Chapels on Whatley

Maylands - well to be precise a small strip that's on the corner of Eighth avenue and Whatley crescent is one of my favourite places for decent cake, pastry, coffee and teas. As well as for chance to wonder around the very few boutiques that's around there, OH and shop at its very cool butcher/specialised continental shop. After all it is home to my favourite bakery/patisserie - Sherbet.

Along that strip, there's a cafe that is decked out in a very Asian theme called Chapels on Whatley.

It's decor is something out of a Chinese movie and you be forgiven if you thought you were at some Zen or Yue garden when you step outside to their courtyard. After all there are replicas of life sized Terracotta warriors and a "lillypond" (I use that term very loosely...) with a floating Buddha head and goldfish (?replacement Koi) with lots of red Chinese umbrellas to shade you. It's a rather lovely, quaint and pleasant. Oh and how lovely that they had the water sprinklers on to cool us down from above! Just perfect on a hot day!

The ambience is chilled and relaxed although I wish they didn't use such high pitched Asian music in the background. Maybe I should introduce them to Jay Chou and the Asian pop scene (with more the love songs to play in the background - at least the love songs aren't so irritating on the ears).

Anyway, I wasn't there for very long... More an afternoon catchup with a gf I haven't seen in a couple of months due to our conflicting schedule of holiday making.

But I'll let you know that they have an extensive meal menu, catering towards breakfast/lunch/brunch (even at 3pm!). They also have a nice and sweet dessert menu and a lovely range of coffees, frappas, iced teas and of course hot teas. So really you can make it a day chilling out in their courtyard garden! or book out their private function area upstairs (I think it'd be perfect of Hen's parties/kitchen teas/baby showers/birthdays).

But for us - afternoon tea it is. Being hot (poor and I'm feeling a bit fat as I've had a bad week at the gym) we settled for one alligator strawberry frappe for MM and one Lychee iced tea for me. We also had a plate of cream, jam and scones to share - one plain and one fruit. But they do a proper two hours high tea! Just give them a call to book!

 

The frappe was beautiful with freshly blended strawberries topped with ice cream and cream (I had a sip). The lychee iced tea - was a little watered down and could've been more flavoursome, was nonetheless fruity (thanks to the additional two lychee (probably canned) fruit at the bottom and total refreshing on a hot sunny afternoon. 

The scones on the other hand were a bit of a let down. Skimping out on the cream and jam. Scones themselves were a little on the stale side (although was warm). We should've had the macaroons they looked great! Nevermind, next time.

I also recommend, if you are a tea lover just get your hot tea because at $5 it's a bottomless cup, meaning buy just one cup and you can sit there and get refills for the same tea or any of the other teas on their menu!

Overall, Chapels on Whatley is such a lovely place to catch up chill and have a nice long chat! And afterwards you can wander around the area and have a look at the boutiques and heh why not check out the things Chapels themselves sell at the back?

Happily Ever After

I just had the cutest sweetest and one of the most touching weddings. Yes, it's on a Tuesday, but today was their 7 year as a couple (anniversary) together.

It was on the banks of Matilda Bay overlooking the Swan River and our city. Beautiful sunny day, which cooled down to a lovely night by the bank of the river.

There was all these lovely personal touches and everything was DIY'd or friends helped do it/make it, such as the wedding cake, the celebrant and the hair. It was fantastic, it was intimate, it was heartfelt.

Congratulations to Katrina and David!

You deserve the very best and the happily ever after!

Weight loss

Ok, so I'm not complaining that I lost weight. In fact I'm so glad that all my hard yard at the gym and every few months my ability to watch what I eat (for at least a couple months) has meant that in the last 2 years I have lost 10cm of my waist and close to 10kg of weight. Slow and steady. This isn't bad considering the fact that I did it the healthy way and as you all know by now I love to eat, and you can tell that hasn't stopped. No fad diets - just portion control, calorie counting and healthy choices (which I am still yet to fully control, because you see I love to snack and have a weakness for hot chips and chocolate!).

Anyway, the upside of losing weight is that I'm healthier, fitter, and probably looking the best I have been in ages. Very much happy. Also I love to exercise now and if I don't I feel a little BLAH.

The downsize is that I

can't fit into half my clothes. The other half I can because they were previously a little on the tight size or they were clothes for when I was smaller. This is a real fiancial burden! My work shirts are huge they don't sit the way they ought to at all, but I really don't have the money to overhurgh my whole wardrobe. Partly because I don't want to throw out all my clothes nor do I want to keep it all.

Usually I would give it to Saint Vinnies, but because I'm a little strapped for cash, thanks to having a mortgage and I really want to go to USA/Canada at the end of the year, so I'm dipping back into eBay. But I'm going to start of with just one item to test the waters.

So I decided to sell and part with a dress I don't wear so much anymore - there is nothing wrong with it, and it's not really outdated either! It's just a waste of a perfectly pretty dress to be hiding at the back of my wardrobe. It's a Wayne By Wayne Cooper strapless dress.

