Started Christmas celebrations on the first week of December. Met up with my girl friends Meds and Charyn for dinner at Saigon Bowl.
Saigon Bowl (is well-known Vietnamese restaurant in Strathfield. Although Strathfield is known as Sydney Metro’s biggest Koreatown, they still have other restaurants other Korean restos. Since we’ve already had dinner at a Korean resto before, we decided to try Saigon Bowl. Thanks to Charyn’s recommendation, we had delicious rice meals of beef and pork with Vietnamese flavour.
Their meats are marinated so well it’s so tasty and flavourful. The beef and pork are soft and easy to chew.
I had the Pork Chop rice meal and it was good. The breading was thin but crunchy and not too oily.
After dinner, we had coffee and hot chocolate at My Sweet Memory Cafe. As we caught up with stories and plans for the Christmas holidays, we look forward to a blessed year ahead for us all…and more dinner dates and coffee klatches too.
As we leave Koreatown, we saw a big Christmas Tree all lit-up making our night brighter and our hearts warmer. Saigon Bowl 3 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW Phone: 02 9746 7632
As a way of welcoming Christmas season, I want to share this fun and cute video of Jimmy Fallon + Mariah Carey playing one of my favourite Christmas songs, “All I Want For Christmas is You“.
December is our busiest month as its the time we attend a lot of parties and get-together with family and friends. Sometimes our meet-ups start in November as some of them need to come home to the Philippines for Christmas.
How are you a week before Christmas? Are you all set? All presents bought and wrapped?
As for me:
We’re about 95% done with Christmas pressies. I need to buy just 5 items this week. I was kind of successful in getting all pressies bought between June to November (that’s how early I start). I intentionally left a few items to buy because I still want to spend a few hours in the mall to feel the Christmas rush.
We still need to wrap a few more gifts. I don’t know why but this year, I’m so lazy to wrap pressies. The target was to finish all wrapping by end of November but *sigh*…wrapping gifts doesn’t interest me this year. Thanks to the Husband for helping me. We’ll definitely finish wrapping gifts this week.
Later this afternoon, I will be working on my cards and lollies to be given to my workmates.
Our respective families in Manila have received their Christmas Care Packages and we have received their gifts to us too.
All get-together and parties were finalized in November so the focus this month was to prepare the food we need to bring and attend the parties. I tried to be creative in seeing friends this year. To date, we’ve attended a Christmas Brunch, Christmas dinner at Koreatown, Christmas Tea Time at Laduree and a Christmas BBQ Party.
We have a few more parties to attend towards Christmas and then on Christmas week, we’ve set lunch dates with some friends. We’ve booked out our social calendar til the New Year! 🙂
Our Christmas holiday has been sorted too. Husband and I are fortunate that our respective offices will officially close down during Christmas week. From the 24th December to 1st January, we can focus on just enjoying Christmas and New Year.
Christmas and New Year menu….hmmm, the only thing I’ve bought was Turkey Ham and we don’t know when we’d eat it yet. Have no elaborate food plans at home, no plans of baking Ham too. We want something simple and no-fuss so we’ll probably have Korean BBQ like last year.
Those are a few things on my mind this morning. Last week before Christmas—wow! Can you believe it’s nearly 2013? Time sure flies when we’re having fun, aye?
We are not celebrating our wedding anniversary but today we honour the day we became a couple.
We spent a few moments reading thru the scrapbooks I made from years ago and some blog entries during our previous monthsaries. I once shared how we got together (click storyhere) and the story will never grow old. We always find ourselves amused as we look back on all those memories and realize how much we’ve affected each other…how we still light up each other’s souls until now.
Our first photo on that fateful 14th December 2002
Ten years (wow!). Such a great blessing to be in love and be the best of friends for a decade. We are truly grateful for everyday that has passed and look forward to more decades of togetherness.
For years, I’ve known and heard of Boon, a chocolate cafe in Darlinghurst owned by a Filipino brother and sister tandem. What took me so long to visit? I don’t know.
As a food blogger, I’m grateful for friends, blogmates and restaurant owners who message me of recommended restaurants to try, an “it” food to taste or a recipe to create. Such things are very helpful and always appreciated. I keep all messages, include all recommendations in a list I have which I go back to often. I visit a restaurant or cafe mostly based by chance. I like unplanned visits as it adds hunger (not the physical kind!) and excitement to a foodie like me.
