16 October 2013

I know it's not Friday Funday, but I indulged a bit anyway (and got to know two great people)!

Breakfast:

First, check out how orange my fridge is.

Overnight "carrot cake" oatmeal
(It really should be called grated carrots w/some oats. The carrot that I grated last night was so big that I had to put the rest in a separate bowl for later.)

Lunch with a researcher at the Royal Fig Cafe in Melbourne Private Hospital, Melbourne, Australia:

Chocolate milkshake
(Met up with a statistician and he was hungry, so we went to his usual cafe. Apparently he has a milkshake everyday during lunch -which is really amazing- so I ended up getting one. We both lamented about how the milkshakes here were literally milkshakes and how superior American milkshakes are. Tasted like chocolate milk, but it was good. First milkshake in Australia!)

Pumpkin & roquette panini w/some sort of cheese
(I haven't had a sandwich here in the longest time, and this is the first sandwich that I've "purchased". It was good, but I think it was missing some tartness. Maybe cranberries or tomatoes?)

Dinner with the researcher and his wife at Lanna Thai, North Melbourne, Australia: 

Fish cakes (shared w/Terry & Sally)
(Technically only had one fish cake and a lot of the salad. Beautiful arrangement, yeah? The cabbage was very fresh. I liked that the fish cake had a nice chewy texture, so it didn't feel like I was eating extremely minced random meat, but something "homemade".)

Veggie spring rolls (shared w/Terry & Sally)
(I have yet to come across a veggie egg roll that beats my mother's. I think I had two of these. They were crispy and lightly fried, but didn't have much filling.)

Veggie green curry (shared w/Terry & Sally)
(I love coconut and I love curry, and a lot of SE Asian curries have coconut, but I'm sadly allergic. It's a good thing I'm not highly allergic and that I can eat a small amount of coconut, because I hate it when people can't eat the dish they want in a group setting just because of me. Anyway, the curry was good, a bit sweet and subtly spicy. I didn't eat a lot of the liquid and used the rice to soak up and dilute what liquid I did put on my plate.)

Some kind of seafood noodle dish atop a bed of cabbage (shared w/Terry & Sally)
(Tried finding out what this dish was but after reading the menu about another five times, I stopped. There's capers of some sort in here that kept bursting in my mouth, which was mildly annoying when I wasn't expecting it. But I rather enjoyed this dish! The noodles weren't too oily and nicely seasoned while the prawns were big and juicy. And the cabbage on the bottom balanced out the flavours nicely.)

Cashew nuts: stir-fried mixed veggies w/cashew nuts & Thai chili paste (shared w/Terry & Sally)
(Bit on the salty side for me, but was nicely balanced with the rice and extra cabbage.)

1/3 of Terry's coconut ice cream
(Terry asked if I wanted coconut ice cream, but I told him I couldn't eat a lot of coconut. So he proceeded to order a portion and give me a scoop of his. I'm pleasantly surprised by this (both the gesture and the ice cream). Instead of the usual coconut milk or desiccated coconut, they used young coconut. This is the only form of coconut that I can ingest up to about a toddler's portion before feeling the effects. So rather than a thick, rich and sweet ice cream, this turned out to be very light and refreshing.)