Sunday, September 30, 2007

One big combined affair

September is such a hectic month for our family. There's Father's Day, my Mum's birthday, Dad's birthday, my cousin's birthday, my niece's birthday and my birthday amongst a number of other friends birthdays. Me, my dad and my cousin are born within 5 days of each other. Infact, my little cousin is born on the same day as my dad, both in the Gregorian calendar and Lunar Calendar. Apparently that only happens once every 17 years or something.

Since there are so many birthdays so close together, we generally do a combined birthday party thing to celebrate all 3 of our birthdays. So we decided to try a new Chinese Restaurant in Eastwood. I won't name the place because frankly, they don't deserve any advertisement. (You'll find out why later)

Steamed baby abalone and scallop with ginger and shallots

Peking duck in action

Crispy peking duck

Crab and vermicelli hot pot


Everything was going smoothly until now. The crab was alright, except there was about 3times as much noodles as there were crab. And the noodles were way to dry for my liking.

Salt and pepper squid

Salt and pepper soft shell crab

Salt and pepper pork

Yes I know that's a lot of salt and pepper dishes. But since we don't go out to dinner much anymore, when we do, we tend to order dishes the kids love. Which is anything deep fried, and anything salt and pepper. Not that I'm complaining since I LOVE ANYTHING that is salt and peppered. However, these ones were SALT and peppered. As in salt overload. After having a few pieces, I spent the remainder of the night drinking pots and pots of tea nonstop. I kid you not, I had ATLEAST 2 whole pots of tea to myself within 30mins. Infact, I woke up at 2am that night looking for water, and woke up like I had a massive hangover looking for more water. That's how dehydrated I got from the salt.

Remains of our Peking duck

Stir fried green beans with mince and dried shrimp

The minute I saw this dish, I dived straight in. This is something we loved to cook at home. Except this dish was sweet. Not like Thai sweet. I mean SWEET sweet. Like dessert sweet. I had one bite and left the rest of the dish.

Boneless lemon chicken

Another one of the kids favourite dishes from our restaurant days. This definitely did NOT live up to our expectations. They had used so much lemon essence and colouring, the sauce was actually bitter and gluggy.


Steamed barramundi

Complimentry fruit

Complimentry cookies

At this point, we weren't too thrilled about the food. There were some good dishes, and a few that we would definitely not order again. I mean, that's usually the case with all Restaurants. But that really pissed us off was after dinner, we had brought along 2 birthday cakes/tarts. We had to spend 10mins trying to wave a waiter down to get them to bring the cake. And the restaurant wasn't even busy. Less then 4 tables, and we were the biggest table. With 6 waiters, you'd think we'll get some service.

When the waiter rocks up, he brought one cake only. I don't know how he managed that because both cakes were in the same bag. He lights a candle, dumps the cake onto the table and walks off. Another 5mins before we can get any attention to get the 2nd cake, then trying to get our spare candles from them and then trying to get matches. To make things worse, they didn't even bother giving us plates or forks to eat the cake with. We had to go get it ourselves. Lets just say we didn't leave a tip and we won't be going back ever again. The only reason why I'm even blogging about it is because I love the way my photos are turning out with my new flash.

The best thing about the night was the pear and ricotta tart I got as birthday cakes. The pastry was moist and not too crumbly, there were slices of pears that was covered in creamy ricotta, all topped with a crunchy toffee layer, creme brulee style. Not a single person complained about the cake/tart, which is really rare in my family!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Turning 27...

Seems like its that time of the year again. Since I am getting older, the chances of getting completely plastered is going to get less and less. So with that in mind, I made a reservation at the Bavarian Bier Cafe in York St. Plus, I thought it'll be good to get back into the whole drinking thing that we did when overseas. And just to add to the whole "partying" theme, we also booked a room at the 5 star Rydges Hotel at World Square for us to have a pre and post party party at.

And most of you should all know how absolutely psycho Moishii is and never to piss him off. I don't know what Christine did, but there were 50 photos of her to hand out that night.






And somewhere along the line, there was a penguin...

Mad Matt



...or two....


is this considered bestiality?

Gus doing a lap in the hallway


If it wasn't for these photos, I would've thought I was completely shitfaced before the party. Wait...I was:


It doesn't help that we had half a case of imported Chianti wine to kick start the night off with...Eventually we stumbled out of the hotel towards dinne. Not before Matt ditched us to go look for Laura. I guess he had better give her a call after he told her that he was spending the night at his Grandma's place and then got caught lying. Oh, did I mention that Matt proposed and then took it back? After making Laura buy her own engagement ring? Like what the hell? Good thing I heard this story before I started drinking....

Anyway, half way to the restaurant, we bumped into these chicks at Pitt St mall who were lost trying to Mykonos on Crown on Pitt. I gave them some instructions and invited them to the party if they can't find the hen's night they were going to. I'm not sure if they ended up rocking up or not.

