sporadic ramblings

quarter of a century. milestone. new chapter. new dress. new..life. almost.

happy birthday to me.

I took the crew out for an advanced celebration of my birthday. I decided to check out Nine Fine Foods, a little Euro Japanese fusion restaurant tucked away in a corner of Northbridge in Perth. A few friends and I were going through a list of restaurants, "must trys", we call them, and this one was on the list. They had recently won “Best Asian Restaurant” at the 2007 Restaurant and Catering Industry Association Awards, so I was interested to see if it lived up to its name.



It was a delightful place, small, cozy but packed with people. Food was all very interesting, although pricey. I'm glad I tried it out. I'm not sure I would consider it an "Asian" restaurant, but hey, who am I to say anything? It was a good night spent with good friends, and that's all that matters.

It's my priestess again. This time, level 70. Holy.



And a new mount =D

System.out.println("Hello world!\n");

i trust you are doing well. probably bored too, since you're here. i know it's been awhile, everyone's been on my back to blog.

well, now i can. i've recently moved my entries to blogger, which means i can blog wherever, whenever, without having to deal with not having access to my standalone blog program.

welcome to my new home. i love it! there will be a backlog of entries, me thinks, complete with flickr photos and everything nice.

yay =)

My niece's birthday isn't until next week (our birthdays are one day apart), but she threw a little party this weekend, out on the South Perth foreshore. She's turning 5, the little girl. How time flies. Her current favourite hero is Dora the Explorer. Everything was Dora. Dora hats. Dora clothes. Dora toys. Dora cake. Dora pinata.

How's this for an impressive cake?



Too much sun, too much sugar, and too many kids, but she loved having all her friends around, all her wonderful presents, and it seemed to rain lollies all day. Hyperactive kids on sugar make my head spin.

Anyway, there was a puppet show man, a clown lady, even face painting! How come I never had such elaborate parties when I was a kid?

Speaking of face painting...here's a.. head painting. Oh the hilarity.

For the boy's birthday, i took him to The Loose Box, for a degustation experience. Neither of us have ever been there, so this was a perfect excuse to take the boy somewhere posh. The place was gorgeous, the food was marvellous, it was just a really nice evening.



Some of the things we ate included:

• Salade de fruits de mer: Lobster, scallop, prawn, snapper, mango, chillies, vanilla and lime dressing
• Les Prawns Rotis au safran: Roasted WA prawns, slow cooked tomato, roasted zucchini, saffron emulsion and coriander oil
• Joue de Beouf en Daube: Loosebox specialty! Beef cheek, slow cooked with shiraz and fresh herbs. Served with a rich red wine sauce, baby carrots and potato.
  

Mmmm, yum yum yum.

Oh and of course, THIS:



My vanilla bean home made ice cream swan, on a raspberry pond. It was de-lec-ta-ble! And so pretty!

We didn't take a photo of us, but here's one we took when we went for a meal with the crew:


Happy birthday! =D

xoxo

Cup day was starting to become a little boring with Makybe Diva winning 3 consecutive melbourne cups. Where's the fun in that? Then again I guess it's a little bit like watching Roger Federer play tennis. You know they're good, you think they're probably gonna win, but you still watch it anyway in case they don't.

And then the Diva retired. And it was all new and unknown.

At the office today, we printed out the list of horses, put our names next to the horses of our choice, and crowded around a little radio alarm clock thing. It's hard to figure out what's going on without a TV screen in front of you, but hey, we worked it out, and guess who picked the winning horse? =)

Me! And I have proof!



Too bad I didn't put any money on it. Oh well. It was still fun.
Anybody actually win any money? =)