post 7. ciao italia

yesh. we went back to ciao italia.

round 2! failure is not an option!

may 11, friday, 1800-ish, jasmine, me house mate simon, and i went to ciao italia cos jasmine been raving about the desserts there. specifically, the STRAWBERRY TART.



so here they are outside the restaurant. we got there about 15 mins after it opened at 6, but it was already full and we had to wait a while. it was quite cold that night, so that may be why simon is hugging the menu so desperately. or maybe out of sheer hunger. lol. ^^

the service is great. all guys. and they all speak with this thick italian accent. i wonder if itx put on. ^^ it'll be funny if after work u hear them speaking to each other aussie-style, aye mate. but itx really good, the service. friendly and funny. 3 thumbs up!

enough talk. letx get on with it.



we each ordered a dish to be shared amongst us. pic shows my choice: ciao italian chicken. chicken breasts/fillets/thighs/i don't know, cooked with prawns and POTATOES and mushrooms and covered in some gravy sauce thing. hmmm. i am going to have such a bright future as a food critic. nvm that. just look at the picture. as they say, "a picture paints a thousand words" (Edwin Khoo 2007, 13/5/2007, 1948). ummmm. POTATOES and chicken, my fav, drool... if u look closely at the top, u can see jasmine's choice: some calamari dish quite nice, the calamari was nicely fried, not too oily, and thick and juicy. but nothing compared to POTATOES and chicken....drool... . itxhaha. sorry no pic of calamari. i didn't take it so don't blame me. lol.



above pic shows simon's choice: pizza folded in half. uhh. canole pizza?? looks like a pie, but itx a pizza folded in half. genius! tasty as well, especially with yummy salad on the top. of course, still nothing to POtaTOES and chicken...drooolz mucho.



AHAHHAA! dessert. the whole point of why we came in the first place!. from top left clockwise: STraWBERRY TART, TIRAMiSu, and CHOCoLATe CUSTARD THING. gosh, i can't remember the italian names. but they were all good, but the best was definitely STRAWBERRY tARt. i had to beg for a taste from jasmine, she didn't want to share. LOL. but after one taste i could tell why. itx heavenly. words fail to describe the creamy goodness and the smooth, fresh strawberry taste melting in your mouth. and i used a little trick to get a second bite...tricky me. ^^ itx most definately worth going back for.

all in all, it was one of the best meals i have had so far this year. good food, good company. and on the way back i caught a sugar high cos i had to finish simon's dessert as well as my own cos he couldn't finish his. lol. crazy laughing on the way back. good fun ^^.

so here's a picure to commemorate a fantastic meal. jasmine and her strawberry tart.

ps. much thanks to jasmine for bringing us there and simon for the camera and pics.

post 6. unknown monster attack!

okay this is a bit late. in fact, the unknown monster attack took place almost exactly one week ago, last sunday at almost the same time as now.

so, last sunday. went out to dinner at spaggi's at mill point road with a friend. original plan was to go to ciao italia cos she had a craving for the dessert there. but when we drove there, it was closed, so we went to the next closet italian restaurant, which was spaggi's.

so being the one-track-mind creature that she is, my friend ordered dessert for dinner. some custard and almond cake creation. i, being a more normal person, ordered some pasta dish. it was supposed to be a gnocchi dish, which i think is italian dumplings of sorts and i have never tried before, but the waiter later came over and told me the kitchen is out, so can they use penne? and i, being quite hungry, said, yesh, i couldn't care less and could they hurry it up?

sorry, no pics. pasta was good. dessert was a bit weird. tasted too much of...almonds? strange aftertaste. hmmm. not very good at all. jasmine commented that the individual components of the cake were good, but the combination was bad; too much of a good thing can be bad. i think she's right.

but we got a discount! the cashier, who happened to be the waiter who took our order, gave us a 50 cents discount cos he saw we were digging for coins! should have dug for dollar bills instead...

so we hit the gelare afterwards cos she wasn't satisfied with the dessert. must satisfy craving... yesh, waffles and ice cream hit the spot. bingo! although i was not a big fan of the chocolate overload ice cream - tasted like milo. ^^

so after all that food, decided to take a walk along the river front because a) she said she like to look at the lights and b) i was feeling a bit too full and c) she was the one driving so she calls the shots.

now, for those who don't know, the river front is totally unlighted. why? i don't know. itx so dark. almost as good as walking blind. perfect spot for perverts and robbers to hang out.

so there we were walking along the river front around 9-ish. and for some reason, she mentioned that a boat captain told her that he'd seen sharks along the river and that they come up to the river to clear their gills.

now. i have this thing about sharks. absolutely am scared shitless of them. i think itx because they don't blink. and they have bloody, gaping maws. great bloody jaws, gaping impossibly wide, bristling with rows of teeth to tear and miam. and they LOOK at you with such soul less eyes as they happily chew on your leg. i used to be afraid of using the restroom after watching jaws cos i was sure a shark would leap up out of the toilet bowl and rip my ass off.

so yeah, i don't like sharks.

so there we were walking, when we noticed this OBJECT swimming near the river edge, less than a meter away. it was dark, remember. can't see anything. so at first we thought it was a duck, cos lotx of ducks hang out around the area.

