Ford Moonlight Cinema

Summer is finally here after few months of chill weather. Although it is officially in "Summer" now, weather in Melbourne still unpredicted. Sometimes the temperature can goues up to 30C while another day it will drop to 12-15C. Despite the flatuation on the weather, people in the city has been starting to have summer activies such as visiting the beaches, summer parties, night markets and etc.

Moonlight cinema is one of the annual event held by Ford during summer and this time i took the opportunity to experince it in Melbourne. After checking the weather forecast ensuring the weather was good on Friday evening, we get all the stuff ready for the outdoor cinema. The screening was held in Royal Botanical Garden in Melbourne CBD and the weather of the day was just perfect. Nice weather with some cool wind as the night approach.


We bought along our picnic gadgets such as the beach towel, cooler bag filled with chips, beer, cola and gummies. The show will start when the sun sets down but due to summer, the day time will be longer. Thus the movie screening starts around 9pm. We also rent the bean bag at the location which perfect to lie down to view the entire show. It was a great experince lying down on a grass bed with a wide screen ahead surrounded by trees.
Do visit the Ford Moonlight Cinema http://www.moonlight.com.au to check the movie screening titles and other information.

Macaron or Macaroons

Many people often misunderstood that both macaron and macaroons are refering to the same thing. According to Google definition, Macaron is sweet confectionery made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food coloring while Macaroon is a cookie made with egg white, sugar, and ground almonds or coconut.

Macaron has been one of the popular sweets is Australia in recent couple of years. You can find macaron at most of the cafes in Melbourne. On last weekend during tea time, i was brought to this little cafe in Toorak Road to try out their "special" macaron. The cafe owner were both from Malaysia and they have this "special" macaron with Kaya & Butter. I have not favour macaron all these while as i found that they are too sweet for me liking. But after i tried the Kaya & Butter Macaron, it was just nice and perfect. I like it! =)

Supersized Macaron =)

Besides Kaya & Butter macaron, Lux Bite ( the cafe's name) also has few special flavor macaron such as pandan, peanut butter, salted caramel and many more. On top of that, they also have series of creatively decorated cakes which i adored it much.

Caramel Slice with Salted Caramel Macaron

LuxBite: http://www.luxbite.com.au/

Koala Close Encounter =)

According to weather forecast earlier, Saturday will be a sunny day. Yippie!! We headed for a short roadtrip to Ballarat wildlife park in the morning. Based on some studies from other blogger, in the wildlife park, visitors get to get close to koala and even can pat on them.


This is pretty unusual as each states in Australia has its own rules in protecting this special and cute marsupials. It used to be rule in Victoria state that public is not allowed to pat or to handle koala. Guess the rules has been changing slowly whereby public is allowed to pat the koala with their keeper around and also the koala did not show any sign of stress.

It was a great experince for me today at the wildlife park to get so close, realllyyyy close to the koala, Milton. He was so cute! I have been to Melbourne Zoo and Koala Conservation Park before early this year whereby they do have koalas in the park. However none of them allowed public to get close to it. Thus, anyone that wish to have a gentle feel on this cute animal, you can visit the Ballarat Wildlife Park. Koala show starts at 2pm daily where the keeper will bring the koala for public to pat and explain some of the bio-details.

The park have few sections of the Australian animal exhibits such as the reptiles, wombats, tasmanian devils, koala and open enclosure of kangaroos whereby visitors can puchase some of the kangaroo's food to feed them. Although the park is not too big, but it is definitely worth to visit especially you can get close and pat the animals!

Entrance fee: AUD 24
http://www.wildlifepark.com.au/

Breakfast again...=)

Melbourne is indeed a place with vast choices of nice and sumptous breakfast. Felt really blessed to be here with my loved ones. Thank God. =)


We were to this small little cafe at Seddon, West Melbourne after attending a house auction nearby. The cafe was built with attractive exterior with it's theme Gravy Train. It has both outdoor and indoor space for it's customer and the food was great with reasonable price.


On that day, we ordered a Roma poached eggs and spinach omelette with toast that are listed in their "Special" menu. For drinks, we go for the "fresh" cranberry and raspberry shakes for a healthy boost of the day. Beside, we also ordered their bacon and chicken pasta for sharing basis. Turn out to be very tasty and rich in flavour. Yummy!

