Sanctuary Hotel

$9 Cocktails.

That's all I needed to know to organise an outing to The Sanctuary Hotel. No, seriously. That's ALL I needed to know.

CAIPRIOSKA
SKYY Vodka muddled with fresh lime & sugar

LEMONLICIOUS
Crisp & tart, a luscious blend of Absolut Citron Vodka, Lemoncello, Grand Marnier & Sanctuary’s sours shaken & served in a large martini glass

CLARK’S ON KENT
A blend of fresh kiwi fruit, 42 Below Kiwi, Pear Liquor & Paraiso Liqueur served long over ice

MOJITO
Havana Club Rum, muddled with fresh limes & fresh mint, raw sugar & topped with a dash of soda

SANCTUARY ICE TEA

SKYY Vodka, Gin, Rum, Tequila & Triple Sec shaken with Sanctuary’s sours & served long
over ice & topped with cranberry juice

Chips with one of the best aiolis I've ever had

I would put a more descriptive post up.....but honestly.....after all the $9 cocktails I had, I can't remember jack. I do remember the cocktails being good, which is partially the reason why I can't remember anything. I also remember ordering a few serves of their chips cos they had a really awesome aioli. Everything else was a bit of a blur...... *cough*

Sanctuary Hotel
545 Kent Street (Cnr Liverpool Street)
Sydney NSW 2000
Ph: 02 9264 1119
http://www.sanctuaryhotel.com.au


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Our Xmas feast

For the last few years, we've had a massive xmas. This year is no exception with a total of 121 presents under the tree!! That's right, 121!!! It took me a good hour to stack everything under the tree. All my years playing tetris finally paid off.

The littles ones giving me a hug to thank me for all the presents I got them!

All of my nephews and neices have figured out that I am Santa. I guess they can consider me that as I buy about half of the presents under the tree. I also hide all the presents until they're asleep xmas even before I bring them out and stack them under the tree. They love waking up and running up to the tree to see how many presents are stacked under it.

So what did I get this year? I actually got stuff I love!! Firstly, I got the new Canon 980 IS IXUS camera. 14.7 mega pixels of goodness! The new Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food cook book and a new Takoyaki pan! Woohoo!!

Oh YEahhhhhhh

My neice also used up their entire fortune of $40 to buy me a butterfly necklace. When my sister offered to give her extra money to buy the xmas present, she insisted that she wanted to pay for the whole with her own money. She also made me various jewellery boxes as well. What I didn't know was that on the day I came home with a new pair of dangly earrings from Prouds I bought for my neice, was the same day she went to Prouds to get my xmas present. She was so grateful and shocked that I bought her something from Prouds (which in her eyes, costs her entire fortune), that the next day, she dragged my sister to the nearest florist to buy me a bunch of flowers. Awwwwww!!!

Once all the presents were unwrapped, it was time to get the party started. We fired up all the BBQs, yes, BBQs. We had 3 BBQs going. One BBQ had 2 hot plates and a grill. We borrowed the specially made satay BBQ stove I got for my brother in law last year as a xmas present and I bought a mini weber like one to make my BBQ Pork.

Here are the none meat dishes:

My special tabouli

My extra light coleslaw

My sister's potato salad

Mum's singapore noodles

My bean salad that makes you go toot toot!

Dad's home made nem nuong

I couldn't get a decent shot of this as people were eating them faster than we were cooking them. The tray barely makes it to the table with people grabbing a few sticks as the tray goes past them.

Vietnamese and pork sausages

This is what happens when you let the guys man the BBQ. We also had quails, steaks, pork chops, lamb chops, chicken wings and ham and pineapple skewers. I didn't get photos of that since I was too busy eating and manning my own special BBQ. Besides, people were walking right up to the BBQ and grabbing the food straight off it!

My BBQ Pork

I bought a mini weber like BBQ with the domed lid so I could roast some BBQ Pork for the day. Lets just say, this got the double thumbs up from my parents! We basically used to make our own BBQ pork for the restaurant, so if they approve, it means its good enough to sell in a restaurant! haha

All sliced up

My secret punch

Chocolate cake ice cream sandwich

Wild Japanese Strawberries

The kids were basically raiding my strawberry plants in between bites! Although tiny, these strawberries pack and intense punch in flavour. Savour one at a time. MMmMMmmm

The rest of the day was spent playing Wii, singing Karaoke, eating leftovers, snacking and drinking. Lets just say, a few people ended up passed out on the floor and we left them there til the next morning......