By the time we got to the restaurant, I swear the room was spinning. That doesn't stop me hitting the bar and downing the mango beer like no tomorrow. Before I could even sit down, Moishii pulled out his packet of Christine photos and started distributing it at the restaurant. Some people really got into it as well!!





Of course...theres the yearly ritual of my embarrassing bday card....



As more people arrived, it became present opening time. Thank you everyone for the lovely gifts!! A bunch of my friends chipped in to get some of my Italy photos printed into a book! I'm published again! Somewhere along the line, I also got a Max Bennar mug (more on this later), jewellery, a portable bag hook and a G-string. Yes you know who you are!! Dirty dirty people!! :P

After an hour, Matt decided to rock up with Laura. Lets just say, a few people quietly slid their knife off the table.

The rest of the night was a bit of a blur.







I know somewhere along the line, one of the guys at the bar asked for my email, so I passed my email along with Christine's. Just to go with the theme of the night. I know we also had some really great food:

Mixed sausages

Schnitzel of some sort

Moishii refusing to share his food


Tasting platter

Goulash

Caesar salad

Calamari

Pork Belly

Prawn Linguine

There was alot of groping as usual....







and god knows what else that happened......



The night ended with a few more shots of schnapps (and us tipping the waitress with a Christine photo) before we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel. As we paid the bill and got up to leave, the boys were so nice to help me carry my presents. Except sometimes, it's better to do things yourself. Because less than 5seconds after getting up from the table, Moishii dropped the box that was holding my Max Brennar mug that Mey and Dave had gotten me. The mug was completely smashed up. This is when I stand in the middle of the restaurant screaming "OH MY GOD!!!! YOU JUST SMASHED MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!! THATS MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SMASHED MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT!! WE HAVEN'T EVEN LEFT THE RESTAURANT AND YOU SMASHED MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!!". Lets just say, we got more than enough attention with my little tantrum.

The remains

We stumble onto the streets trying to make it back to the hotel. The whole way stumbling back, Moishii started handing the Christine Photos out as if they were advertising fliers. He even started sticking them on the car windshields and slamming it on the table of people dining on the streets. Despite that, we still had a good 15 photos left by the time we get back to the hotel.

I wasn't paying attention, but all of a sudden, there was another penguin.


Meanwhile, Laura had chucked a tantrum saying Matt had to go home with her (she was also the one screaming we had to get the bill because she had to get up early and so THEY are not going to the strip club. What strip club??). So Matt grabs his stuff and starts screaming he wants a bottle of wine to take home. I grabbed a random bottle and shoved it at him. I even gave them a goodbye hug...lets just say the hug I got wasn't exactly..."warm and friendly". I'm surprised I didn't get a knife to my back.

Jojo also decided to leave at this point, leaving Gus and Moishii in the room with me. We decided to continue with the alcohol, that is until Moishii tips an entire glass of red wine all over the dressing table and onto the 5 star egyptian cotton doona and sheets. The red wine had soaked through the doona. Within 5mins, we had used up a whole box of tissues before Moishii poured a whole bottle of shampoo onto the doona. I was getting headspins from the shampoo fragrance.


Damage control

I decided to leave Moishii to it and went and got ready for bed. Except I came out to this:



Things got quite raunchy after that. I decided the 2 boys can share a bed and I'll take the single. I didn't want to interrupt...

I barely slept during the night. Not only was it freezing and I was too lazy to turn the heat up, but I was dehydrated and couldn't get comfortable with the tangle of sheets and limp pillows. Next thing you know, the alarm goes off and Gus is next to me like a ray of fuckin sunshine. What the hell is wrong with you?? LEAVE ME ALONE!! I decided to shower before Gus threw the curtains open and started singing out the window.

We all got dressed despite the massive hangovers. The original plan was to drive to Bill's for breakfast, but right now, we can barely walk, let alone drive. We made it downstairs to a cafe literally next door to the hotel and planted our butts down there for breakfast. Gus decided to ditch us for church leaving just the 2 of us there to recap. God these recap sessions are quite scary...

Lucky, after stuffing our faces and shocking our system with caffiene, we were finally human again.




We went back to the hotel where we checked out and dragged our suitcase (yes, we had a mini suitcase each for our overnight stay) to the bus stop at the cinemas to catch a bus to Martin Place where we were parked. Because the Blackmoores marathon was on, there was massive traffic disruptions, so we decided to walk there instead. Now this feels like we're on holiday....except our suitcases don't weigh 30kgs each!!

Moishii eventually dropped me off where I am nursing my hangover right now...

To all the people who came to my party! THANK YOU FOR COMING! If I did anything weird, I was drunk! ;) Til next year! Cheers!