Yatai Sushi, Wagga Wagga

Dropped off the boy at his hobby club this morning and then I headed off to do some shopping in the mall. The boy needed more winter socks on the account of "Furkid, the socks destroyer"! Whilst at the mall, I decided to try out this new Japanese sushi train place in Sturt Mall, Wagga Wagga. It's called Yatai Sushi. For Wagga residents, this used to be the newsagent shop in the mall.

I was early, there was only a handful of people at the sushi bar.  It got crowded soon after though. I was amazed with the full seating, I didn't think that Wagga people was adventurous enough to try sushi and sashimi. I was thinking that "Zen Teppanyaki" of Baylis Street, used to be empty all the time, and that was why it closed down because there was no market for Japanese foods in Wagga. Boy! Was I wrong! This place got filled up fast and there were people waiting to be seated.

Of course I had to order a bento lunch and try some sushi rolls as well. I am giving the Bento box THE THUMBS UPS because the Teriyaki chicken was delicious, very tasty and my prawns tempura was freshly cooked!

For those that do not care for the sushi train, there are choices of ramen, udon noodles and bento boxes available from the menu. You don't have to sit by the sushi train bar, there are tables and chairs available inside the restaurant.

Yes, I can easily recommend this place for a quick Japanese meal. It is very affordable, my bento box was $16.80 and the sushi plates varies from $3.50 to $5.00. Japanese green tea was $3.50 for a teapot. It's open 7 days a week and I am already a big fan!

More info on Yatai Sushi

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.

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

Chicken Parmagiana

Chicken Schnitzel

Steak Sandwich

Rump Steak with mushroom sauce

Beer Battered Chips

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/



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Qantas, Wag to Syd

To be honest, I have never liked Alan Joyce since he gave himself a pay rise amidst all that Qantas troubles, and so I was surprised that I booked myself on a Qantaslink flight to Sydney. I had sworn that I would never EVER fly them after my very bad experience flying with them in the 90s.



I was not expecting much from this flight. An hour, each way, what can go wrong? I said to myself, "OK, no eye contact and no interaction, just get on the plane and get off." I think I was a little surprise when the cabin crew greeted and smiled genuinely at me when I was boarding the aircraft. It wasn't one of those, yup smile, next, smile, next, smile... kind of smile. Her eyes actually sparkled!



I went to my seat, thinking " Meh, that can't be right.. they are usually grumpy, maybe this girl is from the country, not an uppity city girl at all and she is genuinely warm". Still unconvinced, I told myself, in any case they are QantasLink, so it doesn't count, they are not really the other QF crew.





I was so wrong. On my return trip, I had gone to the wrong terminal. I spoke the "other Qantas" person and she was really friendly, polite and nice. She gave me directions to get to T2. So, a lesson learned here, I had one bad flight in the 90s, I still wouldn't spit on that stupid steward if he was on fire but I am thinking, I am going to give Qantas a chance to win me back. After all, everyone deserves a second chance, right?

Bad, so bad of me for painting them all with the same tar.



Overall, the service was okay. I did enjoy the banana cake and cute little water bottle given.





The flight was smooth, the sky was blue and Sydney was waiting for me. It was a great flight. Although, coming back from Sydney was another story, I had this big-assed lady that practically squashed me to the window screen, she hogged the armrest and coughed all the way without covering her mouth. I had to force myself to go to sleep just to shut her out from my world. True story!!!



The landing was so smooth. I was impressed! Hardly felt a bump. Landed in Sydney on time, yay!

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.



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.







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



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



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





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



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.

Happy Birthday Daz! Lunch @Hoggy's

My darling boy turned 18 on Friday and to celebrate, I suggested going out to lunch on the weekend. So after much discussion, we decided on Hog's Breath. Well, he is kind of a fussy eater and has terms and conditions on his meals. So, I suspect that Hog's Breath will be a good choice. It has curly fries, you can't go wrong with that, right?

It's 10.30 am now, I should make a booking, but instead, I am nursing my coffee and reading their menu online. I haven't dined there since.....oh my God! I can't remember, some time in the nineties? I think my problem with Hog's Breath is that I like my steak freshly cooked, not slow cooked for over 18 hours.

However, I am going to give them another try today. So I made the booking for quarter to 1pm. It was lucky that I did, the place was jammed packed with Saturday shoppers and birthdays gathering and clusters of recruits all over the place. For those wondering, Wagga Wagga is in inland country NSW and we have Army, Air force and even Navy establishment here. So on the weekend, you tend to see a lot of them in town. We also have Charles Sturt University here and so there's plenty of students about as well.

