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the official birthday celebrations kicked off the night before, with the drama of a thunderstorm beating against the plate glass windows of ocean room. two cousins, the kid and i, presided over by my good father, sat down and ate some really good sashimi, some anchovies topped with tomato sorbet, some soft-shelled crab tacos (not quite enough soft-shelled crab tacos, if you ask me), some shoe-string fries topped with a tantalising sprinkle of shichimi pepper — and here’s the thing, you think japanese, and you think delicate little bits of food, but we also had a whole wing of of a yellow fin tuna, so large that it came with a map to guide us.

there were three zones marked out, and the meat — slow roasted over 40 minutes — tasted different from each part. milder white meat up top, slightly dry, and more intensely fishy flavour, from the moist and dark underside. all even more delicious with the crushed cucumber ponzu dipping sauce.

friday morning, i marked the turning of 37 with a tall paper cup of rich hot chocolate, and a short plastic one of central baking depot’s house granola. it’s oats and sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds, and whole hazelnuts, and dried dates, and a bunch of other stuff too i’m sure, baked golden brown, broken into crunchy chunks, and topped in plain yoghurt and tart stewed fruit.

is it healthy? i don’t know, but it was packed with enough hidden oils and sugar to keep me fortified for a terrible hour-long busride out to bondi for sculptures by the sea.

it’s true, what all those bondi locals have been grumbling about. the coastal walk slowed down to a coastal crawl, as every body stopped to look. and look. and look. even funner than seeing the sculptures was watching the hardcore joggers trying their best to run around the punters, the school kids, the old ladies, the dogs, the sculptures, and then looking irritated to find their path blocked, again. again. dear bondi locals: stop grumbling! find an alternative jogging route for a couple of weeks! do you see me spleening about the queues out of zumbo, keeping me from cake?

the funnest thing of all though, was the magical dream house on top of the hill, a life-sized cubby house completely covered by one jane gillings in an armour of found toys and plastic bottle caps.

oh how we wanted to buy it and take it home with us! instead we opted for hot chips and potato cakes down by the beach.

we had gelato then, once the spuds had settled, not by the sea, but tucked away in the cool and dark of messina. the mythical gingerbread gelato eluded me, so i made do with a triple chocolate extravaganza. chocolate fondant — rich and creamy with a hazelnutty edge; chocolate sorbet — smooth and light and intensely cocoa-y; and chocolate yoghurt — milky with a pleasant tang, my pick of the pack.

and you might think a birthday would end there, what with the kid falling asleep in the car on the way back to my dad’s hotel suite in the city and all…

but she performed that trick of bouncing out of bed about two minutes after she was tucked in, so we trekked into BBQ king and they brought us soup, all porky and ribby with a single chunk of carrot.

then they brought us a great bowl of roast duck congee, infused with delicious ducky flavour and a wonderful surprise of ginger slivers hidden deep in its heart.

and then a platter of fat, fried you tiao. the rice grains in the porridge had broken down into lush creaminess, just perfect for dipping.

now that’s how you end a birthday. lips glistening with oil, a starchy rice mass expanding slowly in your belly.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 18 November 2009 at 9:03 pm

permalink | filed under around town, art, breakfast, chocolate, dinner, ice cream

what a difference a half hour makes. if you aim for dinner at 6 o’clock, but become distracted beforehand in the subterranean cave of delights that is basement books, your 6.30 arrival at din tai fung will mean another 30 minute wait for a table. when we did front up at 6 a few weeks ago, we were ushered straight in.

the half hour of waiting groomed our appetites into big growling beasts, such that we had to order two baskets of xiao long bao (one serve with crab, and one without, and oh, how they both burst with sweet, porky, crabby juices) to quell their grumbles. between the four of us, we also put away a little dish of cold cucumber salad — more a miniature great wall fashioned out of thick slices of the gourd, in a chili-oily dressing; a large dish of dry-fried green beans with minced pork; a bowl of soup noodles with a moist and tender fried pork chop on the side; another bowl of soupy noodles topped with pork and picked vegetable.

we like pork, we do.

