Teppanyaki party And Un Vesak 2012

A couple of weeks ago our friend Stella celebrated the 5th anniversary of her 21st birthday :) And we went to Ichioku Teppanyaki restaurant located in Newtown to celebrate.
I've never been to teppanyaki before because i was never interested in the cooked Japanese styled meats, but I've always been curious of how the experience would be like.

We ended up getting there quite late because it was so hard to find any parking in Newtown around dinner time. but by the time we got there the place was already packed out with all of Stella's friends, but everyone was so nice and made room for us to sit :)

We got a set menu which was $39 per person which included a little salad, a basket of fried tempura, miso soup, fried rice and food that is cooked and prepared right in front of us while you eat, as well as vanilla ice cream for dessert.

The little salad, this was really nice.

fried tempura

During our dinner the chef would interact with us and ask us to join in on little catching games.. 

he set up enough eggs, explained that he would give us all a bowl to try and catch the raw eggs with.

A lot of people were succesful.

Sadly i wasnt :(

and got my 'dry clean' only dress ruined :(

there were other little games such as catching cooked omelet in our mouths, catching a whole bowl of fried rice and Stella got egg thrown all over her since she was the birthday girl.
i have some videos, but the software i use to edit videos isnt working at the moment.

And a little message just for Stella.

Happy Birthday Stella!

Little party gifts, stella had stayed up the whole night before just to make everyone some macarons :)

they were lovely as well, lychee & rose flavour

we then had more dessert at WowCow Yogurt

It was very tasty :)

Kerrie was blinking in every photo >=(

Girls only =D

My opinion of Teppanyaki was that you pay for the service and entertainment, i wasn't able to eat the food, which is only just me and my opinion, i dislike a lot of stir-fry and fried food, so the only thing i ate there was the salad and oddly enough, the vanilla ice cream.
The service was so friendly, because Stella had around 30 people at her dinner that also didn't turn up at the same time (sorry) they still managed to give us everything ordered in the banquet menu.
our other friend came extremely late that she didn't get any of the food that was cooked together, so the chefs made her something special off the menu for her. which she also didn't get enough time to eat so she had to get it wrapped and take away.
And the entertainment was great! watching everyone scream and laugh over getting egg all over each other. it was lots of fun and very messy.

White chocolate and berry tiramisu 

This week i had 3 mini cake request for a lovely friend. 

We kept a bit of the cake for ourselves, and because it was so yummy i thought i'd make another one because the first one didn't last =P

And i got roses and a thank you card for my effort :) that's so sweet of her.

its just so different to actually get something back in return. 

but i guess that's why i really do appreciate the people that make that extra effort for me.

 shes so cute, her expression changed in 2 seconds for some reason

The United Nations Day of Vesak 2012

A multi-cultural celebration of the Lord Buddha's Birth, Enlightenment and Passing

Held in townhall at the church (odd place to put it if u ask me) in front of the QVB

bathing Buddha

My best friend, The Oven.

I've delayed posting up a new blog entry because i've been so distracted lately with baking..

I've also found a new hobby.. which is horrible. because its useless and cost me $50 so far.. $50 i could've spent buying more stuff to build my business..


Anyways, Introducing my new hobby!!
Making miniatures out of polymer clay! ..woo...

This was my first batch of tiny macarons, the first picture has a needle in it, which shows the size comparison.

This is the mini sushi things i made with glow in the dark clay.

I rolled all the little rice grains..

And the little berries.. and glued them onto the macarons from the first photo.

now my finger hurts :( 

But they are so cute! =D

i was hoping to give them to my friends, but they are so fragile cause of all the tiny little bits on them.. so i donno anymore.

Dave let me have his hard drive so i was finally able to back up all my photos again, it went from 200gigs to 100gigs. =D


Im currently so spaced out at the moment that i keep distracting myself from blogging because i have no idea how to jump to the next topic.. 
i think i used all my brain power trying to figure out how to make the little berries look cuter.. 
but im just going to blog on and hope the people that do read my blog understands =D and only looks at the pictures. =D

Anyways!! big moment for me.. sorta.. 

I invested my money into my future.. 

I bought myself a new mix master =D! 

my trusty hand mixers about to die on me.. its making horrible noises now..

And my delivery came in yesterday!! 

i love getting mail. i get so excited when things are delivered to me.

Peanuts!

And a whole lot of cooking gear :)

i hope this investment gets me somewhere.
Actually.. i think it already has..

My main reason for not having a proper job by now is cause i don't want to work if its not something i love, and its not something that makes people happy..
i know that's such a horrible reason.. but its truly my reason.

the only thing i remember wanting to do was to make people happy :)

but i am happy i have made some people happy with my food so far =D
who can complain about free desserts right :P


My baking list for the week!

