Showing posts with label Steaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steaks. Show all posts

Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Vic Hotel, Wagga

This is not a paid advertorial, the blogger dined at The Victoria Hotel at her bosses's expense...hehehe;)

So this week, we finally had our Xmas party lunch. It kinda became our "Xmas/Easter" breakup lunch get together. Our Xmas party got "postponed" because of work commitments and deadline last year.

For this function, the Bandi guys travelled up to Wagga and we chose The Victoria Hotel because it is affordable, value for money, has the room for us and is pretty consistent with its menu and service. We've been there before several times and loved it. You can't fault the steak here.

I didn't feel like a big lunch this time as I am still on my so called diet which is going pretty well, except for days when I craved carbs and then I hate myself when I feel bloated! Hahahaha. I need to lose some inches before Bangkok so that I don't get squashed in the cattle class on my flight. Argh!! Hate economy.. when am I going to ever travel J class???

So I ordered the Thai Beef Salad, it was a good portion, well balanced, lots of different types of greens in the salad. It does have an interesting dressing though! I do not believed that, this is Thai Salad as the dressing was all wrong, it was too sweet, someone had gone berko with the "kicap manis" ( dark sweet soy sauce) and there was no spice at all. It was not tangy nor spicy. A total let down. I think that if one wants to do an Asian dish, you should at least do it right. Don't bastardised a dish and called it what it is. The presentation was good, plate was neat and tidy. Being from a hospitality background, I look at the plating for marks and thumbprints, smears or drip of sauces. Nothing I hate more, than a dirty plate.

Thai Beef Salad

Here are what my workmates ordered. As you can see, beautiful plating, right? No one was allowed to start eating till I had taken a snapshot. You can't take me anywhere. As you can see, nothing wrong with the typical western pub meals. You can't do wrong in this category. The service was excellent, we didn't have to wait long for our meal. The plates were also cleared as soon as lunch was finished, the friendly waitress cleared as many glasses and plates as fast as she could.

Salt and Pepper Calamari
Salt and Pepper Calamari
Chicken Parmagiana
Chicken Parmagiana
Chicken Snitzel
Chicken Schnitzel
Steak Sandwich
Steak Sandwich
Rump Steak
Rump Steak with mushroom sauce
Beer Battered Chips
Beer Battered Chips
Lemon Pie
Lemon Tart

I was too full to have desserts. I took a photo of the Lemon tart because I thought that it look lovely. The chocolate cake that my other colleague had looked dry. I commented to my friend that it should be rich and moist, not dry and hard... served with lots of cream and icecream. The sticky date pudding looked so good. I really wished that I was not on a diet! Sigh! Must be strong and think of Thailand holidays!

And that concludes my "Chreaster" lunch and this old gal had to have a lie down in the arvo after two ciders.

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Victoria Hotel
55 Baylis St Wagga Wagga
Telephone (02) 6921 5233
http://www.vichotelwagga.com.au/

The Victoria Hotel on Urbanspoon

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Asian Beef in Lettuce Cups

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Hi all, yours truly has been very lazy since Chinese New Year and all. Sadly, it was not because I was busy with baking or cooking a banquet, truth be told, it was that damn CANDY CRUSH game on Facebook. I was hooked, lined but I sunk, coz I totally suck at it and I gave up! So hopefully, I shall return to my blogging soon as.

This recipe is a very easy and tasty meal to prepare, adapted form the sang chow bow, instead of mince, all you need is some premium beef steak, a lettuce head and some marinades that can be easily found in your pantry. I shall have you eating these, in no time at all, with your fingers, hooking into the beef wrapped in lettuce. It is basically like an Asian Beef Tacos ;) so it can get very messy! I put my lettuce cup in a bowl so I can show off my Japanese bowl, isn't it pretty?

Number of serving: 1 steak per person, you can have as many you want. There are no rules in my kitchen! For this post, the marinades are for one steak, increase the amount of ingredients accordingly to your number of servings.

Ingredients
  • One Iceberg lettuce head
  • One prime rump cut steak or porterhouse with fat trimmed off
  • 2 tablespoon cooking oil
  • 1 teaspoon minced garlic
  • 1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
  • 1 teaspoon chilli powder. ( I normally used Indian chilli powder or Thai brand, extremely hot)
  • A dash of grounded black peppercorns
  • A sprinkle of salt to taste - optional
  • A drop of sesame oil for flavour, and to tease your senses!
  • Coriander leaves for garnish.
  • Chopped peanuts or sesame seeds for garnish, whatever you can find in your pantry.
Method
  • Wash the lettuce head in salty water, this will remove all alien inhabitants. Rinse well.
  • Break off lettuce cups and pat dry, taking care not to break or damage any cups.
  • Set aside in bowls or plates.
  • Marinade steak/s in the ingredients. (soy, garlic, hoisin, black pepper, salt- optional)
  • Leave marinated steak alone for half hour.
  • Break out the skillet from your cupboard and put her on high heat on the stove, once the skillet is hot enough, put the steak on, a few minutes each side, just to seal off the steak, if you like your steak rare. Or you could barbeque the steaks and sliced them after.
  • Once your steak is cooked, rare, medium or done (urgh!), you'll need to slice it and put them into the lettuce cups.
  • Dress them up with your garnish of choice, whatever you can find in your pantry. Your kitchen, no rules.....it can be those packets of crispy fried noodle snacks, or crushed peanuts or roasted sesame seeds and a sprig of coriander leaves to make it pretty!

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Saturday, September 1, 2012

Wagga's Farmer Home Hotel Bistro

A very sad on Friday....it was an emotional day, not just about the five Aussie diggers that died in Afghanistan but I am also losing my work buddy who is leaving us to go to Western Australia.

Aargh! How will I cope? Oh well, wishing him the best in his future endeavors and will keep in touch on Facebook.

So, we went to Farmer's Hotel for his farewell. A big juicy steak will make everything better. The bossman came down from Bandiana and he shouted us lunch. What a good man! Told him I could have kissed him but that would be in appropriate ;) hahhahaah!

We've been to the Farmer's bistro plenty of times, closest to work actually and they do good meals there. So I thought I might blogged about it this time. Was feeling melancholy. For the five brave soldiers and all those that have died, we salute you and condolences to the families. I can't talk about this business of wars, but it upsets me and saddens me. I am not trivalising their deaths with a blog post. Not at all.

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This is a scotch fillet steak with peppercorn sauce, served with salad and chips. It was delicious. The rainy and dark day matches my mood. As you can see, even the sky was crying.



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Alright, enough said. Let's get back to more photos of steaks.

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This is scotch fillet steak with Diane sauce. I was told Diane is a redhead, hence why the sauce was reddish ;) Just joking!

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Nicole had the scotch with peppercorn too and Ben had the scotch with mushroom sauce.

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Cheers and good luck Woody in WA, hehehe, will miss you heaps. For crying out loud, get on Facebook already, will ya?

Farmers Home Hotel Bistro on Urbanspoon

This is our favourite regular diner, good place for steaks and all Aussie fare. Photos are taken with my new Samsung NX1000. All Rights Reserved.
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