Koko Black Chocolate

Had a bit of problem uploading a video for the Moomba Waterfest, so I posted this first.

Koko Black is a chocolatier which has a branch about 10 minutes walk from IH, on Lygon Street. Lygon is actually famous for Italian food and gelato (ice-cream, one even has durian flavour!), but anyway this post is a chocolate one.






So anyway I bought 8 chocolates from Koko Black (mostly dark chocolate) and they are:

Belgian Truffle: Chocolate powder on the top. Creamy interior, a soft (but not too soft)exterior. Great texture.





Mint: Thin layer of chocolate with mint cream inside. Tastes like After-Eight, in fact I prefer After-Eight.





Java Dark: Coffee cream inside, with a hint of alcohol. Nice! the coffee wasn't overpowering, and I could still taste the chocolate. Wonderful combo.





Raspberry Ganache: A bit like Java Dark in that there's a filling and a chocolate exterior. I prefer Java Dark though, because I don't really like the berry taste.





Koko Black 44&74 (I think it's called Pure Black as well): The name's because of the cocoa content. Brilliant!! The "nut" on top isn't really a nut, it's chocolate. The phrase "better than sex" could have been invented for this.





Baileys: Nice creamy filling. The alcohol wasn't bitter, the choc taste was still there, nice warm alcohol feeling after eating. The taste of the Baileys was brought out properly, enough to taste and enjoy, but not strong enough to overpower the chocolate.





Creole Dark: Nice, slight tinge of coffee. relatively average but still better than anything I've tasted in Malaysia.







Hazelnut Crisp: Another highly recommended one. Forgot to take a pic of this though. There's a thin crispy wafer top layer, with the usual creamy interior. There's a strong hazelnut taste in the cream which is really good.


Top recommendations:


Note: If there were 2 versions, i.e milk choc and dark choc, I tasted the dark choc version


1) Koko Black 44&74 (may not be suitable for people who don't like dark choc)


2) Baileys


3) Java Dark


4) Hazelnut Crisp


4) Belgian Truffle (not dark choc)

Moomba Waterfest

I have no idea what it is. That's the truth. I hear it's because the Aussies celebrate the start of the rainy season but I have no idea whether it's true.



It started Friday or Saturday, 7/8 of March. Apparently there was a waterskiing competition on Saturday afternoon but I didn't go (because of the IH girls softball)............. However I did go on Saturday night, for the first of 2 visits.



It's basically a fun fair- carnival sort of thing. There were food stalls, selling cotton candy, cinnamon doughnuts, lemonade, toffee apples, "Dagwood Dogs" (basically a sausage deep-fried in batter--- tastes horrible), fruit punch etc. The food was ridiculously expensive, even a bottle of water cost AU$3.50, most other things cost AU$4.


Then there were the games where you win soft toys for beating the establishment. There were a few basic kinds:

Type 1: You throw something to hit a target

Type 2: You sit at a table with 9 other people and press buttons to move a cardboard cut-out in a "race"

Type 3: Scratch and win, except you need quite a few tickets to combine their scores

Type 4: You hit a machine that gauges your strength. Above a certain score you win a prize.

All of them cost at least AU$5 for a real chance at winning



There were also the rides. A Ferris wheel, rides that turn you every which way until you are ready to puke, the Sling-Shot (AU$30, this one, but probably worth it), with most about AU$7 each.









And last but not least, the fireworks. I went there again on Monday, 10th March (Labour Day) to watch the finale.

IH O-week

Life is nice here.......

Michael isnt soft-spoken, he's a wacky dancer in a studious skin. Found that out during Poor Taste Party at IH. He's a great dancer, completely un-self-conscious. The girl from Mauritius isn't Dorm, it's Dawn, and the Japanese girl's Yui, not Yuni (my hearing sucks, so sue me). Met plenty more people here, but I find that the Caucasians mostly stick to themselves, and the Asians do the same. Emir (Indonesian, studied in Singapore) came up with a theory: The Caucasians find themselves outnumbered and feel that their culture is threatened. My addition : the Asians find themselves in an unfamiliar setting, hence they tend to stick to what they know best, their own people. Of course, everyone gets along pretty well here, it's just that we aren't (and probably never will be) as close as M2 (Hurray. go M2!)

O-week was crazy (at IH at least, uni wasn't as exciting). I'm only going to describe the more interesting ones here:

Room Cram. 23/2/08. 11 pm. Greycourt Building. All the freshers plus the O-weekers (seniors who are responsible for the O-week) in one room as big as say....... a badminton court? naahhhh.... smaller than that. About 150 people in there, with the windows and doors shut. And we learned our war-chants (useful during the Magical Mystery Tour, more about that later) under threat of being watergunned by the O-weekers.

Poor-Taste Party. 24/2/08. 8 pm. Junior Common Room. The pictures say it all:

Basically we had to dress up in the poorest taste outfit you could find. I dressed in drag, but I'm not showing you the pics. This is all you get:

Magical Mystery Tour. 26/2/08. 5pm. All the Ih-ers dressed in their fresher T-shirts and ran around Melbourne. We went to Whitley College and chanted: " You live in a doughnut, we eat them for breakfast" (not true, but fun to say). We went to Ormond College and chanted:

"I don't know what I've been told

Ormond pussy's dry and cold

Mighty cold and mighty dry

'Cos they're fucking Ormond guys

Twice and short and half the time (i think)

somethingsomething something something (can't remember the rest of it) "

We went to St. Hida's College, if I remember correctly , banged on their car park doors and chanted:

"Your old man's a wanker"

Then we went to uni and played Ring-around-the rosies in the courtyard. Next we caught a tram (2 actually) into the city, all the while chanting :

"IH is hot to go,

H-O-T-T-O-G-O,

Awoo,

Hot to go,

Awoo,

Hot to go"

Our main chant, this. Then we reached Hungry Jacks' ( a fast-food restaurant) on Swanston Street and demanded chips (got some, too). Next stop, Mcdonalds' further down Swanston, and chanted: "The burgers are better at Hungry Jacks' " (again, not true, but fun to say). We were jogging/running every opportunity we had. We went to KFC as well, and acted like chickens there. Then we played Ring-around-the-rosies at Federation Square, chanted the main chant again and so it ended.

IH IQ test. 2/3/08 4.30 pm. The biggest darn prank ever. All we freshers were warned all week by the seniors to study for this, getting warnings like:" if you get less than 50%, you might get kicked out if the Head's in a bad mood. If she 's in a good mood, she'll just charge you more". And not just from the O-weekers, but the other seniors as well. So we were there ( I didn't study, luckily, because I felt something wasn't quite right) in the Dining Hall, and the residential tutors were there in their gowns, all with solemn faces. And we were actually given sheets of paper with about 8 subjective questions and 2 essay questions. 5 minutes later, they asked us to complete it outside, in the courtyard, whilst maintaining silence and refraining from copying. 10 minutes after the "test" started, the O-weekers came out and sprayed us all until many were soaking wet, but not me *cacklecackle*

That's about it...... Next 2 posts (not in order) Moomba Festival and Koko Black chocolate.