Nazimi

Nazimi was the first Japanese restaurant I have eaten in in Sydney. It was with Stella at that time. Now that I am back again, I think it is quite romantic to go back again for my first dinner in a year with Stella and Kimmy. After all, their maki rolls are so so good. =)

Wakame salad with tofu. There was two kind of seaweed. The dressing was to my liking, the sour, sweet and salt was well balanced. Tofu is soft and silky! though I thought it would be nice if they could drizzle abit of soy sauce over the tofu.

Pan-fried gyoza. This is normal. Thank god it is really pan-fried like it's said in the menu. I do not like deep-fried gyoza.

Volcano rolls. I remember having this the first time I went there. I remember falling in love with it and vowing to return to savour it again. there, there, I'm back. The volcano roll really is just california roll topped with a mash of avocado and salmon, accompanied by thai sweet chilli sauce.

Sun mont blang roll. The name is weird. I suspect the spelling in the menu is off. Mont blang should be spelled Mont blanc right? Anyway, I highly recommend this dish. (Sorry volcano roll, I have a new favourite now.) Let's see if I can still recall correctly. It was a crabmeat and avocado maki, topped with crabmeat tempura and mayonaise and torched. It is crunchy and yet melt in your mouth at the same time.

Grilled marinated wafu steak. Had this the last time too. hmmm, I think it taste normal now. Still good though.

We also had the chilled sweet soba noodle. It tastes like the korean buckwheat noodle. Quite nice actually when you dip it in the salty soya broth. The picture was blur so I threw it away. Heh.

Conclusion: Shall return for the other new maki creation. Who wants to join me?

Nazimi

Opp QVB Level 1, 141 York St.,

Sydney, NSW 2000

Tel: (02) 9283 2990

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Chinese New Year Dinner 2010

With E's housemates, we each contributed a dish, thus came up with the holy trinity.

My contribution: 鱼生 "yee sang". It was really good, even for me. I was up chopping and slicing at 12pm. Everything was made from scratch. Let's see, it has carrots, cucumber, purple cabbage, pickled ginger, pickled seaweed, pineapple, pickled daikon and mandarin orange peel. The sauce is real simple mixture of good plum sauce, lime juice, sesame oil and lots of toasted sesame seeds. Last but not least the sashimi! I cannot imagine yee sang without fresh, raw, sweet, thick slices of fish... We even took the extra effort to head to the fish market just to get this sashimi. It was worth it. =)

Left: W's chilli prawn. You know the Singapore chilli crab (W does not agree with the Singapore part though), this is the prawn version of it. It's good, except that there was too much of it. W bought 1 kg two days prior for this dinner. Then, C brought another 2kg of prawns back from work. So right now, there is 3kg of prawns sitting in E's fridge (I reckon about 800g was used for the dish)... There is still a whole barramundi sitting in the fridge that was supposed to be cooked for the dinner but canceled since there was too much food! Right: E's braised pork with taro. Really really delicious. She is a wonder with pork dishes. The pork belly slices and taro slices are first fried to golden, then steamed till soft with a marinate of fermented beancurd, garlic and chilli. E says this is a traditional hakka dish.

Thus complete the holy trinity of vege, pork and seafood, the must-haves during Chinese New Year.

W kindly provided drinks for the night. 1 and 1/2 bottles of white wine. After which the conversation went like this:

C: No more wine for me, I'm going to sleep now. (C exits the kitchen.)

W: Elise, you are so red. hey Heidi, let's put your cousin out on the street holding the ong lai piah (pineapple tarts) on her right and a sign on her left that reads: Welcome! Cai Shen! (welcome, god of prosperity).

H: Yeah, good idea (while pouring Elise her 3rd glass of wine)

W: then she must keep saying: HUAT AH! (發啊!)

Yeah, and Cai Shen will give us 4D numbers...

End.

My Chinese New Year Eve 2010, Cafe XXII

Never quite thought about what to do during Chinese New Year this year, knowing that I will be spending it away from my family, in a foreign land called Sydney. I imagined it to be like every other day, school, cafes, restaurants, home. But surprise surprise, I did have a good Chinese New Year after all.

Morning of the Eve: Had 1/2 dozen pacific oysters for breakfast at the Fish Market. Really fresh, really sweet. We actually came to the Fish Market with the single purpose to buy some sashimi back for Yu Sheng, but due to mis-planning (on my part), we didn't buy the sashimi. We ate lots of fresh oysters.

Then we walked from the Fish Market to Pyrmont. I have always wanted to try this cafe out, seeing how it is always packed in the mornings. XXII. That's the name of the cafe. I can't read the roman numerals.. They have quite an impressive menu for a cafe. Wagyu steak sandwich, sounds yumm. Shall try it next time since I'm still quite stuffed by the oysters.

Cappuccino. Excellent coffee and milk. Beautiful latte art.