If you like check out the eBay listing here. If this is sold I will be posting more of my preloved and very well looked after clothing. I mean come on, a barely worn (I swear I have only worn it about 3 times!) Wayne Cooper dress for $9.99 it's a bloody bargain!

Anyway, wish me luck! Otherwise it's off to the swapmeets I go! Downside to swapmeets is waking up at an ungodly hour to get a place to start up!

The Apple Daily Bar and Eating House

I haven't had a chance to catch up with many of my friends since I've come back fromholidays so last night, I arranged an intimate dining and drinks with a few of my bestest girlies. We decided to try new, exciting and somewhere we can dress up to and have a good laugh with good drinks and good eats. We ended up at the Apple Daily. It doesn't take bookings so we had an early dinner at 6:30pm (worth going early because it gets packed pretty quickly!).

The Apple Daily is located on the second floor of the Print Hall building on St. George's Tce in the city. Having explored the Print Hall on numerous occasions, I've been looking for an excuse to eat at the Apple Daily. It's decked out in "hawkers" styling of Shanghai and the grand ole days of Chinese eateries, with wooden styled booths and bar stands and seats, except instead of being all wooden they provide you with comfy leather seats and fancy bar stools. Authentic enough I guess.

To start of the night we tried their fancy sounding cocktails - our three choices were amazingly yummy. Loved it. Definitely a place to try their entire list as well as their hidden cocktail menu (as "secretly" told by our waiter - who was very pleasant, accommodating, friendly and chatty).

 

The menu at the Apple Daily is very much catered to share - almost tapas styles, except that the size of the dishes is bigger, allowing people to have more than just a bite of the dish. We had a lot of trouble choosing because a lot of the dishes sounded very appetizing or at least interesting because we had no clue as to what it contained. 

So...

After much deliberation and "hmmm.. umm... ahh.. oo.." we had the following dishes to share.

SL and I had freshly shuckled oysters (one of Print Hall's pride and joy) - oysters from Coffs Harbour may I add. It was accommpanied by a wedge of lime, lemon, a pot of vinegar and a pot of sweet chilli sauce. I placed a squirt of lime, a slight drizzle of vinegar and a fair amount of sweet chilli to my oyster and washed it down a little too quickly. It was delicious, it was fresh and I wanted more, but at $4/oyster, I had to be satisfied with one.

The oysters were followed by the Som Tum, which was a papaya salad - one of my favourites, especially when my grandma makes it! It's refreshing, zesty and with a dash of chilli sauce, it just one of the best summer salads around. However, the Som Tum at The Apple Daily gave us a shock. It was zesty and it was refreshing, until you get this massive HIT OF CHILLI. It was HOT. All three of us were coughing. Needless to say we did not finish it. It would have been so good, if only the chef could have controlled just a teensy bit of the chilli.

Our Som Tum chilli scare was made bit when the BBQ Beef salad came out. Although it had cut fresh chilli through it, it wasn't as hot and the beef was tender, juicy and the whole dish was refreshingly good. A nod to the thai cuisine.

An asian style night isn't complete without having fried rice - The Apple Daily fried rice had smoked trout through it and the rice grain they used was one with a bite, which I like (I don't really like really soft sticky rice, unless you are having sticky rice!). It had a smokey taste and smell through it, simple and yet delicious.

Then there was the soft shell crab. The crab was fairly meaty and we got 4 decent sized crabs on the plate and drizzled with the sweet, sour chilli sauce it was an enjoyable dish. Crispy, juicy and delicious crabs.

 

The last dish of the night was the grilled chicken with satay sauce. The chicken wasn't dry it was juicy but luckily there was the satay sauce otherwise I felt as though the chicken would be a little flavourless. Definitely needed more marinating time. But there was a fair portion of chicken on the plate.

Overall, the Apple Daily Bar and Eating House is an awesome place for a nice casual night out with a great drinks list and a menu that gives a nod to South East Asia, in particular flavours of Thai (from the dishes we had anyway) - lots of sour, zesty chilli flavours. They do have a disclaimer that there are lots of nuts in their dishes so those with allergies need to inform the waitstaff, but they should also have little chilli symbols to also indicate how hot and spicy their dishes are as well! Because I can assure you that, although I'm a lover of spice, a few of my friends would have struggled to find any dishes they could have eaten at the Apple Daily.

As for the service at the Apple Daily, our waiter, Pal(? spelling?) was funny, accommodating, friendly and was always concerned about what we thought of the food and if we were enjoying ourselves. This is a stark contrast to the Assistant Manager (whom I believe is called Annie/Anne) who was rude, took away our drinks menu that we were still looking at (didn't even ask if we still needed it..) but rather just snatched it off the side of SM's plate and she kept walking. Then she came and ask us if we were ready to order dessert straight after she dumped far too many desserts menu into my hand - and SL wasn't even at the table yet so how could we have been ready? To top it off when we paid the bill there was no politeness of "how was your meal?" but more running to another waitstaff and telling her what to do? All I can say is that they need to get another assistant manager, because really how can you get an assistant manager with no idea of service? If they can't provide and uphold service at a place how can the manager expect their staff to? Pity really because our waiter was awesome and that lady, assistant manager needs to learn a thing or to from her staff!

