Wow, I can't believe I essentially did it. I was able to, pretty much, blog every 2 days this past month. That is an achievement to me especially if you know my personality in real life. I tend to be really lazy and put things off for a while. That being said, I have decided that I will blog on a set schedule for August and see how that goes. If it sticks with me, that will pretty much be the future of the posts on this blog unless something comes up and that makes me want to blog less or more. This will probably be the case in December/January when I travel overseas. So I have planned that I will blog every Tuesday and Fridays, with Fridays possibly having a theme of Foodie Fridays. This is due to the fact, that looking on my posts this past month a lot of them have been centered around food and different restaurants that I have been trying.

With those notices out of the way, let's get on with the last post of July. I thought that it would be fitting that we leave the month of July the same that we entered it, with a monthly favourites post. July signalled my break between semesters for Uni and also my birthday, which I didn't really share due to personal wishes. Looking back, July did pass by relatively quick (but then again what month doesn't) and though some days were lazy, others were filled with activities that made the month just zoom by. Without further ado, let's get onto the favourites.

Music:
Music hasn't really been big on my agenda this post since I wasn't really travelling and therefore didn't really listen to it unless I was bored. With that being said, for my birthday my sister got me Demi Lovato's new album and I have been listening to it pretty much whenever I listen to music. Demi has always been a favourite artist of mine and her latest album doesn't disappoint at the least.

Firstly, apologies for not posting 2 days ago. I was so tired and fell asleep and didn't wake up for 13 hours. That was probably the best sleep that I have had in a while and the longest one too.

Well, onto today's post. Yesterday, I went to Birkenhead Point Shopping Centre in Drummoyne. This shopping centre is an outlet shopping centre that has 3 levels of shopping and quite good deals. I didn't end up buying anything since I didn't particularly need anything. However, while we were there we visited Cafe Birkenhead that is located on level 2 pass Levi's and Bond's for those that want to go and visit it while in Sydney.

I loved the atmosphere of the place especially the rich coffee smell that engulfs you as you walk in. It's really open and that are features throughout the whole cafe to capture your attention. My particular favourite was an apparatus that you pass on your way into the cafe that drips coffee to make iced coffee. The apparatus was so intricate and amazing to look at. The cafe also has a view of the river that runs along the shopping centre, which I believe to be Parramatta River but feel free to correct me on that. It was just another great part of the restaurant that you could eat while taking in views of the river and the yachts that are docked along the riverside.

The food was relatively okay priced with their mains being between $17-22 mainly with the pan-fried salmon being $28. I ordered the 'Prawn and Crab Linguine with Chilli, Garlic and Parsley'. I loved the spiciness of dish since it just allowed the flavours of the crab and prawn to be more pronounced to me. It also added an extra dimension to the dish that I loved since you could really taste the chilli unlike a lot of pastas that I have had with chilli. One down fall of the dish was that, in my opinion, the pasta wasn't cooked properly since it tasted quite rubbery.




Overall, it's a great cafe with a great atmosphere, friendly staff and good staff.

One more post and that will signal the end of blogging in July. I can't believe the time has flown by so quickly. Here's to a great end of July guys. Keep safe and speak to you in 2 days. Bye.

Last weekend, a couple of my friends and I decided to pop into V Lounge at Canley Heights for our dessert hit. V Lounge is a cafe style restaurant that offers lunch, dinner, desserts, drinks and ice-cream/gelato. I've been to V Lounge a number of times where I have tried their fried ice-cream, warm chocolate cake, gelato flavours and a couple of their hot drinks.


Overall, V Lounge isn't the best dessert place that I have visited/tried but it is a relatively good one that is nearby to myself. If you are in the South West area and would like to visit it:

Last Monday, one of my friends decided to host a BBQ just so that we could catch up with our group of friends. It turned out to be a catch-up session as well as a mini-birthday celebration for myself and our friend whose birthday was the next day.

The day was just filled with lots of laughter, competitive ping-pong tournaments and lots of discussions. Probably one of my favourite memories from that day was me beating all the guys in a racing game on the Xbox. You don't understand the significance of this. Even though I can drive really well in real life, it doesn't really translate to virtual realities. I was coming last in every race prior with the guys almost overlapping me but in the final race, the racing gods turned to smile down on me. I was good ... like really good. I learnt how to go around corners without crashing or losing speed (the trick was to not accelerate ... who knew LOL) and was whipping them. When I discovered that I won, I did the biggest victory dance to date and could not wipe the smile off my face. I was that happy. All in all, the day was probably one of the best days that I have had this month. It was just a really carefree day.



I absolutely loved the cupcakes especially the one with the flower. I could not stop admiring it, it was so beautiful in real life. I cannot imagine the dedication and patience it would have taken to do it especially with the details for each individual petal.

