I had Chinese fried rice noodles (aka chow fun and kway teow) for dinner tonight which are stir fried rice noodles served in a meat sauce with beef, fish, prawns, fried fish cake and Asian vegetables. Usually, thick rice noodles are used for this dish but this time thinner noodles similar to those used in the Vietnamese pho noodle soup were used instead.

This particular rice noodle dish is of Chinese origin but rice noodles are common to many South East Asian dishes.

I had a craving for pho so for dinner Xuan and I went to Hung Vuong Saigon (133 Hopkins St, Footscray) which is a Vietnamese restaurant that specialises in pho. For those who don’t know pho is a famous Vietnamese rice noodle soup dish which is usually served with thinly sliced beef and garnished with spring onion, Thai basil, long coriander and bean sprouts.

I ordered my pho with thinly sliced rare beef and beef brisket which you can see in the photo below. Xuan isn’t a big fan of pho so she had the grilled chicken rice instead. She usually orders a rice dish whenever we go to a pho restaurant which I just don’t understand since I think pho is like one of the best things ever.

I picked up a new Canon IXUS 960 IS digital camera today which I’m absolutely wrapped about. I’ve been without a digital camera for about a month now since damaging my Canon IXY 1000 (aka Canon IXUS 900 Ti) holidaying in Thailand. Luckily the travel insurance covered it allowing me to get my hands on the newer replacement model.

The photo below was taken with the new camera on Queens Street in the city while I was waiting for Xuan to finish work. While waiting I got myself a nice hot cappuccino from Hudsons. Hudsons is one of the three big coffee chains in Melbourne. The other two are Gloria Jeans and Starbucks. Out of the three, Hudsons is definitely my favourite.

I had a craving for pancakes tonight so Xuan and I headed into the Pancake Parlour after dinner. I had the Raspberry and Rhubarb which is raspberry and rhubarb sandwiched between two buttermilk pancakes with mascarpone cream cheese and a dollop of ice cream. It’s kinda sweet and tangy all at once. Very yummy indeed.

I had dinner yesterday at Dong Ba (133 Hopkins St, Footscray), one of my favourite Vietnamese restaurants in Footscray. They specialise in bun bo hue, which a mildly spicy noodle soup dish with thick rice noodles.

Bun bo hue has got to be one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes, probably only second to pho, another popular Vietnamese noodle soup dish.