ADELAIDE: Betty's Burgers & Concrete Co.

The frequency of my posts has dipped again. But it's not entirely my fault because ever since NBN became active in the city, for some reason my internet has slowed down 10x.

If I'm watching youtube, uploading pictures onto this blog becomes impossible. It took me 3 days to do the post on Sushi Shomasa because the pictures just took 3 DAYS  to upload wtf.

And if I'm browsing instagram ( ya, I have come to the conclusion that next time if people were to ask what my hobby is, I should just say " browse instagram: ), I can't even watch netflix,

IT IS SO BAD.

Nick, who is now in Singapore,  thinks I'm talking nonsense and he's like " nah, it's not the internet problem, it's the modem, you should restart it "

YA WTH, I HAVE BEEN RESTARTING IT EVERYDAY. BUT CANNOT WORK ):

Anyway, decided to wake up earlier than usual during weekend today to run some errands on Rundle, and while I was walking back home at 11.15am, I realised, BETTY'S BURGER IS OPEN! 

I have been walking past Betty's burger for the last 6 weeks and wondering when it's going to be open because I have been having burger cravings for the longest, and the usual burger place I've always gone to since I started living in Adelaide 8 years ago has decided to change it's beef patty to a mixture of kangaroo and beef late last year/early this year, and I really don't like the idea of eating Kangaroo and so yeah, I've only been able to get my burger fix this year overseas ( i.e Shake Shack) x2.

So look, I was actually across the street from Betty's and I was contemplating if I should cross over, and like it's a huge decision for me because I'm super lazy. But because I'm currently doing the activity challenge with Nagendra and seriously, it's damn embarrassing if your step count is like <1000 I was like, okay fine, I shall cross over to have a look. Maybe I'll just have a look since I've been eating too much over this festive season and I'm due for another huge dinner with Amanda tonight. 

I was greeted by this lovely waitress standing in front of the shop and she was like " ARE YOU HUNGRY?! It's free food for friends and family today! Step inside and join us " 

WTF, FREE FOOD?!?!?! Now I really feel like a food blogger getting invited to free tastings :p Damn, I was actually not planning on having lunch today after all the festive eatings. 

Okay look, I'm not some cheapskate who is after cheap/free deals, but if a shop that I have been looking forward to trying and I'm willing to pay for offers me free food, I SHOULD GRAB THAT FREE FOOD. Afterall, I have been in misery for the last 6 weeks because everytime I walked past, they're not open. 

Free food as compensation  :D

I decided to go for the Betty Classic ( Angus beef, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, betty special sauce ), a serve of onion rings, and chocolate peanut butter thickshake.

Wtf, so much for wanting to skip lunch hahahahaha. 

Ohmygoodmess, I LOVED IT. Betty special sauce was amazing. I was initially worried that the onion rings were going to be oil soaked, because visually it appeared a little soggy. But it was so good !

When I started eating, there was probably slightly more than 10 customers in the store, but by the time I finished at 12noon, there was A HUGE LINE waiting to get into the store. Hence moral of the story: The Early Bird catches The Worm.

I have since whatsapped 5 of my closest friends living in the CBD to try this place out. 

No longer needing to travel out of the country for a burger fix, YESSSSSS! 

Betty's burger & Concrete co ( click)

211/215 Rundle street 

Open everyday : 11am - 10pm Mon to Fri, 11am - 11pm on Sat and Sun

ADELAIDE: Nishiki cafe & Izakaya

I've always had a soft spot for anything Nagoya related since I went for my elective at Nagoya University Hospital. The chef of Nishiki, as I read online, was originally from Nagoya and so I thought, if I was craving Japanese food, and feel like eating somewhere not Himeji, I've got to go to somewhere where I can feel less guilty because I feel like I'm betraying Chef Ikeda by not eating at his restaurant because he's always so nice to us. 

This is my second time at Nishiki, I can't remember much of my first experience, except going with Alfred and Victor and just eating everything Yakitori. 

