introducing thecattylife.com

so last week, i blogged about contemplating a move off blogspot. it's actually a thought that's been incubating for the better part of the last few months, and it's not only been a thought about moving my entire blog, but what would i write about? just the same ol' happenings in my life? or should i focus on something, make it a blog with some real content?

i had some ideas in my head, and last week, after finding a home in bluehost and powered by the most fantastic wordpress (i can't believe there was life before wordpress, i'm half thinking of moving this entire blog to wordpress... if only i had the time!), i kick started my new foodie blog, and so thecattylife was born.

thecattylife, as you can see, is about my incessant obsession with food. some might wonder why it took me so damn long to start a food blog, seeing as everyone else noticed that my holiday photos are overrun by photos of food ~ and the thing is, I don't even post all the food pics! Panu, my boss, everyone who spends any time with me constantly comment about my eating habits, or rather, my constant eating and my excitement when a new cafe opens anywhere in my vicinity.

so to do them justice, and to give my foodie posts a true home of their own, I hope you'll check out thecattylife and support it as much as you've supported this blog. I will continue to keep blogspot open, as they are essentially quite different creatures so if food ain't your thang, stay here!

Gaudi with a side of tapas

Last October, I went to Barcelona for a hens weekend. I was sick the whole time and the most memorable part of my trip was the excruciating pain in my ears as we were landing back into London, and the curse of Heathrow - circling in a holding pattern for over 30 minutes.

So this time round I was fighting fit and we managed once again to squeeze soooo many things into the 2 days. I told Panu that surely making me walk this much was some form of abuse, especially the hike up to Parc Güell, but man was it worth it, and definitely the highlight of my trip.

I really didn't notice it last time, but the entire city has touches of Gaudi speckled in every corner. From the Parc, to La Pedrera - Gaudi's most famous apartment block, to just random buildings which obviously had the Gaudi touch.





























One thing I did remember from my last trip was the La Boqueria markets, on La Rambla. If i fell so madly in love with it while too sick to blink, it must've been something! And it's just as I remember it. The food, colours, smells - it was all amazing. And lucky we went on Saturday because I loved it so much I wanted to go back on Sunday, and it was closed! Blasphemy!


Well a closed market doesn't stop me, does it? We proceeded to stuff ourselves with paella and tapas, so much so that i couldn't lay down to sleep and when I did eventually doze off, i apparently snored like the good little pig that i am!



















Overall an awesome trip, and I even learnt that churros is breakfast food!

More photos here.

when in Rome....

Rome. with its impressively untouched ruins scattered haphazardly throughout the city (because anywhere else, these would have been flattened and turned into shopping malls at least five centuries ago), its beautiful inhabitants and their animated expressions, and its impossibly tasty italiano cuisine, Rome stole my heart within the first day that I was there.

i really did love everything about Rome. in fact, so far it tops my list of most favourite European cities, maybe only next to little weedle Brugge, but Brugge is like a block compared to the city that is Rome, so that's hardly fair. But really, so many things about Rome just pure and simply blew my mind, including...

1) the ruins, big broken ruins, just literally scattered everywhere. instead of bulldozing it down, they build around it. and just when you think there aren't any more ruins, look! more! the Colloseum, Palatine and Roman Forum.. these hold so much history that it is so close to being unreal, but when you're there, you know it's real. And it is truly humbling.




















2) art... on the ceilings. and the sculptures. my general thought was 'how the f*** did they do that?!' ~ not just the Sistine Chapel but hundreds upon hundreds of other impressively painted ceilings, created by geniuses when they were in their early twenties. I don't only feel humbled, i feel down right useless.





















3) and the food. the food. savoury and sweet alike, i had enough to last me a week. each day started with a buffet breakfast at the hotel, followed by at least three or four gelatos, and numerous serves of pasta & pizza. piglet.





















my favourite part of the trip? probably having lunch right outside the Pantheon, but there are so many memories, squashed into three brilliant days.

more photos here. or did you notice i created a travel photo-diary strip just over on the left?

mamak me!

Mamak opened on Goulburn Street in Sydney just before we left for London. I remember going there and having the roti canai, noting that it was pretty good, but not phenomenal. It was easier for me to go to Kammadhenu in Newtown for roti.

well.

