Happy B'day Alan!

For Alan's B'day, we went to Cru54 in Surry Hills, which scored a whopping 9.1 on eatability. The restaurant was simple and elegant, predominated by white. It was raining hard but thankfully there were two very large overhead heaters so we didn't freeze our arses off :P


There were 8 tapas selections ranging from $3 - $5 on the menu, and you can get the chef's choice as well. I thought a tapas would consist of a few morsels, but ZT knew better, and ordered one each for just about all of us. So the dishes you see in the pics? that's NOT one tapas, but several individual pieces/tapas.

The white anchovy with palm heart and pickled pepper (top right) was interesting; never had palm heart before, tasted kinda like artichoke. The chorizo came in mild and hot (mild wasn't enuff for me :P), but the best was the caramelised goat cheese and onion compote on thin crackers (all 11 of them in the middle); such a nice contrast of sweet and savoury, soft and crunchy.


The volcanic anemones (lower right) are grilled eggplant + tuna caper mayo, another tapas. This one was also fun to look at and good to eat. Then we moved into the raciones...which can be shared between 2+ ppl or as a medium dish for one. We split into groups so I only got to try the braised beef cheek and pumpkin puree ($17 never had beef cheek before, and thankfully couldn't tell it was the cheek), grilled aged beef fillet with fois gras ($24), and the roasted garlic mushrooms + sherry vinegar ($12). Everything was delicious, but I thought the portion for the mushroom was a bit small (same with the salad).

The dessert menu only had 3 items, and no one wanted the poached pear hehe. I don't normally have fruit for dessert, so I didn't care for the valencia burnt orange, although the lemon and cinnamon ice cream was very nice (but i couldn't taste that much lemon in it). The banana pain perdu was warm and moist, and great with the chocolate ganache.

It wasn't cheap (~$40 p.p.) but it was good to sample so many things, and the service was good. I think it would be nice place to take someone on a date (and I love their wine glasses! haha)

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Back to Alan's to check out his present. Tracey got Alan a cake and we turned off the living room lights and waited for him to come out of the loo...lol. We sang Happy B'day and he turned off the corridor light to add to the atmosphere HAHA. He obliging pretended to be surprised by the present too. Yes it's a Wii with 2 remotes + steering wheels! ;) Mario Kart was heaps fun, especially if you like falling off cliffs and running into walls :P

Happy B'day Alan!

Cockatoo Island Biennale

It's the last week of free ferry service to see installations from 35 artists as part of the biennale on Cockatoo Island. Cockatoo Island used to be a prison and dockyard amongst other things, and although I didn't know this at the time, I immediately thought of prison when I stepped off the ferry. You can actually camp here ($45/night unpowered, $75/night powered), and the facilities looked really good. Tickets for camping on NYE will go on sale on Monday!

Vestiges of the island's history were everywhere. It was cold, windy and gloomy, which really added to the feeling of desolation and abandonment. And I love that crane! haha

The sign says "Caution: aggressive birds". True, the seagull was chased away by a very fierce atua. She also freaked the seagull mum into standing up so we could see the green and brown speckled eggs. Also, try and spot the 2 chicks in the lower right panel!

installations in the great turbine hall, now converted to hold concerts

Some of the other stuff that I could take photos of. Didn't have time to go to the top of the island, which was a shame.

The most memorable artist was Mike Parr and his videos of 'pushing the body to the limit', including holding his breath til he almost passed about, holding his finger in a candle flame, opening and closing old wounds, and cutting himself...all this in different rooms off unlit corridors of a large, abandoned building, with work records dating back to '85 on one wall...finally, a short on murder in an unlit room at the end...spooky....

This place would be great for camping...roaming around at night, telling ghost stories. Wish I had more time to spend here :P

work oh&s

I was summoned to the museum by my supervisors via telepathy. We had a meeting planned months ago, and I'd completely forgotten about it.

"Hey you remembered, we weren't sure if you were coming!"
"No I'd forgotten all about it! I just thought I should show my face today" lol.

we talked, then had a long lunch and many beers...

Obviously, this lax attitude is part of the reason why I haven't submitted my thesis....

my supervisor taped down the charger for me and ibis man provided the sign...we're a relaxed bunch here but we still care about oh&s!

As I was reading a journal paper, an enthusiastic staff member introduced himself, then proceeded to write out a time line for my next paper...x days for results, x days for intro and x days for discussion. Finish by Sept 30 he says. Stop watching telly he says.

"No, it's either telly (or the intarwebs in my case), or alcohol" said a sympathiser

"That's right. Do you want me to become an alcoholic?"

Ah well, I want to try and stick to the time line anyway. Fingers crossed.

Mikado

Urgh. what great timing - having a disgusting, snot-filled cold during a busy week attending workshops and chauffeuring mum around coz her car's being repaired :P

At least i scored a golden mikado from the flower market ($7) while waiting for mum. It's a wetland plant from Brasil, and the little golden globes are flowers. I was trying to find something unusual in the flower market, and I did see the mikado from a distance but dismissed it as a fake, decorative thing...until mum picked it up just before we left...haha. It's noice, it's different, it's unusual, I likes it XD

Mikado (Syngonanthus chrysanthus)

Happy b'day to me!

My birthday is the one time a year I invite people over, because it involves cooking for me and letting me play their wii games, and if I invited them over more than that they'll revolt and kill me. lol.

