It's a little bit fancy!

Recently I had a spontaneous girls night out with Natalie (and her lovely friend from work). It's great being spontaneous...I think you end up sometimes at better places than when you plan weeks in advance.

Anyway being the guru of all things Japanese Natalie suggested a place she had recently found. I've been to a lot of Japanese restaurants.

Mostly, they're pretty much the same. Tasty, but nothing fancy. So I was delighted with Sake.

It's a gem of a restaurant tucked away in the Rocks next to the Argyle. It's very stylish and fitted out with the classy end of Japanese design. There is a main area with lots of tables but also plenty of private rooms for those who feel like hiding away from the plebs.

I was a bit nervous when we were seated next to a table full of kids but they were remarkably well behaved - perhaps the classy ambiance was rubbing off on them. The menu is packed full of amazing sounding dishes. We started with the spicy miso chips with diced tuna and salmon sashimi, coriander and kogichun miso, which came displayed like a work of art, as well as the salt and pepper tofu and nasu miso (grilled eggplant). Yum! Really it was a shame to eat any of the food as it looked so good, but then it was also very very tasty.

Ok so I didn't take any of these photos but look how nice!! Cathy you have to go here.

For mains we had some zucchini kushiyaki skewers with teriyaki sauce, popcorn shrimp (which was pretty much how it sounds, small pieces of fried up prawns that looked just like popcorn!), the tuna tataki - seared tuna with garlic chips, snowpea sprouts and dressing, and spicy salmon salad. And also miso soup.

Waddling out afterwards I regretted ordering so much food but it was all so delightful it was definitely worth it.

We decided to top off the night by visiting the Blu Bar at the Shangri-la, to see the views from the 36th floor. Noice. Such a classy bunch.

After that Natalie & co headed off to the Ivy while I pulled the old my shoes hurt-and I have to drive home-and I had French this morning really early-and there's stacks of bogans in the Ivy and headed on home.

Verdict: What a great night!! Thanks Natalie for spontaneous inspiration. Definitely one to visit again.

For a nice change...a comedy movie that is actually funny!

I'm always a bit nervous about comedy movies. They seem to be filled with jokes that I am just too old or really just too much of a girl to find funny in any way and in fact make me want to claw out my own eyeballs so it will stop. So fortunately, Date Night isn't one of those movies at all. It's really really funny.

The plot is quite silly really, a suburban couple who want to try out a different 'date night' experience when they realise they always do the same thing and that has led some of their friends down the divorce path. They try to get into a fancy restaurant and take someone else's reservation, leading to a mistaken identity run-in with some dodgy characters, then an ensuing chase/attempt to sort out the problem with all sorts of hilarious high-jinks which is of course resolved satisfactorily by the end.


The standout scenes:

• the scene in the restaurant when they act all edgy
• two cars get their front bumpers stuck together and drive all over the place. It sounds really stupid but it's really funny
• the scene where they have to dance at the gangsters club - hilarious! I was crying with laughter

What makes this movie really funny is Tina Fey and Steve Carrell as the suburban couple, they do an excellent job of playing it quite straight while being side-splittingly hilarious. They are both great actors so their performances are very subtle, which really lifts the film from being one of the usual hollywood comedies. It also has a number of slow relationship moments that mix up the frenetic pace of the rest of the film to good effect.

Rating: 4 stars
When: 17 April 2010
Where: Hoyts Broadway

Best brekkie ever

I know it's a big call but I had the best brunch ever on Sunday. We went to Kasbah in Balmain for Magda's birthday. It's a Moroccan/North African/fusion style place - ie pretty much everyone will be happy. I highly recommend it!

I'm not the hugest fan of brunch because generally my body gets very confused. I usually eat breakfast at 7.00 and then all of a sudden I am not eating until after 11. Is it lunch or brekky?? Am I supposed to be able to fit two meals worth into my stomach? It doesn't really work that way. But anyway having said that there is something lovely about a leisurely Sunday brunch with your friends :)

So anyway on to the details...

