Things You Eat When You're Alone Part XV

What do you eat for dinner when you're living in a hotel for two weeks?  You do have restaurant options located 500 metres away but because it's been rainy, you're a bit lazy to leave your room.  Room service! 

I had already become sick of eating pre-packaged caesar salads with roast chickens, so I checked out the room service options.  Here's what I've eaten so far:

Club sandwich with chips ($15.50)  I tried to make it healthier by requesting wholemeal bread.

Chicken parmagiana with chips and garden salad ($15.50) 

I thought I'd try to get some omega three after the nutrient devoid parma dinner.  Beer battered flathead fish and chips with green salad and citrus aioli ($15). 

What can I say?  All the meals were edible and reasonably priced.  It was pretty much like having a pub meal but in my room.  I can't complain but I seriously could not eat like this for much longer than two weeks.  The bigger problem with staying in a hotel for two weeks is washing underwear!  Lucky for me, RP lives nearby and has offered the use of her washing machine :D 

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part XIV

Just a short-ish stint in Rad-City this time but it marks the return of Eating Alone.

Haigh's handmade chocolate bars.  ($9.40 per pack of four).  Chai flavoured on the left and cherry flavoured on the right.

Did I really need eight?  No.  But Rad-City brings the depressed eating machine out of me.  They were nice but essentially the cherry flavoured ones were just very expensive Cherry Ripe bars.

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part XIII

Two things I'd like to share with you today.

Twisties - Cheeseburger flavour.  It has it's own FB fanpage.  

I've kinda 'grown out' of eating Twisties.  I used to love the chicken ones but when I ate them about two years ago, they were kinda yuck.  I'll still cheese ones but that is a very rare occasion.  I just happened to wander down the chip aisle at Woolworths (searching for Toobs incidentally, hai Female Lymbo!) and this caught my eye.

I love cheeseburgers and burgers in general.  I couldn't say no to Cheeseburger Twisties.  I was aware that this could turn out bad but I was pleasantly surprised that it REALLY TASTED LIKE A MACCA'S CHEESEBURGER.  I was particularly impressed with the obvious 'pickle' flavour too.  I have promised Smee to save him a packet.  Anyway, it's a limited edition so get your mitts on it if you're keen and just in case you can't find it, I have only seen it in Woolies and not Coles.  

The second thing I'd like to share.

Haigh's Dark Chocolate Speckles

I had a chocolate hankering but I decided that I didn't want 'bad' chocolate - you know, full of sugar and oil.  I wanted the 'better' stuff and in a way, 'healthier' stuff.  If I'm going to eat something bad, I might as well eat the better version of it (Twisties - I had no choice.)  Anyway, these are ADDICTIVE!!!!  I can't stop eating them.  I also bought a packet of the milk chocolate speckles (I got a discount if I bought two packets) and it didn't have the same effect.  They were too sweet.  Go out and buy a packet peeps.  

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part XII

 As promised with yesterday's post, here are a selection of goodies I've been eating while alone.

Appenzeller cheese and a glass of Grant Burge Hillcot Merlot.  Naice naice.  I am so classy. 

I really should avoid Breadtop but those displays of baked goods.. dammit.. are just so tempting!  The worst part is one is opening up next door to my work soon!  Now that's going to really test my strength. 

I bought a custard bun and tried to even it out by having some anti-oxidant rich green tea. *looks side to side*

The custard was actually quite bland.  At least I'll know not to buy this again! 

Breadtop - you're not winning the war against me just yet!

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part XI

I try to eat healthy most of the time.  I like to hit up the brown rice, brown bread and organic stuff when I can.  But I'm not a masochist - why deprive yourself?  Eat, drink and be merry!

I had seen McDonalds' new Oven-Baked range on TV.  Fish bakes, chicken skewers, maple McGriddles and a fondant-like choc pot!  Hmmm I was sold.  I wanted that choc pot dammit.  I informed Moo of the new range and she was immediately envious and felt sad that she was missing out.  I dunno what she is whining about - Europe have some pretty good Macca's specials.  She gave me the extra shove of approval I was seeking and off I tottered to McDonalds.

My intention was to go get the choc pot and then come back to my apartment and eat it.  I had assumed that the soft serve which was included with the choc pot would be served on the side.  But no, it was put directly onto the warm choc pot and immediately started melting when it was handed over to me.  So as I shuffled as fast as I could back to my apartment, I had to shovel choc pot and soft serve into my mouth.  I hope this activity made my choc-pot calorie neutral.

This is what the choc pot looked like by the time I got back.

This is how it is advertised.  It looks like for about 5 seconds and then the soft serve starts melting into the warm, warm cake.  

