20 Under $20 - Kulcha Cafe & Noodle House

The first restaurant Anh and I visited in our 20 Under $20 restaurant quest is Kulcha Cafe & Noodle House located in Boas Avenue, Joondalup.

We went on a friday afternoon when they had some cycling competition.

Our dining view included men riding tight tight pants

We got lost because I was following the GPS and all the roads were closed off.   Add to that my awesome sense of direction :P

We eventually found the place, albeit half an hour late.   

Kulcha Cafe does get packed so make sure you book!

We ordered the Kway Teow, Fried Squid and the Chicken Karaage.

The signature Karaage was not what we expected.  Its a different style of cooking. We were expecting big chunky orangey-browny-red fried chicken. But we got convoluted strips of chicken which was pilled on and served with Jap mayo and soy sauce.  

To me Jap mayo automatically makes it a winner.

The other dishes were tasty.  

In fact,  maybe toooooo tasty.  

Anh reckons its a bit salty.  I would agreed with her on that.  

We would categorise this as 'almost authentic' type of asian restaurant.  Its a little bit geared to cater for western tastes, where the flavours are rich and you get a lot for what you pay.

I gave it a thumbs up.  Anh gave it a 'no thumbs'.   

The Vibra-train sign made the Kulcha sign small.  Vibra train?!! WTFBQQ?!

The nice thing about Kulcha is that its close to Joondalup Library and a short stroll to Joondalup lake. The park there is quite nice.  Its inhabitted by kangaroos at night if you wanted to do drive by kangaroo (camera) shooting. 

So if you ever end up in Kulcha, head to the park to walk off excess seasame oil.

Duckies in the park.    Hmmm.. San cho bow...

January Randoms

Been having the most stressful two days.  

And I'm blaming it all on the house air-conditioning salesman!!

Long story short, the incompetent salesman (*ahem *ahem Season Makers in Balcatta), told me the wrong day of installation.  

This caused - metaphorically speaking,  a stream of dog doodoos hitting the proverbial fan.

So very very annoying.

Thankfully there was a new episode of Naruto on Crunchy Roll.  Anime calms me down :P

And Wonder Girls. Hahahaha.

This video of traffic police officers doing the Wonder Girls dance cracked me up. Watch the guy on the right!

 

***************

On to more positive and exciting news!!

  

My friend is getting married tomorrow!! Imagine that!

And I'm co-best man!  Imagine that!!

He must have been drunk because he asked me. 

Hahahaha, poor guy - were going to roast him on our speech.

We got the suit yesterday and its all looking good.  

Me doing the KC

Its so hot wearing so many layers though. Hopefully we don't melt.

Good luck to us!  FIGHTING!

Gong Xi Fa Coi Oi Oi!

There's been an explosion of Australian patriotism this year!

Everywhere I go, Aussie flags are waving around.  

Especially cars! So many cars driving around with mini Aussie flags stuck on the windows.

Skippy and the Kangaroo

Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I think that's fair dinkun' olright! The wiieeeh rippas!

It's just, these flags are probably made in China, so it kinda puts a slanted irony to the whole patriotism thing :S

The other irony to Australia Day is that it's also Chinese New year! 

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

I scored myself another red packet!   Which is almost awesome...

:( 

Almost because my family don't really celebrate Chinese new year (Its just not there in the Filipino festivities calendar).

I feel guilty when I'm given red packets.  

I feel like a Chinese-fraud! (Imagine that.... a fake Chinese!!)

In fact, I'm so guilt-stricken by these gifts, that I've not spent a single dollar from the red packets.  They're all there stashed in my drawers, just in-case the big Red Packet Gods find out that I don't actually celebrate the new year and punish me by taking the money back!  We'll it's all there if you want it back!!

Any hows, I had originally planned on cleaning up my room on Monday, but I was told that if I did that, I'd be spending the rest of the year cleaning up.   Chinese superstition?

Still, I'm not one to risk it.. (or pass the chance NOT to clean up).

So instead I watched lots of YouTube and binged-ate on these Hong Kong lollies my sister gave me.  

So addictive......... until I ate a marshmallow one with Red bean paste inside. bleeeeack!  

Cursed red beans!!

20 Under $20 - Perth's Best Eats

Over dinner last Friday, Anh and I discovered our friends are going through some pretty intensive physical training to lose weight this year. That is their mission for this year they said.

Personal trainers, daily gym sessions and Kokoda Track runs. They even have weekly 'weigh-ins' with financial penalties!

I was sweating just listening to their stories.

Thankfully, Anh and I have embarked on a far less sadistic mission for this year.

