A Weekend of Trashy TV

It has been awhile since I have had the time to watch my favourite TV shows: Gossip Girl and Glee.

But the advantage of not having time is there is the backlog of episodes to catch up on.  And I just love it when I just sit in on a Saturday night and just watch it all at once.

2 episodes of Gossip Girl - totally awesome trash, and the fashion is amazing but I love how it now delves a little into the dark side, drug deals and life threats... how exciting.

4 episodes of Glee - how I have missed watching this, I was reminded of my little crush on Puckerman and I was actually bopping to Justin Bieber... unbelievable.

A little surprise to add into the mix, sometime last year I watched what I thought was the series finale of Brothers and Sisters.  The multiple car crash, the diagnosis of HIV, Robert not making it - I mean it all came to a great finish and I believed it was 'The End'.  Then I found it.  Season 5 - one year after it all happened.  Drama, new drama, yes.....

I finished with Love and Other Drugs - out of 10?
... 2.
Apart from seeing loads of Anne Hathaway's boobs (1 point), and dreaming into Jake Gyllenhaal's blue eyes (the other point), I was bored and Anne Hathaway was annoying.

The TV/Movie-a-thon:

Time started: 1.00pm
Time to bed: 2.30 am

Yours truly,

Miss A.

Drunk calling

After a few drinks at Hugo's, a few of us went to a friend's place for some wine.  We ended up staying for more than a glass and started talking about the lack of 'booty' in my life at the moment.  A gal I was chatting to started telling me about the available bachelors in her life.  I can't remember why or how, but she happened to make a call to one of them on my mobile.

I then decided to introduce myself to him via a text message:

'Hi! I'm Amanda, what's your name?'

I woke up this morning and realised that I must've called him around seven or eight times in the span of about an hour .  To make the situation even more confusing is that whilst I was calling him I was calling someone else and I am not sure who I spoke to or if I spoke to any of them at all!

Conclusion:

I function better on tequila than wine

Yours Truly,

Miss A.

Daddy's Curry

I have had curries at Mamak, Mauritius, Thailand, Malaysia, my Aunty's Malaysian eatery but I still think that my Dad's curries are pretty much my favourite.

OK - so the fish masala in Mauritius was pretty delicious but tonight I had my Dad's fish-head curry that pretty much competed for first place in the fish curry sector.

Hands down, I have never tasted a lamb curry better than Dad's and normally when fish curry is cooked at home I don't normally get too excited.

Don't know what happened tonight when I had dinner, maybe it was the mountain of freshly made roti, a weakness for me, I could have eaten about five pieces but I stopped at my second.

Tonight's curry was the right consistency of flavour, spice and thickness. And when I eat roti and curry it always tastes better when I use my fingers.  Finger licking good indeed.

Take a look!

It was fish-head curry but I didn't see the head, normally it's around a third to half of the fish anyway depending on the size, the head part rather than the tail part I guess.  Fish-head, fish-tail, I'm sure whichever part Dad used it would still taste delicious.

The thing about Dad's cooking is that he cooks from the heart, and that is probably why it's one of my favourite places to eat - Dad's kitchen.

Yours Truly,

Miss A.

Moving on

My 'follow up' review was this afternoon.  And even though I was totally prepared to come out of that meeting room unemployed, it didn't stop my heart from beating through my chest, so hard I could feel it in my head.

I remembered when I was made redundant a few years ago, I broke down, cried, poured my heart out to people who didn't care.  They gave me a cab charge, and I had to leave immediately.  By the time I got to my desk, my computer was locked, I walked away in shame even though I did nothing wrong.

Today was different.  I went in proud and stood my ground, told them I disagreed with their comments and told them I knew I was good at my job.  She was shaking, and didn't make eye contact, nervous, the first time I have ever seen her like that.  It lasted less than five minutes, I smiled and said 'this agency wasn't for me anyway'.

I walked out without a tear in my eye and felt a sense of freedom and relief but also scared, no job in three weeks, my last pay will mostly be eaten up by negative leave I have to pay back.

My best friend has been with me the whole time, she read through my contract and told me my rights, she gave me the confidence to go in there and believe in myself when times like this I would normally doubt my own worth, capabilities and value.

This I hope will be my last awful multi-national agency experience, for an agency that claims to have been around awhile, it definitely shows.  Conservative, old-fashioned, followers of trends and trying to catch up with everyone else after they have already left and moved on.

