Day 4 was time for me to leave Melbourne for the Sunshine Coast. After a quick goodbye in the am *boo hoo* , we headed towards the airport to board the tiger airways flight to Gold Coast. Interesting fact: Apparently you’re allowed all the liquids you want to handcarry on domestic flights. Woo Hoo! How much of a sad loser am I to be equally amused and pleased at that flight?

Unlike Melbourne’s spotlessly blue skies, when we checked into the hotel (the very pretty Marriott Surfers’ Paradise) , the receptionist actually apologised for the weather. Hur. It was a touch and go day in Gold Coast, with the weather flip flopping from nicely sunny to grey dull clouds. It even rained – which then made us spend our first day in a shopping outlet. No pictures were taken – they all look the same all over the world. This trip was a total shambles – I did not buy anything AT ALL. Although on the way back to the hotel, we did stop for some good ol’ chicken..

Okay – don’t laugh now, but the Australian KFC is simply AMAZING. Not only do they do Hot & Spicy (the UK only offers soggy Original Recipe – more like soggy nappy), it is crispier and crunchier than that in Malaysia. They also offer the Cajun spiced – which I was informed was grilled chicken by someone, but can’t confirm this fact. I bit into the crispiest and juiciest ever piece of fried chicken I had ever come across….yums. They also do the sweet buns similar to Malaysia (nom nom nom) and get this…MASHED POTATOES!!

Now, if you’ve never been to UK’s KFC, they do not have mashed potatoes – this would be the time you’d go, “WHAT???NO MASHED POTATOES?”. Instead they offer baked beans as a side dish here. BAKED BEANS. Your regular breakfast inggredient. Yeah. I KNOW. Like seriously – that’s weird. Thus I travel around the world trying out different KFCs in search for KFC’s mashed potatoes – they do not have it in Amsterdam either….but Spain & Prague does a passable mashed potato.

The Australian version is not as tasty as the Malaysian version, but it comes pretty close! But the chicken was so good I would’ve been happy to not have mashed potato at all . However, the Australian coleslaw was super yummy – the yummiest I’ve ever had in a KFC. One gripe though – nearly all fast food eateries in Australia seem to charge for ketchup – which is totally NOT ON as I slather ketchup on my food. They also heavily salt all their food – or maybe it’s just me. I substitute salt for ketchup – and therefore do not salt my fries.

It was still bright enough (6.30pm) when we got home – enough for me to snap up close pictures of the fabulous hotel pool

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you – it’s a hotel pool designed to look like a mini beach…complete with corals, fishes and sand. Whoa…

We had not been sleeping ever since we arrived in Australia as we wanted to spend as much time with mags & bens as we can, so after a short stroll on the beach we crashed out by 10pm…because day 5 was to be a super super long day at the amusement park! Yes, we will be playing tourist at last!

Day 3 in Melbourne was chill-out day. I just really wanted to spend time with mags and the kids – and seeing that her mom & sis were around as well, she had the day off to entertain the tourists. The kids were home from daycare, as little Jovan had to go for a maternal health visit. Mags dropped off me, bacon, Joel & sis off at a nearby mall whilst she brought Jovan & mom to the clinic.

Joel on his horsey after we failed to con him into believing that it was broken. Sara did try – however, some harrassed mom plopped her child on the horsey and popped in a $2 coin….at which point we ought to give Joel credit that he noticed that and started insisting on going on horsey again. heehhe.

After that incident the adults decided that we needed coffee to keep up with him – but Joel kept trying to run back to Mr. Horsey. So me in a moment of genius got him a container of colorful sprinkles, some coloring pencils and a printout. Ha! That kept him entertained for at least 30 mins. We did have a very interesting moment of him scuppering up his own booger before we manage to get a tissue out – which me and Sara just looked at each other and started laughing .

We headed to a local chinese restaurant to have lunch after Mags picked us up. I apparently did not get the name, not to mention only managed one measly picture. Seeing that it was a tuesday afternoon, it was jampacked! The dim sum was suprisingly large – there was one prawn dumpling thingy that contained four massive king prawns in ONE dumpling! GULP.

After lunch, the kids were tired and wanting an afternoon nap – together with sara (apparently pregnant women sleeps alot ). So we were left with a choice of either going for an afternoon nap or making it into the city. We (me & bacon) decided that we should be headed towards St. Kilda, the urban beach near Melbourne city center for something a little different – it was a super sunny day and I won’t be able to sleep (a wuss with the heat now!) .