Toasted Muesli with fresh fruits, yogurt and passionfruit jelly. It looks gorgeous with all the different colours from the fruits, and sounds real healthy. On my first bite, I thought I could eat this every day for breakfast, it was absolutely wonderful. Then I looked at the spanish omelette and toasted brioche on the next table, well, maybe not.

Toasted banana bread with marscapone and honey. Banana bread is very light and banana-y, though I doubt they used real bananas in this; I don't see the banana fibres at all. Tastes alright though. But when you lather marscapone and honey on it, tastes real good.

XXII, union street, pyrmont, Sydney,

After abit of window-shopping in the city, E and I headed down to West Ryde, to her friend's place for the New Year Eve dinner. It was a large dinner, 16 people. Only one chef though, the one in the chef jacket.

We all helped out in making dumplings, chinese style, pork and beef. I learned how to properly wrap a dumpling. It was fun! 200 dumplings was made in all. =)

Afterward was a blur. There was so much food! Mabo tofu, chilli pork belly, steamed fish and ofcourse, hotpot. wow. Thank you Fiona for inviting us!

Happy Chinese New Year 2010

Chinese New Year is never complete without Chinese New Year Cookies. Strange enough, one of the best Chinese New Year cookies I have eaten is eaten in Sydney. Thank you Carol from bringing these goodies all the way from Malaysia. Another battery charger this one. =)

Chilli Crab- Made in Sydney

You know how people have certain places they have to go or friends and family they have to talk to, to recharge themselves so that they can continue doing whatever they are doing? Home food is one of my batteries. Really glad to eat chilli crab in my first week. Thanks William.

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Sydney: A new chapter

When you see food like these appearing in my blog, it means I'm really back in Sydney.

After a year long break in Singapore (lazying around, working, learning a foreign language, meeting new people), I have returned to Sydney to complete my management course in Le Cordon Bleu. No running away this time.

I feel really comfortable now, in Sydney. No crying bouts, no homesickness. Strange, because I usually make a mess of myself during the first week of arrival. That fact I held out for nearly 3 weeks is an accomplishment. I guess now that I found direction, knowing what I want in life, I feel much more confident than the wondering, lost me when I first graduated from Superior Patisserie. Very focused now in my studies, which is absurdly easy compared to A-levels.... I plan to become one of the top students of my class, heh heh, one of the more realistic goals I made for the year. Part of my studies, an extra-curricular activity I made up myself, is to look for new pastry ideas- by eating lots and lots of pastry. See how fat I'll grow this time...

Just to show that I am not joking when I say I am very serious in my studies. These are the pastries that I have tried so far in my busy first month. Bottom left: Chocolate pistachio escargot. Right: Tart au citron.

Expect much more.

K-ki (ケーキ), the cake shop

K-ki is a cute little shop nestled in a quiet corner of Ann Siang Hill. This little shop comprises of two parts, a patisserie and a boutique selling paraphernalia (The Little Drom Store). Being a foodie, I'm only interested in the cake shop, though a boutique can be quite a bonus.

K-ki (ケーキ), pronounced "ke-ki", literally means cake. ケーキ (note the usage of Katakana here) is a direct import of the English language, because the original Japanese language do not have a word for western-type cake. Instead they have wagashi (和菓子), the traditional Japanese confectionery. Therefore ケーキ not only means cake, it also implies western-type pastry.

I like the interior of K-ki. The beauty of it is in its simplicity itself. White walls, with wooden elements and minimal decoration. It has the perfect image of a Japanese lifestyle shop.

Their selection of pastries is quite few for now, I guess it is because they have just opened. Flourless chocolate cake, cheese souffle, mont blanc, pumpkin creme caramel, antoinette, cafe dumo are some that sit in the cake counter. On the side, they also have little tea biscuits for sale. An interesting fact about K-ki, the owners do have have formal training in patisserie. I was told that the chef taught himself to make pastries from cookbooks. What's more, the owners are Singaporean, managing a Japanese lifestyle cafe from scratch. Impressive.

A latte with a tea biscuit, $4.50. Coffee is Nespresso. It was my first time drinking Nespresso, you know the capsule kind. I was pretty against it at first, thinking how it this different from those store bought ready ground coffee? But it turned out alright... haha

On the right, Mont Blanc. This Mont Blanc is different from the one we make in Glace Patisserie. It is much heavier, taste is stronger (sweeter in this case) and the texture is more rough. I prefer Glace's Mont Blanc. I thought K-ki's Mont Blanc did not reflect the taste and texture a Japanese Mont Blanc should have, which is light in both taste and texture. The owner explained to me because they modeled their Mont Blanc after the French traditional variety, therefore it wasn't what I had expected. On the other hand, the pumpkin creme caramel (on the left) was lovely! Very smooth and full of flavour, though it tasted a bit eggy to me that day, don't know why... Still good!

no. 7 ann siang hill

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