Definitely will visit the cafe again!

Gravy Train Cafe
83 Gamon Street
Yarraville Vic 3013
Ph: (03) 9687 9866

Breakfast@ Kanteen, South Yarra, Melbourne

Finally it is weekend after 5 days of tiring working day. It is a sunny Saturday with light shower in the morning. We have made our plan to go for a nice breakfast and a visit to the famous Prahran market day before.

We went to a cafe that is located in South Yarra and the cafe was just beside the Yarra river. The enviroment was just perfect for a nice breakfast with the nice breeze from the surrounding.

The cafe name was "Kanteen" which reminds me the Malay word "Kantin". Hehe. Initially we wanted to try their big breakfast and lastly we opted for other food in the menu after considering the serving size (often served in huge size).


We started the day with a cup of Mocha and then followed by a croissant served with homemade organic jam. After that, we also ordered one of the Spanish dish in the menu which comes in a baked tray with goat cheese, egg and some salami. It was very yummy with the full flavour from the goat cheese. The goat cheese still linger in the mouth after the meal.

New Item - Handmade Cute Hoot Pillow

Hi all my blog visitors, i would like to introduce this new item for sale,the "Homemade Cute Owl Pillow".

This pillow is specially designed with hoot pattern, suitable as a gifts for family and friends!

Pillow Name:Spring Owl Family (1 piece only!)

Dimension(From the horns to bottom):13"x10"

Prefer hand wash...

This hoot is baby-friendly.No choking hazard parts

This item is 100% handmade and do email me at tomato_celery@yahoo.com if interested.

Price: USD 45 / AUD 45 (including shipping)

Payment: Paypal

Royal Melbourne Show 2011

Royal Melbourne Show is a signature annual event in Melbourne since the year 1848. Award winning food, crafts, pets, livestock, carnival rides, showbags, free live entertainment and much more fun filled activities were the activities in this show. Last Sunday with a sunny day, we planned to drop by to the Royal Melbourne Show for the first time.

A special limited express train that directly to the showground is available from Flinders Station & Southern Cross Station. My childhood memories reflashed back upon reaching the fairground. The placed was filled with people and coloufull carnival rides. It is exactly looks like the fun fair that my dad used to bring us go when we a small. The only differerence is this time there are MORE rides!

Besides carvinal rides, there is also the well known "Grand Ribbon" livestock championships for cows and rams. This is the first time i came across the cows judging session during the Royal Melbourne Show and was overwhelmed with the size of the australian cows. It was HUGE! =) It is indeed a good exposure for us as there are different kind of breeds that participated in the show. Beside competitions, there are also cows for sale by the exhibitors at the fairground.


Cows for sale. Anyone?

Living in Australia

Last week was major change in my life as i headed to Melbourne on Friday night to unite with my fiancee. Being a youngest child in the family and always pampered by family members, feeling of missing home appears immediately the day i arrived in Country of Down Under. Sob sob.

Early this year July, i went to Australia Embassy in KL to apply for Working Holiday Visa. The embassy only offers 100 visa per year and the visa has been "hot cakes" since the past years. We are told day earlier that people will start queing in front of the embassy early in the morning to get the queue number before it ends. We could not believe it not until we reached the embassy the next day around 7am with thought that we are early enough. When we reached the embassy, there are about 80 people queing in front of the embassy. The first applicant start waiting at the embassy about 5am in morning! OMG.

Living permenantly in Australia is totally different (emotionally) compared with tourist. There are many things that you need to cop to continue the life here at a place that is new to you. Of course there always will be sweetness and bitterness and definitely it will be one of the memorable and great experince in our life. Ganbatte!

For those who are planning to apply for work and holiday visa, the application will open on next year July and for more information, you can visit Australia Embassy website below:

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday/462/malaysia/

Goku Raku Japanese Ramen

Goku Raku Ramen was a newly open japanese ramen shop at Mid Valley back a couple months ago at Level 2. We decided to give it a try when it was newly opened and we are attracted by their 50% discount promotions on ramen. The restaurant was nicely furnished with modern concept of Japanese dining and there is also an open space where we can see through the kitchen, looking at the "skillful" chefs preparing the ramen.


