random & NomNom: Ragu, Sassy's; Westfield Sydney Foodcourt; Magnum Shop

Everytime I need a craving fix for some good Italian pasta, I head to the city, instead of the Italian Forum in Leichardt. What's in the city? Good, hearty, and less expensive pasta (compared to some overpriced mediocre so-called Italian restaurants in the Italian Forum) at Ragu, located in Westfield Sydney (City) Top Foodcourt.

They have several other menus apart from pasta. For the pasta, they have a range of selection: from simple spaghetti to lasagne; from simple napolitana sauce, creamy boscaiola, to pesto.

My favourite is always their pesto sauce. I usually have it with ravioli, but any other type of pasta will be no less delicious. The pesto is gorgeously fragrant with generous drizzle of olive oil, and you could smell and taste the basil quite strongly - just the way I like it.

I guess it is a matter of personal taste, but the last time I ate a pesto pasta at a restaurant in the Italian Forum (which name escapes me as it was not impressive), the pasta costed me $20-ish dollars and the pesto was way too creamy and funnily enough - very sweet. Yuck.

This beautiful pesto ravioli at Ragu costs $14 and well worth the money.

1/2heart had Fried Rice from neighboring Sassy's Red, a tuckshop version of Chinta Ria. For $10, it was OK, but nothing to shout about.

There is a new shop in Westfield Sydney that will put Apple's store to shame in term of length of queue. But this is no gadget store. It is Magnum shop - not Magnum as in the one that could kill/shoot people - but the ice cream.

The Sydney Magnum Shop is located at Level 2 at Westfield Sydney. And holfyeffinGod, you will not have any trouble spotting this one. The queue was shocking.

It took us one hour to reach that Magnum sign

Just a display, don't think they are edible.

The shop creates a Magnum ice cream to your liking. That's right folks, it is custom made (the base ice cream is still the normal white/vanilla magnum though). There are a LOT of selection to adorn your custom made Magnum ice cream with. 

....

...

...

At $7 a pop.

Yep, they don't come cheap.

the toppings that I chose.

So if you paid $7 to create the normal almond/peanuts coated magnum....... ..... dang, you are crazy.

Step 1: choose the base coating for your Magnum: White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, or Dark Chocolate;

Step 2: choose the toppings (4 maximum) for your Magnum. From the traditional different kinds of nuts, to rose petals, goji berries, even rock salt.

Step 3: choose the chocolate for drizzling. Again: white, milk, or dark.

selected toppings put on the base chocolate coating

For the final touch, they put Magnum chocolate buttons (you can choose either dark or white) to adorn your Magnum.

These are ours:

Left: 

Dark Chocolate base. Toppings: pistachio, crushed chocolate coated coffee beans, goji berries, macadamia. Drizzled with Dark Chocolate

Right:

White Chocolate base. Toppings: rose petal, rose praline, dried strawberries, rock sea salt. Drizzled with Milk Chocolate.

The right one was mine. I was determined to make it as pretty as possible, although I am not much of a white chocolate fan. Haha. But adding the rock salt actually was a good decision as it counteract the overlysweetness of the white chocolate base. 

We felt kinda sick afterwards though.... . Usually we could only share one packet of store bought Magnum ice cream between the two of us, as they are very rich. So eating one each today was a bit overbearing for us. After the third bite, we struggled to finish them. :D

random & NomNom: Chanoma, TenkoMori, Senyai; Regent Place, Sydney CBD

Went to watch Pacific Rim today with 1/2heart, and boy what a movie it is. If you are into sci-fi, please do yourself a favour and watch it now. I personally like this movie way better than World War Z or Man of Steel.

We grabbed some grubs at the nearby Regent Place, a small interconnecting shopping and eateries hub that connects George St, Kent St, and Bathurst St. Haven't been there for a while and now the place is livelier than ever.

my apologies, random citizens, for the shot of your faces/profiles.

TenkoMori is one of those quick-to-serve Japanese eateries - no fuss and cheap. While a few other establishments focus on Udon, Rice/Don (like Menya Mappen and HanaHana), TenkoMori brings Ramen cheap and fast. The concept is pretty much the same - you order the ramen as 'base' - and they have quite a selection too - then add some side dishes (additional fee, of course), which include a selection of tempura, takoyaki, salad and desserts.

Black Garlic Tonkotsu Ramen, with a side dish of half-boiled flavoured egg

Chanoma - a Japanese cafe that has replaced the previously well-known Azuma patisserie. But for the better - their green tea drinks and desserts on their menu are drool-worthy.

And I highly approve their matcha shiratama float - an iced matcha drink with matcha soft ice cream. The matcha flavour left slight bitter aftertaste true to its matchaness nature (if there is such a word), and not too much milky aftertaste that I absolutely dislike.

Matcha Shiratama Float with ricecakes & wasabi flavoured french fries

 They also serve Japanese hotdogs - well, really just hotdogs - but Japanese always could make something so simple taste good and look appetizing.

Chanoma Cheese Dog

27/7/13 - updated 

Their Matcha Latte is delicious and has quite strong matcha taste. 