I got the most kickass presents ever...YY actually knitted a scarf for me @_@...I was practically speechless (except for 'HOLY FUCK'). It's an amazing colour, I love turquoise! (and I'm so happy you didn't get me a blue or green toy!). I got a Skydiving voucher too! It's only a few thousand meters! I'll be alright! (I thought it came with dvd+photos..but no, didn't accidentally score a freebie bwahaha. Was getting that myself anyway. I'm aiming for the pig sty a la bridget jones; Des says there's nothing wrong with having bacon for breakfast XD). Also got a very cool jumper with rude birds that say 'ass!' and 'bum!', and a cute, fat dove to go in my bird collection wahaha.

Sugar rimmed strawberry daiquiris were my downfall. I was off my face in 10 sec *spills x 2*.
Why? Why did I have to clean up my own mess?

cheers! tam and my 'mini crotches', Des' 'man crotch', and ZT's real crotch (tastefully censored XD)

Yay food! thank you ZT and Alan for the chicken and kangaroo skewers, Jeff and Lionel for the good chesses, Tammy for the fritata (what's the diff to quiche again? XD), and atua for the much needed roast...without these food, all my guests would have starved...especially since I forgot to count myself in wahaha. I made a little basil+tomato+feta cheese hors d'oeuvre, a compulsory dish, and to my surprise, people actually ate them haha (the bowl of broken feta also made for a good laugh). There was also the compulsory san choi bao, with the filling courtesy of my mum (hey I cut those lettuce leaves! haha). God I was so pissed, I roped Lionel in to cook the risotto, and Tammy baked the fish for me (Btw, who wrote 'love myself, cook risotto and enjoy life!!!' on the 'to do list' on the fridge? LOL). Anyway, I'm really sorry guys. I swear next time I'll finish cooking before I start drinking...-_-; YY got us a baked cheesecake from breadtop, and that was excellent.

YY's friend gave her a copy of the 'Forbidden Kingdom'. That movie looked SHIT and but hey it has jacky chan and jet li so we put it on for fun...GOD it WAS SHIT. but we were able to understand, through the subtitle, the names of the characters i.e. Jason aka Talented Forest and some girl called Political Label, though not the actual story. LOL. You've been warned.

Finally I got to play wii again. I can't believe I'm the only person that bothers to get off the couch to play tennis. lol.

Anyway, thanks for coming everyone. Next time I'll finish cooking before you guys come over. I swear!

Full Circle

What do you know, I turned 21 again! *cough cough*. Well I had a good time at the mental hospital ha ha. One patient played me happy b'day on her violin, and everyone sang, and I got a card and chocolate cake from the chaplaincy team which I wasn't expecting :D

The b'day card had an eagle on it.

me: "This is not an ibis!"
supervisor 1: "It's inside the eagle" LOL

Since mum's vegetarian, and b'days are about being grateful to the 'rents for giving birth to us even though we didn't ask for it, we went to Full Circle in Crows Nest for dinner.

hot and sour soup...my favourite, and it was hot enough! hurray!



Starter 1: fried mushrooms...i thought it would be like the ones I had in Taiwan, porcini coated thinly with batter...more like tempura actually; but these were button mushrooms in a ball...It was ok, just not what I'd hoped for



Starter 2: san choi bao, ordered by my bro. I always prefer the vegetarian version to the one with meat, so I did enjoy this one.




three-coloured rice (1 serve)



some sort of tofu balls on bok choy; I was so over tofu while eating this dish ha ha. It was quite good.

salt and pepper tofu and 'squid'; the mock squid looked and tasted like squid, just a bit softer than the real thing

It wasn't cheap (dinner came to ~ $70), but it was nice; don't have much to say about it because i was just really too tired to enjoy the food, or eat much of it. Anyway, support the vegetarian restaurant K! take Ducky there next time XD

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we wanted to get home to the olympics, plus I was buggered too; so we just got a box of gelato from Bravo around the corner. Haven't been there in ages! their hazelnut gelato is still so good!

Dralion

whoa...I'm pretty behind in updating my blog, thanks to all the Olympic games on tv. Some of my fav events were covered this year, e.g. men and women's gymnastics, though sadly the ancient sport of Greco-Roman wrestling was not deemed worthy of air time (for which channel 7 should be thrown down with a reverse waist lock :P)

Anyhoodle, I went to see Dralion, a mixture of extraordinary gymnastic skills and creative story-telling with lots of pibgornesque performers. The tent and stage were both surprisingly small, so even seats at the back would get a very good view. I enjoyed the gymnastics performances and the dancing...but the singing...man it went on for a bit, it was about all I could handle (ZT said Varekai had even more singing and less action..@_@ The program didn't help either; it had alot of pictures, but no story line). It was also very warm inside, so at one stage I was struggling to keep my eyes open, and I think I had a little microsleep or two :P

Isn't it amazing what (some) humans can do? she could also balance and twist her body on one hand, and she doesn't even have huge muscly arms.

I have seen acrobatics performances in China, so I wasn't awed by cirque du soleil. The singing and dancing...left me hankering for a 'normal' circus - like the ones I saw when I was a kid, with the tight rope and trapeze, and a motorcycle in a round steel cage XD

Oh...i almost forgot...the toilets in the showring had 3 ply quilton toilet paper. That was impressive LOL.

After much dithering, we had dinner at Shanghai Night in Ashfield. I've wanted to try this place for ages. It's the one that food bloggers such as NQN and grab your fork compared to Din Tai Fung. The soup dumplings weren't as good as the ones at DTF - the skin wasn't as soft and translucent, and tore more easily. We got the pork dumplings and the pork and crab dumplings (why is the crab filling red?), and I don't think the filling beats DTF imho. However, the food is vastly cheaper here, and there were many more things I'd like to try. I also like the casual local restaurant atmosphere...especially when pecking duck was delivered in a cardboard box, in black garbage bag XD. Might come back another time :D