Lily's Birthday - Surprise "Party"

I had this crazy idea of giving Lily a surprise party, filled the rooms with balloons, banners, streamers, etc to celebrate her birthday. I was procrastinating simply because we didn't have the space for such in our tiny apartment. 

Now that we have a little more space to play around in our house, I told myself, this IS the year. If I don't do it now, I'll never do it. 

Invitations were sent out early to our friends to join in the fun. I was expecting a number of couples to be not available as Lily's birthday fell within the CNY period. We were quite lucky that we still have enough headcount for the surprise. 

That was back in January. From then till the second week of February, I was tossing with a number of ideas on things I can do on top of the surprise "party". I couldn't decide and ended up using most of  it for the whole weekend (saving some for next year). 

It didn't take me too long too arrange the plans leading up to the surprise "party", as I knew exactly what I need to do. It started off with sending her a bouquet of lilies & roses on Friday morning to her workplace. She was shocked when her receptionist passed it to her. She was pleasantly surprised through the phone and embarrassed from all the attentions from her colleagues. :D Plan accomplished! 

We took it nice and easy the next day, enjoying ourselves our well deserved weekend after a hectic working week. She was expecting us to go our for dinner and that was it. What she wasn't expecting was that we were going for one of the well acclaimed restaurant in Australia - Cutler & Co. We had a really good time, one of the best dinners we had.

Sunday was THE day. The day that she needed to be pampered. From the very beginning, I was giving her the impression that I didn't have anything planned, mistaken her birthday to be on Saturday. We then went out for our usual Sunday brunch, not realizing I found another great cafe to dine. - Cafe Vue at Heide. Went there early, savored their menu and was very impressed with the quality of food. We then took a stroll along the park next to the cafe, enjoying the sunny, cool Sunday morning. She was happy!

On our way back home after our brunch, I dropped her off at the local beauty therapy for 3 hours of pampering. She was really shocked as I had already made the payment, there was no backing out. Left her there, while I took the next 3 hours to decorate our house with banners, balloons, streamers and gathering all our friends. 

When I picked her up shortly after 3 hours, she was going on and on about how much she enjoyed her pampering and dying to show me her pedicure.

I was saying quietly to myself that the bigger surprise is yet to come. hehe :D We reached home, she opened the door and all our friends that were waiting quietly in the house shouted "SURPRISE" and started singing the birthday song. :D Plan accomplished! 

She was speechless for the first 10 minutes, trying to digest what has happened! hehe... slowly, she warmed up and back to her usual self. Occasionally, she would give me the "you are so dead" stare, for once I didn't mind at all.

Living room filled with balloons

Happy Birthday balloon filled with helium

The gang waiting for the big moment

A very surprised birthday girl

 

Still very surprised birthday girl

 

Giving her a birthday kiss

Everyone that made it a success!

Lily with the girls

Lily with the boys

Lily's birthday cake

Happy Birthday Lily!

Lily's Birthday - Cutler & Co

Staying true to our "tradition" (which I happily obliged) that whenever we have a occasion to celebrate, we'll put our budget aside and spend on some good food. Last week being Lily's birthday, I brought her to dine at one of local's well acclaimed restaurant, i.e. Cutler & Co. This is one of the few restaurants to received plenty of reviews, mostly positive.

That was good enough for us to celebrate Lily's birthday! :D

The service throughout was friendly and professional. We were made very welcomed and comfortable from the very moment we stepped into Cutler & Co. A very important point seems to be missing from Tetsuya's. The attentive staffs made sure every bite and sip was made in a relaxed company and pleasurable ambiance.

We didn't take too long to decide what to have as the menu is not extensive. We both ordered a 3 course meal and each one tasted better than the other! We sent each plate back to the kitchen squeaky clean. I wished there was more.   

Lily's 3 course meal

 Entree: Pressed quail terrine, foie gras cigar, orange and pistachio

Main: Pan roast leather jacket, fennel pollen and cuttlefish braise

 

 Dessert: Chocolate ice-cream sandwich, vanilla parfait & salted caramel

Stephen's 3 course meal

 

 Entree: "Salad Lyonnaise" frisee salad with crisp pancetta, garlic sausage, smoked tongue, confit gizzards & poached egg yolk

 

 Main: Suckling pig, sweet and sour onion and prune vinegar

Dessert: Violet ice cream, chocolate ganache & sour cherry

We both like the casual vibe cum reasonably priced fine food. It was a very good evening, great food, attentive & professional staffs, we were relaxed as we were never pressured to leave after our desserts. Surely, one of the best dinners we had.

p/s - Due to my 'superior' photography skills and the lights were rather dimmed, the photos didn't turn out right. Had to search around other blogger for their photos. 