- So a part from that HUGE hiccup - I enjoyed the Apple Daily with its interesting menu, chilled vibe and amazing cocktails. I'll be back for more tastings of the food and drinks and will be perfectly content as long I never ever have to deal with that Anne/Annie assistant manager lady - so damn rude!

Show me your fridge...

Here's mine... Full of magnets from my travels, and people gifting us magnets!

What's on your fridge?

YSL Arty Ring

It started a few years ago, I didn't think much of it. In fact I thought it was alright bit over the top and something I probably wouldn't wear too often.

Then every year.. It teases me with it presence on a friend, on the web, on The blogs.

Finally.. I decided to try it on and went to Cultstatus on King street (No. 66 to be exact) to see the gold ring with black and gold through it. There was an array of colours, a decent collection for Perth.

I was only going to try it and then leave. If I loved it I was going to get it from SSense or Net-a-Poter. But alas, it called my name, it wrapped itself around me, three different colours ; moss green with rose gold, black with gold, and this creamy/pinky one.. all so beautiful! All fitting so snuggly around my fingers. It kept calling me as I looked around.

It worked its way into my mind, telling me that its the perfect statement jewellery. It showed me all the different outfits I can wear it with. It told me to get the moss green/emerald because it alluded class and elegance whilst still being a big statement piece, plus it told me I would probably wear it the most.

Damn! So I came out of Cultstatus with a YSL Arty Oval ring in green with gold through it an of course in rose gold ring. Good thing I worked overtime!

But now I promised myself no more self indulgence and to save; I plan to be in USA and Canada at the end of the year.

Impromptu trip to Augusta-Margaret River - Day 1

I'm so behind on my postings.. but a couple of months ago, in the middle of November to be exact, I had a lovely impromptu trip to Augusta and Margaret River for a weekend at the start of November with my beloved mum and two girlfriends (who are much too fun and camera addicts, they just have the best ideas for poses - I couldn't be happier!).

We left the city at 630am (running 30mins behind schedule leaving) but ended up at Margaret River town centre at 930am - toilet break and stroll around the gorgeous town before hitting the road to Augusta. We went caving - Jewel Cave, then to the the Southern most point of Australia - Cape Leeuwin before heading to beautiful Hamelin Bay (pity it was a little overcast). Had lunch at Berry Farm (such beautiful scones and the beef and wine pie is such hearty goodness - more on this when I get a chance to clear my massive backlog of posts!!) Visited Margaret River mouth and the beach before relaxing at the beach resort.

Next day was a day of wineries - eating at Watershed (which still is atrocious in its service and the food is so lackluster - I'm so grateful for the entertainment card otherwise totally not worth it. We should have gone to Voyager).

I will leave the photos to do the talking..

Our first stop after quickly stopping by Margaret River town to collect the region map we made our way to one of Margaret River's famous caves, Jewel Cave where ventured into the cave to marvel at the beautiful formations.

After the one hour tour and a coffee stop from our coffee flasks we made our way to the Southern most part of Australia (and of course Western Australia) to the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse in Augusta, where the Indian Ocean ends and the Southern Ocean starts, where we climbed way too many steps to experience the winds from the ocean and see a marvelous view of the sea.

and of course nothing beats a jump shot in front of the lighthouse on the edge of Western Australia.

 

 After the exercise at the lighthouse nothing beats a stroll to Hamelin Bay (even if the weather started to go cloudy and angry-looking).

Then by that time it was definitely time for lunch and one place to go to is a little cottage with amazing homemade steak pies, scones and bosenberry pies. So we ventured to the Berry Farm and were lucky to just catch the end of their lunchtime (10minutes before afternoon tea is served and we miss out on lunch!).

Berry Farm is just so lovely, I write it in another post soon, promise. Sitting in their lovely garden filled with beautiful wildflowers, plants and local birds. It was just the most perfect place to sit relax and take in the day and appreciate the beauty of nature, oh and of course have delicious homemade food!

See, how beautiful the garden at Berry Farm is?! Such an arry of colour and the birds love the Berry Farm's homemade jam as much as we did!

After a lovely, but extremely late lunch (it was like 3pm!) we made our way to our resort by the beach! This is of course before stopping by to see the Margaret River rivermouth and the beach! By that time it was sunset, freezing cold and was raining on and off. Regardless, the view was spectacular.

Seeing these photos makes me want to go back to Margaret River region again. I never get tired of the place despite going every year, there is just something so soothing and relaxing about doing nothing but eating, sleeping, going to wineries, beaches in an area you know well and, anyway I haven't even touched the places I want to wine and dine there.
 

Happy new year

It's a day late but doesn't change what I hope you all will achieve!

Happy 2013!