Huge return post about...HUGE food

Wow...has it really been THAT long since I posted? It only seemed like yesterday when I flew to Texas. I guess the time there really screwed with my sense of time hey?

Well, its great to be back in Sydney. It was a lot of hard work, long hours but also great fun. I meet some lovely local, made new friends, ate heaps of new food and definetly got a bit of a culture shock. I mean, I've been to America before, but you don't notice certain things when you're on holidays. Its the day to day things that really amuse me. All the sterotypes you see on TV, its not an exaggeration!

Anyway, let me start with the food first! Since we're in Texas, I thought I'd start with some HUGE food. I mean, everything is bigger in Texas right? Well, this includes the food as well!

The one thing you will NOT find in Sydney, is a Texas baked potato. All these food court places that does baked potatoes, dressed with some butter, cheese, a bit of meat and veggies and maybe a dollop of sour cream. That's not a baked potato. THIS is a damn baked potato!

Baked potato with chopped beef brisket

This was ordered from Pappas, one of many BBQ houses in Houston. There's a condiments bar where you help yourself to extra condiments. I opened the box and knew immediately that I'll need something sour to cut through the massive amounts of MEAT on my potato. I helped myself to some sweet relish and pickled carrot salad. Oh, I did chuck some fake bacon and shallots ontop for fun!

Cheesey...

But wait you say, what's so special about that potato besides the meat? Well....see you can spot what I am talking about....

Mexican chicken baked potato from Jason's Deli

Baked potato with Texas chilli

Still don't see it? Let me give you a better size comparison.


The Texas baked potatoes are about THE SIZE OF MY HEAD. The potato I got from Pappas was so incredibly heavy, I actually had to carry it with both hands as I was either going to drop the box or the box will break under its own weight. I was lucky I was working late that night. It took me a good 4 hours to finish eating...

A full size fork can fit entirely into the potato....

The other Texas thing I quickly realised (besides huge potatoes), is that there is meat in EVERYTHING.

Bean Salad...

....where I found chunks of bacon in it!

With all the meat and huge portions, I opted for a healthy dinner where I picked up a salad from Jason's Deli. The order was placed in a brown paper bag, which I did not open until I got back to my desk. Only then did I realise why it was so heavy...

There is enough chopped ham, turkey and cheese in my salad to make 3 sandwiches in sydney. Again, this salad took me 3-4 hours to eat.

Knowing what type of salad was available at Jason's Deli, the next night I decided to go to Pappas and grab a salad there. There was only a side salad or a Chef's salad. I didn't know what the Chef's salad was, but based on the price, it was a main meal salad. Excellent, I shall have that for my healthy dinner!


I was......speechless. Why was there a farm sitting on my salad???? 1 whole Chorizo sausage. 2 thick slabs of beef brisket. 2 HUNKS of ham and a FISTFUL of cheese was sitting on my salad. I could make 3 ham and cheese sandwiches with just that! This salad took me alot longer to eat. Probably 5 hours. But that's cos I spent a heap of time picking the cheese out.

Despite knowing the portion sizes at Pappas, a few of us non-Texans decided to go to Pappas for lunch. I was told they do a pretty decent pulled pork sandwich, which was something I just HAD to try! I ordered my pulled pork sandwich which comes with a side of fries. I've also heard great things about chilli cheese fries. So I asked them to change my fries to chilli cheese fries. I knew something was wrong when they took my fries, covered in chilli......over to a pot and then proceeded to LADEL LIQUID YELLOW GOO onto my fries. I assume that's the cheese. And I assume that kilo of fries was my side dish.....


Errrrrr.......I think its chilli cheese fries with a SIDE of pulled pork sandwich.... *cough*



My friend decided to order the BBQ Cheese fries as I had ordered the chilli cheese fries. We thought we can try each other's food. Except what came out practically gave us a heart attack. We assumed BBQ cheese fries meant bbq sauce and cheese on fries. WRONG. Its BBQ MEAT on fries.


In this case, chopped beef brisket. Which was exactly what she had ordered on her baked potato. The scary thing? There was more beef on the fries then there were on the potato......if that's possible.


We ended up taking ALL the fries home and proceeded to eat it over the next 3 days.

Liquid cheesey goodness...

I had a chat with one of the locals in Houston, and mentioned that I was on a quest to try all the typical American food. Such as Meatloaf, Egg Rolls, soul food etc. I was out wondering one day and found a food court where one of the stalls was selling diner food. I immediately ordered myself a serve of meatloaf. And since I get 2 sides, I picked potato and gravy with Mac and Cheese. I also get to choose a bread roll, so I went for the corn bread. THIS was what I got....


