Sydney Weekender 2 - Sparkling High Tea at The Tea Room

The Tea Room, QVB
https://www.thetearoom.com.au/

A friend of Kat's recommended high tea at The Tea Room for us to try while we were in Sydney. I was extremely happy to oblige since I've been somewhat high tea deprived in 2012. I don't care how practically pointless it is to have miniature foods stacked on a tier, it just oozes appeal to me. Call it a female thing.

The Tea Room takes up most of the top level of the Queen Victoria Building, accessible by lifts or up a curvy set of stairs. It is indeed one room but it's a huge room at that. The intricate high ceilings were far above our heads and the opposite wall was distant.

Sydney Weekender 1 - MoS Cafe for Breakfast

MoS Cafe for Breakfast
http://www.moscafe.com.au/

Many, many months ago, somewhere around the start of this year, Kat and I planted a short, one-night Sydney fling at the start of November. We didn't have many plans for what we'd be doing. It was intended to be a 'do as we feel' trip for the purpose of getting away and enjoying a change of scenery.

We arrived early on the Saturday morning. I don't think I'll be booking any early morning flights in the future. I spent the whole night before paranoid about not being able to get a taxi. On the plus side, we were able to check into our hotel early. Stomachs were rumbling (something about flying makes me really hungry) and the friendly concierge directed us to some nearby cafes. We chose the MoS (i.e. Mueseum of Sydney) Cafe because it was close to a bustop we needed to get to afterwards.

Low Carb Salmon and Cream Cheese Pancake

Low Carb Salmon and Cream Cheese Pancake
Home Cooking

Towards the end of last week, I had an excess of eggs that needed to be used up. Sure, there are tonnes of low carb egg recipes (e.g. quiche or frittata) but many of these also needed other ingredients that I didn't have at home. I could have cooked the eggs au naturale but one thing I have learnt from going low carb is that there IS such a thing as too much scrambled/fried eggs. After a while, even omelets seem too eggy.

I started this dish as a salmon and cream cheese omelet (without much enthusiasm). What inspired me to switch it up was remembering how delicious those Korean/Japanese-style savory pancakes are. I'm talking about okonomiyaki or Korean seafood pancakes. They're delicious and incorporate lots of vegetables but they require flour in the batter. Having just baked the paleo muffins with nothing but almond meal, I flirted with the idea of forming a batter with almond meal instead of flour.

Bucci on James St for Dinner

Bucci Restaurant
http://www.buccirestaurant.com.au/brisbane/

I don't often make plans for Italian restaurants, which is inexplicable since I love Italian food. Then again, there aren't many styles of cuisine that I don't enjoy so perhaps I'm just not picking favorites. I heard about Bucci through some other Brisbane food blogs and became curious. One night, I wandered into Bucci's website and found their menu. I was instantly sold.

Bucci came accross as an Italian restaurant, rather than a typical Australian-Italian eatery with an exclusive focus on pizza and pasta. I know there are other Italian restaurants around with 'proper' mains (i.e. a protein and sides) but I hadn't personally been to any. The more I read the menu, the better it sounded. I knew I had to try the food.

Sugar Free Coconut and Macadamia Paleo Muffins

Sugar Free Coconut and Macadamia Paleo Muffins
Home Cooking

I talked about my quest to go sugar-free for 8 weeks in an earlier post. Today's write up is an extension of that. I mentioned briefly my view that reducing/cutting sugar is sure to have some positive effect but that reducing carbohydrates as a whole would introduce further health benefits. Again, there is a lot of back chatter so if you're just after the recipe, skip to the end of this dialogue.

Cutting back sugar has been EASY for me. I never drank soft drink or fruit juice. I don't really enjoy processed snacks. All I had to do was substitute fruit for nuts. What has been a huge challenge for me is eliminating bread from my diet. I don't like rice or noodles but bread is a staple for me. On my first week of going sugar-free, I was nearly downing 4 slices a day. That's when I realized that just cutting sugar didn't automatically mean improved diet. Complex carbohydrates were getting the better of me.

