Bagan

Shop 4, 41 The Boulevarde

Strathfield NSW 2135

Phone (02) 8746 0666

Bagan is apparently the only Burmese restaurant in Sydney (correct me if i'm wrong hehe). So when a good friend of mine wanted to take Richard & I here, i straight away checked my diary for the first availability :)

The name Bagan is named after an ancient city in Burma, and the country is bordered by China, Laos, Thailand, India & Bangladesh. You can see parts of these countries foods on the menu (which is picturised by the way, giving a new comer to eating Burmese food a little idea of what it will look like before ordering).

It is located far from the main centre of Strathfield (where all the restaurants are), and is across the road from an Indian Mart (i think). There is outdoor seating but it was a windy night so we opted for a table inside. The place was busy, with a group of young girls sitting behind us (i think it was someone's birthday cos i saw presents hehe).

We ordered a few small sized dishes, and two larger dishes. I had two guys with me, who were both hungry, and can eat a lot :)

Nungyi Thoke $5

This dish is a cold rice noodle salad, but tasted like pasta noodles. The noodles were thouroughly coated with a a cheesy parmesan-like dressing, very flavoury i really liked this dish - garnished with fresh coriander.

Burmese fried rice w/ chicken $9.50

Heavily garnished with fresh chilli - this fried rice was damn spicy. But Richard could handle it - he's the chilli eating king as far as i know. Fresh spring onions were also tossed through before serving. For $9.50 this rice dish is very reasonably priced, great value for money i'd say.

Century egg salad $5.50

This salad had a whole lot of Spanish onions in it, but i like onion so i didn't mind it. Also mixed with chunks of tomato, fresh chilli, this is the first time i've had century egg is a cold salad. Normally at home my mom cooks it in sweetened soy sauce & we eat it hot with rice. This was totally different, but still just as good.

Samosa Salad (vegetarian option) $5.50

This is probably my favourite dish. Small samosa's drenched in a mild yellow curry sauce, with thinly sliced cabbage strips. The samosa's on top were crisp, but the ones underneath were what i were going for, slightly soggy from the curry but still with some crisp to it, i really couldn't get enough of this dish.

Pan thay kaut sware $9.50

It's great they have picture menus, otherwise we would really have no clue of what each dish was. This one was fried egg noodles with curry chicken (also available in vegetarian) but i thought the boys might want a bit of meat in their dinner that night hehe. This dish was again mildly hot, & very saucy & flavorsome.

Basil seed drink $3.50

This is one of my favourite drinks. I love trying to bite the seeds, only to have the chewy skin around each seed - stop me from doing so.

We were still hungry for another dish, so ordered this

Kaw sware thoki $5

A cold egg noodle salad, with a great amount of fried onion bits on top - my favourite! They have these onion bits in mi-goreng packets- but its hardly enough i always pile more on top it's so unhealthy but i only eat mi-goreng a few times a year so i can splurge on the extra calories!

Ku fee

I'm not sure of the price, must be $4-$5. But it totally looked homemade. COndensed milk ice spiced with cardamom flavour. I wasn't impressed, as it was rock hard and so hard to cut through. Once it thawed a little, it was alright. WOuldn't of ordered this if the picture didn't make it look yummy.

Cheese cake

Again i didn't note down the price, but it seemed like another frozen desert it was really hard to cut through, like it was not quite defrosted yet.

Being the only Burmese place in Sydney to dine at, i'd imagine they'd get pretty busy on the weekends. Luckily though we were there on a Tuesday night.

The fusions of food really interested me, and i like it a lot more then just eating at a Thai, Indian or Chinese restaurant. Simple fusion food, with a cheap price tag, i'd love to take my friends back here, so we can order a lot more food to share around.

Bygone Beautys

Corner Grose & Megalong Streets

Leura NSW 2780

Blue Mountains Australia

1.5 hours drive away from Sydney, you will find the Blue Mountains. I've come here many a times for nature walks in Wentworth falls. BUt this time, we went abit further, to explore Katoomba & the famous three sisters rocks.

My friend's Trish & Joseph, and Mel, all suggested coming to Bygone Beauties for scones & antiques! So after a nice & relaxing stroll through the Katoomba bushwalk, we headed over for some tea.

