Recent Eating Adventures

Baba Laska House

I cook lunch to bring to work on most days but now and then we'll meet up with friends for a bite. You can live in Sydney for years and years walk past a place every day and not notice it at all until someone points it out to you, Baba Laksa House is one of these places. It is located on York St and is tucked away inside the building pictured below. The only thing that points to the existence of this place is the little sign outside the door giving a run down of their most popular dishes. Come 12 0’clock the place gets packed! The food comes out fast and the wait staff is polite. My favorite is the Hainanaese chicken rice (you can pick between the breast or thigh) but what I really come for is their chili garlic sauce that leaves me with killer garlic breath.

Jacky had the laksa, I've yet to try it myself but judging by the amount of people that have it, it must be pretty good. Dishes aren’t the cheapest (around $7.80-$9.80) but are consistent with city prices.

Baba Laksa House
ShpG8/ 77 York St Sydney
(02) 9299 5833

Masuya

Everyone knows that I have a lot of Masuya love, I come here about once every 2 months because I love the service, the food and because I have a frequent diners card.

Oriental Beef Salad: Rare cooked thinly sliced sirloin beef, onion cucumber, coriander, mint leaves with lime citrus dressing $9.80

Sapporo Hot Pot -Seafood, chicken, fishcake, deep-fried tofu, udon noodle, coriander and vegetables in soymilk and dashi soup with fresh chili and garlic$22.80 p.p.

To enjoy this dish you must be a fan of soy milk! although the minimum is for 2 people you can easily feed 3. You start with the soy milk, bring it to a boil and progressively add the seafood, chicken etc.

Yum-O!

Masuya
Basement Level
12-14 O'Connell St Sydney
PH:(02) 9235-2717

Star Bar & Scruffy Murphy's

(The battle of the $5 dollar steaks)

Well not really $5 because Star Bar has now up their prices to $5.95 but I just loveeee steaks! and eating out can get really expensive. I always knew that you could get cheap steaks at the bar, but I always thought 'for $5 it MUST be pretty crap', I was so so wrong!

The only condition is that you have to buy a drink and to me it's bargain no matter how you look at it.

Star Bar

Star Bar has a much nicer atmosphere and is a great place to sit down for a drink after work, but when it comes to the food the clear winner for me is Scruffy Murphy's. It took a lot of convincing before Jacky could get me in there, but now we're there for dinner almost once every week. It's cheaper, the mash is tasty, the gravy is really nice and they provide you with a selection of other sauces (Tomato, sweet chilli & worcestershire).

Scruffy Murphy's

Scruffy Murphy's
43-49 Goulburn St Sydney
PH: (02) 9211 2002

Star Bar
600 George St Sydney
PH: (02) 9267 7827

Quiznos

About 6 years ago Jacky and I were devastated when the whole chain of Quiznos subs closed down. Back then we were such devoted fans of Quiznos we refused go near a Subway. You can imagine our delight when we found out that the stores had re-opened (via the vouchers in the Entertainment book). Today after many years we had our first Sandwich….ahh the memories….

Quiznos
World Square Shopping Centre
Shop 9.6 Goulburn Street Sydney
PH:02 9283 8663

Lawn Bowls

Friday 24/02/2006
My Managers decided to take the team to Lawn Bowls at The Paddington Bowling club today. If you haven't gone already it's great fun! In the last couple of years, lawn bowls has really taken off for the younger people and Paddington really caters to that particular crowd. The bar and seating area is quite trendy compared to the traditional clubs, and on a Friday afternoon it gets packed out with people.

The instructors are all really young and pretty easy on the eye, we also seemed to be surrounded by people speaking in different accents. This is Matt he was born in England, grew up in Canada and now lives in Australia. He collects your balls, buys your drinks and even delivers your food orders, hows that for service!

The weather was perfect and the Blue team (my team) came back from losing the very first game to win convincingly.

Just us standing around having a few beers and chilling out for the afternoon.

