China Times Review | Dubai, UAE

My dad is an avid lover of Chinese cuisine and so he took me to try China Times in Deira City Centre. I had an absolute lovely time with my family here, the place was very empty so we had tip toe service for everything. The place was certainly very modern and chic. It's called China Times but it serves Japanese cuisine as well with a sushi train inside.

We ordered a large variety of food since we were seven people. For starters, my sister and I shared chicken corn soup (22dhs). This is, without fail the thing that we just MUST order if we go to a Chinese restaurant. However, when I first tried the soup it tasted so plain! There was so many chunks of chicken and I think the corn flour that was not mixed properly and was just downright not pleasant.

The rest of the food came at the same time, their service was super fast (probably because we were the only table being cooked for) and the china time dim sum basket we ordered (55dhs) came with three sauces.

 The hamour fish with mandarin and xo sauce (58dhs) tasted very peculiar, nothing that I was used to and it didn't exactly tickle my taste buds. I probably took a bite and couldn't bring myself to swallow another. 

So, this is sizzling tofu with vegetables. I guess I'm so used to the sizzling tofu they serve in Asian restaurants in Perth that I was disappointed when I saw this on the table. Taste-wise it was not that bad, but not that good either. It was quite bland, the only thing I could taste was pepper. Lots and lots of pepper.

As for the chicken noodles (38dhs) and mixed sushi, I was too full when I reached this dish so I didn't get to try it to make any comments. It looks great though, and nobody complained so I'm assuming it tastes decent.

This was the main star at the table for me. It was the first time I tried fried eggplant (33dhs) and the honey chilli sauce that went with it, nailed it. I thought this tasted amazing but my mother thought it tasted normal. I have no other eggplant-y dish to compare it to, but it's yum.

 All in all, the dishes were mediocre but I probably would just come again to have the eggplant with rice.

♥ Jess

Location: Level 2, Deira City Centre opp. Cinnabon
Opening hours: 11am-12am daily
Phone: 04 2952515

Von's chicken | East Victoria Park, Perth

This restaurant is almost purely just a restaurant that sells chicken and well, rice. There are a small selection of salad but I wouldn’t advise to actually get any.

I wasn’t sure what to get so I asked the cashier to recommend us the best selling dish which was apparently their fried chicken gold wings ($13.95).

It was quite okay? I think that it might have been like a classier sweeter version of KFC but it wasn’t anything special.

The portions weren't too big so we got some roast barbeque chicken ($13.95) as well in mild. This was much more appealing to my taste buds rather than the fried chicken. It was a tad spicy for mild so I can imagine the hot or extra hot one to burn your tongue a bit.

They supplied us with gloves and a bin which is very clever because we can eat with our hands without worrying how messy it will turn out to be.

The food was so-so I had the roast barbeque chicken first and it had such a strong flavor that when I went onto the fried chicken… well I couldn’t taste it that well.

Service was quite fast but the staff didn’t seem to be too friendly. I had to ask for tap water twice before actually getting some and it was troublesome since they only gave a single cup with no jug and every time I would like a refill I would have to try to get the waitress’ attention all over again.

Overall, I would probably not visit here again as it is quite expensive for chicken. For about $30 we got to have 10 small pieces of chicken (8 wings and 2 legs) and one serving of rice. The chicken they sell here is totally overrated.

♥ Jess

Manic Panic Amplified Review

So I have had red hair for about 2 years now and have had my whole head red since July and let me tell you, up keeping it in the saloon is NOT cheap. I have touched up in a saloon once for $160 and cried over all the food I didn't get to eat that week. I usually dye my hair with Schwarzkopf Live or Brite Organix hair dye but my friend recommended me to try manic panic, and so I did. I purchased it in wild fire and the amplified one, because why not. Oh, I bought it from price attack for $26 but you can get it for waaaay cheaper online.

So a little bit about the dye:

- It is vegan and does not test on animals.

- Glows under black light (not that I'd ever test it haha).

- Does not have the chemical-ish smell.

- Stains some materials PERMANENTLY (Like my poor white hairpin R.I.P).

- To be used for 30 minutes.

So my hair is originally bleached, and like most bright hair dyes, this one doesn't show on black hair. Before dyeing it my hair was of an orange tone.

According to the instructions, you are supposed to apply on freshly washed dried hair but it was 12 am and I just ceebs to hop in the shower.

I used the whole bottle and cling wrapped my head. It says to leave on for 30 minutes but since I want a very bright colour I decided to sleep with my hair dye (so had it on for a total of 9 hours). I also used a hair dryer to heat up my cling wrapped head so that I could increase the intensity of the colour. 

Make sure you clear away an area because I got dye over some of my things and well, the dye didn't come off everything.

I showered with icy cold water and did not shampoo my hair. Once I hair dried my hair it was SO unbelievably soft and the colour was AMAZING. It was super bright red! I think I found my new favourite brand.

This is a before and after of my hair. Excuse the bad lighting of the first one, it was midnight. As you can see it became a lovely colour and I'm super duper satisfied with it.

