There have been quite a few birthdays lately, but I’m not complaining, especially if we go to Ripples Cafe to celebrate. I love Ripples at Milsons Point, it’s got the most amazing view of the Harbour Bridge, you’re seriously smack-bang underneath the thing. The view is great, the coffee is good and the food is amazing.

We started off with some nice bubbly. I’m usually not a fan of sparkling wine, but this was actually really yum – Yellowglen Vintage Bella. I’m looking forward to sipping on this in Summer.

I decided to get something different for my meal today, I was going to go with the usual bangers and mash or steak with sides, but I felt like something different. I opted for the Prawn and betel salad with Peking duck wantons. OMG I’m so glad I went with that! It was absolutely amazing! I haven’t had a meal that good in a really long time. You know those meals you just remember, the taste sticks to you and it’s all you can think about. Well I had one of those meals today and I kept thinking about it all day long.

The strange thing is, there was heaps of parsley in it and I don’t like parsley. In fact I detest parsley and coriander so much that I will sit there and pick out every single piece of it before I eat my meal. But today I actually ate all of the parsley in the salad. Very strange. I know I still don’t like parsley because I had some in my dinner tonight and spat it out. But at lunch it was somewhat bearable, and maybe even nice… Whatever still hate the stuff.

Desert was a Chocolate and honeycomb cheesecake with fairy floss, or as I call it, hairy floss (Turkish fairy floss). The cheesecake was amazing especially the honeycomb base, though it does get a bit much after a full slice. In the afternoon my heart was a seriously starting to hurt – chocolate coma!

One things for sure, since my friend Esther use to work at Ripples, I know what I’m saying next she asks “What do you wanna cook?”

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.

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.