That day really illustrated to me the importance of good friends and good company to the enjoyment of life. So here's to you surrounding yourself with great friends and people around you so that you are able to experience life and all its offerings to the fullest.

Until next time, live life to the fullest.

Last Saturday, my friends and I decided to curb our Yum Cha cravings. If you are unfamiliar with Yum Cha, it's a meal where you drink tea while feeding yourself with small dishes such as dumplings or fried off seafood or even dessert items such as egg tarts. We went to Vinh Phat located in Cabramatta to succumb to our yum cha cravings.

I really like their renovated restaurant as it allows for more space and a more grand appearance of the restaurant. Since we went on a Saturday, it was quite busy but that also means that the food comes fast and straight from the kitchen. My favourites for any Yum Cha would have to be include a dumpling that has a clear skin with a prawn filling (see photo below), rice paper rolls with prawns inside, and your regular dim sims. I'm not really a big fan of egg tarts but boy do the egg tarts from this restaurant want me to eat an egg tart everyday. The pastry of their egg tart is so incredible in its delicacy such that the pastry just falls apart in your mouth followed by the creaminess of the egg filling. Absolutely amazing. I also love the mango pancakes from this particular restaurant. I haven't seen it in any of the other Yum Cha places that I frequent and it is a must have at Vinh Phat. Once you see it, you better snatch it up since it goes pretty quickly. The entire meal cost just over $80 and that was between 4 people, so $20 per person and we walked away pretty full.




If you want to check it out, Vinh Phat is located at Shop 8/7, 40 Park St Cabramatta.

This post is going to be up super early since I won't have time otherwise to get one up today. Until next time, hope you guys have a wonderful and safe weekend!

Let me start this post off with saying sorry. Sorry for being absent for the last 4 days. Life just sort of got in the way such that I woke up and before I knew it, the day was over and I was tucking myself into bed. I started off so well too ... so I guess lasting half a month was a pretty good accomplishment. Hopefully, those 4 days are the only ones for this month and you can look forward to a post every other day.

Now, onto today's post. Last Tuesday, I decided to head on over to Strathfield. The reason for this was that a friend and I promised each other that we would go to Strathfield one day for dinner about a year ago. We finally got to satisfying this promise. While there we went to a Korean restaurant, as you do when you are in the Sydney version of Korea Town, called 'Beauty and the Beast'. The food was pretty decent, though I am no food critic so can't say much more than that. What I love about eating at Korean restaurants is that they have a service bell so that you can ring for a waiter when you need one instead of waiting for one to notice you. I ordered the 'Spicy Tofu and Seafood Soup with Rice' and it was great for a winter's night since it had the kick of spiciness to warm you up. What had to be the highlight was that the restaurant had their TV on 'MTV' where they were playing songs that were popular about 5 or so years ago. We just sat there singing along reminiscing about songs back then and why they were better, in our opinions, than songs nowadays especially their music clips. I would love to have some photos to post of the food and the general restaurant but the lighting inside was horrible to my iPhone so it just showed up as blackness. Sorry :(

After the restaurant, we decided to go for some desserts and headed over to a bakery/patisserie called Pishon Patisserie and Bakery. We went for the churros with chocolate fondue. The churros were more chewy giving it more of a doughnut texture than other places that serves churros such as San Churros. We are used to more crunchy ones with a slight chewiness while with the ones from Pishon had quite a bit more chewiness but the crunch was still present. Since we were there at almost closing, they decided to give us a basket of some of their baked goods which was really sweet of them. They let us have a sample of a baked good that was like a doughnut but twisted to form a criss-cross instead of the normal shape (if that makes sense) and that had to be my favourite of the baked goods. The interior of the place was really nice and I loved the general look of it. There is this really interesting puzzle artwork on the left wall when you enter but I couldn't get a nice photo of it since we were seated below it.




If you want to check out the restaurants:
Beauty and the Beast: Shop 1, 39 The Boulevard Strathfield
Pishon Patisserie and Bakery: 45-47 The Boulevard Strathfield

I have a couple of outings lined up for the next couple of posts so that should ensure that I will keep on posting. So until next time, remember life's too short to have regrets. Bye guys!

Last week, I rediscovered a show and became absolutely obsessed. I am talking absolute fascination. I rewatched every single episode, all behind-the-scene clips, interviews with the cast ... pretty much anything associated with the show in any way. From the title, this show would be 'Dance Academy'. If you haven't heard about it, it's an Australian show that focuses on 6 dances who are enrolled in the National Academy of Dance based in Sydney. The show illustrates the highs and low of a ballet dancer/student who is enrolled in the program and their efforts to win a contract with the Australian Ballet Company.