OH something that's important to note: When I washed my hair afterwards the hair dye STAINED my hands like crazy. It doesn't matter since I'm only going to uni today but if you're going anywhere you might want to wash your hair with some gloves.

♥ Jess

Oven-baked Sweet Potato wedges recipe

So it's exam week right now and I'm feeling like a roller coaster full of emotions. During exams, I usually gain a good 2-3 kgs in two weeks because I like to snack while I stress study. This semester I'm trying to maintain my weight by opting for healthier versions of things I like to snack on.

Hope you enjoy these just as much as I did!

Ingredients:

• 2 large sweet potato 
• 2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon ground paprika
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon sea-salt (or more depending on your preference)

I only used 1 potato since I found this massive baby in IGA, Match stick for scale.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and cut up the sweet potato into wedge-like shapes and dump them in a large mixing bowl.

2. Add the olive oil, salt, ground paprika and garlic powder.

3. Mix it up well.

4. Spread them out nicely then chuck it in the oven for 40 minutes, make sure to flip them after 20 minutes.

Taadaa~ you've got yourself a lovely snack throughout the day. I usually like to have it with garlic aioli sauce but it tastes amazing plain too. How easy was this to make? 

♥ Jess

Christmas tree lighting in Perth

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas here in Perth! Treesha and I went to Forest chase last Friday to watch the mayor light up the city. We were twinning to the event in our cute denims.

We came an hour after the event actually started so the place was CROWDED. We somehow managed to make our way to the front and watched the last 20 minutes of the Christmas show.

Treesha and I also managed to see Santa and probably were more excited then the kids there. So apparently there was more than 100,00+ lights and décor that were around the city. I was too excited so unfortunately I did not get a snap of when they actually switched the lights on. The city was lit beautifully, there was confetti everywhere and buildings were all Christmas-y.

Isn't it GORGEOUS? It really reminds me of Elsa from frozen.

This is the tree they lit up, it's quite a small tree (comparing to the ones in Dubai) but it's 13 metres tall and is supposedly the largest Christmas tree in Perth.

Speaking of Christmas holidays, since I'm going back to Dubai this break my wonderful boyfriend bought me an early birthday present from kikki.k.

He spoilt me with a planner, some pens and a matching pencil case. ♥♥♥
Hope everyone is enjoying the season~

♥ Jess

Mediterranean Shakshuka Recipe

I lived in the middle east my whole life before moving to Perth and I can't believe I never heard of this dish! I first tried it in Rabbit in the moon in Fremantle and it was SO delicious that I had it again in Typika in Claremont. Their portions were tiny for the price I paid (about $16 a tiny plate) so Treesha and I decided to whip up our own Shakshuka!

Ingredients:

• 1 Red bell pepper
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 4 medium tomatoes
• 1 red chili
• 4 eggs
• Feta cheese
• 1 Chorizo sausage
• Cilantro
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Chop up the bell pepper, chorizo, onion, garlic, feta, tomatoes and cilantro.
   
    
   
   
   
2. Cook the bell pepper and onion together on low-medium heat for about 15-20 minutes until it is really soft, make sure to stir regularly so it does not burn.
   
3. Add in the garlic and the herbs and stir for another minute.
   
4. Add in the tomatoes and salt and pepper in. Simmer it for another 8-10 minutes until the sauce thickens up and then add the chorizo and chilli.
   
5. Make 4 dents in the thickened sauce to crack the 4 eggs in. After you put the eggs on sprinkle some feta cheese on top.
   
6. Cover the pan and let the egg whites cook. Once it is done, sprinkle some cilantro and you're done!
   

Hope you enjoy your shakshuka, it goes well with toast for brekkie. (:

 ♥ Jess

It's time to bake!

So I just finished my last day of the semester and man was I glad that's over! Treesha and I decided to bake some goodies for the people who helped us through the hectic semester and allowed us to pass our assessments.

We decided to have a bake session to make tiramisu, rainbow cupcakes and cookies for everyone. Of course we could not have started the day before having brunch and coffee.

Our mocha and matcha latte from 1982 expresso in Subiaco. J

Trying to tackle the triple choc milkshake from Babooskha in city (we failed horribly and end up leaving more than half of it). Treesha also took me to the Sikh temple in Canning Vale so I had a reason to dress up all Indian.

They gave this cool warm blob in the end of the service which I think is like the Holy Communion for Christians? Might be wrong.

I could not find my favourite tiramisu recipe so I kind of just looked at a few and mismatched the ingredients to my liking. Also, I don't like using coffee liqueur so I dumped in some rum instead. 

THESE COOKIES ARE REALLY GOOD GUYS. You know the M&M cookies you can get from Coles? Yeah, they taste like that. Click for recipe here.

 We used this recipe to make messy looking rainbow cupcakes. These were not so sweet but looked so pretty with each bite.

We spent literally the entire day baking and making these bad boys look pretty. Very happy with how they turned out and I hope everyone we give it to will feel our appreciation.

Have a happy Sunday!

♥ Jess