Last weekend, we had lunch at our favourite food hall. Jac had a serve of Vietnamese rice paper rolls, filled with chicken, prawns, lettuce and noodles. They came with a bowl of dipping sauce topped with fried shallots and crushed peanuts. For some reason, the stripy, segmenty prawns showing through the rice paper grossed me out (which was good for Jac as it meant she had them all to herself).

Jac bit into her rice paper roll very neatly just for this photo!

I had an old favourite – something I haven’t eaten in a while since I haven’t been going to uni – hainan chicken rice. The chicken was moist and tender and smelled deliciously of sesame oil (as it should). The only bad thing about eating this dish is the strong garlicky aftertaste that lingers for ages afterwards – it’s because of that soooo tasty chilli sauce, loaded with ginger and garlic. I always pour it all over my chicken. It is just soooooo good.

I washed my chicken rice down with an old favourite beverage – A&W Root Beer. I love root beer – I’d drink it all the time if it wasn’t loaded with sugar. I wish we had A&W here in Australia so I could have an authentic A&W root beer float in a big frosty mug. I know some people who reckon root beer tastes like cough medicine, but I’ve always loved it since I was a kid – and I don’t think it tastes like cough medicine!