Work lunches
I think the work lunches are my favourite posts of the week now. I must say, since I started working in Subiaco I’ve had the opportunity to eat some really yummy food (well, yummy to my taste!) and now, about six months later, I’m still discovering new places to eat and new dishes to try. It was always part of the plan – when thinking about where I’d like to work after I finished my studies, I considered the money, opportunities for career development, accessibility via public transport and proximity to food outlets. I think the job I’m currently in meets all of those requirements pretty well. :)
Oh yes – and a few people have asked about the results of my thesis examination. The answer is: no idea. I submitted the thesis on the 23rd of February and left in in the hands of the university. To be perfectly honest once I handed in the three bound copies (I carried them in to the office in a box!) I pretty much stopped thinking about it. I found out later from my supervisor that by the time the examiners were confirmed and all the fiddling about with the paperwork was done, the thesis was actually dispatched to the examiners by the university around a month after I’d submitted it. Although the examiners are given a timeframe of three months in which to examine and return PhD theses, it’s not unusual for the marking to take this long, or longer – the marking of PhD theses tends to be low on academics’ priorities. I guess I’ll get in touch with the university within the next couple of weeks or so and ask how it’s going. Jac’s actually more antsy about it than me – the only time I think about it is when someone else asks me about it. Enough! Onto the food!
Monday: As I mentioned last week, Chad and I had to return to Snap Printing to pick up her party invitations, which meant we’d be in the vicinity of Kome (Shop 20, 375 Hay St). Chad had enjoyed the teriyaki tofu so much she had it again (see last week’s work food post for photo). I’d grabbed a takeaway menu last week and had been carefully studying it -that was totally hungrifying reading! – I decided the combination meal would be perfect for me: you get rice, salad and miso, and you can choose two out of teriyaki chicken/katsu chicken/karaage chicken/teriyaki fish – all for AU$9.90. It will be no surprise to most of you that I chose two chickens: teriyaki and karaage.
Looks like a lot of chicken, eh? It was! I ate it all very comfortably, but then again, I was very hungry at the time. The karaage was as good as the first time I ate it, crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside, with a lovely gingery flavour to the meat. The teriyaki was pretty good too – though it seemed to have a thin batter on it, as well as chicken skin, which was a little strange – I think I’ll have to eat it again and examine it more closely. Chicken karaage remains my hands-down favourite. My only negative criticism of the combination meal is that I reckon there should be a little more salad – but it’s not a deal (or is that meal)-breaker. I’d eat this again any time!
Tuesday: Chad and I had to go to the post office on Rokeby Road, which meant a visit to Perth Noodle Wok (162 Rokeby Road). It was a grey rainy day, and we both felt like some sort of spicy noodle soup. Chad chose the tom yum soup (AU$10.40), thin rice noodles in a spicy broth with prawn, squid, fish cake, shrimp (over here when we say “shrimp” we usually mean very small prawns, as opposed to just “prawns”), seafood chunks (although I love fish balls and fish cake, I am not a fan of seafood extender/seafood stick/surimi – personally I’d rather they leave it out completely) and vegetables. There were also chunks of pineapple in the soup, which I presume were there for the sweet and soury/tangy flavour. Chad did her best, but couldn’t finish it all.
I ordered the curry laksa (AU$8.80), with thick egg noodles, chicken, fish cake, vegetables and fried tofu. It was tasty, but I reckon it tasted more like what I’d expect laksa lemak to taste like – which is interesting as Perth Noodle Wok does offer laksa lemak on their menu too (AU$10.40). I’m still really craving a Malaysian style curry laksa – that and hainan chicken rice at uni were highlights of the three years I spent doing the PhD. Heheh. This – this (click to see photo) is what I’m still craving.
Wednesday: I went to Han’s on my own and had the chilli chicken rice. As you know, I’ve eaten this dish a number of times, but this time was the best – it tasted amazingly good, better than ever before. I don’t know what it was, it was just wonderful!
Thursday: my workmates and I ummed and ahhed about what to have for lunch. Finally, Chad suggested the pasta specials from the Sicilian Restaurant. We walk past the Sicilian all the time on our way to other lunch places and all this time we’ve been seeing the sign advertising the pasta lunch special – from $10. We got a copy of their menu online and made our choices, gathered the money and rang the restaurant to place our order. They said it would be ready in 15 minutes, and I was very impressed when we rocked up to pick it up – it was all ready to go. We ordered six meals of four different pastas.
S ordered the linguine tonno (AU$12.00) – with tuna, garlic, parsley, capers and olives in a napolitana sauce. She enjoyed this and ate it all.
SRM and the boss ordered penne arrabiatta (AU$10.00), with chilli, garlic and parsley in a napolitana sauce. Many places I’ve seen tend to make arrabiatta with bacon and/or olives, so the Sicilian’s version sounded a little plain to me. But when SRM took the lid off his container of pasta, the aroma was heavenly – intensely garlicky! Plain or not (well, anything that smells that good could not be described as “plain”!), I’d definitely eat that! SRM wolfed his down and rather enjoyed it. I think he was a little concerned about having garlic breath afterwards, but mate, that’s what mint-flavoured chewing gum is for! ;-)
I chose spaghetti with “house made meatballs” in bolognaise sauce. I prefer little meatballs to big ones, but these big meatballs were delicious, so I was pretty happy. The bolognaise sauce was really tasty. Quite often when I’ve had takeaway pasta it’s ended up a little overcooked and soft, but this was just perfect. Chad and another workmate had gnocchi bolognaise (AU$12.00), but I didn’t get a photo of their food – they gave it the thumbs up. Besides the utter deliciousness of our pastas, we were pleased to see that our food came in deep takeaway containers, as opposed to the shallow containers (which would’ve been extremely poor value and therefore unacceptable) or the standard-depth containers (which we’d been expecting). Overall we were very impressed with the Sicilian’s pasta specials, and will definitely get lunch from them again.
Friday: SRM and I waited for the heavy rain to break, and then sped off hungrily to Han’s. He had the steamed chicken rice (AU$8.95). The chicken rice is served with a little dish of sweet chilli sauce, which SRM immediately pours over the chicken – in this photo you will see the chicken rice with the chilli sauce freshly poured over.
The bowl of broth which accompanies the chicken rice, as always, comes with lots of floating herbage.
As usual, SRM asked for cut chilli on the side.
And here you see how SRM likes to heap it onto the chicken rice.
And this is my favourite photo of the past week – my wantan egg noodle soup (AU$8.95). I’d expected thick egg noodles, but was pleased with the thin noodles used instead. There were so many delicious things in the soup, such interesting shapes and colours – SRM was really impressed and said he’d order this the next time he’s at Han’s. There was BBQ pork, prawns, squid, fish cakes, minced pork and to my surprise, fried wantans! I’d assumed the wantans would be steamed/boiled ones since this was a soup-style dish, but the fried ones, while soggified in the soup added a delicious flavour. There were three meaty wantans, quite enough since there were so many other goodies to eat!
