Barzura Ristorante!

I went to dinner with uncle Stephen and his friend Melissa yesterday, and we went to this place at Coogee called Barzura Ristorante. When we first drove by the place it was packed full of people and uncle was saying we might have to move off to another place, but Melissa went in to check and we ended up with a nice table at the corner of the restaurant. What caught my eye was the way the bar was designed. There's this row of bright red pub chairs, and a bartender making drinks, and right on top of the bar they have their specials written out in thick chalk, with quaint little lamps illuminating each mini blackboard. Pretty.

You can't help but notice the plastic (?) toy structure of a martini glass on the counter of the bar. Fact is, looking at the picture now, I'm actually not sure if it's fake, it could be real martini in a giant glass. But anyway, I decided to try the Bloody Mary (tomato juice, vodka, tabasco, worcestershire, lemon, salt and pepper) and it was real good! One of the waiters even came over and cracked fresh pepper into our glasses with a wooden pepper mill. There's also a stick of celery for you to stir the drink and eventually munch on. We had garlic bread too, to fill our stomaches as we waited for the mains to arrive (there were a lot of people in the restaurant, and uncle was right, the other patrons all turned out to be MBA students cos one of them stood up to give a speech at the very end and we clapped along, much to their amusement).

After we'd ordered our food, a waiter came over and placed an extra fork in front of me, and it puzzled me for a bit (like those silly movies you see where the girl can't quite figure out which fork to use!). I was quite blown away when my food arrived though! It was so pretty! A big beautiful steaming succulent plate of spaghetti marinara, and it came with mussels, scallops, prawns, calamari, and fish! I don't know what the green veg they used for garnishing was, but it sure was yummy! I started eagerly taking pictures of my food, and then the waiter came over and asked if I wanted pepper and cheese, and of course I was quite agreeable to that, and he cracked fresh pepper and used some metal contraption cheese-shaver thingy and the cheese came out in pretty little curls! It was all so pretty and charming!

For dessert I chose to have the liqueur affogato and I chose to have Bailey's as booze shot to go with it. I was quite unfamiliar with what this Bailey's affogato dessert thingy was, but I'm checking out the website (http://www.barzura.com.au/) and it says that it's "vanilla bean ice-cream, fresh espresso and a shot of Baileys", and the presentation's pretty interesting. The waiter brought over a long plate on which was a big glass of ice-cream and two shot glasses of espresso and Bailey's. Uncle said I was supposed to pour the espresso and Bailey's into the ice-cream, and the resulting concoction is my very yummy dessert!

Dinner was such a great experience, I enjoyed it so much, and I'm so much wiser now. I've learnt so many things, like now I know the Italian stall at the Midvalley Megamall food court don't know what spaghetti marinara is supposed to look like. And now I know I like Bailey's affogato. And now I think I might bring a carton of tomato juice to the next IH party and ask them to make me a glass (or two) of my new favourite alcoholic drink (I've always like tomato juice, so what's better than booze with a tomato juice base, right?)... And last but not least, I can say now that I've had dinner at a quaint little restaurant overlooking Coogee Beach. Bliss! Cheers you all!

Winter break, so far...

I seem to be really bad at blogging regularly huh? It's been 11 days since my last blogpost, and even that one was late! I've really gotta try to blog more regularly, I can't keep accummulating pictures and events and vomit them all out in one go. So I guess I'll just have to recap the most interesting event that have happened since my last post.

On the 26th of June, some of my fellow IH residents were still here in Sydney, and I managed to spend some time with them before they had to go back home. Su-Wen, Yu Ning and I decided to take a walk around Glebe, which is this really quaint little suburb just about 10-15 minutes away (I've blogged about Glebe before, refer to my previous blogposts if you're really curious). We browsed through Glebe Markets again, but we didn't stay too long this time, just walked in and literally walked one round and out again. We took a slow, leisurely stroll down the main road and ended up at Foley Park Playground, where Su-Wen and Yu Ning revisited their second childhood amongst the hammock and the swings.