My first beach in nearly a year!! Unlike the last time we were in Melbourne, this time around we can actually walk in the beach without feeling chilly – the weather in Feburary is much definately better. It was still extremely windy, but bearable. The beach was clean-ish, but the water was not really swimmable as there were loads of jellyfishes that washed up onshore. Hmm. Still – to have access to a beach so close to the city – I would KILL to be near a beach where you can actually whip your clothes off. Bliss.

St Kilda is also home to many shops – one of my favourite being Grill’d , fresh low-fat healthy burgers ‘made with love’ . This chain reminds me of my love of In-N-Out burgers (if you’ve never had one, you REALLY do not know what you’re missing out!), but more expensive. Seeing that we were still both stuffed from lunch, we ordered the Mighty Melbourne Burger to share – consisting of 100% lean burger, crispy bacon, cheese, free range egg, beetroot, salad, herbed mayo and relish. Yum Yum Good..

As bacon would testify….

So the yummy…

Closer look at the cross section of the burger…

It’s most definately not cheap, burger & chips plus one pot of herbed mayo dip cost AU17. BUT it was worth it for a treat, so juicy, delish and tasty. We had a slow and lazy walk to the other side of St Kilda, and caught the tram back to the City to grab a pint with bens before we headed home. You can tell how tired I was – I did not even take pictures of the bar. Sigh. Suffice to say, it was a very lovely bar where we were sat out in th balcony overlooking Melbourne’s rush hour traffic. Ahh…rush hour traffic – I can just feel the smog and I LOVE IT. A city girl through and through…living in the country confuses and slightly scares me. It may seem nice, but it’s really not for me. I really miss the rush and energy of a bustling metropolitan, the feeling that the city never sleeps..

Mags picked us up from the station with a tear-streaked Joel in the car….crying cause the grandma and aunt had took Jovan to the park without him. Aww. As we drove off from the station, I spotted a familiar sign and screamed STOPPP! I was under the impression that it was the Cheesecake Factory – the famed cheesecake shop overlooking Union Square in San Francisco. It wasn’t until we had purchased the cakes that I realise that it was an imitation!! Fail….this was called the Cheesecake Shop, not the Cheesecake Factory!!

We let Joel pick a cake, and he chose the most colorful cake of them all, cheesecake with a tropical fruit topping. The lovely puffiness of the Lemon Meringue cheesecake was too much to resist, so we got half of that as well. Mm mm good. I’m glad we got both of it …. it was not bad at all….when I realised it wasn’t the Cheesecake Factory I was expecting the worse. Apparently the Cheesecake Shop is also operating in the UK in random locations, so check it out if you do come across it.

Dessert done (by this time it was 7) it was time to start thinking of dinner. Yeah. You’d think that we’d just been released from a concentration camp and was food-deprived. After long discussions with a variety of suggestions (from Assam Laksa to chinese restaurant) we eventually decided on the Pancake Factory – only for me to realise upon arrival that it was the exact same restaurant that my brother took me when I was there in 2006. How odd! So we went next door instead to La Porchetta.

One half of us

The other half with the kids – still can’t believe that we all squeezed into one car!!

Because we were all so stuffed to the gills with cheesecake, we ordered two steaks, a pizza and a prawn dish to be shared. Service wise it was abit strange – even though I requested for a rare, the waitress brought me a well-done and just kinda expected me to eat it. Well, NO. I’m paying for it and I asked for rare – it’s her bloody fault that it came out wrong isn’t it? Bleah. So I sent it back even though she was staring daggers at me.

The tomato pizza with sundried tomatoes and regular sliced. Yummy.

.

The massive porterhouse steak smothered with lovely mushroom sauce. The rare tasted miles better, and I loved the sauce. The side salad was lovely with a drizzle of balsamic dressing. See, when they do actually deliver what I asked for it was lovely!

.

On my way out, I snapped a picture of the restaurant – as I do, naturally….

If you look closer, you would see that everyone seemed to be looking for something – Joel dropped his lollipop in the hedge and all the adults were scrambling around trying to rescue his lolly from the hedge! Hilarious – Bens actually had to climb INTO the hedge to get to the lollipop in the dark

It was my last night in Melbourne, so we just headed home and popped the TVB serials into the dvd player – at this point, even bacon was engrossed (it had english subtitles) and it was so funny that we had flown half way across the globe to watch a chinese serial with two other people who flew in from Malaysia – . But this is what any good Chinese family do – so we manage to finish the whole serial eventually that night. At about 2am!!!

Joel & Jovan….damn technological, not even 4 and he’s already downloading stuff on mommy’s iPhone and shaking it all around. Can’t beat me in wii boxing though..hur hur hur…this godmother is so competitive that she insist on beating a 3.5 year old in virtual boxing. Hopeless. Although that got a giggle from didi…which was funny.

