Too much indulging here in Melbourne..

All these eating and drinking here in Melbourne, my stomach would have put all those pregnant ladies to shame.. *cries*

A little burnt.. The unforgiving Australian sun

Spent the afternoon sitting outside the G.. (For the non Aussies.. It's the MCG) while others are inside watching Australia vs Sri Lanka - cricket ;p

I have no interest in cricket and refused o fork out $60 for entrance. What a rip off!!

So I sat on the grass enjoying the sun and promptly fell asleep.. And woke up with parts of my body burnt.. Whoops! Forgot how unforgiving the sun here is..

Now, I've moved to the city for a spot of Boxing Day shopping, but unfortunately the massive crowd drove me into hiding.. And now I'm holed up at some Asian cafe.. Enjoying something cold...

Think I could finish this by myself?! >_<

Merry Christmas, all! Love from Melbourne!

Merry Christmas!!! No more snow, no more freezing in the cold and...

Hello glorious hot hot summer!! All I did today was stuffed my face silly from noon, pass out from eating too much and woke up at 9pm!!

No gifts to unwrap this year as we came home to surprise the parents and boy!! Were they surprised!!! So, no gifts!!! *tears streaming*

Hope we all have a fabulous Christmas!

Funny emotions today..

It's my Birthday today and I've had a range of emotions playing up since 5am this morning - sad, frustration, angry, annoyed. I blame it on the weather and I blame it on jet lag. Yep, that's it.. Happy Birthday to me, yippee! Another freaking year older.. I wish we age backwards instead of forward..

Bottoms up!

Gifts advise for brides and grooms.. especially asian heritage ;)

With weddings happening everywhere...  Just a word of advise to brides and grooms to be.  ALWAYS ALWAYS have a gift registry... if you already have all the household items, always ask for cash from well meaning wishers...

If you have neither a gift registry, you are going to get a lot of duplicate items and even if you advise your guests not to bring anything, they will still bring something for you... and you will end up with either useless presents or more duplicate items...

and please if you are attending a wedding, anyone would always appreciate money gifts.. especially asian couples.. Trust me ;)

A handmade little bouquet made of red and pink roses - Thanks, YouTube!

A little hat for the bride to be - Pinkish beige with french lace and handsewn rhinestones on white buckram.  All steam and moulded on a round hat block.  Flower on top is made from white goose feather.  All 100% handmade =D

Xx

Christmas Wish List...

Well, since it's Christmas and all, I thought I'll jot down some items I have been lusting for.  Afterall, my childhood was deprived.  I've never written a "Dear Santa" letter and even if the big jolly man is real, he has never got me what I truly wanted when I was a kid ;)

Here goes!

1.  Sewing Machine (functional and not too fancy)
2.  Camera Lens for Canon (I want one which allows me to zoooooom in...) maybe a new camera =(
3.  MONEY!  Cash is always good!  In £, AU$, KR.. =D  and I'm really picky with gifts and travel too much.... so, money is always good, yeah? =)
4.  Jewellery .. Good quality with lots of sparkles... Enough said!
5.  Personal number so I can go back to school and relearn my Swedish
6.  A JOB!!  OMG!!  Give me a job soon... 1 year of pottering around and not working is seriously killing my brain cells!
7.  My website up and running...........  Miss A, I hope Santa pokes your butt!
8.  Start selling my wares at shops here in Stockholm in 2013!
9.  Good health and happiness!

Jingle Bells
Jingle Bells
Jingle All the waaaaaay!!

Xx

F12 Studio - If you want something a bit fancier..

Our 2nd choice was F12 Restaurant.  On the evening when we were there, it was snowing.  While dining, we had the pleasure of looking out and watching snowflakes gently floating to the ground.  Everywhere we looked, it was white.  It was such a beautiful sight.  Ahh.. Looks like it's going to be a white Christmas here in Stockholm!

Looking around, the diners were mostly business people, so I guess it is quite fancy.  I believe this is also a Michelin Restaurant.

F12 Restaurant
Fredsgatan 12 
111 52 Stockholm 
+46 (0) 8 24 80 52

To start of with, we had some little tidbits to whet the appetite.  I remembered the middle one were like a fancy version of fish cracker, (which melts in your mouth) and the pink were like some raspberry savoury macaron and the right is some thin wafer with creamy cheese perhaps?  Tasty, tasty and tasty indeed =)

Crackers and bread are a must, and soft soft butter to go with them.  I think I munched loads of cumin seeded sticks. Nom Nom

To start off we had - Venison tartare & oyster muscat pumpkin, chives.  The venison were so tender and goes so well with the creamy sauce at the bottom.