here’s the thing, the servings at din tai fung are moderate, and the food delicate, but dessert is constructed to a whole other scale. we were just short of full once the last noodle had been slurped, that last sliced of peppered pork chop dealt with. and we were bold, and ordered fresh mango over crushed ice.

and as it approached the table, other diners swiveled their heads around to stare. behold: a mountain of shaved ice (packed a little too tightly tonight; they should have served it with an ice pick) doused in mango syrup and sweetened milk. a generous globe of mango gelato perched precariously at the summit. fat slabs of mango at its base. and when it was gone — no, actually, we only made it three-quarters of the way through — we were completely stuffed.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 12 November 2009 at 1:14 pm

permalink | filed under around town, dinner, ice cream

well. clearly it’s a cosmic conspiracy against the rice pudding eclair — once again i made it out of zumbo without. but behind every cloud lies… another cloud! the sunny cloud, to be precise.

it was that fella’s birthday yesterday, and for all those times he wistfully mentioned the lemon meringue pies his mother used to make while he was growing up, i bought him a little one of his own. a regal majesty it is, sitting pretty as though carved out of italian meringue by florentine sculptors. but beneath the swirls of gilt-edged meringue (guilt-edged meringue — ha!) is not your average lemon tart. in fact, it isn’t a lemon tart at all.

just look at that delectable triple-layer filling in its crisp shell: lime jelly, lime curd, and a very lively yoghurt creme fraiche. because he was happy to share, i can tell you that oh, it was good. after the yielding, marshmallowy meringue, the lime jelly tasted like a burst of fresh fruit, and the curd was full and fat on my tongue. and yet, i was glad to have only had the modest serve…

… because we were due for a meatfest at braza. you might think that a 6pm start for a traditional churrascaria is too early. the summer sun is still up, say, or the meats might not be ready yet. and this is true.

but this early, the kid is still in good spirits (and so are we, after the lovely waitress gives maeve the once over and agrees to charge her the three-year-old price — free — even though she’s just turned four), and the meat is not too far off.

for a $38 flat rate, we were presented with a host of side dishes — fried cassava wedges, polenta and crumbed banana; potato salad; green salad, with oranges, beetroot and ricotta; an assortment of tiny pickled brazillian chillies; tomato-capsicum salsa, so delicious we ate our way through two bowls; roasted cassava flour; and rice… which remained largely untouched — and an endless parade of meat, borne on skewers by charming brazillian waiters.

according to the menu, there are 18 varieties that go round; i lost count. that’s my plate halfway through, with a bit of grilled haloumi, some fish that came wrapped in banana leaf, some lamb, some beef, a chicken wing, a portion of banana fritter and a cube of fried polenta. i had already eaten a fat slab of pork neck. minutes later, three other cuts of beef came by, and a skewer of succulent prawns. and some more pork.

the highlight was the pork, i think, and the cheese. and the little meaty sausages and the lamb. and the prawns. also: the cassava chips… and did i mention the salsa? some of the beef was over-seasoned, a cunning ploy to get you drinking more, thought the birthday boy as he savoured his $7 beer, but all the meat was perfectly cooked, still pink and tender on the inside, and when it mattered, sometimes charred and crunchy on the outside.

unfortunately, i cannot tell you a single thing about the chargrilled chicken hearts.

late into the game, we tipped our stop-go doodad on its side to signal: respite! but i put it green end up as soon as i saw the pineapple go by. yes, they will bring you two pineapples impaled on a skewer, and carve off as many slices as you desire. the outside is liberally sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, and the inside is succulent with juice.

we had barely finished the fruit when the particularly friendly waiter came back with another chunk of meat. “more meat?” he asked, and when we shook our heads, no longer able to speak, he continued knowingly, “more pineapple?”

it was a darned good offer, but we had to decline.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 4 December 2008 at 5:30 pm

permalink | filed under boy, cake, dinner

aloha! bet you didn’t even know that i was gone… but i was! it was my birthday last week, and my father shouted us a trip to hawaii. funny, my mum brought with her three fat novels and just a couple of hundred US dollars, because she thought there’d be nothing to do but sit on the beach and feel bored.