Mamak sure has up the ante! We went there for dinner last night, queued for over half an hour – it felt more like half a life time as we were hungry and right there up front is the roti guy flinging the light and delicious dough around in the air - what a tease! We even tried convincing Mel C to show some flesh to get us in faster, unfortunately her morals got in the way, dammit. After an eternity we were seated, we ordered immediately and I sat patiently sipping on my milo ais, waiting for the food to hit my tummy.

we ordered two serves of roti canai, roti telur bawang (egg & onion), two serves of maggi goreng (yeh, we were hungry), half a dozen chicken satay (which in retrospect should have been a dozen) and a serve of ayam goreng (fried chicken). We absolutely inhaled the food, and then backed up with a roti bom (unbelievable), a roti tisu, and an ais kacang, which I have to say was the only vaguely disappointing dish of the evening.































the verdict? Un-frickin-believable. Kammadhenu? What’s that? It doesn’t matter, you don’t even need to know. Mamak conquers all. The wait is well worth it for the reward, the flavours are authentic to within an inch of its life, and the prices ain’t Malaysian prices but hey for Sydney, it is pretty damn good. In comparison, we had Sushi-e (one of my favourite restaurants in Sydney) the night before, and I would hands down rather go to Mamak again.

and indeed I am, this Saturday for my very last meal in Sydney!

three words

home. cooked. food.

i had the absolute pleashaaaaa of going home to Brisbane last weekend, and being force fed by my dad ain't such a bad thing when you haven't been home for a while. In my gastronaut heaven, my parents fed me...

malaysian curry fish with okras and eggplant

singapore chilli crabs with super fresh crabs that my dad caught

crab & sweetcorn soup, also with the delicious fresh crab

yum

buon giorno milano

i was about to call this post bonjour milano, but i think i am getting my languages mixed up. oops! *grin*

anyway, after dusting off the dust (oh yes there was dust) from Morocco, we hit Milan enroute back home to London. By this stage I had well and truly contracted the virus which was to be with me for weeks to come (if i knew this back then, i might well have shot myself to spare me the misery) so i wasn't my perky self.

we did squeeze in a fair amount of touristing though, some shopping and lots of food.




















i didn't spend as much as i was prepared to. being the home of designer everything, if i'd seen a hangbag i loved in Milan, i would have snatched it right up. Too bad the one and only bag that stole my heart was circa €2,000 (or was it €3k? I've repressed the memory) and with the £ taking a pounding (don't mind the pun), it was just not within my measley budget.

I did however, get some Juicy Couture half price, so there was still something to smile about.

Some non-food photos here.

Note: the bag i fell in love with was as above, but a deep purple python leather. Orgasmic.

the big fat Morocco post

Christmas just gone was spent in probably the most unique way, compared to the other 28 Christmasses that i've had the pleasure of experiencing. Six of us packed our bags (strategically might I add, thanks to the one-bag-per-couple policy we enforced on ourselves) and headed for Morocco, which in my sheltered existence, i imagined to be like something out of Aladdin.

And I tell you what, I was not disappointed! A breakdown of our trip...

Brussels and our new love of Starbucks ~

Before we hit Moroccon soil, we initiated ourselves so somewhat of a getting to know you exercise ~ spending a night together in transit, stuck in Brussels Airport (a 24 hour Starbucks to be precise, thank God, and thou shalt vow never to sh*t on Starbucks again!). The overnighter could have been worse. We had a tennis ball (which believe me, can be entertaining), we played poker wagered by roses chocolates and we had cushy seats in Starbucks, which were a Godsend - just ask the other overnight drifters camping on the cold tile floors in various corners of the airport. So we survived it pretty well, and we were still friends. That's a good start if you ask me.

The travels ~

3.30am on Christmas eve we headed to Brussels Charleroi airport for our flight to Fes. We spent two days in Fes before once again, on Christmas night no less, subjecting ourselves to some kind of morbid torture and all six booked into a train car enroute to Marrakech on a journey which took 8 hours, but i think if we drove, it might have taken maybe 20 minutes. 30 tops. The car was either below freezing, or nauseatingly warm. We squeezed in and managed to all lie down; there were some head bumps, some shoulder bumps, even an ass bump or two, but the guys would never admit to it.

