Living Nerdy in Sydney

What's better than enjoying food from back home? Enjoying food from back home with new friends made in Australia, and realising that they enjoy it too! On this trip, we enjoyed dinner with a group of my friends. Food Ordering food at Kreta Ayer comes DIY fashion. Simply pick out the dish you want from the menu, write the number down and hand the order slip to your waiter. Bakuteh - This literally translates to "Meat Bone Tea". Bakuteh is pork bone (or sometimes chicken) soup simmered in an array of herbs (star anise, dang gui, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and fennel seeds). This is served normally with deep fried tofu and a side of You Tiao (deep fried dough). Garlic Kailan - Stir fried broccoli with garlic and ginger.Crunchy kailan in typical home-cooked fashion. Oyster Omelette - Little morsels of oysters fried in an omelette. I've actually never had this in Sydney before, but this brings memories of my growing up years. Not the best, but good en...

We had the privilege to travel to Singapore during Chinese New Year to spend some time with family. Undoubtedly, we took the chance to fill our bellies with the great Singaporean cuisine. Most of our meals centered around meeting friends in the East. If you're going to Singapore for a short stop-over, here are quite good places to fill up with the local cuisine. For the first time visitor  to Singapore, there are basically 4 types of eating outlets. Food Courts - These are large air-coned eating outlets normally with 8-10 stalls with a common seating area. Food Centres - These are like Food Courts but normally run by the government and are normally non-air conditioned. They are also normally larger and can have up to 50-100 stalls. Coffee Shops - These are privately run eating outlets normally on the ground floor of a block of government flats. Restaurants. This includes fast-food restaurants, cafes and bistro. Meal 1 - On the Plane We traveled from Sydney to Singapore...

With the closure of the Crown Street Surry Hills outlet, we decided to venture to it's surviving branch on Riley Street, Darlinghurst for a special birthday dinner. Setting The setting in Red Lantern is somewhere a mix of 50s Vietnamese and modern. The front of house is a restaurant and the back of house is a bar (Red Lily). You will have to get a booking in advance for a table in the front of house. You might be able to get a bar seat at Red Lily, but they do serve a different menu. The restaurant is rather dark. It is mainly lit by old pendant lights above each dining space. It did make photography rather challenging. Menu There are 2 set deguestation menus one at $69 and the other at $85. The $85 menu will only be served at the later 8pm seating. It also has a optional $145 set of matching wines. There is also an excellent drink menu with exotic and interesting cocktails. Click to enlarge Drinks As it was a birthday, we decided to splurge a little on 2 cock...

Sushi Hotaru is a sushi train in Sydney CBD. Most people would be more familiar with its other branch in the Galleries of Victoria with its long queues. This branch is a much quieter one. We did not have to book or queue for a dinner seating. Setting Like with most Sushi Trains, Sushi Hotaru is mainly counter seating - where there are bar chairs along a counter. You can chose to pay individually at each chair or pay as a group. Sushi Hotaru has its menu on its electronic ordering system which is based on an iOS system. Everything from sushi, to hot food, to drinks even to tap water has to be ordered through its electronic ordering platform. The beauty of the system is that you get a picture for every dish to know what exactly you are ordering. The downside to the system is the inability to customise orders. For example, if you have a certain allergy an require something to be left out for you, you would still have to get a wait staff to assist you with your order. Drinks ...