J Cafe

Recently, I had quite a few opportunities to visit J Cafe, which was supposed to be a pretty good Japanese place. However, the place always seemed to be closed whenever I decided to go. Once it was closed for the summer holidays, another time it was closed because it was a Sunday, the third time, it was Easter, and thus closed, and lastly, it was also closed on a Monday!

Useless!

Anyway, I finally outthought the restaurant and went on a Tuesday instead (It was actually because Sushi Ten is closed all the way till April 17th (useless!). Thankfully it isn't permanently closed though, like Donna Monya. I seem to be very unfortunate in this sense. Any restaurant that I like always shuts down. First Donna Monya, then Ganbaria). This trip to the restaurant also coincided with Weishen's (it doesn't really matter who he is; if you know him, well and good, if you don't, then there's no point in me explaining who he is either) visit to Melbourne together with his girlfriend Leekeng.

That's her, sitting right there with her Bento box. Not Weishen, of course, but Leekeng.

And that's Weishen.

And this is my Ebi Ten Bento, which cost me $18.50. How was it, you might ask? Slightly pricey, way better than average, although not spectacular, but definitely satisfying.

Noodles, of 2 different kinds

Recently, I've had the pleasure to try 2 different kinds of shellfish noodles here in Melbourne, both of which I would never (well, maybe not never) decide to go and get it on my own (because its too expensive, but not if you share it between a number of people, but then again, you get less if you share it with a number of people; its basically a no-win situation).

This here, is from Kum Den, conveniently located somewhere in Chinatown (off Little Bourke Street).

And this is from Pacific House on Victoria Street in Richmond (not the new Pacific House BBQ Cafe in the city).

Both of them looks absolutely delicious, and I can assure you that they definitely were delicious. While some people might actually prefer lobster over mud crab, I don't actually have any such preference, however, in this case, I think the mud crab noodles was definitely the more satisfying of the 2. And the reason for this lies in the fact that the lobster noodles was shared between 9 (can't remember the exact number) people, which the mud crab noodles was between the 2 of us, and I did not have to pay for it as well (Thank you Alex!). So while that may bias my views a tad, I'm going to say now that I might actually prefer mud crab over lobster (more meaty).

 

(This post was written using Windows Live Writer (why am I even saying this?), which Chang Yang was raving about a few days ago. As you can see, I'm able to use a different font (Calibri) [edited on 1/5/08: its not Calibri anymore, now its back to plain old Verdana] which Blogger does not offer, bypass Imageshack for uploading pictures (I hate the blogger system for uploading pictures), and I have 'Drop Shadows' on my pictures. All is not rosy however. It took me a while to figure out how to work this program (I suppose that is true for most programs), and I had problems with aligning the pictures and the words as well (same problem I got with Blogger's method of uploading pictures). Furthermore the HTML coding seemed to change (I don't actually know HTML, but I know don't want it to change by itself) without my consent. What this meant was that the font kept on changing back to the default font and size, the pictures and words kept on aligning themselves wrongly and I had to figure out a way to change it back to what I want. Thus, it took me much longer than I expected to post up this crappy post with only 2 pictures in it.

Therefore, I remain unconvinced that this is the way to go, and I'd have to try it a couple more times first before changing fully over to Windows Live Writer. While it does offer much more functionality, what Blogger offers is sufficient for my needs, and accomplishes what I want to do in much less time (but that's probably because I'm used to it). However, I'm the type of person that likes more functionality, so, barring any major issues with it, I probably would eventually just switch over to Windows Live Writer.)

This is about 2 months and also about 1 week late.

St Kilda Beach

What is it with the association between beaches and sunny days? With all the advice nowadays on not staying out in the sun so much, why is it that people still insist on going to the beach when the day is super sunny?

So it happened that 2 Sundays ago (when it was 40 degrees), my friends decided to head down to St Kilda Beach for brunch and then the beach. I was very thankful that my bag contained an umbrella that a friend got for me as a birthday present. It was the most practical present ever and perfect for the conditions.




This is Jon. I have nothing else to say about him.


I have nothing to say about these people either.

I do have some comments about brunch though.

I decided to order pancakes as I didn't feel like ordering any eggs or bacon or sausages since I can make those stuff at home anyway.


