Musashi is probably my second favourite Japanese restaurants in Sydney, the one that tops the list is it’s sister restaurant Masuya. Both of them are great, but we opted for Musashi because it’s a bit more affordable.

I was a bit upset to discover that they’d taken the lychee mocktail off the menu, but the mango smoothie made up for losses. The meal started with some nice entrees of agedashi tofu and octopus balls (Nice pick on the octopus balls Lisa). Next was the sashimi platter, which is a must, it’s got all your favourites and a few odd slices of the unknown (I swear it was tongue). By the end of the meal all that remained was a small pile raw scallop, which is mostly my fault because I thought it best to share my not-so-great raw scallop experience at the dinner table.

Dessert was green tea at it’s greatest – green tea creme brulee and green tea ice cream (and black sesame ice cream). The brulee is great, it’s not overly sweet like your traditional caramel creme brulee but rather refreshing. The ice creams are great too – even in this cold Sydney weather.

Eskimo Joe released their new album Inshalla today and I’ve been eager to get my hands on it. I saw Eskimo Joe perform at the Sydney Sound Relief concert back in March and they were awesome. It was there that I first heard their latest single Foreign Land and from that one song I knew the upcoming album would be a winner.

I was right, it’s a great album. It still has the same Eskimo Joe feel, but they’ve added another level to their sound. Take their latest single, Foreign Land for example. You still have the same Eskimo Joe melody (which we like and love) but they’ve upped it by adding an exotic, almost tribal like, instrumental.

This versatility is evident in their new album, It’s not all just rock music. They’ve thrown in some slower mellow songs, some anthem like songs and one song – Let Me Down – sounds like something from the 80s, which is always fun. When you hear it you have the sudden urge to wear hyper-colour and dance in the street.

All in all, its a very good mix. Loving it.

I’ve been trying to “snack right” at work lately after demolishing an entire packet of Tim Tams to myself in one day, which is quite an accomplishment for someone who prefers savoury over sweet. But it’s not just Tim Tams, it’s anything I can get my hands on when sitting at my desk – chips, cupcakes, cookies and more.

So in a bid to snack right I took a trip to the fruit store and found these ugly buggers – dried figs. I was never really a fan of figs. It took me a while to get over the ugly factor, but as soon as I did I’ve never looked back.

I love free music. Especially when it’s good free music.

Iron and Wine have an entire album (8 songs) that they’re offering as a free download from their website. I’m not entirely sure why they’re doing that, but I’m not complaining. It’s free and totally legit. I remember the first time I heard Iron and Wine, it was their song “Boy with a coin” and I remember thinking it was crap. But I grew to like it, it only took 1 repeat and it started to grow on me. I was something different, I guess you would sort of class it as folk music. I don’t think I actually like folk music (not that there’s anything wrong with it), but I really like these guys.

I spend most, if not all, of my lunch breaks surfing the web – gosh that sounds so old fashion – “Surfing the web”. Anyway, there are some days where you have so many things to look up or read or watch, like Natalie Tran on youtube. If you haven’t heard about her before, seriously you must be living underwater underneath an extra giant rock or something. Go check it out – her stuff is seriously funny!

Then there are those days where you sit there staring at google trying to think of something interesting to look up. You just want to see something fresh but you can’t exactly google the word “fresh”, well you can but you might end up buying food from Woolworths, The Fresh Food People.

To overcome my lunch break slums I’ve recently started to stumble, on StumbleUpon. This may be old news to some but to those who don’t know what StumbleUpon is, it’s this great online community where people rate web pages and tag them in categories. All you do is hit the “Stumble” button and it will display some of the top rated web pages in whatever category you choose.

Here are two of my recent finds.
Typorganism – http://www.typorganism.com/asciiomatic/
Great online app where you can convert a picture of yourself into a series of letters.

Crazy Rabbit – http://www.changar.com/archives/go.html
Something fun to play with on your lunch break. I actually spent quite a while playing with this rabbit. Simple things, simple minds.

Two of my friends are heading overseas next week so we had a farewell dinner/drinks night. They’re going to Europe, spending most of their time in Poland, Croatia and all that’s in between. 3 months of long lazy days in the European sun soaking up the culture (and food). I’m so jealous!

The venue for the night was Chophouse, a great little steakhouse on Bligh Street in town. I checked out their website about a week ago and ever since then I’ve been looking forward to going there. The place looks amazing! It’s got that old rustic look so you feel like you’re in an old (but very clean) barnyard or a country cottage. Now this all might sound a bit tacky, but its far from it. I was quite impressed that they’ve were able to give it that old run-down look but still carry that elegance and classiness. One thing that I thought was really cool was the ceiling in the main seating area. It is lined with these long curved strips of timber, making it look like a rib cage. Very neat.

