the opera was a night to dress up & i felt like a million dollars in my charlie brown shrug. it is now my favorite item in the closet. i have recently decided that my clothing is going to be purchased by quality rather than quantity. my closet is getting VERY full.

p.s – i had a bucketload of hairspray in my hair to manage my mess of maine.
p.s.s – our dinner was awesome.

last night we went out to the sydney opera house. we all dressed up for the opera (we saw the magic flute by mozart.) the weather has taken a turn for the worse recently so i could not take any tourist shots.

before the performance we gathered at the opera kitchen for dinner. seeing as we were short for time, we all decided to order from one place … misschu.

having never eaten at misschu, i was rather excited because the world on the blogs is that this place is not short on praise. as we waited, my stomach grumbled & as the food was placed before us within fifteen minutes we all dove straight in … after photographs, obviously.

the traditional peking duck pancakes were such a hit that we ordered four serves for the four people dining at our tables. that meant we had sixteen pancakes on our table, i would call them a success. i had one & i loved it. yes, that is coming from a girl who rarely eats duck.

my family ordered more than just pancakes, one dish i was able to get a picture of was the deep fried prawn and crabnet spring rolls. i did not have one of these but they went quickly, within seconds. several steamed dumpling were also ordered by sadly missed my lens as we were in a hurry.

looks like a trip back is in my future.

recently i have changed the way i have been blogging, it’s better – i like it. these blog changes have me starting to think that i have turned into a hardcore vegan with all the blogs i have been posting.

this is not what is happening.

you have not seen the bowls of fruit with yogurt or the cups of strong coffee with a tiny bit of milk or the biscuits or the slices of cake. you are seeing the two largest meals i have been eating & not the rest.

my bigger meals have been rather vegan-like, i will admit that but i am not becoming a vegan. i love my seafood & egg whites far too much to give them up. cleaner eating is what i’m doing & i’m feeling brilliant on the inside.

salad, oh glorious salad, you make my heart smile. i am obsessed with a big bowl of vegetables, thrown together & mixed with lemon juice. lemon juice gives any salad a much need kick up the a$$, it adds that extra bit of excitement in the mouth.

admittedly, i am eating a redic amount of salads these days. i even had a day where one salad was eaten for breakfast & one for dinner. yes, that makes two in one day. i have not gone completely insane, i have a wedding coming up in july & i want to be feeling my best.

summer on the other hand is my best friend, i wait months & months to see my best friend. once it arrives we are inseparable, glued at the hip. i wear sundresses & it brings the sunshine, we are perfect for each other.

in summer, i trade my soup for sashimi. i cherish eating sashimi outside on a steamy hot summer evening. the sashimi is light which is perfect for summertime.

i see many trips for sashimi in my future.

this is exactly what i look like when i get out of bed, shower sans hair wash & run into the apple store to get my iphone fixed. i screamed disaster. i might have looked like a crazy lady wearing bug eyed sunglasses inside the apple store but i do not mind, i think i had panda eyes.

this breakfast was definitely a brunch, seeing as i did not leave the apple store until shortly after noon. i was very lucky that the genius bar were able to see me so quickly, the third flour is chaotic. i headed into westfield because my stomach was singing to me.

when i was looking over their menu this dish jumped out at me, my eyes lit up & my stomach was excited. i went sans dressing & asked for extra lemon … i personally believe that lemon juice makes every salad taste better, i’m citrus obsessed.

i’m on a huge salad kick lately & i’m always on the look out for new salad combinations, just look at my pins. the combination of vegetables & salmon in this salad won over my heart, this salad was true love.

the above juice was orange, mango & passionfruit from top juice because i can’t resist their juice menu. i also adore taking photographs in public, everybody stares!

i no longer enjoy a coffee full of milk, it ruins the flavor for me. you can not taste the bean & that is what coffee is all about, the beans.

i do not know much about coffee but i have been drinking it long enough to know the difference between a great, a good & a bad one. i have also recently learnt that a coffee shop is not a decent coffee shop if they are without a siphon in their store.