me, i did my research beforehand, and noted that there was a gap close to the hotel. what did end up being a surprise was that our hotel was a stroll away from the rodeo drive of waikiki, and a brisk walk in the other direction took us straight to macy’s.

but of course, it was all about how much american junk food i could eat in a week. my first move was to take up the two-for-a-dollar offer on pop tarts at the enormous drugstore at the local mall.

i also got myself a slice of the famous ted’s bakery chocolate haupia pie. this one i actually procured from the deli section of a supermarket in the mall (yes, yes, i spent a lot of time at the mall, eight hours in one day if you must know, and my mother and i returned to the hotel to discover that my father had already tried to notify the police); there were two kinds available — one which was merely labelled, haupia chocolate pie, and the one i ended up with, ted’s pie chocolate haupia. i asked a store employee what the difference was, and he replied that the former was made instore, and that they were trying to copy ted. so i asked him which one he liked better, and he paused, and his eyes darted, and he said, “well. the ted’s one is pretty good.” so thank you, shop boy, it was pretty good, with a rich, dark layer of chocolate pudding below, and a light, fragrant layer of coconut pudding above, and a cloud of whipped cream above that.

the kid and i split it, and a blueberry pop tart for breakfast the next morning.

we also ate a lot of japanese food, natch, the highlight of which was probably a tuna and shiso leaf inside-out maki on our last night. and then unexpectedly, i ate quite a bit of mexican food. more, anyway, than you’d think, for hawaii.

behold: the tamale platter from the foodcourt (in the mall) on our second day there. two tamales from a choice of cheese, pork and chicken, and three sides from a choice of… plenty. already wilting from the lack of fresh vegetable accompaniments to american meals, i picked pineapple salsa, macerated oranges, and spicy black beans. and three kinds of salsa. and a flowery drink called, “jamaica”. the corn chips were complimentary. i did not get through it all.

i had not had tamales before, and now i know that they are like chinese zhongzi, except made from cornmeal, and thus possibly stodgier. the cheese one was pretty good until it cooled down and congealed, and the pork one was pretty good fullstop, but i would not necessarily have them again.

on my birthday, we were away from civilisation, walking on ancient volcanos on the big island, and sustenance came from the cafeteria dining hall at the lone, appropriately named hotel on the edge of the national park — volcano house. it was not hot and burny up the volcano, as you might imagine, but cold and drizzly, and tinged with sulfurous gasses. the one hot food option was a tub of chili and rice, so i had that, and because it was my birthday, i also picked a blueberry pie from the glass cabinet. the pie was flown in from spokane, WA… it was nice and all, but i kinda wish it had been trucked up from ted’s.

as i write this, i’m realising that i didn’t actually get around to that much american junk food after all. i must have finally realised my limits, or all those lectures from my good mother about trans fats finally found a receptor in my brain, because all those encyclopedic lists of ingredients on the packaging made every second thing look a little unappealing. only every second thing though, and only a little unappealing. and anyway, you can get peanut butter cups at the newsagents at broadway shoping center here in sydney.

what you probably can’t get are these amakara mochi, fat, sticky rice cakes in a beguiling bath made primarily of soy sauce and sugar. they were definitely intriguing, and somewhat moreish, but somehow i could not give them away. not that i really wanted to; they were not the worst things i ate in hawaii.

this was. the “market fresh” sante fe salad from arby’s, in a surprisingly upmarket stripmall surrounded by lava rocks on the big island. i don’t know if it was the icy cold chicken nuggets, or the leathery kernels of corn. perhaps it was the raspberry vinaigrette the consistency of a blood bank donation (perhaps i should have gone with the default ranch dressing, the consistency of an arterial blockage). i’d already come to terms with the standard, shredded iceberg lettuce served everywhere, so it couldn’t have been that. overall it was inedible, so i didn’t. the one saving grace of this miserable lunch was the curly fries. it was my fault, i suppose: who asked me to eat at a fast food chain outlet? it’s just, i didn’t think it was possible to do such vile things to a salad.

and the best things i ate in hawaii? just outside the hotel grounds was what i’ve since discovered is a local institution, wailana coffee house and cocktail lounge. truly the diner of my dreams, with its roster of waitstaff straight out of “ghost world” and its all-day, all-you-can-eat pancake special.