Oh...my...god. The meatloaf, was about as a thick as a book. Plus a chunk had broken off another slab, so they threw that into my container as well. This was all on a bed of rice. That's ALOT of meat.....didn't help I had a whole container of starch! The corn bread was quite nice but very different from what I am used to. This is a much denser and creamier version. I would've liked it a lot more if I didn't have enough food to feed 3 people! I barely got through half of this and chucked the rest in the bin.

Every now and then, when we're working late, they would order food in for us. This time, it was a fusion of chinese and thai. But what really caught my eye was the HUGEEEEEEEE Egg roll! Look at the size of the monster!


I had an interesting convo with one of the guys over American vs Australian terms. I used to always wonder why people were obsessed over egg rolls when ordering Chinese? And why were they eating it at the beginning of a meal? Cos...egg rolls is a chinese dessert! It usually comes in a tin box and is extremely messy to eat! It was only a few years ago that I realised an Egg Roll was actually our Spring Roll! We were discussing the differences and this is the translation

US vs. Aussie
Egg Roll = Spring Roll
Spring Roll = Viet Summer Roll / Rice Paper Roll (Not Deep Fried)
Viet Spring Roll = Viet Spring Roll (Deep fried)

Anyway, after consuming all the huge portions of meat and cheese, I decided to hit the hotel gym to work some of it off. After the gym, I popped into Jason's Deli to grab a sandwich. Because, you know.....sandwiches are quite healthy. *Cough*

Hot pastrami and corned beef sandwich

In my haste, I didn't read the sandwich description properly. I assumed it would be a hot pastrami and corned beef SALAD sandwich! Not 1/2 kg of meat!

Size comparison

Despite how scary it looks, this sandwich was absolutely DELICIOUS. I've never liked corned beef or pastrami in Australia. And I dislike it even more when you compare the cold, tasteless watery imitation to the luciously moist fresh versions you get in America!

Stay tuned for more scary but delicious American Food!

Day 4 - Jenolan Caves and Blackheath

It is FREEZING in Oberon. I kept waking up during the night as my nose was so blocked up I couldn't sleep. I already had 2 blankets and desperately need a 3rd and 4th one, except I was too cold to get up to get it. There was also a heater, but it was on the other side of the cabin. Again, I was too cold to get up and turn it on. In the end, I woke up an hour earlier than planned to try and defrost.

This morning's checkout was the easiest. The boot was right next to the front door. We were practically just throwing things into the car. We popped the key into the checkout box and off we went for breakfast. We chose a local cafe that looked warm and cosy for breakkie.

Cafe Savanna

We order our coffees, me screaming I needed it in a mug before we ordered breakfast. Will orders toast, and when asked if he wants thin or thick toast, he answers thin toast. If this is thin toast, I don't want to see their thick toast:

3cm thick toast

Being in Oberon, where you can go foraging for mushrooms, I decided that mushrooms on toast would be the perfect choice. And since I had a hangover, bacon and hashbrowns obviously make an appearance. But I didn't expect THIS:



This was HUGE. It was easily 1/2kg of mushrooms cooked in butter, served with thick slabs of toast slathered in butter with a serve of bacon cooked in butter and a butter fried hash brown. I could feel my ateries clogging up with every bite. I tried my best but only managed to get through 1/2 of it.

Will leaves me to deal with the bill, which isn't a problem since it was paid for last night. He goes and does his stuff and I hit the shops. Right before he leaves,

I said "I'm going to go shopping"
he said "What could you possibly buy in a town like this??"
I said "Is that a challenge?"
he took one look at me and went "Oh, that's right. Happy shopping."

Within about 15mins, I had purchased 2 jars of home made jam from a volunteer shop, a kangaroo keyring for Will and I bought myself the CUTEST set of cow tumblers that come in a milk carton!!


Again, Will's jaw drops when he sees me with bags of stuff again. We dump everything into the car and went to the local bakery to grab some picnicky stuff for lunch. We grab a salad roll each, plus I bought olives earlier when stocking up on water to tide us over.

We get back into the car and head off towards the Jenolan caves. I have lost count of how many times I've been to the blue mountains, and everytime I try to go to the caves, I don't make it. Its either raining, or we've missed the last bus etc etc. This time, I wasn't sure we'd make it either looking at the road we had to drive on!!!

We're trying to do a SHARP left turn

I could not believe how tight some of these curves were! I'm so glad we didn't hire a caravan or campervan like we talked about. We finally make it to the bottom in one piece where we quickly park before heading towards the ticket office (Right past a warning sign that says there are snakes in the area). We bought tickets to the next cave tour, Lucas caves.

We go to the meeting point to wait for the tour to start. It was then I noticed that most people are in shorts and tshirts with a tiny bag and a bottle of drink. Me on the other hand, jeans, jump, side bag, camera bag and camera around my neck. It was only when we started our tour into the cave that I realised what a big mistake it was. Some parts of the cave are tiny and narrow. There were a few times my bags will get snagged onto something. And I didn't realise how many stairs there were! It was like a stair master workout with rocks!