This time Nick and I decided to order a bit of everything and share a cold bottle of Yebisu. 

I've only enjoyed Karage at 2 places in Adelaide, one is here and the other is at Mimasu. 

Love how this karage was so well fried and not soggy and oily at all!

Had the main sashimi.

Grilled squid is a must order! 

Also shown is chicken thigh with spring onions in between, a must order for me at every yakitori joint

The same goes for tebasaki - chicken wings ( left) and tsukene - chicken meat balls

And we finished dinner off with salmon cheeks ( because Nick knows that I love eating fish ) 

Nishiki cafe & Izakaya 

21 sturt street

Open every day 11.30-3pm, 5.30-12am

ADELAIDE: Khla

HELLO AGAIN!

I've been busy again the last few days, hence the lack of updates on both instagram and here. 

Currently doing Upper GI surgery and I seriously love going to theatre. Ward work and paper work and ED referrals... meh, not so much. The last few days has been an administrative craziness for me, and I did not like that at all. 

Nick and I thought that it would be a good idea to have some midweek meat yesterday night so we decided that we were gonna have dinner at Khla with some of our friends! It's our first time there, but we have heard good things from Matt ( who was also present yesterday. See, the fact that he decided to go the second time shows that it must not be too bad. I mean, why would you go to somewhere that seriously sucks again?) 

For a table of 6, we decided to get the Steak Meat Pan which consisted of 1 serve of BBQ ribs, 2x 600g medium rare scotch fillet, 500g wings and 4 sides and sauces $156.

I've always been a fan of just fried wings, without sauce. And these wings were SO TASTY!

Our ribs and steak

The meat for the other table comes altogether, but we separated our wings from the meat because James can't have any gluten in his diet.
I realised yesterday that OMG, I actually do not know what gluten is. Perhaps I'm very suaku ( country pumpkin) but seriously, I grew up in singapore, in a ( I like to call myself a middle class family), went to good schools with children of educated parents, have a fair bit of friends and I've never heard of anybody needing any special diet apart from vegetarian or halal ( and trust me this was rare as well). And then I come to Australia and I suddenly hear about lactose intolerance, celiac disease etc.
WAH, maybe in asia if you have a terrible indigestion and diarrhoea you just blame it on the hygiene of food. And your grandmother will ask you to suck it up and eat more because just like how resilience is built thru adversities, your gut health becomes better after exposure to different bacteria :D

Anyway, James is a huge eater, we ordered another portion of ribs $28 and after that all of us were full and in a happy place.

To be honest, I initially thought that Khla would be just another gimmicky meat place, however IT WAS REALLY GOOD! Everybody loved the ribs ( we ordered in BBQ Hickory flavour), James loved the steak, I loved the chicken wings. I thought the ribs were a little sourish for me, and I prefer to only eat wagyu sorry :p

Oh, for sides,  I highly recommend the mash potato :D
Sauces wise, I enjoyed both the mushroom and the black pepper

Khla ( click for menu and reservations) 
50 Unley Road, Adelaide
Weds - Sunday
5.30-9.30pm

ADELAIDE: Meze Mazi

My Friends know that I'm always up for trying new restaurants and cuisines which are unfamiliar to me. There has been several mistakes i.e Addis Ababa which is an ethiopian restaurant that really just... wasn't something that I would ever eat again.

My friends whom I went thru med school with, Jin and Roger, suggested going for a Greek meal. Yeah why not? I haven't really had greek food before and I guess I probably should start trying them because I do deal with alot of Greek patients and perhaps this could um... start up some... food conversation? haha Like for example the greek patient goes like " Yea... I want to be for full resus ( CPR) because i want to still be able to eat xxxxxxxxx " and perhaps I could relate to that and go " ahhhhh yeah... xxxxxxxxxx is worth being traumatically CPR-ed for" 

We started with a Melitzana dip ( char smoekd eggplant with herbs, roasted capsicum, garlic and extra virgin olive oil) served with grilled pita bread $7

Saganaki kefalograviera $15 (

panfried cheese, YUM!