Jerusalem artichoke à la crème, apple, persley.  Was basically a creamy soup.  Was a small bowl but I felt really full after polishing up the whole bowl.  The apple pieces in the soup were quite interesting =)

Cod from lofoten & anchovy farm´s egg, winter vegetables - Soft fresh cod with poached egg in a foamy sauce.  The winter vegetables consist of mini crunchy eggplant like vegetable and some sliced red pieces of some sort of vegs which I couldn't place.  After the last creamy bowl of soup, this was a bit much..  The fish was fresh but slightly bland.  I couldn't finish it as it was too rich for me

This was refreshing after the fish.  This is made of 3 layers.  The bottom is some jelly with bits of crackers in the middle and some cream at the top.  It really does cleanse the palette! =)

To finish off we had white coffee ice cream, meringue, cherries, chocolate.  - The white dollop at the top is actually white coffee ice cream, on the other side is a smaller dollop of chocolate ice cream with a piece of meringue at the bottom..  Lots of flavour, crunchy, sweet, sour and of course cold!..  yum! =)

Ohhh wait..  There's more?  An array of chocolates..  We were supposed to only have two each... but...

I  managed to score us one of each! =)   Left to right:  hazelnut chocolate, raspberry jelly, peanut butter chocolate, dark chocolate, minty meringue and some truffle which I couldn't remember...  They were all yummy! =)

Guess which one we picked?!!

Anywaz, until next time..

Happy Eating and have a Merry Merry Christmas/Holiday!!

Xx

Vassa Eggen Steak House - Drop in if you love your meat!

We did a couple of food tasting in the past 2 weeks.... to find the perfect menu for our special function.. =)

Anyhow, we started with Vassa Eggen.  I have to say, it was quite chaotic.  We turned up on the time proposed and the kitchen knew nothing about our 'food tasting' evening but the chef was good enough to whip up the menu that were proposed plus plenty more!

Vassa Eggen Steak House
Birger Jarlsgatan 29
103 95 STOCKHOLM

Of course we started with entree shared by 3 of us.  They really went out their best with plenty of food for all.

Top:  Tuna baked in olive oil, bread, salsa, capers, onion, pimientos (was delicious, but the tuna steak felt a bit frozen...), Bottom:  Was more of an asian fusion style.  Carpaccio fish with salad.  Very summery and fresh

Blackened salmon, soy tapioka, cucumber, chili.  Another chilled dish.  Gorgeous gorgeous.  So fresh and tasty

If we had to choose, we would have probably picked the carpaccio or the blackened salmon.  They were both delicious.  We weren't too keen on the tuna, perhaps because the steak tasted a bit too frozen and capers were really not one of my favourite dish =)

The main was seriously the best, I drool just thinking of what were offered.

Main:  Cod with prawn, egg, clarified butter and horseradish.  So typically Swedish.. Fish and potatoes..  Rich and creamy and very very tasty... but the steak of course wins.. HANDS DOWN!

Main:  Flank Steak with Sauce Béarnaise, red wine sauce, garlic- and parsley butter, tomato salad, haricot verts and French fries.  Might not look like much but the meat were very filling and cooked medium rare and so tender!  The condiments complimented the meat, but who cares when the focus is definitely mainly on the meat!  The sauces were delicious as one of us couldn't have red wine, hence they added a couple of different sauces.  I love the creamy truffle sauce! =)

 The dessert was seriously good and quite a huge serving so all 3 of us could share.

Dessert:  Was so sinfully good.  Dark, rich chocolate and slightly frozen brownie with some cherry sauce with cocoa powder dusting.  I was seriously in orgasmic heaven when I bit into this... *swoon!*

Good old Creme Brulee!  Sinfully creamy and with the right amount of crunch at the top.  Was really good on its own, but chocolate wins anytime! =)

Good Morning Stockholm!!

Woweee!! I woke up to a mad mad mini snowstorm here in Stockholm!  Guess who wouldn't be leaving the house at all today? ;)

Apologies for my last rant.  I usually write out my rant, leave it for a day or two, and revert it back to draft... but this time I forgot... after a week or so, and was reminded about it by someone and whoops! - Reverted it back to draft form this morning.  Hope not too many people saw it!  Does anyone do that?  So mad about something, write every single detail down and feel sooo much better, but when you read back much later, you realised, whoops!  Boy!  I will need to hide/delete/throw this rant away. I can be quite a bitchy sour puss at times.  Well.. until the next rant!! =)

Anyhow, I'm happily snuggled up indoors, typing this and trying to bake a banana cake, which I've abandoned for a while =P  My butter and sugar mix look a bit weird, kinda clumpy!  The recipe did ask for softened butter, and I didn't see that until I started beating it!  Whoops!  I'm just going to sit here for a bit and enjoy the spectacular view from my window!  I wonder how long before the whole window is covered up in snow?

All snowed in! =D