Hey guys! I recently went to the new restaurant in Stanmore Bay, Auckland, called Paprika. My dad and I went there for dinner to try it out and overall, it's a good restaurant, in my opinion.

FOOD
We're cheap and always budget and spend as little as possible haha so we ordered:

• 'Meat lovers tasting platter' (my dad really wanted to try it and eat a bit 'fancier' instead of only ordering two mains.) - $26. To me, it was very average but I'm not a fan of meat and try to avoid it. However, regardless of that, it's not worth it due to the price. The different sauces/seasonings do taste good but for the price, there wasn't much on the platter. (About two of each delicacy.)
• 'Malai Kofta: mild' (a vegetarian main dish and I wanted to try it because I've never heard of it before.) - $15. There was around 3 or 4 little balls (size of a meatball) in a bowl of curry. I really enjoyed it and would order it again. The curry is quite sweet and the balls only taste good when they are fully covered in the sauce. For the garnish, there is also almonds and raisins which weren't bad, I liked the extra texture.
• Lamb curry: medium (I forgot the name of the dish that my dad ordered but it was some sort of curry with lamb) - $15. It's a good proportion but not sure if it was enough to make my dad full haha (maybe that's why he wanted to order the platter as a safety measure.) 

From top to bottom: Lamb curry, meat platter, malai kofta

SERVICE
All the waiters there are lovely and from what I experienced and saw, they do their jobs well. I've got no complaints at all. Their service is also very fast and efficient.

Food took around 15 minutes (If I recall correctly) and it wasn't a quiet night either, there were around 6+ tables there also.

AMBIENCE 
The music that they play are nice, and like all typical restaurants, they light candles on the table - which I'm glad are real candles and not fake battery operated ones haha

OVERALL
I would recommend this restaurant, it's cheap compared to the other restaurants around the area (since the price for two people is around $60) and the food tastes good! But if you wanted something more formal and fancy with a three-course meal, this probably isn't the perfect restaurant for that.


I hope this helped you make your decision on whether or not to go try this restaurant out! If you've been here before, what did you order and do you recommend it?


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys, so almost a month away, my dad and I went to Hong Kong and China for a two week holiday. It was so relaxing over there, even though the streets are full of people, it's a different kind of relaxation. Relaxed knowing that I don't have any major responsibilities to take care of until I came back to NZ. This allowed me to enjoy my time and just free my mind from everything. I'll just write about the main things that we did but will do more than one blog post for each event so you guys aren't too overwhelmed by the amount of writing in one post.

So our flight was at like 7am which meant that we had to wake up super early. On the way there, the plane food wasn't too bad but breakfast is always gag-worthy in my opinion. However, the lunch we had was fabulous. Hahhaha I don't think I've ever used fabulous before but anyhow, I got the chicken pie and it was so delish! Even though I didn't have much of an appetite because I couldn't handle the excitement of being in HK so soon!
 While we stopped over at Brisbane airport, we were waiting for our next flight and found this really cute arcade machine thing which had games like Pacman and Invaders. It was for free and you could play one or two player! This was the best time waster ever haha. Every airport should have one in my opinion. :P
 Once we landed, it was like 5pm in HK so my uncles, aunties and cousins took us to this restaurant for dinner. But I still didn't have much of an appetite and I was so tired by then (because I wasn't able to sleep on the plane) that I started feeling kinda sick. But after a good nights rest, I was fine.

Sorry for such a small post but I'll post diary #2 soon where it'll be about my 18th birthday and just our little adventures around Yuen Long.


Love,
Elaine

Hi guys, I guess my new years resolution of blogging more often (like once every 2 weeks or so) has failed miserably.. I just can't find anything too special and glamorous to blog about. However, there should hopefully be some interesting stuff happening. Anyways, last night, my dad, sister and I went to this Japanese buffet called Haru no Yume. It has a range of food but mainly sushi and sashimi. Time just flew by when we were there. We ended up staying for almost an hour and a half.

Firstly, let's talk about the decor and overall "feel" of the place. They have very pretty fairy lights which is the main theme in this restaurant. Or shall I say light source? Because the ceiling has no lights! They only have fairy lights and some long dangily light bulbs. (Not sure what the specific name for these are because I'm no light expert.) I actually don't even know how the restaurant felt so well lit but in reality, I was pretty dim now that I think about it and look back at the photos. Speaking of lighting though, each table also gets a lighted candle to set a nice, calming atmosphere. They also had some nice decor which consists of giant Japanese style umbrella. They also had some empty sake bottles on this divider wall that they have.

Secondly, ze food! Here's just some of the food that we ate:

This is Yvonne's plate and first thing she pigged out on was sushi and raw fish like salmon, tuna and king fish (I think?) because she wasn't able to eat them while pregnant.

More food

Sashimi plate that they bring over.