Tetsuya's

When I called back in Jan 09 to make a booking, there wasn't any dates available. I was told the next available date was in mid July. That's 7 months of waiting?? Even then the weekends were all taken up! I was telling quietly to myself, this business is never going to go out of business, unless they themselves stuff it up.

This is echoed by the long list of awards they have won:-

• 3 chef's hat from Good Food Guide 
• Restaurant of the Year
• Best Fine Dining, and
  
• most important of all, 5th place in the world's top 50 restaurant.

We threw a few preferred dates to the floor manager and we finally got the date that we wanted, i.e. November and we were the 7th to place a booking. GFC?? what GFC?? We were quite ecstatic and at the same time very unsure if we will still be interested in it after 11 months! We sought of forgotten about it after a month and had to call a couple of times every now and then to check on our booking time.

We were getting excited all over again by the end of October and got even more excited when the floor manager gave us a call to re-confirm our booking. We obviously played it cool! We were like young kids given all kinds of lollies!

When the day arrived, we were seated at the far corner next to the window, looking out at the well maintained Japanese garden. It was a nice spot! Gave us the space and privacy, away from all the noises from other tables.

A waitress in charge of our table asked if we would like to try the degustation menu. It didn't take us too long to go for it. It's not a restaurant where you can go every once a month (at least not yet). We weren't sure how many dishes we will get or even the type of food. Some might think otherwise, we prefer that way, keep us guessing and looking forward to the next dish!

Our 13 courses for the night

 Chilled Corn Soup with Saffron & Vanilla Ice-cream

Smoked Ocean Trout & Avruga Caviar

Marinated Crystal Bay Prawns with Soy Caramel

Confit of Petuna Tasmanian Ocean Trout with Konbu, Apple, Daikon & Wasabi

Terrine of Queensland Spanner Crab with Avacado

Grilled Fillet of Barramundi with Braised Baby Fennel

Twice-cooked De-boned Spatchcock with Foie Gras & Red Wine Jus

Beef Fillet with Nameko, Shimeji & Enoki Mushroom

Comte with Lentils

Green Apple Sorbet with Sauternes Jelly

Strawberry Shortcakes

Lemon Scented Floating Island with Vanilla Bean Anglaise

Petit Four

Housewarming

Last Sunday 3.Oct.09, we had our first housewarming party. We decided to do steamboat without much hesitant. We both are not great cooks and we don't have a barbeque. Potluck? We thought that since it's our housewarming, we don't feel right asking our friends to bring food for this occasion.

It turned out to be a good choice, some of them came later than the rest, so we ate and chat while waiting for other rest to arrive, and not cooking too much each time. There were 19 of us that day? We created a lot of "noise" which is really good to warm up our house. haha! We were busy entertaining our friends that we forgot to take photos on our own! Bugger!

We didn't realise that the day we had our housewarming was the day Chinese all over the world celebrated mooncake festival. Double celebration!! Our friends bought mooncakes and lanterns over for everyone to enjoy... It was very good... comparable to those we usually get back in KL.

Wii time after heavy lunch

Mooncake time!

Mooncake imported from Hong Kong (I think)

Group photo

When the sun was down, we lit up the lanterns at our backyard and one of us came up with the idea of walking around the neighbourhood with our lanterns. We thought "why not??!!". This is old school and gold! We did just that but to a nearby park. We would not want to cause any concerns with the locals which are not accustomed with this sort of festival.

It was good fun... raised a few eyebrows from the locals passed by, heads turned, cars stopped wondering what we were up to, we made ourselves noticed! haha!

Oh yeah, I am begining to believe that the number "3" is our lucky number. A lot of occasion/event occurred have some connection with "3":

1. We got our first house in our 3rd year back in Australia
2. I was wearing a shirt bearing the number 3 on my right arm while bidding for our house
3. If we add our house settlement price, it comes back to number 3
4. Our house number is 3
5. Our first house warming was held on 3rd Oct 2009
6. It took us 3 weeks to decide the type of furniture we want to buy and how to place them in our house

Bear in mind, none of these were planned! Maybe I should start buying lottery with the number 3 only. Haha!

