Jersey Boys - For the Third Time.

Could I really come back to Oz and not watch Jersey Boys?  Nah, no freaking way.  I had to watch it again, even if it would be for the third time! This time the parentals, Spu and Moo tagged along.

Ma didn't quite understand the 'Joisey' accent or the jokes (aww Ma, you so cute!) but we all enjoyed the matinee.  We had the understudy for Frankie but only realised so halfway through the performance. The songs were rocking (it's not daggy!) and the middle-aged crowd (plus Moo and I) were dancing in our seats.  Yeah, Spu laffed at us.

I couldn't help but draw comparisons to the London show and while it was practically identical (even right down the actors who played Bob Gaudio), I felt that there was less choreography in the Australian show?!  I swear there was more dancing and hand-jiving on the London version.  Or maybe it was my imagination.

The Melbourne run ends mid year to move to Sydney.  Enjoy it while it lasts peeps!

Butchers Grill and Arj Barker

Last night Spuey and I hung out.  We had booked tickets to see Flight of the Conchord's Dave (aka Arj Barker) strut his stuff on stage and appropriately thought that we should eat before the show.  We were both pretty geared up to try out Mrs. Parma's but when we strolled inside at 7pm, we both a bit surprised to see it was very pub-by and worse yet, people had reserved tables!  Obviously these parmas must be mighty good if people go to such effort. 

Disappointed, we still wanted a parma fix and searched for a nearby alternative.  We seemed to find salvation in Butcher's Grill who offered a mediterranean-style parma on their menu. 

The restaurant had a pretty nice ambience with it's chandeliers and rustic cigar lounge kinda feel (not that I have been inside a cigar lounge before, but I figure it might be something like this.)  It was a balmy night and the waiter seated us by the open window. 

Waiters often feel obligated to make small talk and ours was no different.  His first question to us was "Is this a special occasion guys?" which made a most inappropriate inference.  Eeeeeerrr... how about a big fat NO, this is most definitely NOT a special occasion because Spuey and I are of the same spawn, you nitwit!! 

After debating whether to order two parmas or just one parma and another dish, we decided that it would be better to try and sample more of the menu and opted for the venison ragout. 

Spuey happy to not be in Geerong and happy to be eating. 

Our fruity drinkies.  Me enjoying my fruity drinkie. 

My parma with proscuitto - nums.  Spuey's ragout and our steak potato chips. 

The food was nice enough and I would consider going there again BUT only on the proviso that their service levels get a major overhaul.   While there was nothing specific to complain about, overall it was just too damn slow.  We were seated and ordered by 8.05pm and given that Arj didn't start until 9.30pm, we figured we'd be in and out by 9pm tops.  There was no excuse for the snail pace either - the restaurant was only half full!  We were served our mains close to 8.45pm and even after that, they'd forgotten our side order of chips! 

Lucky that Spuey and I are pretty fast walkers.  We managed to squeeze in a pre-show pee pee (if only just) and were seated in time for Arj to walk on stage.  I'm not going to delve into the show, but Arj was funny as expected and if you like humour based on 'Balls', you would find it funny too. 

Our night ended with the collection of a drunk Mooey from a house party.

Mooey Submission Pic-a-nic

Mooey had her post submission pic-a-nic today and needless to say, after 6 hours of solid alcohol consumption (in the classy form of Langmeil red wine and Pimms of course!), Mooey and I were hammered.  I shouldn't also forget that our sipping of the juice was accompanied by nummy cheeses, pates, antipasto and dips.

Hooray for food and drinkies!  Hooray for Moo! 

New Hairstyle

The last time I cut my hair was back here and yep, it's pretty clear I'm not exactly high maintenance when it comes to grooming of the head fuzz.  It was the same old story (fringe in my face, general blah-ness - see right) which prompted my desire to track down a new hairdresser.

Having enjoyed the shorter length of my previous haircut, I critically anaylsed how my lack of hair volume negatively impacted the otherwise excellent cut executed by my London hairdresser.  I bemoaned the fact that the instructions of my last haircut dictated that it needed to be permed.  The conclusion to my analysis?

