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Black Star Pastry (Strawberry Watermelon Cake)

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Some of you might know about the desperate attempt I made last year for the Strawberry Watermelon Cake (see previous post at  Black Star Pastry ).  Yesterday I had the privilege of tasting this cake at a party. I got super excited as I’ve been wanting to try this for almost a year now. I was so tempted to just skip the mains but I patiently waited for dessert time and made sure I left space for the cake :P In the meantime, I went to take a close look at the cake (could not resist, for obvious reasons) and I was amazed at how magical it looked. It was constructed beautifully starting with a layer of almond  dacquoise followed by cream, then a slice of watermelon with cream,   almond  dacquoise and cream again. Finally, it was topped with strawberries, pistachios and dried rose petals. It was a quite a delicious cake but unfortunately, it did not meet the expectations I had. I liked certain elements, such as the lightness of the cream layers, f...
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Father's Day 2015

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I asked my daddy, "what kind of cake do you want for Father's Day?" He said, "just a plain cake with nothing on it." He's just too easy and kind on me! Happy Father's Day!  I've spent so long looking for a perfect card for this Father's Day but they just don't seem to be have what I was looking for. I wanted something with a nice long message but all the ones I saw had dull cover pages. Then I came across this superdad one and I found it to be quite appropriate for us because he has been like a 'superhero' to me. I ended up getting this cute tatty bear one and thought I'd just write my own long message here and force him to read this later :P So here it goes... To my dearest best daddy in the world, Firstly, I hope you like the card and the other presents. I thought I'd get you this superdad tatty bear because you have been like a 'superhero' in my life. You may not know how to fly l...
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Oriented October

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Happy Halloween everyone! I was super late last month , so I wanted to redeem myself by getting my post out on time this month. This month has been a huge learning curve for me. It has been super busy and crazy, as usual. I spent most of it doing statistics, but the good news is I am starting to get the hang of it. I feel more comfortable doing the analyses now, and I have started keeping good notes of what I am doing so I can go back when needed. Besides statistics, I conducted a few focus groups with another friend and attended an UCL behaviour change workshop, both of which have been very helpful. There was also a sad happening this month which left me feeling down for a couple of days, but I am reluctant to write about here at this stage. I am trying not to think about it for now because I know I should be focusing on the positive things. Other than that, it has been a pretty good mix of quantitative and qualitative work. In other news, I went to Parramatta Lanes and made ...
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Parramatta Lanes

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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...
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Brewtown Newtown

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So I realise I haven't written here for a while, I've started my research semester so I sort of got bogged down with uni. It's been quite full on because it's meant to be 35 hours a week but I'm loving it so far because this is what I've always wanted to do. I've kept the best part to the end :D Anyway, just recently we've submitted our research proposal and after that we felt like we needed a treat so decided to hit a hipster cafe somewhere. We visited the famous Brewtown Newtown. I’ve heard that often there’s a huge waiting period to get into this cafe (as it’s quite popular), but thankfully we didn’t have to wait long.  We started off with drinks. The weather was quite warm so I got iced chocolate (which was just their hot chocolate from the menu but with ice). I found the drink to be pretty average but my friends really liked the drinks they ordered. One of them ordered freshly squeezed orange juice and found it to be quite different comp...
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Bodhi Restaurant/Bar (vegan) + Le Pain Quotidien

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I had a reunion with some of my old uni friends. The perks of meeting up with old friends is, it feels like time hasn't moved at all when you meet them! I can't believe it's been almost two years since I saw them properly. It's crazy how quick time flies! We have been trying to meet up for sometime now, but everyone is busy with either work or study so it's really difficult to fix on a date. We set this date back in early July and we all kept our word :D We chose this place so we could accommodate for a friend who is vegan. This was my second time eating a full vegan meal so I was quite excited to see what vegan dumplings would be like! The staff were very friendly and organised. We were served with water and sauce soon after we sat down. Bodhi works just like any other yum cha place, the food keeps coming around and you pick what you like. However, the downside is you can't say yes to everything so you have to turn down some. I started off with satay...
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International Congress of Behavioural Medicine | Melbourne

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My flight faced major delays due to severe thunderstorms in Sydney. We had to wait for over two hours, most of which were on the plane so it was incredibly exhausting. Thankfully, the weather in Melbourne was much better. It was pretty cold and windy, it felt nice to get out of the scorching heat :) Leaving behind a stormy Sydney After reuniting with the bestie, we went out for dinner to a local Malaysian restaurant close to our home. Sweet and sour prawns with rice  Nasi Lemak Pineapple fried rice and seafood stir-fry I had one whole day to myself before the conference began on Wednesday, and we wanted to make the most out of this.  Oh, hello there, new friend! We had breakfast at Myuna Farm which was a few mins from our house. I loved their veggie focacia.  Brekkie at Myuna Farm  Veggie focacia ($9) Sweet treats at Myuna Farm Next stop was archery, my bestie has been an archer for sometime now, and we ...
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