Sunday Breakfast

Sunday Breakfast
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

We took the kids biking around the neighborhood this morning. They're still on their training wheels and they're still getting the hang of turning corners and driving on bumpy roads. After a few rounds around the park, we stopped for coffee and breakfast at the local café. The girl and I shared a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast while the boy and my wife shared a ham and cheese croissant.

The boy just loves ham and would actually eat the ham in a ham and cheese sandwich first before eating the bread. The girl, on the other hand, absolutely adores bacon. When we cook bacon at home, she would do a "Homer-esque" thing. She'd sniff the air and she would go, "Hmmm.... baacooon" which is kind of cute. She's even remarked one day that she loves the smell of frying bacon. A girl after my own heart. :)

Weekend Painting

We decided to do some painting again this weekend. Last time we decided on a light blue colour for our living room walls. For a contrast, the wife chose a soft tan colour for some of the other walls that would go well with the blue. Of course, we had to give the kids something to do so I supervised as they help paint a portion of the wall. We figured, if they do the first coat we can have the second coat to, ah, "improve" on what they put on the first time.

At any rate, I guess because we had some experience doing the first few walls from before, we actually finished the painting quite quickly and with much less paint, which was a bit of surprise. Now we're just waiting for the paint to dry out but we're already wondering what to do with the extra paint we have left over.

2008 Festivals On Again

It's Festival season in Adelaide these next couple of months. The Clipsal 500, Adelaide Festival of the Arts, The Fringe Festival and WomAdelaide are going to keep the city busy for a while. The last time the Festivals rolled into town we took advantage of the free family activities. We're planning to do the same this time around and enjoy some of what the Festival has to offer. Based on what's advertised, it sounds quite exiting and we hope we get to enjoy even a small portion of it.

Homemade Chicken Teriyaki

Homemade Chicken Teriyaki
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

This was another quick recipe. Just marinated some chicken thighs in mirin, sake ( or rice wine) , sugar and soy sauce overnight. Then, taking the chicken out of the marinade, I quickly pan fried them for a few minutes on each side until browned and cooked. In the meantime, I boiled the marinade until it became a bit thick and poured it over the chicken. Served with white rice, it's a good weekend meal

Jumping!

Love taking pictures of them in their jumping poses. Took these at Tusmore park and I like the expressions on their faces. Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day everyone! :)

Tusmore Park

We didn't have anything planned last weekend so on a spur of the moment, we set off and visited Tusmore park. We've heard good things about the park through the Kidding About website so we packed some water and a small snack and set off for the park.

The park itself was in the middle of one of Adelaide's better suburbs so it was no surprise that the park itself was very pretty. It wasn't a very large park but it had lots of trees, a playground, open space and barbecue areas. The main attaction, however, had to be the large covered wading pool. It was early afternoon when we arrived and the park was filled with picnic-goers enjoying the day and kids getting wet on the wading pool.

Our kids made a beeline for the wading pool and jumped in enjoying the cool water. Before they could get completly wet, We had to drag them out so we could at least walk around the park and explore a little bit. The playground had a mini-spiderweb climbing frame that the kids were a bit interested in but not much else. I guess with the wading pool around, the playground really wasn't the more popular destination for the kids at the park.

After a quick play, we sat down under the trees and had our little picnic. It didn't take long for the kids to quickly finish and we headed back to the wading pool again. This time around, they got themselve well and truly wet and in hindsight we should have brought their swim suits with them. Maybe next time...

Cheese Pimiento Sandwiches

This is a typical merienda for many Pinoy school kids. Admittedly, I've always had the store bought kind but this home made version is not too bad, better even. It's a simple recipe, blend together equal parts butter and cheddar cheese. Then, add to the mix, boiled, skinned and chopped red capsicum ( red bell pepper ) and sugar to taste. The taste brings me back to childhood days and afternoon snacks at home after school. The kids don't seem to like it too much though. That's ok, more for me then...