Anniversary dinner at Nobu

Last night, we finally had the opportunity to dine at Nobu, an experience I have been looking forward for some time. Being our 3 years anniversary gave us enough reason to enjoy ourselves at this highly successful international chain.

It's been opened for 2 years now and it was still a buzz with plenty of guests arriving and settling in. Upon arrival, we were immediately escorted to the bar for drinks while waiting for our table to be ready. We were told that the previous diners were still at our table. Something tells me that its just one of their tactics to get us spend more $$$. My reasoning? We sat at the bar for a good 45 mins!

Thanks goodness our meal was SUPERB!

Our drinks - Emporio Martini (left) and Passion Crush (right)

We took a quite a while to decide what to order. We were both hungry and everything on the menu seems extra delicious. We took the easy way out, chose 8 course degustation menu on their signature dishes. :D

Each dishes lived up to 2 very hungry diners' expectations. It's Japanese food with western touch and they did it quite well... from mixing Mexican ingredients with sashimi to improving salmon sashimi.

The highlight of our dinner was when the black cod with miso melt in our mouth. It was so tender and moist that we looked silly trying to eat it with our chopsticks. It kept slipping off. Apparently the black cod was marinated in a good deal of sake-miso marinade for 2-3 days.

Dish 1: Yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno

Dish 2: (top to bottom) Shiromi usuzukuri whitefish sashimi, salmon sashimi with dried miso and new style scallop sashimi

Dish 3: New style salmon sashimi (highly recommended)

Dish 4: Tuna tataki with tosazu (highly recommended)

Dish 5: Black cod with miso (highly recommended)

Dish 6: Beef toban yaki (highly recommended)

Dish 7: Sushi platter

Dish 8: Warm chocolate satandagi with almond ice cream

We had loads of fun salivating all these amazing dishes that we don't mind coming back again to try other the rest of the menu. Their wagyu 9+ received good reviews as well. Already looking forward to our next trip to Nobu, but not before Tetsuya's!

..... and we did it!!!

We bought a few cupboards for our new house and a wall shelf to match it. Some were quite challenging, especially the wall shelf, trying to make it sure its straight got us both going back and forth. :D

The fact that we needed to drill a couple of holes in the wall to hold the shelf got us both worked out already... This is something we couldn't screw it up and the holes had to be precise. And precise it is! Too bad we didn't capture the whole journey in photos...

Now with all the cupboards and wall shelf installed, it's getting nearer to where we want our home to be... We still need to get a coffee table and a tv cabinet. I will remember to take photos then.

It's all good fun... and a satisfying one if I might add.

Have I mentioned that I have yet to "renovate" our garden??!!

A new beginning

We have finally moved into our new house. A big pat on our back!!!

Coming back home, driving up to our garage, still smelling the newly polished floor scent and leather sofas, it feels really good!! Makes me want to come home even more. :D

Even though a lot of hours spent in cleaning, unpacking the boxes and arranging our stuffs around the house, we were enjoying it and it turns out to be exactly how we visualized it to be. Guess it's easier now with a bit more room for us to play around.

The whole experience is a journey in itself. Get to learn things that I never thought of, from changing locks to realigning the cabinet door to solving simple electrical issues. The satisfaction from these is just sensational!!! I am beginning to appreciate DIY and understand why the locals love it so much.

At the moment, the walls are pretty empty. We are thinking of what photos and decors we should hang. Now we can make a few holes in the wall without having rental agents screaming their heads off. :D

I was exploring the surrounding last week and found out that our house is actually very strategically located. We knew its very close to the freeway and a supermarket is only 5 minutes walking distance, there's also a huge shopping districts about 5 minutes drive away. Not too far and not too close. Just perfect! To top it off, it's very near to a number of good dim sum place that I am very fond of.

We are proud of what we have achieved so far and I hope our parents will be as well when they see our humble home.

A colleague of mine asked me this morning how does it feel to finally going back to my own house after work. I told her it's the same feeling when she got married, no words can truly describe our feeling right now.

It's getting really close now...

