Monday: I felt like chicken and rice and a little something deep-fried. Toraya’s teriyaki chicken bento box, large size was an obvious choice. The medium bento box (AU$12.00) – note: these boxes are metaphorical, so there’s no box in the photo! – comes with the teriyaki chicken, salad, rice and a bowl of miso. With the large (AU$15.00), you can choose one of their deep-fried dishes – takoyaki (octopus balls), chicken karaage, crumbed prawn, crumbed calamari rings or crab claws. I chose the crab claws. The teriyaki chicken at Toraya is really yummy. It’s got more sauce than the Nippon Fare teriyaki chicken, which is also really good – but I always prefer more sauce than less. I also think Toraya’s chicken was more juicy, with a more satisfying bouncy chew to it.

The miso soup always has a piece of tofu skin floating in it. One of my readers Katie reckons it looks like snake skin! I can totally see that, but wish there was more snake tofu skin in the soup.

I love these crab claws, and I love the chilli mayonaise. Click here to see the crab claw innards.

Tuesday: I had a craving for pasta. Remembering a certain pasta dish with fondness, I went to The Walk Cafe. I ordered a freshly squeezed OJ first of all.

The last time I ate here I had the rather delicious Penne Del Sud – penne pasta with chicken, sundried tomatoes and spring onion in a light cream sauce. This time I chose the Penne Vodka – pasta in a creamy sauce with mushrooms and bacon. Like the other pasta dish, the Penne Vodka was topped with shaved parmesan, but I wished for not only a greater quantity, but larger shavings. The mushrooms was the best part of the dish – for some reason they were amazing, really well-seasoned and just gorgeous. Although the bacon was in tiny pieces, the bacon flavour throughout the creamy sauce was strong, and I was surprised to find that I didn’t mind not having bigger pieces of bacon. Which pasta dish did I prefer? I think they’re both good. It just depends in future whether I’m craving chicken and sundried tomatoes more than bacon and mushrooms.

Wednesday: another meeting at East Perth meant lunches from our favourite lunch bar that we wish was in Subiaco: 88 Royal. Like the last time, L had vegetarian rice paper rolls, and this time I managed to take a photo.

She even posed for an innards shot for me.

I’d ordered a tuna plate like the last time, and it was only when we were in the car and halfway back to the office that I realised that one of the tuna plates wasn’t a tuna plate at all, but a rissole plate! But the rissoles smelled absolutely wonderful, and I made the switch from tuna patties to rissoles just like that. Like the tuna plate, the rissole plate came with three rissoles (the tuna plate has three patties), lettuce, carrot and celery sticks (once again I didn’t eat the celery), cheese, a hard boiled egg, beetroot (once again I gave mine to R – she doesn’t care for celery either), a pineapple ring, capsicum and snow pea sprouts. I used the tangy dressing like a dip, rather than pouring it all over the salad.

The rissoles tasted as good as they smelled. They were loaded with carrot as well as meat. That’s exactly what a rissole would look like if Jac made it, lots and lots of carrot. :) I think the tuna patties are just as nice as the rissoles, and it will just be a case of which I feel like more, next time.

Thursday: Chad and L went to Nippon Fare and picked up lunches for a few of us in a Japanese mood. Here’s L’s vegetable tempura.

Chad got herself a mixed sushi pack – there was crabstick, egg and avocado roll, three mini sushi: egg roll, salmon roll and cucumber roll, and one inari.

As you can see from the photo below, I was feeling pretty hungry!

First, a potato salad. This time the potato was in quite large chunks. I didn’t mind though, it was nice for a change.

I asked for a small pack of teriyaki sushi. Doesn’t look that small, I know!

Last of all, I had a pack of inari sushi.

What I like about the inari sushi pack from Nippon Fare is that the inari comes with two different rice fillings. On the left, sushi rice with seaweed. On the right, sushi rice with black sesame seeds. I tried to bite neatly, but the rice was just bursting out of there! :)

Friday: I went to Hungry Jack’s for breakfast, and ordered a Breakfast Wrap meal, with OJ as the drink.

When HJs began doing breakfast, one of my sisters-in-law said she thought Hungry Jack’s hash browns were no where as crispy as the McDonalds hash browns. Initially I thought she was right, but I’m not so sure now. I really need to eat one of each, side by side, in the same sitting, to really compare.

I get my breakfast wraps without cheese. The barbecue sauce provides enough moisture. Sausage pattie, egg and bacon make such a great combination.

For lunch, Chad and I went to Toraya. I ordered my favourite, the karaage donburi. On this occasion, the chicken was absolutely smothered in chilli mayo! Wow, my eyes popped out of my head in anticipation when I saw this!

Chad’s favourite is the agedashi tofu bento, medium size.

On this occasion, her dish was a little different too – the tofu was in a bowl, rather than on the plate.

I must eat this dish, just to get the sweet potatoes on the side. I love sweet potato.

I started the week with chicken, rice and miso, and I ended it with chicken, rice and miso. :)