Queen Vic Night Market

Went to the Queen Vic night market with Azuo after work. Left my phone at home, so it was the worst – we arranged to meet up like in the olden days – setting a time and place, and (shock, horror) it actually worked out ok! It’s a bad sign to feel so lost without a phone.

Night market was awesome; there were two aisles full of food stalls, ranging from Mauritian to seafood, Dutch pancakes, Thai, Indian, African, Bratwurst and a lot of Spanish! We had a plate of Spanish seafood stew and a mix of Indian vegetarian curries with pakora, roti and rice. They were both YUM! We spied some people drinking sangria, so naturally had a cup of that each as well. Interesting I thought that they sold white sangria, since I’d only ever seen the red wine version before. Next time I want to try the corn fritters and the couscous (everyone knows I do like couscous!).

There were also normal market stalls, selling different things to what you’d usually see on a typical market day. My theory was that the stall holders are cluey enough to realise that on a typical market day the crowd is mainly tourists (who want cheap tacky things) and the unemployed (who want cheap things). Some of the stalls at the night market included – fisherman pants, badges, witch mobiles that cackled when you clap under them (endless fun!), cocktails in a cask to name a few.

I am starting to think that the night market may need to be a weekly thing.

Boys are weird.

Why are most of my guy friend relationships totally insane and screwed up? That is all I am wondering right now.

Holidays over, back to work.

First day back at work today. Erk. Was struggling by about 10am. Luckily it was fairly quiet, the day mainly consisted of following up action items opened last week (yes, some people actually worked over the Christmas/NY week, including JP the Snr Exec I work with... sheesh! :-P).

I'm watching Iron Chef America on TV. Jamie O is the challenger and Genaro is his sous chef! I think I prefer the original Japanese version - the English dubbing of the commentary is hilarious. It's interesting in this version that the chefs have more interaction and they respond to the commentators when there is confusion on what the dishes are about. The ingredient today is 'Cobia' - a type of fish that apparently handles and tastes very similar to sea bass. And the chef who reigns supreme is.... not Jamie O.

I don't usually make any New Years resolutions but this year I've got a few:
- Learn to cook
- Learn to make cocktails
- Learn Mandarin
- Make the gym membership worthwhile
- Maintain this blog

Good luck to me!

Yum Cha and St Kilda

This week seems to be revolved around eating! Alissa organised a last-minute Yum Cha so headed to Gold Leaf on Burwood Hwy for a quick 1hr session with the Com gang. The parking situation there is shocking, I stalked a couple and managed to get a park ok. Service was efficient and the food came out quickly. A downside was that we didn't see much variety in the 1hr we were there - we missed some of the staples such as steamed bbq pork buns, sticky rice, footballs, radish cakes, ginger prawns. Quality was ok, and the bill ended up being a reasonable $18pp.

The plan afterwards was to go Salsa dancing at the St Kilda Sea Baths. Elaine had heard through friends that they were running salsa classes on Sunday afternoons so we thought we'd suss out the situation. It was the same gang as at Kelvin's pot luck night - Azuo, Elaine, Kelv, Dave and Kenny. So the salsa class started at 5pm and was $15. We decided to skip the class, get something to eat and come back for the open social dancing session at 6pm. After chilling in the Beachcomber cafe, we returned to the social session to find that the dance floor was packed with awesome salsa dancers!! Clearly we were not going to be able to cut it - it was mutually decided that we'd all go salsa classes and return when we actually knew what we were doing! Onto the list it goes!

We trekked to Ackland St to get a take-home pack of gelati from 7 apples and sat next to the beach eating ice-cream - yum! Kenny is full of interesting through-provoking subjects to start conversations; we have been having all these random discussions and it is all very amusing.

Eating and more eating

Had lunch with Sylvia, Breanna and Alison at Tien Dat. Was good to catch up - hadn't seen Alison since before she left for Japan in September, and Sylvia since early November. I'm more convinced than ever that Japan is somewhere I want to visit soon. Also on the list at the moment are Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, Morocco, Spain, and the east coast of the US. Depressing that I don't have any annual leave right now, but potentially could go a holiday this time next year. Something to plan ahead for in any case.

