon (as at July 2013).

We reach our brunch spot at 10.30am

Look at the queue on a Monday morning!

What other better ways to kill time while waiting? 

Selfie =D

Cooperative stranger doing funny faces with us xD

Le lovely host with a flower on his head was quite attentive 

Our group of 5 were not completed when it's our turn so we have to wait until the rest of the guys arrive then only we are brought to our tables. We were quite anxious as it's already 11+ and the guys are still on their way, we wouldn't want to miss their breakfast menu because the breakfast menu only serve till 11.30am.

Can't wait to be seated inside

Beverage and dessert counter

Raspberry & Coconut Bread and Butter Pudding

Pistachio & Raspberry Teacake *gluten free*

Hazelnut & Cranberry Meringue *gluten free*

Le Breakfast Menu

Seated at the big sharing table, LOL le kid's expression spelled it all out, le mum is invading his food

Fried Eggs - jamon & roast tomato tostada, el trigal manchego ewes milk cheese & rocket

Scrambled Eggs with chorizo, smoked eggplant, el trigal manchego cheese

Saucisse De Morteau - white bean & chorizo broth, poached eggs

Baked Eggs with chorizo sausage, piquillo pimientos sauce, crunchy almonds, queso de cabra goats milk cheese

Le guys

Ms loved her Baked Eggs this much

Their breakfast menu was good as no negative feedback were given by le guys and one thumbs up given by Ms for her choice of Baked eggs. Initially Mr wanted to order one particular dish that he saw someone is having while we are queueing but we can't figure out what that dish is even after going through the menu and asking the waitress. Fried Eggs seems to have the similar ingredient to that dish but sadly it came out presented not the same as what he saw so he is quite disappointed. 

If Mr is to decide a place for brunch he wouldn't choose to go back for their breakfast menu again as nothing in the menu catches his eyes, instead lunch menu would be an interest to him with ingredients like pork belly and salmon fish etc. As for Ms, The Hardware Societe will be one of her choices for Baked Eggs but for her next visit on their breakfast menu she would like to try their Banana Loaf because it is also one of their known-for-dish. 

The place was busy that day but the service we got was quick and attentive. We heard that they change their menu sometimes but the friendly waitress that was serving our table explained to us that the ingredients probably wouldn't change much but the cooking methods will have a slight difference. And don't forget to ask if there's any off the menu dishes as we overheard her introducing to the other table and it sounds yummy!