NomNom: Sauce Bar & Grill; Coogee // Random: Aroma Festival 2013; The Rocks

It has been over a year since we last visited Sauce, a modern Australian restaurant that when it first opened a few years back, claimed to be competing with Hurricane's infamous ribs.

And rightly so. We remember that when we used to frequent dining there, their steak and ribs were not subpar compared to the latter-more-famous restaurant chain. But as we haven't been to Sauce for quite some time, it was also a pleasant surprise to know that their food's still as good.

1/2heart received an email invitation for a complimentary main course to dine in the month of July - because it is his birthday month. (We subscribed to their newsletter since years ago when we used to be frequent diners there, and we still receive updates and offers). So, it was a perfect opportunity to revisit the place for our carnivorous-fix.

Specials and Appetizers menu board

There were hardly anyone when we came for lunch.

1/2heart ordered Crispy Skinned Atlantic Salmon (which he chose as his complimentary course), and I had half-portion of beef ribs.

One word: Yum!

Salmon was cooked to absolute perfection, skin was crispy and the middle was pink and soft.

Although I have tried their pork ribs numerous times before, this was the first time I've ever had their beef ribs. for a half portion, it was a decent size. And their homemade chips served as accompaniment to the ribs were so crispy & flavorsome.

'SauceNo5' - a Bacardi based cocktail

Sauce is located close to Coogee beach, providing nice surroundings to burn those calories intake you just could not help to digest.
Today was a bit windy, but weather was absolutely pleasant.

Sauce Bar & Grill

2A/29-31 Alfreda St, Coogee

02 96647550

Afterwards, we headed to the city - The Rocks, for Aroma Festival. It is an event emphasizing on all things coffee.

There were a lot of pop-up coffee shop, complemented with The Rocks Market that is usually only open on Saturdays. The Rocks Market showcases a lot of handmade products and there are also a lot stands serving food and snacks.

look at these cute cupcake-candles. So creative.

Needless to say, we ate more -_-

'chocolate pop' - we chose blood orange & dark choc champagne. 

this one was meh...

We did try a few coffee although we both are not much of coffee drinkers (on the other hand, I am quite a tea-nazi. I drink probably over 2 liters of green tea everyday). Most of the coffee stands had crazy long queue, so we only got to try a few.

Love this shop and its coffee slogans:

From 'coco', we ordered a brioche with hazelnut gelato - served sandwich style. ($8)

But I like this one so much better: Affogato with hazelnut gelato (also $8). Their Affogato is so bitter and strong (love the aftertaste), and combined with the sweetness of the gelato.... mmmm.... yumminess.

We didn't get to try much of the other stands' coffee. We did try a cappuccino from 'the wood roaster' - supposedly selling wood roasted coffee. But the wood-roasting doesn't really alter or add any uniqueness to the coffee. Or perhaps I should have ordered something else from there.

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.