The Terrace Thai, Pyrmont

I get cravings for Thai food and currently my favourite place to eat is Terrace Thai in Pyrmont. Terrace Thai has reasonably consistent customer service and well priced lunch meals. Dishes have good portion sizes and the décor if you dine in is quite pretty.  It’s definitely worth trying if you are in the Pyrmont area, though I would probably recommend going here for lunch over dinner as the prices go up at night, but the portion sizes stay the same – so no real extra bang for your buck. It’s newly opened since mid 2010, and I’ve probably come back here six times for either lunch, dinner or take away. The wait staff are nice and usually quick to serve you, though it does hit peak traffic around 1pm for lunch and will often be a full house and very difficult to find a seat (especially on Fridays).

Mix your own Pad Thai flavour

I love the chicken Pad Thai they do – it’s not too sweet or bland and a good portion size (lunch time in-house), which comes with sugar, chilli flakes and peanuts on the side so you can customise the meal to your taste. It is probably one of the better Pad Thai’s I have had and when it’s good it’s sublime, though I have found it can sometimes be inconsistent. Another well done dish is the Thai Beef salad, which is a real treat – very tasty and highly recommended. We have ordered take away for dinner once, and the papaya salad was an interesting choice with soft shell crab and worth a try. The curries have a good flavour, and satay skewers are also reasonably priced and tasty.

Lunch time portion of Thai Beef Salad

Meals range from $6 – $15 for the lunch menu and between $7 – $30 for the dinner menu.

They have free delivery for take away provided you’re in the general vicinity and order a minimum of $20 (or there is a surcharge). Service is prompt and you get the food in a nice brown paper bag. Noodles come in the cool paper Asian takeaway boxes so you can eat out just like they do in American television shows (this was a big plus for Ant).

They have a comprehensive well designed website with all the menus available on there in PDF, as well as, online ordering and reservations! I love when restaurants have an online presence, it makes it so much easier to scope the place out and make bookings – especially since you don’t have to wait on phones or wait until opening hours to call.

While the restaurant has a beautiful set up, the sound can be quite loud when busy and the background music can be a little loud. If you’re seated along the lounge wall it is probably best to acquire some pillows to prop yourself up as well as there is quite a height discrepancy between you and the table even for those not generally height challenged. On the plus side, it means you’re closer to the food and so less likely to splatter yourself with any tricky or saucy dishes.

In summary

Price – 4/5 (for lunch), 3/5 (dinner)
Ambience – 4/5
Portion sizes – 3/5
Customer service – 3.5/5

The Terrace Thai

G03/55 Miller Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009
Tel: (02) 9518-9588
Fax: (02) 9518-9885

Trading Hours Lunch: Monday-Sunday 11.30am – 3pm
Dinner: Monday-Sunday 5pm – 10pm

Advertisement

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole

The short version:

Amazing art, inspiring storyline, Australian actors, Sydney based animation studio, talking animals… what’s not to like?  5/5

The long version:

Owl and I went to watch Legend of the Guardians at the Moonlight Cinemas. It was my choice because I love watching cartoons but this one really popped out at me when I first saw the trailer. To be honest I had no idea what the plot was as I was intrigued more by the appealing art and the graphics of the movie. Oh yeah, I also really like talking animals  😛

The movie was shown in 3D at the Moonlight Cinemas. Immediately I was amazed at how far 3D rendering had come. I remember watching 15-30min snippets in movies like Harry Potter and Beowulf at the IMAX theatre. It was the only cinema showing 3D at that time and they would show most of the movie in 2D then tell you to put on your 3D glasses for particularly exciting sections of the film. To be honest, it wasn’t really impressive. It was blurry and unrealistic. I understand that it’s because the movies were shot for 2D film and then modified post-production; but you have to understand, nobody cares. We just want good quality films; we don’t care how you do it. To top it off, Ga’hoole is an animation so already you can begin to appreciate the amount of work put into it.

I have to say, the art in the movie is absolutely amazing! The detail is meticulous, the characters lovable and the overall look very consistent and aesthetic. It was difficult to appreciate fully how beautiful the art was in 3D hence my pining to buy the Blu-ray to so I can watch it in 2D as well (thinking of getting this set from JB Hi-Fi when the price drops a little. It’s AUD$40 now).

I was also pleasantly surprised at how good the storyline was. Most people would say it was cliché with the whole good vs. evil thing but I think we need more movies these days which laud the principles of honour, chivalry, sacrifice, faith, kindness, goodness, courage and acceptance. It is not unlike Despereaux in helping wash away the grime of cynicism and renewing one’s vigour to fight for what is just and right.

In addition, I was particularly pleased that many of the actors were Australian including Sam Neill, Joel Edgerton, Richard Roxburgh and Helen Mirren. The animation studio (Animal Logic) is based in Sydney, Australia and I’m patriotically happy to support this kind of industry since it appears to be so lacking.

Overall, I loved the movie and actually am looking forward to watching it again. It is definitely worth your time and a great character-instilling movie for kids to watch. Ten thumbs up! 🙂

Egbert for breakfast

Valentine’s Day and I’ve got the day off so I decided to make Owl some special eggs and toast for breakfast.