i did not get to eat the triple-layer cubes of rainbow jell-o from the all-you-can-eat salad bar, nor the giant belgian waffles i’d had my eye on from our first visit. i might’ve had a sandwich or something on that early, bleary night, but then i returned the morning after for the old fashioned french toast — each massive eggy, bready slice concealed a secret pocket of guava jam.

i knew it would be futile trying to squeeze a final breakfast in before our 7am departure to the airport on the last day, so i put in a request for lunch the day before. and this is what i had: the chuck wagon. a smoked pork chop with apple sauce, two eggs (i chose googy sunny side up), two macadamia hotcakes with whipped butter (so large they came on their own plate) and all the syrup i could eat. yes, three pitchers of maple, coconut and boysenberry syrups, jest fer me.

does it not make you weep with joy? the meat — a ham steak, really — was lean and tender, singed just right. the pancakes were soft and fluffy, with crunchy edges round the sides, and chopped macadamias all the way through. i’d already tried the trio of syrups on the french toast earlier in the week, and was happy to go with just an endless stream of maple. happy!

but i still had unfinished business. from my research i knew there was a cupcake shop in the vicinity, and so after lunch, while the kid went for a last hurrah in the swimming pool with her grandpa, i steered my mum’s afternoon coffee expedition in the direction of satura cakes. look — they really do come in cups!

i didn’t actually eat anything then… well, i couldn’t — this is my mum’s konamisu cupcake, a pretty convincing alcohol-free tiramisu with creamy, chocolatey mascarpone and light sponge and locally grown coffee.

because i hoped i might be able to eat again later, i came away with the store’s signature strawberry shortcake for the kid (a light as air confection of sponge cake and whipped cream), and the red velvet cupcake for me. the rich, moist, red cake was topped with a dreamy dollop of white chocolate and mascarpone. i only wish i could’ve been more awake as i scarfed it the next morning before the cab came to whisk us away.

but look. a week in hawaii is more than enough time to eat, even if it seems like you’re eating nonstop. aside from the chuck wagon, the highlight of the trip was probably walking through the 500-year-old lava tube in the middle of the lush rainforest on the edge of the kilauea volcano crater.

because you think hawaii and you think hula, and soft, sandy beaches, and swaying palm trees (and out-of-towners with leathery skin and far less (and more colourful) clothing than they probably should be wearing), but there we were, down from the volcano, on a beach of black sand created by centuries of broken down lava rocks, surrounded by… nothing.

coolness.

i was still eating at the end, of course. i considered revisiting the pumpkin spice cream frappucino i’d had at another airport starbucks a couple days earlier, but decided that the one not unpleasantly pumpkin-flavoured beverage topped with whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon was enough. instead, i cracked open my final container of pineapple slices. i’d probably already eaten three or four local pineapples cumulatively over the week, but i couldn’t get enough. they were so juicy you’d be sticky all down your chin, and sweet, like they’d come out of a tin. and so, there i was, in the lounge waiting for the boarding call, savouring my last three slices. they went all too quickly.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 20 November 2008 at 3:31 pm

permalink | filed under cake, dinner, lunch, snacks, trip

when my mum comes to sydney, she goes to the opera; this time round, she went to see “la bohème” (and as an afterthought, “my fair lady” *). a few days later, she found herself eating at la bohème too.

but it’s not a place where scruffy and starving students hang out. oh no, no chance of starving here: this is where you come for big serves of central european food. my pretty, scallop-edged platter was soon filled with a festive assortment of meats (smoked ribs, a schnitzel, a portion of roast duck and two kind of sausages), and two sorts of cabbage (sweet red and sauerkraut).

this was the feast platter for one — you should see the feast platter for two! — and in fact, the feast was too big to fit on one plate. close by on another dish sat a trio of dumplings (bread, potato and speck) and a gravy boat.

the highlights for me were the cabbages, natch, and the smoked ribs, infused with such great flavour that i gnawed at the bone long after the sweet meat was gone. the speck dumpling was also infused with porky charm. the schnitzel, if you must know, was merely pedestrian. perhaps on schnitzel night (tuesday and thursday) it makes more of an effort.

also at the table were half a roasted duck and a pork knuckle that had surely been cut from the leg of a monster pig; the carving knife was still embedded when it arrived at the table. there were complimentary apps in the form of warm bread rolls and what amounted to two little dishes of duck fat.

friday night, when we were there, there was also live music, which means a lone man and his amplified violin, playing such tunes as “all by myself” and “you light up my life” over a melodramatic backing tape. he gets there at 7, and we got there at 6, and were still only halfway through our meal when he wheeled his amp in the door.

next time, dinner’s at 5.30.

