Cassy enjoyed her latest Book Club session out at Chamkar vegetarian restaurant here in Tienmu on Friday night. It's tucked away in a little side alley in the shadows of the dominating architectural piece in the neighbourhood, the Japanese retailer Takashimaya. It has a homely atmosphere, so much so that the group of 6 was contacted earlier in the day for requests of menu item possibilities. Apparently, the French chef was going shopping and wanted to know what they might fancy eating that evening and at what price range! Can't say it wasn't fresh then! They had a pleasant evening discussing the latest book, consuming the aromatic dishes along with a healthy serving of good French red. The French owner/chef has a mirror restaurant in Cambodia's Siam Riep which is similarly well regarded.
Hankering for the exquisite flavour bursts of Din Tai Feng's dumplings and xiaolong bao, we again attempted a foray into the bowels of the Sogo store on Saturday. This time, the store was so crowded that there wasn't a scooter park to be found in the cavernous basement carparks, which didn't augur well for a seat at the restaurant: we motored straight on out of there! Scootering over the Fulin Bridge brought us to another bustling restaurant district, so we managed to squeeze into a booth at 1Bite2Go before it became totally packed. Looks like the autumnal crisp on the wind has encouraged a lot of people out this weekend! Despite the fact that we've become enamoured of their breakfast fare, we gave the big ribeye steaks a crack this time and they were sensational.
Full of steak as well as 1Bite's signature power coffee and armed with some suspiciously awesome looking takeaway cakes for supper, we got back over the bridge to make a bread run to Wendel's. We bought our biblical serve of "five loaves and two fishes" (the "fishes" actually being two"Fruit Village Loaves") for the week ahead, then came home to relax and watch some TV. Later that evening, we feasted upon what turned out to be sublime slices of orange cake and sour cream cheesecake while watching the horrific psych-thriller splatter fest that is the second season of "Hannibal".
I headed up the steps on Sunday morning in a vague attempt to counteract the snacks and few beers I would no doubt consume in the afternoon as we watched the NRL Grand Final. My mates here are all AFL tragics and even though they don't know what they're missing out on, it's hard to drag them in front of an NRL game. Despite this, we usually send out an invite. Stalwart Ange, a Queenslander, dropped around for the match, as did Wal and Annie, at least for the first half. The game was a thriller and a triumph for South Sydney after 43 years in the wilderness. My long and twisted memory of the Super League war leaves me to cheer any ARL team against a Super League team, so I was pleased with the result too (as was Cass).
To my complete bewilderment, I've become something of a plant nerd of late as I watch the fascinating blooming of the cactus pods/flowers in the window box outside my classroom. I dragged the many years abandoned cacti up onto the ledge at the beginning of the school year. Despite total neglect, they have taken it upon themselves to prolifically bloom and flourish at monotonous regularity through the end of summer and now into autumn, with no sign that the cycle will end. I've been amazed at the way the pods split into flowers and the fact that the flowers appear to survive only about 48 hours before withering away. Call me David Braggyborough if you like, but I was very chuffed being able to catch on video said pod breaking and blooming....it happens very quickly, usually when I'm not looking!
Photos: cacti, 1Bite2Go, metal monkey and sign at the steps. The last shot is an homage to necessity being the mother of invention: after we were cruelly denied our Australia Network lifeline last week, I've since increased our internet speed tenfold, got a functioning VPN on the computer, fixed up our beaming apparatus from computer to TV and voila!....ABC iView now streaming ABC News24 whenever we want. Take that Tony Abbott!
Link to cactus bloom slideshow and here is the link to our YouTube video of the flower blooming