In fact, its one that is gastronomically more enjoyable :)

Presenting the Perth 20 Under $20 best eats!

Anh and I have decided to do a 'journalistic' check of the 20 eateries suggested by Fleur Bainger and give our own personal review on each.

Our credentials include me being an absolute cheapskate (so I can vouch for the under $20 value-ness of meals) and my girlfriend being a constant fussy pants (so if she likes it, then they must be doing something right).

The list is below and I'll link each restaurant as we go along. If you guys have personal experiences on these restaurants, let me know and I'll post it on the reviews too.

• Tra Vinh - Vietnamese Chinese Special Noodle House
  
• Annalakshmi Restaurant
  
• Sparrows
  
• Morley Ale House
  
• Mak's Place
  
• Alfred's Kitchen
  
• Mondo's Butchers
  
• Takas
  
• Llama Bar
  
• Viet Hoa
  
• Poppo
  
• Gypsy Tapas
  
• Kulcha Cafe & Noodles House
  
• Ninniku Jip
  
• The Prophet
  
• Tida Thai
  
• Santa Fe Restaurant
  
• Sunflowers - Couldn't find this restaurant!
  
• The Mighty Quinn
  
• Angkor Cafe
  

Journalistic work at its tastiest!

Nuffnang Perth Blog Meet

Yesterday I went to my first ever blog meet!  Thank you Nuffnang for organising this!

To me, bloggers in Perth are about as rare as numbats.

Endangered

There's definitely Perth bloggers out there, but you actually have to dig pretty deep to find them (or maybe they are purposely avoiding me?). 

Where as Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines are practically drowning with bloggers! So the opportunity to meet Perth based (Perthians) bloggers was not to be missed.

Plus Nuffnang dangled the 'free nibbles and drink' carrot! hehehe

Who says no to freebies?

To me, blogging is all about sharing.  Sharing discoveries and experiences so we can all enrich each other lives. And its really just nice to meet like-minded people.

Kinda like the support group I frequent.

That night I met Mesha from KL, Ryu also from KL and Eugene from New Zealand. Sam too.  Marie was there, but I didn't get a chance to speak to her, the poor girl was too busy avoiding bouncers.

There were the big wigs.  The Australian Nuffnang directors Martyn and David.

  

David explaining big brand clients

 

And Nuffnang Co-founder Ming.

Also Karen Cheng! Big big big big time blogger!  #12 in the Top 100 Female bloggers in the world!

And she's from Perth!!  Imagine that.

She has a 'pose' named after her and has a big Facebook groupie.

Really quite inspiring.

Maybe one day I will be like her.

Not pregnant with a second baby.

But a big time blogger.

Friends and Frienemies

I learnt a new word the other day.

Frienemy - pronounced Fre-neh-me.

Pretty self-explanatory. Its a friend who you are superficially nicey-nicey and lovey-lovey with, but deep down, hold only the most malicious of intents for.

Think girls and stereotypical bitch-bashing.

Girl A and Girl B, all peachy and happy for each other. They would talk for hours about boys and go shopping together, complement each other's clothes and buy nice gifts for each other. They even share the names of their future kids together!! Waaaaw! BFFL!! *giggle* *giggle*

But behind each other's back, the razor claws await.

Girl A wants Girl B to grow fat and ugly.
Girl B wants A to get herpes.
Girl B secretly wants girl B's boyfriend to be gay, because he's too hot for her.
Girl A slept with Girl B's ex, who is Girl D's BFFL and are having a baby with.

And so on.

Thankfully, the competitive nature of frienemies feeds on each other so this wonderful symbiotic relationship thrives.

And because frienemies keep their frienemies close (to check on each other).

Though my opinion of a 'frienemy' is theoretical and based on half an episode of Gossip Girl I saw, I came up with a word that would better describe a person I knew in high school.

Friemesis - pronounced fre-meh-sis. A friend and nemesis. A nemesis being a rival whom cannot bested. Perhaps a guy version of a Frienemy.

Whilst frienemies are able to pull back the claws and call truces during shopping days, a friemesis doesn't offer such luxury.

In fact, when or if the friemesis and I cross paths, dark clouds form, petrol prices go up and a baby sea lion cries to mommy.

I had planned on bagging this Friemesis of mine in this post. (You should have seen my Photoshop work. Very scandalous).

Sadly, I'm too nice and I wouldn't do that.

Plus he added me to his Facebook account so he might find out about this post!

But as much as I'd like to write bad things about him, I realise that he is about as important to me as I am to him.

We are galactically opposite to each other. The black and the white. Ying and Yang. The good and the bad.