Miss Saigon in Adelaide

The first time I heard about this musical was in the early 90s when Lea Salonga became the first to take on the lead female role in the West End production. I distinctly remember listening to the CD of this musical, with a lyric book in hand. And by the end of it all, I was actually crying! I remember there was a sad ending, but the details were quite hazy. So I guess it must have been the part when Kim and Chris were separated. One thing for sure, I considered the 'Sun and Moon' song as my favourite in the whole musical.

Since then the musical has reached the US, parts of Asia (including Manila in 2000), and now its in Australia. When hubby found out, he got us matinée tickets so that we could watch it while the kids were in school. Kinda like an early Valentine's date. We have never watched a musical together so we were really looking forward to this 'date'.

Finally, the day arrived and we saw the show. We got really good seats in the middle of the theatre. We noticed though that the crowd was made up mostly of elderly people. This could have been the normal matinée crowd here. Still the place was packed, hardly any seats were left vacant.

Since it was the matinée show, we did not expect any of the lead actors to be there. But to our surprise we later found out that it was our very own Leo Valdez playing the Engineer and boy did he carry the show! Some songs were better than others. I expected to be carried away with the 'Sun and Moon' duet, but was a bit disappointed in the delivery. Somehow I wasn't drawn into the emotion of the song. But there was another song that did .... the song about Kim for her child that she would die for him, that made me cry bucketloads! Why did I not bring tissues this time?! This time around I could relate more to the maternal theme of the story instead of the romantic angle. By the time the show ended and the lights came on, lots of other people in the audience had tissues in hand (including hubby, hehehe). Ha! ... I was not alone.

Australia 3 - Qatar 0

And the first qualifying game for the 2010 Football World Cup is done and dusted. Australia won a convincing 3-nil victory against Qatar in their first match. Yippee!

Goals were scored by Tim Cahill, Mark Bresciano and Josh Kennedy. By all accounts it was an exciting first half. Unfortunately, we don't have cable so I had to follow the whole thing on the internet. Nevertheless, it was a good start and hope it's something the Socceroos can build on.

Zapata's of Adelaide

We've been wanting to try out Adelaide's oldest Mexican restaurant for some time now. Zapata's touts itself as serving authentic Mexican food. When we first came in, the first thing I noticed was how interesting the decor was. I guess I appreciated the fact that this Mexican restaurant wasn't just one of a chain of restaurants and therefore was unique and stood out on its own.

It had a family friendly atmosphere and there quite a few families with kids having dinner at the time. Our own kids weren't too bored waiting for the food because it did come relatively quick. We ordered some prawn taquitos to start with. The deep fried, prawn filled tortilla roll was good but what was better was salsa and guacamole that came with it. Fresh is always better than the store bought stuff.

The kids had baby nachos and a beef tortilla roll. The girl loved the roll and ate it all up but the boy unfortunately just picked at his baby nachos at first. I guess it was too hot to eat but as it cooled down the cheese got hard and sort of was harder to eat for him.

The wife and I shared the beef and chicken fajitas which were excellent. I liked the presentation of the sizzling fajitas and the fresh toppings that came with it. The sauce was especially nice. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough tortillas that came with the order so I had to order a little more to finish off the meal.

With a family friendly ambiance and wide and varied menu, Zapata's is defintely a place we'd like to visit again.

Pork Barbecue and Fried Chicken

Being it was the Australia day long weekend last weekend, we couldn't help but celebrate with a little barbecue at home. What other way to celebrate Australia's multiculturalism than to have a Pinoy style pork barbecue and java rice! :)

We found this simple recipe to marinate pork. Just soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, garlic and Sprite. After an overnight soaking in the marinade, I fired up the barbie and the results were almost as good as the pork BBQ we have back in the Philippines.

As for the fried chicken, we actually brought back some store bought fried chicken mixes from our last trip back. I actually tried it for the first time the other day and it wasn't too bad. The chicken actually almost tasted like Jollibee Chicken Joy. Couple that with the instant gravy it was again another taste of home. The kids liked it as well and eagerly ate up the chicken with gravy and rice.


Now, if only I can find more of these in Adelaide.