My Appled-Sausage Curry

My second attempt in cooking sausage curry with apples last night. I put a bit of a twist by putting indonesian veggies called 'labu siam', which I don't know the english word, and spring onion. I also put red wine vinegar that enhanced its smell and flavour.

Tasted good, I have to say that it was a success, except that it was a bit too spicy for us. I imagined my sister complaining to me for cooking something too spicy, typical me. I can't imagine if I cook on Masterchef Australia, I bet I will blow George Calombaris' head with my food, hahaha.....

Anyway, had a glass of lemon sparkling water along with the food while watching Masterchef. It was good having dinner with my brother again, I was excited with all the snacks he brought from Indonesia, hopefully they will last long!

Last Month of Interlude

Ok, been so long since my last post. I admit I have been procrastinating enough to not post anything in the last month.

Let's see the checklist of what I have done around....

1. an IELTS test, which I didn't pass the 8 all band obviously, otherwise I would have posted it sooner.
2. Indonesia and Malaysia, I put up 4 kg and of all those 2-3 kg is from one week in Malaysia.
3. Catch up with my friends in Indonesia.
4. Back to Melbourne and wanting to catch up with all friends.

Is that all? Perhaps, I can't recall anything else at the moment.

So it has been 6 months since my graduation and I have yet to find a suitable job for me and no PR application. It sounded so bad now that I put it this way. But I have applied for Master degree since about 3 months ago, since then I didn't really look for a job and just go with the flow, which felt really good.

Yup, it has been a short (or maybe a long one?) interlude, let's call it a gap (half) year before study. I learnt a lot from it. And I made new resolutions as well! Maybe it's too late to make resolutions in mid year like this, but surely it's better than nothing. The trigger for these resolutions are, surprise surprise, from Indonesia and Malaysia. I realised how stagnant the growth in Australia is and how significant changes took places in other countries. Of course I'm partly aware of the changes as we read newspapers, but it was merely like reading a fairy tale at that time.

Now that I realise that the world is broader than I think, I opened my mind and decided to let myself go with the flow, the good one obviously. I decided to study hard while looking for a more suitable part time job and will go to China to study Chinese. I will also do a backpacking or study language in Europe. And the good thing is, my father is willing to support me, both financially and mentally, for my grand Europe trip!

Oh, and I also decided to go home a lot on my semester breaks. Not that I want to avoid work and not that I don't want the money, I do love money! But I realised that while I'm young, I want to travel a lot, there are places that I have yet to visit, even in Indonesia.

SO! I'll be going back to Indonesia for 2 months from either December or January, and I will travel a lot! My family is planning for a trip to Japan! Can't be more excited than this! I wish I can see Hokkaido this time. Tours will usually take 2 weeks and I want to extend for another 2 weeks to do a backpack around Japan! Or maybe visit my cousin in South Korea for a week as well? Well, possibilities are unlimited at the moment. For now, I want my next holiday to be spent in Japan and in Indonesia (around Maluku or Sulawesi perhaps).

That's all for now.

Indo So Far with Approaching Melbourne

As you all know (or not), I went back to Indonesia for 3 weeks!
I am still in Indonesia, spending my last few days before flying back to Melbourne.
I just realised that I have not finished my culinary tour yet, there are still more to eat in my list, just for Jogjakarta!

One answer to that problem here, and this answer is not solving but just on checking why 3 weeks is not enough, is that I spent 1 week out of my 3 weeks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I shopped a lot, ate a lot and saw a lot. I spent about RM2000 there, equal to almost AUD700. If only I stayed in city centre, I would have spent MUCH more! But to cut costs, I stayed in my sister's apartment, yay me for not paying any accommodation.

My luggage now is filled with FOOD! And of course I got some souvenirs but they are not to be compared with the number of FOOD in my suitcase, hah! There are still places I want to visit and food I want to eat, but I know that my time will be up and all I want to do is spending my remaining time for my family.

My holiday was a short one and I might not be coming back to Indonesia for the next few years as I need to build up my leave for months in Europe. <3 Oh and I am planning to go backpacking to Japan too! Ah, so much in my travel list.

I will post more about my culinary trip, and pictures of course, when I get back to Melbourne.

And for now, ciao!

Metropol Weekend with Parisian and Vietnamese Tereat

Last Saturday was great for me.
I finished work a bit late hence had a really late lunch.

I went to East Richmond Station with my brother for my favorite macaron store, La Belle Miette. Didn't know they had a branch there, which is actually their kitchen!

We arrived at around 4.30pm, just 30 minutes from their closing time. Unfortunately we missed their limited edition macarons and madeleines. But that didn't sadden us at all. We indulged 4 macarons and 4 financiers, two of the financiers were complementory, and two cups of black coffee from their pop up cafe.