We were running late too, by fifteen minutes and if this was Sydney, our table would be gone. Were running late because the boy wanted to go to his game shop to get some paint and craft stuff for his Warhammer figurines. Thanks Nanna for his birthday cash so he can get more stuff for his hobby.

So we sat down and ordered straight away. The service was attentive and quick. Our waitress was Zoey and she was wonderful. The wait time was not too long even though it was a full restaurant. I started to snap pics with my iphone. Thank goodness I did not bring the dslr. The boy would have died of embarrassment ;) Hahaha

I wished I was not driving, would have loved to try out the Lychee Lover, it has vodka in it and lychee of course. It looks so yummy and refreshing. Must come back. I had two bites of Darren's steak. It was freaking awesome, so much nicer than my meal. The steak was so tender and smokey  from the grill. Just delicious!

I had the baby ribs and steak and it was disappointing. It was served with salad and curly and cajun rice. The steak was cook to perfection, medium rare, but there was no flavour to it. It was the same with the ribs. Very tender and moist but plain. The flavoursome part was the pepper sauce.

"All I got for my birthday is a piggeh!!! Just kidding...Mum got me a 3D NDS in XL"

Wagga Wagga Food and Wine Festival

I woke up this morning feeling very excited about the prospect of spending an afternoon by the Wollundry Lagoon. Today's the day, Wagga Wagga's very own Food and Wine Festival. This was my first time attending. I am also attending because I had wanted to blog about a local event. Wagga Wagga has been in the news recently, due to the major flooding and some of the proceeds from today will go to help the flood victims. 

The Wollundry Rotary Club was very kind to donate two tickets to my lucky food blog readers, they won free ticket to attend. This fundraising event is for a good cause, with most of the proceeds going to Micah House this year. Micah House is a care and support house for people in need whether through homelessness or loneliness. People who come may be in need of a good meal or a shower. The staff also offer pastoral care. The previous years recipients were Riverina Cancer Care, The Willans Hill Special school and Renal Dialysis Unit. So as you can see, it is a really fun event and great to see the Wagga community coming all out to support the fundraising. It started at midday, and will go on until 10pm tonight. When I left at 5pm, people were still coming in and I gave away my tokens. What was left of it anyway, it'll buy someone a beer.

How does this work? Well, an adult ticket is $15 dollars and you get a stubbie holder or a wine glass as you go in. I think there are family passes as well. I think I saw some children with different coloured wristband. And no, they don't get stubbie holders or wine glasses. Once you're in, you can wander off to the Beer and Wine Token stalls to purchase tokens for your alcoholic beverages. I bought five each ;) The food can be bought with real money. For a taste of a wine, it will cost you one token. So with 3 tokens, you can get a full glass of wine or for five beers tokens for a stubbie of beer, some can cost less if in plastic cup, or more pending beer brands. 

I went in search of my favourite Three Chefs Restaurant and had to buy a plate of chocolate spring rolls. The plate of four spring rolls costs me $7.00  Nom Nom Nom! Happiness!!

Wagga Thai House - it costs $5 for two sticks of chicken satay. There were several stalls that had samples for taste testing. I especially like truffle olive oil and spicy dukkah. It was my first time, I have never had truffles, ever! Not even during my flying days. It was so yum! At another stall, I thought that the kranski for $8.50 was a bit expensive, for a sausage in a bun. I didn't get that. It has veal and pork in it. I don't eat pork.

I was too full and had to give the Dutch pancakes a miss, Ladies, it looks so good! I would have exploded if I had tried to eat these Dutch pancakes as well, so much food, so little time. I had bought some Lebanese food from Nabiha's Kitchen and some chicken pastry stuff from Mario's Pastizzi. I love flaky pastries! Yes, I ate more than I drank ;) which is a good thing. 

As you can see, quite a lot of people at three in the afternoon, hanging out with family and friends, just enjoying the food, wine and listening to music. Isn't it nice when the vineyards comes to you? Love love the wines ever so much. The Australian Army Band from Blamey Barracks, Kapooka was there to provide some entertainment.

If you are interested in volunteering or being a sponsor or a stall holder for next year,
please visit http://www.waggafoodandwinefestival.com.au/ for more info.