Char grilled lamb cutlets $31 (left) and Kokinisto ( Slow cooked beef in rich tomato sauce with braised eggplant topped with mizithra cheese and served on pasta) $29

It was actually a really tasty meal! I really enjoyed myself. Told Nick that I will definitely bring him back the next time.
Not too sure if i could ever strike up a greek meal conversation with my patients tho, I mean, how on earth can you expect me to remember names like melitzana, kokinisto etc. I'm just looking at the menu now and there's words like souzoukakiam koukaniko WTF?! :o

Meze Mazi ( click)
86B Prospect Road
Close every Monday

ADELAIDE: The Pot by Emma McCaskill

Don't ask me who Emma McCaskill is, I really do not know who she is because I am really very ignorant but, I heard she has been leading the kitchen of The Pot pretty well.

I remember it was a Friday, I was doing a urology clinic- I was in the middle of waiting for my patient to finish doing a urine specimen and Nick as usual texted me " What's for dinner tonight "

I really like eating out on weekends, and a couple of friends has been asking me to eat at this modern australian restaurant - The Pot. I remember eating here a couple of years back, it was pretty good but I haven't gone back to try since Emma took helm, so yup, a quick phone call and dinner was settled.

Not going to bother introducing the dishes because 1) I can't remember the details of what I ate 2) Their menu is driven around seasonality and what they can find, so it changes pretty often.

Oysters for starters

I'm pretty sure this is kingfish, we always order kingfish ceviche

Emma's signature pork hock with Roti, comes with a side of salad

Nick quite likes this however I thought the pork was quite dry 

I ALWAYS HAVE TO ORDER SOUFFLE whenever it's on the menu 

The pot by Emma McCaskill ( click ) 
160 King William Road, Hyde Park
Close on Monday
Tues - Friday 12 noon till late
Sat - Sunday 10 am till late

ADELAIDE: Louca's Seafood & Grill

I'm gonna work extra hard today because I was just randomly browsing thru my Adelaide's posts and I realised even tho there's 48 places on there, there's actually so many more restaurants I have tried would want to recommend but I haven't posted any of them up yet ?!

SHAME ON ME! And to think I'm currently based in Adelaide. It feels really like I'm based in Japan more than Adelaide hahaha.

So another reason why I'm gonna work hard on my Adelaide post is because yesterday my team went out for dinner, and Nick casually mentioned that I have a food blog. Hahaha, I usually don't go around advertising my food blog because I feel so embarrassed hahahahahha. But maybe I should start telling everybody I meet " Hey, please read my food blog " Successful people are thick skinned right hahahahha.

So my colleague Clare has just moved here from Ireland with her BF and obviously she needs to eat out to maximise her maxxia card. So I'm gonna start clearing my Adelaide backlog as well so that I can as helpful as I can be (:

Our favourite seafood place in the city is Louca's. They used to be on Hutt street but they upgraded to a nicer restaurant just in the middle of Pulteney Street. This restaurant is where Nick and I always bring our families to so that our parents will be happy, because the asian parents like to say " Eat Fish very good, fish is good for brain, food that are good for brain will make you smarter. "


We always start with a dozen fresh oysters $27 and a dozen of kilpatrick $29 and their seafood chowder $18. I think they do a really good chowder.