Owl's Egbert

I can’t remember what these are called and where I first saw them, but I thought they were mighty cute and so versatile as you could technically make any shape with whatever cookie cutters you have. I have dubbed them Egberts because it sounds like egg bread.

Elephant cut-out Egbert

Ingredients:

Brioche (goes better than normal bread)
Butter
Eggs

Method:

1. Cut a shape out from the middle of a slice of brioche or bread.
2. Butter both sides and fry one side.
3. When golden brown, flip it over and crack an egg into the hole. Fry until egg is cooked through, or you may want to leave the yolk runny.
4. Salt Egbert a little bit for flavour (unless you have bacon then thats salty enough).
5. Griddle the buttered cut-outs or save them to make crouton shapes!

Talk about eating your heart out lol. Happy Valentines Day!  ♥

Patch 4.0.6 Update: Mana Drinks

A couple of days after I wrote my previous post, a patch came out. Not only did they buff the mana regeneration rate of holy pallies and druids such that it isn’t such a big issue anymore,  but they also made consumable mana drinks a whole lot cheaper!

Firstly, they have changed the ‘Cocoa Beans’ to ‘Imported Supplies’ which cost 1 Chef’s Award but contains 40 Cocoa Beans.

Secondly, they changed the recipe! Instead of using Fresh Water, it uses Refreshing Spring Water.

Thirdly, South Island Iced Tea got buffed and now gives 96000 mana/30sec.

South Island Iced Tea is still the most expensive since the price for Tropical Sunfruit has stayed the same. However, Starfire Espresso has now overtaken Highland Spring Water as the leading drink since it technically only costs 80 copper (for the Refreshing Spring Water) and half a Chef’s Award to make a stack of 20. Or a whole Award (which you get from doing a Cooking Daily) and 1s 60c for 2 stacks. Heaps better than the ‘cheapest’ pre-patch cost of 4g 40s/stack for the Highland Spring Water!

Again, these prices are all reputation dependant but even if you were only neutral with Org (which is impossible) the water couldn’t possible cost much more than 20 copper. Even the dirt on my sandals cost more than 20c! I can’t believe how unbelievably cheap it dropped down to. The only thing is you’ll need 450 Cooking to get the recipe but here’s a hint: Thanksgiving is the perfect time to level your cooking  😉 More on that later!

So anyways, the funny thing is we don’t really need the drinks anymore but its nice to see that coffee is now the leading drink, as it should be  :p

Consumables: Mana Drinks

I was looking for the cheapest source for end-game mana replenishment (dungeons etc.). There are 2 recipes you can get from Cooking: South Island Iced Tea and Starfire Espresso. Unlike the Sauteed Gobi of pre-Cata times, there doesn’t appear to be gatherable sources to make mana drinks as both the aforementioned recipes require vendor items.

Vendor windows and recipe requirements. Sunfruit not included.

South Island Iced Tea^
92307 mana/30sec + gets you drunk :: 9g 28s/stack of 20*

Starfire Espresso
96000 mana/30sec + makes you sober :: 5g 12s/stack of 20*

The third option is to buy Highland Spring Water from vendors.

Highland Spring Water
96000 mana/30sec :: 4g 40s/stack of 20*

Surprisingly it would seem that the cheapest option is to obtain the springwater from a vendor. Plus you don’t get drunk/grumpy sober. Pretty expensive considering the gobi was health + mana for free (just needed to fish it up and cook).

I guess the only other option is to strike a deal with a mage to conjure you a supply of mana cakes everyday for a set price per month. Perhaps this is Blizzards way of allowing mages to generate even more monies. Ports and food. Aren’t they just a little bit greedy :p

Hopefully mana drinks won’t become such a dire issue once they buff the crap mana regeneration rate of holy pallies.

^ Tropical Sunfruit can be bought at Uldum or Twilight Highlands. I bought mine at Uldum from ‘Umi’ (co-ord: 50;38 @ the docks southwest of Ramkahen)

*Prices are reputation dependant; these are based on Org rep Exalted, Ramkahen rep Honored.

Edit: Patch came out on 08/02/2011 and changed stuff. See this post.

– ant –

Sucker Punch

There’s a movie coming out in March 2011 called ‘Sucker Punch’ about a girl who gets sent to a mental institute by her cruel step-father and plans to escape but the lines between reality and make-belief gets blurred.

I was interested because its being directed by Zack Snyder, the guy who directed Owls of Ga’Hoole, a movie which absolutely blew me away (more on that later). He also got the same animation studio to work on it so I was expecting some really good graphics.

Upon watching the trailer however, I was less than impressed. It’s very anime with blond girls in short skirts and midriffs making sailormoon moves which might be a hit with alot of con people out there, but it’s definitely not something I would pay to watch especially since the graphics did look nice but not exceptional – typical action movie kinda stuff with no real indication of where graphics could be heading to.

End line is I don’t think I’ll be watching it unless someone lends it to me and even then I might struggle to getting around to it :p It might be pleasant enough to watch but theres something about the way the girls were portrayed that kinda creeped me out. So strange. It’s apparently the first movie Snyder has made which isn’t based on someone else’s work (e.g. book) but I hear it’s rather Alice in Wonderland; which might explain the young girls. Not sure how it will do in the movies since there are alot of con people to boost it.

Anyways, here’s the trailer.

– ant –