World Cup season has also come and gone, and my room has been quite the gathering site for our football-watching cum makan sessions. I've whipped up countless amounts of pasta and garlic bread, and lotsa calories have been consumed in the process. My friends also brought over chips and wine with them, so yeah, it's been a football party, more or less. Here's a combination of pictures of all the football-watching cum makan sessions that have occurred over the past month:

Su-Wen and I have also discovered this great new place called Parma Cucina Bar which is in the Jane Foss Russell Building, which is like, just 40 steps away from IH, and it serves possibly the best-tasting chocolate milkshake on campus! It's cheap, too, what with our Access cards and all, we get a huge metal canister (that's literally what it looks like, serious) of chocolate milkshake for approximately AUD$3.85, which is pretty cheap, by Sydney standards.

Then July happened, and almost everyone went home. Here at IH there were only about 40 residents remaining, and it was pretty lonely and quiet. I conducted a few culinary experiments, and managed to whip up cheese baked garlic rice with barbeque chicken, Malaysian-style laksa, and beef ribs soup, all of which were pretty decent. I also ate some exotic fruits (exotic to Malaysian tastebuds, at least) like the pomegranate, strawberries, and cherries. I enjoyed the strawberries so much, I think I might go back for more!

Last week I also managed to go to two of the Hillsong Conference night events, which were held at the Acer Arena at Olympic Park, and we had to take the train for that (it's approximately AUD$5.40 for a return trip, I think). Here's a few pictures from one of the nights I went:

On the 13th of July, IH was having people in to spray pesticide or insecticide or whatever for pest treatment work, and I don't know how it's connected (maybe they don't want the food to carry toxins), but the dining room and kitchen were closed the whole of that day, which meant we had to search out our own food options. Neil, Robert, Marian and I decided to go to Newtown for some Thai food, and Robert said this restaurant called Newtown Thai had the best flavours (and lunch specials that cost AUD$6, cheap by Sydney standards), so we went there. I had the spicy chicken fried rice (well, actually it's just fried rice with chicken, and I asked them to make it spicy, but spicy chicken fried rice just sounds so much more appetising, don't you think?) and it was fantastic! The flavours remind me of good ole Malaysian food, and man, I wanna go back there for more!

That afternoon I also managed to catch the latest Twilight movie, Eclipse, in Hoyt's, the cinema in Broadway. I was so happy, cos I was forcing myself to finish all the Twilight books (I finished on Sunday) and I stayed up till 5 in the morning just to finish up the Twilight and New Moon movies. I've never watched any of the Twilight movies in the cinema before (I didn't even like Twilight before coming to Sydney - see how much Sydney has corrupted my brain?), but I was quite impressed by Eclipse... I think it's the best Twilight movie so far, and I know Su-Wen and Elizabeth are planning to come back to Sydney and put me through some Twilight-bashing debate sessions, but I'm ready for them, bring it on, grrrrrrrrrrr. I can't wait for the Breaking Dawn movie now, although I've read online that it's going to be two movies instead of just one, since the Breaking Dawn book was so long and all (even the plot itself is long and complicated, you can't just squeeze all that into one movie!), so that's something to look forward to!

And on Wednesday, just two days ago, Kevin and Shelley wanted to go around the university and take pictures and all, so I joined them and had fun snapping some shots here and there of campus life (not much life currently, what with it being winter break and all). Then we met up with Junya and headed over to Parma Cucina Bar because Shelley wanted a tiramisu, and I had a chocolate milkshake (again!) and it was yummy. That night I went out with some coursemates to Nando's at Broadway for dinner, and it's too bad, but I didn't bring my camera along. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go back there again sometime soon, muahahahaha! I had the quarter chicken meal (extra hot!) which came with a side (I had the spicy rice, it was just some rice with turmeric) and a drink (I had a Coke, but of course!) and then they came back to IH and I brought them for a little tour around, and then they came to chat in my room. But here's some shots of the photowalk (is that the term for it, trishie?) around the Sydney University campus:

And those are the eventful events (lame phrasing, I know) of the past week and a half! Now I really have to try to blog more regularly!!!! And here's a little bit of not-so-useless trivia: this is my 200th blogpost!!!! That's two hundred, people! Hahahaha, and here's to many more! Cheers!