A cosy Friday dinner

We've just come home from dinner at Denn in Northcote. Babes and I shared a seafood paella and pizza capricciosa, and were pretty full by then. But of course we couldn't resist dessert after sitting around a wee bit longer, so finished off with sticky date pudding and vanilla ice cream. All in all a pretty good meal, with the deal sweetened by the 25% discount from the Entertainment Book voucher. Not a bad start to the weekend!

Jamie Oliver's Fish Pie

Tonight's dinner was a delicious fish pie. Although I shouldn't really say "was", as Babes has just started eating Round Two, one and a half hours after Round One. She IS eating for two, after all. And even as we speak, she's contemplating Round Three! Can't say I blame her, it's very good... guess what I'm bringing to work for lunch tomorrow!

Hello, Zorbie!

Here's a still from Babes' latest ultrasound, showing our little Zorbie. Can't really see what she's doing at the time, presumably working on her hand-eye coordination before I start training her for Wimbledon. Now I'm not assuming it's a girl, it's just that I can't keep saying "he/she/it" or "him/her". It'll be another few weeks before we'll know for sure.
Anyway, if anyone's interested, we bought the DVD of the ultrasound, a ten-minute epic production that's a sure-fire bet for this year's Ultrasound Oscars!

Two pink lines

We've told many of our friends and loved ones, and we're really sorry if we haven't gotten around to telling the rest of you... Babes has a bun in the oven! She is thirteen-and-a-half weeks pregnant as we speak, and no, we're not expecting twins, after careful scrutiny of a couple of ultrasounds. The foetus has been named Zorbie as he/she/it was scanned merrily splashing around in fluids, as if inside one of those Zorbs - inflatable balls - that we saw rolling down the hill in Rotorua, New Zealand.
We're expecting a Christmas baby, although Babes hopes baby will come slightly later so she can enjoy all the Christmas goodies! Meanwhile, contributions to the Wong Jr Education Fund will soon be welcome...

The kind of food I take to work for lunch

Lucky me usually gets rather yummy lunches from home, prepared lovingly by my dearest Babes. I'm the envy of the agency at about 12.30pm, and workmates often come to inspect what I've brought that day. Here's a pasta bolognese, for example, and what a majestic bolognese it was!

Roti Canai for Dummies

We recently discovered this amazing frozen roti canai (for you Singaporeans, that's roti prata), available at the Indian grocery store across the street. Just the other day we brought it to someone's place for lunch, and now they're hooked too... it used to be in packs of 20, now they seem to be only in 30s! Not that that's any problem, of course. It's about the most authentic roti I've had outside Malaysia and Singapore, and all you need to do is pop it on a pan for a minute or two and Robert's your aunty's husband.

Homemade Bachang!

Behold this wondrous morsel (sorry, my shot doesn't do it much justice), something neither of us have had for a couple of years. It was made by Sam and Becks' confinement woman, who's rather multi-talented. Which is possibly why we've been showing up at their house - around mealtimes by sheer coincidence- "to see the baby." We picked up these bachang on Sunday, but for some strange reason we only took four, although eight were offered. What were we thinking? Ayuhhhh...

A bit too close to home

You may or may not have read, watched or heard about the shootings in the Melbourne CBD this morning. A 43-year-old man who came to the aid of a woman being attacked was shot dead, and two others were wounded. This tragedy happened about a block or two away from my normal route to work after dropping Babes at work. Fortunately we had an appointment in Carlton, so we were nowhere near where it happened. It's really saddening that this kind of thing can happen in my adopted country (and city), and our hearts go out to the victims and their families. There's a whole debate about access to firearms which I won't get into, but I'm glad things haven't reached American proportions yet. Plus the fact that how many of us will now think twice before going to someone else's aid?

Our Third Wedding Anniversary!

A couple of people who read the "Happy Anniversary To Us" post thought they'd missed the date. Well, the Healesville outing was actually a couple of days early to take advantage of the long weekend. June 12 is the actual date, and we ended up having a simple (but extremely yummy!) dinner at one of our favourite Vietnamese places, Thanh Phong on Victoria Street. No photos of the prawn spring rolls, beef noodle soup or vermicelli with grilled pork, unfortunately. But I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a couple of our wedding shots. That one of Babes above is one of my fave ever!

Happy Anniversary To Us

Bubs and Babes celebrated our third anniversary today, driving to Giant Steps/Innocent Bystander winery in Healesville for lunch. We were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather, and enjoyed sitting outside in the sun. After 45 minutes, however, our food still hadn't come. Turned out the order that had been keyed into the PDA hadn't quite made it to the kitchen. So we were told that our meal would be free, which is not a bad way to compensate for a delay, or to celebrate an anniversary! The two mains shown above are tomato & buffalo mozzarella pizza and lamb & gnocchi.

Nasi Goreng a la BubsnBabes

Fresh from the wok is this delicious fried rice, chock-full of ingredients, a joint effort by Bubs and Babes. This is what's left after we've both crammed platefuls and platefuls into our willing tummies, AND packed some for tomorrow's lunch. Maybe we'll sell it on ebay...

Cannelloni!

Babes just made us an absolutely delicious spinach and ricotta cannelloni. In typical Chinese fashion, I gobbled up a substantial portion in about 82 seconds flat. Then of course I went back for more. And no prices for guessing what I'm having for lunch tomorrow... well done, darling wifey! That was amazing!

Palate needed cleansing after this meal

I'm not usually critical of food and eateries mentioned in this blog. After all, people's livelihoods are at stake, and it's not like I'm John Lethlean reviewing for The Age's Epicure section. Or that guy from the other paper who deducts two points off his reviews if they don't provide linen napkins. I don't really care about napkins as long as the food's good, but hey, I digress. Babes and I recently had dinner with Mans, Nick, Ngoc and young Jordan. The venue sounded like a good idea at the time; it was in the Entertainment Book (25% off), and their website was quite slick and professional. The meal started off alright, with tasty wedges and saganaki. Not that you can really go wrong with starters like these, I suppose. Then came the mains, like my tender lamb strips wrapped in prosciutto. Sounds delish, right? WRONG. It was absolutely the worst, most 'lamby' (smelly) lamb I've had in all my 36 years. Even Nick - who usually absolutely hoovers up anything that's placed in front of him - couldn't finish it. Babes' Thai Chicken Salad was not much better. Where was this? Sorry, I really don't want to slam them in public. Suffice to say it's on Greville Street in Prahran, which narrows it down a bit... anyway, hopefully the next meal we feature in this blog will be better!