Onwards and upwards, a new door to open, one brighter, happier and much more creative, one where I am happy to open and one where I can go to work and smile, laugh and just be around inspiration and innovation.

I feel like 2011 has just begun.

Yours Truly,

Miss A.

First time Thai Dessert

Last night I had a dinner date with the one and only Miss Janey.

We went to Chat Thai, which I can confidently say is the best Thai restaurant in Sydney.  I have always wanted to eat there but the lines have always put me off and I have never waited.  Last week was my first experience of Chat Thai and I couldn't wait to go back.

The wait last night was not that long, we went for a quick drink at a bar nearby and by the time we got back, we had our table straight away.

We started off with a serving of steamed dumplings, they were pretty standard dumplings, quite delicious though nothing out of the ordinary.  Followed by Pad Thai which was truly authentic I think, I could very well compare it to the Pad Thai I ate when I was in Thailand.

We also ordered a Penang (not quite Thai I know) Curry with beef - yes not the usual thing to have in a Penang Curry but it was really, really good!

BUT - this is what I really want to rave on about, and that is the dessert.  I have never really thought about ordering dessert at a Thai Restaurant before, normally I am so full that dessert is the last thing on my mind.  So tonight me and Janey strategically only ordered enough so that we would have room for dessert.

Although we were both really full, the dessert stomach always has room.  I left it up to Janey with my only request being ice-cream.  She ordered a coconut dessert in which I have struggled to find the name online. But here it is:

The coconut sticky rice was absolutely fabulous and I didn't know that rice could be so tasty when it's sweet and that it goes with ice-cream!  The coconut pancakey layer on the top was also really tasty and because it wasn't over the top sweet it was a definite winner with me.

I would highly recommend this cute little restaurant, especially if you have the patience to wait up to 45mins for a table, it will be worth it.

I have hit up my foodie buddies twice now to head onto Chat Thai, a place I cannot wait to eat at again.  So all I can say to them is hurry up and call me, let's make it a date!

Yours Truly,

Miss A.

They have a few restaurants, we went to their flagship (and they are open until 2am):

Chat Thai 

20 Campbell Street

Haymarket

Very affordable, our total bill was around $50

Anxiety strikes back

I had my work review a few weeks ago and ever since then I have been feeling anxious, nervous, angry and frustrated.  If I could also include one more feeling in there, that would also be the feeling of regret.

Regret that once again I failed to listen to my gut feeling, my first impressions and my initial concerns.

I went home at lunch time today, emotionally drained, tired of trying to play nice in a pool of rudeness, egos, fake personalities and nasty secrets.

I dream once again of being away, over in Mauritius and being around a group of happy, humble, nice and honest people who I now call my dear friends.

Everyone in Mauritius is happy with life, love their jobs and have such strong values of friendship, family and just being content.  My friends over in that beautiful island may not earn much but yet they have everything they need and I just wish I could be in the same state, on their level with the same mentality, and same outlook on life.... I miss them dearly.

I always have the greatest fear of the unknown, and although the best way to solve this is confrontation, I don't know if I have the courage to do that.  I would much rather slip away and not have a lasting memory at the place which I call work right now, but for how much longer? I feel that is not going to be a decision I will have to make and it will be beyond my control.  Hello unknown, we will have to see what the verdict is at the end of next week, end of the month.

Another decision made in haste?

Yours Truly,

Miss A.

Birthdays are now Awesomedays

In my younger days and even as a child, I could never imagine what it would be like to be in my thirties. I then lived and loved so much of my twenties I always wonder what ever happened to it.  It was such a blur, I never really cared, and I lived and lived and pushed many boundaries and did things I would never dream of doing now.

But now here I am, thirty plus with still so much to accomplish and I already feel I am running out of time.  I escape with weekly Gossip Girl episodes and just dream and watch in awe and envy that they are all really living it up in their twenties and I can't help but wish I could do it all over again in New York.

Of course that would never happen, if I ever went to New York it would more likely be episodes of Sex and the City or even worse Lipstick Jungle, I could definitely see myself as Nico Riley, hooking up with a guy a few years younger and then wondering "what on earth am I doing!".

Tomorrow is my birthday and I have been trying my best to forget it, but thanks to Janey, once again she comes to my rescue and sends me the most positive text one could get, "...it can just be a day we celebrate how awesome you are"

Yours Truly,


Miss A.