Digital perm = Volume. 

∴ Digital perm + short haircut = Win!

I went back to Beauty Box and remained mindful of the fact that if my perm went haywire, I would be accelerating an otherwise inevitable transformation into Asian Auntyhood.  So I trawled Beauty Box for styles which had looser curls and less Ronald McDonald-esque and decided that these styles were what I was after. 

All I needed now was a hairdresser.  I was pretty happy with my perm from Good Morning Hair a few years back, but the salon itself is a bit hit and miss.  It just so happened that while walking around town, I saw that a new salon had opened up and that they were having 50% off promotions.  It was stupidly named CATS Hair.Skin and the staff suspiciously looked like Good Morning Hair staff but when I asked if they were associated, they (too) quickly denied any knowledge. 

I queried how long a digital perm would take and was quoted 2 hours... which seemed a bit short to me.  Nevertheless, I booked myself in and decided that this was how I wanted to spend my Friday night.  They weren't wrong and the whole job did take just over 2 hours.  I nerdily took notes and basically the process went like this:

Wash hair
Cut hair
Put hair into rollers. I had 3 hairdressers simultaneously attending to me.  Velcro rollers were mounted at my scalp and my hair wrapped around a secondary roller which would then be ...
.. given the "Digital Heat", in other words I go hooked up to an octopus-like machine. 
Wash hair (again)
Nutrition treatment application.  My hair was literally fist pounded by the hairdresser and then a shower-cap was put on.
Sit under a radiating rotating heater.
Wash hair (third time).
Blow dry with 2 hairdressers going at it.
Feathering scissors to cut more of my hair. WTF! Don't thin out my hair!
Final touch hair trims.
Blow dry again this with a twirling action.
Finish off the look with some silky hair essence.

So after all that, this is the final look:

Ta-dah!!!!!!

Jane, my assigned hairdresser was supercute and enthusiastic and I would definitely recommend her.  Her English seemed a bit off to start with but she seemed to understand what I wanted.  I'm sure it helped that I brought in photos of what I wanted.

For those interested, all the angles you care for.

The rear view.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  The real test is how it will look after the first wash and how long it will last.  I was told it would last a month (?!?!) which I'm a bit disappointed about given that my previous perm lasted about six!

Now excuse me while I go sleep on my face.

The Shug Take 2 - Completed!

I've now completed The Shrug - yay!

I had some initial problems with the lace pattern.  The first time after knitting about 6 rows, I realised the 'holes' weren't aligned.  Being a virgin lace knitter, I had no idea how to fix it so I my only choice was to frog it back to the ribbing.  Then the second time, the holes didn't align AGAIN.  After getting pissed off, I nearly stopped the project but on reconsideration decided that third time should be lucky.  I concentrated extra hard on my work and finally yay, the shrug was well on it's way.  For anyone who is not used to knitting lace patterns, I cannot emphasise enough that you need to pay attention! 

Once I got into the rhythm I did luuuurvvve knitting it - the lace pattern is so addictive! 

The deconstructed Shrug.  Ready for construction.  Yep.

Now onto the home stretch - seaming the edges.  Ugh.  As I mentioned in my Baby Booties post, I hate seaming.  I really need to perfect my technique before diving in to making something I potentially want to wear in public.  All that effort to knit up something nice is reduced to nothing when it gets ruined with bad seaming.  Well, that is pretty much what has happened to the Shrug.  Dammit.

My main criticism is that I should've gone with my gut instinct and not have slipped the first stitch as the pattern instructed.  The pattern promised that slipping the first stitch would result in easier seaming!  I've only ever seamed projects otherwise.... consequently, my seams ended up being so, so, SO ugly!  It's not too bad as the way the shrug sits, the awful seams are hidden beneath my armpits.  But when the garment moves, it's all too terribly obvious.  Also, it's a bit loose on my upper arms as a result of me not seaming it high enough. 

I am undecided about whether I like it or not.  Probably because I set my sights on wanting to LOVE it.  I'm much happier about how it sits on me than the previous disaster (of which the seams were much neater), but ...nnnngggh... I still can't get over my perfectionist tendencies.

