Chinese desserts in Campsie!

Last night i went to this small cosy restaurant situated near Sydney's inner west, Campsie. I was recommended this restaurant by my work friends who are heavily into their Chinese H.K. culture.

I am always keen to go out late at night to have dessert and when they mentioned this place i was quite excited to check it out. My expectations was quite ampped up even more when my work colleges said this place is a contender or even better than the asian dessertery L.N.C in Chinatown. The only problem was it was actually quite hard to find. I drove past it a few times before we decided to actually get out of the car and walk to see if we could find this place. It's called W.D.Z Restaurant but i don't think anyone knows of it by it's English name! lolWhen we walked in we noticed that inside the decor was actually quite cute and homelike. These balls hanging from the ceiling, only held there by string and sticky tape, the silhouettes of cherry blossoms, swallows, snowflakes that they obviously cut out of cardboard themselves (very talented!) and also the bansai trees scattered all along the side of the shop. After that me and Nat got worried as we noticed parts of their dining menu plastered around the room all in Chinese!

It was ok though, one of the waitresses could speak very good english and their menus had english translations on it too, i was quite relieved. Their menu also featured a lot of traditional chinese dinner dishes, from snacks to even hotpots.

When we sat down we were greeted with complementary tea with these cute little cups! Surprisingly these cups were chilled.

We got the 'Chestnut and taro sago with coconut milk' hot because we added black sesame glutenous balls with it. And we also got the 'Rainbow'.

The Chestnut and taro sago is the on pictured on top, quite nice hot. It was sufficiently sweet but no where near the 'Too Sweet' zone which i really liked. Sesame balls were good also, and the chestnuts were crushed so it was pretty cool to have the taro,sago and chestnut in a even quantities when you eat it.
The Rainbow (which wasn't very rainbow at all) had herbal jelly, glutinous rice balls, taro and coconut juice with ice shavings. This was a cold dessert, the ice shavings was quite fun to eat, and you could mix it up with all the things in the bowl. This dish is quite similar to the Malaysian 'Ais kacang' and just like the ais kacang, the odd combination of ingredients actually make for a pretty good dessert. Although I'm not a fan of the rice balls and these ones in particular tasted a lot more like flour, so that part was my least favorite. I just looked at the menu now and it's supposed to come with mango but ours lacked that, i wish she had at lest mentioned it to us.

The place was not the best but defiantly a cheap gem, if i was in the mood for chinese desserts and did not feel like trekking out to Chinatown, i would definitely head out here again.

The place is located on Beamish street, Campsie. Not too sure on the shop number but it is loacated on the north end just before you hit the first roundabout.

Car wash fail.

Yesterday, i washed my car in the morning. It was raining the night before. My car got bogged, thus it was stuck in my backyard for half an hour. I tried everything i could, i rocked back and forth, i put timber underneath and i also put carpet too for extra grip!

I ended up calling Clifton over to help me push..... lol!

Clifton took a picture of the end result.
Then i had to wash the car a second time!

2011 WRX STI ad.

Glenn moves!

The other day i helped out my mate packed up a lot of shit into boxes to help him move. Long story short, it took us about 4 hours to pack away his life into boxes. And to top that off his whole life of belongings managed to fit into two cars and half of it was food!

This was the kitchen after 2 solids hours of packing, now his place reminds me of a hotel room which only has the bare minimal.
This was Glenn's civic jammed up with all his shit. It looked quite funny to see a little green civic packed to the roof of shit, also the civic looked dumped because of the extra weight! lol.

Sure it was tiring but it was also somewhat fun to play tetris with everything and making things fit into one box. I wonder when it will be my turn to pack my whole life into boxes and move out. Ahh, can't wait! Actually no, wait i take that back, i can wait. I'll be waiting for the day i get a proper fulltime job and a steady income.

