Brisbane, Day Four

Breakfast:

Vanilla yogurt w/pb, banana slices, cashews, macadamia nuts & cereal

Snack:

Pineapple slice (2)

Snack:

Apple

Snack:

Apple
(Eating an apple on the beach. Gorgeous view, delicious fruit.)

Snack:

Pear
(Another happy pairing.)

Snack:

Water spinach, winter melon, winter melon soup
(Two of my favourite Asian vegetables!)

Snack:

Grapes
(Ate all of them. Mmm.)

Snack:

Pineapple w/mango yogurt (from Maleny Cheese)
(Trang's special yogurt! So good. It's extra creamy and rich, but still tart. Went wonderfully with the pineapple.)

Snack:

Cereal w/pb & pineapple
(Pb and pineapple also tastes quite good.)

Snack:

Spoonfuls of cereal

Snack:

Fresh hot dark chocolate (made by Trang)
(Last night in Brisbane! Homey comfort drink.)

Brisbane, Day Three

Breakfast:

Banana

Snack:

Apple

Snack:

Greek yogurt w/muesli (from Maleny Cheese) & apple

Snack:

Pineapple

Snack:

Grapes (had about a handful)

Snack:

Celery stick

Snack:

Cereal

Snack:

Spinach (had about five leaves)

Snack:

Vanilla yogurt w/banana slices & cereal

Snack:

More grapes

Snack:

Rice cracker w/Camembert cheese & a grape

Dinner:

The salad: spinach & lettuce w/roasted pumpkin, avocado, pineapple, beetroot

The main dish: salmon w/asparagus

Salmon, beer, asparagus (ended up eating basically all of the asparagus), salad (about 4x that portion)
(Mmm the salad was so good!)

Exploring Eumundi and Montville

Breakfast:

Vanilla yogurt w/banana slices, apple chunks, cashews & macadamia nuts

Sample at a ginger beer booth at Eumundi Market, Eumundi, Queensland, Australia:

Ginger beer
(Not a fan of carbonated drinks.)

Sample from a rocky road stand at Eumundi Market, Eumundi, Queensland, Australia:

Rocky road: chocolate covered marshmellow w/some nuts
(I don't like marshmellow.)

Sample from a pineapple stand at Eumundi Market, Eumundi, Queensland, Australia:

Pineapple
(Super sweet! I love pineapples!)

Sample from a juice bar at Eumundi Market, Eumundi, Queensland, Australia: 

Sip of Trang's pineapple, orange & watermelon juice
(Not the best pressed juice. The machine wasn't very strong.)

Snack at the Eumundi Bakeshop, Eumundi, Queensland, Australia:

Small forkful of Hai's carrot cake
(Goodness gracious! This was sugar on sugar with sugar. One forkful is a day's worth of sugar consumption. Yuck.)

Snack:

Apple

Samples from the Australian Nougat Company, Eumundi, Queensland, Australia:

Original macadamia nougat, cranberry & macadamia nougat (4), almond & macadamia nougat (4)
(Also extremely sweet, but I liked the crunchy texture from the add-ins. The almond and macadamia one was my favourite.)

 Sample from Candy Addiction, Montville, Queensland, Australia:

Peppermint candy (spit it out)
(Ugh. Sugar and grossness.)

Snack from Chocolate Country, Montville, Queensland, Australia: 

Assorted chocolate covered stuff

Chocolate covered honeycomb
(So much better than Crunchies, but this was fresher.) 

Dark chocolate covered ginger
(Yum. I love ginger and chocolate.)

Macadamia cluster (2)
(One of my childhood favourite chocolates!)

Dark chocolate covered almond (2)

Snack:

Chocolate covered anise ring
(So good! I didn't know what an anise ring was, but a chocolate covered gummy licorice-esque ring? I am so there.)

Dinner at Malaya Corner, Brisbane, Australia: 

Penang hokkien mee: prawn noodle soup (gave the egg, scallions & fried shallots to Trang)
(Added two cups of water to dilute the broth and scooped out about half a cup of oil. I'm also not a big prawn eater so I wasn't too keen about this soup, but it was alright and quite fulfilling. Huge portion.)