Beef that they light the bottom of the "stove" thing for you and the beef will begin to cook.

ICE CREAM. These are just like your typical soft serves. They have a machine for it where you just pour out yourself and I also added this fried thing on to substitute fries :3

I have one major highlight from the entire evening and that is that we originally thought that the beef (in the 2nd and 4th picture) was eaten as beef tataki (pretty much raw beef). But like after grabbing our first plate of food (including the beef), one of the waitress' told us that we're supposed to cook them! haha So embarrassing but hilarious because we were honestly so excited to eat beef tataki since it would have been my first time and also my dads. Even though the plates of raw beef (along with other food that were on the stove type display) were placed with the food that you just grab yourselves, it was misleading and caused us to think we just ate it as it is. This is actually bad and dangerous because not everyone would know that the food had to be taken by a waiter first and then served to the table. They should at least have a sign up. :P

The one downside to my experience is the fact that the website that they have, gives out wrong contact information. There was a cell phone number that they specifically said was where you text to make your booking so I texted that number. I didn't get any replies to the text so I guessed either that they don't reply to confirm bookings (which is weird) or that they didn't receive it. So I texted them again during the day that we were going (yesterday midday). I didn't receive any reply so I looked on their website to see what their shop's number is so I can directly call to confirm/make a booking. BUT every time we tried calling, it went to a voice message saying that they're busy. We tried at least 5 times as well and at different times! We called about every 30 minutes until we gave up. Even though no one ever confirmed our booking, we still went because we doubted that the restaurant will be fully booked with no spare tables anyways. And if it was full, we would've just went to another restaurant. When we arrived, they said that there was no booking made by us and it took them about 2 minutes to think and decide whether we'd get a table or not. I'm seriously dissapointed in the fact that the number to text to make a booking is incorrect because it is on their website and I'm sure lot's of other people have fallen for this too. But what I'm not sad about is the fact that we tried to call them so many times and they were too busy to pick up the phone even once.

Overall, I would go back to this restaurant but I don't want to be the one booking the table! haha Too much of a hassle.


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! So if you read my blog regularly, you would've read that I went to a restaurant for my birthday dinner. It was a restaurant called Chaits Tapa and Bar. It is an indian restaurant where you can buy the original mains like butter chicken. I have never been to the restaurant before yesterday. I always enjoy trying out new restaurants because why stick to just one when you can experience so many more!

My first thought of the restaurant is that it is quite small with not the largest dining space. It's not like it was too small and we were all crammed together, but there aren't a lot of tables available. The decoration is quite nice because they have fairy lights up. They don't have any special decoration relating to Indian cuisine I think. Well I didn't see any.

Before the food arrived, the waitress came over to our table with a beautiful drink. It was only orange juice, nothing too fancy but it was good. It looked really nice as well.

Taking the first sip

I ordered a Himalayan chicken which includes rice, naan, salad and poppadom.
As you can see from the image above, the salad is very small. There's one poppadom and three or four pieces of naan bread. It allows you to refill the curry but not the rice or other things. Normally restaurants allow people to get more rice instead of getting more meat. This is quite a good deal but it'd be even more amazing if they gave you more rice haha because you can normally eat a lot of the rice because of the sauce.

My meal cost me $18 which is quite expensive considering that some other Indian restaurants around my area does special deals of having a main cost $10 with unlimited rice but not unlimited meat. If this meal costed me a few dollars less, I'll give it more stars because in my opinion, it's a bit overpriced even though it includes naan bread and a poppadom.

I rate Chaits Tapa and Bar a ★★★/★★★★★

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! haha I turned 17 yesterday! Wow, where has my childhood gone? My old innocent little self has now matured. I'm nearly an adult!? Say what! Like honestly, the past few years are just like a major blur. Not that I don't remember anything, but it has just gone so quick! I still remember celebrating my 10th birthday and that didn't seem like that long ago.

So here's how my day went:
I woke up at 7am with a sudden burst of energy. Like I wasn't even sleepy when I first opened my eyes! That has got to be a first haha I pretty much jumped out of bed because I was not tired at all.

From 9-12pm, my mum and I went to our local shopping mall to buy groceries and just see what goodies are on sale. I ended up buying two long sleeve, plain shirts for $8. It was originally $5 each but Jay Jay's always has this special mate rate deal on where if you buy two things, the price would be cheaper than just buying one. The price depends on the item you choose and how much the item originally is. I'm glad I bought the shirts because they're pretty thin so it wouldn't get too hot if I wore it during the Summer time. We also bought a black forest gateau which is delicious! My mum also bought me the game Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts.

Once we got home, it was 12pm and I made mini pizzas using pita bread and having the typical pizza toppings of pepperoni, lots of cheese and sun dried tomatoes. It was so good! I haven't had pizza in ages.After eating, I started playing Banjo-Kazooie but I only had time to play one of the mini games because it was already close to 4pm which meant that I had to start getting ready because my friend would be over at 5pm.