I'm not sure how much it was because the company paid, but I know that the corporate price is $22 per person for 2 hours (where you get about 8-10 games) so I assume that normal entry would only be a little more? I can't wait till I go back with my friends.

Paddington Bowling Club
Quarry Street Paddington
Ph: 02 9363 1150

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Next Saturday
Pole Dancing intermediate 1 - Graduation
Does anyone want to come? and when I say anyone I mean females =P

Inspire me with some costume ideas people!

Jacksons on George

Today was our 7 year and 9 month Anniversary. Normally we'd go to a bit of effort to find a nice place to celebrate, but in my 2nd week I'm already snowed under with work and staying back to catch up.

My 2006 Grads started today and in between going to induction, running their welcome lunch and getting all the summer clerks sorted, I bearly had time to eat. So for dinner I wanted somewhere close where the food came out quick! With a Entertainment voucher that saved us $25 (buy one main meal get one free) Jacksons on George was a no brainer.

On a weekday the place is fairly quiet so it's not too hard to find a quiet seat. The tables are a little sticky and it seems that the half open room makes it ok for people to smoke indoors (which is a big no no in my books). Overall the food is ok and the prices are fairly reasonable.

Entree: Garlic Prawn & Squid Salad w prawn & squid tossed through a rich tomato & basil sauce $15.0

Main: Scotch Fillet 250gm w crispy fondant, eschalot jus, and coral salad $24.0

We both had the steak which was cooked well i.e. medium was medium and rare was rare, but I felt that the steak itself lacked flavour (would be great if they offered a selection of sauces). The potato cup on the side looked cute but was very dry; the side salad was colourful but not recommended for those who aren't fans of balsamic vinegar.

If you have an entertainment voucher give this place a go, if not there's probably better places to eat around CQ.

Jacksons on George
Open 7 days
176 George St
Sydney
PH: (02) 9247 2727

End of Quarter/Reena's Farewell

Today was a bittersweet day. We would all come together to celebrate a fantastic quarter 3 and also bid farewell to my direct manager Reena. As sad as we all are to see her go we can't be more excited for her in her new role as NSW Recruitment Manager for KPMG.

The farewell speech

We then headed off to the Woolwich Pier Hotel for a boozy afternoon.

A few of the guys - Left: Jen, Lucy, Adele, JP Right:Mayura, Sarah

The Food

Left: Classic Salad Nisçoise with Atlantic Salmon $16.00 - The fish was fresh and was reasonable for the price. Right: Steak Sandwich with fries (Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Onion Relish & Beetroot) $14.00 - this wasn't a hit with us as the steak tasted like boiled meat

Left: Tempura Battered Fish Of The Day with Fries & Tartare $19.00.

Right: Garlic Prawns with chilli on fettuccini with spinach and coriander $20.00 - I found this dish to be a bit too oily, the pasta was a bit plain on its own and the prawns a tad too salty, I was left feeling a little disappointed.

Left: Scallops on Half Shell with Tarragon Butter - 1 Dozen $25.00 & Bowl of Fresh Prawns with Garlic Aioli (serves two $28.00) - seafood was very fresh and scallops had just enough flavour, would recommend.

Right: Vegetable Stir Fry with Fresh Singapore Noodles $16.00 - ordinary for the price.

The Cocktails

Our Company gave us a $500 bar tab to drink the afternoon away. And drink we did! I'm really not sure when I became such an alco but in 2 maybe 3 hours I managed to consume:

1 x vodka lemon lime

2 x caprioska cocktails

1 x lychee with cranberry Cocktail

1 x shot of Sambucca

The service was exceptional! and the barman was really sweet making his own little cocktail creations especially for us. The weather and waterfront view made it a really easygoing and fun afternoon, just what we all needed. At around 4:30pm we all hopped on the ferry to the city and finished the night with more drinks @ Opera Bar.

Before Reena left she handed me a present with these parting words of advice for me:

"Take Pride in how far you have come,

and have Faith in how far you can Go!"

(Christian Larson)