and off i flew to Melbourne to visit my friends who're studying there and get a little taste of the Melbourne experience that they've been talking bout all the time they come back to Malaysia. i arrived on the night of 25th of July. had to go through the whole customs thing cos of the medication i brought from home. horrible process. bah.
first place they brought me to was Supper Inn. it's this place in China Town which has the best "Pei Tan Sau Yuk Chuk" i've ever eaten in my life. for those of you who don't know what that is, it's actually Century Egg with Pork in Porridge. awesome stuff i say. the "Yao Char Koay" was pretty good as well but of course not as good as the ones they have in Malaysia.
funny fact: "Yao Char Koay" is called Chinese Doughnuts here in Australia. do they look anything like doughnuts?!
Li-Zhen, Wen and Jay Son were kind enough to let me sleep at their place for a night and brought me sight-seeing the next day. what was supposed to be breakfast turned out to be lunch for obvious reasons. walking out in the winter breeze wasn't exactly as cold as i thought it would be. so we walked to Degraves Street where we had really nice Italian food. for a very reasonable price as well.

i wish streets in Malaysia were like this.
thanks to our lousy weather, we can't have things like this.

thought this was a fascinating sign.
you don't see things like this back at home.
i ordered hot chocolate with marshmallows and believe it or not, i've never had it before. yes yes, laugh it up people. through out my twenty years, i've never got to live my childhood dream of drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows. and might i say, it was soooooo good. i had Americana Pizza which i obviously couldn't finish. the serving size was actually enough for one person but there was just too much bread in it.

my hot chocolate with marshmallows in the top left and the Americana Pizza.
we then walked around the street and found ourselves going into a lovely shop called Little Cupcakes. obviously, it was a shop selling cupcakes.

the variety of cupcakes they had in the menu were pretty vast and they looked really really tasty. i should bring home some but i don't think anyone at home will eat it. they'll probably say it's too sweet.

of course i bought a box of cupcakes for myself to indulge in them. got the 4-mini-cupcakes box.

sadly, when i was walking back to Li-Zhen's house, one of my cupcakes toppled onto the others and this is how it turned out when i opened it.

yes i know, heart-breaking. it all tasted really good nonetheless. the flavours from the top left going clockwise are Carrot, Cookies & Cream, Mocha Coffee and Red Velvet. personally, i preferred the Red Velvet amongst the four. i think i'll buy all the mini cupcakes back to Malaysia for Amanda & Amelia to try. i know they'd be pretty happy.
i got myself Krispy Kreme as well. it's much better over here than back at home.

Li-Zhen taught me a new way of eating the doughnut. heat it up in the microwave oven for 8 seconds. according to her, the sugar will melt just nice and the dough will be soft enough for my jaws to sink in it.
so i tried it.

before.

after.
that was my failed attempt to make a before-and-after ad. you might think that just because it didn't change in appearance, whatever Li-Zhen taught was nonsense. but no, it made a world of difference. it tasted soooo good. i really did regret not getting another. perhaps i should before i leave.
two days after that, Li En took me to this Indonesian restaurant to have Nasi Uduk. according to her, it was super awesome. we were joined by Boon, Su Lynn and Panda.

left to right: Boon, Su Lynn trying to butt into the photo.

left to right: Su Lynn, Li En busy texting Zi Yond who's back in KL.

with Panda.

Nasi Uduk. YUM.
basically, Nasi Uduk is Fried Rice with Omelette and Fried Chicken on it. the chicken was HUGE and the sambal that came with it was delicious.
two nights later, we went to Max Brenner to treat ourselves to some really awesome desserts. i heard the waffles were the best in town and i wanted to see it for myself. i'm sure from the picture below, anyone can tell that they're really really yummy.

i highly recommend going to Max Brenner to satisfy your sweet cravings.
i got myself a mug of Hot Chocolate. the mug that they served it in was a pretty unique mug. it was what they call a "Hug Mug".

Hot Milk Chocolate. YUM.

served in their very own Hug Mug.

oh.. so this is why they call it a Hug Mug.

Panda and I posing with our Hug Mugs. Jay Son, wtcrap.
we had Shogun for dinner the day after. it wasn't very nice and i was very disappointed. i'll never go back there again if i was asked to.


Aruba: Rice with Salmon Roe and some other fishes as well.

we got tickets to watch Bruno after dinner. awesome show but tickets were so expensive. 17 dollars! wtcrap! no matter how you look at it, whether you convert it back to Malaysian Ringgit or not, it's still super expensive! not gonna go to the cinemas here anymore.
and the night after that, we went to Ying Thai with the gang to have delicious Thai food.


Pad Thai

Pandan Chicken

some omelette.

Green Curry with Duck.

Minced Pork with chilli.
i didn't get to take a picture of the coconut rice that they serve in Ying Thai but oh my, it was really really nice. it was actually sweet rice. i don't usually like to eat sweet things during my meals but this was an exception. very satisfying meal.
Panda's birthday was this weekend and we decided to have a dinner party at Squires Loft.


really great ambience and environment. i was really feeling it you know. obviously everyone else was late except the usual punctual ones. Boon was having a fashion crisis. wtcrap Boon. so we ordered first.

Shen Jin's Wagyu Beef Burger.

my Lamb Chops with Fries. YUM.

so juicy. omg.

many of them ordered the Rack of Pork Ribs.

it was really delicious but apparently not as good as the one in Sydney.
i'll probably be heading there next week or something to give it a shot.
the dinner party was also to celebrate Shen Jin's birthday which was ages ago. Jia-Li got them both cakes which were topped with excessive chocolate syrup and vanilla ice cream.




VERY VERY DELICIOUS.
only just this afternoon, Shen Jin and Panda took me to the very famous Rice Bar. it has the worst tagline in the world.

Rice Bar: not only rice.
wtcrap.
and their menu had the worst equation i've ever seen in my entire life.

my Mathematics teacher would've hung herself if she saw this.
even so, the food served there was really nice actually. Shen Jin had the Mushroom Chicken Rice, Panda had Curry Laksa but i think my dish was the best. Beef Briskets with Wanton Noodles. best Beef Noodles i've ever tried since the one near my house.



super yummy!
this post was all very food-like. i'll blog bout my proper Melbourne experience in the next post. till then, you can drool all you want from seeing these pictures =).