Went for dinner with Rob at Bluestone, it was fair. Atmosphere was a bit old - the restaurant was decked out in heavy curtains, thick carpets, huge gold-framed mirrors, impeccable linen and tableware, elevator background music. The crowd was on the older side, mainly 40's-50's and the place was about half-full - probably not a good sign for a summer Saturday night. On the plus side, the waiters were really cute and the food was cooked well. I had the Moroccan lamb shanks as a main, and we shared the dessert platter afterwards. The lamb shanks were substantial, juicy and melt-in-the-mouth, and came with a rich tomato-based sauce. Rob's swordfish was unexpectedly moist.

We were about to order dessert and were told that the Turkish donuts had run out - I was shattered! Instead we settled for the dessert platter, which consisted of a berry pavlova (recommended), pannacotta (acceptable), a chocolate fondant and mint-chocolate ice-cream. Unfortunately the fondant was lacking the gooey interior that we were promised! All in all a good dinner, but I probably wouldn't go back. It's definitely a tick off my "to eat" list in Melbourne... now, to try all the other restaurants on the list! :-)

In cruise mode

Such a cruisy day today. Woke up late and chilled around the house until mid-afternoon. Usually I'm never home by myself so I've really enjoyed having some free time in the house over the past few days. I've gotten into playing the piano again; I'd forgotten how relaxing and satisfying playing was. Ironically I never felt this way when I actually needed to be practising, and it's nice to know that I still can play ok.

Afterwards, I finally bought the sneakers that I'd been trying to buy for about a week - they'd sold out of my size at the city stores and I hadn't had a chance to go into the city again after getting them to order it in. So went to Shoppo this afternoon and, after spending some time searching for a park in that crazy carpark, I went to Hype DC and they had my size.
The sales assistant was cute and really sweet - perfect for a job in sales I think! I may just need to go back and buy another pair of shoes from him haha...

Happy New Year!

A new year, a new blog! Once again I'm vowing to maintain a blog this year, so we'll see how it goes.

The past week's flown really quickly; only three more days then back to work again. To sum up the past few days:

• Matt's birthday - Hat party!
• Christmas day - Lunch at our place this year, the usual crowd. I tried my hand at being cocktail maker extraordinaire, and had two drinks on the menu - Midori Illusions (Midori, Lemon Bacardi, Lemonade, Pineapple juice) and Pimms (Pimms, Lemonade, Ginger Beer and cucumber), both topped off with berries. Drinks seemed to go down well, but somehow I got smashed during the day and was zonked and in bed by 9pm... perks of pouring drinks I suppose!
• Boxing day - went to Chaddy at 8:30am to squeeze into one of the last available parking spots. It was crazy inside, stores were messed up and it was simply carnage. Waited in the Country Road line for around half an hour to get a couple of cool shirts, then went to David Jones to get my Christmas present from parentals - a Mimco bag! :) After recovering with an afternoon nap, went to Fay's place for a bit of a get-together and met a few cool new people and definitely some interesting characters. Rock Band was the name of the game and I realise now that (if the game version is anything like the real thing) I am really bad at the drums!! I totally have no hand-foot co-ordination, which kind of makes sense now because I was never any good at using the pedals on the piano.
• Caught up with Jazz C for lunch on Saturday - was perfect weather so we headed into the city and had lunch at Notturno's in Carlton. I had the antipasto platter which was massive and awesome and frankly what I'd been searching for in the whole of Italy but only really found when we reached Rome. Grabbed gelati and afterwards shopped around in the city.
• Pot Luck night at Kelvin's - met up with work people and Kelvin's friend Dave at the apartment that Kelvin's flat-sitting for the next couple of months. I made Moroccan chicken from the Delicious cookbook, there was also noodles, salads, rice and a Jamie-inspired stew. Board games (articulate and pictionary) and Karaoke was the go for the night, and we headed out to Notturno's for coffees afterwards. Had an interesting conversation about the level of physical attraction people prefer in their relationships, and how much personality adds or decreases to the big picture.
• New Year's eve - headed into the city with Belinda for dinner and fireworks. A pretty chilled out night, and some D&M conversation about, well, boys really. Fireworks were amazing this year, and the crowd seemed quite impressed, though you always get the people that are impressed with the boring fireworks haha. There was a cover band playing at Docklands, and what was a little scary was the lead singer's classification of songs into genres. 'All the Small Things' was categorised into 'Classic Rock'! Sneaky sound system was retro and basically we just felt really really old. It was a nice way to end the year.