And we always order 2 platters after - Chargrilled 49pp min 2x and Australian classic 39pp min2x

And we will add a couple of additional fish fillets. Additional fish ranges from $9 - $13 depending on what fish you add, I usually go for the snapper $13 or King George Whiting $13

Remember ah, if you want to be smart and good at what you do, listen to the Asian parents - Eat more fish :D 

Lousa's Seafood and Grill ( click)

We highly recommend you to make a reservation by calling them at 82327692

242 Pulteney Street 

Close every sundays

Mon - Friday 12 -3pm; 6-9pm 

Sat 6-10pm 

ADELAIDE: Shibui Dessert Bar

I've always thought that the dessert scene in Adelaide has been lacking. I remember when I first came to Adelaide, the dessert place to be was aviary. In fact heheheh, my second date with Nick was at Aviary. I remember during our first date ( at Sato restaurant), he told me something along the line of that he was gonna get his driver's license in a week's time and he said he would take me to aviary in his car. And yup, so we went, and we held hands for the first time on the way to aviary as well heheheheh. 

Anyway, Shibui opened for business a couple of months back - the owner used to own devour which was also a dessert place - I think I went once. 

So far I've visited Shibui 4x since their opening in June and my gosh, I'm really impressed, they changed their menu at least 3x already! 

I've never had to eat the same dessert except for the first 2 times I went because I visited just a couple days apart

I'm actually also really impressed that EVERYTIME I walk past or when I drop in for a dessert, it is always crowded. Wah, people in adelaide are quite rich ah? I mean... the desserts here are.. really expensive.

During their opening night, I remember Nick had the golden gaytime, I can't remember what I had. To be honest my first impression was " yeah its good, but too expensive" 

The second time I went with Roger, he wasn't impressed.

The third time I went with Daphne and Victor. i really enjoyed this orange dessert. But I still thought " Too expensive" 

I went again yesterday with Victor, Nick and Alfred

I really enjoyed this matcha lava tart that Nick ordered. Very strong matcha taste and the lava flow was just right.

Alfred and Victor ordered the chocolate donut which was amazing as well 

 I had the strawberry and cream which was also good

But I think we all agree that while Shibui dessert makes really good dessert that taste both good and look pretty, it is really toooo expensive. But would I go back again? Yeah I would. Because I guess, okay this is really gonna sound really arrogant and pompous but I guess... I get paid well enough to afford to eat here perhaps once a month and seeing this pretty desserts really makes me so happy. So yeah, I will come back again and again and again. 

Shibui Dessert Bar

Shop 2/160 Grote Street 

Close every monday and Tuesday 

Sun, Weds, Thurs: 6-10.30pm

Fri and Sat: 6-11.30pm

ADELAIDE: Lantern by Nu

My third post of the day! I'm very hardworking eh, actually no la its because Nick is out playing badminton and so I'm free to use the internet to upload. Otherwise this uploading lags his computer game alot and he gets so moody. He's mood has already been very crap the last few weeks because he sees me being miserable and moppy about my current stressor.

Dinner last night was at Lantern by Nu. This restaurant is one that I have been walking past multiple times, because it's so near Genki Sushi and I eat alot of sushi.
I was totally shocked walking into Lantern because I have NEVER imagined it to be so huge !

There's degustation and ala carte menu available, recently I've realised that Nick and I have been doing ala cartes heaps.... hmmm

We started off with some street eats. Barbequed pork balls $12
Hmmm, I wasn't exactly sure if these balls were just bbq-ed right off some frozen pork balls. They taste strangely similar to ones that my mom cooks for dinner ( and she buys them off the supermarket )

Crispy chicken winglets $12

These winglets were shockingly small, it's as though the chickens were malnourished...

It was tasty tho!

I really like these Thai fishcakes $12

I really enjoyed this dish too - betel leaves with crispy pork belly and son in law quail eggs

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS TOM YUM SOUP ! $14

Grilled chicken in banana flower salad $22

I can't really say much about this dish, it was tasty but it came with peanuts and I'm allergic to peanut so I just ate a little, but that little bit was enough to send me scratching my limbs the whole night. My dinner guests loved this dish tho, I think some of them were voting for it to be their favourite dish!

Kang Kong $14. 

