Monday, September 12, 2011

Xanthi Bar and Restaurant - Westfield Sydney

After much deliberation, I decided to make a booking at Xanthi for my girls and I.


To be honest, I was a little bit skeptical at first. I often find myself associating Westfield with food court.... not fine dining. But then again, I'm cognitively exhausted and stereotyping is so much easier.  Don't let your assumptions undermine this restaurant. 

Let me start off by saying.... Xanthi had the most jubilant hostess. She instantly lit up the restaurant, she was friendly, genuine and made us feel welcome. The staff and chef were amazingly friendly, greeting and farewells were generous. I was almost a little bit "shocked" to receive great service. I'm so used to apathetic chefs and waiters throwing menus at me.. Isn't that sad? Service really sets the mood, personally it's a big predictor as to whether I'd return or not. Maybe if department stores employed staff with similar attitudes they'd get better sales?


The decor was very unique.... exotic music, drapes.... I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of it. 

Being pedantic, I've grown accustomed to reading the menu online and googling restaurant reviews/pictures before actually dining... just so that I'd have a decent knowledge of my hypothetical meal.
So, here we go..


(Oh and excuse the poor quality pictures, I thought the camera on my phone had better pixels... rest assured, I'm crawling back to my digi cam)


Complementary bread and olive oil. We assumed it was extra virgin and sour dough.

Hot Smoked Eggplant Dip

 The dipping bread (is that what you call it?) was nice, but a little hard for my liking. I preferred the sourdough. The dip was very smokey, but I'm glad we ordered it because it's practical, you can add a spoonful to ... anything.

Herbed skordalia croquettes

 There may be a bias here, I LOVE croquettes.. and this was absolutely delicious. The dill balanced everything out.


Rabbit Stifatho

 My first time having rabbit. If you haven't tried it... imagine a crossbreed between a chicken and a pig. It tastes like that, but a tiny bit more chewy. Maybe a little bit more flavour? I put a dollop of smoked eggplant dig on it.

Pork Belly Baklava

 Good baby jesus... the combination of the pork belly and the date sauce was absolutely amazing... let me emphasis on the deliciousness of the date sauce AMAZING. The pork was a little bit dry and the crackling was a little hard. Otherwise brilliant.

One dish I forgot to take a picture of was : Lamb Fricasse --- I love my garlic lamb chops but this was exceptionally lamb-y.  Flavour was true though.


Olive Oil Ice Cream
 First time! It was very creamy. Pistachio and dried fig ice cream. It was definitely interesting.


Caramel Baklava ice cream

This was of my favourite of the night. It wasn't overly sweet. Smooth texture. Ice cream infused baklava... Seriously!? Which genius thought of that?? Only disappointment... No caramel sauce. This dish was superb but I think it could do with a piece of pastry or two in the baklava. 

Check out their websiteClick Me 

Xanthi Bar & Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Chucking Old Make Up & September Empties

Once my thesis blow over I'll go through everyone's blogsposts. Promise. I'm DYING to procrastinate... but.. re-strain!


Anyway... here's a post
Mum has been pestering me to clean out my make up draw for... well, possibly the last year.


Like all mothers, it's what she does best.


It gets a little odd, sometimes. I confess that I listen to love song dedication fairly religiously, my heart and soul belongs in 80s & the 90s. I love my savage garden, tom jones, smiths, cranberries etc. See, mum doesn't understand music... instead, she said this to me.


"You need a boyfriend."
"?"
"You listen to that rubbish every night, It's depressing"
"..."


That actually prompt me to clean my draw.

Some Miscellaneous lip glosses & brushes. Never again will I ever buy cheap lip products. God knows what I'm eating.

I FINALLY finished using some products...
Softlips (French Vanilla): Love the menthol feel but didn't feel it was moisturising enough for my extremely dry lips.


Kakadoodle Dew Day Cream: Loved it! it did my skin justice. Only downside is that I can't get it here in Australia :(


Wella hair mascara: I got this in 4th grade, rest assured I haven't used it in the last 10 years. It's... pretty much a mascara... except for your hair. You can wash it off. I liked it. Not sure where you can get it now.


Bobbi Brown Intensive skin supplement: this was a serum sample I received. To be honest... I didn't feel like it did any difference to my skin. It had a rather alcohol-y scent to it that I dislike. It wasn't overly sticky though. Just didn't feel it worked for me. which is a shame because I love Bobbi's products...


Here's a close up of the hair mascara. Intrigued?

Everyday Minerals Lipbalm in Icing on Cake- Pretty colour, didn't do it for me in the moisture department.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Clocks

Went through my photobucket and found some old pictures.


Not a big fan of ballet, but I was bored and my friend called me up. so, Why not? 07' Good baby jesus..


At the annual beach house round

Year 10 English



Friday, September 2, 2011

We Are Young, We Run Free. We're Alright!

It's been a while since my last visit to blogspot.


I had a rather eventful weekend. Saw my friend for coffee, we ended up spending about 6 hours together, I'm surprised she's not sick of me yet. Then met up with an old friend that night, I've known him for 8 years, crazy awesome kid. Not sure what I did when after I got home, but 1 hour later, it was 3am, I finally stumbled into bed.


9am, bright and early the next morning I wondered to Marrickville Market & Bourke St Bakery with another friend. We spent the rest of the afternoon at "Can of Worms" recording  at Eveleigh as their studio audience. Our topic was infidelity. Coincidence? Interesting stuff.


Otherwise, super busy with ...stuff and what not.. so here's some new things that my life gave birth to recently...

Out with the old, in with the new. Finally up to date with the 21st century...

A'kin Rosehip oil, after 20mins of googling rosehip oil, I settled with this. So far so good.

My friend asked me what I wanted for my birthday few weeks ago, I told her a toaster. She literally got me a toaster. haha WIN.

Toaster pic.2

My fabulous friend from Germany sent me this package for my b'day last week :)

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