Anyway, by the time I finished the choc pot I kinda felt sick.  I told Moo she wasn't missing out on much.  If anything, eating this choc pot reminded me to stop eating crap.

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part X

I'm back to the ice cream phase of life.  I have a legitimate reason now - it's Summer!  Also, there was an ice cream sale at the supermarket.

After debating whether to buy a tub or ice cream on a stick, I settled on this:

Sara Lee Hazelnut Fudge ice cream.  It's new! 

It tastes like ferrero rocher!  Or nutella!  It's yummy.  Go and buy some.

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part IX

Ok, this post is a not depressing like the other ones in the series.  Trust me, I don't always eat crap.  I just like posting when I do eat crap.  I did not feel like cooking-for-one this being a Friday night so I asked Smee for takeaway suggestions and he told me to treat myself to Sushi Train.

Sushi train is the perfect lonely-person food as the equalising seating arrangement makes it ok to intrude on your neighbour's personal space.  I thought about sitting at the bar but given that Sushi Train is only downstairs from me (yay!), I had take-out so I could dine in front of the TV.

I'm anti eating out of a box, so I took all my sushi out and made myself a nice platter.

Lemme name all the fishies starting at 12 o'clock.  Salmon and tuna sashimi, mackerel nigiri, squid nigiri, octopus nigiri, grilled salmon rolls, kingfish nigiri, sea urchin ships and in the middle of it all, surf clam nigiri.  Num nums.  

In this instance, I made an exception for eating out of a takeaway container.

All the sauce sat near the bottom! Takoyaki balls.  One of my many weaknesses.  

I also had miso soup on the side and a Japanese caramel custard for dessert.  I am very full.  And very happy! :D

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part VIII

I'm now back in Rad-City and this of course marks the return to the intermittent eating of crap.  I don't know what I was thinking in the supermarket but I bought not one but two packets of tomato flavoured chips.  I initially only wanted to buy the Smith's Heinz Big Red, but thought hmmmm I would like to try the Samboy Atomic Tomato ones too.

The Smith's version is not part of their standard flavours so I absolutely had to buy a packet.  With that in mind, I thought I should test drive the Samboys to see if they would be an adequate substitute for the Smith's Big Red.  I didn't skimp on the size and each bag was 175 grams.  Pretty big for one person.

In short, the Samboy chips really didn't cut it.  The flavoured powder was poorly distributed in comparison to the evenly coated Smith's chips.  Judging from how much I enjoyed the Smith's chips, I could probably drink a bottle of Heinz tomato sauce.

Ok, I'm reviewing chips.  I've hit a new low.

Things You Buy When You're Alone Part II

Well I bought two Totoro plushies a few weeks ago but back then, they didn't have any susuwatari available for me to continue my money throwing.

Today, I happily handed over some moolah for my little black dust creature after seeing that the shop had re-stocked.

He will join his Totoro soon. 

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part VII

I saw an ad on TV and was reminded how much I loved these bikkies when I was kid.  Then went out the next day and bought a packet of Kingston biscuits.  Advertising works people!

For those not in the know, the Kingston is basically two Anzac-like biscuits with a chocolate filling sandwiched between them.  Mmmmmm... crunchy, chocolatey goodness.

Don't worry I didn't eat the whole packet in one sitting (there's about 15-17 biscuits in each packet) but it's pretty easy to easy about 5 in a row.

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part VI

So, I had psyched myself up for a lonely person's meal and I decided that it would be at Wasai Japanese Kitchen.  I turned up to the half-full restaurant and asked for a Table For One.  The waitress said, "Sorry we're fully booked tonight."  As if I didn't already feel like a loser, I was a loser who got rejected!  So fine whatever, I ordered takeaway (not that waitress even suggested that as an option to me).

Waiting for my takeaway, two blokes came in and asked for a table.  The same waitress this time pulled some effort to see they could be slotted in but then they were given a 'No'.  Just as they were opening the door, she stopped them to let them know that some customers were leaving and if they could wait for five minutes then the table would be theirs.  Ok you could argue they were lucky but for f**k sake, this is a restaurant surely you have an idea of when patrons would be coming and leaving.  I was a bit pissed off.  I thought about giving the waitress a hard time, but instead I did what most people do and sat there fuming in silence.

My rage was only placated after I saw three more couples get rejected and so I'll try not to let this sour any future eating at Wasai.

Anyway, I thought I should redeem the recent food sins and hence my dinner choice tonight.

Salmon sashimi don. 

Seaweed salad.  

Salmon and seaweed hanging out together.

But.. I guess.. you're not going to see what I'm having for dessert!

