Tuesday 15th July



A quick stop by 'Little Cupcakes' to pick-up cupcakes for George, great to know they're open till 5.30pm and 6pm for pick-ups. On the website it says they close at 5pm. 




Cherry was alright, don't recommend it, as it was cherry flavour and more like panadol then the bar of 'Cherry Ripe' which I love. White Choc Raspberry is a classic for me, but on this occasion only had one sad raspberry on the side and none within.




Returned and borrowed some book, the later was much heavier! But we have all the books I need. Photography's going to be really disappointing if it's about the history and theories, who needs to know that?





Our adventure of the week was more fun than theories and much more hands-on, literally. Are you meant to use chopsticks to eat popcorn chicken? Hope not. :P We had dinner at Shizuku (Modern Japanese), with great entrees (yes I would come back just for those)! 





Thursday

Made evaporated milk, drank it, whoops. It was nice and had a light caramel taste to it.

Ordered some shirts for work, really do need to get these remade in a great quality fabric, as these ones are crap and last only about 10 wears each. Our tailor's going to recreate them.


I'm a bit iffy about apps. Why do these need access to everything on you phone? Including the camera especially for apps that don't use the camera! How do I know they're not watching us?! I think all the permissions you give them allow you to be tracked and stalked. e.g. This one can see who your contacts are and their numbers. Also stalks you if you use the calendar. They can also see you via the camera and see all your pictures.






Saturday


Today we made 'Lychee Jelly Pudding' recipe needs more details, cause this girl at least 20 of those ramekins she used in the picture. It makes a huge pot full - the pot we use to make soup and stocks. We being a family of 3, with enough for 2 meals and a bit. I used 5 ramekins, a rectangular dish 20x15, a small glass bowl, and two med/large ones. 

My Notes
- Whoops had the lychee water and lychee together to create the lychee puree. that was meant to be two separate ingredients, added at two diff stages. I added it at the later stage, and it was fine. So if  you the same thing it's fine.
- Agar agar, packet says 43g, so we only used 34g.
- Oh wow we used a medium bowl of sugar! But then again we did make a cauldron-full of jello.



Sunday



Finished in an aged sepia brown. the alloy of zinc and copper will change patina over time and this is completely natural. $5 (was $35). Can be found here, and here. We both love Shakespeare, and I find this cuff amusing. Consider where you wear cuff and then the meaning of that quote.





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So a couple weeks ago we had placement not in or around the city. So we went exploring and found another BreadTop (asian bakery, minimal service, you'll go through as fast at McD), though this one's has a dine-in options. Also has great lighting for pictures and is nice and quiet. The only thing they don't have is wifi.  






















I like places that have hot chocolate for the same price as coffee. They always use either a powder or syrup/choc sauce anyway, so it doesn't cost anymore than a coffee. Unless you're at a chocolate cafe and they used real chocolate. 





















It was soft and fluffy, though I was disappointed each layer tasted the same, and the minimal cream. I love cream though not a cookies & cream cake, that's too much. Would be great if all their cake was served with some freshly whipped cream, topped with rainbow sprinkles or chocolate shaving and mint. Also the ganche on top without a lot of cream is too much, too intense. 




Pastry + Durian. Smells nice (to me) le beau did not join me as I was ordering this... Not sure if they used fresh durian or frozen/canned, though I've never had frozen or canned durian. It was nice but just average. I prefer just to buy a durian.


I do like the cake here and might be back. Service depends on who you get. The first time we got a nice asian guy who was great, the second the manager (I think) who was friendly but meh. I still rank their service higher than BreadTop's (excluding that one girl who gives service, those are rare).

 

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Charlie & Co. dinned courtesy of Shizuku. 



Shizuku Ramen is a Modern Japanese restaurant, just a few stops from Parliament Station via 109 Box Hill, or very close (seeing distance) of North Richmond Station (on the South Morang Line). It's on the opposite side to Goodwill. Located on Victoria St known as 'Little Saigon' which is similar to Larkin Street (SF) as they have a lot of Vietnamese food. It's great to know if we're in the area we can get delicious Japanese food! Yes I am biased, though I think everyone loves Japanese food. We have yet to meet anyone who doesn't love it. 

I love it when you can book online, it make everything so much easier. Because if a place is very busy they won't take the call. Shizuku uses the yelp booking system, which is straightforward and easy to use. We booked online the night before and an hour before the booking I received a text asking us to confirm and serve as a reminder. We also got an email, which I didn't see till afterwards, whoops. 



We met David, the manager who was very knowledgeable, friendly and young (always a good thing unless you're my surgeon/teacher), who told us a bit about the restaurant. Shizuku opened around this time last year, and the menu has been developed and expanded greater since then, with the team constantly working on it. While they have a large range of dishes their focus is to serve the best ramen in Melbourne. And the largest serving of ramen you'll ever have, or at least for me that's the case. Shizuku also has a focus on using the freshest ingredients, like most Japanese restaurants, though they also only use free-range pork and chicken.  














