Eat, Pray, Love

We were only allowed to order our meals from the breakfast menu as stated on the voucher. Hence, I ordered an Eggs Royale and Yori ordered an Eggs Benny. The meal came pretty fast since there was not much customers in the cafe. 

Eggs Royale which I had ordered was a poached free range eggs and smoked salmon on toasted vienna topped with hollandaise sauce, capers and red onion. The toasted vienna was crispy and yet not burnt. Together with the flowing yolk from the poached egg and smoked salmon, the vienna just tasted so good. In addition, the hollandaise sauce was mild and not too acidic. I was served with a small bar of butter to be spreaded on the toasted vienna. Thumbs up for this! 

Eggs Royale

Yori's Eggs Benny was a poached free range eggs and smoky ham on toasted Vienna topped with Hollandaise sauce. It was pretty much the same as my Eggs Royale but the ham just made a difference. I think the emphasis should be put on poached eggs and its combination with other accompaniments. Thyme Cafe just succeeded in doing this. Oh! The cracked pepper was just another add point to the meal! Another thumbs up! 

Eggs Benny

Orange juice

The cafe actually offers more than just thyme based meals. You can order non-thyme breakfast from a quite comprehensive menu, just like us! The environment of Thyme Cafe is really cozy with its painting by well known Adelaide artist. If you like one of these paintings, you can actually buy from the cafe itself. It also has an open air area outside the cafe if you prefer to have your breakfast outdoor. 

The interior

Paintings on the wall

And I got a new cafe to be added into my breakfast spot list! Check out my breakfast experience at Mart 130 and Loose Caboose Cafe here!

Mochaccino

With a cup of hot sweet mochaccino, we ended our lunch with a happy stomach, and my blog post too. 

p/s: Check out Living Social at the side bar. It offers pretty good discount! 

Love, Victoria

Website: http://www.thymecafe.com.au/
Adress: 191a, Victoria Square, Adelaide, SA 5000
Trading hours: 7.30am - 2.30pm (Mon-Sat) 

The exterior - so homely

Southern styling BBQ night on Wed and Thurs

Moving from exterior to interior of the cafe, I found that this cafe is a good hang-out place, especially during summer as it provides an semi-open-air area for its customers. You can enjoy the dessert together with the pleasant breezy weather. Such a pleasure!

Semi-open-air area - the windows are opened for better circulation

Besides the semi-open-air area, you can choose to sit at the benches where lots of artsy pictures can be found hanging on the wall for adoration. 

Nice ambience

Cute milking cow as logo, printed on the glass door

Each dining table has its own tea light holder and candle, which gives the diner a sense of romanntic feel. 

The candle and menu

We ordered several items from the menu: 

Mina colada: a smoothies made up of frozen bananas, mango nectar, coconut milk and ice cream. 
Milkaholic was really generous with the amount of banana and mango, yielding this fantastic rich smoothie. Coconut milk was subtle in flavour and this made the highlight of the drink on mango and banana. Great beverage indeed! 

Mina Colada

Chilli fries:
Nice accompaniment seasoned with chilli powder. Chips is just perfect at any time of the day. Anyone with me? 

Chilli fries

The noshing plate: tasting platter of three desserts. 

Blackberry lime cheesecake with gingersnap crumble, fresh blueberries and boysenberry ice cream (Boysenberry is a cross between European raspeberry, common blueberry and loganberry.):  
I really love this dessert as the three components mixed together so well that you want more! 

Triple chocolate tart with hazelnuts and toffee popcorn crunch, and sprinkled with a little sea salt:
The popcorn was crunchy and AMAZING! Triple chocolate tart was ordinary though. 

Vanilla bean panna cotta with passionfruit compote (in the jar):
This dessert was out of my sweetness tolerance. It was too sweet! 
  

Noshing plate

I only like the blueberry cheesecake out of all desserts. However, I shall not do Milkaholic any injustice based on the noshing plate itself. It is because I heard that its sticky date pudding is spectacular. I should go back soon as its menu has slight changes each week. 