Things You Really Shouldn't Eat (Even If You're Alone)

I like hot chips.  I especially like them crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.  Who doesn't like eating a bucket of chips?!!?

I saw these chip buckets in my local food court with some odd looking chips and then I realised....

... these were buckets of pork crackling.  

Ok, I know my previous posts show that I am in a bit of a dietary low, but even I won't stoop to this level.

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part V

I don't really eat ice cream that often.  There are periods where I might have it daily, but then there are periods when I won't have it for months.  I'm now in a period of eating it about 3-4 times a week.

Sara Lee Irish Cream Dream.

If you like Baileys liqueur than you'll like this.  I want to melt it and make an Irish Cream thickshake!

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part IV

After having a really blah day at work I needed to console myself and decided that I was craving KFC chips, which by the way are soooooooooooo much better in Australia than the UK.  The chips are crispier and they have chicken salt - something which does not exist in the UK!!!  You will get a most puzzled look from the cashier if you ever happen to ask for it.

Well, I couldn't really go to KFC and not have some chicken right?

So I ordered a snack box which included two hot wings. 

Mmmm smells so good.  

I also ate a plate of pasta for my dinner afterwards.  Don't worry, I'm only blogging the bad stuff!  I do eat balanced meals for dinner!

Totoro (or Things You Buy When You're Alone)

I have wanted a Totoro plush toy since forever.  I only saw the movie a few years ago and whether I liked the movie or not, I still wanted a Totoro.  It's pretty stupid. 

However, I have been walking past this display for about a month now and it's killing me.

That giant Totoro comes almost to my hip! 

I have resisted temptation this far, but now with a 30% discount my purchase would be suitably justified!

I was so happy to have a friend with me here in Rad-City. 

The following day at work, I saw this mini Totoro and well, he only cost $9, so I guess I had to take him home too. 

Mini Totoro hanging out on my work desk. 

Now Big Totoro has a buddy in Mini Totoro.  It's great that they keep each other company when I'm away at work. 

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part III

McDonalds has a Shrek food promotion on at the moment and one of the menu delights on offer includes a Green Apple Fanta Frozen Coke.

I can't remember when I last had a slurpee but this was surprisingly very nice!  

Trying to finish my egg nog with some strawberries.  No, this was not my dinner.   

Things You Eat When You're Alone Part II

Chocolate cookies and egg nog topped with cinnamon.  Don't worry, this was not my dinner. 

Things You Eat When You're Alone

So I went home for a long weekend (and a more importantly, a dentist appointment) and while waiting for my flight back to Rad-City, I errr bought half a dozen of assorted Krispy Kreme donuts.

I know, I know.  Wtf was I thinking?  I'm all alone in Rad-City.  I can't eat all of this!  Because I'm so Asian and loathe discarding food, I've decided to eat two per night for dessert for the next three nights.  Ok fine, I admit, I did want to eat them!

(I've now decided I don't like the cruller donut at all.)

Meals For One

Being here for two weeks really limits your dinner options to salad, instant noodles, ready-marinated meats, TV dinners and takeaway.  It's a bit hard to justify buying condiments for the short period of time, but it's long enough to not want to eat out every night.

I know it's not the healthiest option, but I must pay homage to the Latina Fresh product range.  If I want creamy sundried tomato pasta, I don't want to buy cream, sun-dried tomato, flour, milk and whatever else you need to make the sauce.  I'll just buy the Latina tub thanks!  Latina, you are my hero.

I tried to make it healthier by adding spinach.  I also added some parma ham but I have to say, cured meats in Australia are really substandard.  I miss my European cured meats :(

For my final dinner in Townsville, I treated myself to some sushi at Gyo Japanese Tapas Bar.  It was walking distance to where I was staying but I was a bit put off by the fact it called itself a Tapas Bar.  Why the Spanish reference?  That was enough for me to doubt the sushi quality and was expecting the restaurant to be run by non-Japanese folk serving bastardised versions of one of my much loved foods.

But.......I was very much impressed with Gyo and am kicking myself for not going sooner!  I was pleasantly surprised to see and hear Japanese chefs in the kitchen which is not absolutely essential but is a definite plus.  Gyo was a bit on the expensive side with my platter costing $25 for a mere eight pieces but hey, at least I wasn't paying $25 for bad sushi.  I had some really nice fresh cuts of fish and they didn't skimp on the slice thickness either.  I actually have to admit, it was the nicest sushi I've eaten out in a long time..... but then again, I haven't been to a sushi restaurant in a long time.

My platter with my green tea thickshake.  Num nums.  

For anyone in Townsville, I would definitely recommend going to Gyo for your sushi fix.  Otherwise, it's off to bed for me as I have a 6am flight home tomorrow!