Just another party

This was pretty much Mr. AK's party, so for more pictures you probably wanna go to his blog. I think this is the first official drinking meet of the PRAHA drinking team which consists of the president (Dez-left), the secretary (Tina-right) and the only member (Alan-center). This is the before eveyone got very very happy. The main spread of the day are the drinks! i think there was enough variety to make enough different cocktails. Tammy made Pimms, dont know what's in it, but has lots of fruits.

Well, alan made is hot mexican chilli dip with nachos. For the mains, from the italian bible cookbook (silverspoon) the Pork loin in grape juice. One of the sides, which was fantastic was the marinated eggplant. very very nice. the zucchini salad which we forgot and remade with buffalo mozzarella turned out fantastic too. Alan made three deserts, Grand marnier frozen souffle (which turned out bad), tirami su and apple cake.

It was a very short 8 hour drinking session, we've had apple, water melon margaritas, cosmopolitan blended and shaken, lots of other drinks which i have no idea what names they were. And i guess the highlight was the uniCUM thanks to tina....

And just a quick, after everyone has drank too much, shot.

Great to have everyone over.

RISE to the occasion

The restaurant RISE has been having a promotion on their degustation menu. Seven course dinner at 30% discount. So $42 for the course. Great price. It is a japanese fusion restaurant in Darlinghurst. There was a 2 hour limit on the time for dinner, so we went for the early one, at six. There was already people there and all of them were asian. More than half were people from Hongkong. Anyway, back to the food. Here is the menu for the day:

First Dish: Entree- Chicken and tofu with miso and sesame sauce

Soup: Tofu stuffed with mince calamari (there was also sago in the soup which was quite interesting)

Sashimi: Raw oyster (i think with soy and grated raddish) , Kingfish (Some soury sauce) and Trout (with Soy and wasabi) No we did not SHOT the Sashimi

Mixed Plate: Salmon with spiced mayo (curry spice), Soft-shell crab sushi and Tuna tartare in wanton. Thought this was interesting mix of flavour.

Pasta: Scallop on rice noodles and papaya salad [a little like thai]

Main: Steamed Fish (cant remember what fish) with tempura zucchini flower with the option of rice. This wasnt too impressive, but was still good.

Desert: Panacotta with plum granita (need i say more?) yumm...... always too small

Overall ok. Some interesting mixes/fusion. But without the discount, i think it is a little steep. And that's that.

Oh GOSH! Dinner!

Went to des and tam's place for dinner today. Didnt cook anything for dinner, but help make a souffle and screwed up a little of the stuff. This lemon souffle with almond on top. We added two less egg whites cos we ran out of eggs, the texture was a little harder than expected, probably because of the egg whites, but it wasnt too bad. Will keep people posted when we try to make it again.

Brought the desert over with a 5L keg of beer. Des cooked the whole day and made a spanish seafood paella. It was great! Squid, mussels, Chorizo, Prawns, Chicken..... Yumm... Very very filling too. And to go with it.... Sangria, homemade. Very nice too. Very very fruity. :o)

Des made a desert. Orange cake. hehe. He didnt buy enough cheese, so it was a little thin and full of cookie base. But taste wise, was still ok. We'll have to get him to try to make it again.

After dinner, we watched Napoleon Dynamite. Though i have seen this show sit on the civic store for the last few years, i have not rented it. But it turned out to be quite funny......" Oh! Gosh!"......

Thanks for dinner Dez+Tam

Pan's Labyrinth

Went to watch Pan's Labyrinth on Sat. at Dendy's newtown. This is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro (Director of Hellboy, mimic etc). The story went straight into the fantasy world with the little girl (Ofelia) and her mom. I was a little angry with the dendy there, when the entire movie did not fit the screen. The top part of the movie was outside the screen and when Alan went to complain about it, they said that they could not do anything about it. Ergg.... but oddly, it became ok later, so that was good. Anyway, I wont go into the story, but just that i liked it, not expecting that much violence (but was ok), hoped that there was more fantasy element in it, but loved the characters. If you are undecided about the movie, you can go have a look at the Pan's Labyrinth website. But definitely worth going. Just look at the awards and nominations the movie's got.

Peanuts

One of my favourite desert is the peanut cookie, the chinese style, or maybe more the nyonya type. And here in OZ, you can get those only at some of the oriental shops which are not very good at all (but i still buy them). So i got Alan to get some nicer ones when he went back to singapore this time from Bengawan Solo (one of the most popular cake branches in singapore). The ones he got wasnt too bad, but not good enough, so i went online to search for the recipes to make some, but it was a little complicated, since everyone calls it different things, peanut melts etc. But alan found one to try out.

This is what they looked like before they are cooked. Basically, its peanuts, lots of sugar and lots of fat (Butter) and a bit of baking soda.

And here they are all cooked, together with his little man which acquired a ball of sorts during the bake.

They look really nice, but were different from the ones they have in singapore.... sigh.... so back to the internet to find more sources. Then i came by a blog from a malaysian lady (i think) who has a food blog with recipes, emailed her and she sent me the recipe she uses, and here it is: PERFECT!

Yeah! Now i dont have to buy anymore of the crappy ones from the supermarket. Yeah!

For those who are interested and can find time to make these: here is a link to the original site where i got the recipe from: teckiee