Happy birthday Grill'd!!! ...Happy birthday everybody!!

Headed down to Grill'd (healthy burgers) this evening on the corner of Crown and Oxford Street in Darlinghurst for their 1st birthday BOGOF (best abbreviation ever btw: Buy One Get One Free FYI). The place was buuusy, done up with loads of balloons and party stuff and had a nice lively vibe.




We were in the mood for chicken burgers so we both went for the 'Zen Hen', which has satay sauce and shredded carrot, with that amazing crunchy lettuce of theirs and a side of the amazing fries with herbed mayo and loads of Tabasco mixed with ketchup. It's like they double-fry the chips they're so crunchy and coated in a herby sea salt... Freaking delish. Major burger boner!!

They even put a little cupcake on the side for us for their birthday! Awwwwwwwesome.

Http://www.grilld.com.au/

Excelsioooorrrrr!!!

So we ended up in the Excelsior on Foveaux street in Surry Hills. It's right around the corner from Gus' place on Belmore and we had been there on our drunken Friday night escapades a few weeks ago and had a great time. It's been recently taken over by the people who run the Beresford on Bourke St... And the back is converted into a Mexican restaurant which is full of pinata's and Mexican style decor, but in a cool way.

It was fairly lively even for a rainy Tuesday night. Mikey had the steak and I had the fish, which was delicious! Not sure what kind of fish it was but it was meaty, tender and crispy skinned, served with a spicy salsa verde and some kind of celeriac salad which worked really well with the flavour of the fish and lots of spicy piquant sauce on the side which made my eye sockets sweat a bit... Yumm. We also shared a hotdog which was covered in a mountain of fluffy shredded cheese and only $7!

Awesome little spot for midweek craic.

Location:Foveaux street, surry hills, NSW

Free kerastase hair treatment!! Awesome.

Just went for my free kerastase hair treatment at Alan Coban in bondi junction westfield. I just assumed there'd be a catch but it was absolutely free and it was spectacular!

They shampoo'd, rinsed repeated, treated, hot toweled, massaged, rinsed AND blowdried my hair and left it feeling really soft and somehow thicker.

Then as I was leaving, they gave me a '$20 off your next visit' voucher.... I want to go again!!!

DAHL for all occasions...

Loobish emailed me this morning asking for my dahl recipe so since I was typing it out thought i might as well copy it to here... not much of a strict recipe really though, you can adapt it to suit whatever you have in your cupboard at the time, once theres red split lentils and turmeric you cant really go wrong...
So to start off I just wash the lentils - red split lentils that you can get in any supermarket, give them a good wash til the water runs clear. Then bring them to the boil in a big pot, 2 parts water to one part lentils, adding turmeric, some curry powder, any indian spices you fancy really (lizbob maitra makes hers with just turmeric and its really good too), bit o ground cumin, a bit of fresh grated ginger, sliced onions, tomatoes, anything you want really (you can fry the onions with a clove of garlic before adding the lentils if you can be bothered, I usually just throw them in to boil up). Give it a good stir, turn it down and simmer it until the lentils are soft and broken down, adding water if you need to - depending how soupy you like it. It also thickens as it cools so it's usually good to be generous with the water.

(There's also a tasty variation where you can fry up onions, cumin seeds and mustard seed in a hot pan with some ghee or vegetable oil, until the onions brown and the seeds are popped and then you stir that into the cooked dahl.)
Then when it's off the heat, I just slap a load of chopped fresh coriander in and stir it well. If you have a lot it freezes really well in glad bags. I like to put the thickened version in to freeze and then if you want it soupy you juat add water as it defrosts.

You can have it soupy, with a spoonful of salted butter stirred in before serving with fluffy tilda basmati and a load of Greek yoghurt with ground cumin stirred in.

Or use the thick version on buttery hot toast, or on crackers.

J'Amazing, omg SO making it when I get home!!!

Not even bloody mary oyster shots and prosecco can soften the blow of losing RyRy...