When it was 5.30pm, my friend and I began to walk to the restaurant. The restaurant is only 15 minutes away and it's still bright nowadays due to day light savings. By the time it was 6pm, we were all seated in the restaurant. There was only 5 people (including me) at dinner which was actually really nice because it was easier to just all talk as a group. We placed our orders (I'll talk more about the restaurant in a review which I will post up soon hopefully.) and we were all just goofing around, taking photos, then suddenly the waitress comes to our table holding a fancy looking drink. I didn't even think about anything at all and then she said that it's for the birthday girl! Aww, that was honestly so sweet! haha I wasn't even expecting it. The drink was just orange juice but it had two layers with red at the bottom and orange at the top.

Excited to eat!

7.30pm was around the time when we finished our dinner and walked out. Man, I was freezing! haha it was still bright outside but the sun was setting and it was windy so we were cold. Before heading back home, we all went to this playground that is really close to the restaurant and just swung on the swings haha! I love swings! You can never get sick of swinging on swings and I always get that adrenaline rush when I go really high up! I was so cold because I forgot to bring a stupid cardigan or jacket or something to keep me warm!

After the playground, we went back to mine just pretty much just played some Raving Rabbids, watched quite a few episodes of Gilmore Girls and sleep. hahah I was so exhausted after the day but we stayed up until 5am, watching Gilmore Girls.

That was my whole day yesterday! :)


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! So tonight for dinner, my dad and I went to this local restaurant called Jambalaya. It is in Manly, Auckland. It is an American style restaurant that doesn't have much variation but it was fine because my dad and I was going only for the ribs there because it's known for the nice real american style ribs. I've never been to america so I can't honestly say whether or not it's just like american ribs but they were some pretty delicious ribs! We ordered 6 chicken wings and two sets of 1/2 rack ribs that comes along with coleslaw and fries.

The chicken wings were good I reckon! Like the special sauce they used was a little spicy and it also came along with a little bit of aioli and coleslaw. It was a great starter. It was great because I was starving when I got there haha and it was delivered to us after a few minutes of ordering it.


I looovvveeeddd the sauce that they used for the ribs! It was fruity and just so good! :D And you can't see it in this photo but there are lots of french fries underneath the ribs! And I just love the ketchup hahah it's good. Reminds me of the ketchup at Wendy's because it's got a strong tomato taste.

Most of the photos taken were a little blurry because of the dim lighting in the restaurant. Just look at how big the ribs are! haha I honestly expected maybe half the size? Because we barely ever go out to eat, let alone eat ribs at a restaurant.

We didn't buy anything else because my dad mainly wanted to come to try out the ribs. But if I go there again, I might try another thing just to experience and see what the best thing is. :)

Love,
Elaine

Hi, this blog post will be about a range of stuff, bits and bobs from the past weeks. (I only just remembered about the photos now)
GIANT CAPLICO! It's a biscuit? Fake ice cream? Don't even know how to describe it. It looks like a Cookies and Cream ice cream cone. But it's not actually ice cream, it's got a filling that reminds me of the Cadbury Bubbly chocolate filling and it's got a chocolate cone. It's quite sweet, but I like it. I couldn't stop taking bites out of it. It was good but got a bit sickly after eating it because it's so sweet. Yvonne bought this product from Japan so I'm not sure how much it costs. It wouldn't be that expensive because she ate a few over in Japan.

This is the inside of it, no more brown biscuits :(

 These following photos are of different days, some is even from last year. I don't know what to do with them so why not show them to my 1 follower haha

I got bored on the car ride to Albany. And plus, the wind coming in made my hard fly nicely ;) I used a beauty shot effect so my skin seems whiter and smoother than usual.

Just a camwhore photo. wahh, I want my old hair back :'( I don't literally want the same hair back but I want my hair to look like that now.

This is back in last year when I had my 15th birthday party

I look shocked haha. But I'm not, I just put on a long lasting lip gloss and was waiting for it to dry so it was really sticky and I knew I shouldn't rub my two lips together. This is for a birthday dinner for one of my best friends, Rachel. This is also when I still had long hair. I plaited it to get the wavy effect.

MY SHORT HAIR D': I looked to the side so I could take a selfie because the side of my head isn't that hairy hahah

My hair wrapped in gladwrap because I attempted to permanently straighten my hair at home. (My mum just bought a $50ish product for people to straighten their hair at home) It doesn't straighten hair as well as going to the hair dressers but it might just be my mums technique that's bad (my mum did it for me).

