In the hills of Perth

I don't think Kalamunda classifies as Perth. It's pretty out there, and the drive here reminded me of the trip from Sydney to Gosford. You could say it's regional Perth. I actually wasn't quite sure what kind of adventure I was embarking on today, and I'm so happy that it became a bushwalk! I got to see the handful of highrises in the tiny CBD Perth cityscape from the hills here, which was pretty cool.The place I visited is called Mundy Regional Park, not to be confused with Mundy National Park, though I'm not sure I even know the difference. I am so glad I brought along both lenses, though my 19mm seems to have more utility than my 60mm.I even managed to get pictures of dogs! And then managed to complete my shot of the running water.Lo and behold, the base of the waterfall! I had started at the top where the viewing platform was, walked all the way down, climbed to the base, climbed back, then had to walk all the way back. It was an epic trek and very fun!Also visited Mundaring Weir, a massive reservoir that delivers water through giant tubes to outback WA. Pretty cool! Though I think I like the Barossa Valley's whispering wall better, mainly because it's a whispering wall.It's a long way down!Also managed to come across this adorable beetle. It has the face of an anteater, and had sand all over it! Thus it wasn't shiny but would blend well into the red dirt around the area. It was adorable and even modelled for me (with a bit of verbal persuasion. No, I don't speak beetle).And finished up with a cute little ice cream cup with strawberry sauce, sherbet and hundreds and thousands, mainly for the novelty. What a day!

Royal Perth Show

Just a photodump of a fun day at the show, my 60mm lens came in super handy! :)

The Perth adventure begins

And it begins with me chasing birds. Well okay, so I did do my food and coffee rounds first. Again, I struggled with my super short lens (can't wait until I get a new one so I can take pictures of things from far away!) So I've been to Perth once before, but now I actually get to live Perth. So here I go. I had a plan for as soon as I flew in, and pretty much had my food points plotted out.First stop for dinner on a Thursday night, Print Hall. Well, a section of Print Hall called Apple Daily Bar and Eating House.  I love places that don't require bookings!And the very first thing I consume are oysters. Described as "Australia's finest oysters," I definitely agreed! They were so incredibly sweet and tasty! And that slightly spicy sauce to go with it was amazing. I could eat a lot of these ones!Next up was a plate of kingfish, lemongrass, palm sugar, lime.Some tofu! Silken tofu with chinese olive leaf, ginger, spring onion. I loved the flavour of this because it's like how my parents make it. I was happy that I got my tofu fix here![Hot] smoked salmon, paw paw, coconut, pork crackling. I had assumed that the smoked salmon was cold smoked, but when it arrived I realised I had ordered a vietnamese/thai (I can't tell the difference) style dish. That meant chilli! So I struggled through this dish and called it valiant effort when only a bit of paw paw was left. I'm proud that I had almost all of it!Kefir lime custard, lychee salad, watermelon ice. This had a cute presentation, though I was expecting an open plate. I loved the lychee bits, though the custard didn't taste overly kefir-limey.Coffee adventures came next! Good old Standing Room Only! These pictures almost look greyscale apart from the coffee, which makes me think this is what they were aiming for? Except they have pastel green equipment.Small Print also does great coffee, but I'm still consuming coffee in moderation since my overcaffeination in Syd. Instead it was a butterfried milk chicken burger that was super tasty! I didn't realise this on my first visit, but they use Duke's coffee from Melbourne! Tasty stuff.They also make huge breakfasts! This was a cured salmon, quinoa and egg dish. I didn't manage to get that great of a shot though.And the piccolo shot!A new cafe in Perth called Max + Sons, which has some nice white decor - white synesso, white grinders, and a few plants here and there.And what would my first few days in Perth be without visiting Greenhouse again! Their menu wasn't as interesting to me this time around, but the food is still good! This was a beef cheek mogo mogo, tender on the inside and crisp on the outside.Their desserts are gorgeous looking though. A vanilla panna cotta with strawberries!This place might be my new coffee haunt, we shall see. Called Architects and Heroes, they use a Melbournian coffee roaster too - Code Black. They serve up three different tasting plates - 3x espresso, 3x filter, or espresso + milk + filter. This was a Kenyan as an espresso and milk, and the filter was a Yirgacheffe. The espresso tasted the best!And on my off-coffee days (yes, I have them - they're fun challenges), here's a very fancy chai tea. The real tea and spices make it pretty amazing.And the food. Wow, the food. It's so pretty! A little pricey, but it looks amazing. It tastes good too, but even this avocado, egg and hollandaise dish is still no match for John Smith Cafe's smashed avocado dish.A totally prettiness overkill breakfast: chia seed pudding, coconut, lime, honeycomb, seeds, fruit, flowers. It was quite a substantial amount of chia seeds too . I would have liked a bit more coconut flavour and the yoghurt tasted like a standard vanilla yoghurt that was added on, but overall it was still quite a nice dish.Everything's pretty expensive at the moment and fresh chicken and seafood seem to be the challenge right now, so hopefully with more time spent I can start getting back into the habit of cooking my own fancy stuff again!

New lens, bird shooting

I love getting a new lens to test with. This is the first lens I've bought for my camera. At 19mm f2.8, it's great for my food shots, however, not so great for animal pictures. While the pelicans were relatively harmless, I did manage to hover around a family of swans and got chased off by the mother!So here's the bird shooting version of picture spam! CAN YOU PELI-CAN?!?!

Pretending to be a chef: More random market hauls

So I've got a tiny bit of downtime. Finally! That's what happens when I decide I should take up an active hobby while still cooking, writing, drawing (ok the second two not so much), eating, coffeeing.It seems there's a whole range of interesting things lately, some of which I've not seen before or just didn't have the marginal propensity to spend on. Plus it's not good when I think that Tasmanian winter truffles are so affordable that I've ended up buying more truffle this year than any other time. First of all, a giant Coffin Bay oyster! I bought two to increase my chances of getting one that was visually appealing, because when you get something like this, you have to play dressup.I guess I should start up oyster dressing sessions? This one was meant to represent the beachside, since it has ice plant and sea blite. I thought it was pretty! But the oyster is just too big, so I didn't actually enjoy eating it as much as I do the smaller versions.I didn't dress these ones though. These have noticeably round shells, and were creamier, but wasn't as sweet, so I didn't like them. It was a good experience tasting them though, because I've never had oysters like these before!I also decided to make "not anmitsu" round 2. I'd found some coconut milk at the markets, cold pressed and hideously expensive at $7.99 for a 750mL bottle. Well, I guess that's cheaper than Pressed Juices. Fresh orange slices, orange baked rhubarb. I really like baking rhubarb! It's the lazy way of doing things, though it's probably not kind towards my electricity bill.Another lucky find at the markets: Port Lincoln blue fin toro. Leaving this out made the fat glisten, though it wasn't specified what grade of toro this was. After buying this, I went into this small, crazed fit of really wanting to acquire some sea urchin, just so I could make a toro-uni-truffle ship. But alas, no urchin. So instead, I got to pretend to make a nigiri.Don't mind the ice plant that almost didn't make it in this picture, I found it was just annoying and out of place. The size and shape of the toro I bought meant it was also difficult to get slices large enough to go on top of the rice. Solution? To make the rice smaller. These were super bite-sized as a result. I also didn't want truffle shavings obscuring the actual sushi, so I placed them on the side like so:Isn't it pretty? Marbling everywhere!Now to simply idle by till I find more interesting things...