Food: We had the set menu - you need more than 8 people. We were directed not to eat beforehand even though we weren't starting until 11 which was a very wise tip from Magda. The portions are more than generous!! It is three courses. The first course I would describe as the grain course. The star of the brunch is in here - rice pudding with cinnamon and some kind of orange blossom water and pear. YUM!!! It is the best rice pudding I have ever had. So creamy and warm and delicious...drool. Needless to say it was a massive bowl and we ate the lot. There was also a delicious porridge with banana and warm milk and a sweet couscous with nuts and dried fruit and cardamon milk, which were both delicious but overshadowed by the rice pudding of course.

The second course was the hot cooked brekky - eggs done three ways (scrambled, fried, poached) on turkish, a breakfast tagine (half lamb and half vegie) and bacon, sausages, haloumi (which was YUM!), beans, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, hash browns, and a big bowl of bread - turkish and pita.

Just when we thought we couldn't possibly eat any more and I was personally very glad I was wearing loose pants, when out came the third course - dessert. Two massive pancakes which were more like big flat cakes really, with all sorts of delicious toppings like icecream, caramel sauce and cream. It's unfortunate that you can't really do this course justice as there are two different pancakes, one banana and one chocolate and berry. I just really couldn't squeeze any more in!

They also have some really good teas, I had the Egyptian hibiscus tea (Carcade), and the Moroccan mint tea was also going down well.

Verdict: Awesome. You will not need to eat again until dinner. To me it was pretty much just all about the rice pudding. For those of you who don't like rice pudding (and really I am not being judgmental here but you need to take a good hard look at yourself) there are plenty of other great options on the menu .

Not so great bits: It's just been renovated so it looks great but it was very noisy which was the main downside. Well also we were crammed into a table that was a bit hard to get in and out of. It was a bit hard for those of us who wanted to have a go holding Wendy's baby! You really should book as there were lots of people waiting around outside for a table for quite a long time. A few of the waiters could be a bit friendlier too...

When: Sunday 11 April
Cost: $25 pp for set menu (can you believe it!?!)
Rating: 4 stars
Website: http://www.kasbah.com.au/

My new blog!

Welcome to my new blog!!

I thought I would kick things off with a review of the movie 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,' or as it is more correctly translated from the Swedish Man som hatar kvinoor, Men who hate Women! If I'd know that was the real title it would have explained a lot more about the book before I started reading...

It's based on the blockbuster Swedish Millenium trilogy by Steig Larsson and is set in Sweden, in Swedish with English subtitles.

It's about a journalist who is hired to investigate a girl's 1960s disappearance and the hacker/researcher who helps him unravel the whole mystery. There's a whole bunch of reviews here if you want to find out more about the plot. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/millenium_le_film/

What was good: It is a really gripping thriller. Although it's a long movie, there is a lot going on and after about the first 1/2 hour it is a very fast paced plot. It's also really good that it's in Swedish and set in Swedish places because that was very hard for me to picture when I was reading the book, not knowing where the plot was set etc. It makes it very authentic. It's also just a really scary/thrilling kind of thriller, not dumb in the way that some hollywood ones can be. Noomi Rapace is a perfect Lisbeth Salander (the eponymous tattoo girl) - really exactly as I imagined her.

What was not so good: I forgot that the book was so violent because I was swept up with the plot. However you can't escape that on the screen because it's right there in front of you! So people who don't like violent movies will not like this at all (Wendy I'm talking about you). Also I'm not sure if it would be a bit confusing if you haven't read the book series. The bits set in Australia were quite funny - I don't know who told the filmmakers that Spain actually looks anything like Australia :)

I thought this was a great movie and would recommend for anyone who likes a well-paced crime thriller. 4 stars.

When: 7 April 2010
Where: Dendy Opera Quays.