Menya Mappen Madness and a Spanish Cat

Idea: Grab a quick Japanese meal before running off to a Spanish lesson

In case you're confused about what's going on, there's instructions. Cute, Japanese pictures to guide you through your eating experience. Make sure you return your tray like a well behaved diner. There's some old school Japanese movie posters as decoration, but apart from that it's all about the food. Menya Mappen is a self serve style bar. Choose your dish, which they prepare right in front of you, grab a tray, slide it along and pick up your extras along the way. Included in the ridiculously cheap meal is a scoop of chopped green onions and tempura crumbles if you so desire them. We decide to top up our dish with everything and choose far too many sides. It's quite easy to get carried away.

We both order the Keke - udon with kadadeshi soup ($3.90 regular size). Now, I'm a big eater, but even the small size is big enough for me and could be a meal in itself without any toppings. We grab extras like the sweet potato tempura (60c), massive chunks of tempura onion, fried bean curd, seaweed, menma (fermented bamboo shoots), prawn tempura and other pickled vegetable toppings.

fried bean curd, sweet potato tempura sides

prawn tempura, onion tempura sides

We only had a few minutes to eat before our Spanish lesson began (our first one, so we didn't want to be too late)! We scoffed our food extremely fast. It was salty and delicious. The tempura batter wasn't the nicest I've had but overall it was very satisfying. Such a simple, cheap and healthy (well, except for the tempura) meal. Miss C and I waddled to our Spanish class at the Spanish Cat. Sooo full! Buenos noches! Como se dice "more Japanese food" en Espanol?

A beachy weekend involving a crab named Craig and a game of cricket

Idea: Head to a beach house with some friends and a good ol' game of cricket

I think that there's nothing better than having a bunch of friends, a beach house, hot weather and some bbqing action! Oh - and did I mention the crab?

The beaches up around Hardy's Bay are beautiful and there's great spots for kayaking, fishing and more, and it's just over the water form Palm Beach. One of our crew even caught a crab. With a hand line. That's skill! We named him Craig and then debated over the most humane way of um... well... you know... "preparing him for our plates." We put him in the freezer, then into a pot for 10 minutes. Much to our horror, he started blinking at us as he defrosted before we put him into the water! Yes, there were girly squeals, there were calls of "stop punching yourself Craig" and lots of "we're so sorry Craig, really sorry."

Craig the blue swimmer crab turned bright orange the second he hit the water. And he tasted delicious! So fresh and lots of white meat. We decided not to serve him with any flavours, so as to not spoil the flavour. And yes, we played with the claw... It was too hard to resist. Poor Craig!

Then next day, the Boy and I were off to the cricket. My first game! It was Australia vs England. I'm Australian. He's... wait for it... English. There was some friendly rivalry going on there. I'm not a fan at all of watching sport, especially not cricket on tv. But, I have a confession to make. Going to the cricket is fun. There's drunk bogans acting up. Irish "angry elves" sitting next to me wanting to fight the Aussie bogans in the front. Evictions from the crowd. You have to get lots of beer. I suggest bringing a picnic in your bag (we did!) There's games with empty beer cups, blow up balls and kangaroos (just watch out that the fun police don't nab them). Yup, I've been converted!

Except for getting a little bit sunburnt, it was an amazing weekend of fun in the sun! Oh, and did I mention that Australia won the game? Because we did!

Checking out Ms. G's cooking

Idea: Check out Live (Sydney Festival) and see what Ms. G's cooking is like

Review to come from last night's eating and drinking adventures from Ms. G's.

Fast Festival Feast at Mad Cow and a drink at Grandma's Bar

Idea: Go to a Fast Festival Feast and check out a new bar

Click here to visit this post on my new site www.missfeathers.com.au

Some foodie things I’m a just a little bit in love with at the moment

Some foodie things I’m a just a little bit in love with at the moment:

Gray Works has amazing chopping boards. I want to buy them all! This one I find especially lovely with it’s little walnut feet and pomegranate seeds (yes, I’m aware that’s it’s just presentation, but it’s hard to resist). Some of the boards are really rustic looking, whereas some are a little more polished. Their workshop is located in Woodstock and the artist’s Andrew Gray and Elizabeth Bryant say that before turning a piece of timber into anything, they “get to know it,” you can’t get more eco-hippy than that! They’re a featured seller on Etsy.com at the moment, so you can snap up pieces of their work easily online.

Cukorcookies are “hand baked using only organic ingredients, including Tahitian vanilla bean paste and hand decorated with love.” I have one word for you: yum! They are insanely cute, appropriate for Valentines Day, especially if you enjoy filling your loved one with sweet baked goods and did I mention that they are cute? 

“Chalkboard Signs-Great for herbs, flowers or potted plants.” I’ve seen similar ones before in my local nursery and I think they’re fab. It’s a great way of remembering exactly which seeds you have planted in each pot. And of course they look good.