The back view.  My cute posing helps a lot.

Front view.  Yep the seams are nicely hidden by my armpits. 

How the shrug will look when I am doing my 'normal' thing. 

Anyway, I probably will wear it one day.  I also may have another attempt at knitting the shrug at a later stage.  Now, onto a different knitting project! 

Hutong Dumpling and Ron Mueck

Mooey was pretty quick on the blogging action and has already told her version of today's events heavily focussing on our runchies at Hutong Dumpling.  I will focus a little bit more so on Ron Mueck's exhibition.... in a moment.

Hutong was another restaurant on my 'to eat' list so I was pretty happy to tick it off today. 

Yes, Spuey and I thinking hard about what to order for runch. Hmmmmm *thinking face*

Apart from the standard vegies on the side (kai lan with oyster sauce in case you're wondering), we settled on the boiled pork dumplings, chilli wontons (num num!), zhajiang mian (yes, Chinese spag bol) and of course the signature dish - xiao long bao.

My review?  All the dumplings are definitely worth returning for.  Num, num, nums!  The zhajiang mian however was very disappointing - mainly because I was craving it.  The noodles were not handmade (boo!) and the meat was bland in comparison to others I've had.  But then again, it's not their specialty - it just means I won't order it again.

I'd read some not so nice reviews about Hutong, mainly criticising their service.  A Chinese restaurant with good service?  C'mon people, we all know that's a contradiction.  I've come to expect shite service from Chinese restaurants but today was fine; nothing to complain about at all!  It probably did help that we were eating before the lunch time rush.

My pretty, pretty dumpling (whose skin remained intact) bathing in the vinegar.

All up, lunch was $60 for the four of us.  Something is wrong with my head as I must still be living in 1999 with my povo uni student mindset because I thought that was expensive.  Moo came to the rescue to again and brought me forward to 2010 reality - $15 a head (£9) is expensive by Dirty Dumplings standards but still is cheap, especially by UK standards.  Yay for food! 

After a quick fish ice cream stop, we made our to the NGV for Ron Mueck's art display.  Smee and I had been wanting to see Mueck's stuff for some time now but hadn't managed to do so whilst in London.  When Mooey said there was a temporary exhibit at the NGV I said, "Wait for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!"  Then Spuey said, "I wanna come tooooooo!!"  So here we are... at the exhibit.... making the most of the awesome photo opportunities.  No flash photography was allowed :( but at least photography WAS allowed! 

Mooey and the Giant Baby. 

Moo and Spu with the Wild Man and the Grim Women.  And now with the two old ladies. 

Hanging with the woman holding sticks.  Spuey and I with the woman in bed.  

Spuey and Mooey check out if Spuey got wounded.  Hmmmm, yes a man on an inflatable pool mattress.

Oh look!  It's a man on a boat.  We all check out what the man is looking out for.  

Moo grows a big head.

Hanging out with the chicken.  The exhibit hall was rather like a library and only low whispers and murmuring was heard.  Spuey almost had to leave the room to stifle his laughter.  Muwahahaha...

Wow, these sculptures were amazing.  Apart from the obvious difference in scale, they all looked so, so real that you were pretty much waiting for one of them to get up and start walking around.  (Cue the screaming the exhibition visitors...... although I'd like to make friends with one of them.)  Each hair follicle was visible and like human hair, it wasn't just all the same colour.... the big face had some white stubble mixed in with the brown stubble!!  The Wild Man had bum fluff!  The little old lady had saggy pantyhose!  The woman with sticks had a mass of pubes! 

We tried to check out the rest of the gallery but given that all three of us have been to European galleries and museums, unfortunately we weren't terribly impressed.  We were ready for something sweet and shuffled our way down to Roule Galette and had a crepe each.  I had mine with the works.  Strawberries, bananas, almond flakes, chocolate and ice cream.

Ok, I couldn't finish it.  I might ease up next time on my order.

So yeah, anyway... Ron Mueck - go see him!  If you can't appreciate any art, you'll at least be fascinated by his work. 

