Crispy Crunchy Vegetable Tempura with Cold Soba

The secret to a crunchy and light tempura batter is to use fizzy soda water, baking soda and ice in the batter. Add a pinch of salt to the flour and mix, making sure there are no lumps. You want a batter which is quite runny, but not too watery such that it doesn't hold together. Also add the baking soda in at the very end, right before you deep fry.

Sunday Dim Sum at Hung Cheung Marrickville

Dim Sum on Sundays has always been one of my family traditions ever since we lived in Hong Kong and it was one of the rare activities which I would eagerly get out of bed for!  Now that I live in Sydney, going for Dim Sum remains one of my favourite activities. 

There is a pretty decent Dim Sum restaurant in nearby Maroubra, but this time round I decided to try out Hung Cheung in Marrickville as I've heard good things about the place.

Siu Mai - Pork and shrimp dumplings

Camping by the River at Turon Gates

Turon Gates is a 2.5 hr drive from Sydney and is a country retreat where you can experience the great Australian outdoors. Encompassing over 6,000 acres and with a river flowing through it, I was immediately attracted to the place. And once I had read all the glowing online reviews, the decision had been made for me.

I had initially planned on leaving on Friday morning and staying for 2 nights till Sunday afternoon but it was raining on Friday. Unfortunate as that was, Saturday morning was bright and sunny, and so we set off to spend a night camping in the outback!