Nothing like a generic blog post to get a mass message out there – here’s to wishing you all a big fat juicy, tasty & scrumptious Christmas!! Let’s eat.

“Your foodswings post rate has taken a nosedive” – alleycow.

So here’s a quicky while I get my thoughts and photos sorted for proper posts…and to give my other foodswingers ‘time’ to also collect their thoughts and join in…one day. Hmm, it’s lonely here eh?

My recent travels have taken me to Perth, Australia. As a result, I’m living it up with great wine, great seafood and no dinner on Sundays because nothing is open. My last weekend was spent lazing at the Cottesloe beach with special guest ‘Ninja Baz’ where we got some fish n chips wrapped in butcher’s paper.

While I love all those expensive restaurants on the waterfront, sometimes, you just can’t go past that pretty parcel of greasy goodness.

I don’t normally eat breakfast simply because it impinges on my sleep time. In fact, to save time every morning, I generally don’t brush my hair or put make up on either and tend to grunt instead of saying good morning.

I have improved though – as a kid, I used to sleep in my school uniform so that I wouldn’t have to wake up and get changed (I still think it’s a brilliant idea).

Just because I don’t eat breakfast, doesn’t mean I don’t like it though. In particular, I had a pretty damn good one today at Cafe Vamp (and I even got to see the judge of ‘Thank God You’re Here‘ which is probably one of the biggest celebrity encounter I’ve ever had).

Atlantic Breakfast – smoked salmon, poached eggs, buttered spinach on toast.

Pan-fried Mushies – grilled haloumi and lemon, mushrooms scrambled eggs & rocket.

Quick rating – 8/10. Great size, variety, quality and service. Go get yourself some!

…I had a Snickers w/ THE LOT and it was bloody amazing.

Even though there is 15.2g of fat in the 50g bar, I prefer to think of it as being 70% fat free.

It completely cured my 3.30-itis and is a must try if you’re a chocolate lover! See Jim’s Chocolate Mission for a more in-depth and scientific review with graphs and shit.

So back when FoodSwings started, the crew ate pho together pretty much every week at Pho Dzung during lunchtimes. The Pho-Off started with us talking about where we would normally go eat pho if we were away from the city. Given that KTang, JenHo and myself were moving offices, we thought we would go back to Pho Dzung one last time.

What did we eat?

KTang, JenHo, Rayzha, WiFi & special guest Jaymie (watch out – she kicks!): What else? The staple…Pho Tai Nam! See KTang’s translation in round 1

What I liked:

1. They actually serve large bowls…and there isn’t any need to order a 2nd bowl. You can just finish JenHo’s leftovers…

What I didn’t like:

1. The soup flavour can range from weak to pretty weak compared to the other Pho restaurants Foodswings has visited.
2. A slice of beef squeaked while I was chewing it…

Top Tip:
If you can go somewhere else for Pho do so. If you can’t leave the city for whatever reason, this is probably the best place to go.

Rating:
6/10 We keep going back…so by default it gets at least a PASS score

I got this latte from Degraves Espresso on Degraves street.

Although I was pleasantly surprised by their latte art, I wasn’t so pleased I had to drink the caffeinated version (they ran out of decaf).

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that skinny decaf is arguably the best drink to make you look like you’ve made the effort to grab a coffee. I think I’ll get a ristretto skinny decaf next time, which should really be called ‘Diet Coffee’…

This cheesecake was given to me by my good friend Sam. It’s from Laurent, a french bakery chain. As cheesecake isn’t really part of my diet I only ate the fruit off the top which seemed like a real waste.

The solution: bring it into work.

So all I can tell you about this cheesecake was that the fruit was very fresh and it was beautifully presented. Perhaps one of you sweettooths would be kind enough to elaborate …

- RayZha

…the cheesecake part….

in the words of Fergie-Ferg: D to the E to the L-I-C-I-O-U-S.  The cheesecake was thinner than a lot of others so you don’t get sick of the filling too quickly and it means that there is a better ratio between the biscuit base and the filling. The filling doesn’t taste too rich and cheesy either which is just the way I like it.

I would recommend eating it with the fruit though. RayZha was kind enough to leave us some of the fruit so we could assess the whole berry-cheesecake package which was much better than having either in isolation. But just cheesecake is good too – beggers can’t be choosers.

Disclaimer: this cheesecake may have tasted better to me because it was free.

- KTang

In several locations throughout Victoria and NSW

Safcol Thai Green Curry has to be my favourite canned tuna product of all time. Not only does it contain 15g of protein per hit, but I genuinely reckon it tastes like thai green curry. The curry is relatively hot compared to other brands and provides some mild tongue tingling.

I stock up whenever they’re on special. I think the best deal I saw was at Coles (10 cans for $8). The cans in picture where purchased from QV Safeway at $1 per can (save $0.69!).

However, remember not to get too excited with the stuff otherwise you might get mercury poisoning.

I’ve been eating a fair amount of asparagus lately as I’ve gotten tired of green beans. They’re really fast to prepare and taste pretty good just boiled with a bit of salt, pepper and light soy sauce.

Speaking of taste, I was very surprised to hear that ktang actually prefers eating the stems rather the leaves! Perhaps Safeway should consider selling asparagus halves? Sounds very win-win. Pictured below is my carefully constructed prototype.

After spending a couple of weeks recuperating from our adventure to Footscary (round 1)…I mean Footscray, we FoodSwingers gathered our courage, knee pads and gas masks to venture even further west to St Albans in our never relenting quest to find the ultimate bowl of pho that will change the world and stimulate the economy out of global recession.

This time, Snalbans greeted us with Pho Kim Long which if my Chinese/Vietnemese serves me correctly, should roughly translate to ‘Total Pho Awesomness of the Golden Dragon to make you into a real man’.

So what did we eat?

• KTang, RayZha, WiFi & Guest Starring Melissa-chan (JoHo stand in) and Paulo-dono: Pho Tai Nam which again roughly translates to ‘Total awesomness of the rare beef sliced by the claws of the Golden Dragon’.
• JenHo: Pho Dac Biet – see my translation in round 1.

What I liked:

There are a few things about this place worth mentioning:

1. This is my first time going to a pho place that didn’t have Chinese branded electronic equipment. Their TV’s were PANASONIC! But wait, they were NEW VIERA WALL MOUNTED PLASMAS. And yes, I checked the spelling and it really was Panasonic and not Wankasonic.
2. They had their menu displayed in 3 languages – Vietnamese, Chinese & English – and the English menu was decently translated…and they were even the same price! Simply amazing.
3. I swear their large size pho came in what used to be a bucket with just the handle removed.

What I didn’t liked:

Their real-branded TVs were playing Dreamworks animated kids movies.

I think Vietnamese cable TV showing outdated stars on stage doing what looks like Viet SingStar of the 60’s adds to the atmosphere of a pho place. I’m sure it would also help with their churn rate so that they get more customers in and out at record time.

Top Tip:

Loosen your belt and get two bowls.

Rating: 8.5/10 = Phogalicious definition, make them boys go loco. They want my treasure, so they get their pleasures from my photo.