Sunday, 20 May 2007

Lucky Cup


Went for bubble tea today at Melbourne Central after a few hours at library. Its been ages since my last cup of bubble tea. I personally am not a big fan of bubble tea but do enjoy it occasionally.

*Back to Lucky Cup*


Lucky Cup is situated at the food court, next to Baskin Robbins, near to the Melbourne Central’s train station. They offered a wide range of different flavors such as blueberry, almond, aloe vera…etc and different types of "bubble drinks" – bubble tea, milk teas and others. Besides, u can choose either pearls or jelly for your drinks. I ordered the “red pearl milk tea” *the classic/normal bubble tea as I always put it* at $3.00.




The bubble tea was not too sweet, which is to my liking, and u can, subtly, taste the milk and the tea together. Its just refeshing! To be honest, I never really tried many flavors of bubble tea before as I am slightly deterred by the coloring and artificial flavors * If u keep on reading this blog, I believe you will soon find out that I much prefer, if possible, natural-coloring and natural-flavoring food.

Neway, there was another branch at Bourke Street last time but was closed last year (?) I think. Besides Lucky Cup, I’ve only tried Easy Way (at Bourke street, near to Target) and another bubble tea cafĂ© which I forgot the name (it is at Bourke street as well, next to KFC). From these 3, I find that the bubble teas they made are quite similar/standard in taste; the difference I feel is with the pearl where Lucky Cup’s pearls are the best out of the three. It is soft yet chewy, as compared to the other 2 where their pearls are a little bit harder.

Hmm.. i just like the combination of the drinks n pearls as i got something to chew while drinking! =)


Lucky Cup
Food court at Melbourne Central's train station


San

Some simple stir-fries for dinner



That was my dinner last nite - pumpkin with chicken and some vege. Yes, you r rite, i did not hav that all for myself. Thats for me n my brother.




I first marinated the chicken with some five-spice powder, soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil. After that, i just stir fry those chicken until they are brown-ish n golden-ish. Then i add in the cubed pumpkin. The five spice powder really add some kicks to this dish as it sort of enhances the flavor of the pumpkin and chicken. I always got this feeling that pumpkin and five spice powder are good frens cz they mix really well. Hmm.. Tasty! *altho u might not agree from the look of the pics*

Later, i just stir fry the vege with a little bit of oil and with a tiny bit of salt, as i always like my vege to b just lightly flavored. Thats it. My simple yet satisfying dinner =)



San

Wednesday, 16 May 2007

Bacon, eggyolk & parmesan cheese pasta

Was trying this recipe for lunch, after watching "Fresh cooking with Australian Women's weekly" the other day.



Its very delicious and yet simple to make. Here it is:


Recipe:

Ingredients
some fresh pasta
some bacons, slice them up
some chopped flat-leaf parsley
a handful of parmesan cheese
1 eggyolk

Method
1) Boil some water (add salts into it) and add your choice of pasta into it
2) At the same time, heat up the pan and pan fry the bacons
3) When the bacons are ready, you will find your pasta will be around the same time to get cooked as well. Then, turn off the heat of the pan and put your pasta into it.
4) While the pasta n the bacons are still hot, quickly mix in the eggyolk, parmesan and parsley. Mix them well. The eggyolk and parmesan cheese will cooked/melt and you will get this creamy sauce kinda texture. Yum!
5) Garnish the pasta with parsley if u like.

And its ready to serve!

You will c that I didn't add any salt into it as i feel that the bacons are already salty enuff to flavour the pasta. Ooo... another thing is that the show didnt mention to add any olive oil to the pasta *after mixing the eggyolk ..etc* However, I think you should just add some olive oil, else it will b a little dry. Enjoy!



San

Monday, 14 May 2007

Brunneti cafe

Been knowing Brunetti has another branch at Flinders Lane for quite sometimes ago and at last, we went, as we heard that they serve crepes there =) We did order 2 types of crepes but they looks really similar and hence we only show you the nutella crepe.

The Nutella crepe :D + one strawberry


The strawberry up-close...isn't it a strawberry!?!

It has thick nutela sauce inside n on top of the crepes, with some chopped hazelnut. The combination of the nutella, hazelnut, and the crepes is quite good actually (not the best I have tried) although I do prefer the crepes to be slightly more crunchy outside.

However, we were a little distracted/annoyed by the pigeons eating/making a mess/fighting on other tables and also the very strong wind that blew away the icing sugar on the crepes as well as our napkins. As for the service, it was a little slow which probably due to only 1 person was making the crepes. Overall, we did enjoy the food.

- The San

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Apparently the Brunetti cafe at the corner of Flinders' Lane and Swanston Street have CREPES. Well, I must be blind or really out of it, I didn't even realise that until San was all like "OMGOMGCREPESFOOOOD" and dragged me there to eat the kind-of-famous crepes (I said kind-of because I haven't heard of it even if everyone and their mother has).

It was quite a windy day when we got there - and I found out that the crepe corner was actually not in the main cafe itself - it was along the block of shop-houses where Starbucks was. It was a tiny little stall actually, just for you to place orders (I think). They also serve Brunetti home-made gelati along with the crepes. There's lots of crepes available with fancy names such as Bachi and some other Italian stuff.

Anyway. We ended up ordering one Bachi crepe and one Nutella crepe to share between the four of us (that's the two reviewers plus two more greedy unnamed people). It was crowded that day, so we picked a spot behind the main cafe; at a long table. And waited an equally looooong time for service. Seriously, I thought they were picking cocoa beans to make chocolate. I was assured though, that they were short-staffed that day. Hmmm. Will go back there one day and see whether that was true.

Not a good day to be out - it was too windy and there were pigeons EVERYWHERE. Because Brunetti's Flinders' is outdoors, therefore those little buggers were all over the place - poking at leftover food and attempting to poke at just-served food. It was actually quite unpleasant with a whole bunch of mad birds attempting to steal my food.

Back to the crepes.

They're very good crepes, with just the right amount of chocolate-y goodness and nuts to round out the taste. The chocolate and the crepe itself was warm and gooey and very comforting and warming on a cold spring day. It's not too sweet either, I like the balance of nuts and chocolate. The only thing is:

I cannot tell the difference between the Nutella and the Bachi. >>;; They taste...THE SAME. It's not my tastebuds, cos my sister said the same thing.

Maybe we should've gone for something completely different otherwise, rather than choosing two chocolate-based crepes. But hey, the stomachs ain't complaining.

So in conclusion: I would recommend the crepes themselves, which are good stuff, but the spot/setting is just too...outdoors. It's probably nice in the summer or a warm day, but windy day + mad pigeons that I cannot roast for dinner definitely dampened the experience.

I would still go back there to try other crepes though. :D And as a plus, they do make very good coffee.

[Sorry for the lack of pictures for this post, we sort of ran out of battery. The pigeons ate our battery.]


- El Mad Mouse

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Brunetti City Square
214 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000

Phone: (03) 9663 8085

Here we go!

After months of procastinating, here it is, we present you - IronEaters. Hope you all will enjoy it !