So on the menu they drew 4 chillis on this dish, and we don't really eat spicy food so I asked to cut down on spice. There was zero chilli taste in this at all, which I thought really was such a shame ): I didn't want it 4 chillis but I really wished it had a tinge of spiciness. Nonetheless, it was quite flavourful, I quite enjoyed it

THIS IS THE BEST PAD THAI I'VE HAD IN ADELAIDE $16

Slow cooked beef cheek $34

Very flavourful 

Flounder

I think for Adelaide, this is really a pretty good Thai restaurant. To be honest, I'm not the best at judging thai food because I've never been exposed much to Thai growing up.

Back in Singapore, my family only goes to 1 thai restaurant. And so I grew up only knowing that taste. When I made multiple trips to Bangkok over the last few years, my family also still always went back to the same thai restaurant ( which was recommended by my dad's friend), so we only knew authentic thai by that restaurant's standards. 

Let me know what are your thoughts about this place! 

Lantern by Nu 

Closed every monday and Tuesday

ADELAIDE: Level One Restaurant @ Electra House Hotel

So Nick made me weigh myself yesterday because he said that he has put own x kilos over the last few days. I initially refused, but you know how I am, I am an easily influenced girl, so I relented and weighed myself and IT WAS THE WORST DECISION OF THE DAY ):

I reckon I have put on 1.5kg just in my last 5 days of being off.

I'm actually living a really unhealthy lifestyle ( where meals are concerned) because of work and to be honest, on top of that, I'm having some stressors in my life right now. It's something that I'm really torn apart between. Gah, Dear God, please.. Please free me from this misery soon, it's really consuming me mentally and I'm really so emotionally drained and not in a good place right now.

Anyway, yes I think we really have been eating too much good food over the last few days, this is thanks to Nick's mother being in town.

We brought her to Level one the other day; this asian fusion restaurant is one of our personal favourite, we've only discovered it this year.

They changed the menu again - was disappointed that some of my favourite dishes from previously aren't on it anymore, but also so excited to try new stuff

Definitely have to order the snowed corn ( on the left ) $14

Was a little apprehensive to try the wonton because wth, I make really good wontons, but I was craving wonton so much so we caved and ordered and I'M SO GLAD WE ORDERED IT! I think I still make better wontons but this was so good! It tasted abit like my favourite chao shous. 

Speaking of chao shous, I deeply regret to say that we have to cancel our china trip in Nov, which include going to the city of chao shous chengdu, because... because of my current stressor. 

Dear God, please just let what I'm waiting for appear miraculously tomorrow or in the next few days....

I always order kingfish at any restaurant that serves it because South Australia really has a supply of good kingfish $23. I really enjoyed the white kimchi in this dish.

One shall never eat at this restaurant without ordering their pork katsu sandwich - crumbed pork sanga $21! I feel that this katsu sandwich is even better than the one I tried in kyoto ( which apparently is really popular and has appeared on multiple tv programs and magazines) 

Korean tonghao salad $16 SO GOOD

Another must order dish - salmon aburi on crispy rice $25

Grilled octopus - probably my least favourite dish of the night $23

Dessert was interesting

Cheesecake on the left and carrot sorbet on the right

Happy bellies! If you follow my instagram you would have realised that I posted about Nick being like Benjamin Button - don't you guys agree that Nick is just looking younger and younger every day?

Conversely, I look so haggard and worn out. Sigh. 

This was our third time visiting this restaurant, and below are some pictures of the food we ordered/were on the old menu. 

Pork cheeks ( not on the menu anymore) 

I wish they got rid of the current grilled octopus and bring this octopus pictured below back!!!

Beef ribs + slaw

Beef brisket noodles $25 It's still on the menu. The waitress says this taste a little blend, but I actually really enjoyed this dish 

I have always been so obsessed with their old school phone since day 1 I visited this restaurant.

"RING RING" 

Level One Restaurant @ Electra House Hotel
131/135-139 King William Street
Closed on sundays and mondays
Tues - Sat 5-10pm
Friday 12-3pm, 5-10pm