Yesterday’s after work meet-up with girl friend Pen turned into a wonderful chocolate experience. The plan was to get a bag of fresh Cherries from her (picked from the orchards of Orange, NSW) but we found ourselves walking the streets of Darlinghurst towards Boon‘s doorstep.
Oh what joy to finally visit Boonand to meet one of the creators, Alex Chan!
While getting our orders, Alex spent a moment talking about Boon. He mentioned that other than making chocolates and managing a business, her sister, business partner and chocolatier, Fanny, have partnered with Opportunity Australia (an NGO supporting countries such as India and the Philippines) by saving a portion of their earnings to a trust fund that will aid those people earning less than two dollars a day. Right now, their website also shows a link for those who would like to make donations for those affected by typhoon Pablo and tip bowl inside the cafe which all money will also donated to survivors of the typhoon. While meeting successful Filipino entrepreneurs in Australia makes me always proud, I became more in awe of Alex (and Fanny) when he mentioned that in every interview and feature, they always request that it’d be mentioned that they are Filipinos. It’s great to know that they are proud of where they came from. They try to incorporate something Filipino thru their creations. Alex showed us a bag made of chocolate which they called “Harana Bag“. They also make a Calamansi praline, which was unfortunately not availably yesterday. One of their must-try chocolate drinks is the Tskolate Ala Negros, inspired from the 19th Century sugar fields of Negros Occidental, Philippines.
Pen and I ordered a Tsokolate Ala Negros each which comes with mousse and our choice of praline. Since we wanted to try a few more pralines, we got a Chocolate Teaser Plate which consisted of four pralines of our choices.
The Tsokolate Ala Negros is made up of 80% chocolate with muscovado sugar. I’ve never experienced a chocolate that was as thick and strong as this one. I literally jolted when I had my first sip. It gave the right kind of kick that can only come from real cocoa. The mousse was a wonderful partner to the chocolate as it was sweet and light. The praline I chose was the Arabica (freshly roasted coffee praline).
I can’t remember all the pralines we chose for our Teaser Plate but we did have the Kurobiko (roasted sesame with rice crispies), a mandarin flavoured one, a coconut flavoured-one and one that had a pine nut (I’m not really sure of the kind of nut). They’re pretty to look at and tastes as wonderful.
They’ve got packed chocolates so I bought 3 pieces of Negros chocolate bars to bring home to the Husband (whom I will be bringing to Boon soon because he’s the chocoholic between the two of us).
Chocolates wrapped in Christmas cheer are available in store. They’re the perfect gift to the chocoholic.
A little afternoon adventure, thanks to Pen, where I got to finally walk the streets of Darlinghurst and Kings Cross and have a great chocolate experience at Boon.
Boon (The Chocolate Experience) 251 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst Phone: 02 9356 8876 Tuesday to Friday: 10:00am-7:00pm Saturday: 10:00am-8:00pm Sunday: 11:00am-6:00pm
For me, the best and healthy corned beef is the one made at home. I learned how to cook real corned beef from one of my aunts a few years back. This recipe is easy and simple. All you need is to buy Silverside Beef, a cut of beef from the hindquarter of a cattle just above the leg cut, from the butcher or you can find packed silverside beef in the supermarkets. The packed silverside beef from the supermarkets usually comes with instructions on how to cooke corned beef.
What you need to prepare: Silverside Beef 1 tbsp Sugar 1 Onion, peeled and sliced 2 Bay Leaves 1/2 cup Vinegar Cold water to cover the meat Salt and Pepper to taste For the gravy: I buy Gravox. 2 tbsps of Gravox, mix it with beef stock from the saucepan (where you boiled your silverside) and a bit of butter. What you need to do: 1. Place meat in a deep sauce pan. 2. Add all the ingredients in. 3. Stir and then cover the sauce pan. 4. Slowly bring liquid to boil and reduce heat until liquid is just simmering. 5. Simmer, while covered, until meat is well done. Allow approximately 40 minutes per 500grams. 6. Once cooked turn off heat and keep meat in it liquid (to avoid dryness) until ready to slice. 7. Serve with gravy or other preferred condiments.
You can easily pair this up with rice, vegetables or salad. This would also make a wonderful and healthy sandwich.