* for the record, my mother recommends “my fair lady” (“richard e grant has wonderful timing and expression”) over “la bohème” (“ordinary”), cab

posted by ragingyoghurt on 4 November 2008 at 9:28 pm

permalink | filed under dinner

we lunched at haberfield last saturday, where we discovered that the most innocent-looking vegetarian offerings at pasticceria papa might be harbouring bits of meat. tiny chunks of chopped-up schnitzel amidst the chopped-up tomatoes on top of a particularly springtimey pizza, for example. or two enormous meatballs concealed within a “broccoli and potato” schiaciata. but because none of us are actually vegetarian, we ate every last crumb, even the ones that the kid generously graced with scraps of salami off her salami pizza.

she is all about salami these days. and ham. and bacon, she told me, she loves the best, although i think it’s really ham. how much salami should a kid eat? surely italian kids (or spanish, or hungarian… and wherever else salami come from) eat quite a lot of it?

before lunch, we stopped by zanetti 5 star deli, and bought olive mortadella, and pickled octopus, and a packet of little starry pasta. we sat on the the steps out front eating mortadella, which, after an initial uncertainty about the olives, went on the list of approved cured meats.

and then after the cold cuts, and the pizza, and the gelato, and the ricotta cannoli — oh wait, that was me! — the kid requested soup for dinner, with her new starry pasta. here’s what went into our minestrone pot:

onions
garlic
salami
celery
carrots
cabbage
a potato
two bay leaves
a couple squirts of tomato paste
chicken
chickpeas
frozen peas
cherry tomatoes
the stars baby, the stars

posted by ragingyoghurt on 25 June 2008 at 10:41 pm

permalink | filed under around town, dinner, kid, kitchen, lunch

a couple of months ago, i volunteered to put together the newsletter of the kid’s playschool’s parents’ committee. i didn’t really think it through at the time, just figured it would be a catalyst to get some non-work-related design done. however, what it actually meant was that we had to make a special trip into school the other evening to attend a meeting. and i had to take minutes! because i also had to write the darn thing!!

it also meant a couple of trays of flaccid sandwiches — plastic cheese and vegemite, and plastic cheese and ham — and tepid water drunk out of the children’s regulation red plastic tumblers, but let’s forget that ever happened.

after it was all over, we caught the bus back to balmain with our fingers crossed, and got off the bus right opposite the new sushi place that’s just opened on darling street. it threw a welcoming golden light out into the night, and we stepped through the door to find the last two empty stools at the counter.

it’s a small room, seats about twenty. one waitress in front, two or three chefs out back. and a sushi train! sugoi! which, incidentally, is the name of the restaurant.

you probably already know this, but i l o v e sushi train: all those possibilities going ’round and ’round on colourful little plates. sure, there is that stressful element — similar to when you go for dimsum — where you can’t really relax and enjoy the eats because you are always keeping watch for something (better) that might come along, but sometimes you find a place where everything looks good, and none of it has the dehydrated edges of something that’s been riding the conveyer belt carousel for two hours…

and sugoi could be one of those places. we fished a plate of sashimi off the train; the temperature and texture of the fish was perfect. there was a pretty roll of tempura vegetables wrapped up in a delicate pea-green crepe, and topped with a dab of salad cream and a sprig of loveliness. there was spider roll! which i really do quite like. and at the end, there was no red bean mochi topped in whipped cream and strawberries and syrup like they do at tomodachi, but there was a fruit salad of melons, grapes, tinned pineapple and a slice of strawberry, in a glass goblet, on a red plate.