then, noticed the v-shaped wake of the OBJECT was TOO LARGE to be a duck. and it was swimming quite fast too.

squatted down to get a better look. looked closer now that the glare from reflected city lights were gone.

it was a fin. a large, silent fin gliding through the water, LESS THAN A METER AWAY.

less than 5 mins ago, we were talking about sharks and there's a dorsal fin now!

i didn't run away screaming like a girl, but i did step away from the edge. jamsine, that crazy girl, omg, what is she doing?! is she going towards the edge?!? WHAT????

then we heard a sound, a distinctive happy sound that brought out big, excited smiles on our faces. we heard the sound of air being ejected from a blow hole.

it was a dolphin.

rushed to the edge. it was a dolphin. caught a glimpse of itx body. not very clear, cos it was dark as i said. but definitely a dolphin. ^^

here is a pic.

yep, definitely a true likeness to the one i saw that night.

so after that incident, i realized i was slightly hungry again. i think itx the near-death experience that made me realize that how precious life is, and i should appreciate the good things in life more, hence the hunger. not because i am a greedy pig.

so went to hungry jack's and bought an aussie burger. delish.

post 5. on why i run.

when i was younger and still in primary school, say around six-ish, we used to play this game in school during break that we call "catching", what westerners would call "tag". i was really good, cos i was fast on my feet. i was not only fast, i could cut corners and change abrupt diretions. (hey, itx not as easy as it sounds ^^) so thatx when i first fell in love with running.

so when it came around for us to choose extra-curricular activities in primary six, i naturally tried out for the track and field team. thought it would be a breeze cos the teacher in charge had taught me before a few years ago, and well, i thought we had an understanding. apparently not. when i went to hand in the form, she rejected my form out of hand, saying i was "too skinny." oh, miss lai, you broke my tender heart with those harsh words, true as they may have been. couldn't you have lied? see, i still remember your name after all these years because of what you said!

so out of sheer pique and disappointment, i stopped running. i was twelve then, and i bid farewell to my first love (running, not miss lai, though i think i must have had a small crush on her then. lol. but of course, it died with those harsh words of hers.)

years passed. i turned sixteen. i flew to america. met many people, some special, others not so close, btht still, we met in this life. still think of the people i met fondly occasionally. strange, but i never write or call them. had my first serious crush/unrequited love on a real girl. lol. it was terrible, sweet, all-consuming, but thatx another story.

three years later. returned home to serve national service. ended up in an armour unit, and surprisingly, had to start running again. you would think that ppl with tanks would have no need to run. you would be wrong.

it was a different kind of running. not the explosive sprints i could do before, which admittedly, i realised to my chagrin, i had lost. i was required to run long distances, carrying heavy loads, scale obstacles, and still have to run some more. on the road, in the jungle, in the mud, it was all the same. walk all day under the sun, run and follow my company as they assaulted some nameless hill, run some more to render medical aid, and carry on walking. it was a tedious, dirty, stressful, not exactly happy time, but somewhere in the middle of that, i rediscovered my first love.

at first, it was because i was bad at it. frankly, i was not at the level of physical fitness the armour troopers were at, as i joined them halfway from the medical corps. lol. it was embarrassing to have your platoon mates run back and run with you to the finish line because they finished first. but it was good of them.

received special attention of course. extra training to jack up my fitness while the others were resting. somehow, i got there and so the special training ended. but i started running on my own at night, cos there was nothing else to do. there was only so much tv and girly mags i could take, and that was really all you could do in your spare time while in-camp, if you have any spare time that is . it was an escape from being constantly surrounded/hounded by fellow frustrated soldiers, an escape from the heartache i left behind in the states even though it was years ago, a way to pretend that things would turn better soon when there was no end in sight.

even when i was on my discharge leave, i kept up with the running. at first, it was more because i did not want to lose the fitness level i had attained than because i really loved it.

finally discharged from the army. flew to australia. fell in love with the clear, wide, blue sky that reminded me so much of the robin-egg blue skies of california. it was the first thing i saw when i stepped out of the airport. the sky. i thought i was back in california again.

continued running. met my first long-term girlfriend in perth. had good times, had bad times; hopefully, more good than bad. and somewhere in the middle of that, i got lazy and stopped running. lol.

i must state that it was not her fault. she did try to get me out of the door numerous times, but i was just too complacent. :p

about two months ago, i broke up with her. no, there was no affair, no third person. it was nothing so dramatic so stop prying.

i started running again. cos i wanted to.

because it makes me feel alive, so alive when you're sprinting with all your might down the field and you can't seem to get enough air into your lungs and you're running until it feels like you have no legs and you can't stop, and when you do, the taste of the cold night air taken in big gulps.

because i get to see things, like the giant flock of crows wheeling and swooping above me against the orange and red evening sky as i run under them, gaping like a fool. the glint of sun beams shining through the green trees. rows of silent trees standing along empty streets. and the sky, always the sky, blue , red, purple, yellow, gray, splashed with all the colours of the rainbow, but always there, wide open.

because itx my time alone, my time away from my thoughts and preoccupations. stillness in motion, thatx the closest i can come to describing it.

because it lets me better know what kind of person i am.

because i love it.

thatx why i run.