Snack:

Rest of the taro milk tea from Thursday

Brisbane, Day One

Lots and lots of food... 

Breakfast:

Apple chunks, banana slices, cashews, macadamias & a bit of cereal w/lacoste-free low-fat milk
(I started out healthy! Ran four miles, ate some fruit and nuts...)

Snack from Mövenpick Ice Cream, Brisbane, Australia:

Samples of panna cotta, black currant, pistachio (not pictured), Swiss chocolate (not pictured) ice creams
(But then it was such a warm and beautiful day that I could not not get ice cream. The girl was so nice! She literally tried to give me samples of every single flavour in this shop, but almost half of them had either hazelnut or coconut in them and I'm allergic to both. The panna cotta tasted like Greek yogurt and the black currant was too fake fruity sweet. The Swiss chocolate was intense, but I wasn't in the mood for chocolate ice cream and the pistachio was quite interesting. Apparently they use a different type of pistachio and style or something, because the girl told me that most people who love pistachio don't like their version. I love pistachio ice cream, but I wasn't a big fan of theirs. Tasted almost like an amaretto liqueur with some cherries. I don't know. A bit alcoholic and super creamy. Kind of acquired, but it didn't go well with my mood at the time.)

Macadamia nut ice cream, crème brûlée ice cream
(If I can't have one nut, I'll have another! Macadamia ice cream seems to big here, but I also love macadamia nuts so whatever. Smooth, rich and creamy... mmm. The two flavours went perfectly together and I absolutely loved eating this while walking along the river. Just made the experience so much nicer.)

Snack from Chopped at Post Office Square, Brisbane, Australia:

Acai bowl topped w/oatmeal & banana slices
(Who knew the acai trend caught on here? Not as great as the acai bowls in CA/NYC, but it'll do.)

Forkful of Trang's veggie lasagna
(I like my veggie lasagna better.)

Snack from Nitrogenie, Southbank, Brisbane, Australia:

Salted caramelly popcorn macaron ice cream sandwich (ate open-faced, +not pictured samples)
(Liquid nitrogen ice cream! The last time I had some was when Dean O'Hara came to Stearns, and I remember it not settling very well. The concept's still pretty cool though so I decided to get some. The girls here were also super nice and allowed me to sample almost all of their flavours. I ended up just getting the house favourite but the best part was the additional caramel kettle corn. Yum.)

Snack from Geláre, Southbank, Brisbane, Australia:

Vegan cappuccino ice cream (ate with the other macaron cookie)
(I like coconut, but I'm allergic. And I keep forgetting that vegan ice cream is sometimes made with coconut milk instead of almond or rice milk. This one was made out of coconut milk. I finished about half before calling it quits because my throat was feeling all sorts of weird. But I really liked the flavour and texture.)

Dinner at MADO, Southbank, Brisbane, Australia:

My plate setting (reversed the fork and knife).

The three dishes.

Mixed grill platter: lamb shish, kofte izgara (lamb patties), chicken shish w/rice, salad, mashed potato and sauces
(The lamb shish was good but the patty was a bit chewy. Chicken tasted like chicken. I generally prefer my meats grilled if I do eat them, but I don't really know if the meat was "good" or not because I don't eat meat often enough. Smokey and savoury.)

Iskender: lamb shish w/yogurt, bread & tomato sauce
(Pretty good! I liked the tomato sauce marination with the contrasting tangy yogurt sauce. The lamb was nice and tender.)

Anatolian chicken guvec: chicken pieces w/veggies & served w/rice, bread & salad
(I think this was also tomato based, but in soup form. A bit salty, but the salad, bread and rice balanced it out.)

 Late night snack at the Chocolate Pavillion, Southbank, Brisbane, Australia:

The three drinks.

Belgium hot dark chocolate
(Mmm hot dark chocolate. The chocolate level wasn't as intense as I thought it would be.)

Sip of Trang's hot dark truffle crème brûlée (hot chocolate topped w/chocolate disc)
(Quite sweet due to the chocolate disc and smaller amount of milk. But other than that, it tasted a bit like my drink.)