the newsletter has so far been well-received by the committee.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 18 May 2008 at 10:16 pm

permalink | filed under dinner, werk

saturday, i accomplished the unprecedented: three rice-based meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. mmm… i like rice.

breakfast was a trio of sticky rice puddings from lucky thai sweets and video. i had not come this way in ages, but friday afternoon after a spectacular lunch at spice i am (they must have turned up the heat for us; me and singapore girl scraped clean our platters of green papaya salad and sweet and sour clear fish curry, with lips tingling and gullets raw), we floated down campbell street on a chili high and picked the last two boxes of the shelves.

black rice with egg custard; white rice with fried onions, prawns and sugar; yellow rice with salty-sweet shredded coconut — i think i figure out which one is my favourite, and then with the next mouthful i change my mind.

there were longans too, $7.50 for a moderate bunch at paddy’s markets. the price seemed shocking at the time [and yet, still no match for the half-pound of lychees in new york, eh, nellicent?] but no longer begrudged — all the fruit is unblemished, firm and juicy on the inside.

lunch was the biggest plate of rice in the world. the special broken rice, to be exact, from the vietnamese stall at the sussex street food centre, but you cannot see the rice for the meat. there is a large grilled pork chop, all perfumed and lemongrassy. there is a skewer of thinly-sliced pork, rolled up. there is a slice of meatloaf, although the dominant ingredient seems to be mung bean noodles. there are pickled carrots, and a modest salad of sliced tomato and cucumber. there is a small bowl of nuoc mam cham, and an only slightly larger bowl of msg soup.

dinner was unnecessary you understand, but i cooked up a pot of chicken and pumpkin congee for the kid. later, after she had gone to bed, i scraped the bottom of the pot for the brown crusty bits.

i guess this is what happens when you eat pasta all week.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 11 May 2008 at 9:09 pm

permalink | filed under around town, breakfast, dinner, lunch

fucken tired and shit.

this time last week… well, see now, i started off saying “last week”, and then it hit me that it was actually two weeks ago. crap. so this time two weeks ago, i was calling ’round likely candidates, trying to give away a spare ticket i had to the v festival.

which is harder than you’d think, even if it was two days out from the darned thing. in the end though, maybe i was just not meant to get rid of it. saturday, as i walked up to the gates, dressed in my best muji shirt, with an on-the-way bourke street bakery lamb-and-harissa sausage roll under my belt, and the scalper with the slimy, solicitous air muttered, “tickets? anyone got tickets to sell?”, i hesitated just a beat too long, and the moment was gone. me and my spare ticket and VIP wristband were sailing through the bagchecks, going it alone.

which, as it turns out, is not a bad way to go. i squeezed down the front of hot hot heat, i trudged to this, that and the other stage on a whim, and when whimsy got too much, i found a shady spot in the grass for myself, my “new yorker” and a quite delicious veggie sandwich which i’d thought to get at bourke street bakery some hours before to save me from having to eat the hodge-podge of stodge that is festival food.

(funny the way you have to go to a big rock show sometimes, to get a quiet moment to yourself.)

i was killing time until the main event, really. to me, that was queens of the stone age. as evening fell, along with a light drizzle, and the beast of a drummer kicked in… OH it was great! you know… when the crowd seizes up, and you feel it in the back of your neck. it was that kind of great, monstrous rock.

and maybe it’s a sign that i’m too old for outdoor rock festivals, but there were not too many moments of greatness that day, inbetween the trudging from stage to stage. duran duran were not great, but then again i was never a duranite back in the day. rosin murphy was pretty great, with her costume changes at each song and her funny, dramatic dance moves, and her funny, wonderful backing singers. smashing pumpkins started off great, with a lilting guitar anda wistful “today is the greatest day i’ve ever known…”, but then three songs in i remembered why i don’t listen at length to the pumpkins. the whining, the whining does not end.

and so (she whines), i left. i beat the mass exodus, and i caught a cab to my palatial bedroom at the vibe hotel in rushcutters bay, where i ordered copious amounts of room service and fell asleep in crisp white linens.

you are thinking, this is strange. why is she off to rock shows, and spending nights in hotels,and where is her kid? but i assure you, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. the kid had been deposited that morning with her doting aunties and smitten boy cousin for a day (and a night) of belated easter eggs, and vegemite sandwiches, and portuguese cakes, and as little as she could eat of a home-cooked corned beef and white sauce. and i, i had won a prize — the subscription prize, and who ever wins those? — from time out sydney magazine, of festival tickets, and VIP passes (read: clean toilets), and a night in a hotel, and a spankin’ new mobile phone, and spankin’ new phone credit.