The moment we enter the shop, we were warmly greeted by the staff and the smell of the pork broth filled the entire restuarants. We decided to go for the chef recommended "Ultimate Tonkatsu Ramen" which already look very yummylicious from the menu. Customer could choose for adding garlic oil into the soup to make the soup taste more nicer. After waiting for about 15mins, the ramen arrive is a big bowl. The first sip of the soup base gave the perfect satisfaction. It was so rich and goes pefectly with the ramen.

The half boiled egg was perfectly prepared too. The only complain is the tonkatsu slice / char siu in which is still a little beyond my expectations. There is still room to improve the char siu. Tasted in Tokyo during my trip, the char siu was really nice with a special fragnant from the meat which is hardly describe in words.

Apart from ramen we also ordered our all the time favourite, the yakiniku which is not bad as well.


Right now Goku Raku ramen's 50% ramen promotion is back!! due to popular demand. Do give a try as it is up to 27th September 2011 only. The promo is available on Monday & Tuesday. Do log in to their website (http://www.gokuraku-ramen.com/) for more information on the promotions and menu.

MyHoneyMoon Sweet Dessert Shop

Dessert shops have been one of the latest trend / normal scene we saw whenever new F&B outlets open in a new area or shops. MyHoneyMoon dessert shop is one of the 'always crowded" in Kuchai Lama area aside from Snow Flake, Taiwanese Style Dessert shop.

MyHoneyMoon is a HK style dessert shop with various choice of desserts ranging from hot to cold. It also serves most of the desserts that we found in HK. One of our all the time favourite HK dessert is the Mango & Aloe Vera drink that we tasted during at Huai Lau San during our HK trip. After back KL, we used to search for dessert shops that served the similar taste like Huai Lau San. But sadly not many able to satisfy us.


Dessert at MyHoneyMoon was not bad and worth a try. Their ambience is comfortable and most suitable whenever you need a place to have a chit chat & drink with your friends. WIFI is also provided FOC at MyHoneyMoon. MyHoneyMoon has few outlets at Sunway Pyramid, IOI Boulevard, 1Utama and many more. You can visit their website at http://www.myhoneymoon.com.my/index.php for their yummy-licious dessert menu.

The Fish Market at Pavillion, KL

This post has been inside my folder for quite some time as i was busy for the past few weeks. The promotions at The Manhattan Fish Market is no longer available. But they came out with other meal sets that are equally tempting and yummy-licious too.

We were at Pavillion back in 2 months ago when we were invited by Maybank for a special event to purchase iPad2. While the event was a little crowded at Godiva (ya...as usual due to iPad2), thus we went for a quick dinner before returning to the event site later. We were browsing for options to eat for dinner before we came accross Manhattan Fish Market which located same floor as the Food Republic food court.
We are recommended by one of the staff there on the latest set meals, "Share & Care" which includes 2 seafood chowder soups, seafood starters, 2 main dish and 2 drinks. We decided to give it a try after looking at their delicous looking menu.
We ordered baked and grill fish for the main. It turns out to be delicious with generous serving of fish fillet and vegetables. We missed out to snap a photo of the seafood platter which consist of fried calamari, prawns, mushrooms and fish nuggets.

Recomended B&B in Yilan, Taiwan

Bed & Breakfast (B&B) is very popular in Taiwan especially at their outer suburb area. During our trip to Taiwan in May, we stayed for 2 days on night one of the B&B in Yilan. Yilan town basically is about 1-2hours away from Taipei city. We got to know this B&B from another blogger in their post and vow that i must stay at this B&B during my Taiwan trip.

Rothenburg Lodge is a Tudor designed B&B with nicely decorated interior using cedarwood. Surround the lodge are the greenery paddy fields that gives a feeling of countryside. I loved the place very much and it was the best stay during my whole week stay in Taiwan. Bicycle renting service is available nearby where you can cycle around the area the enjoy the sceneric view.

The owner of Rothenburg, Mr. & Mrs. Hsu is a lovely and friendly couple. Both of them are always there to provide information and help whenever required. No feeling of loadging a hotel or hostel. Just feeling like home.

Please do drop-by and stay at Rothenburg Lodge when you are at Taiwan. You will not regret about it. Do contact them (www.rothenburglodge.tw) in advance for reservation as they only have few rooms in the lodge only and they are always fully booked =).