Tralalalalala

Here's my X'mas present to myself...yay baby!

after many long nights I've finally finished the beast...the shackle...

 ...the condensation of my wasted life haha

there was a bit of a drama - the printer left out a few pages!!! important pages like Thesis Certification and one page of the Table of Contents...the horror!

If I didn't have lunch with A&K and if K hadn't asked to see my thesis and if he didn't opened up 1 of the 2 theses with missing pages from the very start then...well it would have looked very very bad

i'm very grateful to my degree for allowing me to sleep so much for so many years

here I am signing off my theses, in my wood paneled office aka THE PUB

my thesis, titled 'Alcohol, cornerstone of societies. A study on its positive influence on the emotional and mental welfare of the disenchanted'

these good people never discouraged me from drinking, nor from only having one drink at a time

my supervisor is GOLD

IBIS MAN IS SPARKLY

actually i was trying to tell him he's got such a sparkling personality, but i was really trashed so i kept saying 'you're sparkly, but not like Edward'. HAHAHA

my baby is surrounded by good company XDDDD

oh god i now have a break from this for at least a few months!!!

*TEARS OF JOY*

La Candela

Marilyn kindly took us to her local, Jason's la candela, to celebrate getting a new job. Such a generous girl :)

Chrissy present from Marilyn - beautiful triple wrapped raspberry and lime tea from Taka tea garden, with large dried raspberries. I tried it today, it was very nice :)

tasting plate for 2 - $26

Not particularly exciting, but a good size for 4 people. The garlic prawns were good.

M's open prawn ravioli, a deceptively filling serving. I didn't hear raves about this dish though.

my blue swimmer crab risotto - this was very nice because it was a bit spicy, and i enjoyed the half-crab. ZT got the gnocchi with gorgonzola which was highly recommended by the waitress and it was very cheesy. I think he liked it. All the mains were around $20-$25

The only thing that marred the meal was the waitress. She had the unnerving habit of giving us practically 10 seconds to look at the main and dessert menus before coming back multiple times to take our orders...when it's clear that we were no where near ready...over-zealous I thought, but not when it came to clearing the table. I actually wrapped up all the crab shells in a napkin for her...yet she had to be told to take the 'parcel' away AFTER she had given us our coffees...and even after she brought the dessert, she still left my crab cracker and fork behind. WTF??? obviously being nice didn't help any...

anyway, it was a good dinner for me. I was upset at my job working on the death star, but after hearing about A&Z's jobs, and the completely controlling or retarded people they work with, like 'hey I just caused a huge disfiguring accident, but she'll be right!'...I've come to realise that it's actually more sad to have a potentially meaningful and stable job ruined by the people you work with. It gave me real appreciation of all the lovely storm troopers I work with, and the clarity to do away with useless emotions and just make a plan to get off the death star before it explodes...

Present from the boys - pea pod cushions, because of the pea pod keyring i posted on my blog many moons ago. I actually used one at the restaurant hahaha. It was very comfy :)

it's funny what people remember; Des bought me the same keyring from Japan because of that post (although it kinda doesn't make sense)...he also got me the bubblewrap keyring for my b'day which is actually about 100x more awesome for those obsessive-compulsive/nervous times :)

released

this poor young girl hurt her head, so she had to go into care. she recovered and was brought back to the place where she was found

here she is peeking out of the release cage



"baroo?"

sometimes it's possible to just open the cage and the flying-fox would find its own way out, but this girl needed some encouragement. She's amazingly placid for a wild animal.



she's hanging on the fingers of the carer, and checking out her environs

after a while she flapped her wings and was gone; she flew well :)

Azuma Kushiyaki

I've been wanting to go to Azuma Kushiyaki for a while but never suggested it to anyone as I thought it would be quite pricey. So I was surprised and pleased when Amanda suggested it for dinner.

it's a very comfortable space, dark wood paneling, muted colours, and I love these two paintings

our table was a bit too close to the next table though...Amanda and I were silently waiting for the very annoying couple to leave. The diners after them were much more soft spoken, so they probably found us annoying haha.



the ceramic plate and cup and the interesting chopstick rest were nice additions to the visual feast



Special - grilled eggplant with chicken mince and miso $9.80

It's not a particularly exciting dish, and the eggplant wasn't as moist as I'd expected.



Azuma's famous seared tuna salad as featured on Food Safari $15.00

Very surprised by how much radish, shallot, and ponzu vinaigrette this dish had. If you're not a fan of any of the ingredients then you might struggle with this. It's not that the flavours didn't suit the very meaty seared tuna...it's just a bit of an overkill



assorted kushiyaki skewer $14.80
with green tea salt, Japanese pepper and curry salt

The 'baby beef' tenderloin was so tender and melt in the mouth, it's destined to be ordered again (next time i'm just going to have beer and skewers). The chicken thigh skewer was another highlight. The prawn was fresh and flavoursome but I wish we got the wild scallops with soy and home made garlic oil instead (these two are alternated). Amanda wondered who would order okra, with its slimy strings...well the people next to us did haha. The pale chicken breast skewer with pickled plum mayo was my least favourite because it didn't have the juicy, grilled taste to it.



'Japanese risotto' or Zosui, with salmon $15.00

I'm not sure what possessed Amanda to order this, may be it was the name? it turned out to be soupy rice with egg and salmon, although considering I was on buscopan this was surely a blessing to my stomach, and it was very comforting indeed. I'm not knocking the dish because I actually love mixing rice with soup. I just don't know about having it at a restaurant, that's all.

There was a strange mix of Christmas carols and Japanese enka throughout the meal. Only when we got up to pay did we realise there's a man with a guitar tucked away in a corner near the door!

Anyway, prices were much more reasonable than I thought, so hopefully I will be back soon :)

cake and hot drink set, $9.50

The dessert menu at AK was uninspiring and if you want to have a look at what's on the assorted dessert platter you have to go next door to the affiliated Azuma Patisserie anyway. There are nice comfy chairs there, prices are lower, plus you can order green tea soft serve if you like...so personally I'd go the Azuma Patisserie anytime.

The place has improved dramatically since it opened a few months ago. Now there's a cake and hot drink set with loose leaf tea. My soba-cha is caffeine free as it's flavoured with roasted buckwheat kernels. The wait staff also brought hot water over for refills.

As soon as we opened up the chocolate fondant we asked for it to be warmed again to get the gooey consistency in the middle. Once that's done it was rich and beautiful. Amanda decimated the chestnut cake which is a good option for people who don't want the range of chocolate cakes on offer. I'm just sad they don't have small cheesecakes as they are baked on site!