Cha siu bao and poison pork rolls

The other night as I made my way home after an exhausting day in the lab, Pooey requested that I get her a snack. The choice of snack was up to me. I decided to go to Nam Loong on Russell St. to pick up some cha siu baos (roast pork buns). At $1.50 each, I think it's a pretty good deal when you're standing in the cold with a bag of steaming hot buns in one hand and digging into the bun with the other (and your mouth).

Mmmm, steamy

Mmmm, porky

When I got home with the buns, Ma was so insulted at the idea that I paid for the buns that she declared she was going to make some for us! And she did!

But then because Spuey was coming back from G-town, Ma also got us some poison pork rolls! Or more correctly, banh mi thit. We only call them that because a few years ago they were linked to salmonella poisoning. But the danger only makes the meal more worthy!

My poison pork roll. Sneaky Spuey nearly ate his and mine!

Mmmm, fillings

I actually don't know what's the going rate for these bread rolls anymore. About 10 years ago they were $2.20 which means they're probably around the $3 mark? I dunno. I just eat them.

Hail fail

Tuesday was a night of awesomeness and heartbreak. Firstly, I went to the gym and managed to row 2000m in 10:06. Personal best! Now all I have to do is cut off those last 6 seconds!

Anyway, it was steadily raining as I left and I decided that since I wore Dunlop Volleys in to work, I would remain in my gym clothes on the way to meet with the brother at Borders cos I knew they'd get soaked. As I strolled down Tin Alley, the rain got harder and I decided to run to the Physics building. It then started to hail. Oddly enough, it seems I've never been caught in a hailstorm before because I never realised being hit by hail is like having people form a circle and then throw a constant stream of gravel at you. IT HURT!!! And holding an umbrella did nothing because it was coming in sideways! I then decided to use the Physics Building wall as a windbreak rather than try to run for the bridge.

I huddled under the bridge and decided to ring brother to find out the status. He was 10 minutes away so I decided I may as well keep on walking to Borders *sigh*. That was when I dropped my phone into a pile of hail. And then it died :( With a dead phone, I was unable to phone and say *change of plan!* so I kept walking.

The hail piles

But as I was walking, I had to periodically stop because my gym pants are elasticised and they were now so soaked with water that they kept falling down! And because I was stopping, they were getting more wet! And constantly falling down!!!

I did eventually get home with my shoes squelching so I took them off and placed them in front of a heater. About 30 minutes later I found out that my shoes had a sponge core - and that drying them basically shrunk my left shoe :( This actually upset me more than breaking my phone because the phone was five years old while my shoes were only four months gone! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. So I this means I won't be going to the gym and getting down to 10 minutes any time soon :(

Horoki take two!

Pooey is back in Melbs and happy to no longer be eating alone. Other than eating at...er....Mrs. Parmas, Pooey was greatly enticed to eat at Horoki after reading this post of mine from last week. So, for the SECOND time in one week, I was back eating at Horoki. But that's okay with me because I love Horoki so I got to eat some favourites again :D. Mimi, who shall henceforth be known as SEM (to be explained later) joined us for some utter deliciousness.

Green tea! A few years ago, I read a manga and a character said that it's good luck to have tea with a stick floating vertically in it. I hope that means I've got good luck!!!

To start! The special of the night, some beef tataki...

..and the tuna carpaccio. Miam, raw food!

Followed by even more raw food! The Daikon and sashimi salad comes up again!!!

The spicy cod roe and butter pasta! DISH OF THE NIGHT!!!

And a close-up of the pasta because the Vanderpoons are trying to replicate the dish! It definitely has a touch of cream and paprika - definitely not just butter and definitely not chilli-chilli. Happy recreating - always happy to taste test!

The duck breast and eggplant. I've had this previously and really liked it, especially the sauce, but tonight I found it still tasty but little dry :(

Didn't stop Mimi from trying to be a seagull and steal Pooey's duck!
She's now called the Sneaky Eating Machine (SEM) from trying to get extra duck!

After realising we were still hungry, we decided to order some salmon and spinach croquettes. Mimi didn't try to steal any of these from our chopsticks.

For dessert, some green tea ice cream. Green tea-y.

Dinner ended at the relatively early time of 8:30 and decided to get some hot buttered mulled wine from 1806. Pooey thought it was so delicious that she ordered two! Happily for us, the bartender told us that the drink wasn't seasonal - he can always make it for us whenever we want it during bar hours.

Hung Parliament?

So, the election is over and it appears we may have a Hung Parliament (also known as a Minority Parliament) because neither major parties managed to score the 76 seats required to gain control of the House of Reps. There have been jokes about whether it's going to hang to the left or the right. I just hope it manages to hang to the left because when I think about Tony Abbott going to a conference of international leaders, such as the G20 or APEC....*shudder*.

