Treasury Garden

This is going to be a really short post.

I have finished all my assignments for the semester and it feels bloody good. I needed a good breath of fresh air so I headed to the Treasury Garden with Cherry to take some photos.

The usual bench under a tree.

Black and white picture of bench and a road.

Leading line from the right. A bit distracting.

Cherry walking to get a better angle.

Sorry, Pink fashion photography competition participant. I stole this from you.

Lazing around in the autumn leaves.

I just like this photo, although the dog is missing from the frame. Leaves something to the imagination.

Cherry getting wet.

A couple taking pictures of each other getting all wet and excited.

I know I still need to work a lot on composition. I guess practice makes perfect. That being said, I need better glass. The low light in the evenings is a bitch to work with.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

I was up at six in the morning when I noticed the time on the bottom right of my laptop screen. It was another one of those sleepless nights in front of the computer spent reading, chatting, listening, watching, contemplating, yawning...

I turned to the glass panel on my right and saw that it was just past first light and as I walked toward the panel, three hot air balloons rose from behind the city skyline. To the east, sunbeams peeking through sheets after sheets of grayish clouds, tinted by a sunny orange. As I panned from east to west, there was a vivid rainbow against the cloudy backdrop while hot air balloons were flying across it. 

A breathtaking moment. A familiar tune in my head. 'Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high'.

An inspiration. An epiphany. The world is beautiful when everyone is asleep.

Mercadante Woodfired Pizzeria

The quest for food continues. This time, we head all the way back to Lygon Street from Old Kingdom for some dessert and drinks. Destination? Mercadante.

Famous for chocolate pizza.

I used to live just next to Lygon Street and walked past Mercadante almost everyday on the way to the city. However, I do hear people talking about the awesome chocolate pizza but somehow I never stepped a foot in there, despite being a chocoholic.

Face-lifted wall.

Mercadante, like any restaurant on Lygon, is just full of burly Italian men eating ridiculous amounts of food. Nonetheless, Mercadante seems to have a less serious air and not reminiscent of some scene from The Godfather. I suppose that is thanks to the strongly lit interior and the nice pictures of Venice on the wall.

Heed this warning, do not go to Mercadante if you are prone to heart attacks. The guy behind the counter plays tricks on unsuspecting customers. Sometimes he tosses a fake spider onto a girl; sometimes he puts on a clown mask and breathes down your neck; sometimes he throws something which looks like a plate at you. Always be vigilant in Mercadante, or you would be scared dead.

Back to the topic, the chocolate pizza.

It was not what I expected.

Pardon me, but when somebody mentions chocolate pizza, I picture a round, thin crust with chocolate sauce, whipped cream and strawberry toppings, not a sliced up dough stick covered with Nutella.

People are going to hate me for this, but the chocolate pizza was just so-so. The pizza was rather tough, and when you chew something resilient drenched in Nutella, it just drips down your lips. Maybe I am the only one who does not like that sensation. Personally, I think they could have done it better with a thin, puffy crust. 

123, Lygon St, 

Carlton, 3053 VIC,

Australia.

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Old Kingdom Chinese Restaurant

Jeremy wanted to treat me to dinner for designing his and Jojo's campaign posters. Before the MUOSS elections even began, he was already telling me about this restaurant.

Jeremy reserved seats for five and two ducks for 8.00 p.m. but in the end there were only four of us. Less men, more share.

I have not eaten Peking duck in a really long time so I did not really have a benchmark. However, during the long walk to the restaurant, Jeremy and Shaegan kept reassuring me that the duck will not disappoint.

At long last, we arrived.

Famous for Peking Duck.

Old Kingdom, is well, old. The building which houses the restaurant, the furniture, the surroundings are all looking almost decrepit. However, this place never gets old for duck lovers and the long queue outside the restaurant puts any argument about that to rest.

I was starving and when the duck arrived I realised that the starvation was well worth it and will be put to good use because the ducks were quite big, and we had a duck to two.

The restaurant owner slicing up the duck.

Still slicing.

And done.

Jeremy going at the duck.

I was exhilarated when the owner was done slicing up the duck. I took some pictures and put my camera to rest. I grabbed a piece of the thin pancake, chose a piece of duck skin, topped it with a piece of spring onion and cucumber, drenched those fillings with a hearty amount of plum sauce, folded the pancake, and took a bite.