A green tea cake for Gillian's birthday.
I had a taste when it came out of the oven and it was beautiful, but im not the biggest fan of green tea, so i think the light taste of it was good for me.
but Gillian couldn't taste it when she had it, which is a shame :(
i had to rush it and iced it with cream instead of making its own green tea frosting.

i then also made a green tea ice cream cake for Gillian too, but i never got the chance to give it to her..

 I then made some Pandan cake for dave and my family, which i didnt take any pictures of..

sides an instagram picture of the cake rising.
the problem i had with this cake was the essence i used for it, it has this strange bitter aftertaste.. and just tasted fake? so i might use real pandan leaves next time.

On monday Kerrie and Anya came by to eat dinner and bake with me.
I made something off my 'To cook list' and made some BBQ Ribs!

we used both pork and American beef ribs.
Slowly cooked in the oven for 2 and a half hours..

The meat was so nice, but the sauce was horrible. i wish i had good BBQ sauce
Still!! cross that off my list!
i honestly would rather buy killa burgers ribs, they are cooked nicely and they dont take 2 hours to make. And! its much cheaper.

But after dinner i made some sugar cookies coated in royal icing :)

And while i had from per-packaged cake mix at home, i thought i'd try to make a gradient cake

And because i was stupid enough not to think before hand that making a moist Betty Crocker cake.. with so many soft layers would end up in the whole cake collapsing on me during the shoot.

no worries tho.. i used so many straws to hold it up.. as well as dave in the background holding the straws..
But man does Betty Crocker make amazing cakes. it was so yummy!

But I'm happy with how the colour turned out, i don't think I'll ever make another cake like that again. i just cant be bothered waiting by the oven 20 minutes after 20 minutes because i only have 2 cake tins for 6 layers.

BIG NEWS!!

My photograph got published in the local newspaper :)
i know it doesn't seem like much, but it feels like such a big step for me.
the only problem i have is that people can never ever get my name right...

but its alright, at least the for the the first and last part right.
that's all that matters to me honestly.

One time, i got a certificate for a fashion thing.. where my name is spelt wrong.. so i can never use that..

But yeah!! woo, local paper :)
One step forward.

The month of May

This whole month has been the celebration of Buddhas birthday and they had a very big celebration in the city last weekend.
 
I've never been a religious person but now that i have accepted the changes in my future, i really wanted to be a little more religious... I like the thought of someone or something looking over every one i love and seeing that they are all well and healthy :)

My friend once mentioned that she wouldn't mind it if her loved ones passed away, because they would go to heaven and be happy and healthy there.. At first i thought it was a little odd and selfish that she wouldn't want them here instead.. But now that i think about it they way she does, its such a lovely thought knowing they are going somewhere safe :)
I dont deal with grief well, because i can never let go of anything..

but i will pray as much as i can to know that they will be looked after.

:)


After the festival was Kevins late birthday celebrations.
He book a very expensive room at Mizuya!. It was my first real time there besides going in to use the rest room and buying green tea soft serves =D
The room we got was pretty small for the minimum spending limit he had that night, we were so jammed packed with alcohol, food and people that we didnt have any room to put everything!
I honestly cant say much about the price because kevin paid for everything.. although i think we were the only people that gave him money for it, well.. the only people that forced him to take our money.. his always too generous to us =)

Anyways! his spending limit was $1500.. pretty great for a place that serves seafood!!!! My cholesterol shot up pretty high that night.

The following pictures were all the food dave ordered just for me alone.. it was wayyy too much food!!

but by the time everyone had ordered more than enough to will themselves up, we still had about $500 or so to go..

So it was a pretty decent experience.. only because Kevs just a nice guy.. even on his own birthday

Dessert!!! the only thing i could eat was the red bean creme bulree!! it was so yummy!!

The guys drinking everything when we realised they only had one song left and 5 full jugs of Hennessy&green tea to finish.

My little cake requests!!!

I had to make miniature profiteroles the other day for one of my.. customers.. =D!

They wanted to sample the little profiteroles i could make, so i thought i'd make little cakes instead of just a couple of profiteroles in a container.. ew.

They are so cute =D!!!!! Though i sorta wished i had strawberries.. life would be much better with a little more colour..

The standard custard filled profiterole with chocolate topping

Custard filled Croquembouche

And a Mangoes and cream filled profiterole with white chocolate topping

My mum liked them so much shes bringing some to work to show them off ^__^!!

And my very own little fondant cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i did however.. leave it in the fridge without it being completely covered airtight.. so its sweating in the picture.. 

but we learn from the mistakes right =)

i hope nobody noticed i've just been rambling.. 

i just spend the past couple of hours photoshopping a photo for my relatives in Vietnam while she was watching me on webcam..

she then left.. and i just realised its almost 4am. 

so sorry for my ramblings :(