My lychee soda was very light and bubbly, think sparkling mineral water but with lychee, the flavours were refreshing and not too sweet. Though the top four ingredients on the back were various forms of sugar, someone forgot the water and flavour in translation. The soda was made in Japan. The bottle was most fascinating to me, it wasn't a beer cap or a screw one, instead it was a plastic ring with a marble in the middle. That gets pushed down and says in the top part of the bottle, though with the drink it looks like a piece of ice.   

Jas always orders Sake, which is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin that is made from fermented rice. David recommended the Yamahai Jikomi by Kizakura to accompany the ramen. Which Jas enjoyed and recommends it though as there's so many different sakes available he'd like to try something new each time.  





Served with sweet chilli sauce these spring rolls were delicious! I love cheese, the edamame beans add something more than a smooth sharp taste, a texture and freshness to the spring rolls, making it uniquely Japanese. David recommenced these and they were certainly a winning dish, created by one of their chefs, four of which who are Japanese.





Who doesn't love chicken? If you don’t like chicken there is something very wrong with you (unless you're a vegetarian/vegan). Anything deep fried is good. While popcorn chicken makes you think of KFC this one is nothing like it. It's crispy, light, tangy from the lemon and dipped in kewpie mayo it's delicious! The batter is similar to battered fish, and just as light and not oily at all. Kewpie is the most popular brand of Japanese mayonnaise by the way, not something related to seaweed, as it sounds.  





Most of the ramens of the menu have pork in them, the chefs love pork and candied pork belly in the ramen burger sounds interesting. I went for the seafood ramen, a man-size serving of very fresh house-made ramen noodles that were springy, with fresh divined prawns and veggies. The broth was the base and the most important part, as it's what makes it or breaks it. With salt from South Japan, and scallop infused oil the broth/soup was simply but lovely. While the serving is huge and I didn't finish it, I did finish the broth. 

While the prices for ramen are higher at Shizuku, than at Fukuryu Ramen in China Town, the servings are much larger and make Fukuryu look like entree size. I would really like it if they offered ramen in two sizes at Shizuku, because I can't finish this on my own. And take-away with liquids doesn't go too well. 





Meanwhile jas had the signature ramen, which he described as "really nice, well balanced with the pork and sesame" and the "soy milk aftertaste was also really nice, it was creamy but dry" in this case dry is a good thing. There was no faults with this huge bowel of ramen, which jas almost fished. Your plate/bowl is a canvas and the colour contrast of the food and bowl was great.

Do we have room for dessert? Of course, everyone knows you have a second stomach for dessert. ;) While the espresso pudding was tempting I decided to go with something more Japanese. 





I like black sesame, jas doesn't. This one was on the smooth side, light and nutty but creamy. I would recommend it, though would like to try the green tea or that espresso next time. To me the powder doesn't really do much. I thought this was going to be a scoop in a cone, so that was different. But I like it - as a slow eater my cones often drip. 





When I think miso I think soup, which is nothing like what miso caramel ice cream tastes like. It looks like passionfruit drizzled onto but isn't. David describes it as salted caramel but more on the savory side. Jas enjoyed it as it was different, and the hint of miso gave it a savory kick, extra salted but less sweet caramel was the summary. The ice cream itself wasn't sweet but bland, which made it the perfect base to carry out the flavours of the miso caramel. As a sugar addict it wasn't sweet enough for me, but if you like a low-sweet dessert this one's for you. 



Service was great, though we're are definitely biased as we were invited. But we did watch the interaction with the other customers and David gave them just as much attention and information about the dishes as we received over the evening. 

Lighting was good and consistent throughout the restaurant. As we arrived at 6.30pm, quite early there was only a couple there, but over the course of the night there were only a couple tables left. The deco was pretty cool, especially those lights. Picture were taken before & after dinner, hence almost no one in my pictures, but it was busy. 

Jas's comments, he likes it and plans on returning and only has one negative comment which I sorta agree with (I don't know anything about renovations). While the bathroom is clean, it's old, think 30s/40s or Ripponlea ballroom. It would be much nicer if they renovated that part when setting up last year.

I would like to see bento boxes on the menu, just because I love them! And they're great for picnics on our day trips. Though they do have quite an extensive menu already. 



If you ever get the chance to go to Shizuku, and order two dishes order the 'Shizuku Spring Rolls' and 'Karaage Popcorn Chicken' - best dish of the night, we've got to explore more places with this dish! As for ramens, order one to share between two - unless you have a man-sized appetite, or order nothing else. 

Not often would I say it's cool to take your date to where we ate last, but this is a place you can take your date, or a group of friends for sakes and nibbles after work. Our HQ is just a few minutes away, where I'm not located but if I was and we had a much longer lunch (it's 30mins) I'd go here with the guys from work.  

But we are looking forwards to getting a group together to order a few entrees and ramens to share, in the next couple of months, and yes there will be more pictures. :) 

Shizuku is open for lunch and dinner, and you can get take-away too (pick-up only) through Eatnow.com.au which is great, no misunderstanding/pronunciations over the telephone





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