Revisiting a past favorite with Three Monkeys

Three Monkeys Cafe and Tea House
58 Mollison St, West End

I'm going through a reminiscent phase with my blog. Reblogging one of the first cafes I wrote about makes me almost warm and fuzzy inside. My first post about Three Monkeys was from early 2009. Now, over 3 years later, so much of my life has changed but that cafe is still a solid point of comfort for me in West End.

I was wandering through the suburb late one night and found myself gravitating towards Three Monkeys. I'd never really gone solo before. My past memories of the place were of coffee and cake catchups with various highschool and uni friends. Ah, those were the days. I had an hour to kill while Marc was at a gig at the Hifi so I decided to pay tribute to the younger me and revisit my old hangout.

Activated Nuts and Coco-nutty Granola

Activated Nuts and Coco-nutty Granola
Home Cooking

There's a lot of nutritional mumbo jumbo in this post about the theory of cutting sugar from one's diet and my opinions on it. If you're interested, read on. If you just want to know how to make delicious sugar-free nuts to eat at breakfast time or as a snack, skip to the recipe at the bottom.

Mochi, my friend and past regular on this blog has turned into a health fanatic. She's my idol! I'm totally inspired by her and wish I had her willpower. She told me a while back about how she was trying to cut out sugar from her diet. This seemed pretty intuitive until she mentioned that fruit was also out. I often eat fruit as an alternative to dessert to cut sugar cravings so for me, this was terrible news. I also found it non-sensical that fruit would ever be considered our enemy. I wrote it off as a quack theory and continued along my normal diet.

Just last week, I was roaming the internet when I stumbled across Sarah Wilson's blog and her plight against sugar. I started reading... and read enough to download her eBook 'I Quit Sugar'. What grabbed me the most was that she described herself as a past sugar addict who didn't appear to be a sugar addict. She had a seemingly 'healthy' diet, substituting honey instead of sugar, avoiding most processed foods and so on. It was reflective of my own diet and intrigued, I read more.

Salmon and Cream Cheese Ribbon Sandwiches

Salmon and Cream Cheese Ribbon Sandwiches
Home Cooking

I can't remember which day it was this week that I suddenly developed a craving for NY bagels. Marc only eats smoked salmon in sushi form and has a personal vendetta against bagels (they're too chewy? That's the point!) so he couldn't understand the appeal. I tried to make a point by point argument for it but in the end decided it was easier to make the damn thing and demonstrate. I didn't wind up doing that (forgot to purchase key components: bagel and capers) but I stayed with the smoked salmon theme and produced some neat little sandwiches.

I've used smoked salmon for catering before (smoked salmon omelet rolls for example) and I think it's one of the best ingredients for introducing a bit of class without having to work for it. These little sandwiches are a great example of something quick and simple that is not only tasty but filling.

La Pizzaiola

La Pizzaiola
http://www.lapizzaiola.com.au/

Just when I thought I'd eaten everywhere there was to eat in Toowoomba, Stain threw one up for tasting. His birthday was last week and to celebrate, the old gang gathered up for dinner at La Pizzaiola; the birthday boy's choice.

I'd probably walked past this restaurant many times without taking notice. The entrance is small but there's a surprisingly expansive dining area inside, divided into several rooms. Larger inside than out. It's like a spacial illusion. We took up a table tucked away in one of the rooms and started perusing the menu.

Endless Noodles Revisited for Lunch

Endless Noodles
Shop 1/70 Pinelands Rd, Sunnybank Hills

I've been so engrossed in trying new restaurants these days that I've been neglecting the old favorites. Most of these are eateries around Sunnybank. As great as it is to sit down for a fine dining experience, the style of eating I enjoy the most is still cheap, authentic eateries with hundreds of dishes, fast service and lots of flavor. Endless Noodles was first blogged here. Mum and dad found the place and I fell in love with the chunky handmade noodles. It was thus fitting that I revisited Endless Noodles with them on the weekend.

Endless Noodles is a textbook Asian eatery in terms of appearance, food, pricing and service. The menu is comprised of appetizers, noodle dishes, rice dishes and some mains for sharing. Over winter, they used to offer hotpot as well but I'm not sure if they still do.

My parents and I ordered a range of things (some familiar and some new) to try over lunch.