Welcome to my page

Popular posts from this blog

Last day of uni (Black Star Pastry + Grill'd)

Image
Last Friday was our last day back at uni, it was kinda sad but more exciting at the same time! We had made plans to celebrate afterwards at Newtown.  I've seen so many people raving about the Strawberry Watermelon cake at Black Star Pastry so that's we decided to settle for dessert. We finished uni at 4, got a little speech from our lovely coordinator, took a year group photo and set off on the walk to Newtown. It was kind of early for dinner so we decided to have dessert first. We got to Black Star Pastry at 5:01 and were devastated to see it had already closed! We were late by a minute (they close at 5). Despite our efforts of knocking on the door, the staff inside did not open up to apologize. But while looking at the door we realised there was another pop-up store at Town Hall. We had to decide whether we would chase it or leave it, and we chose to do the former, for obvious reasons! We desperately wanted that cake! We went to Town Hall and took a while to f...
Read more

The Emporium

Image
This cafe has a great welcoming atmosphere with options to dine in or outside. We went on a weekday so it wasn't that busy. I wasn't that hungry so I ordered a side. It was filled with Dutch, purple and orange carrots with Harissa dressing. It was great in the beginning but after a while, it got boring. It would've been better if they had one or two other veggies (rather than just carrots). Roasted Dutch carrots, cashew dukkah, harissa dressing $9 Chocolate cremeux, honeycomb ice cream, chocolate soil, dulce de leche, espresso gel $16 The dessert however, was delicious. It had lots of crunch, texture and flavour. There was lots of bits and pieces like bread, chocolate, ice cream etc. The amount was good in terms of portion control. Yes, I know the photo doesn't look as appealing as the lighting was poor but it looked way much better in person.
Read more

Our Wedding Day

Image
Engagement + wedding band : I did not have any specific requirements, except I wanted something in yellow gold and a solitaire. Mashayek went with Australian Diamond Brokers and revealed very little as he wanted to keep it as a surprise. I absolutely adored both rings and how beautiful it turned out.  Wedding planning Planning duration : four months Our approach : we set ourselves a very tight goal and we found ourselves on go-go mode the whole time. The upside was that we did not dwell on one task for too long. We picked a job, assigned responsibility, completed the work and moved on to the next one. However, this also meant that many of the tasks were rushed and we did not have time to do it as well as I would’ve liked. Vision : my own first priority was finding photographers who would understand our culture and would be able to follow with our style. Photography is very close to my heart and I looked into this right from the beginning. I wan...
Read more

Manageable March

Image
I started this month feeling overwhelmed and out of control, both emotionally and physically (playing the catch-up game with my workload). As I have said, I have had a lot going in my life in the past couple of months. While the majority of it has left a very positive influence in my life, there are some areas of it where negativity continues to tingle. I have told myself I will focus on the sunny side of it, work around this to normalise it as much as possible. The good news is that I have succeeded; I have managed to focus my shift back to work, and it has been working so far. However, there are occasions when my mind starts drifting away into the other land. But happy to say, I have been pretty productive this month, managed to get through ethics applications, two paper revisions (almost) and a few other things. In other news, I have finally started working on our wedding day blog. It took me a while to start because I wanted to wait until my ‘mental load’ reduced a little. We h...
Read more

Daddy's birthday 2015 | Buttery fruit cake

Image
Happy birthday daddy! This perfectly describes how he continues to inspire me! And he always is!  In the past, I always used to purchase cakes because I did not trust my baking skills enough to be able to pull off a fancy cake for a special occasion. But this year, I've been a bit of an experimental baker so I thought I'd give it a go.  I asked him what he wanted for his birthday. Initially, he said plain cake again (probably because he did not want to trouble me during my final days of thesis writing). After I pressed further, he gave me buttery fruit cake as an answer.  I was happy with this because I had never baked one so it'd be fun to do one. I started my recipe hunt. Most traditional recipes use alcohol but because I don't drink, I had to look harder to find one that didn't so I could eat it too :D Eventually I found this. I've followed this recipe pretty closely with some little changes.  Normally I would not use ...
Read more

