Fat Noodle - Brisbane Treasury Casino

Heard a lot about this place, being Luke Nguygen’s newest baby and all but I wasn’t that impressed.

Interior is very casino.. it looks like it belongs there. The strands hanging from the roof with woks were interesting and my friend mentioned they looked like ‘falling noodles’ which would make sense really!

I wasn’t that impressed with my meal.. pork and prawn wanton noodle soup. Big servings, and the wantons were nice but the broth and noodles were average. Pete had the Singapore noodles which he really enjoyed.

Service was good. We had to wait to be seated but once we were they immediately bought over a steaming tea pot of green tea and were attentive.

I did love the lychee and lemon soda however – they have an interesting drinks selection with sour plum lemonade also on my list to try!

My travel tips

I've travelled a bit so thought I'd share a couple of my fave travel tips..

Take a scarf - just a light pashmina. Planes are freezing these days and you can wrap yourself up in it quite nicely.

Wear a hoodie on the plane - not only does this stop your annoying neighbor chatting to you but it blocks out some noise and aids with the comfy factor to help put you to sleep.

Wear pants on the plane & closed in shoes or socks - again, it's freezing!

Bring your phone charger- If you have a decent wait time or stopover, smart phones are the best time waster invented. From playing games, to clearing out your photo albums, there's a billion things you can do on them to keep you occupied. Luckily they also have many power points scattered all over the airport so you dot have to worry about saving your battery. Plus many of the airports have free wifi now so you can check up on your social networks.

Take a bottle of water and snacks on the plane - remember if there is turbulence and delays you may be waiting some time for the food and beverage service.

Pack light -I never adhere to this although I do believe it is a good practice.

Roll your clothes - you can fit more in!

Always travel with medicinal supplies - especially when going to Asia. Gastrolyte, panadol, savlon, band aids, imodium etc. You never know when you may get ill!

Take pics of your travel documents with your phone - this way you're not always in and out of your bag digging for paper and it doesn't matter if you accidentally throw it away.

Change your watch to your local destination time as soon as you get on the plane. -Try change your sleep patterns to match theirs during the flight to help minimize jet lag and have you in the right time zone.

Thursday night Gyoza fun

 Accomplished one of my New Year resolutions today. 10 days in. Boom!

Sexy Swashbuckler 'mixing', me gyoza making

I made Gyoza J

I even made the Sexy Swashbuckler and Benny come over to partake in the experience. I intended for us all to make the gyoza together but I should really have known better…

The Sexy Swashbuckler mainly spent her time playing with the mince.. she only needed to mix it up once but proceeded to squish it through her fingers the entire time. I just hope they were clean. I think she may have thought she was ‘helping.’

Ben & his butt pincher

Ben pronounced himself to be the ‘implementer of presentation.’ The translation being that he moved the dumplings I had dropped on the bench while I was making them and lined them up nicely on a chopping board ready for me to throw in the pan. In between this he managed to rummage around in my room and find a ‘butt pinching’ device (we can thank the Sexy Swashbuckler for that one, she bought it for me for my birthday. Ever considerate she is) and proceed to pick up whatever objects he could find on the bench.

Fantastic contributions – I thank you both.

Best Chefs EVER

Things I don't love about tropical Islands

- Storms  (also on things I love list) 

-Mosquitoes 

-You can't drink the water

-Everyone is on island time  (also on things I love list)

- There are no avocados

- You can't open your mouth while showering (I always forget this one)

-Did I mention Mosquitos??

Nooo don't eat me! A gingerbread tale.

Whenever I eat gingerbread men I always have that voice in my head going 'nooo don't eat me, I need that leg!' - I think I can blame that one on the character from Shrek.

When I was at the supermarket tonight buying lychees I came across tubs of gingerbread cookie dough for only $2.20! I love baking but don't have much time at the moment so thought I'd whip em' up for my work buddies. Coz I'm nice like that. Plus I wanted to wear the cute apron my lil Bro got me for Christmas. 

Anyway - thought I would just roll the dough into a cylinder shape and cut it into round cookies. Imagine my excitement when I found a cookie cutter in there! Wahoo! Real gingerbread men cookies! Nom.

So I had a whole heap of fun rolling and cutting the cookies. While they were in the oven I even vacuumed. I'm working on my domestic goddess status you see. Baking and cleaning simultaneously. Basically any mans dream. Except I was wearing clothes under my apron. Don't want to subject my house mates to that, they put up with enough from me as it is!

Bing! And they're ready. Holy delicious gingerbread men! I wish I bought 5 buckets!!

Nom nom

Cute new apron

Things I love about tropical islands

-You don't have to wear shoes

-You don't have to wear pants

-You don't have to wear a shirt (bikini attire is fine apart from in the dining areas)

- Everyone is on island time (also on things I don't like about islands list)

- Everyone is super friendly

- The water is crystal clear and sparkling

- The sand is white and soft and clean

-Storms (also on things I don't like list) 

-You can drink coconuts. Straight from the coconut. 

- The fruits are delicious 

- Everything is brightly coloured 

- Everyone is happy