October 2026 was a lot, because I said yes to mostly good things that came my way. There were parties and movies that ran past midnight, a work trip, and this website breaking down (this time I blame Mercury retrograde and hours of pastel shifts). There were also a lot of good moments, big and small, in between, like eight years of marriage, flowers, oysters, and rainy walks.
Here’s my October. The good bits, the meh bits, and the vodka pasta.
Highlights
๐ โ Eight years. Fafa and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary, starting with our card exchange, plus a Tokyo Cult Recipes book and flowers from him. ๐ฅฐ We had dinner at Borgo in Essendon, the one restaurant my colleague says he’d have to eat at if he ever left Melbourne for good.
Now, I’ve said it for a long time. The West doesn’t know how to make pasta. Pasta used to be my comfort food, but after I moved to the West, I could never find a plate that felt like it. Borgo might have unlocked a curiosity that could turn into a West Pasta crawl.
๐บ โ NNon-AI80s. Aish threw an 80s party inspired by the AI 80s photo trend that was all over our feeds. Fafa and I went matching in breakdance outfits, and everyone else came as Madonna, hippies and everything in between. It was epic. She also made street-style vodka pasta to order, and it was so delicious I went back for a second serving.
๐ โ Halloween at T’s. T’s Halloween dinner was full on. Octopus, Dutch carrots, potatoes, chicken skewers, an oyster dip, cheese, prawn Kerala curry served inside a pumpkin, super-fancy grapes, and panna cotta for dessert. Such delicious food and a fun night.
๐ฝ๏ธ โ Thai night for the girls. I hosted a Thai dinner party for the girls. It was my second Thai feast of the year, and this time it was inspired by Chin Chin. Prep started days early: I read up on recipes, marked the ones I’d cook, and placed a Woollies order. The day before was all prep, including hours of peeling so much garlic. The menu was Tom Kha, Broccolini, chicken ginger salad, Pad Kra Pao and ceviche. We chatted about parents, movies, and travel. A couple of weeks later, the same group got together again, and we carried on the gossip over biryani, peanut butter birthday cake and Kerala mixture.
๐ถ๏ธ โ Supper club number two. I went to my second supper club and had the bestest time with nine strangers over a Northern Thai feast by Pipitapan.
๐ธ โ Girls’ night at Patsy’s. A night out with my neighbour at Patsy’s, which has good vegetarian food. We gossiped, then carried on at Captain Melville before heading home.
๐ธ โ Kids’ party photographer. I went to a 1-year-old’s birthday party and was the amateur photographer of the day. I’m glad to add it to my side quests. Kids’ birthday party photographer is officially something I can call myself.
โ๏ธ โ Bad Writers Club. I love going to the WeFo Bad Writers Club. The host, Aud, is so warm, kind and lovely, and it’s just nice to be around her aura. We recently bonded over 20Talks and its 20-hour silent stay. I also love that it gives me time to write and chip away at the 3,000 blog ideas on my to-do list (this month I drafted five India and Sri Lanka posts there). And I love ending each session listening to a snippet of Caleb’s Tabitha and George novel progression.
๐ท โ Camera club. After thinking about it for years, I finally joined a camera club, and I have to say, it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made this year.
๐ โ Work trip to Wodonga.
๐ โ Journaling. This month I went to a few guided journaling sessions at Mindful Moment with Bec, and a mindfulness-guided journaling and meditation session at The Chesnut Tree Book Shop. On a rainy day, I journaled at the Swedish Bakery and sent Jik a pic to reminisce. I’m also keeping a dream log, or at least trying to.
๐ธ โ I bought a Powerball ticket and told my team that when I win the $40 million, I’ll text them that I quit and then go out of contact immediately.
Foodie Guide-Y
๐ โ Meen pollichathu makes the list! Karimeen pollichathu, the Kerala fish wrapped in banana leaf that I ate my way through last month, just landed at number 34 on TasteAtlas’s list of the 100 best fish dishes in the world. I feel a very personal sense of gratification, having eaten it at the OG place only a month before.
๐ฅ โ The great pastel saga on World Food Day. For World Food Day at work, the theme was to bring a dish from your background, so I made Indonesian pastel. I started by calling Amma for directions, then did the Woollies run. The night before the potluck, I stood for hours making pastel and gave five baked ones to my neighbour to try.
The next morning I woke up, baked the rest immediately and was off to work. That day, there was also African beef stew, curry puffs, passionfruit yoyos, and more, all made by my multicultural colleagues.
๐ฎ โ Taco night for one at Taqueria Sin Nombre. I headed to Taqueria Sin Nombre in Chinatown and did the five agave pairing. One was Black Snake, made by a Queensland couple who have never been to Mexico and use kangaroo meat in the distillation.
๐ฒ โ Hot pot double date. We had a hot pot double date with Shiv. TBH, it’s not the right weather for hot pot, but we tried new things like yam noodles and basa fish, which I liked. We also had gongcai, also called tribute vegetable or mountain jellyfish, a dried Chinese vegetable made from a thick-stalked variety of celtuce. Then we got chased out, so we carried on at the pub out the back of the Lincoln Hotel.
๐ โ Northern style pho. I’m a Northern style pho girl. Phแป started in Hanoi, and the northern bowl is all about a slow-cooked broth that’s clean and full of flavour, with ginger, onion, coriander, star anise, cassia bark, chilli and pepper doing the work, plus fresh salad on the side.
๐ฅ โ Salad season. I’ve been loving salad this month, I guess because my palate is shifting into spring. My go-to has been Greensteat Thai Hard, my absolute fave, which I had three times this month alone. I also had Fishbowl three times; it has become my not-so-guilty late-night UberEats go-to.