I had heaps of chats and laugh with the store owner and barrista there. Yup, we decided to chill out there until their closing time, it was only half an hour anyway!

Then we continued our culinary journey by walking to Victoria Street, which turned out to be about 5 blocks away! Luckily we was not in rush at all.

Victoria Street was like a grocery shop and restaurant heaven, literally. We took our time entering each shops. My brother suddenly had a sudden craving for dr. Pepper, a cherry flavored carbonated drink, so we tried to look for it.

We went a look at their new Woolworths and it was really cozy. We also went into Daiso, cheap Japanese goods store.

Then after all that walking, we decided to have early dinner at 6.30pm. We had this Vietnamese sizzling pancake and broken rice with pork chop at Tho Tho Bar and Restaurant. And believe me, it wasn't expensive at all!

After such delightful dinner, we went to our friends house in the city. They decided to drink and here comes the game. No details needed here, I guess.

We reached home at 3am, slept anf woke up ar 11am. I cooked some western breakfast of chips, bacon and eggs. Then we decided to make some croquettes. It turned out good!

We closed the weekend eith grocery shopping and chilling out at home the rest of the Sunday.

Thai Spicy Pork Belly

I made thai spicy pork belly on Wednesday. My brother and I browsed cokking books on Sunday and the recipe captivated him. I decided that we need to give it a go. It was a huge success! I even managed to make soup out of the stock! But one thing to be sure, it was too spicy for both of us to handle.... I'll post the recipe next time, either here or in Facebook. For now, please enjoy the picture. ;p

Mung Bean Porridge?

Had a lazing morning and afternoon at home. Tried to fix my thai green curry and it tasted better, even if it's still not to what I expected.

Then I tidied up my brother and my room a bit. It looked more spacious now. :)

And then, I tried to make some mung bean porridge, aka bubut kacang ijo in Indonesian. I'm not too sure if I can call it that. I just tried to make it without recipe at all. But it turned out well, my housemates and my brother like it. Maybe I'll make some more for tommorow's breakfast. ^^

It's Now March 2012

Can't believe time flies that fast, March, 2012!
Maybe when I blinked, it will be April already!

First week of March, let's see.....
I had a good start, especially this Saturday, March 3rd.
Had an all-you-can-eat Indonesian beef ribs at a soft opening of an Indonesian restaurant.
I went there with my brother and my housemate. I am sure I ate the least rice, but that doesn't mean that I was actually satisfied, I wanted more but perhaps everyone else had too much rice and they did not want another serving of ribs, too bad. If only I had no shame, I would have ordered another serving, haha...

Then we went to Glen Ferrie to Crampler store, it is a bag's brand fyi.
Each of us bought ONE! But I had the best deal, 70% OFF! From $80 into $24, how good is that?
Doesn't mean that it is the best one, I had my eye on one bag but it will rip a $100 bill from my pocket and that's a big No-No.

After having enough fun in the store, we went to City, each of us shopped around a bit then sat down in Max Brenner's Chocolate Melbourne Central to wait for Church mass at 6pm. Believe me, I was really disappointed with the service there. I had to wait for more than 30 minutes for my drinks to be served, which I didn't mind actually as I had 2 hours to spare... BUT! It took them more than half an hour to serve a glass of water! Might take them longer but one of my friend just went to the counter and asked for the water himself. THEN! (Yup, it's not finished) My croissant came just few minutes after I ordered. I told the waitress that I wanted my croissant to come together with the drinks, in which I have to repeat to this waitress that seemed like the supervisor. Yet she replied, "Oh, I can take it back now and bring it later if you want, but it will be the same." with such unpleasant way of talking. I went speechless for a few seconds. A bit of secret, she is Indonesian, almost all of the staffs working there at that time are Indonesian, and I decided not to argue with this stupid waitress and just accepted my croissant that time, but don't expect me to come back with a lot of orders! I might be only ordering just ONE thing if my friends insist to go there, which I'd rather not of course.

After church, we headed to this new ramen store called "Kokoro", which means heart, in Lonsdale Street near the corner of Russel Street. First impression, everyone there is Japanese, so I expected good ramen from the kitchen. It was a bit pricey and the soup was overpowered by the stock, I can't say I didn't enjoy it but it was not that good either as it left me with unpleasant sensation and I had to buy a milk tea to cure it.

My brother said that he was tired, so I headed home ahead with him and took the 9.02 train. I was hoping that the rain, or rather drizzle, would stop when we reached the station. It turned out that I was wrong, it was still drizzles but it became worse. I was too lazy to open my umbrella and just walk in the rain. And stupid me now I paid the price by having a cold.

Now it's already Sunday evening, I am expecting good things from the coming week.
Well, fingers crossed on that!