I’ve been travelling to Melbourne for work a bit recently and have quite been enjoying dinner and drinks out while there. I really enjoy some of the cocktail bars there – recent ones including Polly, The Long Room and the Golden Monkey. The first two of those are the best cocktail bars I’ve ever been to.
On Monday night, though, I ate at Shoya Japanese Restaurant in the Chinatown part of the Melbourne CBD and it was pretty much the best Japanese meal I’ve ever had. Because I was on my own I sat at the sushi bar, so I could see the executive chef (and owner) working away in front of me on sushi and sashimi, which was pretty cool. As is my wont in places like that, I just set a budget and asked him to feed me whatever he wanted to cook.
I received all the dishes on their banquet menu for that night – and I really should scan it in and include it here – it was amazing! The gold came on top of the sashimi – it wasn’t a large platter, about three pieces each of tuna, salmon and (I think) swordfish. On top of the tuna was a piece of sea urchin (again, I think) and on top of that the chef placed a couple of small flakes of gold. I can’t see how it works, but it did seem to add to the taste, And the meal overall was fantastic, and included some fairly unusual ingredients, considering that it was done in a traditional style. I had broiled duck, thinly sliced and cooked in miso sauce, an appetiser which involved scrambled egg served in sea urchin and topped with salmon caviar, grilled wagyu beef rib served on a large piece of grated white radish, and the meal finished up with black sesame panacotta. Basically, the whole meal was utterly delicious, and I also enjoyed chatting with the chef (it was a fairly quiet night). The staff were all very friendly and the manager and assistant manager also came and spoke with me as well. I had asked for a copy of the banquet menu to take home and show Tegan, and the manager said that if I brought Tegan back, if there was anything we particularly liked that wasn’t on the menu to ask the chef and he could do it. Amazing. Needless to say, I’ll definitely go back with Tegan, hopefully before too long.
The other interesting thing about Shoya, and one of the things that convinced me to walk in, was that their menu mentions that Chairman Kaga of Iron Chef fame was spotted there one night and he obviously enjoyed it so much that he ate there four nights in a row, sitting in different parts of the restaurant – and he then sent a note and a painting on rice paper from Japan, noting how excellent the restaurant was, rivalling any in Tokyo. Apart from that being a ringing endorsement, I apparently sat in the same seat at the sushi bar that the Chairman had sat in, which is very, very cool.
I’m currently reading a book of great Australian speeches, called “Men and Women of Australia”. I read a great line in it the other day – actually, there have been many great lines in it, but one that really struck me was by Edmund Barton. It was in a speech delivered on 17 January 1901 – only two weeks after Federation, and thus two weeks into his term as Prime Minister. This is apparently the first policy speech by an Australian Prime Minister, and it made great reading. In speaking about the task before those who might be elected to the Commonwealth Government and his hope that the people would elect men equal to the task, he said:
“We can ask them – and they will respond – to train their views to the national aspect, as distinguished from the local aspect – to return men of principle who will uphold the dignity of the continent in Parliament. … I hope and believe that Parliament will not be degraded by any disorder, because men will recognise that better work can be effected when things are done decently and in order…”
So how did we get from there to here?
http://www.answers.com/spiflicate
1. Destroy. 2. Beat (Australian Concise Oxford Ditionary)
Trounce, Do for (Concise Oxford Dictionary)
It’s a word my grandmother (on the English) side used to use, but I had forgotten about it until this morning when a colleague mentioned it as a nonsense word that her grandmother used to use. I had great delight in telling her that it wasn’t actually a nonsense word and we looked it up in a dictionary and lo and behold – there it was.
But we were in agreement that it’s definitely a grandmother word.
Larissa’s 25th photos
We went out for Larissa’s birthday on Saturday night just passed. We went to Pancho’s Mexican restaurant in Mortdale (the local Mexican to where I used to live in Sydney) – and it was great! It’s such great value, and the food was wonderful, the sangria was tasty and made us suitably happy – it was all great. The playing of a bad recording of ‘Happy Birthday’ and the forced application of a large sombero to Larissa made her pretty embarrassed, but that was all part of the fun. And far, far better than the so-called mexican food I had at Montezuma’s in Canberra in the preceding week (it was so bad, and I once again vow never to go there again).
This may be of particular interest to anyone in Canberra. The academic remainders bookstore in Garema Place currently has the most recent edition of “A New Brittania” by Humphrey McQueen for only $6.95. I have an old copy of one of the 1970s editions that I bought second-hand while in uni, and I found it to be a very interesting and enjoyable book, so I’m looking forward to reading the new content in this edition.
 The book is interesting, since it argues that the Australian Labor Party was never a socialist party (depsite having socialist tenets in its official objectives), but it was always more concerned with nationalism, racism and middle-class interests. In making this point, McQueen also criticises many Australian historians who glossed over these aspects of the ALP’s history.
For $6.95, it’s definitely worth picking up.
The other books I’m actually reading at the moment are also quite interesting – “Men and Women of Australia” compiled by Michael Fullilove, and “How to Get Things Done” by David Allen. More about them another time.