๐ฑ โ Peko Peko. The company lunch tradition continued at Peko Peko, where we introduced two of my new colleagues, who love it just as much.
๐ โ The Indo food front. We kept ordering the same from Nasi Pedas in Carlton (nasi goreng, sop buntut, ayam kremes). It’s trusty comfort food for a Sunday. We also tried the newly opened Sederhana, but like in Singapore, I didn’t like it.
๐ โ Cooking at home. I made chicken shawarma with Ottolenghi ready-made sauce, meal-prepped it for three working days, and stuffed it into pita pockets. I also cooked bacon pasta, chicken rice, and fried rice (better the next day).
๐ซ โ New food. Honey joys made by Lisa (Thank you, Lis!!), tofu grain rice, Cadbury Biscoff chocolate, honeycomb chocolate coffee cookies and an iced pistachio coffee on an unseasonably hot day. Saigon Street Eats ‘ salt-and-pepper tofu bao and the beef-and-onion butter rice paper rolls were both really, really good.
Read, Watched & Browsed
๐ โ Love Your Bookshop Day. I celebrated Love Your Bookshop Day at The Chestnut Tree Bookshop with a sausage sizzle out front, and I bought Cooking in the Wrong Century by Austrian author Teresa Prรคauer, a satire about a dinner party. I love it, and I’m savouring it slowly. I’m only halfway through as I write this.
๐ โ Book club night. I was so behind on John of John by Douglas Stuart that I spent my lunch hours that week catching up, read on the train and the bus, and, on the day, settled into West Footscray Wine with oysters, anchovies, and wine to finish it. I gave it 6/7. The Gaelic was hard going, and there were too many characters IMO, but it is incredible fiction. This month I’m also reading How to Use 3,000 Yen by Hika Harada.
๐ฌ โ Jailer 2. Hands down, Rajinikanth’s Jailer 2 is the best movie of the year. Fafa and I went to the last session and shared the gourmet popcorn nachos, which we finished before the movie even started.
๐ฌ โ The Other Mommy. Another movie night at the cinema. I think I liked the experience (an impromptu horror movie night with nachos, popcorn and Fafa) more than the movie itself.
๐ฟ โ At home. Together we watched The Invite and Batha (loved). On my own, I watched 21 Days (a hidden gem), Animal, Below and some peyi movies, including a rewatch of the cult favourite Skeleton Key.
๐บ โ TV-wise. We finished Ted Lasso (so sad it’s done) and kept going with The Diplomat, our weekday date night show.
๐ช โ Browsing. 10 Deliciously Disturbing Horror Movies About Food, Beautiful Homes of India, and a mega compilation of 100 horror movie twists that helps me sleep.
Meanwhile, on Kulture Kween:
This month, I wrote about Jakarta Street Vendors: The Vanishing Trades That Came to the Door, A Royal Rajasthani Food Feast With Native Australian Flavours, SloFo WeFo Farmers Market Where West Footscray Comes Together, Footscray Pho Crawl by A Pho Head Five Years in the Making, Authentic Northern Thai Feast Among Strangers at Pipitapan Supper Club, Which Melbourne Restaurant Would You Choose for Your Last Meal?, Running in Albury, Working in Wodonga, and Crossing State Lines
Tiny Joys
Appreciation email โค๏ธ Australian sausage sizzle โค๏ธ compliments โค๏ธ cute PJs โค๏ธ D’Annam discovery sets โค๏ธ Fafa cutting mango and fruit for me โค๏ธ film camera โค๏ธ framed art โค๏ธ fresh new Leuchtturm โค๏ธ glasses from Bailey Nelson โค๏ธ gourmet popcorn โค๏ธ IM8 drink โค๏ธ kids’ birthday cake โค๏ธ Larry Post โค๏ธ lighting a candle on a rainy day โค๏ธ lucky underwear โค๏ธ martabak manis โค๏ธ naps โค๏ธ neighbourhood slow food market โค๏ธ new YouTube channels that help me be productive โค๏ธ Nikki’s coffee runs โค๏ธ online grocery shopping โค๏ธ oysters โค๏ธ phone calls with Jik and Amma โค๏ธ a photobooth print on Gertrude Street โค๏ธ Piccolino ice cream โค๏ธ Pilus โค๏ธ planning trips โค๏ธ Portuguese tarts โค๏ธ rainy day โค๏ธ reading by myself โค๏ธ seaweed sheets snack โค๏ธ a sunny day โค๏ธ thin book to read โค๏ธ US goodies โค๏ธ the word Notabene
Time Machine
๐ด โ This time last year This time last year I was in Jakarta for Diwali and my nieceโs half-saree ceremony, eating as much Indonesian food and squeezing into as many photo booths as I possibly could. Meanwhile, a decade ago I was greeting my barista by name at Nashi, spending weekends at Leonard House of Love and buying fresh market flowers, and Iโd just done the OneDay to Conquer Cancer walk. Rereading old NoNes is my favourite way to remember what I used to think, and sometimes to find out I haven’t changed at all.
Thank You, Next!
๐ฎ โ Tarot of the month is the Two of Swords from the This Might Hurt deck. I’m not very well-versed with the Two of Swords. From what I’ve read, it’s the card of the stalemate, a blindfolded figure holding two crossed swords and refusing to choose. Tying in with November, I’m reading it as a nudge to take the blindfold off, stop sitting on the fence and trust myself to make the call I’ve been putting off.
๐๏ธ โ Things I look forward to next month: Diwali in Jakarta, a day trip to Bandung, a weekend in Bangkok and another weekend in Koh Samui.
That’s October, wrapped. A month of garlic hands, pasta, pastel, horror movies and too many midnights, held together by good food and good people. November, please be gentler. I’ll bring snacks.
Until next month, Kal
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