La Latina, Chatswood

We're not afraid to travel for food (probably because there isn't really much good food where we live), but thankfully, we don't have to travel too far to have our first taste of Columbian food. Yay! :)

When we visit Chatswood, we tend to go for the many Asian restaurants that are there (of which there are many I've yet to try) so I probably would never have noticed La Latina on the side streets, were it not for the fact that we'd bought a groupon out of curiosity to have a taste of a cuisine we'd never tried before.

Passionfruit juice $5

It's a cute little cafe specialising in arepas, but also stocks plenty of exciting South American snacks and sauces, as well as plenty of interesting fruit juices! The drinks menu consists of plenty of exotic fruits which we've never heard of before, making it a difficult decision to choose one- we want to try all of them!

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Shepherd's Pie

My sister laughs at me when I spend a while taking photos of food, because she knows that most of the time I only ever upload one out of the many that I take. So today, I give you two pictures!

Most of the time I'm just super lazy when it comes to photographing food, especially food that is hot and I eat right away because I've got to all the effort of making it- I'm not waiting for it to go cold just so that I can get a good picture!

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Potato Nachos

I was trying to figure out a quick lunch to make with the few ingredients we had a home one weekend, when I thought of the potato nachos I'd seen on some food blogs, and decided to make one myself. I made a bean based filling as I wasn't keen on defrosting what meat we had in the freezer, though I'm sure it'd taste better with meat! My potatoes were small so it doesn't look as impressive as the original version, but it still looks pretty cool, especially for a 10 minute* job!

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Marukame Udon, Chatswood

I've been searching up a couple of holiday destinations (dreaming I was somewhere more fun than Sydney haha), especially restaurant/food recommendations there, and came across Marukame Udon a couple of times in different countries. I had yet to visit their Sydney branch since I live so far away from it, so when I visited Chatswood for a shopping trip, Marukame was the first place that popped to my mind when deciding on a lunch destination.

 Bukkake Udon With Slow Cooked Egg (L) $6.9

We arrived early to avoid crowds, but luckily, its large, double storey seating area meant that despite the large volumes of customers at peak hours, the crowd never really built up, unlike it's neighbour, Mokoto. Because the queue was so short and fast moving, I barely had time to look through the menu, so I ordered my usual favourite, the Bukkake udon with egg. The noodles are deliciously soft and slippery, with the perfect amount of bounce.

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Napoleon Pastry (Asian Style)

Vondelicious has moved to BerryNutritious.com.au
You can find this post (and more!) over at my new home: 
http://berrynutritious.com.au/2014/07/napoleon-pastry-asian-style/

When I first started using the internet to search for recipes (before my blogging days), there were so many things I couldn't find, especially when it came to the less commonly eaten things that I'd wanted to make. And even less so, recipes that actually seemed reliable!

I'd been searching for a recipe for napoleon pastry/napoleon cake for a while before giving up and forgetting about it. I'd wanted to make them the way I'd always known- that is, the type they sell at Asian bakeries (cripsy biscuit-like pastries of puff pastry, walnuts, and sponge cake or whateverelse the bakery felt like putting in), but the only thing that google came up with was vanilla slice (perhaps the more common version/definition of napoleon).

I'm sure there's plenty of recipes online for this particular version now, but I was reminded of my quest to find such recipe when I came across it in an Asian cookbook. This particular version uses puff pastry to sandwich together buttercream and walnut meringue, which is quite similar to one of my favourite versions of this pastry. It's a bit fiddly to put together because you have to put together the three components, but it's well worth the effort- these pastries are amazing! There's plenty of textural contrast, with layers of flaky, buttery pastry against soft meringue and crunchy walnuts which impart a fragrant nuttiness.

The photo really don't do these justice (they didn't last long enough for me to take good photos!)- they taste a lot better than the mess they look like!!

Find the recipe on my new site:

http://berrynutritious.com.au/2014/07/napoleon-pastry-asian-style/

Bronte Belo, Bronte

After a booking at another restaurant got cancelled on us last minute, we called up Bronte Belo to see if we could get a table for the night, as we'd just purchased a group deal voucher the day before. Luckily, they were super accomodating and managed to squeeze us in on such short notice!

It's a small cozy Brazilian cafe/restaurant by the beachside, making it a perfect spot to dine during the summer months when the sun sets later, but perhaps not so much in the cold freezing winter- we notice it is the only restaurant amongst the strip to not be empty!

Chilli and Garlic Prawns with crusty bread $15

Nevertheless, we get comfy snuggled up on the comfy cushioned sofa, with the door closed tightly and the heater on full blast.

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Profiteroles

There are some foods which I am disappointed by every time I try, not matter how many chances I give them. One such food which falls into this category are profiteroles, of which I've tried quite a few versions- big, small, chocolate coated, chocolate flavoured, cream filled, custard filled etc.......and am disappointed every single time :(

The reason, though kind of silly, is my own fault because I always expect them to be crispy on the outside (because they look like they would be! or is it just me?), so when I bite into them and realise they're soft and airy, and then remember that the same thing has happened numerous times before, I can't help but feel disappointed. Chocolate coated ones are slightly better though- at least the chocolate layer is crispy (sort of)!

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Johor Bahru, Malaysia, 2013

Minature Lego KLIA

It's been a while since my last holiday post, because searching through the hundreds of holiday photos to find the food ones is just too much work that I just about give up everytime. But the fact that holiday posts are the most fun to reread again makes the time and effort worthwhile :)

When we visited Singapore at the end of last year, we only stayed for a day, because we had planned to head over to Malaysia for a couple of days afterwards. With Johor Bahru being just over the border, we stopped there first to checkout Legoland where much fun was to be had. Unfortunately, getting there was not as easy as we'd anticipated on a Friday evening, with literally hours of waiting for the public buses, extremely heavy traffic, huge crowds at immigration, taxi drivers which swarmed us despite the presence of a system for allocating taxis to passengers and taxis which took us through long dark unlit roads which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. By the time we reached our hotel some 4 hours after we had planned, we were exhausted and pretty scarred by the experience.

Lesson learnt: never travel between Singapore and JB on a Friday night!!

Egg Roti

Luckily that was the only bad experience we had of Johor Bahru, and after a good night's rest, we were ready to continue with our trip. We'd purchased tickets for a shuttle from our hotel to Legoland, but it was only upon collection of our tickets that we realised the so called 'shuttle' was actually a Honda Odyssey, seating 7 passengers, so we missed out on securing seats for the earliest shuttle. With more than an hour to spare, we had a nice chat to the owner of Saffron Cuisine, who suggested we have breakfast at his restaurant whilst we wait.

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