Pylon Lookout may have 200 stairs to climb but on your way up there there are three levels of exhibitions to tell you how Sydney Harbour Bridge was built and the view is absolutely stunning.
Queen Victoria Building is my favourite building in Sydney.
Winter is proving to be a cold one this year and Olly is feeling it more than ever. So I had to knit him jumpers. This is the second one I knitted this year. The first and the third one need improvement. Our boy is out of standards 🙂
Sydney’s Marble Bar was built in 1893. A great place to have a drink just before a concert. We were there last night before Mick Fleetwood took the stage at Metro Theatre with our friends. And he was awesome 🙂
Our dear friends Don and Lorraine.
Some of my Orhan Pamuk books. These ones are all in Turkish.
First of all, I got out of NaNoWriMo alive! I marked my 50,000 words three days before NaNoWriMo ended. I’ve got my certificate, my badge and the t-shirt, too! (see below)
Most importantly, I learnt a few things about myself during last November. Here they are:
I can do this. Well, this was my first time. I have never attempted to write 50,000 words before. I have never attempted to write anything this long before. It was important for me to prove myself that I can do this and that’s what I did.
Deadlines are working for me. Before NaNoWriMo I had two deadlines for two totally different projects. One of them was so personal and so difficult to write because of it. I literally sat down at my computer and bled. Ernest Hemingway would have been proud of me. But I finished them anyway. So deadlines are working for me. They just didn’t seem that way when I was at school, though.
You can grow a writing muscle, literally. I actually did grow a writing muscle during November; my right arm is visibly larger than my left arm now. Also, my RSI can be very expressive sometimes but this time around, even my index finger got plumper.
My inner critique can be silenced. I never thought I would say this but I actually managed to silence my inner critique during NaNoWriMo and felt comfortable about it, too. I mean I didn’t feel comfortable about feeling comfortable but you know what I mean. Let’s face it; what I wrote —at this stage— is a piece of shit but that’s the reason why we call it “shitty first draft,” right? And I’m feeling comfortable about writing utter shit? That is a miracle!
I’m an outliner with a pantser streak in me. I took this course sometime ago on Udemy called How to Plan and Outline Novels (Using Scrivener), taught by Sean Platt. So, before NaNoWriMo, I prepared my scenes according to what I learnt from the course, fleshed them out even further and even developed a few main characters. I just didn’t have enough time to do it all the way through the story, though. So, I left a sizable gap there, floating about totally directionless. Talk about plot holes. I knew that once I stepped into that unknown area of the story, I’d dry out like a menopausal women and that’s exactly what happened. However, when I arrived at the unknown area of the story, I was happily pantsing.
I thought NaNoWriMo was going to kill me. Instead, I really enjoyed my experience. Intense writing gave me such pleasure which was so unexpected. I felt alive and I would LOVE to do it in 2016, too!
This year, my husband and I decided to do something different for New Year’s Eve and booked a table at The Malaya. We have always enjoyed their vegetarian banquet and because the restaurant is located at Darling Harbour, there is a good chance to watch 9 o’clock fireworks, too.
The food here at The Malaya is classic Malaysian food. However, the setting is quite contemporary with its large balcony overlooking Darling Harbour.
Our evening started off with a glass of bubbly each. NV Bailly Lapierre Cremant de Bourgogne from Burgundy, France to be precise. We immediately received New Year’s Eve Vegetarian Set Menu 2015 which stayed on the table all night long. I asked if I could keep the menu and I was told it would be just fine. That on its own made it easier to follow the courses during the night and of course it makes it easier for me to write the review which I am doing right now.
Here’s the menu they put together for the night:
Starters
Vegetable San Choy Bow
Salt and Pepper Cauliflower
Samosa
Sayor Otak
Mains
Szechuan Eggplant
Vegetable Singapore Noodles
Ma Po Tofu
Sayor Masak Lemak
Roti Canai (pan-fried Malay flat bread)
Steamed Rice
Dessert
Ice Cream Ball
Black rice Pudding
Tea or Coffee
Now, let’s get visual, shall we?
