We spent the day watching The Kite Runner (review to follow), having lunch at Rozelle and getting chocolate from Belle Fleur.
Second hand books from the market – three for $25.
Beginning of the tongue photos.
Belle Fleur window display. I love Easter, it’s the chocolate holiday.
Daniel finally came home from the frozen hell that is Eastern Europe, so we had LCC pizza in his honour with Mat and Aya.
I’ve been raving about the Bite Me burgers to Alec for months, and finally had him try it for himself last night.
Alec’s long arms enable him to take awesome shots like this.
Me and Bev.
Bev loves a freebie.
The men look manly.
Me and Bev take two.
Mmmm Vegetari-Anne burger.
Bev’s meaty burger.
Lisa’s bohemath.
Alec chows down.
Lisa’s burger turns into a full meal.
Yum yum yum.
Bev tells us how she really feels.
Don’t even ask.
Dessert – yummo! Vanilla ice cream and choc biscuit.
Double choc.
Caramel pecan – I think I will get this next time.
Beverly’s camera was lost (and recently found!) in Hong Kong. She hijacked my camera out of camera-deprivation.
I’ve never had teppanyaki before, so it was good practice to try it at the Rocks before going to Japan. We Took Phuongie to The Rocks Teppanyaki for a farewell lunch on a very wet and cold Thursday afternoon.
A seafood entree.
I think Phuong is right to be scared. It looks weird.
My deep fried veges. Does this mean they’re not healthy?
Very obliging chef.
Watch my veges fry!
This bean sprout thing was amazing.
More veges! Very well seasoned.
Big lump of glistening meat for the carnivores out there.
Green tea ice cream. Yuuum.
Some kind of vodka shot.
There are few things I love as much as my mum’s pavlova. She made me one last night – just because. Awww.
I love love this place. We went to Chinta Ria for lunch to welcome a new work colleague – the perfect way to spend a Friday.
Roti – yummmm.
Vege hokkien noodles.
My teams chows down.
Alec and I frequently get awesome takeaway from Wi Marn in Chatswood and decided to track them down to eat in-house on Monday night.
Wi Marn is located in Help St, Chatswood, near the station. It’s a delightful place, really traditional Thai decor and very polite attentive staff.
Alec ponders his menu choice.
Vege spring rolls. Crisp and filled with yummy things.
My vege fried rice. Lots of big chunks of veges hidden in there.
Alec’s lemon chicken. He said it was delicious and the sauce smelt amazing.
I would highly recommend this little gem of a place. Alec and I will be back.
For Brandon’s last night in Sydney we went to dinner at Longrain in Surry Hills. Longrain don’t take bookings (at least on Saturday nights like when we went), so we had to wait in the bar area for an hour and a half till they had room for us. The bar area was really funky and they served appetisers and amazing cocktails.
Longrain isn’t my fave restaurant – I tend to think it’s popular because it’s trendy, not because it’s amazing. I hate to be negative, but it’s just not the kind of restaurant I like. Firstly, I’m not a fan of the atmosphere – it’s quite loud, so I find it really hard to hear what people are saying. It also take s a long time to get food, so I would recommend eating in advance – we were there at 6, sat down at 7:30 and my food arrived at 8:15. By that stage I was so hungry I had eaten two bowls of plain rice out of desperation.
Longrain is a bit of a “sharing” restaurant, where you order big dishes between several people – except we ordered our own food, which arrived at stages, so some people got food straight away, and others had to wait 30 minutes. Not cool! I also didn’t think the service was great. Very poor in face, compared with other restaurants of similar price. I also thought it was over-priced. Alec ordered snapper – it was $50. For one fish – just the fish, with nothing else. He did say it was amazing fish though 🙂 Last thing I wasn’t impressed with was the lighting – really dark and none of my photos turned out after the sun went down.
On the plus side, we had a really great night. Really great friends and conversation.
Janice and Andy want their beverages. Stat.
Self-portrait.
Seb loves his beer.
More beer!
Janice’s cocktail.
Prawns.
Oysters.
Calman chugs back an oyster.
Dessert tray.
Alec has been pampering me today. Breakfast in bed and cooking me dinner tonight – my favourite kind of pizza and salad.
Bocconcini, basil and Roma tomato pizza ready to go in the oven.
Yum. Ready to eat.
Spinach, tomato and feta salad.
Alec giving the salad a good toss.
Ready!
It’s worth knowing before seeing this movie that is based on a musical and is extremely blood-thirsty. Interestingly, Wikipedia says this may or may not be based on a real story (minus the singing I would presume). Spoiler alert below, so be warned.
Sweeney Todd is set in London around the time of Jack the Ripper, and centres around the character Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp), a barber who is returning to London after 15 years of enduring some kind of punishment/banishment that we never find out much about.
Sweeney in his youth was called Benjamin Barker, and he was married to a beautiful woman and had a gorgeous daughter. An evil high judge however has his eye on his wife, and charges Benjamin with something false (I’m not sure again what this was – it was skipped over) to get Benjamin out of his way.
Fast-forward 15 years and Benjamin now calls himself Sweeney Todd, and is back for his wife, daughter, revenge and some random serial killing.
Sweeney meets Mrs Lovatt (Helena Bonham Carter), who has opened up a pie shop under his former apartment (how is it his apartment is still vacant after being missing for 15 years? ), who tells Sweeney that his wife poisoned herself and the judge adopted his daughter as his ward.
Thus starts Sweeney’s cycle of violence, blood shed and revenge – although he takes revenge in an interesting way – by slaughtering his customers and turning them into pies… This was the point where I started to feel quite ill.
The singing was also really off-putting. Some musical translate really well to film, like Hairspray, which incorporated the songs into the action. In Sweeney Todd, however, I found the songs dragged on and diverted the attention from the story. The music actually was really great – as you would expect from an award-winning musical, and the cinematography was similarly fabulous, recreating gothic London in all its dirty glory.
I was hoping in vain for a happy ending so I could go home and not have nightmares, but it wasn’t to be. I had to watch So You Think You Can Dance on TV when I got home to distract myself and get to sleep!
After the bloody massacre, we were feeling ill, but still needed to eat. We stumbled upon this little place near the cinema – Mr Wong’s Kitchen. What a find it was! We will definitely be going back again – it was super clean, great service and fabulous food.
My vege fried rice and Alec’s combination chow mein.
I’m having trouble finding the address of Mr Wong’s, but it is in a little arcade just to the right of the movie theatres on George St, Sydney.