Barrenjoey Head Lighthouse

Located in the suburb of Palm Beach, Barrenjoey Headland is the location of Barrenjoey Head Lighthouse, first lit in 1881 and named after a little kangaroo or wallaby.

Automated in 1932, the current structure of the lighthouse is unpainted, revealing its rich-coloured local sandstone material.

The hike up to where these few shots were taken involved some climbing. It would require some stretching for people with short(er) legs. Just saying. But with such views, all worth it.

House Restaurant

House Restaurant operates under the Spice I Am umbrella but unlike the main Spice I Am branch, House offers cuisine from the traditional area of Isaan in North Eastern Thailand. It was my first taste of North Eastern Thai food and was little unsure of what to expect.

We tried two types of salad. The Yum Pla Mueg ($14.00), which is a calamari salad with celery, coriander, shallots and onion, served with chilli and lime dressing had a lovely tangy twist due to the lime. Thumbs up.

I got to order the Larb Ped ($18.00), a traditional Isaan salad of minced duck with eschalots, shallots, Vietnamese coriander, mint, ground roasted rice, ground chilli and lime. The combination of coriander and mint, ah... Thumbs up.

The dish that appealed to me the least but found most interesting was the Aorm Gai ($14.00), a chicken curry with dill, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, galangal, garlic, eschalots, shallots, Thai eggplant, pumpkin, Thai lemon basil and choy sum. Too many different flavours going on in there for me. Very rich dish, nevertheless.

We also ordered two dishes off their specials menu. There was a tofu dish (forgive me for I failed to note the name and price of both dishes) and a green curry beef dish.

We saved space for dessert and oreder two out of the three they had on their menu. The ais kacang looking Nam Kaeng Sai ($5.00) is a Thai style shaved ice dessert with sweet potato, sweet taro, pineapple and toddy palm seed topped with Thai caramel sauce and coconut milk. Wonder if the caramel sauce they meant was palm sugar (gula Melaka). Ice shaving was too hard for my liking.

The better dessert was the one with the kinkier name - BTS, which stood for Better Than Sex ($15.00). A toasted brioche served with pandan coconut gelato topped with Thai caramel sauce and sprinkled with roasted black and white sesame seeds. Brioche was melt in your mouth. Thumbs up.

As there is a bar inside, they do not allow BYO and similar to the other popular Thai places, they do not take reservations. However, with a sum of $110 (for 5 of us, which isn't too bad), not being able to pay by card was a little annoying.



House Restaurant
202 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
Tel: +61 2 9280 0364, E-mail: info@spiceiam.com
Open daily 11:30am till Late

Ichiban Boshi

Convenient point of this place would be its location on the same floor with Kinokuniya inside The Galeries Victoria, just above Town Hall Station in the heart of the city. Not so convenient point would be how one may need to queue for a very long time before getting a table.

I have always wondered what the fuss was about, the long queues I saw whenever I went to the bookstore. So one day, I decided to join that queue (when it was shorter, that is).

I would definitely recommend the tempura salmon roll ($9.50), which is a deep friend salmon roll with shallot and hot chilli mayonnaise sauce.

Their serving of unagi-ju ($15.00) is generous, a full box of marinated eel served on a bed of rice.

Their tantanmen ($13.00) is a large bowl of traditional spicy ramen topped with minced pork, boiled egg and choysum vegetables.

When one is too lazy to decide on what to eat, there is always the karaage ramen ($13.00), ramen in soy flavoured soup topped with succulent deep-fried chicken. Just add chilli flakes for spiciness.

And of course, like any other Japanese eatery, there is the tonkatsu-don ($12.00), a bowl of rice topped with deep-fried chicken (or pork) cutlets.

Fully licensed with a seating capacity of 70, their ramens are not too bad (according to my friends because I personally am not a fan of ramen). Their rice dishes were so-so. Quality of service would depend on the wait staff on duty that day but so far, it has been pleasant (not taking into account the long queueing time).

Ichiban Boshi
2/500 George Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
Tel: +61 2 9262 7677
Open daily 11:00am to 9:00pm

Caffé Bom

Caffé Bom is strategically located just across the road from the train station at Eastwood and right where the 545 (Chatswood to Parramatta direction) bus drop off is. When they first started, they only had a handful of home-made gelato flavours, the usual coffee and tea, as well as waffle on the menu.

I found it interesting that even their furniture and fixtures are for sale, too.

Now, their menu has grown to also include full meals of Korean and Italian fare. However, to me, it is still a dessert place. Here are some of the many combinations of dessert that we have tried:

Churros fondue

Waffle gelato

Twin Waffle Gelato

Green tea frappe (Stellina's favourite)

My top three favourites would have to be the ginseng latte, Belgian chocolate waffle and yoghurt gelato. Oh, and their friendly service.



Caffé Bom
15 Railway Parade, Eastwood (Korean side), NSW 2122, Australia
Tel: +61 2 9874 3363

Taska & Tadika Kembangsari: Our food

If there is one thing that I think we excel at, I think it is our food. Mum pays extra attention to the quality of food that we serve here at Honey Bee, including the food for our staff members. She spends up to the entire morning (which sometimes takes up to 4 hours) at the wholesale market and at NSK just to do her weekly marketing for produce and sundries. She is very particular with the type and freshness of the seafood, poultry and vegetables for the week and the staff have their favourite - Thursday lunch which is noodle in soup/prawn noodles.

We add as much noodles and soup as we like to our serving of fried tofu sheets, boiled eggs, fish balls, prawns, water spinach and fish cake. The soup is from a packet and we boil it with carrots and Chinese cabbage. For the children's version, instead of the prawn noodle paste, we boil the soup with lots and lots of anchovies with the carrots and Chinese cabbage. All other ingredients are the same. Normally, we pair this dish with a Chinese herbal tea.

My favourite meal would have to be the fortnightly Monday dinner meal of chee cheong fun! I love it! I always ensure that I am there on Monday from about 4:00pm onwards to have my own serving, er, okay, more than one serving of chee cheong fun. Extra yummy when freshly out of the kitchen and when taken with grass jelly water!

Taska & Tadika Kembangsari: Our environment

We have occupied the premises for a decade now. And as we grew in age, we grew in physical space. Mum and Dad have also invested a good deal of their weekends doing what they enjoy - gardening.

And when they say that you reap what you sow, oh yes, how true! Our children definitely have that embedded in their learning when they are with us.

The children not only get to tend to their own vegetable plots, they get to harvest their crops and then hand the harvest over to the kitchen to be cooked for either lunch or dinner. This is in addition to the many fruit trees that we have in our compound.

They also learn to share their space with other living beings, which many city kids do not get to see much nowadays.

Hopefully, our children will grow up respecting their environment, especially Mother Nature. We have to constantly remind ourselves that it is not an inborn quality, it is also something we instill in children and have to lead by example.