Now let’s get to the food. In one word, it was deeee-licious. We had all pre-ordered the roast which, for $18, is an absolute bargain. And since we all got the same thing there was no looking at your neighbours food thinking you should have ordered that instead. The roast was cooked to perfection, slightly pink in the middle, juicy, soft and so easy to slice (and eat). The roast potatoes and pork crackling was also a big hit. Could have gone for seconds, but I needed to leave room in my belly for Kirin.

Today we were treated to a very nice lunch at this cute cafe in McMahons Point – Lavender Blue Cafe. Over the past couple of weeks it’s been all hands on deck with the transition of our database to a new online CRM system. It’s been stressful, but now that the new system is in place we can all start to relax and enjoy the benefits – like a free lunch from the boss.

I opted for the wagu beef burger which, to my disappointment, was not wagu at all. It was just a regular mince beef burger, though still very nice, it wasn’t what I wanted. If it weren’t for the chips I would have left a very unhappy customer.

Now moving on to the chips… oh the chips. They were very impressive. These could be, dare I say, one of the best hot chips I’ve ever had. Now that’s a big call coming from me. I’m a big savory person and I love chips.

Although I’m a big savory person I do love my sticky date pudding. The sticky date pudding – very impressive. Could have done with a bit more sauce and ice-cream, but all in all very good with nice chunky bits of date. And thumbs up to the toffee on top.

Whenever you wake after a big night out there are a few precautions you need to take. An important tip is to make sure you don’t sit up too fast, otherwise things start to spin. Sunday felt like one of those morning, but I soon came to realise that it wasn’t a shocking hang over but the start of something worse. When I woke up again this morning feeling the same I knew it had come – the dreaded flu.

I haven’t had the flu in a while, every time I start to feel a flu coming on I’d down a couple of Codral Immune Boost capsules and it would go away as quick as it came. Having recently run out of Codral I headed to the chemist to get some more. When I got there I started to panic, I couldn’t find it on the shelf. So I asked the pharmacists if they were out of stock, surely they were just out of stock because the thing works like a charm. Her reply: “Sorry Codral doesn’t make that anymore”.  Unbelievable. I thought to myself “Crap, I’m going to be sick”.

And you know when you’re at the shops and the sales person says “Oh sorry dear, we’re sold out of size x“, you just stand there, staring at them blankly, looking confused because it just doesn’t make sense. You stand there hoping that they’ll say “Just kidding – psych!” or something; anything but “They don’t make it anymore”. But no, they kid you not. And I kid you not, they no longer make Codral Immune Boost.

On a friends recommendation I’m trying one of Blackmores echinacea (plus garlic) dietary suppliments to help stop the flu. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I love birthdays. In my family when it’s your birthday you get to choose what you want to eat. So I was uber excited when my cousin requested for poh piah.

For those of you that don’t know what poh piah is, just think of a big spring roll that doesn’t need deep-frying. The ingredients vary depending on personal preference, and to many Singaporeans, depending on how your grandmother makes it – because we all know, grandmas are the best cook. In my family we use Chinese sausage; prawns; bean sprouts; shredded cucumber; egg (or egg roll); lettuce; sweet soy sauce (and chilli if you like it hot); and a vegetable stew kind of thing that has carrots, cabbage, bamboo shoots and tofu all thinly sliced.

One of the great things about poh piah is that you sit around the table and make the rolls yourself as you go. You get to pick and choose what you want to put in and, the fun part, how big you make it. When I was a kid, eating poh piah was (and still is) great fun. You got to make a mess of yourself (and the table) if you didn’t roll it properly or if you put way too many ingredients in.

I must admit, it was actually quite stressful making these rolls as a kid. Sometimes when it fell apart, it was like failing a test at school. But after many years of practice and having sauce drip all the way down your arm because you put too much sweet soy sauce in, I think I’ve finally mastered it. It’s all about the right proportions, don’t be too greedy; smart layering, use lettuce as a base to hold the sauce; and neat rolling, tuck
your corners in nicely.

And the final result, a poh piah that doesn’t drip and doesn’t fall apart.

So I had planned to go to the gym last night. I had packed my bag, brought all my gear and even had a light snack in the afternoon to make sure I didn’t get too hungry while at the gym.

But did I go? Nope. I somehow ended up at The Eastern eating pizza and beer instead of running on the treadmill. The Eastern has some pretty decent $10 meals, we got steak and chips, vegetarian pasta and a Marguerite pizza all for $10 each. The steak was the winner of the night, sorry I didn’t get a photo – it was gone before I could get my camera out. Served with salad, Maccas-like chips and mushroom (or peppercorn) sauce, the steak is tender and cooked to perfection (slightly pink/red on the inside). And for 10 bucks, two thumbs up!