Boxing day- Welcome Inn Tea House and Penguin Island

So we started off Christmas with a bang. Come Boxing day, Peggy gave this brilliant suggestion that we should all sleep in instead of packing the day with activities. Sleep has never felt so good.

All of us have a hankering for dim sum that morning. After some consideration (and the fact that many places are closed), we decided to try Welcome Inn Tea house along William Street in Northbridge. Usually, this place is packed full of people and the queue turns me off from trying this eatery.

Not today though. We stormed in to realize that..... there were still tables available despite us being late for reservations. *phew
Hungry faces...
First steam item- Vegetarian bean curd roll. I always have the meat version so thought this would be interesting to try. It didn't disappoint.
I like this dish. Chives with prawn dumplings. The skin wasn't too thick and it was stuffed full with prawns!
I didn't try any of these. When I interviewed the 2 VIP, Ben said "Ok loh" and Peggy went:"I prefer the fried wanton than the spring rolls."
Wo kok! arghh..just looking at this makes me want to have one now! Deep fried to perfection, this yam balls were stuffed with saucy pork mince. Seriously good stuff.
This glutinous rice balls (jien tuq?)were stuffed with red bean paste, rolled on sesame seeds and then deep fried. I didn't find this good at all. It was oily and there wasn't enough red bean paste. Perhaps they left it out for too long before serving.


Then a surprise came along. This is my FAVOURITE dish of the morning. Perhaps it's the 39C morning but this COLD mango mochi won me over big time. Chewy mochi mango skin filled with chunks of mango and rolled on dessicated coconut. This was sooo good that I'm going to try making this soon!
Another winner! This egg tart was served fresh out of the oven. At first, I thought the tart case was too thick. One bite into it and that changed my mind completely. It was flaky with a smooth egg custard inside. SEDAP! Did I mentioned that AR tried bribing me with egg tart when he asked me to be his gf? hahah
Ben and Peggy's review- "good...very very good" (with their mouths full). I'm not a big fan of this but given their reaction I could tell they totally enjoyed this.
I wouldn't say this was fantastic but certainly "ok". The CCF skin was smooth and the sauce was good but that was about it.

Remember the steamed prawn and chives dumplings? This was the pan-fried version. Again, this took me by surprise. The skin was slightly crisp and tightly filled with prawns and chives.
Har gow or prawn dumplings. Thin skin with huge prawns! This place is certainly generous with their prawns!
So this isn't what I will order usually in dim sum places (give me that mango mochi again!). We thought that before stepping out to brave the hot hot weather we should have something cold. Almond jelly wasn't good at all. They topped it with canned fruits which was soggy. The jelly didn't have enough of the almond flavour.

Nevertheless, it was a satisfying meal. I can't believe we ate soooo much but we did a good job sharing didn't we? As for the service..well.. let's just say it's slightly typical of a hong kong dim sum place where waiters/waitress were curt. I commented that every serving person looked so reluctant. Some of them placed their tray down for 2 seconds and then walk away before allowing us to have a look! Strange indeed. Despite the service, I will probably still head there for dim sum since we spent $60 for all those dishes to filled 4 tummies up. Not a bad deal I have to say.

Welcome Inn Tea House 354 William Street Northbridge 6006
(08)92278886

Are u guys ready for more action?

So after our lovely brunch, we headed to Penguin Island!!! A little island off Rockingham (about 45 mins from city) houses cute little penguins.

Us posing before taking the ferry across.
See how clear the water is!

Food for them! These penguins are taken care of by humans because they are deemed unsuitable to survive in the wild.
We took a walk. The sand was scotching HOT HOT HOT! After a 10 minutes walk all of us rushed to the water for some cool relieve. ah.....
and BONUS! We spotted a seal just gently sun baking along the beach!!!!!! Peggy tried walking nearer and the seal wasn't too happy...
While waiting for the ferry to take us back to mainland, we started posing and taking LOTS of photos. That's my fav.. ;p