Adelaide Day 3

29th June 2007
Today, I had to wake up quite early. We were scheduled to leave for Barossa Valley (famous for its wineyards) at about 9a.m. We as in Danny, Sharon, my sis and I. We had to rent a car for our journey as Melissa's car was not big enough to accomodate all the giants of us. By the way, Melissa and Oliver decided to follow us there at the very last minute. Two cars for one mission; Barossa Valley!

I was supposed to meet Danny at the car rental place at 8:45a.m. to take the car. However, my sis and I were quite early that day. Thus, we went to the Central Market for, what my sis claimed to be, the very nice Xiu Long Bao Polo Bao (Custard Polo Bun).

Nanna Hot Bake.

From far, I could scent a very aromatic smell coming from a particular shop. As we went closer, we saw Nanna Hot Bake.

Hotdog bun, egg tarts etc.

It's just a normal bakery with some ordinary types of buns and tarts. The price range from Aud$1.30-Aud$1.60. For breakfast or snack, this price is quite affordable.

Custard Polo and Coconut Custard Kaya Bun

Without hesitate, I got myself a Custard Polo bun. However, looking at the size of the bun, I decided to get another bun to satisfy my stomach. Kaya Bun was my choice, thinking I won't be having any Kaya Bun until I go back to Miri. No doubt, the Custard Polo bun tasted great with fresh, soft texture and generous fillings towards the centre of the bun. On the other hand, the Coconut Custard Kaya bun did not meet my expectation. It has too much "coconut taste" if you know what I meant.

After a quick brekky, we met up with the rest. We settled all the car rental stuff, got a car and began our journey.

Kies Estate.

Our first stop, Kies Estate. At first, I thought it was "Kiss Estate". :P It's just a small, old winery with quite a huge vineyard.

Sharon, the koala?

The weird thing about this winery is, they sell some sorts of drawings apart from the usual wines. That koala drawing costs Aud$5 per piece. We noticed few similar pieces drawings. I was sure that they photocopy and laminate it as there's a photocopy machine right beside those drawings.

Nice pose.

After leaving Kies Estate empty handed, our next vineyard was Jacob's Creek. This is a much more famous vineyard which I guess most of us would have recognise.

Wine tasting, anyone?

They have a huge, long bar for wine tasting. The design of this building is quite new and modern. I think they refurbished it before.

Baby wines.

The expert Danny told us that Jacob's Creek produced huge amount of their quality wines. Thefore, many of their quality wines are cheaper compared to the other wines of the same range. Too bad, I couldn't taste any of them as I was the driver for the day. That's my first time driving for so long in Australia. I never drive here for your information.

Not the right time...

For the vineyard, there's nothing much can be seen during winter. No grapes, no leaves, nothing...

Danny bought two bottles of wines while Oliver had one. At least, we were not empty handed here.

That's all for wineries! :P Ok, I'm joking. We took a rest from wines for our lunch.

Just light lunch.

We stopped by at this small "restaurant", with the name Bean Sejuiced, in the town. Not much choices we could choose from, only those light and simple meals.

Hungry smile?

We waited patiently for the food to be served while hoping the rain to stop. The rain was pouring quite heavily at that time.

Summary of the food that we had.

That's all the food we ordered. I had foccacias, Oliver had hotdogs, Mel had baked potatoes, Sharon had baquettes and both Danny and my sis had yiros. Nothing much to shout about for the food except Oliver's. The hotdogs that he ordered are flat piece of hotdogs instead of the normal cylindrical shape. He commented it's tasty!

By the time we finished our lunch, thanks God, the rain had stopped too.

Two Hands Wines.

We reached Two Hands Wines after turning here and there. Blame it on the unclear map.

Pay a small amount of fee (returnable) for wine tasting.

I somehow like this classy winery. There's table and chairs for all of us to sit down and enjoy the wines.

All the wines could be tasted.

Despite our no-money-to-buy look, they were still willing to let us taste all the wines listed in the portfolio. If my memory served me right, there's one bottle of wine which costs Aud$100++. And it's very nice! Ok, frankly speaking, I had a sip or two in this winery. ;)

I strongly recommend Two Hands Muscato to everyone. We bought a total of half a dozen Muscato here. They kindly gave us a discount for that. By the way, the wines here are only available through cellar door.

What's this?

There's a small building beside the winery. I don't mind staying there with such a good scenery surrounding the place though. :)

Group photo at last!

Another winery was in our list. This time, Seppeltsfield. Before we entered the winery, we manage to capture a group photo. I think this is the one and only group photo we had.

I know, wines again...

Danny was quite satisfied with their tawny port here. He got himself two bottles of that if I'm not wrong. He's a drinker! :P

Wine brewing process.

The decoration in this winery is quite different from the previous wineries which are classy and elegant. This building is full of antiques! Very "old" feel.

Look at my sis' face.

Penfolds is one of the most famous wines in South Australia and is our next winery. By the way, Sharon was the one who drove us here. ;P

All the bin range.

Danny insisted to come here as he thought there might be discount through cellar door. However, he was so disappointed to find out that there wasn't any discount to any of the wines!

The price...

Just look at the price. A bottle of 1995 Penfold Grange (1.5 litres) is sold for Aud$3069. It is almost RM9000++ for a bottle of wine! How expensive can it be?!

We left Penfolds earlier than expected.

1 or 3 eagles?

