Euphemism?

Er, not for me thanks...

Fish and drinks

Dogfish resting

Last night the company Emily works for held their Christmas party at Sydney Aquarium. The aquarium is one of Sydney's top attractions, and deservedly so. It may cost $25 to get in but the sting of this wears off the instant you see the platypi (platypusses?) which are right inside the main entrance. I didn't have the presence of mind to take any video footage of them sadly, but I did take some from the oceanarium which you can see above.

The party itself was held in a room that you get to only at the end of walking round the aquarium and before the gift shop which sells a wide variety of high-quality tat. One whole wall of the room is glass looking into the largest and most fully stocked larder tank in the place. The overall effect is a bit like a ten foot tall screensaver. It has a bizarre hypnotic effect that transfixes normally hyperactive ritalin candidate children into awed silence. Why they don't have a webcam focussed on this I can't imagine. They do have 2 rather boring webcams focussed on the crocodile and the fairy penguins (stop that thought, the penguins are rugged Aussie types).

hypnotised by the tank

Quite a large number of the canapes served at the event seemed to be fish or fish based. I couldn't quite get the image of the waiters with a fishing net and waiting deep-fryer out of my mind.

The worst thing about parties where the drinks are free is that it always seems like a good idea to go somewhere afterwards to carry on. It never is, ever. The next thing I knew I was looking at my watch and wondering how it came to be 3am and how much crap I'd actually been talking. Judging by the feel of my head this morning I was talking quite a lot of crap. The Christmas party season has started, there will be at least another two to go to. I hope they don't end up finishing at 3am, but I know at least one of them will...

Roo

Roo as it is found in the supermarket

Kangaroos occupy a strange place in the Australian psyche. Whilst the creature is their national symbol, thousands of them are culled each year and whilst there is thriving kangaroo leather industry that sells accessories to tourists, the majority of the meat goes into pet food. Aussies it seems are a little squeamish about eating skippy.

To try and and get people to change this ridiculous bit of anthropomorphic idiocy the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia ran a competition to rename the meat last year (and yes skippy did come up). Whilst the change was never intended to be actioned it was a good bit of PR which highlighted the fact that Australia is missing out.

Son, grab a beer & light the barbie

Kangaroo meat, as you can see from the picture at the top, is about the same colour as venison and is very similar in taste. However it is much more tender and much more easily cooked, it is also exceptionally lean there is almost no fat. The meat chars to an almost caramelised outer shell when cooked on a very high heat. In the picture below I've not done much more than sear it on each side on a griddle pan. It is best eaten as rare as you can take it and benefits from about 10 minutes resting time after cooking. It has a slightly gamey flavour that goes beautifully with mushrooms, garlic, thyme and other strong flavours. As befits its' nation of origin it barbeques beautifully!

Roo as it is found on my plate

Australia really needs to get over itself and take another look at Kangaroo. Oz has the world's second highest obesity problem per capita (after guess where). You would have thought that a low fat meat that barbeques better than any other that I've tried would be perfect.

Pie

Ketchup on a pie - it's just wrong

Right, I’m back. It appears that we consistently exceed our bandwidth allocation so at the end of every month we lose our internet connection. Whilst I’m not averse to posting small things from work sat at your desk for twenty minutes whining online about how many pies you’re eating is probably not going to be viewed particularly well by your employer.

Speaking of which, I am eating too many pies! My pie count for the week is 4. It was a slow week pie-wise.

Not unlike the UK Australia has been through the foodie revolution and the standard of food available is now twenty or thirty times what it was ten years ago. Vegetarians are no longer put on the barbeque, though sometimes it can be a little difficult for Em to explain that chicken is not a vegetable, and that actually neither is fish.

Also like the UK there are some hang-overs from the terrible food past. For example in London you can buy a substandard cornish pastie just about anywhere. In Sydney you can buy a substandard pie just about anywhere. Although if you've got half a brain you'll look for five minutes longer and find that there is a bakers round the corner and that will sell you a gourmet pie for $2 more. Yes that's right a gourmet pie, and they're not kidding the good ones are really good. I'd steer clear of the curry ones though. What seems like a brilliant fusion of two great institutions is in fact a violation of natures law.