There is parking out the back, and there were a lot of people coming in & out but they seemed to be parking on the street. We got a spot in the back, and walked around (the long way ) to the entrance eheh (mianly so i could get the photo above). Later on realising that if we had walked the other way - it would of been half the distance..

The store is full of antique toys & knick knacks, this teddy was perched in front of me on a sort-of pillar, so cute!


Lots of cabinets full of brooches, mini toys, jewellry, figurines, and lots of other shiny things.


There are only about 10-15 small tables in this room, we got a table for two right in the centre.


It took a while to get served (even after a lot of waving our hands around). So i was admiring the things in the cabinet beside me. I think i saw a brooch worth $700..


I ordered a pot of japanese green tea ($4.95), while Richard got a pot of peppermint tea $4.35 (i can't stand peppermint in tea, its just tastes really wrong in my mouth..)


A plate of sandwiches with 8 points was about $15. 8 points meaning 8 pieces .. i had to ask i wasnt sure hehe. The bread was about 2 or 3 days old, it definitely wasn't fresh bread. Inside had cheese, lettuce & tomato, plain & simple - but filled us up and we also had a large pot of tea to go with it.


As we were eating we admired the teapots along the walls, this place houses over 3000 teapots on display! (not for sale i don't think so otherwise they probably wouldn't have so many hehe).




We were too full for scones, (and from seeing it served to the other patrons, it didn't look that great anyway. So up we got and explored the place some more. From the outside, you couldn't imagine how many things they fit in this small little house. SOmething in every nook & cranny, absolutely NO spare space at all, everysingle space was filled with something. Not more than one person fitting through the walk ways it was a very tight squeeze (especially with my back pack on hehe).

This doll reminded me of those golliwog biscuits - does anyone remember them? they were dark brown dark chocolate biscuits in the shape of.. this doll. Quite freaky i think



When we were done browsing we headed to the front to pay. & found out there was a minimum of $30 eftpos (and we had no cash!) ANd we had about $7 to spend to reach $30... so back into the shop to find something worth $12..

I ended up picking one of these cute mini teapot sets. Yup that's blutack holding it all together hehe. This was $12.95, the cheapest cutest thing i found. Got it for my little sister she loves it hehe.


To show you how miniature it is, i've taken a photo with a 5 cent coin. Tiny yeah?

There is also seating outside, as it was a slightly windy day, not many people stayed outside. & it was really warm & cosey inside.

I really thank Trish Joeseph & Mel for reccomending this place to visit while we were in Katoomba. I could've spent hours in the shops, but refrain from buying anything as my room is already too full of useless junk hehe.

Halloween Marshmallow & Chocolate Muffins

Happy Halloween everyone!

I don't usually celebrate, so this was a chance to make something halloween-ish :)

Muffin mixture

70 g butter

280 g plain flour

6 tbsp cocoa powder

3 tsp baking powder

85 g caster sugar

1 egg beaten

300ml milk

100g milk choc chips

55 g mini white marshmallows

Orange Icing

250g butter, cubed, at room temperature

450g (3 cups) pure icing sugar, sifted

60ml (1/4 cup) milk

1 tsp vanilla essense

red food coloring, yellow food colouring (to make orange!)

* * *

Method

preheat oven to 190C

melt butter

sift flour cocoa powder and baking powder in a large bowl. stir in sugar.

whisk egg, milk & melted butter together, and gentley stir into the flour mixturee to form a stiff batter.

Gently stir through choc chips and marshmallows.

Spoon into muffin cases, and bake for 20-25 minutes until well risen. leave to cool in tin for 5 mins, and cool completley before icing.

With the icing i just beat everything together, and added the food coloring - until i got the right colour.

I Baked these for about 23 mins, they were slightly dry! So i'd say bake for 18-20 minutes instead :)

oops! almost forgot!

the decoration, i just bought a tube of white fudge icing from woolworths, drew four circles starting from small in the middle. then using a toothpick, start from the centre & work your way out, to make it look like a cobweb :)

Enjoy!

Dulce de leche Chocolate babycakes

I had a can of dulce de leche in the pantry - been sitting there for about two weeks. I didn't want to make brownies again, and i had been wanting to make these babycakes from 'epicure chocolate' for a while, so i whipped these up on a Monday morning (yes, i sometimes do my baking in the mornings before work, then i get awesome morning natural lighting for my photo's hehe).