Starters
Vegetable San Choy Bow (above)
Water chestnut, onion, mushroom, carrot and shallot stir-fried and served in a lettuce leaf. This may be the messiest thing to eat but it tastes sensational.
Matching Wine: Wagner-Stemple ‘Troken’ Silvaner, Rheinhessen Germany
Salt and Pepper Cauliflower (above)
Floretts of cauliflower lightly battered, deep-fried and tossed in fresh chilli, salt, cracked black pepper and shallots. We’ve always liked this dish and it was even better this time around. Be careful with the chilli though; they bite.
Matching Wine: Frankland Estate ‘Poison Hill’ Reisling, Frankland River WA
Samosa (above)
A mixture of potato, carrot, onion and spices wrapped in a light pastry skin and deep-fried. One of the nicest samosas we have ever had.
Matching Wine: Bruno Sorg Pinot Gris, Alsace France
Sayor Otak (above)
Silken tofu topped with a blend of eggplant, mushroom, tomato, lemongrass and chilli paste, wrapped in a banana leaf and barbequed. This dish has layers and each layer is interesting once revealed.
Sayor Otak, revealed (above)
Matching Wine: Clonakilla Viognier ‘Nouveau’, Canberra District ACT
Main Dishes
Main dishes are served with Roti Canai (pan-fried Malay flat bread) and Steamed Rice.
Szechuan Eggplant (above)
Marinated eggplant stir-fried dry style with shallot, cashew nuts and dry chillies, served on a bed of Chinese water spinach. This is one stunning dish. It’s on the menu all year around.
Matching Wine: spinifex ‘Papillon’ Grenache Cinsault, Barossa Valley SA
Vegetable Singapore Noodles (above)
Vermicelli rice noodles stir-fried dry style with Asian green vegetables, beansprouts, onion, shallot and chilli. I absolutely love my Singapore noodles and The Malaya version is a lot better than most. Those beansprouts you see in the photo? They are the crunchiest, freshest on the face of the earth. Not tinned or packaged. Absolutely fresh. I couldn’t stop picking.
Matching Wine: Bream Creak Schonburger, East Coast TAS
Ma Po Tofu (above)
Silken tofu braised with mushrooms, garlic, chilli, black bean, shallots and peas. This is an incredibly balanced dish and one of the tastiest of the night, too.
Sayor Masak Lemak (above)
Malay style vegetable curry cooked with fresh chilli, lemongrass and coconut milk. Medium hot. Fried tofu puffs used in this dish. Mop it up with Roti Canai which is pan-fried Malay flat bread.
Dessert
Ice Cream Ball (Bite size ice cream ball dipped in chocolate) and Black Rice Pudding (Black glutinous rice cooked with Pandan leaves served with thick coconut cream, palm sugar and fresh fruit)
Tea or Coffee
Note: Although it wasn’t mentioned in the menu, we were served dessert wine too.
The Service
One thing I’d like to say about service –or maybe two—our waitress in the beginning of the night told us that the wines she was serving would go nicely both with scampi and crab, assuming we ordered the non-vegetarian menu. It would have been nicer if she checked first. At the end of the day, they have all-year-around vegetarian menu and it is quite popular. And based on our previous experiences at The Malaya, this wasn’t the first time she was working there.
The other thing was, although the wines were well-matched for the style of food at The Malaya, the ones which were served with our starters were served in pairs. As a result, it made it difficult for us to pace ourselves and identify each glass of wine as soon as the waiter left the table. Chilled wines also get warmer in Sydney weather.
The Malaya can be found at this address:
39 Lime St,
Sydney NSW 2000
Happy New Year, Peoples 🙂
“I believe in deeply ordered chaos.”
Francis Bacon
