Beers, Books and Breakfast

We begin this week with a new month, which means an update on the bedside books pile. From last month I have read two (Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days and The Outcasts of Time) and added two (The Alice Network and The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared). So I've still got the same number of books to read as before. 

Bedside books, February

A walk to the shops revealed the new mural in progress on the side of the IGA in Cook. It's looking good so far!

 

We splashed out on a special eight-course-dinner with Mr & Mrs Lovely Bonkers at Chairman & Yip. The ambient lighting made it a touch difficult to take photos, but the food was delicious and the company delightful. The first course was a sushi trio of cold-smoked kingfish, mango and pepperberry; Yellowfin tuna nigiri, ginger and garlic; and Kaisen maki (seafood sushi roll) 

Sushi Trio

The second dish was a dashi gazpacho and butter-poached WA rock lobster with mint oil and crispy burdock.  I had not heard of dashi before, but it turns out it is a clear Japanese broth akin to miso - it certainly made for a very refreshing soup and set that melting lobster off perfectly.

The next dish was probably my favourite of the night: a malt-glazed pork belly (char-siu) with rose-infused brown sugar and Jerusalem artichoke. Mrs Lovely Bonkers doesn't usually enjoy the combination of sweet and savoury foods, but she made an exception here and agreed that this was taste and texture perfection.

The chef brought our twice-cooked crispy duck pancake with spices-infused hoisin sauce to the table where he carved up the duck and then allowed us to assemble it into thin (slightly floury, if I were to make the slightest complaint) pancakes with spring onions and pickled ginger. 

There followed a steamed seafood medley with fermented chilli, glass noodle and shiso. One of the great things about dining out with Him Outdoors is that there are certain types of seafood he doesn't like as they are 'too fishy'. While he will happily eat the lobster, prawns,scallops and calamari, it does mean I get extra helpings of the mussels and the cockles (or pipis as they are known here).

I was obviously distracted by the second bottle of bubbles as I didn't take any pictures of the next course. This was a dish of wok-tossed pork fillet with sweet chilli jam and five spice green pea, and Shantung lamb belly, accompanied by a tofu and mushroom side dish.

Finally dessert was a coconut ice-cream with shredded toasted coconut and sticky black rice. 

The following evening our friend, Original Gravity, was back from his holidays, and he came round to our house with his Christmas present to himself, which we were more than happy to share with him. 

It does exactly what it says on the label

Obviously, my kittens are still gorgeous. They're not sure how to curl up delicately yet and spend rather a lot of their time exhibiting their fluffy bellies, which clearly need smooching. 

Not to be outdone in the gourmet stakes (or should that be steaks?), Him Outdoors served up this concoction of bangers and mash with mushy peas and gravy for Friday night dinner.

And here's a reminder of how the professionals do it, as we went out to breakfast on a very wet Saturday morning at Ona Coffee House. I had the special, which was a crispy fried chicken benedict with wilted spinach, shredded pickled cabbage with Korean spices and snow peas, and Him Outdoors had the courgette, corn and haloumi fritters with chilli scrambled eggs, smoked corn puree, cherry tomato salsa, dill creme fraiche and cress. 

The food is great here, but the standing take-away queue is too close to the diners (especially when the weather makes them huddle together under cover), meaning that one feels encroached upon while trying to eat at a table. And I think a surcharge for a weekend is ridiculous - as is a further one for using a card when the cafe doesn't accept cash - and so we won't be returning while this punitive fee is in place. 

Korean chicken benedict

Fritters

Honestly, we do things other than eat and drink, such as read, and shop for books. I was very pleased with these finds in Canty' s Bookshop (a secondhand bookshop), as they are both on the Family Book Club list.

And now back to the eating and drinking. It was Waitangi Day on Saturday so we celebrated by watching a New Zealand film (What We Do in the Shadows), drinking New Zealand beer (Garage Project, Deep Creek and Liberty Brewing) and eating New Zealand chocolate (Whittaker's Coconut Slab)

I finished the week with a walk around Lake Burley Griffin followed by a coffee with the Walking Crew.

 

Purple Lady at the end of the walk

Before Christmas our friends, The Lovely Bonkers, Dr Kay and Patience Itself, gave us a wonderful outdoor table that they had made themselves. We didn't have the means to collect it from their place at the time, but now Original Gravity arrived with his trailer and so we were able to reposition it to our garden and christen it with a beer. The design of the table top is in homage to the silver fern of New Zealand. It looks wonderful in situ, and the beer tastes great!

I finished it all off by reading in the hammock, under the watchful eye of Melantho who climbed her first tree.