But these weren't or me, they were for the uber cool Bensy - i had missed his birthday on the weekend because i was in Melbourne, so i wanted to make it up to him :)

Ingredients

1 cup cold water
1 cup sugar
125 g butter
2 generous tbsp cocoa
3/4 tsp bi-carb soda
2 eggs, beaten
1.5 cups self raising flour

Preheat oven to 180C.

Combine water, sugar, butter, cocoa & soda in a large saucepan.

Bring to the boil slowly. Simmer for 5 minutes & cool.

Add eggs and sifted flour and mix well.

Place mixture in mini muffin trays.

Add a blob of dulce de leche into the centres of each muffin.

Cook for 10-15 minutes, or until tops spring back when pressed gentley and a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Cool slightly, best eaten warm, or zapped in the microwave if its cold!

Because i had left over dulce de leche, Bensy got the rest of this liquid gold caramel to pig out on hehe. HAPPY BDAY DUDE!

Coda Bar & Restaurant

Open Tuesday-Sunday Dinner, Wednesday-Sunday Lunch.

Basement 141 Flinders Lane (Cnr Oliver Lane)

Melbourne 3003

Telephone +613 9650 3155

Facsimile +613 9650 5127

My last night in Melbourne, & i wanted to make the most of my trip and visit another restaurant. Flicking through Tom's Melbourne eating guide (2009 + 2010), he decided on Coda, a fairly new restaurant that offers Modern Australian & vietnamese fusion tapas styled dishes.

Our late afternoon call to make a booking, we were told that there were no spare tables, but for two people, we could easily be seated at the bar.

This i didn't mind.. so we just turned up at 7pm, and luckily - only had to wait 5 minutes before a couple had finished their drinks & left their seats (where the kitchen was in our full view!)

The restaurant had soft lighting, with mesh covered lanterns, and a full open kitchen & bar. I loved the layout of the restaurant, & the fact that it was a basement style room - made it feel even cooler :)

Seated infront on the kitchen we were able to see the happenings in the kitchen as well as the cute bartenders making drinks & serving us our meals.

Hopkins River steak bernaise charcoal grilled $29

Tom ordered the man steak, which he claimed was excellent, succulent, with the bernaise sauce so good that he was lost for words pretty much!

Pomme frites $8

Me being addicted to fries, i just had to order these & Tom helped me finish them as well. They were heavily salted (just the way i like them) & were fresh & crisp, serving size more than enough for the two of us we struggled to finish it.

Eggplant and tofu lettuce delight, enoki mushroom, crispy garlic and black vinegar $5

In the Eating guide, they mentioned a vegetarian style san choy bao - & this is what got me! Since i've become vego i havent had san choy bao before, so it was the first dish i ordered. Everything was finely sliced, and in two bites this morsel was finished. It ended all too soon and i really wanted another one, but i still had my coda slaw & chips to finish off.

Coda slaw, wombok, carrot, hot mint & red cabbage $8

I ordered the healthy cod slaw - to counteract with the unhealthy fries. Cabbage was fresh & crunchy, with a light vinegar & lemon dressing.

Wok fried morning glory with garlic & ginger $8

After the coleslaw i was still not full.. so i ordered another small dish, while still picking at the fries. Then i started to get full.. & regretted ordering another dish. But i thought i'd be okay, as the first two dishes i had were faily small, i could handle another one.

When i started digging in though, i could feel my stomach getting over filled, and i was struggling to finish the waterspinach (something i have a lot at home, & i love it), I hardly ate a quarter and asked if i could take away it (i wasnt shy at all to ask this, i wanted to take it home cos there was so much left eheh). The waiter came back & said due to health regulations they didn't allow doggy bagging. I shrugged, it was no big deal.

I really liked the ambiance and the design here, and the menu (found here) was really funky & different. I had to ask what everything was haha i really had no idea that a wok fried morning glory - was water spinach.

I was really looking forward to trying the desert taste plate of Baked lemon tart with Yuzu marshmallow, Valrhona chocolate custard pot, & hazelnut brittle & pumpkin foam - but we both thought we'd be too full, and opted for waffles later in the night somewhere in Fitzroy... which we didnt end up having at all. Tom was abit tired & had an early start the next morning, so we called it a night..

But i did end up going to san churros with Ann & Jess for a late night desert!