So....I guess I was being a bit ambitious when I committed to writing regular blog updates. It's been almost 5 months since my first blog update, and my life's just been too crazy busy for me to dedicate much time to this project. This is rather unfortunate, as some pretty awesome things have happened in the meantime and the whole point of this blog was to pinpoint events in my life.
Anyways, it's now the summer holidays and I have oodles of time to update this thing. So I'm going to start by bombarding you with heaps of food photos from the past few months. There's a mix of everything and all of it was delicious. So yes, it tasted amazing as it looked.
TO THE FOOD!
This beauty was originally slated to be in a blog post titled
"Brodburgers and Batman'. The post was about going to watch the Dark
Knight Rises and eating at the locally famous Brodburger restaurant in Canberra. I almost completed the blog entry, but I gave up in the end. It wasn't very exciting; it was just a rant about how ridiculously good looking everyone in the movie was, and how delicious Brodburgers were. Instead, I've salvaged the most important thing from the entry: A VEGGIE BURGER! Grilled haloumi, courgettes, eggplant, roasted peppers, lettuce and aioli in a toasted bun...absolute heaven.
Brodburger's chicken burger. I didn't have this one, but the filling was amazing. Grilled chicken with avocado, bacon, tomato, lettuce and brie cheese with mayo. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE IT?
The next few pictures are from a trip I made to Melbourne for a debating tournament. Before the tournament started, a friend and I walked to this packed out Vietnamese place on Swanston for some pho. Man, THIS PLACE WAS AMAZING. It literally felt like you had walked into Asia: the tables were packed side by side (we had to share a table with other patrons), the service was fast paced and best of all, the food was SO AUTHENTIC and aromatic! This massive bowl of beef pho cost $9.50 (!!!) and we shared it between the two of us.
Calamari salad from a banquet meal I ate during the finale dinner. I love calamari (and seafood, generally :P) and this was served nicely with an Asian salad, me thinks.
This dish is also from the same restaurant. They seemed to do a pretty good job of seafood dishes, because this was very scrumptious. What I love more than salmon is crispy skinned salmon. On a bed of mash. With avocado and tomato salsa. And a wedge of tarty lemon to finish the dish off. *foodgasmfaint*
Fish tempura from a Thai restaurant in Melbourne. This meal was another event dinner and the banquet was so amazeballs. I literally could not stop eating. The tempura batter was so light and fluffy and I am not joking when I say that the fish melted in my mouth. SO SO SO GOOD. I will return back to this restaurant one day, IF ONLY TO TASTE THIS DELICIOUS DISH ONCE AGAIN!
This was taken at an Italian restaurant on Laigon Street in Melbourne. Laigon is famous for their Italian cuisine and we decided to top off our meal with a decadent - wait for it - nutella pizza! It was really just dough with nutella stuffed inside, but when heated, the nutella just oozed out and was beautiful with the soft dough and cool, creamy ice cream. This is something I definitely shall attempt to replicate at home...
During one of the afternoon teas, we were served the most ADORABLE muffins/cupcake thingies. This was only one of the varieties available. Other toppings included oreo, raspberry and white chocolate, cheesecake and other amazing toppings. JUST SO CUTE!
Most of the next photos are from some additional trips to Sydney. This dish above is spicy rice noodle jelly (凉粉). It's ridonkulously hard to translate in English and it's even harder to describe, especially most Westerners haven't tried it before. (It's obviously not of the same culinary cult status as fried rice :P) This type of cuisine is typical of the Sichuan region in China and I absolutely love the cool, slippery texture of the noodles with the spice from the chillies. I have to eat this EVERY TIME I see it on a menu somewhere; this delicious dish was bought at the Friday night markets in Chinatown, Sydney.
This is a Taiwanese dessert from a franchise called Meet Fresh. I am always hugely devastated when I return to Canberra and there are no Asian dessert places to greet me. This dessert is made from shaved iced flavoured with honey syrup, taro, rea beans, tapioca pearls, sweet potato and glutinous balls. These desserts are much less sweet than Western style cakes or puddings and are very refreshing in Summer. The texture is so great - you have the soft, chewy glutinous balls and tapioca which are complimented really nicely by the root vegetables and beans and the cool, shard-like texture of the ice. I love these desserts: they are much healthier, lighter and actually somewhat nutriously guilt-free...but best of all the taste AMAZING. So Asian Canberrans UNITE! And open an Asian dessert cafe nooooooow!
While walking through Chinatown one night, my mum discovered a joint which served these humungous and highly satisfying stir fries. The really novel part about this restaurant was that you got to choose what fillings you wanted in your dish, and then the take it to your table, wok and all, straight from the fire. We got a vegetarian one with cauliflower, lotus roots, mushrooms, onion and tofu and it was SAH CHEAP ($20ish) for SAH MUCH.
These are cold spicy noodles from the same restaurant. I love love love noodles and again, I couldn't resist. Also, I am still amazed by the size of the portions in Sydney - LOOK HOW MANY NOODLES THERE WERE!
A Thai meal for lunch one day. This was braised pork belly with stewed mustard greens and egg. I love Thai food and the pork was so meltingly soft. DROOOOOOOOOOOL.
Classic takoyaki from a food court in Chinatown, Sydney. In my days as a first year uni student, I used to watch Youtube videos of Japanese street vendors cooking these octopus balls ALL THE DAMN TIME! There is something so addictive about the soft and fluffy texture of the batter, made even tastier by the takoyaki sauce and mayonnaise, that makes these impossible to resist.
Another wonder from the Chinatown food courts: sweet and sour fish! This was ridiculously cheap, like $9.50 or something? I had to take it away and I happily ate the rest when I got back to Canberra that same night. :)
This seafood marinara is courtesy of a bar/pub cafe in Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast. My friend ordered this because I was too stingy to part with $28 for this dish. But it did look and smell pretty damn delicious. This was the only time we ate out in the Gold Coast (typical poor students) and I opted for a fish fillet salad special for $9 instead.
Spicy Squid from a Korean restaurant in Sydney. The ANU sent a delegation to attend a conference and we had a semi-delegation dinner on the second night. I am a HUGE fan of Korean food and there's just something so lovely and homely about sharing a hearty meal with all your friends after exams. <3
...so, this is the end of my food adventures highlight reel from the past couple of months. I am going to pat myself on the back for finishing this and fingers crossed that it won't be too long before I do my next post! (Which won't probably be about food, boo...but will still feature oodles of pictures, yay!)
Peace out,
Ruohan
the nutella pizza...
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