The Cheesecake Factory

One of the days in Houston, me and my friend decided to head to The Galleria for a bout of shopping. The minute the cab pulled up the front, I screamed "OMG! THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY!!!". The plan was to hit the shops and work up a serious appetite before coming back!

And boy was I glad we did! The menu was huge! I was half way through the menu when the waitress came back to take our order. I'm in hysterics going "OMG! The menu is so big, I feel like I'm reading Lord of the Rings! And I haven't even gotten to the cheesecakes yet!". She decided to give me another 10mins. Good thing...cos I got stuck at the cheesecake section! SO many choices!!!

I opted for an apptetizer, to save room for the cheesecake. So I ordered a chicken quesadilla and out came this monster.

This was huge! I was seriously struggling to finish this without all the salsa and sides. By the time I was done with this, I wasn't sure I could fit in a cheesecake. BUT. MUST. EAT. CHEESECAKE.

White chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake

This was sooo decadant yet not overly rich as the sweet and sour raspberry gave my tastebuds a bit of relief. The only thing I couldn't stomach was the cream.

That's A LOT OF CREAM PEOPLE!!!!

Chocolate oreo mudslide cheesecake - My takeaway goodie!

Original Strawberry cheesecake

I tried my friends strawberry cheesecake and had cheesecake envy! It was incredibly light and fluffy! I'm definitely ordering this next time!

And of course there is a next time! We dragged a few friends with us so we could go back for cheesecake!

YOU. ARE. MINE.

Frozen Iced Mango with a swirl of raspberry

Having eaten at the Cheesecake factory before, I knew I had to be very careful with my lunch selection to make sure I still had room in my stomach for dessert!

Crabcake sandwich

Jackpot! Delicious and a good size!



One of the better crabcake sandwiches I've had!

"Lunch size" serving of Meatloaf

"Lunch size" serving of shepherds pie

"Lunch size" fish and chips...with 3 fillets of fish

Someone was smart and got finger food - Stuffed mushrooms

Keylime cheesecake and Fresh Strawberry cheesecake to share

Since the Cheescake Factory virgins loved the food so much, we had to go back a third time! haha

Spicy Ahi Tempura rolls

Buffalo wings - Appetizer size

I've truely realised at this stage that I DON'T like buffalo wings. My taste buds seriously object to the vinegary taste of the buffalo wings. I'd much prefer a sweet and spicy wing, than a sour and spicy wing. It looks like most of us Aussies didn't enjoy this dish either. I much prefer the honey soy wings I make.

"Lunch Size" Spaghetti Arribiata

If I got served this in Sydney, I would've went "Wow! The restaurant is quite generous with their serving size!". Except this was supposed to be a 1/2 portion / Lunch size. I'd be scared to see normal size.

Roadside Sliders

I fully cracked up laughing when this was delivered! Check out the description of these sliders under the appetizer section:

Bite-sized Burgers on Mini-Buns Served with Grilled Onions, Pickles and Ketchup

HA! Bite-sized my butt. These were the size of Maccas cheeseburgers! hahaha

Lemon raspberry cream cheesecake

Fresh Strawberry cheesecake - My favourite!

Lemoncello cream torte

Chocolate peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake

VIC Bushfire Fundraising Morning tea

With the tragedy happening in VIC over the last week, we decided to host a morning tea at work to raise money for those less fortunate than us (Plus, we always love a cook off with heaps of food!). Our lovely Group Assistant did a wonderful job of harrassing everyone to make sure they brought food AND money to the morning tea. We weren't asking for a gold coin donation, we were asking for note donations only. And everyone was more than happy to oblige!

So what did I make?

Big white blob

What the HECK is that I can hear you saying. That, my dear friends, is my first attempt at making marshmallows!

The ugly ducklings

They look quite terrible to be honest, but that's cos I used some weird icing sugar my sister had bought to dust them with (it was all clumped up before I even opened it). The marshmallows was incredibly easy to make! I'm going to experiment with them a bit more to see if I can achieve those heavenly green tea ones that Tetsuya made. These were really really good for my first attempt. Incredibly light and fluffy, almost like eating the inside of a meringue.

Cookies and cream truffles

Salami and cheese palmiers

Sweet palmiers

The last morning tea we held, only 3 of us had brought anything in. And it was the one time I decided to make one dish only (My chocolate ripple cake). It was actually a pretty pathetic turn out. But this time, everyone pooled in to make this morning tea success! Those who couldn't cook, went to the shops and bought something instead.