Eventually at 10am Boxing Day, we arrived safely in Marrakech... only to be met by our driver who insisted that yes all six of us (plus himself) can absolutely fit into one car by way of transfer to our Riad. So, 4 in the back, and me on Panu's lap up front, we went! And yes, we're all still very much alive!

The accommodation ~

I'm not even going to talk about the hotel in Fes. It was £30 a night. Period.

In Marrakech, we treated ourselves to the lovely L'Heure D'été. Hidden in a somewhat dark alley in the medina, this place was a slice of heaven. Tranquility oozed the moment you stepped in the front door, and the rooftop terrace i just want to bring home with me.












The food ~

Tagines. Couscous. I'm sorry, did you say you wanted something else? too bad, you ain't getting it.

I was absolutely brimming with excitement at our first meal, and so utterly disappointed that the cafe did not serve tagines. All i wanted was some traditional Moroccon food! Is that too much to ask? Well somebody heard my cry for help because for what felt like weeks afterwards, all we had were tagines. and couscous. and the occasional bean. Don't get me wrong, the food was incredible - the lamb so melt-in-your-mouth that it swallowed itself for you. But variety aint the spice of life over there. Be warned.











The old towns ~

i loved Morocco. i can't speak for anyone else in the group but the culture and the sheer different-ness of the place snuck into my heart. The old towns of both Fes and Marrakech (the former being my favourite as it was more traditional and less diluted by tourism), built with red clay and bustling with amazing culture in all its facets ~ the people, the food, the smells.

Second world as they are, it didn't feel as though the towns were impoverished. Activity and business flourished, but not in the sense of what we know as business. Up and down the narrow souk alleys, little Moroccon men in their funny pointy-headed outfits dragged their mules along, piled high with commercial goodies.

In Marrakech, whose heart lies in Jamaa el Fna, a big square in the centre of its old town, bubbles to life as the sun sets with literally hundreds of foodstall and buskers set up to entertain tourists as well as the locals until the small hours of the morning. The energy is seriously mesmerising.











My favourite ~

Whilst in Marrakech, we took a day trip out to the Atlas Mountains, riding on mules high into the mountainside, soaking in the breathtaking scenery and experiencing life first hand in a traditional Berber household.

Firstly, I loved my mule. He was awesome and brilliant at keeping me from falling down the steep cliffs. Secondly, I loved my guide, who was oh, maybe 9 years old. So cute.

and lastly, the trek was hands down the most amazing thing I have ever done. Imagine this: riding muleback through serious mountain terrain - not man made footpaths but rocks and cliffs, climbing precariously close to the edge. You look up and just there are the amazing snow capped mountains of North Africa. You look around and almost camouflaged against the mountainside are clay houses, a clay village in fact, housing the Berber people of Morocco who I mean seriously, I cannot even begin to grasp what their lives must be like. You're invited into a Berber house, you meet these people first hand, you drink their tea and shake their hands.. and still, not a clue, not a pathom as to how these people live. It is such a different life. The air is crisp high in the Atlas mountains, but it's not as cold as you expected. On the way back, 15 minutes from base, the mules are abandoned and your guide leads you by foot the rest of the way down. You climb down most of the time, I'm talking serious on your hands and knees stuff. You are guided by a small mountain waterfall, and taste its crispness. And eventually you're back at base.










that was my favourite memory of the trip.

I wanted to also blog about the most shocking moment of the trip, but refrained for fear of offending anyone. In a nutshell, enroute to the Atlas Mountains we were given 15 minutes in a local market, which sold you know, fruits, vegies, household items and so forth. We wandered into the butchers section of the markets and well, let's just say they just plain and simply chop the animals up there (unbled so there is serious amounts of blood everywhere) and here is a pile of goat heads, and there is a a pile of legs. Lots of blood. I have photos but I won't even think about posting them.

And that was Morocco. I loved it and will absolutely return to check out Casablanca and Tangier.

Some more pics here.