That mouthful of duck goodness made me want to belt out a love song. It was just so ducking awesome. The skin was crispy, it was crunchy even. Above all, the plum sauce was just heavenly. It was not overpowering and not too salty as the average plum sauce that goes with roasted ducks. I usually cringe when I have a taste of those. This was just right that I did not mind drenching the duck in a thick layer of it.

Then I tried another piece with skin and meat. The meat was tender. Usually, I look like I wrestle ducks when I try to eat them. Old Kingdom got theirs just right. Not overcooked, and the meat still showed a tint of pink, how ducks should be. The taste was great. In fact, it was so good that I took more pictures of it so I can drool at them when I feel hungry in the night.

Got this on a third attempt.

Then came the second course.

Duck meat with bean sprouts.

The second dish was just so-so for me, maybe because I am not a fan of bean sprouts. However, I do appreciate a little bit of roughage to lessen the guilt of eating half a duck. The duck meat was also well flavoured. I just like to pick out the duck meat and eat them separately from the bean sprouts so that the latter does not overpower the former.

After that, came the duck soup.

No part of the duck goes to waste.

Duck bones.

The soup was pretty good. It was not heavily flavoured and not too oily. However, it was also not gelatinous as the duck bones were not simmered long enough. That being said, it is amazing how the taste of the duck is absorbed by the soup so quickly.

After the soup, we asked for the bill and Jeremy paid for all of us. Thank you, Jeremy. Then, it was a long walk back to Lygon Street, as we were going to hit another joint for dessert, which will be covered in my next entry.

A word of warning though, I think either the duck or the sauce is heavily salted or MSG-ed as I am experiencing an unquenchable thirst right now.

197, Smith Street,

Fitzroy, VIC 3065,

Australia.

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BlackBerry Torch 9800

The box.

After a three-day wait, it finally arrived. However, it did not arrive at my apartment.

The building I live in is still new and thus Optus, and many other telecom companies do not have the address in their database. Therefore, I had to ask for Mimi's favour to use her address which she agreed to, without fuss.

The postman delivered the package on Friday, which is two days after I ordered it, but Mimi was not around to accept the package. A note was left behind for me to claim it from the Lygon Street post office.

The quest was the berry was a long and arduous journey, trekking from the Arts Centre, the southeastern-most building of the university to Newman College, the northern end, and that was just to retrieve the note. With the note in hand, I walked back down to the southern end and turned to Lygon Street. I was thrilled as I got closer to the post office. Little did I know that it was a small post office with a crowd of customers in the evenings. Standing in line, I met Cherry and her cousin who were there to deliver letters. It made me wonder, who still sends letters in this day and age?

Finally, it was my turn. I showed my passport as photo I.D. and signed for the package. The excitement was bubbling within me, about to overflow at any moment. I rushed home right after, not giving a damn about the upcoming Econometrics lecture.

Still having the patience to take a few photos before unboxing the phone.

The name.

Non-stop social networking. How am I to focus on my studies?

Damn, I love that box.

The packaging just looks awesome. It is black. With minimal text on it. "BlackBerry". I am still a sucker for good packaging.

The only berry sexier than this is Halle Berry.

It makes my pudgy hands look petite.

The BlackBerry Torch is huge, if not anything else. 107mm x 60mm from what I measured. It looks like it means business, and that is what BlackBerries are all about.

The useless, as usual, owner's manual.

It's alive!

My sweet berry.

Happy Birthday, Mimi! (Charcoal Lane)

The birthday girl.

First of all I would like to wish Mimi a very happy birthday. It has been three years since I first knew her and we are now better friends than ever.

Mimi's birthday has always been the birthday that we plan ahead of the most, for some reason. Maybe she is just the star of the group and everybody treats her in a special way.

This year, we decided to go Australian fusion for the big dinner, Charcoal Lane in Fitzroy.

Charcoal Lane.

Having read the menu online and not understanding a quarter of the words on it, I entered Charcoal Lane with a curious mind, not mentioning a voracious appetite due to skipping breakfast and lunch. Not a very wise idea before dining in a pseudo-fine dining restaurant.

Before we begin, introducing the guests of honour:

Amanda.

Kaili.

From left to right: Chris, Edwin and Cherry.

Mimi and Anthony.

Kaili and Mimi.