Parramatta Lanes

Image
I heard a lot about Parra Lanes last year so I thought I'd make a time to see out this year. At first, we had a lot of trouble finding out where we needed to go. I've heard Parra Lane gets spread across over multiple stations to distribute the crowd. However, the problem was that the places aren't always easy to find. After walking around for some time, we managed to get hold of a map from a security staff. My main reason for coming was to try some knafeh; I've heard so much about this dessert from people who came last year. But we realised this particular shop was furthest out from our location. First stop was Koi Dessert Bar but there as a long line. While waiting in line, I decided to try the strawberry watermelon gelato from N2. I've always been a huge admirer of the strawberry watermelon cake from Black Star Pastry . I thought it'd be an interesting combo to have it in a gelato form. It surely was, I quite liked the gelato cake, it had a very stron...
Read more

Kale chips

Image
I've been thinking about making kale chips for a while now; it was one of those things I thought would be too complex. Normally, I use kale in a smoothie or a salad but I can never get through a whole bunch without it going yellow. Recently, I've had a go at making kale chips. It's actually not that difficult, but it's just very delicate. You need to have the right temperature and time setting. Otherwise, you end up with burnt or soggy chips (like I did for the first few times!) I've adapted this recipe from some recipe sites and personal experience :) Recipe is as follows- Ingredients 1 kale bunch Paprika Cayenne pepper Lemon pepper Sea salt 4 Tb Extra Virgin olive oil Method  Preheat oven to 150 (fan-forced) Remove stems from kale and tear leaves into bite sized pieces) Wash kale thoroughly Dry kale with a salad spinner (this step is important!)  In a bowl, mix olive oil and herbs/ spices (amount to your liking) Line tray with baking paper U...
Read more

Pizza Design Co.

Image
Presenting the deep fried Mars bar with ice cream *drum rolls *  Deep fried Mars bar with ice cream ($9) I know what you're thinking, it doesn't look that great?!  I must say I was initially skeptical to the combo because I'm not fond of Mars bars (couldn't remember the last time I had a Mars bar), and I don't like deep fried foods either.  And then, I reluctantly had my first bite... I was surprised at how good it tasted! I know the picture doesn't look as appealing, but it was very delicious! The outside layer was crispy, and the inside was soft and chewy.  It just melts in your mouth with the ice cream. It's the kind of dessert you could have during summer and winter- because it was hot and cold at the same time!  I'd come back here for this again, and also to try a custom made pizza, I've heard they're very yum as well. 
Read more

Amazing April

Image
I'm behind with the blogging again, finding it so hard to keep up with how fast the time is flying! April was a pretty good month for me, I had my birthday and graduation this month so I got spoilt with lots of presents and food! In terms of work, I'm progressing at a moderate pace. I reckon I could be faster if I didn't have so many meetings to attend. I've joined a committee recently so there are additional meetings/events and few extra jobs to do. So I really need to make sure I'm productive with the time I have. With my systematic review, I have finished extracting all the papers. I'm up to doing quality assessments now. We did Cochrane which I was already familiar with from last year. But there's also a new one called GRADE. From what I've heard, it's a complex tool to use so I think I'll need to allow myself some time to learn this. The other thing I learnt this month was NVivo. I did an short online course on this software. It's usef...
Read more

Khaybar Restaurant

Image
Two of my friends recommended this place, it was my first time trying Afghan cuisine so I was quite excited. I was told they have really nice eggplant and meat dishes. There weren't many people as we went on a weeknight but I have heard that they are really busy and often hard to get a table. We started with their famous eggplant dip. The 'Buranee-Badenjan' came with large naan bread. The dip was rich in flavour but it was just too oily. I did not expect there would be this much floating oil. The bread tasted quite nice with the dip but it was hard to tear and manage. We would've liked if it had been cut in smaller pieces. Buranee-Badenjan as an entree ($6.90) For mains, two of us ordered the 'Qaboli Pallaw' (one chicken and one lamb shank). The chicken was soft and cooked well. The rice was topped with carrots, raisins and pistachios. I enjoyed the combination of sweet and savoury in this dish. Qaboli Pallaw Chicken ($14.95)  Buranee-B...
Read more