The water and the fat.

He has become the peg of someone I strive not to become.

And perhaps, I'm the same for him.

Do you have a frienemy or friemesis?

Hotness

Its been really hot the past few days.

Last Thursday was a 39C day and the Friday after was a scorching 41.8C!

The firebugs were out too.  

I remember Nathan and Nat saying - 'rather than report where the bush fires are, we're just going to tell you where they're not'.

The city view was all smoggy from the fires

My girlfriend took me out to lunch that hot Friday.  

She's such an angel :)

Of course for her, I wear the best shirt and tie when its lunch-date days.  

That way she thinks I'm actually important where I work.  

The plan was to melt her with my smoldering corporate get-up. 

Unfortunately the plan backfired. 

When I got out of the office to meet her, the circulation-restrictive tie and non-breathing long sleeve cotton shirt was basting me like a turkey in a 300C fan forced electric oven.

She reckons I looked hot alright.

 

I reckon the armpit patches gave it away.

Frozen cokes from BP! Four flavours to choose from. 

Half price of Maccas ones, albeit fake coke

Speaking of hotness

My soon-to-be married friends celebrated their hen's night and buck's night last weekend.  

The buck's night was a non-official event and was very low key because we've already done a week-long Thailand trip.  

But it wasn't really complete because we didn't see a stripper.

And nooooooo way would we let the girls out-do us in the strippers department!

Whats Hot

Me no speak English.

At the Hen's, the girl gaggle giggled their way to man-meat above.  

Apparently he didn't speak much English.  

I don't think that was a problem.

As to what the girls got up to, I've only heard bits and pieces.  

Some details were left out to protect my innocent ears.

Heheehehehe.  If they only knew that us boys headed to Xotica!

Where the girls are scorching hot!

I was giggling like a girl after I briefly spoke to Miss Nude Australia 06-07, aka Paris.  

She called me baby. 

But I bet she calls everyone baby.

Whats Not

I took the opportunity last Saturday to cure my curiosity of the $2 peep shows offered by the adult stores.  

For me $2 buys you a scratchy, a small snack from Maccas, a can of coke, half a pie, eight txt messages.  But a peep show?! How does that work?!  

This I had to see!

I dragged the boys to one of the adult stores in James street.  

Once you get over the overwhelming amount of adult paraphernalia (most of which can impale people, think Burn After Reading), you will find the $2 peep show section near the back under the glowing neon sign.

There were several booths available.  The booths are about half a square metre in area.  Once you close the door, the only light comes from the frosted 20cm x 20cm window about eye level.  The walls are black with a a coin dispenser and tissue dispenser attached.

I think the tissues are for wiping the window of fingerprints? 

When you put $2 in the slot machine it magically turns the frosted window clear, giving you a 20 second preview of the supposed vixen inside.

Supposed is the operative word.

"MY EYES!!! 

OHHH MY EYES!!!!!"  I cried.

We left bitterly disappointed and laughing at the same time.  

A sore case of getting what you pay for.

Gold Lightning Mussels

Here's the story of my Saturday that has been.

My day started off with a slice of fruit loaf for breakfast. 

This was actually my nephews' breakfast, but they were still asleep.  Beside... they ate my coco pops...

First thing I did was do stuff for my house.  

I darted off to the Lighting International to buy electrical fittings and bulbs.  I had to sort through down lights, chandeliers and oyster fittings.  Lucky for me the sales rep was really good and she helped me sort things very quickly.  Man-style-shopping hehehe!! 

I had to pick one?

A few more visits to housing stores and voila! my morning was gone!!

I headed home for lunch.  

I quickly cooked some Mee and at the same time played with my two nephews.

"Watcha doing?" J asks innocently

I couldn't answer because I was too busy stuffing mee down my throat.  Nearly chocked as well.

After lunch, I went to martial arts training and nearly died from the heat.  I was literally drinking my own sweat!  Damn the black pants on hot days!  It was like 38C outside but inside it was like an oven (and I was the turkey being basted)! 

After that,  I visited my house and did some cleaning up.  My limbs were still trembling and I was still sweaty from training, but I needed to sweep my driveway.   The dust was going everywhere and was sticking to my skin.  I was turning to rock-man!  Hehehe. It was such a gross feeling.  

Anyhows, went home and did some more cleaning up.  

Then I went to church.

Then I went to my girlfriends house and help them finish the 5kgs of Chili mussels she cooked up.
 

FIVE KILOS!!!

It was really good, but why o why was there pumpkin soup too! Its like going on a date with two girls! You can't make me choose between two good dishes!  