antidote has siphon, cold drip, trifecta & pour over. they also have homemade lemonade, the thickest signature hot chocolate you will ever taste, a masala chai tea that will blow your mind & fresh mint yogurt that is happiness in a mini cup.

this is my new go-to coffee. it is a cold brewed iced coffee with an orange garnish. the idea comes from a friend of my new favourite barista & he openly admitted that the recipe is not his, so humble.

what are you waiting for? get down to antidote, NOW!

australia day, oh dear australia.
you were interesting in various different ways… yes, yes you were.

i will be back ….

do people bake anymore? when was the last time you went over to a friends house for tea/coffee with a slice of homemade cake? i personally can not recall the last time i did.

when i catch up with my friends, we gather in cafe’s drinking their latte’s & head off in separate directions to continue our day. i do not invite my friends over for coffee from my machine & offer them a slice of cake that i have baked in my own oven.

this recipe comes from a family friend who has known me since i was a young girl. biting into this cake bought me right back to her kitchen … i actually remember sitting in her kitchen eating a slice of this exact cake when we went over to visit her.

the zing in this cake is what I love about it, it’s a hidden surprise that excites the taste buds with each mouthful.

yogurt lemon cake

serves 8-10 people

ingredients:

cake:-

125 g butter, softened

125g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

3 eggs

zest and strained juice of 1/2 lemon

200g (1 1/2 cups) self-raising flour

200g (3/4 cup) yogurt (i used vanilla chobani yogurt)

syrup:-

1/3 cup water

150g (3/4 cup) sugar

directions:

preheat oven to 180 degrees.

cream butter and caster sugar until pale and light. beat in eggs, one at a time. (it may look a bit curdled but don’t worry, it will be fine.) gently fold in the lemon zest; flour and then fold in the yogurt.

use a spatula to scape into a lined, 20cm cake tin, making the center a little lower than the edges.

bake for about 30 to 40 minutes or until skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

about 5 minutes before the cake is ready, heat the water, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. when the cake is cooked, leave it in the tin, poke a fine skewer all over the top (about 30 times) and spoon the hot lemon syrup over. try to be sure the syrup soaks evenly into the holes.

allow the cake to cool in the tin and serve with lightly whipped cream and tea/coffee.

enjoy!

watermelon & mint juice?

you know summer has arrived when you are craving a meal outside in the humidity that is sydney … december through march. any chance to be outside is taken by me. i’ll go out to to unsuccessfully randomly run into my crush. to get a paper. a coffee. a juice. a packet of mints. you need it, i’ll get it. anything!

luckily for me, i discovered that r would be free for dinner on friday night. which was brilliant because it allowed me to indulge in the humidity of the city with a friend.r & i like similar foods & therefore we make for a good team when it comes to ordering. we simply look over the menu, let each other know what screams out us & discuss. we compromise & order. SIMPLE.

to begin our dinner, we ordered three smaller dishes to share. the first being a r choice:- sweet yam tempura spring rolls served with sweet chilli sauce. i’ve personally never had a yam before & biting into this spring roll was exciting because the purple outer skin became orange .. magic??

being a massive lover of all things dumpling & steamed buns, i ordered the following two smaller dishes for us to share. everything i ordered was mixed which meant that we literally cut everything down the middle for a taste test.

i ordered:- mixed dumplings – pumpkin, english spinach, mushroom plus assorted steamed buns – bbq, chickpea, chinese cabbage.

the dumpling, they blew my mind. i have successfully found the dumpling i was secretly searching for. i have been on a quest to find dumplings that have the right texture in the skin & also have tasty ingredients inside. why did i not find this place sooner? i would look like a dumpling, that is why.

dinner was light & fresh, just what summer ordered. we shared salt and pepper silky tofu salad with wakami, cucumber noodle, baby leaves, mint and yuzu dressing plus bodhi vegetarian peking ‘duck’, bbq sauce, cucumber and pancakes.

we are both dying to go back for their lunch menu which is full of dumplings.