Scones and apple puffs

Pikelets, cheese and bacon puffs, chocolate cupcakes, lamingtons and chocolate crackle slice

Lattice cheese cake, anzac cookies

More lamingtons (home made and store bought) and cupcakes

Vegetable quiche

Date scones

Chocolate caramel slice

The BEST oreo cupcakes and pikelets

Carrot cake

Butterfly cupcakes and chocolate spiders

Half of the spread

Even as I was taking photos, more and more food arrived to our kitchen. So much, in fact, that the table was groaning under the amount of food! We had run out of the room on the table and started placing the rest of the goodies on the benches surrounding the kitchen. There were also about 6 dozen Krispy Kremes lying around!

Everyone was more than generous with their donations, with plenty of orange and yellow notes going into the donation box. A few people even slipped some green $100 notes in! Some others decided to donate online for their tax receipts. At the end of the day, we had raised over $2000 in cash alone! Not including what was donated online. Every dollar we donate, our company will match the donation. As as we deposited the money into Westpac, who was also going to match our donation, we basically raised over $6000!! All for cooking some food and feasting on it!

I've also gone through my wardrobe and did a drastic clean out. I alone, managed to cram 3 hugeeeeee garbage bags full of clothes to donate (My sister and her family of 5 only managed 9 bags...). And I only went through 1 wardrobe! That shows how much of a horder I am!

A 28th birthday with flying photos

Since me and Will don't get our annual overseas trip together this year, we decided that we needed something to make up for it. I booked a room for the two of us at the Novotel at Brighton with our own private balcony with a view of the beach. This was part of Will's birthday celebration and we thought we should live it up!! It cost a bit, but it was well worth it! Since Brighton is only about 10mins drive from Kogarah, we figured we can both drink our asses off and just cab it back to the hotel at the end of the night.

King bed

The view from our balcony

We dumped our bags and headed out to grab a Souvalaki Pita roll just like we use to do in Mykonos to line our stomachs. I mean, we had already been drinking for about an hour!


And drinking means insaneness, and insaneness means we needed to do a mail drop.....

What's that in his hands?

The same thing we had scattered all over the hotel:


Want a closer look?

Oh yeahhhhhhhh! Its like my 2007 B'day all over again!

Kaan dropped by to help pose with the photos

We catch a cab to Chelsea's restaurant in Kogarah. We walk up to the reception where we get stopped by security and told to wait for the manager. Next thing you know, about 4 people are running up and down the stairs like it was a code red alert. Gees, what did we do?? About 5mins later, the manager comes running down to let us into the restaurant. A heap of mezze was already on the table when we arrived, so I could dig right on in.

Hummus, babaganoush, labna, fetta, bean salad etc

Spicy chicken wings - Which tasted surprisingly asian?

And...spring rolls?

My drink...

Their drink...

Which was coke with our smuggled in vodka! Kaan gave me alcohol poisoning from all the vodka he was serving me! Between the 3 of us, we finished 1.5L of vodka!! Things started to get a bit out of control after that, which was a bit strange as only the 3 of us were drinking??

I think it was still alive.....?

Next thing you know, we had photos flying through the air!

That's one disgusted look

I had everyone on the table go: ?What was going on? What's happening? What's this??". It was like I was surrounded by 20 Karen Walkers. Luckily I got saved when the birthday cake came out!

We had to make a minor correction

Eating from the new plate

The plate

Some time during the night, a belly dancer came out and it was all downhill from there onwards...

Still "soberish"

Smashed, drunk, fairly sober

We basically got kicked out of the restaurant at 2am, except we couldn't get a cab. We asked the owners to call us a cab, and instead of calling the taxi company, they called a friend to see if they could drive us. Damn, this is sounding a lot like that time in Pammukale where we got stranded? Except we didn't have our 30kg suitcases with us. We eventually flag down a taxi, even though I almost had to throw myself onto the road to get it.

We get back to the hotel where I go to the toilet to get changed for bed. I come out 5mins later and Will is completely passed out.

The morning after was NOT pretty...

We had 2 shots of coffee to cure ourselves

Hidden big breakfast

I grabbed myself a big breakfast which had bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs and toast. Except you can't see any of it as its covered by the eggs and toast.

Tomato, eggs and toast