For more of these, go to TonyAbbottisRight.com

It appears many people were as uninspired as myself about both parties, except that while I submitted my ballot paper correctly filled in (below the line to make sure that preferences were directed to whom I wanted, not by the party), many others submitted informal votes. Whether this is because someone told everyone to vote informally on TV is currently being investigated.

Song/video of the week - You make my dreams come true by Hall and Oates

Clip from 500 Days of Summer

Horoki

This post is mostly written for Spuey. I don't know if he actually reads my blog, I think he does in a sort of random manner, but we contemplated coming here for dinner on Saturday except I couldn't guarantee him that dinner would be less than $30 per person and I couldn't get a table for 5 at short notice (it's a small restaurant).

Anyway! Tonight after attending a lecture with the Vanderpoons about the potential for climate change to affect disease rates (e.g. malaria, hookwork, influenza), we decided to celebrate Clinty's dirty 30 by going to Hutong. Not having booked, we naturally didn't get in and so instead we came up with the BRILLIANT idea to go to HOROKI!!! Horoki serves a kind of Japanese-fusion menu but before you roll your eyes at the *fusion* bit, I can say that they do it wonderfully. Not only will these photos show how wonderfully the food is presented, but the flavours were so clean and simple!

Daikon and sashimi salad ($14.50)
Despite being a bit *meh* about ordering salads (and salad in general), whenever I go here, I order this! The great contrast of the daikon and assorted leaved with the crunchy garnish (not sure what it is), containing pieces of prawn, kingfish, tuna, and salmon then liberally sprinkled with roe, and finished with a soy/sesame dressing...dare I say, best salad in Melbs?!

Tuna carpaccio with light soy dressing with parmagiano reggiano ($14.80)
It might sound kinda weird to have the raw tuna in shoyu and sesame dressing then covered with parmesan cheese with jap mayo on the side but the contrasting flavours were so crisp and clean! And kinda funky!!!

Beef Tatar ($13.50)
While furiously trying to scrounge up a menu on Saturday, I came across a review that claimed this dish is more pretty than tasty and lacked seasoning. Random reviewer, you are wrong. I've had tartare that's been over seasoned or over onioned (*cough rockpool cough*), this was just right with the delicate sesame and quail egg allowing the beef flavour to come through.

Creamy crab dumplings ($13.00)
Like individual serves of crab-filled tortellini. Not too heavy handed with the cream and therefore highly appropriate for those intolerant of lactose (I hope).

Soft-shelled crab with lemon sour cream mayo ($14.80)
Again, another dish with simple crisp flavours. My one complaint (other than not having more of it) is that because the crabs are fried, they didn't pick up the dressing very well. That was easily solved by running the crabs through the dressing. Hehehe.

Horoki Original Pasta with spicy cod roe butter sauce ($15.00)
Now, Rachiepoo actually pulled a bit of a face when I suggested this but she not only ate the dish, she ATE HER WORDS. I didn't detect much spice but the contrast of the creamy butter with the salty roe and a touch of green tea...I chose this as my plate to finish and greedily ran my spoon through the dregs to make sure those fish eggs didn't die in vain.

This photo came after I'd dished it out - this is my poor attempt at a Donna Hay-esque pasta swirl presentation.

This is not really a student food review - it doesn't fit the *cheap* criteria at all other than the $15 lunch deal which is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Although it wasn't that expensive either - all up, I think it came to around $35 per person including drinks and a 300ml bottle of sake. Hehehehe. Regardless of cost, I feel that if your student life in Melbs is transient, you'll be missing out by not eating here. The wonderful flavours and quality of the food mean it is a bargain. So if you can, eat here! And therefore, to end,

Happy birthday, male Vanderpoon. BANZAIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!

Movie review - Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

In this movie aimed at a particular audience of a particular age and particular cultural subtype (hipsters), I found Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to be an entertaining movie. But don't be put off by the description of this movie as being for hipsters - there are enough visual jokes and funny moments in the script to entertain most people. I think.

Apparently based on a comic book series which takes place in a computer game world, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22-year old bassist in a band, between jobs, and dumped by his ex-gf about a year ago. At the start of the film, he's recently started going out with 17-year old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). They do things that are appropriate given their age difference - walking around town, hanging out at the gaming arcade, going to the library so she can get books to study, and looking at records at the music store. This moderately inoffensive relationship is altered when he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who's moved to Toronto from NYC and is so cool with her pink hair. Except that to be with Ramona, he now has to defeat her seven EVIL EXES (Satya Bhabha, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Mae Whitman, Shota & Keita Saito, and Jason Schwartzmann), while also grappling with the concepts of love and self respect! And the movie writes itself.