However, I also drank one whole glass of banana milkshake before that, and, I was by then already overloaded with sugar and was craving for something oily and meaty, but all I got was this, while my other friends all ordered bacons and eggs and sausages.




The craving was so bad that I actually traded one of my pancakes for half a small sausage.


I suppose this must be muesli.


And this must be coffee.

Anyway, we headed off to the beach after that hung around.

Vegetable

Can anyone tell me what vegetable this is, and what I can do with it?

Shadows Over Camelot

Its been quite a while since I've put up pictures of people. Not that I didn't want to, of course, but rather I haven't been taking any pictures of people at all. Looking back at the pictures of my birthday about 2 weeks ago, I realise that I do not have a single picture of anyone, let alone myself.

Well anyway, today I'm going to insert one picture with people here. This is how it goes.

So recently I've been very in to boardgaming. Not the very well heard of games like Monopoly or Game of Life, nor those wordplay or general knowledge games like Pictionary or Taboo, but games like Ticket to Ride: Europe, Shadows Over Camelot, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Family Business, and of course, Bang. All out action games, with no knowledge required whatsoever, although, strategic thinking is indeed necessary to be able to survive.

I will not go into an extensive review of any of these games, there are countless of reviews out there already. My friend Supa has also wrote his thoughts on the subject. Let's just say, in terms of strategy, I put Ticket to Ride: Europe, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne on top of the list. However, there's more to gaming than just strategy. Ticket to Ride is just beautiful to look at, exquisitely produced, and very fun as well, in addition to being quite strategic. Family Business (a card game, not a boardgame), on the other hand, has no strategy at all, and its played purely to have some laughs. Bang, is very good for laughs as well, and thus good for people who just want to play to have some fun (basically means people who don't want to think), but also having that element of strategy that will attract people who want to play to win.

But Shadows Over Camelot wins hands down when it comes to theme. SOC is a cooperative game (which means good for people who are not so competitive) where players band together to try and beat the game. Its just like playing a computer game, where bad things happen every round, pushing you further to defeat. Players play as Knights of the Round Table (as per King Arthur legend) and must complete quests to win the game. What pushes the game above the rest is that there is a possibility that one of the players may be a traitor, and thus wants to lose the game for everyone else. Players just can't help but feel like they are really in the game, and events are conspiring to beat them.

Maybe that's why, last Friday, the group of 6 of us played the game from 9pm at night, till 7.30am in the morning. Because we couldn't beat it. We kept on losing and losing until the last game, when the first streaks of sunlight were beginning to stream in through the window, we finally beat the game. We were all so tired by then that we just played by assuming there was no traitor in the game, and coincidentally, there wasn't.

And we all took a picture to commemorate our victory.

Villa Romana

Had the opportunity to go to Villa Romana (I have talked about it before but for some inexplicable reason, I cannot find the link to my own post) 2 weeks ago (oh gosh its been that long?!~~~.........) with a (relatively) large group of people (friends from Ormond), which meant that we could order more, and there was more food to go around. The only problem was that lazy me forgot (or rather did not bother) to take down any names of the dishes that we ordered.

So here they are, in random order.


I quite liked this, although it wasn't supposed to be done this way. Apparently, the tomatoes were supposed to be diced and put into a separate bowl. But I think it tasted good, and when it comes to food, it should be all (mainly) that matters.


And this is a pizza. How do you pronounce 'pizza' anyway? 'Peetzah' or 'Peeza'? I did not get to try this, thus, I have no idea how it tasted.


Another pizza. If you must ask me, this one looks much better than the first.


And a large steak with vegetables.


Now this one, I ate (cos it was mine). And it was good. Not spectacular, but good. Filling and hearty. Just perfect. Meals don't need to be spectacular to be enjoyable.


I've never been a fan of chicken parmigiana, and this (although it does look nice, somewhat) does not change my opinion. I didn't actually try it, so I can't actually claim that it wasn't good, but it doesn't attract me, no, not at all.


This here looks like your basic carbonara, I think.


And finally, this is Villa Romana's special pasta. If only I could track down my old post, I could then get the name of the dish for you.

Regardless, it was an eventful night, with good food, conversation, and company.