Bund Restaurant & Karaoke

Today we (Da Haung Kung-Fu) was asked to help out to open a new restaurant in Haymarket. It's called Bund Restaurant and Karaoke but in Chinese they called themselves "Shanghai hotel" something something (So sorry my Chinese is horrible). It is as it's called, the main area inside is for patrons who are just there for the food, then there are a few other private rooms which is available for karaoke and dining. Man these types of places are opening up quite a fair bit now, I know of a Japanese restaurant that does quite close to the same thing.
The front was decked out with Chinese style bouquet of flowers and so was the whole entrance leading into the main dining area. This is a traditional custom that all restaurants do when they first open, it's partly a sign of wealth and other reasons that do not come to mind but it also helps to attract new/more customers. Each bouquet has a pair of ribbons streaming down it forming a triangle and down each and everyone there is little scripts written on it. Some stating the date of opening others wishing the restaurant wealth and lots of business.

We were just about to leave the door with this lion for today. I actually quite like this one a little bit more than the others only because it's newer but also it's the lightest. But instead we left with the silver 'hok san' lion (which i didn't get to take a photo of).BeforeAfter

This time the 'Cheng' which is chinglish for ......... I have no F'ing idea actually, i think it might be lettuce but it ain't quite right. But today's one was a bit different from the normal, usually it would be a lettuce with a red pocket inside hanging from high up somewhere and we would jump up and eat it like so. This time though it was a lucky fruit platter with 8 mandarins and 1 massive grapefruit.
The story goes something along the lines of this and i'm not 100% sure, but the fruit symbolises hidden wealth and the lion will come around opening each and everyone of them up to 'unleash' that hidden wealth and prosperity to the owners of the restaurant. And so the bigger the fruit it is believed there is more hidden goodness inside thus the big grapefruit.
I ate the mandarins four at a time and the grapefruit last, the mandarins was ok to peel open but was slightly bit challenging to rip it in a way where it is presentable. The grapefruit on the other hand was amazingly difficult, even though before hand i made two small cuts into the skin so i could get my nails in easier but even then... oh my f'ing gah! My nails felt like they were close to breaking, so i left it barely opened, lol. The symbolism is all still there so it's all good.
Kevin today was his, well our first time lion dancing in about 5 months and his back was in agony. Me? Well i was ok, other than the unstoppable hand tremors i got after and even now my legs and lower back is still a bit sore.

Hahaha, oh well i guess it's a sign to actually put some effort into training.

Sydney fish markets

So today me an Nat decided we would go check out the fish markets today for some sashimi! Despite it being a Wednesday the fish markets was surprisingly busy, loads of people checking out and eating all the 'fresh' seafood there. And loads of tourists too, which made me think why is this place such an attraction? It's not at all fancy and the seafood is not necessarily 'freshest'. Well unless proven wrong i don't think the managers would throw out a day old fish with the fresh catch. Casting that aside we just got a shitload of salmon sashimi. Yum yum.
And half a lobster mornay. Naughty me, shouldn't be eating too much cheese, but damn it was nice just to have the cheese!
Even though it was the markets it wasn't particularly a cheap feed. The sashimi turned out to be close to $15 and the lobster was about $20, so a $35 feed between two (just as a snack by the way!) wasn't the biggest of bargains. But we did get a lot more sashimi for 15 bucks than what you would get at a typical jap restaraunt.

Boat Orchids.

At home we have these lovely little gems growing around the side in the shade. And i believe these flowers are definitely worth a mention, they are called Boat Orchids or otherwise known as Cymbidium Orchids. It has taken such a long time to discover the name of these flowers because, 1) It just never occurred to me that these are in the Orchid family, and 2) I only knew what they were called in Chinese and in chinglish its ~Lan Fa~, literal translation would be "Broken Flower" or "Lazy Flower" not too sure if that's anywhere close to its translation but it sounds like it to me.

What also makes these flowers extra special is that they only flower once a year! That's why it's such a gem. Also they make for great cut flowers, according to Everything Orchids these flowers when cut can last up to a month! All it needs is a regular water change and a new snip on its spike every now and then.

I did manage to get a stalk or two for someone and wrapped it up enshrouded with green jacaranda leaves and it looked great! Too bad i didn't get a picture but yes, these flowers do make for a great gift!