Baby Blue Baby Booties

In between knitting the shrug and doing nothing else, I completed another set of baby booties for Lymbo's lil one PanDanny.  Female Lymbo did state her request loud and clear and I sure aim to please. :D

They were made during down times at work and it's pretty cool that I was inadvertantly being paid to knit.  While the boot itself is simple and quick to knit up, it's the sewing up which drags down the whole job.  So fiddly!  I actually put them aside for some time to avoid the whole seaming ordeal and because of that, I think that these shall be my last booties for a while.

PanDanny - enjoy your booties!  I hope they don't fall apart (too quickly).

Cumulus Inc

Tonight's dinner was meant to be at the latest "it" restaurant, Mamasita but the no reservations policy and 1 hour and 15 minute wait time meant that we had to search for an alternative.  One of the things I do ruv about Melbourne is finding happening places in the most unlikely of places.  I still enjoy the surprise at opening a non-descript door, walking up some narrows stairs only to find the space it leads to is crowded and buzzing.  I mean, that's pretty cool isn't it?  Mamasita fills the space that Recorded Music Salon bar once occupied and the space works well for them.  But oh well, no dinner there tonight, maybe next time.... like when I decide to eat dinner at 5pm!

Nearby was Cumulus Inc, another "it" restaurant and on my 'to eat' list.  I guess it wasn't gonna be a night of Maccas or Chinatown after all.  It was also buzzing and full (wtf, it's Wednesday!!) but we scored a seat on the communal table.  Better than waiting and we were were starving!

The a la carte dishes are intended for sharing which is no big deal coming from an Asian background.  Our waiter was pretty awesome and seemed to enjoy the whole deal with being in the service industry.  We settled on the:

• smoked wagyu tongue from the charcuterie, 
• foie gras parfait with toasted brioche (my fave), 
• the snapper with spiced tomato, grilled prawns, coriander and mint, 
• veal backstrap with green bean salad and anchovy dressing, 
• the whole slow roast lamb shoulder 
• the wheat and freekah salad to complement the lamb (waiter's recommendation - Btw, what is freekah?)

Between four of us, that might sound like a lot but the portions were small.  In fact they were so small that throughout dinner we all contemplated going to buy some Maccas fries afterwards.   Don't get me wrong, the food was nice and the foie gras especially deserves a special mention *clap clap* but as each dish was presented to our table, I sensed some silent "My god, that's small" thoughts running through our heads.  Either that or I am used to consuming larger than normal portions.  Regardless this 'portion control' has it's advantages; one of those being able to sample more flavours and another of not over-eating, something of which I am guilty of doing many times over.  

I was a little annoyed that the wheat and freekah salad came out about 20 minutes before the lamb.  How can the complementing side dish come out so early?!  Don't the kitchen have this kinda thing under control?!  I've already had my whinge that the portions were small.  Well, they TOTALLY made up for it once the hunk of lamb shoulder was plonked down on the table.  The smell of the lamb had lingered in the air for a while and was ever so tantalising.  Finally, the meat to go with our freekah salad.   

I only had my shitty iPhone camera which does NOTHING for photographs in dim light.  This is the best I could do with our ravaged lamb shoulder.  Mmm mmm mmm.

The meat was just perfect - tender, moist and succulent.  The freekah salad did go very well it indeed!  We decided that a decent souvlaki bar with lamb on a spit could give you a similar lamb-rush.  I'm not insulting the dish - such a comparison is intended in a most favourable manner!  We didn't need any Maccas fries after all.  I'd definitely go back to Cumulus Inc for the lamb shoulder.  Had it not been for this carnivore's dream of a dish, it might have been a case of  ... I'd return, but not so soon.

At about $55 per head, I initially thought that this was quite an expensive dinner.  Moo talked some rationale into me.  For this 'type' of restaurant it's actually quite reasonable and when compared to places like Nobu ($90), it is comparatively a bargain.  Despite the strong AU$, this dinner still converts to £33 which is fairly standard for a London restaurant of a lower calibre than Cumulus Inc.  This really puts things into perspective for me.  Prices may have risen sharply in Oz during my time abroad but you still get better value than the UK! *shakes fist*