The Sunbeam Pie Magic 4

Australia may be the only country on earth where you can buy a pie maker. Most people would settle for doing it the old fashioned way, with an oven, but not your pie chomping sheep shearer. A pie maker is not unlike a toasted sandwich maker. You line the tins with pastry put in your filling, put on the pie lids and close the top. A few short minutes later you have pies. There even seems to be a pie maker specifically targeted at children. Why you would invest in a pie maker, make or buy pastry and make or buy filling and the fiddle around making substandard pies when you could walk to the corner of the street and buy a gourmet pie is beyond me.

Harry's cafe de wheels

My own pie consumption has been driven up by the amount of nights I am not at home for dinner. On my way off the ferry I have to walk almost straight past a window kiosk on circular quay that sells some of the bestt pies and pastries in Sydney. The temptation can be too much. Often I've grabbed a coffee and a danish for breakfast there in the morning too.

If you listen to the tourist guides there is only one place to buy a pie in Sydney Harry's Cafe de Wheels.

A pie floater

At Harry's you can buy an Australian delicacy, being Australia there is nothing delicate about it, it is called a pie floater. A pie floater is more commonly found in the state of South Australia. To make a pie floater take a bowl of mushy peas, float a pie in it - you're done. Harry's also put mashed potato on the top and cover it with gravy. I will leave you to imagine what I think of that.

A week off...

There are moments in your life when you just wish someone would put you to bed with a shovel. Quite often on the morning after these moments I wake up feeling like someone actually did. This is becoming ever more frequent, frighteningly so, and I think it is time to take at least a week off the booze. This means no beer after work, no glass of wine with dinner, no sneaky G&T after dinner, no snifter of whiskey on the way to the bathroom, I must temporarily stop cleaning my teeth under running vodka and I absolutely have to stop drinking the mouthwash.

I am going to have to concentrate on my hobbies which may mean a flurry of inconsistent and possibly incoherently written posts on here as I attempt to come to terms with the world without the nice fuzzy haze around the edges. Essentially 95% of everything is rubbish and I tend to find that rubbish takes on a more decorative look when viewed through the bottom of a glass (half-empty naturally). The shock of actually dealing with a world without the daily dose of anaesthetic may reduce me to a shambolic wreck or it may spur me on to become the creative genius of my dreams. Probably not the last one, but it’s a nice thought.

Cooking is always a good way to relax. I will create some recipes and post them on here. Maybe I just need to freshen up and de-toxify my life in general. I hereby resolve to eat more fruit and veg, less red meat, fewer chips and no sugary soda. I will attempt to do more exercise and try to be more healthy and generally nicer to people. I shall be known for my sunny disposition, my charm and warmth. I shall be nice to children and small animals. Oh God it’s going to be awful. Rehab is for quitters.

Cinema

Even given the way Sydney likes to do things a little differently I hadn't quite expected to find the simple act of going to the cinema as good as it is at Govinda's

Going to the cinema and dinner are combined in a fantastic quiet night out. For a mere $21 you get an all you can eat Indian buffet with some of the most authentic flavours I've tasted. Admittedly the food is vegetarian - authentic see? - and there is no alchohol on site but if it's a school night it doesn't mattter so much.

It isn't just the food that's good though. The cinema is furnished with long bed like constructions that you lie on to watch the movie. This is absolute bliss and also means that if you've gone to watch a stinker of a film you can just go to sleep! Govindas, as you might suppose, is also an Indian wellness centre offering yoga and vegetarian cooking classes, but this just means the staff are a bit weird and wonderful to look at and if anything adds to the experience.

My business model is clear; copy Govindas but serve meat and alchohol and the world shall be mine (oh, and charge a bit more than $21)!