Image thanks to: http://televisionista.blogspot.com/2008/07/robert-buckley-returns-to-lipstick.html

"This is the best thing I've ever tasted in my life"

Tetsuya's summed up was pretty amazing and an experience that I would highly recommend.  From the moment we entered and walked up the stairs to our table right through to when we walked out the gates, I had such a fabulous time.  And to be there with my favourite foodie buddies, this will be a night that I will talk about for a long time to come.

It is now tradition with us to start any dinner with a glass of bubbly, last night we ordered a bottle of Perrier-Jouet to go with our fresh oysters - as they say, when in Rome...

We started our degustation with a few courses of seafood including the signature confit ocean trout with konbu, celery and apple.

We also got the degustation with matching wines, which I knew would call for an interesting night to be had especially at the end.  By the time we were finished with the seafood courses, I was well on may way to feeling more than a little happy.

We were then served with an oxtail and sea cucumber dish.

Can I just say that this is the best thing I have ever eaten in my life.  I would have happily given up all of my desserts to have just one more taste of this dish.  As I was eating it I didn't want it to end, there is only one word I would choose to describe it and that is, WOW.

By about the eighth course, I had already asked the waiter why there was no background music, and if I could go into the cellar (twice).  I also started taking photos of my bracelet, and glasses of wine, I even decided to head into the ladies to make an overseas call to the other Miss A to tell her about my amazing ox tail taste sensation.  I don't think I needed all of that extra dessert wine which my buddies didn't take a liking to, and I very much did.  At the end of our dinner, I was pretty tipsy.

I know I have already said this but I'd like to say it again, Tetsuya's was amazing and this time round I definitely enjoyed it, every single bit of it.  The service at this restaurant was pretty close to perfection, we were not over serviced or under serviced, and sometimes it was like they already knew what we wanted.  One of my buddies mentioned she might like more bread and next thing you know, the waiter appeared with a selection - it was almost like he heard.  I accidentally dropped my knife and within seconds another knife came, like he was watching over us.  Our glasses were never empty, our table always organised, ready for the next delicious plate to be served.  To top all of this off, I actually got an extra serving of ox tail and a little cake with a candle came out for mine and my buddy's birthdays... very unexpected and really what made the experience so much more special.

The company was amazing as always, and I always look forward to dining with them.  We have so much fun together, and it never has to be high end dining, we could go to a ramen house for $8 noodles and still enjoy the night.  This is what I love about enjoying food with friends who appreciate it as much as I do, and I love how we plan the next one when we meet.

A night isn't complete without a little stack in my heels, a drunken dance and a bit of a random pash.  My foodie buddies had to go, so I went to Paddington to hit the town.  In my drunken state I answered the cab driver's mobile and was then set up with the caller on the other end on a date.  Did I hand over my real mobile number?  I can't remember, but one thing is for sure, though the driver was very nice, he also helped himself to doubling my fare which made a ten minute cab ride a total of $40.

I did end up nearly stacking it crossing the road, and I did end up shaking my groove thing though I went home again talking crap to the cab driver, without a drunken kiss and forgetting my keys and having to make a call to leave the door unlocked.

Here's to good times and I can't wait for July, the date for our next splurge into high end dining.

Yours Truly,

Miss A.

Tetsuya's Restaurant

529 Kent Street

Sydney

$210 - degustation

$95 - matching wines

Four days

In four days me and two of my favourite buddies will embark on a great journey of taste.

I can't wait, I have been waiting for almost three months now.

The first time I went, I didn't really get a chance to appreciate it fully, rather it was my birthday and I had friends waiting at a pub and I wanted to go and get my drink on.

I told them to hurry with the food, and rather than tasting, I gulped - I didn't even chew.

I also had a new boy-friend, and at the time, I didn't want to keep him waiting and I was eager to see him.  I told them to cut my four-hour food experience short.

Year's later... many many years later, I still regret not appreciating the gift that was given to me by my family, back then it took more than six months to get a table.  I am glad I now have a better appreciation to fine dining, well all types of dining.  Food to me now is to be enjoyed, savoured and talked about with your friends.  To recommend and to spread the word of great food is what I am passionate about.

So, in four days I am heading back, with anticipation, excitement, a new hair cut and a new outfit.

Stay tuned.

Yours truly,

Miss A.