The more spacious areas

The broken column

The Cathedral

Wombat remains

However, with that said, we did enjoy ourselves. The only problem was a 10yo kid who would not shut up the entire 1.5hrs and decided to give us a running commentry on EVERYTHING.

The tour ends and we immediately plant ourselves down on some chairs and pull out our lunch.

Mixed Olives

Salad Roll

Even though the food was simple, it was really satisfying after my fryup this morning. We duck into info to grab some brochures and decided that we should head to Adam's shed which has wine, jam and honey tasting. We decided to try a different road out of Jenolan caves to avoid having to go around the bends/cliffsides we just went through. And let me just say, the 2 times we stopped to take photos of dead roos, a car drives past BOTH TIMES. @#%#@#$

The upside was, the view was gorgeous:


We eventually get onto the freeway towards Adam's shed, only to find out they were closed! To make up for it, we pulled into a little cafe/garden/nursery for some gorgeous scones:



They also saw the bazooka of a camera I had and recommended that we go to a secret lookout to watch the sunset. We were both knackered, so we decided to save that lookout for our next trip instead. We follow the Navman and eventually arrive at the guesthouse we booked:




As they were showing us our room, we realised they had mixed up our booking. To make up for it, they bought us a bottle of wine, woohoo!! AND, they had chocolates on arrival!! How sweet! Plus slippers and bathrobes for extra luxury. They even upgraded us by giving us a spa bath!

Modelling with our bathrobes

Chocolate on arrival

Showing off our spa bath

Will cracking open our wine

Being hot and sweaty, we take a shower and jump into bed to relax with our chocolate, wine and my surprise just for Will. Little Britain USA! We crack open the wine whilst we're watching this, and whilst I get completely plastered on wine, Will slowly sips his one glass until I ended up on the floor as I couldn't walk straight. Not a good sign. We decided to start watching our Mykonos holiday video, until a certain "scene" came on TV when I decided I should get ready for dinner and hide in the bathroom. Next thing you know, I hear this soft thump thump sound. I open the bathroom door and see this:

Current State: Insane

Current State: Winding down

Current State: Exhausted

Me? Just drunk

We hop into the car and manage to find our way to the main strip. We drove past Tails, which was recommended by the scones people as a great place for a nice dinner. The restaurant is actually part of a Motel, which wasn't a huge issue. The problem was that our table was in the corner of the room. LITERALLY in the corner of the room. We both sat staring at the walls of the restaurant???

With that said, the food was really nice:

Chicken breast wrapped with pancetta and baked, with rocket, tomato and parmesan salad

Herb crusted rack of lamb with almond and lemon risotto and lemon sabayon

Choc walnut cake with a choc mint ice cream - HEAVEN on a plate

We head back to the house, where we find that someone had lit the fireplace for us! I LOVE fireplaces! I absolutely LOVE LOVE fireplaces! We got changed into our jammies and bathrobes before plantings ourselves down on the plush armchairs by the fire. Without even asking, Will brings me a glass of port to enjoy by the fire. Now THIS is a holiday. We sit infront of the fire, chatting, drinking when we suddenly decide to call Gus up and abuse him a bit! Its not right if we don't abuse someone.

The port pouring

Me, my jammies and port!

The look of content

A combination of the bottle of wine I had earlier, the satisfying dinner, the fireplace and now the port with some heart to heart chatting meant we were both ready for bed. Besides, we had emptied half of the port bottle already....

We get ready for bed when I walk into the bathroom and see a spider on the ceiling. We both start screaming that the other person has to kill it. We run out into the livingroom and kitchen to look for bug spray or something to kill it with. We grabbed a mini broom thing from the fireplace ready to do some eradication.

Armed to kill

We're standing in the bathroom,arguing over whats the best way to kill the spider. I scream at Will to just stab it with the broom. So he does, but then it falls from the ceiling and tried to scuttle away. So here we were, 2 full grown adults, screaming our head off whilst bashing the tiled floor with a brass broom. We eventually get the spider into the toilet to try and flush it:

It looked much bigger IRL

After all that excitement, we were both wide awake with our hearts racing. We eventually get to bed when the alcohol kicks in again. As usual, Will dumps the tea and coffee into my suitcase.


Just as I am almost asleep, out of nowhere, came the LOUDEST jackhammer like sound from our window/wall. I had a mini heart attack whilst Will fell out of bed thinking someone was trying to break into our room with a chainsaw!!! It was basically someone having a shower and the waterpipes going nuts. I thought someone was doing construction outside our room at 1am in the morning. I'm not even sure how we managed to get back to sleep after that.