Though we do have a handful of good cafes in the Hills, my favourites still happen to be the ones much farther away, such a Dining & Co, a good 35 minute drive away in North Ryde. So when I found out that they were opening up a second branch in Castle Towers (replacing Bellacinno) i.e. less than 10 minutes away, I was stoked!
Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon & Caviar ($19)
Lazy weekend mornings mean that
Mocha ($4.50)
And so you’ll most likely catch us at our usual local favourites on a Saturday/Sunday morning. Unless it’s a day like this, where we turn up to our usual local café only to find it packed and rather than waiting on hungry stomachs for a table, we venture over to the neighboring (even more popular) café to try our luck….and get lucky!
Which is how we end up at the Baron this fateful Saturday morning.
Breakfast Salad
Lazy weekends means brunching locally, and although we have a handful of go-to places, recent price hikes and deletion of some of our favourite menu items meant it was time for us to venture out and discover more good eats in the local area.
I’m not usually a fan of cafes which are smack-bam in the middle of busy shopping centres, but the huge $10 breakfast sign out the front of Bellaccino’s was certainly enticing, especially given that there were still a couple more days til pay day.
The $10 menu consists of your basic brekkie menu items (think eggs on toast) and even comes with a free drink if you find yourself here on a weekday, but alas we’re not, and it’s past the 11:30am that the menu runs to. Luckily there’s plenty else to choose from on their menu, which is cleverly organised by cuisine.
The coffee is not amazing, and my mocha frappe tasted more like a milkshake than a frappe, but it worked well as a dessert-like sweet finish to the meal.
The end of the uni semester is approaching (much to my delight!), but I find it hard to believe that it’s already almost been a year of uni! It was only this time last year that I was studying madly for the final exams! (maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration….)
I’m quite glad that I don’t ever have to go through the pressure of those exams again (although uni exams can be just as stressful!), especially in the lovely weather that comes during these months. But I guess my experience doesn’t quite compare to that of my friend, who was unfortunate enough to have the exams start on the day after her birthday!! We did celebrate it after the exams, though by the time we got around to that I was ….overseas *ahem*
To celebrate her birthday this year, she took us to Red Spoon Thai in Castle Hill, which I was quite excited about, not only because I like thai food but because it’s been quite a while since I last met up with my group of high school friends!
When we finished eating, the table was quickly cleared (which wasn’t actually an easy job, as the table was quite packed and there were a lot of dishes on the table). The birthday girl brought her own cake, so we were sort of expecting it to be brought out afterwards. What we weren’t expecting was for the lights to be turned off and birthday music to start playing- a lovely surprise! 🙂
I always miss out on weekday lunch specials at restaraunts. Why? At lunchtime, I’m at school. =[ Because this is (or was) our exam week , we don’t have to school when we don’t have exams. So I took the opportunity to go to lunch with my parents despite the fact that I had two weeks worth of exams to study for!
A few weeks ago, we walked past all the restaraunts and cafes at Castle Towers to find somewhere to eat for lunch. We didn’t end up eating there because it was all too expensive (our budget is quite low). My mum took us to Eastwood but promised me we would come back another day because there’s a really good restaraunt which has weekdays specials!
Why they put their sign sideqays is beyond me. But the restaraunt was very pretty- to me anyway. The menu was quite extensive but of course, we only chose from the lunch specials which were $9.50 each which is much cheaper than the usual price of around $14 (that’s a whole $5 difference! =O )
I’m probably the world’s most indecisive person- if I choose what to eat at a restaraunt, it’ll take me ages! So this time, I chose the Beef Rendang which my mum suggested.
I’ve never had beef rendang before. It’s a funny name…..=] And it is so delicious! The sauce tastes a bit like curry but still different and goes really well with the rice. And the beef is incredibly soft. I think I just might have an obsession with beef rendang!
Nasi Goreng $9.50
Nasi Goreng is one of the dishes which I’ve heard of before. I usually have it at a chinese restaraunt where they fry a ‘sunny side up’ egg on top of it and serve it hot so that when you mix the raw egg yolk with the rice, it cooks the yolk. Although this egg wasn’t ‘sunny side up’ (tehehe, I love that name), the egg yolk was half raw and still cooked in the rice. I loved this dish (but not as much as the beef rendang) because of its strong flavours and the prawn crackers! (yay!)
I have no idea what mee goreng is. I’ve always though it was those packets of noodles which say ‘mee goreng’ on it (which actually say ‘mi goreng’- oops). I never knew it was a dish. This dish tasted like normal stir fried noodles- they were nice but not all that exciting……….I prefer the packaged noodles.
The meal was quickly finished which unfortunately mean that I had to go home and study. Damn.
Edit: the lunch special prices have now increased to $10.50
Taste of Malaya
56 Castle St, Castle Hill
NSW 2154
(02) 9634 8967
(or in the Piazza section of Castle Towers)