Now, which winery? Wolf Blass is our next destination. Again, it is a well known winery which Danny expected to get some cellar door discount.

Modern look...

Danny tasted the wine with Melissa and Oliver (I forgot whether Sharon and my sis did join in the fun or not) but Danny was not satisfied with the price of the wine.

Sis with hundreds bottle of wines.

After I finished snapping the photos, off we went to the next and last winery.

Peter Lehmann.

Peter Lehmann Wines, or better well-known as Peter Lemon by Sharon and my sis, is another unique winery. To me, it looks more like someone's house rather than a winery.

Different type of wines.

This time round, I'm almost sure that my sis didn't taste any wine anymore. She raised white flag up! :P

Pretend to drink only lah.

After Danny bought his final three bottle of wines from Peter Lehmann, FINALLY, we called it a day on wines! I was the happiest person at that time as I didn't need to be torture with those I-drink-you-can't-drink kind of feel anymore!

So, we left Barossa Valley at about 5p.m. On the journey back to Adelaide city, Danny was a bit tipsy with all the drinks that he had. He talked and acted funny a lot. Thanks to him. If not, I would have close my eyes while driving. Seriously, it's not fun driving in Adelaide.

Now, can you all guess where we were heading to?

Kopi Tim Restaurant.

If your answer was dinner, you're right! We went to this Kopi Tim Restaurant for dinner. I was puzzled at first when Melissa suggested to come to Kopi Tim Restaurant. I was like, "Huh? Kopi Tiam (coffeeshop) is Kopi Tiam lah. Where got restaurant? She say salah (wrongly), is it?" Who knows, in a small city like Adelaide, there's really such a place called Kopi Tim ("a" is missing?) Restaurant.

Simple restaurant.

It was a very simple restaurant with not much fancy design. They have plenty of spaces to accodomate their customers. Anyway, Kopi Tim Restaurant serves authentic Malaysian cuisines. You must be asking, how authentic can it be? Just look at the photos below and you judge it.

Sambal Eggplants.

The first dish is the Sambal Eggplants. Priced at Aud$10.80 per plate, it was too sweet for my liking. It should be called, "Sweet Sambal Eggplants".

Curry Fish.

We ordered a bowl of Curry Fish, priced at Aud$16.80. It came with a thin piece of fish cooked with long beans, dried bean curd and egg plants. This curry can be improved by increasing the spiciness of the sauce. Do take note for those who want to order this dish. There are two types of curry fish in the menu. One is Curry Fish and another one is Curry Fish Head. Curry Fish Head is double the price of Curry Fish. So, you make the choice. ;)

Ayam Kadazan.

To be honest, I don't even know this dish exist in Malaysia. Somemore, it's so specific that it's a Kadazan (an ethnic group in Sabah) dish. Since it's written in the menu that this is a chef recommended dish, no doubt, it tasted good. Taken from the menu, "chicken marinated in our chef's special spices and deep fried to perfection". A plate of this is priced at Aud$13.80.

Special Spare Ribs.

Our last dish was Special Spare Ribs. Out of so many dishes that we ordered, I think this spare ribs was the most authentic. It tasted exactly like the "Pai Guk Wang" (Spare Rib King) in Miri. Priced at Aud$15.80, it is highly recommended by me.

Char Kueh Teow.

We were all served with free complimentary rice. Danny was too drunk hungry that he ordered himself a serve of Char Kueh Teow (Aud$11.80). It's just normal Char Kueh Teow to filled your stomach. Nothing can beat the best fried kueh tiaw in Miri.

Overall, Kopi Tim Restaurant might be a good restaurant to dine-in if you're not looking at the price.

After dinner, Melissa and Oliver had to attend a friend's birthday party. As for the four of us, we didn't have much choices left. Either we went home, or, we went for a drink (not alcohol). We opted the latter.

Melissa or maybe Sharon suggested Elephant Walk Cafe for their Sticky Date Pudding.

Melissa was not leading us to this place. The four of us had to go there by our own. Worse, with me driving. On the way there, we made loads of mistakes as none of us know the exact route there. My sis was so funny when she shouted "turn left, turn left" with her hand gestures showing the right hand side. She's drunk! :P

Elephant Walk Cafe.

To comment, Elephant Walk Cafe is ideal for couple. It has a quiet ambience (not until we reached there) and equipped with dim lights. The lights were so dim that we could hardly see the menu.

Sticky Date Pudding.

We ordered three types of desserts which were Sticky Date Pudding, Chocolate Pudding and I-forgot-what-dessert. All the desserts seemed to be normal to me. At one time, I thought the Sticky Date Pudding was almost the same as the frozen one which Chris had bought some time ago.

There were not much photos taken on the desserts as it was quite embarrasing to keep on having the camera flash turned on. Apologise for that.

We spent the whole night chatting and laughing. We had two sessions for that night. First session was with a group of four people and the second session was with additional two people. It was a great night when we started to talk about our high school life. All of us were from the same high school. From friends to teachers and from prefectorial board to the mischevious activities in class. It's all unforgetable memories which brought us all the fun.

At about 1a.m., it's the time of the day when we had to say goodbye. I'm sure it was an enjoyable day for the sixth of us.

Adelaide Day 4 coming soon...

P/s: Sorry for the delay of these holiday posts. I had problems with my laptop previously and now problems with my external hardrive. *Sigh* Bad luck...