Sarah's Birthday at Encasa

To celebrate Sarah's first birthday in Sydney, we organised to go Encasa for dinner. We ordered the tapas and pizza banquet, more than enough to stuff our face 3 times over.

Ensalada Mixta - Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, capsicum, olives

Ensalada con Queso - Lettuce, roasted red capsicum, goat’s cheese, olives

Patatas Bravas (fried potato with garlic mayonnaise and spicy tomato salsa)

Garlic bread

Gambas Sevillanas - Peeled king prawns in spicy tomato salsa

Chorizo a la Plancha - Grilled Spanish sausage

Champiñones al Ajillo - Sizzling garlic mushrooms

Happy Birthday!

The birthday girl got a slice of cinnamon cheesecake whilst we finished the rest of the pizzas off. No photos of those, I was too full to care by that stage.

Easter Island statue...I think?

Sharing the cake.....I think?

After dinner, we headed up to the Art House for cocktails, and on the way we saw this?

Ok...

Gus with his Gold Member.....

Close up of the Gold Member

A concubine and something else.....I can't remember. Too much sangria ;)

Amy's 27th a@ Masuya, Wynyard

So it was Amy's 37th 27th birthday party. The party was at Masuya, which is literally around the corner from my work's car park. The plan was for me and Cherry to meet up earlier in the city, get trashed until Moishii comes out and let him park at my work. The plan was fairly good considering me and Cherry got smashed at the Metro before Moishii arrived. Infact, we were so trashed we started having a laughing fit when we talked about our past laughing fits.

When Moishii shows up, we continued our laughing fit over nothing. Well, Moishii had a laughing fit because he managed to rip my shirt apart to show the rest of the pub. After almost completely flashing the pub, we started hitting the drinks (after having a few shots). Eventually, Mey and a few others arrived. We had a few more drinks (Thats a lot of drinks) before heading to Masuya. Now here is where it gets a bit fuzzy. Somewhere along the way, we started having a laughing fit. A REALLY bad laughing fit. I was laughing so hard, I was crouched on the floor outside Masuyas having a fit. Next thing you know, Moishii pulls out his asthma spray and starts spraying me in the face, completely missing my mouth. And I don't even have asthma!!!

I finally calm down enough, and we get ready to go into the restaurant. We're still giggling, so I grabbed Moishii and said "Shhh...this is a sophisticated type of restaurant". Then we just lost it. We both cracked up laughing until we were crying. People walking into the restaurant thought we were completely nuts. Christine, Mey and the others, left us and went into the restaurant without us. Took as a while to compose ourselves before we could finally walk into the restaurant. Not that it stopped us giggling at the table.

The birthday girl

The drunks with Amy

It wasn't until the night was over that I realised I didn't get any photos with the birthday girl. I guess me and Moishii were too sloshed to stand up for photos. We were having a ball sitting in our own seats as well. Including stealing the strawberry garnishes off Cherry's drink:

Post garnish stealing - She didn't even notice!

Somehow during the night, we started talking about Cherry's birthday party at the Lord Roberts, and she pulls out the classic photo from the night. I just had to get a photo of the photo.

This was taken when Moishii busts into the women's toilets. Mind you, I did tell him to because I thought Cherry was going to hurl.

Somewhere along the line, we ordered a whole heap of food.

Octopus with chilli and garlic

Beef tataki

Sushi

Sashimi

Unfortunately, none of the above was ours. Not that we were fussed, because our Sukiyaki pot came out soon after.

Beaten egg for dipping

Vegetables

Wagyu beef slices.....so much marbling!

The waitress comes out with a blisteringly hot pan which goes on our stove. Within seconds, she had the onions and beef slizzing in the pan. Then the sauce goes in before the vegetables.

The waitress starts to load our pan to get us started for round one:


Except me and Moishii were greedy guts and decided that that wasn't enough, so we added more stuff:


This was our final cooked pot:


This was unbelievable hearty and comforting, yet so SO healthy for you. But as much as we tried, we couldn't finish the food. Luckily we had Amy there to help polish the food off (which is one of the things I miss about working with her, she eats all my junk food so I can't pig out!).

Amy helping out

Making lesbo faces at me...

Even after stuffing our faces, we still managed to find room for the white chocolate mud cake.

Happy birthday girl! Hope you had a fantastic birthday!

Masuya
Ph: 02 9235-2717, 02 9231-0038
Basement Level
12-14 O'Connell Street
Sydney 2000
http://www.masuya.com.au/en/masuya/