Possibly because I knew little about it before walking in and being able pick the cultural references due to my information-sponge tendencies, I found I was quite enjoying myself and laughed out loud at some points - particularly when Scott tries to use the L word, "I lesbian you." But Officer Fisk said that he found the movie to be overly frenetic, constantly changing and difficult to get into the story. He also said he dislikes Michael Cera as a movie lead without a foil. I disagree - I felt his clueless face and generally nerdy demeanour worked well because you could understand when people said he wasn't 'cool' enough for Ramona.

Regardless of whether the things Officer Fisk objected to will also affect your enjoyment, I recognise that this is definitely a movie for people of a certain age and tendencies. From the moment the Universal Studios page comes up with the 8-bit graphics and tinkly music, you know that if people didn't play computer games, particularly from the late 80s onwards, you may not get why someone bursts into a cloud of coins when Scott defeats them. Familiarity with the comic book/manga/anime genre would probably also help given the proliferation of words popping up to accompany sound effects and other things.

Anyway, I think a lot of people would find Scott Pilgrim entertaining. Just don't take it too seriously.
7/10

Song of the week - Crossfire by Brandon Flowers

Charlize! So hot!

Award-winning!

I was talking to Clinty last night and, as usual, we got onto the topic of food. There is a bakery not too far from Uni called The French Lettuce, which allegedly has title of best vanilla slice in Melbourne. Or, as The Silver Fox and other Australians call them, 'Snot Blocks'. On the way in today, I decided that I had to swing by and taste these so called *best* snot blocks. Here is my assessment.

Firstly, at $5 a piece, it's not cheap! But when I unveiled it in the tea room at lunch, we all agreed - it's a pretty hefty sized slice!

It measured in at about 7cm x 7cm x5cm.
Niiiiiice.

I decided that while I could eat it, I would not mock my colleagues and so it was quite comfortably shared as lunch dessert between 4 people. We discussed the pros and cons of the slice and here's a quick summary.

Pros

• Covered in a light dusting of icing sugar rather than that thick cakey icing layer found on your usual snot block.
• Light, fluffy pastry.
• Excellent texture of the custardy cream (creme patissiere). Very smooth and wonderfully flavoured!
  

Cons

• Well...the fluffiness of the pastry meant that when we attempted to cut it, the custard came out the sides....but that just means the pastry is awesome, right?!
  

As we sat around the table licking our custard-covered fingers, we debated whether we agreed it to be prize-worthy. Our verdict? Absolutely!

Intellectual shame?

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but I'm generally considered moderately intelligent. Lately however there have been times when I have really thought to myself, *Wow, you're really not living up to your intellectual potential.* Here are some cases in point.

In 2004, I would have called myself pretty close to fluent in French. While in Paris on a study trip during the Great European Adventure 2004, I purchased myself a number of 19th century French Literature classics to read and keep it up. One of these books was Nana by Emile Zola. I started it, but in 2007 I ended up purchasing a study guide (also in French) because I just wasn't reading it. I didn't read the guide either. But for some reason while I was trawling Wikipedia, I ended up just reading their summary of the book instead. This lazy reading then continued for the rest of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle.

(On the theme of books, the large majority of thosen I completed reading during the years of my PhD have been historical bodice rippers. A couple of years ago, Lydia invited me to a book club meeting where I delivered a defence of the romance genre and discussed its complexities in the face of overwhelming derision from the general reading public. She said everyone was impressed!)

We're currently in the latter stages of an election campaign. A campaign I've found largely uninspiring, mind you. Someone asked me whether I was watching a political discussion and my thoughts on it. I told them I was instead watching a political satire show. This was a bald-faced lie. I was instead watching a police drama show that when I tell some people that I watch it, look at me in amazement when I say it's highly entertaining!

When asked my opinions on what should be done to counteract pollution, the economic crisis, and global warming, my reply of "We need a new global pandemic - think about it!" was met with rounds of laughter. I was then asked what I really thought. When I repeated, "We need a global pandemic!" people were less pleased.

So yes. Should I be ashamed of my lack of opinion on the hard hitting questions and inability to complete works of literature? Perhaps its due to brainfry from research and alcohol abuse of the last four years. Or am I simply in the process of moving away from elitist intellectual thought and back into the popular fold? Either way, I'm going to get some KFC!

Graduation 2010!

So after many years of thinking hard, I have finally graduated from the PhUD.

This was celebrated by finally receiving my big gown with the red things and the fluffy mushroom hat with tassels....

which I promptly made my parents wear...

and I had to learn how to doff it at my peers.

