Sushi Burger

A group of my colleagues and I went out for dinner after work today. I picked a Japanese cafe/restaurant in the city as the venue. I'd been here once before, and had heard about it from another colleague. It's the first place where I tasted my first sushi burger! The concept of sushi burger is so new to me then. It resembles a hamburger, but in place of the bread buns there are two moulded round pieces of pressed vinegared rice. There is a piece of seawood that wraps the two slices of rice like a hinge to prevent the filling from falling out and the rice crumbling from hand pressure.

I ordered an unagi sushi burger set, and the burger came with two slices of deliciously grilled eel, a few slices of cucumber sandwiched in between the rice pieces and seaweed (the picture shown does not show the burger any justice). It even came wrapped in paper, just like any Macca's hamburger! My colleagues who have never eaten a sushi burger found that it was delicious and novel. The set came with noodles in soup. I'm not sure what the soup ingredients are, but we suspect it involved miso, milk and fish roe. Although the ingredients do not sound appetising, the combination was totally delicious!


This being my second time to J's Cafe and it has not disappointed me. Unlike a colleague who was meant to show up at 6pm but didn't come till 8pm, and even then he just dropped by before leaving for another drinks appointment.

Travelling for Free

I tried a new routine today. Instead of getting to work at 8, I decided to start a little earlier at 7am. Working from 7 till past 5pm wasn't exactly my preference (actually, working ISN'T my preference), but I had an 'assignment' to finish for an early morning delivery. So, I wound my alarm clock one hour earlier to wake me up at the god forsaken hour of 5:15am, and got to bed at 12am. It wasn't a smart thing to do but yesterday night was a big night for us, both tummy wise and emotion wise as it was Gaz's last birthday celebration as a single lad :)

Everything went according to plan; I woke up at 5:15, did a whirlwind tour of the bathroom and wardrobe, and got out the door at 5:40am. Melbourne's introduced a free travel scheme in early mornings about 6 months back in a bid to reduce congestion during the peak hours. If one were to arrive at their destination before 7am, they could travel for free. That would save me $5.50 a trip. I have friends who took advantage of this offer, go to work a little earlier so they could take a leisurely brekky and surf the net or go out for a stroll around the city. For me, it was much too cold this morning for my liking and I had some work to deliver so straight to the office for me. I was the first to reach, but man... I was so dead by 4pm that I left right on the dot at 5pm. But I think I'll do it again tomorrow morning. Just for the fun of it. And so that my wallet could feel some joy again.

Gaz's Birthday

We had a great feast at a Chinese restaurant tonight to celebrate Gaz's birthday. It was a delicious meal all paid for, and lots of laughter around the table. For the first course, we had the standard fare Snow Crab with egg noodles, with XO sauce. It was yummmeee!! At $40 per pound, the price was rather steep, and the crab itself was already 2.5 pounds. I imagined the total cost of the dinner must have cost around $200.

Then the dishes started coming with steamed rice. We'd ordered a steamed barramundi, which was fresh as. It was firm and tasty, and we couldn't get enough of the simple seafood soy sauce it rests on. The second dish was silken tofu with assorted seafood. I just love silken tofu for it's fragrant egg aroma, and the ease with which it slides down my throat. It was just wonderful. The chef must have also fried it in salty fish infused oil, which added a nice edge to it. There were scallops, big peeled prawns, squid, and fish fillets in the hot pot as well.

The third dish was a unique one which was on the specials board. Auntie forgot to bring her glasses so was looking at the specials board for inspiration on what to order instead of trying to make sense of the teeny letters in the menu. The dish was fried beef and cup mushrooms in goose liver paste. Goose liver!! This is a delicacy in France. I just love the first taste of the dish, which was very 'liverish'! Only 2 out of the 5 on the table liked the dish though. I liked the liver paste, it's like eating rice porridge, which is a comfort food for me.

We had stir fried kailan with fish paste slices as the fourth dish, which was nothing out of the ordinary. I was absolutely stuffed to the gills by the end of the dinner, but there were more to come! Chinese restaurants always provides free soup at the beginning and free dessert and fruits at the end. For dessert we had almond 'soup' with sago (I love sago, it's transparent and different), and oranges and watermelon.

Just when I thought I'd enough, we went home for cake! We'd ordered a chestnut cake, so we had that for tea. This must be the most I've ever eaten in two hours!

Being Organised

Gaz and I went to the suit hire place on Thursday night after work. We wanted to get a suit for both him and his groomsman. We picked out two sets of vest, suit and trousers then I made him try each one one and do a twirl for me on the catwalk. After we'd picked out the one we liked, the lady proceeded to book us in. First question was inevitably, 'When's the wedding?' We told her the exact date, which was a month and a half away which elicited the response 'Ooohh... you're not very organised, are you?'. And just when we were feeling smug about being so organised, booking the suits at least a month before the wedding. After all, we didn't think about suits being unavailable (especially since there were so many shops around, and after all, men's suits are all the same! They could borrow any posh French waiters' uniform, dress it up with a hanky and no one would have a clue!) or that the date might be unavailable (for whatever reason, like shop scheduled to close on that day)

Then, she turned to me and hoped I was more organised. Erm..... I didn't dare tell we haven't gotten a car hire yet.

One week!

One more week to my M'sian holiday! Two and a half weeks of soaking up the sun, eating, weddinging, and bliss!