Having a few herb pots is the best way to perk up any home cooked meal up by placing a few springs on the top (if they’re small plants) and hopefully they end up replacing your need to go out and buy any. I’ve got a large garden at the moment, so there’s always basil, parseley, shallots, chilli, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, some wild rocket and other bits and pieces. 

 It’s always so satisfying picking produce from your own garden and it’s a great excuse for me to put chilli into almost every meal I cook. Heirloom seeds are also worth investigating. You can buy them online, buy some nice pots and off you go. Some interesting pots:

Do some seed bombing! “Practice random acts of gardening with these seed bombs!” There are many different kinds of these, some of which are “pet-friendly seed bombs have been formulated to appeal to cats and dogs, and include a mixture of catnip, cat grass, wheat, oats, and rye.” I wonder what my Jack Russell will think about these? Some have native seeds in them, so you can feel like you're doing a good deed. So, what are you waiting for, go seed bomb!

White tea with jasmine (image) is also one of my latest obsessions. Although I haven’t yet tried out the White Jasmine Sparkling Tea. Hmm, I have to say that I'm not so sure about that one. And these tea ducks! I gave one to my mum for Christmas and she loves it. I bought it from the MCA gift shop, which I think I may have to ban myself from!

 

Great things to eat off and drink out of:

 I’m sure the mushrooms would be quite annoying to clean in the washing up, but who can resist it’s childish story-book appeal? I also love the colours of these bowls, I'm sure they would make whatever food you place within them even better. Or even as a decorative fruit bowl:

My brother got a similar mug for Christmas. Lots of fun.

I'm loving everyday objects made of porcelain at the moment. I've got some porcelain scrunched up "plastic drinking cups" at home. They fool people all the time. More object de art than anything else, but also practical.

Great as drinking vessels, or vases

So very very true

You can spell out your name, or your initials, or corny phrases...

I heart vintage-y looking cake stands even though I don't have much of a sweet tooth.

Corny, but lovely at the same time. I think there's a bit of a Valentine's Day theme here.

Yes, another vintage-y looking cake stand

Fantastic feathery measuring spoons. Much more interesting than your average measuring device...

Ok- essentially I just want everything from this website (Not on the High Street)! When I go to London this year, I’m stopping by and picking up some great stuff!

The best home for home made cupcakes and muffins.

Some organic shaped pieces.

Frankie Magazine online food section

Good pots and pans, stemless glasses for red wine, cheeses, and cooking recipe blogs and websites, such as FeelingNibblish.

And that finishes my long list of foodie/ drinking things that I heart at the moment.

Learning to Fly 101 & a Camden Pub lunch

Idea: Learn to fly!

One of my birthday presents was learning to fly. There are quite a few different companies that you can do this with. You'll find that most of them go from Camden Airport, as it's little plane heaven. They go through a quick run through of the controls and such and then all of a sudden it's takeoff.

Going through low clouds

More clouds

I have to say, that there's no other experience quite like flying a plane. Once the instructor hands the controls of the plane over, it's all you. Making sure that you're pumping on the pedals correctly as well as your "joystick," not pointing the nose of the plane up too high or heading for the ground is something that takes your brain a few minutes to work out. I got to do sharp turning of corners and took the plane in almost to land (the instructor took over at the last minute!

The ball is almost in the middle between left and right!

Don't touch that!

Sydney's water supply

Coming in to land

The plane

I've done paragliding, parasailing, sky diving (all of which I also recommend), but learning to fly, or I guess, learning to do any of these that require skill, is something not to be missed. At it to your list to things to try! Afterwards, we were quite hungry, so that boy and I decided to drive a few minutes to the centre of Camden town. It's got a cute, small town vibe, with one main road down the middle. There were a few pubs and we decided on trying out the Argyle. Camden seemed like the right place to try a good proper Aussie pub lunch. The boy ordered the Argyle beef burger, which had a succulent homemade patty of beef and all the works. It was tasty, it had lashings of rocket, tomato, beetroot and more and filled up the boy's stomach.

The argyle beef burger

I went with the Thai Beef Salad and was pleasantly surprised. Often salads in these style of pubs are a sad mess of wilted greens with the odd tomato thrown in. Mine had a zingy Thai-style sauce, loads of fresh mint, crunchy fried noodles and perfectly medium-rare slices of beef on top. The greens were fresh and I ate every last scrap of this in my bowl.

Thai beef salad

We had a good experience of a pub in a cute little town, still within Sydney. Best of all, the Argyle had air conditioning, as it was amazingly hot on Saturday! The pokey section of the pub, which you had to walk past to get to the bistro section smelt quite horrible, but once located in the bistro section, the smell disappeared. Yes, my view outside the window was of the carpark, but this pub was exactly what we ere in the mood for to fill our stomachs for a very late lunch. A day of flying, followed by a good lunch.