Hello guys! Here am I starting my first weekly recipe post! I am an amateur cook and I like to mix ingredients around. A lot of my recipe are adapted from the internet and I like to refer to different recipes for one dish. So, hope you guys enjoy the food! I do apologise if it does not fit your taste bud.

This week featured ingredient is GREEK YOGURT! I am seriously in love with Greek Yogurt! It can be so versatile and blend well with most of the ingredients.

Some other key ingredients for this week are Avocado and Tuna.

Day 1 

Avocado Yogurt Salad

Ingredients:
- Avocado
- Greek yogurt
- Red seedless grape
- Mesculin mix
- Lemon
- Honey, salt, pepper
- Parsley

Methods:
1) Core an avocado (See here) and mash it with fork.
2) Add few eating-spoon of Greek yogurt onto mashed avocado (depending on your preference).
3) Mix Greek yogurt with mashed avocado, grapes and mesculin mix.
4) Season it with some lemon juice, salt and pepper.
5) Put the mixture back onto avocado skin. Drizzle it with some honey and decorate it with parsley.

Avocado yogurt salad

Day 2

Penne with green beans, tuna and mushroom in Greek yogurt sauce

Ingredients:
- Penne
- Greek yogurt
- Chicken stock
- Green beans
- Mushroom
- Tuna
- Mesculin mix
- Onion
- Garlic

Methods:
1) Bring the chicken stock to boil (around 2 cups for one serve of penne).
2) Put the penne into the boiled chicken stock and cook till soft (around 5-8 minutes).
3) In the mean time, saute garlic, onion, mushroom and green bean using non-stick frying pan.
4) Add in penne, tuna and Greek yogurt. Mix them thoroughly. Add some pepper and salt.  
5) Serve it on a plate with some mesculin mix as decoration.

Penne with tuna yogurt sauce

Day 3 

Grilled lamb marinated with Italian herbs, served with mint yogurt sauce

Ingredients:
- Lamb cutlet
- Greek yogurt
- Green bean
- Cucumber
- Mesculin mix
- Strawberry
- Garlic
- Butter, olive oil
- Italian herb mix (Coles brand/Masterfood)
- Mint flakes/fresh mint
- Salt, pepper, soy sauce

Methods:
1) Marinate lamb cutlet with Italian herb mix, salt, pepper, garlic and some soy sauce. Refrigerate and leave it overnight to attain more flavour.
2) Grill the marinated lamb cutlet in an oven. (230 degree Celcius for 20-30 minutes) Put few small chunks and olive oil onto the lamb before being grilled.
3) Bring water with salt to boil and blanch the green beans.
4) Prepare the mint yogurt sauce. Mix fresh mint/mint flakes and Greek yogurt together.
5) Arrange green beans, mesculin mix and cucumber in a stack. Pour the dressing onto them.
6) Serve the grilled lamb together with the dressing and mixed vege.

Grilled lamb marinated with Italian herbs

Day 4 

Pan fried lamb with couscous and greens

Ingredients:
- Lamb cutlets
- Couscous
- Green beans
- Mushroom
- Garlic, onion
- Chicken stock

Methods:
1) Marinate lamb cutlets with soy sauce, garlic, salt and pepper beforehand.
2) Bring chicken stock to boil (around 1.5 cup).
3) Pour 1/2 cup of couscous into the boiled chicken stock (DO NOT cook the couscous in unboiled chicken stock)
4) Cook until the chicken stock dries off.
5) Fluff couscous with spoon/fork to make sure its texture is granule-like.
6) Pan fry the marinated lamb cutlets using a non-stick frying pan.
7) Saute garlic, onion, green beans and mushroom in another pan.
4) Serve it together with couscous and lamb cutlet.

Pan fried lamb with couscous

Day 5 

Grilled honey ginger pork chop with mixed greens

Ingredients:
- Pork loin chop
- Green caps
- Green beans
- Parsley
- Ginger
- Lemon
- Mint flakes

Methods:
1) Marinate pork chop with honey, sliced ginger, salt, pepper and garlic.
2) Grill the pork chop using an oven (230 degree Celcius for 15-30 minutes)
3) Blanch green beans and green caps in a pot of boiling water.
4) Prepare the dressing for mixed greens. Mix honey, lemon juice and mint flakes together.  
5) Serve the greens with dressing together with the grilled pork chop.