Teriyaki Chicken Dog with avocado and Wasabi Mayo

For dinner and as our last stop, we went to Senyai - a Thai small eatery located on the lower floor of Regent Place (Kent St. side). I had to say it was quite a disappointing experience, despite the nice selection of dishes and promising look of the place.

We ordered deep fried fish that costs $29. For this price, I expected a full fish - such as snapper or bream, deep fried to crispy goodness, and seasoned with a special sauce they should homemade. What we got was a few deep fried battered white fish fillet - not unlike frozen ones that could be gotten for cheap at the fish market - smothered in normal sweet chilli sauce, perhaps too much sweet chilli sauce that they actually made my tongue numb in protest (not because it was spicy, but because it was too much of the sweet & sourness that would be OK to be consumed in small quantities, but not this much). The only thing that made this dish 'unique' were pieces of canned lychees & rambutans & chunks of pineapples strewn over the plate that didn't really add any flavour to the fish.

The Morning Glory vegetable dish stir fried in chilli fared better, but for $16, this left us somewhat unsatisfied. We have had better version and about double the portion for about the same price at Albee's Kitchen in Campsie.

1/2heart said their tomyum fried rice tasted good (he went there once for lunch), and I guess I will be coming back to this place to try other Thai basic dishes (pad see ew, padthai, fried rice, etc). but probably will avoid coming during dinnertime when the price is more expensive than their lunchtime counterpart and especially when tonight I felt significantly ripped off.

Don't get me wrong. I am willing to pay the price for good quality and tasty food, but this place doesn't cut it for me. For the similar price range, I would rather dine at ChatThai or Home, or @Bangkok.

NomNom: Tokonoma; Sydney, Surry Hills

Most people would probably already know of discounted deals sites such as Groupon, LivingSocial, Cudo, etc, by now. They constantly advertise deals on various items, and even holidays and fine dining.

Fine dining using coupons/vouchers could be hit and miss. I have had some goods ones, but equally some bad ones as well. With the bad ones - you get subpar food and service than you would receive if you paid full price.

Fortunately, no such thing with Tokonoma. The classy dimly lit restaurant is a perfect place for a quiet romantic night, and with the voucher we purchased from Groupon ($89 for degustation course for two people), it was even better.

I butchered the pictures while trying to make them brighter, as I only relied on my iphone to take them -_-. The place is dark and I couldn't get proper photos.

But hey, the food is more important.

Salt and Pepper Calamari, Kingfish Carpaccio, Nigiri, Sushi Roll

The most memorable from the above dish would be the carpaccio - firm tasty fresh kingfish slices drizzled with tangy and sweet ponzu sauce.

The seared pork belly was very delicious and tender, but I definitely prefer the scotch fillet. They cooked it to perfection - raw in the middle and sweet on their own. 

The rest of the dish are good too - Zucchini kushiyaki, Sashimi, Scallops, and Dessert of Ice Cream and Cream Brulee.

The Cream Brulee had a very fragrant vanilla smell and taste.

Service was attentive and the food kept coming at constant - but not rushed - pace. 

For $89? Well worth the money. I plan to come back to eat a-la-carte and try their other menu on offer.

Tokonoma

490 Crown Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010

Tel: +61 2 9357 6100

travel: South Korea 2013 Day 8: Seoul: Lotte Department Store, flight back home

Finally got the chance to update this blog for the last day in Korea.

You know, we were a bit worried for the past 2 days during our trip - because the almighty (insert sarcasm here) Kim Jong-Un started making threats around those days. But South Koreans were like - meh, business/pleasure like usual for us... .

In any case, no one really wishes for another war to break out. With armies and weapons owned by the countries in this era, the result will probably be the end of our civilization.

31/03/13

We went to Lotte Department Store connected to Euljiro (il) ga subway, mainly because it is close to Myeong-Dong, so we could do last minute shopping :P

*sigh* I really envy department stores in Asia... . So full of nice goodies... .

flower salad. Soooo pretty. I wonder how they will taste...

what is that green thing? the same with the others? I thought that was some kind of super small watermelon?

 

our considerably simple lunch of fish cake udon, various fried food, and dumplings

After buying some snacks for colleagues and relatives back home, we walked to Myeong-Dong (barely 5 minutes). It is crowded like usual, although not so much compared night time.

Myeong-Dong is full of trendy shops and a lot of cosmetic/beauty shops. And there are more than one of the same shop/brand in the vicinity. But the one that is most memorable to me is 'Nature Republic'. Not because I am a fan of their products, but because of their big-ass posters and advertisements of Jang Geun Suk plastered everywhere. And 1/2heart finally fully understand the meaning of androgynous.

1/2heart asked me after observing the huge display of Nature Republic advertisement featuring JGS, "Is she an actress or Kpop singer?"

I was like, "That's a man."

and the face 1/2heart made, then looking back at the poster, then looking back at me, then the poster....

Priceless.

Even after looking at a full body display of JGS (which clearly shows his flat chest, though I must admit he has very lean features...), 1/2heart still remarked "a girl! with very flat chest".

I think needless to say, 1/2heart underestimated the androgyny of Korean male artists....

Anyway, flight back to Sydney was flawless, and I had Ssambap for dinner. (yummy).

rest lounge at Incheon airport