Enough about the people, more about the food. For appetisers, we had bread and butter as well as a cup of ocean trout something.

Ocean trout something.

Bread, butter, salt, pepper, wine glasses and napkins.

After that it was time to order. The thing about the menu is it is filled with unfamiliar names, such as tataki, samphire and trumpette. Serious food never fail to sound intimidating.

The intimidating menu.

Not to be defeated by the menu, most of us had our selections while pretending to know what we were ordering. I was happy to order until the waiter came telling us about the daily specials, the main being a lamb rack special. It seemed that the restaurant owners knew I was coming today, because there is nothing that this guy loves more than racks.

We waited rather long for the food. Luckily, I had a cup of hot chocolate to keep me occupied. I wanted an ice chocolate but the restaurant ran out of ice-cream. I was really looking forward to drinking an AUD 3.50 ice chocolate, the cheapest one I have ever seen so far.

Hot chocolate, also for AUD 3.50.

So came the food.

Seared scallop with something.

I did not try these because there were only three scallops a plate. Eating any would leave the person who ordered with almost none. 

Yellow fin tuna, wildfire, vanilla carrot cream, smoked crystal bay prawns.   

Kaili ordered the above, which I tried a bite of with the vanilla carrot cream. Best damned tuna I have ever sunk my teeth into. That being said, I have not eaten tuna cooked this way before. I have eaten tuna from a can, fully cooked tuna or raw tuna, not half cooked and half raw. That is probably one of the reasons I am lost for words for this dish. The fish was just so fresh and tender. Most importantly, it was not heavily salted. Instead, coating the fish in the creamy and savoury vanilla carrot cream is all that is needed to give the fish a wonderful taste and a rather interesting texture. I would definitely recommend this.

Warm kipfler salad, tarragon mustard, coddled egg.

Roasted marron fondue, angel hair, lemon myrtle, baby basil. 

Cindy ordered the above, which I did not sample any of due to not knowing her that well. Now I probably know her well enough for that. There is always next time.

Then the lamb was offered unto us.

Lamb rack special.

Cherry, Edwin, Chris and I ordered the lamb rack special. I was at the verge of exploding with joy when the dish was deftly placed on the table by the waiter. The smell of lamb pierced my nose and I was already drooling. Unfortunately, it was only decent. First of all, I doubt that lamb racks are supposed to be served as raw as this. There was hardly any cooked part at the sides and it was reddish pink all the way to the middle. The lamb did not bleed as I cut into it, and that gave me relief. The meat was tender and juicy, as you would expect of any decent lamb rack but the fact that it was stuffed with black olive paste made me want to cry tears of agony. Although the olive did give it an interesting flavour which is partially masked by the taste of the meat, I felt that it should not have been there in the first place. Maybe I am just not an olive person.

The mash potatoes and the cherry tomato salad I cannot complain much about since I do not really have standards for those.

Kangaroo, broccoli puree, black trumpette, truffle gnocchi, bitter chocolate.

Keith and Mimi ordered the kangaroo. I did not try the meat but according to Mimi the lamb rack is better so I am not having my hopes high for this one. I did, however, much to my regret, tried the broccoli puree. At first I thought it was a pea puree because it tasted worse than peas and something that tastes worse than peas just cannot be broccoli. It is mind-blowing, or should I say mind-blasting how bad it tasted. It was like cognitive dissonance with a horrid taste left in your mouth. 

D.O.C. serves broccoli puree on a pizza and it was the best broccoli I have ever tasted and now I get this. I did mention that this is the way I am going to eat broccoli from now on. Well, I take that back.

I would probably not return to this restaurant, since there are hundreds of Australian fusion restaurants in Melbourne, and I am rather certain that this is not one of the best. However, for its price the quality probably justifies. As far as pseudo-fine dining goes, this is dirt cheap.

Reasonable.

Total damage? AUD 401.00 for ten heads. Definitely dirt cheap by Melburnian standards.

Other than the mediocre food, I enjoyed the rest of the night having macarons and drinks at Naked Satan, a rather raunchy bar. Also, I treasure the time spent with friends, pouring our hearts out and pouring the drinks in. Above all, I treasure having such good friends and being able to know more new ones tonight.

Again, happy birthday, Mimi. Sorry I did not get you any presents.

136, Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, VIC 3065, Australia.
+61 3 9418 3400 ‎


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