I promised my friend Tintin that we will have our first LaduréeCafe experience the moment she arrives here in Sydney. That was in September. Tintin noted that I have a very high emotional quotient when it comes to delaying gratification and I couldn't agree more. Tintin arrived in Sydney in November and it was only last week that we finally (yes, finally!) got around to sit down at Ladurée's cafe and have tea. The wait took me 3 months but it was worth it.
While I've bought macarons at Laduréea few times now, sitting down to have tea and savour the goodness of their macarons with a friend is a more sweet experience altogether. Ladurée Cafe doesn't have an extensive menu, mostly just macarons, tea, coffee, chocolate and bubblies are offered. However, it is a good place to have a quiet moment, have a cup of beverage alone or with loved ones, as you have one or two macarons.
Instead of having tea, Tintin had a cup of Latte which came with a small block of chocolate. While I chose to have Ladurée's Hot Chocolate.
We each chose four macarons: Pistachio, Salted Caramel, Raspberry, Strawberry Marshmallow, Vanilla and Chocolate.
I enjoyed my Ladurée Hot Chocolate. It's luxuriously rich and thick but brilliantly smooth. It was a bit bitter but there was no need to add sugar. For someone like me who has some kind of a limit when it comes to chocolate (I'm not really a chocoholic), the serving of Hot Chocolate was more than enough so I shared it with Tintin's son, Tom.
Tintin liked the macarons and has commented that it's better than other macarons she's tasted. I'm so glad she enjoyed it as much as I did. And other than the yummy food, it was great to spend time with her and Tom this Christmas.
Started Christmas celebrations on the first week of December. Met up with my girl friends Meds and Charyn for dinner at Saigon Bowl.
Saigon Bowl (is well-known Vietnamese restaurant in Strathfield. Although Strathfield is known as Sydney Metro's biggest Koreatown, they still have other restaurants other Korean restos. Since we've already had dinner at a Korean resto before, we decided to try Saigon Bowl. Thanks to Charyn's recommendation, we had delicious rice meals of beef and pork with Vietnamese flavour.
Their meats are marinated so well it's so tasty and flavourful. The beef and pork are soft and easy to chew.
I had the Pork Chop rice meal and it was good. The breading was thin but crunchy and not too oily.
After dinner, we had coffee and hot chocolate at My Sweet Memory Cafe. As we caught up with stories and plans for the Christmas holidays, we look forward to a blessed year ahead for us all...and more dinner dates and coffee klatches too.
As we leave Koreatown, we saw a big Christmas Tree all lit-up making our night brighter and our hearts warmer. Saigon Bowl 3 The Boulevarde, Strathfield NSW Phone: 02 9746 7632
As a way of welcoming Christmas season, I want to share this fun and cute video of Jimmy Fallon + Mariah Carey playing one of my favourite Christmas songs, "All I Want For Christmas is You".
December is our busiest month as its the time we attend a lot of parties and get-together with family and friends. Sometimes our meet-ups start in November as some of them need to come home to the Philippines for Christmas.
How are you a week before Christmas? Are you all set? All presents bought and wrapped?
As for me:
We're about 95% done with Christmas pressies. I need to buy just 5 items this week. I was kind of successful in getting all pressies bought between June to November (that's how early I start). I intentionally left a few items to buy because I still want to spend a few hours in the mall to feel the Christmas rush.
We still need to wrap a few more gifts. I don't know why but this year, I'm so lazy to wrap pressies. The target was to finish all wrapping by end of November but *sigh*...wrapping gifts doesn't interest me this year. Thanks to the Husband for helping me. We'll definitely finish wrapping gifts this week.
Later this afternoon, I will be working on my cards and lollies to be given to my workmates.
Our respective families in Manila have received their Christmas Care Packages and we have received their gifts to us too.
All get-together and parties were finalized in November so the focus this month was to prepare the food we need to bring and attend the parties. I tried to be creative in seeing friends this year. To date, we've attended a Christmas Brunch, Christmas dinner at Koreatown, Christmas Tea Time at Laduree and a Christmas BBQ Party.
We have a few more parties to attend towards Christmas and then on Christmas week, we've set lunch dates with some friends. We've booked out our social calendar til the New Year! :)
Our Christmas holiday has been sorted too. Husband and I are fortunate that our respective offices will officially close down during Christmas week. From the 24th December to 1st January, we can focus on just enjoying Christmas and New Year.
Christmas and New Year menu....hmmm, the only thing I've bought was Turkey Ham and we don't know when we'd eat it yet. Have no elaborate food plans at home, no plans of baking Ham too. We want something simple and no-fuss so we'll probably have Korean BBQ like last year.
Those are a few things on my mind this morning. Last week before Christmas---wow! Can you believe it's nearly 2013? Time sure flies when we're having fun, aye?
We are not celebrating our wedding anniversary but today we honour the day we became a couple.
We spent a few moments reading thru the scrapbooks I made from years ago and some blog entries during our previous monthsaries. I once shared how we got together (click storyhere) and the story will never grow old. We always find ourselves amused as we look back on all those memories and realize how much we've affected each other...how we still light up each other's souls until now.
Our first photo on that fateful 14th December 2002
Ten years (wow!). Such a great blessing to be in love and be the best of friends for a decade. We are truly grateful for everyday that has passed and look forward to more decades of togetherness.
