02 Oct 2008

It's my birthday and I'm up early once again, this time at 8.30a.m. Imp is up and getting ready to head to work, making herself some breakfast, and made some for me as well. Marmite is something I'm not crazy about, but having it with butter on toast is not too bad, especially if you have a big glass of juice to wash it down.

Beautiful.


Spring Arriving.

She leaves and I'm get ready to meet Michelle who has planned to take me out today long before I arrive in Australia. Right at 11, when she said she would be here, I hear a knock and open to find her all happy and smiley at the door bearing gifts. As I kinda rushed to get my things, I forget to even give her a hug. Anyway, hugs and exchanging of gifts done, we were off to some restaurant of her choice in Applecross. Later I found out it was the location where she wanted to hold her wedding, but had found a better location down south instead.

As we got to the place, she informed me that it was formerly a mental institute that has been reformed into a museum, craft school, and restaurant. As we were a little early for lunch, we walked around and checked out the surroundings, which included a massive playground for kids. As we were starting to get cold, we decided to head indoors and check out the art exhibition that was held in one of the mental wards. The exhibition itself was a bit odd, but then again... aren't most arty farty stuff kinda odd? The way some of the pieces were placed were rather interesting, like that one chair right in-between two of the mental wards' doors. It looked just like a chair was placed there for the warden or something. Kinda creepy, kinda interesting, kinda strange.... arty farty. Another piece was a rocking horse that made a rustling noise when you stroked its back. The pieces were all for sale and the prices itself were a bit mental.

To The Right Of Me.


For Titanic Moments.


To The Left Of Me.






Hellooo... Anyone In There?

Once we were bored with the whole exhibit, which wasn't that big, we headed back to the restaurant to start filling our tummies. Michelle ordered a garlic bread and risotto, while I had a soup with shark & chips (ala fish & chips). She, being the kuat makan she is, then decides that she wants chips and I tell her to take mine, but she thinks it's not enough and goes to order another portion of it. So the garlic bread arrives and she tells me to take a piece, which I do but wait for my soup to arrive to enjoy it. The soup, however, takes about 10 minutes to arrive after the bread, which has already turned cold, but amazingly hasn't turned chewy. The celeriac soup sounded, and looked rather plain, but the flavours were quite interesting, especially with the addition of the tiger prawns. I was also glad to have saved the bread to mop up what the spoon left in the bowl.

Love The Idea.

The mains then take about 20 minutes to arrive, the service is a little slow but the food definitely makes up for it. The risotto looked rather plain, as if it wouldn't have much flavour in it, but looks are absolutely deceiving with this restaurant. The flavours of the prawns, which were really sweet, and carried the nice saltiness of the sea, were worked right into the risotto, flavouring the dish without having to add much more herbs. For myself, it was fish and chips, but with whaler shark instead of some normal white fish. The first bite reminded me of the battered shark chunks my grandmother would make when she got her hands on a good bit of shark. Along with the mains came the extra plate of chips she had ordered, and realised what a big mistake it was. Thinking that the portion of chips with my dish would be small, it turned out, I got a portion just as large as the one on the extra plate.

So just as we were about done, Imp calls to say she is on her way to meet us and we slow our pace down so she could help us polish off what we couldn't finish. The F1 driver arrives in no time and finishes most of the stuff we had, and ordered a beef carpaccio to satisfy her meat cravings. We end up talking a whole lot more, stuffing a few chips here and there, but ended up leaving about 3/4 of the plate chips. Then we were off to Leederville to get dessert, leaving us some time to digest what we've had earlier.

By the time we got to our destination, we all had enough space to stuff down Michelle's favourite chocolate fudge mousse. As she said she couldn't finish one all in one sitting, we decided taking 2 instead of 3, with 2 mini mousses so that I can try a bigger variety. Imp packed the last piece of the choc fudge mousse for Brendan before it was sold out and sat down. The choc fudge mousse was like a Nutella mousse on a Ferrero Rocher base. Heavenly without being too rich. MMMmmmmmmm...... Heaven. Let's not even bother about the other two tiny ones. The shop shouldn't even bother actually.

Once satisfied by desserts, we were off to check out some novelty shops. One shop had the most interesting things, bullet-shaped mints, bubble wrap keychains, condom paperclips among other stuff. We got some stuff from there, which included my birthday card from Imp. Then we head across the road to the record shop which housed a clothes store and some household decor knick knacks. Got a few more items from there and Imp was rushing to head home before traffic gets horrid... but we were a little too late.

Enjoying My Mouthful.

We get home and had a snack before Brendan gets home from work. Imp makes hot some leftovers and we leave him with a big glob of food to go take advantage of late-nite Thursdays. Imp head straight for the mall rushes right to the plus-size store she found a while ago. We spend about an hour at the store trying on tons of stuff and end up spending A LOT on new clothes just for me. After all that work, I needed a break and it was Imp's turn to shop and try something for herself. She heads to another store and gets a Grecian-looking dress and a pair of shoes which sorta matched. Then she was looking at clutches when I decide to get a black one for myself, got her to pay for it, and call it my birthday present. Heehee.

After all that, shops were starting to close and we had to get dinner from the food court. Imp chose to get dinner for both of them from a Asian stall. I was hesitant at first, but after looking at the roasted meat, I couldn't resist the roast meat noodles... noodle-bin that I am. Although the soup was a little too sweet, the meats - soy sauce chicken, roasted duck and roasted pork - were done to perfection. Now I wonder what the char siew is like... not one of my faves but I might give it a go if I have another chance.