Lakes Pizza and Fish N Chips, Lake Entrance

We went on a short honeymoon along the Great Alpine Road and Lakes' Entrance was our last stop on the journey. This is my second time at Lakes' Entrance and this is the best shop at that place. I wished I knew about them earlier! The food here is amazing and among the cheapest in that area.

We ordered the Surf N Turf pizza and the Fettucine Marinara. The amount of ingredients on both dishes were beyond generous and the taste of both were exceptional. One of the best food around I would say. They even topped some of the Italian restaurants we have been to and that's saying a lot!

 

Lakes Pizza 

Shop 3 / 271 The Esplanade, Lakes Entrance, Victoria 3909 Australia

Backstreet Eating Cafe, Melbourne

We were given a groupon voucher worth AUD114.50 by well-meaning relatives for Christmas. We were excited and expected a nice romantic dinner as indicated by the voucher. We were sorely disappointed.

Despite being on a Groupon, we get to choose from their menu for mains and dessert. Appetizer was fixed and we got a choice of either a glass of red wine or white one. 

However, we were not particularly fond of the wine. Since it was inclusive in the voucher, no biggie. 

The appetiser was a choice of cold cuts: salami, proschetta, some pork sausage with macadamia nuts and pickled carrots? We did not particularly enjoy the platter as well as the bread basket. Oh did I mention one of their waitresses was not really friendly or happy to serve us? Refills were done with loud clanking and sullen demeanour.

I had the duck for my main as pictured below and it was alright I guess. The duck was cooked to perfection but the fat on the duck was too chewy. The cherry reduction was amazing but my grip was with the three yellow dollops of mashed parsnip on the side. They tasted funky and I wished they were not there. The vegetables lining the plate was alright but overall, it was not an outstanding effort even though I can hear an enthusiastic girl at the next table raving over it. Sorry but by now we were contemplating whether this shop will still be here next year unless they do a thorough shake-up.

The fish of the day (barramundi) fared even worse. The fish tasted strongly of mud which is common in river fish but a good chef would probably do something about it. Maybe a stronger sauce in terms of smell to hide the smell and better it? The risotto was not bad in my opinion with hints of lemon and maybe white wine? But the taste of the fish is just too gross.

We were anticipating a better dessert but again it's another disappointment. LOL. By now we should have known better than to get our hopes up. Anyway, the molten lava cake was too overdone and no chocolate centre came flowing out, the orange jelly was bitter with too much of the zest grated and the pistachio ice cream was done using too much extract that it was quite overpowering. The chocolate salt was slightly salty but would have been nice if eaten with some better ice cream.

Creme brûlée is a favourite dessert of mine but they sort of spoiled it for me. The caramel top was too bitter and made it a rather sad affair.

I would not recommend this shop to anyone but I guess my views could be subjective.

The Vine Hotel's Pub and Lounge, Wangaratta

We just had dinner at this 150-year old family pub for our sort-of short honeymoon. We loved the ambience and the old-school comforting energy surrounding it. For great views, especially during summertime, I would recommend sitting outside. However, inside was great as well and you get to see all their memorabilia which was really nice too!

It was a little dark when I took the photo of the place but check out the view when there is still light!

Anyway the insides were amazing like I mentioned just a while ago.

Dinner actually finished by 8pm and we were late but the owners were really obliging and reassured us that it was no problem at all. 

We had the mini mixed grill...

The pork loin with apple sauce...

And for drinks, we had the iced coffee and hot cappuccino!

The portions were huge and food was pretty good for a reasonable price. I actually like the rotisserie which came with my steak and sausage for the mixed grill but hubby wasn't much of a fan. He preferred the pork loins which was quite tender and he even finished the fats on the top (quite an achievement as he normally wasn't a fan of pork fats). I do not really like the accompanying Apple sauce as it reminded me of the baby food's apple sauce but like what hubby said, it's good without it anyway. LOL. 

Coffee was good like in most cafes around Australia so I guess that's it! Probably a good choice to go for dinner if you are around the area.

The Vine Hotel

27 Detour Road

Wangaratta North

03 5721 2605

Lunch 12 noon - 2 pm

Dinner 6pm - 8 pm

Wangaratta North Family Motel, A Review

This hotel was so comfortable that I wished we were there for more than a night! The amenities were amazing and if not for their name, you wouldn't even know this is not a hotel. 

