Longest Lunch

I came across this in The Age today, thought it was pretty interesting:

HONG Kong stockbrokers may lose their traditional two-hour lunch break, the longest among the world's 20 largest markets, as the exchange seeks more business from China. The exchange wants trading to begin 30 minutes earlier at 9.30am with a one-hour break at noon, keeping the close at 4pm. Shanghai's trading hours run from 9.30am to 3pm with a 90-minute break between 11.30am and 1pm.

''God knows if that would mean ordering McDonald's for company lunch presentations,'' said Francis Lun, general manager at Fulbright Securities in Hong Kong. ''No more long lunches at the Conrad or Shangri-La hotels.''

Extending trading hours ''would make a lot of sense in bringing Hong Kong in line with the majority of global markets'', Mr Lun said. ''I'd counter-propose a 1½-hour lunch. Even though our liquid lunches will be gone, there'll at least be semi-solid lunches.''

Whingers!

Circuz, Glen Waverley

Gaz and I tried out a new Japanese restaurant tonight, called Circuz at Glen Waverley. Before it became a Japanese restaurant, it was an Italian/Spanish restaurant with the same name. The new owners took over the operations recently and added some lanterns, sakura to the decor and hey presto, it's a Japanese restaurant!

We decided to order an entree from the Specials list - sashimi salad. It consisted of strips of raw fish marinated in sake and soy sauce atop a bed of seaweed salad. As you can see from the picture below, the fish are of irregular size, one piece even had some skin stuck to it. This 'special' was definitely NOT a special dish.

Most of the fish pieces are very chewy. It looks like the restaurant decided to turn their reject pieces of fish used for sashimi into some quick bucks. Because the quality of the fish is not as good, soy sauce and sake is used to mask the fishy taste.


The only decent dish in the whole evening - takoyaki balls. Although I'm not too sure how the big piece of tomato fits into the whole dish. Even as a garnish it seemed out of place. The takoyaki balls were perfectly cooked, and bonito flakes gently curling in the heat.


My order of unagi don. I am happy that the chef made the effort to grill the fish, which is most probably sourced frozen from stores. The texture of the egg was good, soft and creamy. I found some vege (peas, corn, carrots) mixed with the egg alongwith strips of onions. Confusing I thought...


Gaz's order of ten don - tempura prawns, tempura sweet potato, tempura carrots on rice. The prawns were all batter. On the positive side, the batter was crispy even though it had sauce all over it.


Circuz' only saving grace is an attentive team of waitstaff.

Overall rating 4/10

Update: This restaurant has closed.