Until I complete my Gold Coast posts, I can't proceed with my post GC - Singapore eats.
----------------------------------
Anyway I shall give a few facts on this place. Since it's summer there, the daylight is longer. By longer, I mean that it START early, not END later. Like how the sun rise by ard 5am or so. By 5.30am, it's so bright that we keep mistaking it for 8.30am.
So imagine what time the Subuh (pre-dawn) prayer was. Well, it started at ard 3.15 am and syuruk was before 5am O_o.
And the best part: Activities and opening hours starts as per normal. Like 9am for shops and 10-11am for theme parks. Even for our day tour, they only fetch us at 8am. So we have pretty long mornings to spare, there.
DAY TWO
Breakfast
This has got to be life, man! There were many, many times that I wished I live there. Because of views like this.
In fact, we even stumbled upon a Singaporean who now resides there. Maybe she also fell in love with this place and decide to pack her bags and leave Singapore for GC, permanently. Cool or what?!
We started grocery-shopping in the supermarket on the first day itself. I planned on buying cereals for breakfast on the next day, since I thought that we may not have sufficient time to prepare any; for we have to leave early for the day tour.
Then again, that was before we discover the (very) early sunrise.
Anyway, check out the different varieties of Kellogg's cornflakes that they sell there! All of them are very high in fiber, seeing that most have dried fruits and various bran in them. Very healthy, eh?
Talk about healthy, are Aussies generally very health-conscious folks? Going by the amount of soy milk, low fat dairy, the enormous varieties of healthy food stuff and how their packaged/bottled drinks are generally less sweet.
Dinner
(pic courtesy of my colleague, Roza)
Honestly speaking, eating out in Gold Coast can be an expensive affair, no joke! That's why, it's a pretty good idea to rent an apartment, buy your own groceries and cook for yourself, whenever possible.
After the tour van dropped us off that afternoon, we rest awhile and head to another shopping centre to do more grocery shopping.
We decide to make use of the leftover Nando's chicken, shred the meat and stir-fry with some mushroom and make our own kebabs with the Lebanese flat bread I bought from Woolworth's supermarket.
Also added some cheese (get those with non-animal rennet) and these:
(pic courtesy of my colleague, Roza)
(pic courtesy of my colleague, Roza)
DAY THREE
Breakfast
Ok, it's indeed a blessing to have my mum around. Being the mother that she is, she can't help tinkering around in the kitchen.
She's used to staying awake after her Subuh prayers so she got down to preparing breakfast during the time when the rest of us got back to snoozing. Poor her.
Breakfast for day 3, she prepared fried rice (we bought a 1kg pack of Thai fragrant rice the day before) and french toast.
Sorry, no pics. Too hungry, we were.
After our visit to Paradise Country, we decide to look for the Halal deli located nearby, at Mermaid Waters.
(pic courtesy of my colleague, Sri)
This place was listed online, as selling 'meats'. Turns, this place is more of a grocery store than a butchery.
The only meats the sell are fresh chicken, mediterranean-style sausages and smoked meats. Well, better than nothing, I guess. Anyway, in case you really want Halal meats there, you can always go to:
Assim’s Halal Meats
37 Beale St, Southport 4215
07 5531 4016
Mt. Lebanon also sell fresh cheese (both Aussie & Mediterranean ones), Turkish pastries & desserts like Baklava, Boreks etc.
My mum hauled pastas, olive oils, olives, sea salt, parmesan and cottage cheeses, canned tomatoes etc. Some were for us in the apartment and some, to bring back to Singapore.
We also went to a mini mart, a few doors down and bought some fresh veggies like these hee-yuge red bell peppers and coriander.
Dinner
For dinner that evening, we had every intention to cook creamy pasta, but we forgot to buy cream, of all things. Slight change of plans. We opened up the jar of Mediterranean chili paste with red bell peppers, some of the seasoned meats and pasta we just bought and cooked up a storm.
tomato fried pasta
(pic courtesy of my colleague, Roza)
We used ditalini/canneroni pasta for this. Having never seen this pasta before, we got curious and bought it to try.
I just found out that this pasta is most often used in soups but it taste good when fried, too. Slightly chewy because the tubes are slightly thicker than your regular penne.
----------------------------------
So there, home-cooked food galore (Gold Coast style). Still have posts of 3 more days of cooking to go. Hope I get it over and done soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment