Snarkychef’s Neighborhood

Long time no post (yet again), eek.

I've been playing Lost Odyssey non-stop lately... at the rate I'm going I'll probably be finished in another week. :P I'm enjoying it immensely though!

I'm an occasional Gourmet Traveller reader. I say "occasional" because it's definitely not aimed at me and I tend to read it for the pictures more than anything else. A random selection of its content would include Rolex ads, Tetsuya Wakuda selling you space-age cooktops, monthly recommendations for random spas in far-flung countries, reviews of extremely fancy restaurants (okay, so that part speaks to me) and amazing recipes that take me at least two hours when I do decide to tackle them.

It was nice to see them release a "fast food" issue in February, though I'm sure that was absolute blasphemy for their regular readership! We made this delicious tart in just twenty minutes and ate it all in another ten, and I'm not even a big fan of onions.

One of the downsides of moving out on your own means you just don't eat your parents' cooking as often. I went to the Grand Phillipine Fiesta last weekend specifically to eat, but I had to leave early because I had to be at a convention. Sure, I ate heaps, but it wasn't enough! I tasted barbecue pork on skewers in my daydreams for the entire week, and by Friday I knew I had to make pork adobo or else.

Pork adobo is... where to start? It's not the national dish of the Philippines, but it's certainly a flagship dish. Because the cooking base is vinegar, it's hard to describe the taste or compare it to any other dish. But mention pork adobo to anyone who's had it and they'll melt into a puddle before you. It's the ultimate year-round comfort food. It's also fairly cheap, easy to prepare and can be left largely unattended while cooking, which are three pluses for almost anyone!

I discovered the Pinoy Cook blog a while ago and although I've used the odd recipe or two, it hasn't been regular reading (until now). I gave the pork and mushrooms adobo recipe a whirl this time, and while my dark soy sauce must have been darker than most, it tasted absolutely wonderful. The best part is that we have leftovers, and they'll taste even better tomorrow night.

Hey, long time no post!

Three (ha) guesses what I'm playing now... I never imagined there would be a third Persona game, so the fact that one came out and I am playing it in English is both surreal and really really cool. Expect a lot more fanart of this series!

I've just started playing Enchanted Arms on the Xbox 360 and I'm fairly hooked. It's a pretty standard JRPG but I'm having fun!

The fandom for this game is nonexistent, as is the official art... so I paused the game today to draw up some reference pics of the school uniforms.

It seriously started out as fanart but I have no idea what happened. ...I blame Depeche Mode for this!!

You can't really tell, but I bought one of those Wacom 6D Art Pens last week. Loving it so far, but I suspect I'll love it more once I figure out how to create more brushes that work with it.

I've only been here a couple of times, but The Buddha Belly is a cosy Asian fusion restaurant in Sydney's northern beaches area. Pictured in this dodgy phonecam photo is the slow cooked Atlantic salmon stuffed with lychees, wrapped in seaweed and served with a side of (herbed and saucy) green tea noodles. Everyone else at the table ordered the twice-cooked duck or the steak and assumed I was just eating this for the sake of being healthy, but no way. Lychees. In salmon. ME SO THERE.

Mains are very much on the pricey side for lunch but at least they're unique... apparently the restaurant's got a great reputation for breakfast, which I may have to make the trek for one day!

I end up staring at this logo on the back of a snack truck most mornings on my way to work... and I think it's adorable and worth waving at whoever's reading! It's cute, clean and makes you want to eat whatever is in the damn truck.

Amazingly I have been asked how to contact Munch because of this blog entry. You might want to try visiting their website.

We were served these at yum cha yesterday and they're more than appropriate for the Year of the Pig! They were absolutely delicious too.

As a bonus, I ended up drawing a plate of them into my daily fanart post on Fanart-A-Day, a new LJ community I'm a member of.

Hotel Dusk was such a good game I played it nonstop for a week. I really liked the last couple of games from this team (Glass Rose and Another Code), but I liked this one even more!

Still trying to experiment with oils in Painter... I need to paint from reference more.