Have been nursing a terrible hangover all day. The only solution is to drink lots of water, but for some reason water tastes really, really bad to me when I’ve got a hangover, so it’s quite a vicious cycle. I tried to sneak around the problem by making an ice drink (it’s really hot here today). I was sort of lazy, sort of stupid. I peeled the hide off of three oranges and two grapefruits and liquidified them with my hand-blender, pith and all, and then mixed that broth with a big bucket of shaved ice. It was absolutely horrendous, there was a peel-like bitterness that I could not escape. I tried to add sugar and all that resulted was a bad drink that tasted like peel + undissolved table sugar. Then I poured ‘passion fruit’ syrup from my aborted Hurricanes at the Crayfish Boil. That also just added more to the sweet note, but the bitter/peel note was undiminished. Ling liked it, but I poured mine down the drain.
Ling was telling me about their visit to one of our friends who has a 1yo girl. While they played Luke hit her on the head with a toy hammer, so she cried. He didn’t really know how to respond (this often happens when he does things impulsively [he is 21 months after all]) and sort of stood there sheepishly, distressed by Alissa crying and wondering what Ling and Alissa’s mom would do. The poor little guy doesn’t have a lot of tools in his emotional response toolbox, so he used that one that normally gets the best response from us: he started tap dancing and making a hopeful smile.
There are a pile of Japanese restaurants at Robertson Quay. We went there tonight and ate a restaurant (forgot the name) that serves “Taiwanese Food in Japanese Style.” Best dishes were a crab/bamboo/vegetable omelette. Their gyoza was ok, though not teriffic. Had Dan Dan Mein which was pretty darn good. Ordered a taiwanese spring onion omelette which I thought was horrible (like an old, tough, oily prata) but for some reason Ling LOVED it. Briefly, i guess I’m not making this sound like such a great restaurant, but we actually did enjoy it and would go back.
Popped next door to ‘The Chocolate Factory’ and had a cake and a coffee. The chocolate candy room had some really beautiful candies on display. The place was really busy though (9pm on a Saturday night) and the French chocolatier looked… umm…. prickly, so we figured we’d come back some other day to pick over the chocolate selection.
Tomorrow I am doing a test-run of okonomiyaki recipes. Didn’t realize that the batter-binder uses not only flour, but a starchy stick Chinese yam. I’ve found a lot of good recipes and guides, so I think i have a fighting chance of making some on-spec okonomiyaki.
What else? Still hovering around 76.8kg. I didn’t go light the last few days (yakitori last night) and haven’t been running, plus I fell behind on my Japanese. Doing some catch-up tuition with なおこせんせい (my teacher, Naoko) and my membership at the hote health club next door start imminently, so i can swim at lunch time.
A bunch of travel coming up. Hong Kong and Dubai the final weekend of this month. Japan in mid-April i think. Next weekend hosting a small party to finish off the last of our three frozen hokkaido tarabakani king crabs. That will be bittersweet. The Okonomiyaki party is mid-April. Around April 30th will probably host a deep-friend turkey as three of us have birthdays on April 29 or 30.
Living off Toby’s Estate beans I brought back from Sydney. The Espresso Rico is their best espresso blend by far. I spilled some of a ristretto yesterday, and it was almost black as lacquer. Really good, chocolaty stuff, perfect for milk-based espresso drinks. I need to get some green beans to play with in my iRoast2 after I use up my current stock of beans.
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Everyone has their own hangover cure. I highly recommend cold sprite with vanilla icecream. Works everytime.