(now there’s a moment of greatness right there. although the collective two hours that i spent on the phone with three or four of virgin mobile’s finest offshore call centre personnel, trying to convince them that i really had won a phone off virgin-sponsored competition, and that i hadn’t stolen someone else’s phone whose details were on file as the registered owner of the SIM card, and that they should please, please let me have goddamn access to my account, please… that was really not very great at all.)

but so, i was famished from seven hours of v fest on nothing more than a sausage roll and a veggie sandwich. and so, i ordered up big — so big, i thought, that i was surprised and a little bit embarrassed when the food showed up and they’d only included one set of cutlery.

i had chips, of course, because you must have room service chips, and these were pretty good chips, all crunchy and golden and fat. i ate many of these before i even tasted the duck salad, which i’d ordered out of curiosity, because the description on the menu read: seared duck with lychee, capsicum and watercress salad, with raspberry vinaigrette. the duck was not seasoned, except for the crisp skin, which was, aggressively. the salad was two bitey and mismatched flavours of watercress and capsicum — diced, and in three colours. the lychees strewn over the top seemed mismatched to that, and the raspberry vinaigrette was…um… sour?

fortunately, i got dessert too, because i was hungry at the time. but the vanilla bean ice cream was mostly melted by the time i got to it — it had been delivered sitting atop the warm duck — so i drank that with a spoon, and then i was much too full to have more than a taste of the belgian chocolate mousse.

so i had it for breakfast. rock!

posted by ragingyoghurt on 10 April 2008 at 9:52 pm

permalink | filed under around town, dinner, grumble, lunch, soundtrack

good friday, i served up — somewhat sacrilegiously — a shepherd’s pie for dinner: lamb (of god) mince, cooked with a couple tins of tomatoes, most of a tin of chickpeas, diced carrot and sweet potato, and rather a lot of broccoli. the potato topping was mashed with the remaining chickpeas, and dotted — as prescribed by stephanie alexander — with butter. i do not know why i have not made a shepherd’s pie before this, but it’s a fine way to eat two large potatoes in one sitting.

i figured i’d walked it off earlier that afternoon. we walked from the heart of the city into chinatown for vietnamese — pho bo tai and some porky nem. good old chinatown, who else would be open to feed you when everyone else shuts down to commemorate the lord’s passing? after, we walked the length of the city to get to the botanic gardens. around the time jesus gave up the ghost, the skies above us grew dark and ominous, and the bats ever more shrieky. we caught a bus home then, before the heavens opened.

easter saturday, after a companionable lunch of pastrami bagels and ginger beer, i headed into kinko’s on broadway to rustle up some grunge on the photocopier. kinko’s — that bastion of 24-hour print self-servicery — was shut. the bastards! i hightailed it to the big kinko’s in the city, and it was a hive of activity. blowing up line drawings to 400% — now that was like coming home. but, ok, for actual homecoming, i stopped by BBQ king for a box of their finest, stickiest char siu.

easter sunday, the easter bunny — visiting from chiltern, victoria — presented me with a giant lindt easter egg casket, and the kid with a startling assortment of lesser chocolates. a good start to the day, which went on to include the circus festival at darling harbour, a BBQ pork bun picnic, the parisian toy boats exhibition at the maritime museum, and then a meandering walk through pyrmont, over the anzac bridge, up the back streets of balmain, and home to leftover shepherd’s pie.

we ate a lot of meat this weekend, and i was glad for the cleansing veggie wrap of easter monday. we walked a lot through the city this weekend — it’s both infuriating and a joy. in between i finished a drawing of what may become a CD cover, hopefully. it feels good to be working again.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 25 March 2008 at 12:55 pm

permalink | filed under around town, dinner, kitchen

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