Our room for an extra bed because the smaller rooms were all fully booked. Even so, the beds were comfy and pillows plush. Heaters for beds were available too!

The bathroom was a tad on the small side but aside from that, no complaints. Oh and somehow motels do not provide syampoo or body syampoo; only soaps. Just so you know.

The room comes with a complete set of toaster, microwave oven, kettle, fridge and so on. Detergent for washing up the plates and dishes were available too! You would not even realised that this motel room is actually made out of old containers! Amazing! Definitely worth a stay if you want to stay in the Wangaratta area. 

Limoncella, KLCC

This was a really overdue post but life has been so busy lately that only today while I am waiting for the car servicing to be done I had time to catch up with all the blogging. Hubby and I came here in December I think.

I liked their ambience and it was not warm even when we were sitting outside of the restaurant.

We were not really hungry and thought to just get an appetizer and pizza to share. We thought wrong. It was too much to order as their appetizer (we ordered a mixed platter if I am not mistaken), was quite big. See his faces after stuffing on all the food? LOL

The mixed platter had chicken wings, a couple of meatballs marinara, onion rings, hush puppies, a couple of bruschetta and some garden salad in the middle. The food was really good but by the time we cleared the plate, we were too full to fully enjoy the pizza.

The chicken and mushroom Pizza came with a fluffy crispy dough. We couldn't stop ourselves and had a slice each before decided to leave it. Hahha.

Would I come back? Definitely! However, I would probably only come back when I am hungry enough to finish a meal. The food is too good to waste with only a few dainty bites! Blerk!

Limoncello Bar and Bistro

Suria KLCC,

KL

Lucy's Kitchen, KK

During our mid December trip to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, my family and I went to Lucy's Kitchen in Imago KK Times Square for dinner. Its exterior looked promising and we were anticipating an enjoyable evening ahead.

My aunt ordered the mint tea and we were delighted to see the cutest gadget which accompanied what would have been a normal pre-packaged tea sold at a higher premium. Check out the sand-timer for 2, 3 and 5 minutes. Once you dropped your teabag, just turned it over to start the time. Cute, right?

The Ribena lemon was what you would have expected of a cordial...

 

The three layer coffee fell short of any expectation. The coffee was watery so it was not very enjoyable. More like drinking colored water.

The three sour concoction was nice and refreshing though. They mixed a lime, some sour plums and lemons together so it was like a great wake-up call!

Despite the slow servics, the fried Mamak noodles was superb! It was slightly moist with great undertones of spices and chilli. Not too spicy for those prefering less chilli in their meal and tossed with a good amount of meat and fish cakes.

The garlic bread and chicken soup was alright but not exceptional...

The vegetarian rice was also acceptable but my cousin who loves her veggies seemed to enjoy it very much so I would say this is again quite subjective as I was not very keen on my greens.

I had the grilled chicken chop which I felt was too overdone and had burnt taste to some part ot it. It was not very enjoyable to be honest.

The crispy chicken chop fared a little better. Price-wise, it was quite reasonable. I must recommend the fried Mamak noodles if you ever drop by but the rest of the food was not really to my liking.

Look for them at the basement floor of Imago KK Times Square, Kota Kinabalu.

Library Coffee Bar Part 2

In one of our shopping trips to KL, my sister and I headed to this coffee place again. Despite my previous misgivings about avoiding it etc, their new Christmas drinks attracted our attention. We were fans of peppermint coffee infusion and they had the usual peppermint ones since it is close to Christmas. Check out the artistic shot my sis took of our coffees and food!

The peanut butter and Nutella waffle was well paired; creamy peanut butter with hints of Nutella, what more could a girl ask for? We got a black coffee for an extra RM1 with the waffle. 

The peppermint latte was good with a very pretty green leaf made from white chocolate floating on top.

KK Itinerary Day 1

We (my relatives) took an afternoon flight from Miri to KK and was later joined by my sister at night. We stayed in KK Times Square Hotel, right opposite Imago Mall on our first night.

The shopping mall was quite big with plenty of eating choices. We spent the evening shopping and it was quite pleasant. Since it was quite close to Christmas, the decorations were up and Christmas carols were on full blast.

We even had dinner in one of the eateries in the mall and was pleasantly surprised. More on my review about our eating experience soon.