Grilled honey ginger pork chop with mixed greens

Day 6 

Tuna patties with nutella yogurt sauce

Ingredients:
- Tuna
- Greek yogurt
- Nutella
- Green beans
- Parsley
- Egg
- Self raising flour
- Garlic, onion

Methods:
1) Mix and beat tuna, few tablespoon of self raising flour, chopped green beans, garlic, onion, egg and parsley in a bowl. Season it with salt and pepper.
2) Heat up non-stick frying pan with oil.
3) Scoop an eating-spoon of mixture onto the pan and pan fry it.
4) Mix nutella and Greek yogurt together for the sauce.
5) Arrange the patties on the plate together with the sauce. (Do ignore the sauce if you feel weird about it.)

Tuna patties with nutella yogurt sauce

Thank you for reading! Do give me feedback if you try it out.

Sneaky Pickle food truck - sneaky indeed!

Sneaky Pickle serves New York style hamburger and pickles as its side. So, you must be thinking what is the difference between New York style burger and normal one? Oh well, I was wondering too! This can be traced back to the history of hamburger (seriously?). One of the early American hamburger originated from Hamburg, New York. It was a flattened meatball being sandwiched by two breads. So, there comes the term New York styled burger. Well, to me, it's just a burger, most important is its taste!   

Menu of the day

There are only four options in which you can choose for your lunch, as shown on the board. I picked Texas pulled pork + Slaw bun with BBQ corn and pickles for mine. 

Texas pulled pork + Slaw bun + BBQ corn + Pickles

The pulled pork which is made up of pork shoulder was well marinated and juicy! 

Pulled pork

The pickles was amazing too! The sourness with a tinge of sweetness appetised me indeed. 

Pickles

Hello guys! Have you ever faced a situation where you can't finish the big pack of cereal? Or you are sick of eating it with milk EVERYDAY? Oh well, I have this problem! So this is my SOLUTION: Cereal Bar. 

Cereal bar

Recipe:

Ingredients: 
4 cups             Cereal (Weetbix, Coco Crunch, Corn Flakes) 
1/2 cup           Honey (or less, depending on your preferred level of sweetness)
1/4 cup (50g)Butter/margarine
1/4 cup           Nutella or Peanut Butter (tailored according to your preference) 

Procedures:  
1) Melt the butter in a saucepan.
2) Put honey in a bowl and bring it for a water bath. (The optimal temperature to heat honey is around 35-40 degree Celcius.)  
3) Remove the honey from heat and let it liquedify. (Change hot water if the honey is not flowy.) Add in butter and nutella. 
4) Mix them together thoroughly. 
5) Prepare cereal in a large bowl and pour the mixture over. Mix them and fix it in a container. 
6) Press it down for a more compact texture. Put the tray inside the fridge for around one hour. 

Putting inside the fridge

The cereal bar is ready to be eaten! Don't judge the 'bar' by its 'look'! It tastes heavenly and healthy! At least you won't feel SO bad when you want to snack. 

Health benefits of honey: 

1) A source of carbohydrate
2) Vitamins: B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, panthothenic acid
3) Minerals: calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, zinc. 
4) Antioxidants: Fat and cholesterol free
5) Calories: 64 cal/1tbsp
6) Metabolise undesirable cholesterol and fatty acid, preventing obesity
7) Healthy Glycemic Index - better digestion of sugar 

Crunchy and chewy, that's the two words I can describe this awesome snack. Hope you guys enjoy it! 

Love, Victoria 

What happens when you are full? Yes! BURPSSSSSSS (oopsss!) 

Toilet

Alley behind the cafe

Bicycle-themed-attic area

Decoration on the wall

Overlapping chair design

Heritage-feel window

High table

Burps and Giggles is a place that you cannot miss if you ever visit Ipoh! 

Oops!! Happy meal makes people fat :P

With Jamie at the rundown place behind the cafe - transformed into a library

Very nice painting - it would be nicer with E's smile!!

Hope you enjoy the post!