Simply because:
1) I've stocked up quite a bit of my local favourites in the form of Prima Deli Ready-to-Cook Meal Kits and other pre-mix spices and brought them along. They all cleared the Australian customs' scrutiny.
So far, I've tried to make Mee Rebus with success - I bought the yellow Hokkien noodles and added green chilli, prawns and eggs. I cannot find any 'tau kua' though. The Hainanese chicken rice kit is quite complete too. My first time poaching a whole chicken and cutting out the meat....didn't do too badly.
2) There are quite alot of good restaurants near and around us where we can find authentic Chinese/Asian food.
Went to one Dim Sum restaurant just about 10 mins drive away in Sunshine. The dim sum there is really scrumptious....I love the egg tarts, better than many I've eaten in Singpore. Even XX loves them!
3) The nearby supermarket does carry quite a bit of Asian foodstuff and sauces. Or if we drive 20 mins to Footscray, we can find quite alot of Chinese food and groceries in the Vietnamese fresh markets there.
We went there last Sunday and I stocked up on quite alot of sauces, like Lee Kum Kee's Seasoned Soy Sauce for Seafood and black bean garlic sauce. I even got this 'chiu chow style lo sui marinade'. Don't know what it is but I think it'll taste good with chicken. Can't wait to try it. I also found wanton skin, tofu, fishball, chinese sausage and even 'zhu chang fen'!
Last night, I steamed the 'zhu chang fen' for dinner. We had tried to find the 'zhu chang fen' sweet sauce but it turned out the Vietnamese doesn't eat it that way so they don't sell it. So I improvised by using the Lee Kum Kee Seasoned Soy Sauce for Seafood and a little fried onion oil. The result was marvellous! It tasted exactly like those 'cheong fun' that we eat in dim sum restaurants. I had minced pork which I'd made into siew mai for KK and used some of the balance mince pork to roll into the 'fun cheong'. KK loved them, more than the siew mai.