Ended up eating heaps of both.  (which is what I'd do on a date with...)

The plan was to go to Brisbane hotel afterwards for dessert.  But I was too stuffed so we ended up somewhere random  - like the Gold bar in Subiaco.  

I should be dancing... not taking photos.

Nice place.  I dig the funky tunes and the ambiance. Very modern, clean, gold-disco- ish, and they have egg seats! Yeah baby! Although we felt a bit intimidated by overpopulation of Ben Cousins and Paris Hilton-wannabees.

Then went to Scarborough beach to soak up some sea breeze to calm the senses.  

Phew.

What a Saturday.  

Of course this is not a sob story (there is nothing to sob about).  Its just that recently, I've been having lots of these busy days.  I'm running around doing stuff!!  

That's right.  I'm doing stuff!!! 

I used to wake up midday, eat brunch, watch some crappy movie on Channel 7, play some PlayStation till it gets dark, then head out with the boys. 

That was my saturdays.

How I miss those days.

Convergence

Convergence - noun  The act of two or more things coming together.

Converging blogs

I'm so happy I changed my blog theme. 

I discovered that Blogger has an import/export blog function! With that I was able to merge my old blog with this blog.  Convergence!  Hehehe.

I spent some time looking at past posts.  Some of the posts... I have no idea what I was thinking. 

Still fun reading through my web diary though.

Funny how it all started though.  First I just wanted to post some photos.  Then I added comments.  Then next thing I know, I'm commentating 'til the cows come home.  

Hopefully all of this will come handy when I write my autobiography.  3rdWill - the diary of a saucy legend.

Converging gizmos

During my last holiday, I went through the pains of using my broken Lumix digi cam  :(  

I loved my camera. It wasn't sexy, but the pictures it took were impressive.  

Sadly my mom messed it up on her USA trip.  I don't know what she did but the dial is forever changing from picture mode to movie mode to macro to view.

Then a few weeks into the new year and my Samsung phone died!!!!  

I can't tell you how gutted I was!  My phone was ringing but nothing I could do would answer the call.  The buttons died! :(  

That day I had like 5 messages that I couldn't read.  

My fans would have been upset.

I bought the phone from ebay, so even the authorised Samsung repairers can't fix it (or refuse to fix it).

So I tried to fix the phone myself (with the help of the Samsung U600 technical service manual I got from torrent sites).  I successfully opened up my phone and cleaned the lint and dust inside.  I checked the flexi cable to the buttons to make sure it was connected properly.  When I put the phone together again, I was two screws short!  

Hahahaha, I wonder where they went :P

So I spent a whole day stressing over a new phone.  I mean, I love gizmos, I just don't love the fact that it will be worth nothing in two years.  Mobile phones still evolve too fast.   And phones these days are loaded with too much gimmicky technology.  Smile detection?  Shake controls?

Plus the phone will most likely die after 12 months (funny that..  phones die just after their warranty period)

The dead ones. Photo taken by the new baby.

So after much deliberation, I got myself a camera phone. Its not that sexy coz its a brick, but damn... I'm loving the cyber-hotness of the Sony C905.  Don't really care much for its other functions, I just like the fact I don't have to carry a camera AND phone.  

Only two bulges in my pants now *wink *wink  :P

Converging relationships

A wedding proposal this month! 

And there's a wedding around the corner! I'm at a point in my life when all my friends are getting married.   

It won't be long when they start popping out kids and were all going to each other's kid's birthday parties.  Ohhh the humanity.

I learnt something the other day though.  Its quite interesting.

My friend told me that relationships and marriage is like a math formula.

He said that 1+1 = 0, doesn't work because that's a relationship where there's no love.

He said that 1+1 = 1, doesn't work either because that means someone in the relationship has taken over and is overshadowing the other.

Surprising, he said 1+1=2 was wrong as well.  In a working relationship, it should be 1+1 = 1+1,   a union of two individuals who remain themselves - unique and quirkily themselves.

  

I pondered on this for a while.  Was I still me? 

I mean, its true.  After a while of being together, sometimes its hard to distinguish if I should be thinking 'me' or 'we'. 

I concluded that my girlfriend and I have not mutated into some four armed freak with two heads.  

So its still all good.

3Willings

1) Really enjoying pretending to be a lawyer in Apollo Justice

2) I thought Paris is Burning was by Birds of Toyko (although this group is pretty good too!). Its by LadyHawke.  Awsome vocals. Digging the tunes.  So much better than the Ting Tings - their song drives me nuts.

3) Best dish I can recall recently is my sister's Chicken Biryani. Inspired by Cinnamon Club she says.