Eat

Over the past couple of weeks I have doing a wider than usual range of eating.  And cooking, but mainly eating.

Usually for lunch I just head into one of the myriad of cafes and lunch places around my office and pick up a sandwich or sushi or something similar and eat at my desk.  Probably once every couple of weeks the co-Boss and I wander into one of the local cafes and have a working lunch.  But really I don't do the restaurant lunch thing very often.

Which is kind of ridiculous in Melbourne.

Through a confluence of events, in the last couple of weeks I've turned that around and headed out to restaurants for lunch 4 times in 7 working days. 

First, Gills Diner for hearty Italian.  I hadn't been there before, but will definitely be going back, especially during winter when I love this type of food for lunch (jeans-fit be damned). 

Then Percival and I took ourselves off to Gingerboy, where I have been before, and will go again as it's yummy.

Next, Hako, for Japanese.  Actually, this is a place where the co-Boss and I go pretty regularly because it's about a minute from our office.  The only problem is that he always has the Vego Bento and I always have the Salmon Bento and perhaps we really should break out of that and try something else.

Today it was Maha, which is also close to the office.  I've been there once before for dinner, but never for lunch.  The food is great though, and they didn't bat an eye when the table ordered a banquet and I advised that I am anti-nuts.  Instead they brought out the nut-laden banquet for everyone else and bought me my own separate little banquet with equivalent nut-free dishes.  Yumo.

On Saturday while roaming around Fitzroy playing in shops I also took myself to the little Japanese place in Smith St which I don't know the name of - I just know it as the home of the Sushi Nazi who has very strict rules about how and when you can order sushi rolls from the front counter.  They do good Bento boxes there too.

All that Japanese put me in a cooking mood as I decided that I really should learn how to make Miso Soup and that Japanese salad dressing that I am semi-addicted to.  So I went grocery shopping in a more directed way than usual. (It's harder to find Miso than I would have thought around here - by which I mean within walking distance - but I guess I am in the heart of Mediterranean Melbourne, and there's a great Indian supermarket, so I can't complain.  Further side note, I found the Miso in Safeway and when I took it to the counter it didn't scan the first time so the check-out dude actually asked me if I'd picked it up in the store even though it was the only thing I was buying.  Because obviously I was trying to him pay for something I'd picked up in another store.)  I also wanted to break out the Spanish cookbook I'd bought a while back.

I haven't made the Miso Soup yet, but I did make the salad dressing.  I also caramelised some onions to use in a lamb dish later in the week, and last night made Spanish-style garlic chicken which turned out really well.  For the record it's Spanish-style because it includes copious amounts of paprika and sherry.

The further upside of all of this is that my fridge currently looks like this:

(That's the left over chicken at the bottom front there. And the onions top centre looking a much less appetizing than they actually are.)

As a result I am less likely to have my swine-flu fears realised.  Those fears are, of course, not much about the flu itself, but rather about being quarantined at home with no food in the house.  "Hello, pizza dude, I'll leave the money under the doormat if you'll leave the pizza outside the door. Cough, cough."

Lest it appear that it's all been glamour food around here recently, I did also have fish 'n chips one night last week, and we all ordered pizza and weird-dream-inducing blue cheesy bread to go with our wine and football on Saturday night. 

Who wants to bet that having now posted this I don't get near a restaurant for lunch for six months and revert to sandwiches for dinner ASAP?

Comments

[Freya]

I see that diet coke bottle lurking in the vegetable crisper!
Isn't that where you normally put the beer?