St. Kilda. What’s that up in the sky??? Oh. BLUE SKIES. Novelty. Cloudless blue skies – even more so!

.

Contacts

Mamuska Cheesecake Shop

Grill’d

La Porchetta

Yes, in case you didn’t know, I’m back from the land Down Under with reluctance. And here marks the start of a massive day-by-day account of my two weeks in Australia…I really did not want to come home!

Even though we left on Saturday morning, we actually left Leeds on the Friday – we were booked into the Holiday Inn for the one night as we had to be at Heathrow at 6.30 in the am. Yawwn. We flew with Ethiad this time, and the flight was super long as expected, but fairly uneventful. Well, other than the two-hour delay in Abu Dhabi, which meant that we had to have our CNY eve dinner (the MOST important meal in the Chinese lunar calender) at the local Burger King! Shockers! We had the mushroom swiss – something common in Malaysia’s burger king but not in the UK. How odd.

.

.

Upon landing in Melbourne, more chaos ensued. The line for Customs literally snaked around all the luggage claim carousels – omg, about 100 times worse than the bad name given to American customs. It was total shambles – I would suggest people to try not to fly into Melbourne from abroad it is so bad. I specifically made a point not to bring any food to shorten my wait time, and yet it took me about ONE HOUR from the moment I retrieved my luggage to when I actually walked out of the airport. Geeze. It was so long that Benny (my chauffer for the night) actually hung out at the airport arcade with his shooting games. God.

We arrived at Bens & Mags’ home clutching a 7-11 slurpee that I insisted on getting on the way (the UK does not have the 7-11 franchise, so sue me). Bacon showered and immediately hit the sack whilst I sat there chewing the fat with mags and snacking on roast pork and other leftovers. Mags’ sis & mom were visiting from Malaysia as well – if it wasn’t for the fact that this was Mag, I would have most definately insisted on not interfering and moving to a hotel! As it was, she one of my oldest and closest friend and if there were someone’s family that I would treat like my own, it would be hers. So it was Mag, Bens, the kids, mom, sis, me & bacon….all squeezed in their three bedroomed. They sacrificed the guest bedroom for me & bacon, whilst bens was banished to the study and everyone else squeezed into the master bedroom! Now, if this is not what you call a friend, I don’t know what is!

.

On the second day, me & bacon went off to the city after polishing off the super delicious congee that Mags’ sister cooked up for breakfast with dried scallops, dried mussels and leftover roast chicken. We walked around abit, getting to know the city again. The last time we were here I just literally followed my brother around blindly…this time around we had to recognize landmarks ect to ensure we don’t get lost. Melbourne is very similarly built to an American city – all organised straight lines and 90 degree corners. The only difference would be the number of alleyways – especially those only accessible by foot. And they are where all the best restaurants are. Yuummz

.

We met up with Vivian for lunch – one of the regular commentator/reader of this blog that I had been chatting with for a few years now. It was wonderful meeting her at last, and she brought us to this little gem of a shanghainese restaurant – Hutong Dumpling Bar. What a lovely name, don’t you think?

Vivian ordered for us, as I had no idea what I wanted other than xiao loong bao (shanghainese dumplings, which I can’t seem to get good ones in the UK). She also ordered the pan-fried version of the dumplings, a fried noodle dish and fried rice cakes ,traditionally eaten during Chinese New Year

xiao loong baos – very delish and delicate. Mm mm good.

fried dumplings. Similar to the xiao loong baos, the skin on this was slightly thicker, but inside the lovely stock that seeped out of the stuffing is maintained.

Fried noodles. I did not catch the actual name of this dish (vivian?) but it was yummy. Bacon loved this.

fried rice cakes. very delicate flavours, it tempers the flavours of the other dishes that we had.

Vivian even kindly picked up the bill (this tourist is unashamed)…wahh! Here’s a picture of us outside the restaurant…everybody say hi Vivian!

You would think after all that food we would be too full to eat anything else? NO YOU ARE SO WRONG. After walking with Vivian towards her office, we then went to Koko Black. Koko Black is a semi-famous chocolate bar, with glowing recommendation from quite a few people but similarly a number of detractors as well. From the outside, it looks really good and posh, with quite a few people lining up to purchase the handmade chocolates that they produce.

We went for the Summer Spoil for two:

.

And this was what it contained…

ps: bacon not included. heehee.

Chocolate ice cream, chocolate mousse, chocolate pieces, chocolate cake, shortbread and two iced chocolates.

