Having spent most of August indoors I had a surge in my creativity last week and decided to redecorate my place. Although the job of decorating is never done, I've decided to change the whole theme of the apartment, big job ahead indeed. But last week was the 1 year anniversary of our first date and Jules made me dinner which was very lovely of him.
These are currently hanging on my bedroom wall, the typewriter print is from Ikea. It never seizes to amaze me just how exciting going to Ikea is and I always come back with stuff I didn't intend to buy in the first place. The idea came to me when I was browsing Etsy for prints and thought, hang on I can do these too. I've always worked with Acrylic paints so this time I chose watercolour, I really like watercolour paintings especially fashion drawings. Something about the transparency and texture of the paint really appeals to me.
Sophie (his dog next to him) was actually an accident. I was opening a tube of new paint and it splattered onto the paper (oh the screaming and frustration that followed). Then, while I was staring at the mustard yellow on the paper thinking how I'm going to clean that up I suddenly thought of Sophie. She was a Labrador, Labrador are that kind of colour! And so here she is, for my one it just wouldn't make any sense not to put my cat Joe in there too.
It took less time than I had expected having had little to no experience working with watercolour. But I find these 2 quite charming and they're one of a kind.
Whenever I start missing you I shall look at these and smile :)
I've never really played with a lot of dolls when I was a kid and in my adult life the dolls that I got was bought for my cat to tear up.
So it's Saturday night, Jules and I are waiting around for my friend Annie to finish up her date. We decided to go play the skill tester machines, the ones that are obviously rigged so you keep trying to catch the dolls. Anyway, I've never been good at those things so it was up to Jules to get some kind of a prize since he's always been the lucky one at these things. After many attempts and a lot of swearing, Jules finally caught this bunny. At first I thought, oh another one for Joe to tear up but then I looked at him more closely and somehow I kinda fell in love with his little face, his colourful triangles and his long limbs and ears.
The next day I decided to take some photos of him and thought it'd be funny to put him on this little rocking horse with some props and it all started from there. The next thing I knew I even got him some clothes lol. I took a few shots of him riding a scooter and posing with a bike and even introduced him to LSP.
"Oh..my..glob! He is so hot! Look at those man lumps!" is what I imagine she would say.
I actually have a lot of fun putting him in poses and scenarios and here's just an introduction to Leopold (that's what I named him btw), so there's probably gonna be more snaps of him on here in the future.
Anyway, hope everyone's had a good weekend. It's so darn cold these days all I want to do is curl up in a ball in my bed and nap all day. But no, I have to get up and work. (boo..)
I apologize again for the lack of posts lately but I don't think I've ever blogged about Chinese food and just so happens that we went to eat at a "Modern" Chinese food restaurant over the weekend so here it is. 'Chef's Gallery' popped up a few years ago in Town Hall, it has put a rather sophisticated spin on your average Chinese dishes. The kitchen is in full view with dozens of chefs making dumplings, kneading noodles, stir-frying.
The menu is rather extensive, there are a lot of dim sims, appetisers, entrees, mains and of course, desserts. We got the mixed dim sim platter just to sample a mix of different ones. There was duck and mushroom steamed dumpling, chicken steamed dumpling, prawn & pork dumpling with chilli soy sauce, prawn and pork dumpling. For entree we had the mini Macau pork burgers and pulled pork with pancakes. Felt like noodles so we also got the hand made noodles with prawns in a chilli tomato sauce. Dessert is a must of course, their signature dessert just happens to be the cutest thing! "Piggies goes to visit the bunnies"...awww.
The dim sims were nice, having had lots of dim sims in my life (good and bad) I can't really say much else about them. The flavours and textures were all there, a little better than some yum cha places. I did enjoy the duck and mushroom one though, just a bit different I guess. The mini burgers were a big hit with Jules (he really likes burgers). There's pork floss added to the burgers which gave them a sweet and crunchy bite, the fried buns were fragrant and crispy, the pork was juicy and sweet, it was very enjoyable to say the least. The pulled pork was so tender, but it made me think it was duck for a while because you have to wrap it in the pancake and drizzle over the sauce to eat it, much like how you would eat Peking duck. The noodles used to be thin and with a bit of bite but they changed it to a flatter, softer noodle which I didn't enjoy as much, the sauce however is still very nice, not as chilli as I'd remembered though.
Then it was time for dessert. The platter was presented with a feast for the eyes, 2 red bean centered buns shaped like piggies, 2 marshmellow bunnies, a house made of wafers, 2 scoops of ice cream (strawberry & mango), roasted chestnuts, a sandy path made of milk powder, stones made of this chinese snack that tastes like milky crunch balls. It's just full of detail! Although I must admit that the taste is rather mediocre, it's still worth getting just for the mere sight of it.
If you're bored of just your average Chinese seafood restaurants and looking for something that's a bit different then try Che'f Gallery. They don't take bookings for weekends so best come early or on a weekday because the line can get quite long.
Shop 12 Ground Floor Regent Place Shopping Centre
501 George St, Sydney NSW 2000
www.chefsgallery.com