But it certainly helps....
Went down to Vue on bondi beach for Ryry's leaving dinner last night, the food was awesome as always. We had 2 dozen oysters between 5 of us, served with bloody mary shots. Then Claus cranked out some prosecco and the food came at our table like an avalanche of delicious. Seafood paella with mussels in it, spicy and chewy and sweet - with chunks of fish in there and peas! I love peas. Then the famous arancini balls filled with pesto and peas (yesssss!) served with a tomato salsa on a bed of rocket - amazing, and then chorizo in a tomato sauce. There were other things too I'm sure but unfortunately I had too much prosecco and can't really remember. Oat got the tiramisu for desert and even though I'm not a fan of tiramisu, it was pretty tasty. We also had some of Claus's own desert cocktail which had almond syrup in it or something, it was tropical and delishbags too.

Golden Century Late Nite Chinese

So after Ry-ry's leaving party last night we jumped in a cab down to Golden Century Chinese in Haymarket (Sussex St), which is open til about 4am and the food is amazing! When we arrived aims and clauclau already had a table full of these amazingly sweet giant scallops in garlicy oyster style sauce with veg, a platter of roast sweet duck with pink crispy skin and tender meat along with all them trimmings for hoisin duck pancakes, heaps of fried rice which was perfectly made - chewy, oily, salty and fragrant. Followed by some battered chicken in sweet and sour sauce and loads of Jasmine green tea and tsingtsao beer to boot... I foresee myself ending up there most nights out in the city from now on.

Friday Friday gotta get doon on Friday....

So now that I have my head back together after yesterdays hell - a quick run down of what me and GuGu got up to on Friday night.
Started off on the corner of Crown and Oxford st at Grill'd for healthy burgers, where we had cheese and pickle burgers with fries and herby mayo - as Oprah might say "it was ahmaaaazinnng!!!"

Then we went up to Lo-fi on Taylor Square for a couple of drinks, it was fine but a little bit wanky and quite pricey. Not really in keeping with me and Gustins Friday night cheap beers night so after Aims headed off to dinner with friends, we bailed out of there and headed down to the Beresford but only gave it the once over before deciding the crowd was way to suity and left there and headed to the cricketers arms which was waaay more up our street. It was a pretty cold night and there was a nice cristmassy feel to it, I was drinking 'White rabbit' which is delishbags but Gus reckons it's what might have given me the hangover from exorcism hell the next day so it may infact be the devils work. After that we decided to head down to this weird hostel bar by central station to try to get some $10 jugs of beers but it was too late when we got there so we just drank a couple of schooners and then headed to the kebab shop on the corner of devonshire st and elizabeth st in surry hills, they do amazing kebabs and toast them in the panini toaster with loads of hot sauce. Scoffed that and then on the way back to gus's we stumbled upon a bar on the corner of fouveaux st and belmore called the 'excelsior' which has a big Mexican restaurant out the back and a dj playing some good 80s tunes so we ended up dancing and drinking a few more.
All in all it was a good night but I must remember not to ever do that on a Friday night again with work at 6.30am the next morning...

Damn you autocorrect, so awesome!

http://damnyouautocorrect.com/category/best-of-dyac/

Some serious lolz....

Twit twoo

Follow me on twitter.... @alicialeflame
Boring as it is, it's a great way to waste time in school!

Love love love Jenna Moroney....

So many amazing bits in 30 rock but these two are stand out faves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1es9t9G5I0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
"well it's really none of your business..."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPP8DJPbBkw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
"no!"

Hahahahahaha

Cocoa oat bran heals what ails me

Really hungover this morning and in work, the only thing that makes this better is finding things to put in my face.... First up, cocoa oat bran - I keep a bag of it in my handbag at all times lately.... Just take a ziplock bag, fill it with oat bran, cocoa powder (green and blacks is my favo), sultanas, and anything else you like (sesame seeds, chopped dates, nuts of any kind...etc) then you always have breakfast with you, all you need is hot water and/or a microwave. AND IT'S SUGAR FREE AND HEALTHY so let's hope it works it's magic on this hangover ASAP.
Signing off"........ splatttttt!



***UPDATE: all of a sudden, about 3 hrs after eating this oat bran delight and thinking it would help the hangover cause - I started spontaneously erupting with exorcism vomit. I don't think the oat bran was to blame but by Jesus, it was not such a pleasure to force out backwards. At one stage I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror in work, veins bulging out of my temples, nose bright red, gasping for breath with tears running down my pulverised face and I vowed never to drink on a Friday night with work in the morning again. Thank god there was nobody else in work and I was just there to answer calls, I couldn't have coped otherwise. On the upside though, I got paid $40 an hour to lie on the couch groaning for 6 hours.