Okay, I am going to be honest here. I side with the detractors…THIS IS NOT VERY GOOD AT ALL! The chocolate simply tasted of poor quality chocolate, somewhat like Malaysian chocolate where you just know that the cocoa mass is low and poor quality milk is used. I guess if this was your first visit to a ‘chocolate boutique’ then maybe the whole experience would be interesting, but there are way better chocolate boutiques in Australia (they seem to be a nation of chocolate & coffee lovers -my sort of country!) that you shouldn’t really be wasting stomach space in koko black.

Still, to each their own, Koko Black has its own large fan base – I’m just not one of them. I did get comments that Koko Black’s quality had deterioted – maybe it did used to be fabulous. Just imagine – I did not even finish any of it, and it wasn’t because we were full.

By the time me & bacon polished this off, we could hardly walk, and had to explore Melbourne city very, very slowly…whilst waiting for bens to finish work so we could sneak off for a drink. We had some Kronenburg (in Australia, yeah I know)….and had to head home on the train after one as the family were waiting for us for dinner. I know – food – AGAIN! Gaaah!

This time around it was in Boxhill, the massive asian community suburb in Melbourne about 30 mins train ride away. Situated literally just behind the complex where the train station was located, it was easy for us to walk and meet Mags and the rest of the family there.

Bens did all the ordering, putting up with my pathetic request for pho – the lovely vietnamese beef marrow soup noodle. Mm mm good – little did I know this was going to be the FIRST and the LAST time I had pho in this trip! It’s so good I can have it everyday, but other food unfortunately beckons….Anyway, moving on, Benny also ordered a number of other dishes:

.

Sugarcane with fish paste. Interesting intrepretation of the classic vietnamese dish – fish paste moulded on a stick of sugar cane and grilled, served like a satay. This version seems to have fried the fish cake instead, and sliced. The lovely sweetness of the sugar cane contrasted appropriately with the savoury fish cake – yums.

Curried clams. This was the first time I encountered this dish – and it was divine, especially when you dip into the curry with fried bread (mantau).

Vietnamese cold platter. I think this was meant to be a starter, basically a selection of vietnamese ham drizzled with nuoc cham.

Fried ginger fish stew. This feels, looks and taste like one of the ‘tai chow’ dishes that you can get in Hong Kong or Malaysia. Deepfried fish steaks covered in ginger/cornstarch/oyster sauce gravy, this had a taste of home to it. Not too sure what is it’s official name though!

And last but not least – I’ve missed you so much – fried kangkung (water convolulous). A vegetable that is common in Malaysia, this dish is not common at all in the UK, and I had missed it dearly. Sigh. Benny and I have very similar tastebuds, can you tell?

.

After that massive food feed, it was definately a challenge to stuff us all in their family saloon car – imagine this, six adults, two toddlers, one Toyota. OMG. It’s like the whole village have been stuffed in the car and we looked like a bunch of illegal immigrants. Hilarious. We headed home , and continued the TVB serial marathon. HAHAHA I KNOW. A marathon session of chinese serials in Australia.

A very good and tiring first day, but it was definately great to meet the little one at last and gasp at how much Joel had grown in the past two years….so tall and skinny, no longer the chubby little dumpling of a baby that I knew! I already miss my friends and their little family…

Contacts

Hu Tong Dumpling Bar(03) 9650 8128
CBD, 14-16 Market Ln
Melbourne

Koko Black
Shop 4 Royal Arcade, 335 Bourke Street,
Melbourne, VIC 3000 – (03) 9639 8911

An An Vietnamese RestaurantAddress: 598 Station Street ,Box Hill
Melbourne, VIC.
Tel: 03 9898 8992

If you’ve missed any of my previous installments on the track to Australia, well, below is just for you! A summary of Le Barkers’ Australian tour of 2006

Making it from Leeds
Sun, Surf, Lobsters & burgers
Victoria’s Great Ocean Road
Philip Island’s Kangaroos & Penguins
U of Melbourne’s Graduation
Yarra Valley & Lygon St.
Sydney’s Rocks Weekend market & Haymarket
Sydney Fish Market, Star Casino, Aquarium & Towers
Manly Beach
A do-nothing day
Bondi, Coogee & Paddy’s Market

Ahhhhh…I am so proud of myself for finally cataloging this.

This is slotted to be the last in my OZ series. Not many pictures – mainly because my poor camera was literally washed away when a giant surf hit me .

Bacon had insisted that even if it was thundering or raining cats and dogs, there was no way he was going to miss out on Bondi. Thank god the sun was shining and all was well in paradise.

