Mushroom and minced meat omelette

Today’s lunch menu consisted of a mushroom and minced meat omelette with “you mai” (a type of green leafy vegetable whose English name eludes me). J had clearly put some thought into this, because he proudly announced the menu to me shortly after I woke up.

The omelette turned out fine, but defrosting the mince meat turned out to be trickier than we expected. Here is a blow-by-blow account (yes, just to bore you!):

1. J threw frozen rock-hard lump of minced meat into bowl filled with water without my knowledge. I was busy surfing the net.
2. Sometime later, I innocently commented that minced meat is difficult to defrost as it will disintegrate if we soak it in water (picture meat flakes floating around in big bowl of water). J looked momentarily stunned and quickly removed the meat from the water. Glad to say (depending on how you look at it), the lump was still intact.
3. I stopped surfing and both of us stared at the lump, wondering what to do. J gets sudden flash of brilliance (he insists that it wasn't "sudden") and pokes at lump with fork. Nothing much happens.
   
4. J gets second flash of brilliance and puts lump in bowl and places it on top of heater. Voila! Job done!
   

Visit to Queen Victoria Market

Today, J and I went to Queen Victoria (QV) market to get some good bargains before closing time. According to Hello Kitty, who is also studying in Melbourne, the stallholders will try to clear certain goods before closing time and things can get really cheap an hour before.

We were rather early; QV market closes at 6pm on Fridays and we were there around 3 plus. We wandered around the dry goods section and kept our eyes peeled for any early bargains, just in case.

The visit was rather uneventful, but one of the nougat stores left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth (figuratively of course since the counter staff was busy stuffing trays of nougat and whatnot down our throats). Subsequent visits confirmed that our first impression of them was not wrong. This store is plain pushy and they have a whole team of employees who use the same sales tactic all the time. Basically, whenever they spot any Asians walking past their store, they will go: "Hi, are you from Malaysia or Singapore?" in this loud and embarrassing voice that you just can't ignore (especially if you've never visited the store before). Anyway, J replied Singapore and the guy offered us some nougat, claiming that even Zoe Tay had visited his store before. Hmmm...should I be impressed that the Queen of Caldecott Hill had visited this store before? Considering my "high" opinion of SBC/TCS/Mediacorp or whatever it's known as now, I think not.

Despite the irritating sales tactic, the hand-made roasted almond soft nougat we tried was really rather tasty and had a nice hint of honey. With products like this, why would they need to be so hard sell? As we tried the nougat, the guy continued to talk to us and dropped Singlish particles like "lah" all over the place. Don't get me wrong, I love the Singlish particle "lah" and use it quite a fair bit myself, but to have it sprinkled so liberally all over the place, and by a non-Singaporean no less, just make it seem like mockery. Despite this, I'm ashamed to say that I chose to buy a bar of nougat from him in the end just so that I could escape from his whirlpool of "lahs". After I paid, he boasted that Phua Chu Kang had also visited his store before. I produced a forced laugh and hastily made my escape as he started an impression of Phua Chu Kang. Till this day, my ears still ring with the echoes of his "can lah, dun plray plray ok!!!". I find it hard to believe that even in Australia, I can get traumatised by our local productions. Pls don't misunderstand, I like, and even love some of our local productions (probably raising a few sceptical eyebrows by now), but to try to bond with me by overusing Singlish and dropping names like Zoe Tay and Phua Chu Kang (I mean come on!) just so that I would buy more nougat or bags of nuts? That's just a cheap shot.