We then celebrated by drinking jugs of iced tea from Long Island...

then chicken dancing with Spubag!

Sculpture of the week - Lunch with Helmet On by Shigeo Fukuda

Shigeo Fukuda, Lunch with Helmet On, 1987
I dont know where it's exhibited, probably Japan
(Source)

A couple of days ago, I bought an art monograph called Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusion. It's pretty cool and I highly recommend it to people who like to look at optical illusions and go *wow!* But despite the big names in the title, I found that the best illusions in the book were not by Escher or Dali, but artist that were lesser known (to me). And I decided that the artist profiled in the book that I liked best was Fukuda.

Lunch with Helmet On is constructed out of 848 forks, knives, and spoons welded together to make that...mass...which magically has the shadow of a motorcycle when a light is shone at a certain angle! Like, WTH...THAT'S AMAZING!!! Fukuda has done a number of these, and according to the authors of the monograph, he's said that it's extremely difficult to make a 3D object that allows equal penetration of light to form the shadow. I do not doubt this statement - I'm amazed that he could do this at all!!!

BEST PIECE EVER!!!

Two epic dinners

Yesterday and tonight, I had two epic dinners.

On Tuesday night, I forewent a Zumba Class (those abs are to die for! LOL) because dancinghula was back from C-town so we , her siblings, and various other friends went to the Robert Burns Hotel. Don't be fooled by the connotations of the name - we didn't have haggis. Oh no. Instead, we had a Spanish feast! Unfortunately, I didn't take that many photos because we were too busy digging in.

Pffft, we had to have sangria of course!

Tapas to share: Eggplant chips. We also had the albondigas (meatballs), chorizo, garlic prawns, stuffed mushrooms...there was more but I can't remember.

Mains: Seafood...for TWO?!?! This was HUGE!!! We also had two different paellas, one with seafood and one with seafood and chicken. I really wish I took photos of them because they too were HUGE!!!

Luckily we decided to keep our dessert stomachs clear because when the waiter told us what they were, we...er.....kinda ordered all of them :D.

Catalan Cream/Custard. Like a less set creme brulee. That's not a criticism - it was delicious!

Orange cheesecake. Also delicious!

Churros. Light and fluffy with a crispy outer. *thumbs up*

Sticky Date pudding. Okay, not really that Spanish but still good!

Chocolate Fondant. Alas, this one was a bit of a disappointment because it lacked the gooey centre. That problem was solved by pouring the churros dipping sauce into the fondant!

I will admit, by the end I was feeling in a little bit of pain - my food baby was definitely increasing! But she/he/it grew another month bigger when Tuesday night was followed up with Czech dinner on Wednesday night!

Apparently, Koliba was the first authentic Czech and Slovak restaurant in Melbs. Not having visited the region (yet), I'm not sure if it's authentic but they definitely had things that pleased the crowd.

WarBrother, quite pleased with his 500ml beer

WarBrother, much MORE pleased with ONE LITRE beer steins!

Note the family resemblance here on their pleased, pleased faces

My plum brandy. Very smooth and easy going down.

Enough about the booze - onto the food!

Entree - Bramborak, a potato pancake with side of sauerkraut

Utopenci, marinated sausage with raw onions

My DEVIL BREAD (for reals, it was called this on the menu), bread with minced meat and cheese

The mains - what is apparently the Czech National dish: roast pork with sauerkraut and bread dumplings (a bit like the flour bit on cha siu bao)

Crumbed and deep fried edam with traditional potato salad (and garden salad)

My Chernohor - pork schnitzel wrapped in bramborak - potato pancake - with potato salad (and garden salad)

When I told Pooey the cuisine of the night, she asked me how it was with the comment, "You know, people don't go to the Czech Republic for their food." I can understand why. Mischka described the food as 'hearty'. Someone else said that's a euphemism for 'big servings of bland-ish food'. Maybe I got lucky, but I quite liked my orders although it was agreed that my dishes were the best ones of the night. I suppose if you don't like sauerkraut, onion or potatoes, happen to be a vegetarian, or unable to eat giant wheels of deep fried cheese as large as your face, this place may not be for you. But if you are capable of any of the above, go for it! Or you know, you could share meals. The servings were definitely capable of being confortably shared between two.

I love Modern Family (and Phil Dunphy)

Do you watch Modern Family? If you don't, you should. I have spent the last two days watching the episodes one after the other and I am convinced of its utter hilarity.

I have also decided that I want to marry someone like Phil Dunphy.


Because he is a big haphazard goofball


(which might actually piss the real me off)


But it would always be funny

And full of random singing!

Seriously, how can a show that brought us the song *Underneath the Moonlight* be bad?