We agreed on,Breakfast on Bondi, Lunch at Coogee, Dinner at Darling. Today it was bus time, and we took a bus from just behind our hotel all the way to Bondi beach front. Initially we wanted to catch the bus to Bondi Junction – apparently that was the bus stop,not the beach.Thank god the driver was very nice and asked us if we were actually heading to the Beach.

After a pleasant 40 mins meandering up to Bondi, we hopped off to be greeted by a long beautiful stretch of beach with a matching row of shops and restaurants. Guess what did I have for breakfast?

Mouhahahah! It is actually a very famous Scottish delicacy,but I couldn’t find it when I was up at Edinburgh, so of course, I had to have it.Deepfried.Yumm

Can you see the melty nougat centre?OMG TO DIE FOR. It tastes just like a melted mars bar, gooey,chocy,but warm as well – sort of like deepfried ice cream but warm

Stomach satiated (if not a little nauseus) we headed on to Bondi – where a naked photoshoot was going on! Hahahah! Bacon refused to walk in front of the seedy-looking man shooting this blonde with small tits squirming against the hot australian sun. The thing was, there is nothing wrong with nudity/toplessness – sunbathing topless is a almost a requirement on Bondi (and the other beaches that we went to that day) but the fact that after that naked photoshoot she was filmed running down the beach topless made it extremely hilarious!

Sorry, thought it was rude to shoot her.Don’t know why though.They might think that I would sell those softporn pixs off.

Contemplating Bondi

I wanna bag myself a surfer boy…yumm:)

Can you spot yourself a topless one?

Bondi-ed feet

I want to live in one of em…

After lying in the sun for about an hour, it was time to move on again – Bacon wanted to walk towards Coogee (I think a 3 hour coastal walk!!) but I veto-ed it immediately. We then headed to the taxi ranks and took one of them instead to Coogee, which is a located about 15min drive from Bondi and much smaller and quiter. Plus it also seems to be more local rather than touristy snap happy.

One of my fav food in oz is sushi – due to the closeness of many of the major ports,the fish is VERY FRESH.Heck, all it’s seafood are very fresh and delicious..we had a AU2 for any plate sushi for lunch and popped down to the beach immediately to see what the fuss is about with Coogee. Even the cabdriver said that it was nicer than Bo

Man overboard!

Just as I snapped this picture,my poor Nikon was splashed by a giant wave,so we waved it goodbye for a while..I was quite traumatized by it…but seeing that this was our last beach trip, I just shut my eye and tried to enjoy the sun for a little longer.I still like Manly the best from all three Sydney beaches, and if you only had time for one, I would recommend Manly.Sigh…I miss the sand.

We left at 3 to head back towards the city, and seeing that it was a Thursday, bought a monorail day pass and headed towards the famed Paddy’s market by chinatown(haymarket). We were expecting it to be a full fledged market like Victorias’ market was in Melbourne but it falls short of expectations.However, it had a great selection of souveniers – bought some tea towels and oven mitts to bring home. I also went to the shopping centre next door which had a Mambo discount centre – suffice to say, I splurged again,like I was never going to see mambo stuff ever again. I even bought a makeup bag,like how bizzare.At 5pm the market traders were starting to shut – seeing that we were in chinatown I had to have one last bowl of Pho – this time at a hip pho restaurant just outside of Paddy’s.It was decorated with all red and black chinoiserie chic, but ran by vietnamese they produced a pretty decent bowl of pho. Obviously no pictures=no recollection of the restaurant’s name – now I know why I take pictures. My memories are all intact in Flickr’s safekeeping:).

Sigh- wet camera=no pix

Anyway, I don’t know how I do it, but we headed home to change and immediately left for Darling Harbour again, kiasu what,don’t want to waste the monorail day ticket at AU 9 each.This time, in search of another ribhaven -

Camera showing subtle signs of life…thank god.

We ordered nearly the same thing that we ordered yesterday – the ubiquitious rib platter

I want myyy—baby back baby back baby back ribs, sings the big fat blob from Austin Power.

Yummm…it was definitely better than Hard Rocks’ and did not had such a problem with their service, although, our server, which I think is Japanese, could only speak really broken English.

After the huge meal, it was time for one last walk on the harbor. We took it slow, savouring our last view of the beautiful Sydney nightscape.

Christmas was fast descending..

I love fake-looking pictures that is caused by the twilight back light

Sydney is a very special city. It has so many obvious attractions that are just in-your-face; attractions that makes it uniquely Sydney and unreplicated anywhere else. It has the charms of docks and beaches whilst being a fast growing city. It is so vibrant, and filled with character that it sometimes reminded me of San Francisco, with its crooked Lombard St, Fisherman’s wharf ect.

We were both quite upset to leave Australia.