Love,
Elaine

Heyah! This is another of those candy things (similar and same brand to the donut candy). This candy stick is banana flavoured though. Even better? Hell no. This one tastes disgusting! Trust me, I will never buy this product ever again. It’s just a fake ass banana candy and you dip it in chocolate and then sprinkles. The only thing that tastes edible is the chocolate sauce, it tastes like Nutella or anyother chocolate spread. I have no idea what the name of this product is because everything is written in Japanese so I don't know the actual name for this product. I'm not trying to be all negative on this product but I swear, it tastes disgusting. I gotta say, it was fun in the process though. Even though that was only like a minute because all you have to do is pour the chocolate and sprinkles into the plastic tray.

The packet. Look appetizing... right?

From left to right: Toothpick, banana sticks, sprinkles, chocolate sauce. And of course, the plastic tray where you put the sprinkles and chocolate.

The chocolate sauce looks disgusting, I know. aha. The original sprinkles were pale and only bluey purple and pink but Yvonne added in sprinkles that we've got at home (they're the brigh colourful ones).

It's super hard trying to push the toothpick in the banana

Dipping in the chocolate with the sprinkles gone all over the place and mixed in with the chocolate

The finished product looks like that! yum yum in all our tums! NOT! It only takes one bite to regret ever eating it

Question of the week: Would you eat this?

Love,
Elaine

Hey, last night, my sister and I made these candy things! It's those Japanese one (like the brand Kraci) where you get powered substances in the packet and then you add water and mix to create something magical. The packet that we opened was one that tastes like melted fruit bursts (after everything was mixed) I don't recommend buying this for the taste of it, I only recommend you to buy it once in your life and play with it. Because it is quite cool, mixing the powder and water.

The packet

Pour in the powder from green packet (labeled 1) in the circle tray

Pour in powder from the red packet into the same place you poured in the green packet

Pour powder from the orange packet (labeled 4) into the other tray, the one with the companies logo kinda thing

Fill water in the little tray and fill into both sides of the tray

Using the plastic spoon, mix the round tray. Mix it quite a lot so there are no more lumps

Using the plastic spoon, mix the powder and water. (maybe wipe off the pink mixture first...)

The finishing product. You get the spoon and scoop out some pink mixture, then dip in the red mixture.

Question of the week: What's your favourite Kraci product?

Love,
Elaine

Hey everyone, Yvonne and I opened the packet of candy donuts. They are so shit. Like honestly, it's not even cute to look at. These candy donuts are made and sold in Japan. They are made to look like donuts but I failed at it. I advise you to NEVER EVER buy these. No matter how cool you think they are, you will regret it. The candy is so disgusting. Well, it's not that bad but I didn't eat them. It only took me one bite to instantly spit it back out. The candy are kind of like half gum and half toffee. It's not actually gum, but the texture is like gum. Yvonne wanted to buy those Kraci lollies that are cooler, like the sushi one (where you make the caviar and it looks really good!) but she couldn't find them anywhere. I would have much rathered one of those ones than these because you don't even do much to it. Just dip and eat. uck.
Here's our progress:

The packet. The instructions of how to make them are pretty much there

The goodies inside the packet. Plastic tray (that was all squashed), candy (the circle things), white straw, plastic fork, chocolate sauce (in little blue packet) and jam (red packet)

Squeezing all the chocolate sauce out. Looks just a little bit like shit

This is when the straw and fork is useful. You get the straw to poke a hole in the middle of the candy to form a donut shape then use the fork to poke out the little round, extra bit of the candy.

The hole that Yvonne made. Just the slightest bit crooked and not in the actual middle.

Yvonne adding a coat of chocolate on. Mmm, looks good?

The two actual donuts I made

Question of the day: Would you eat these?

Love,
Elaine

Hi lovelies. A few days ago, my science class made sherbet. It's really simple all you need is baking powder (or soda, i forgot), tartaric acid, raro/drink crystals and one other ingredient. just search on google 'homemade sherbet recipe'and I'm sure heaps will come up. I know it looks dodgey because it's in a small clear plastic bag with this white powder stuff in it. but I swear it's not drugs! Just sherbet. But omg, I hate it when the straw clogs up and when you suck really hard, a whole lot of shebet shoots into your mouth. My sherbet lasted me for so long! All through 3rd block (1hr) and lunch (45mins) and even while I was on the bus going home. (10mins?) so a little bit of sherbet lasted me 1hr and 55 mins. haha and it was pretty much non stop eating as well ;)

I'm so nice that I even searched up the sherbet recipe for you.
ingredients:

3 tablespoons citric acid

1 tablespoon baking soda

7 tablespoons icing sugar or 7 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

1. Remember that everything you use for this recipe must be absolutely dry or the sherbet will not work.
2. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl. (you don't really need to sift it)
3. Add citric acid and bicarbonate of soda and mix well.
4. Grind the contents to a fine powder with the back of a spoon.

a big ass chunk of shebet flew into my mouth D:

Question of the day: Have you ever made sherbet before?

Love,
Elaine