It was the last weekend of March when we finally secured our house. We are still thrilled in owning our first home and getting really close now to settlement. Everything is being taken care of, bought almost everything that we need to buy, our plan is to get the necessities in first and if we still have any money left, maybe one or two luxuries. :)

Will be doing more house fixtures hunting this weekend. It is tiring and yet exciting... until I start adding all the cost together. :D

One thing for sure, we will be keeping our eye out for any good bargains in the market.

MIA... but plenty going on

We have not been writing posts for the last number of weeks. As you would have guessed, work has been crazily busy for the both of us. It makes it even harder when everyone in the office work until 6pm latest. I am begining to "appreciate" Asia's crazy working hours. Well, the take away point is being busy is definitely better than not during this economic hard time.

On a more positive note, we finally bought our own house! After months of heartaches and disappointments, we finally triumph this time! It was an auction, which is a norm in Australia, very intense during bidding. It started from the seller's reserve price, with every bid worth $10k and slowly it dropped to $5k and then $1k. There were approximately 100 people at the auction but only a handful that were into serious bidding. Maybe starting bid worth $10k filtered those fence sitters. It was a very good experience and the whole time, I was telling myself to remain calm, put up a poker face and stay within our ceiling price. It felt good when we secured our house, everyone clapped for us. It was always the other way round.

We were invited by Mr. Saw, my previous Melbourne boss to have dinner with his friends at Mabrown (Malaysia food) at Balwyn North last night. To our surprise, my ex-boss from KL and his wife are in Melbourne as well and joined us last night. Yeap, both my ex-bosses are old time friends. :)

Anyway, Mabrown have 2 signature dishes - spicy quail and roast duck noodle. We tried both and it was sensational! We could not get it that nice back in KL. Like what my mom always say "satu makan, dua mau". :D One of Mr. Saw's friend brought three types of wine to complement each meat we were having, i.e. one for quail, one for duck and one for the fish. It was just hilarious when the wives put a limit of 2 glasses of wine and how it was always the second glass from the husbands' response.

Great food, great wine, great companies and plenty of laughter, it was really a good evening. Makes it worthwhile going to work, putting all you have and have a good time at the end of it.

Later we will be heading to Devin+Hennley's place for BBQ. Hopefully we can get some nice shots and put it up later. The weather forecast is excellent, with light winds throughout the evening. It will be another good evening. :)

Short getaway

Lily joined me at Sydney last week for a short getaway. We were both looking forward to it but the weather forecast was not too encouraging. Outer Sydney were flooding (ironically Melbourne is not getting a drop of rain), the city itself were supposedly having thunder storm. We were very cautious of the weather. I should know better the prediction is never accurate, there were only some light drizzles on Saturday morning!

Checked-in time usually at 2pm but when we drop off our luggage at the hotel, we were told that our room was not occupied and we could check in there and then, at 9am! SWEET! We were surprised as well the room number they gave us. - '1818.' Very "ong" :D A good start to our short getaway!

Our room number

View from our room

Walked around the city shortly afterward, looking for a place for some good breakfast. Exploring all the lanes along the way and we found this small restaurant selling good old Irish scones. It was not packed unlike other restaurants but we gave it a try, cautiously. When we sat down, we were instantly taken aback by the atmosphere, Irish songs with wonderful Irish decors all around. Could not set the "scene" any better. To top if off, our scones were fresh from oven, still warm and soft on the inside. All the carbs we needed to get us through the day! :)

Scones with Irish tea

Us at Harbor Bridge

Us at Circular Quay

Us with Opera House and Harbour Bridge

When I was at Sydney last time, a friend of ours brought me to this Japanese restaurant to try out their hotpot a.k.a steamboat. Instead of using normal broth, they use soy milk and sweet miso paste soup. It was sensational, especially the soup, with all the meat juices. Loved it last time and was dying to bring Lily to try it out. She loved it as well!

Dish 1 - Our starter

Dish 2 - Teriyaki wagyu beef

Dish 3 - Sapporo Hot Pot

After such a heavy meal, we needed some exercise to digest the food a little. :D Walked around the harbour and managed to capture some beautiful shots of it.

Sydney Harbour at night

Us with Sydney Harbour

Before we flew back to Melbourne on Sunday evening, we went to a french bakery at The Rocks to finish off our wonderful weekend with some good coffee and cakes. To rate the cakes as good is an understatement. It just melts in your mouth. I am not a cake person and I loved it! We will definitely come back for more when we visit Sydney next. :)