Socceroos vs Uruguay

After spending Saturday morning trying to finish some work up, I spent the afternoon relaxing and getting all my gear ready for the Socceroos vs Uruguay soccer match. Camera was charged, snug winter gear was layered on, and of course, the all important Green and Gold supporter gear.

We all met up at the Stadium with our supporter gear. The seats we got were great! I would've preferred sitting a bit higher up as I prefer to see the whole field rather than a close up of the players. My friends, however, were more than happy with the seats. We arrived early enough t see all the players warm up, and of course, I had to get some good photos!

Security making sure a lunatic like me doesn't run onto the field

Qantas Choir - "I still call Australia Home"

I want his lens!!!

URGAY! hehehe

Cheering for the Socceroos!

This shot was taken literally 2 seconds before the Roos scored their first goal!

The crowd cheering! See the smoke?

Yep! Someone lit up a flare!

And they're hard to put out!

Security forces

Unfortunately, Uruguay won that match, but it was a friendly and it was a great game! (And I had a really sore throat by the end of the night) Its great to see the number of supporters for real football in Australia now days! Unfortunately, some people took it a bit too far, and got a bit too drunk. I almost got trampled by the cop trying to get past me to eject a few groups of people out. One guy got so drunk, he was completely red from head to toe and must've gotten into a fight as his shirt was all ripped up.

Consume alcohol responsibly people! We're there to enjoy the game and support the Roos. Don't ruin it for other people!

Best way to end an eating spree

It was an interesting morning indeed. 3 girls in bed together makes for an interesting night's sleep ;) We took our time getting ready, enjoying the morning tv before we loaded ourselves into a cab and off to Bill's we went. It was probably closer to lunch than it was brunch by the time we got to Bill's. The good thing, however, was that we were STARVING! And that meant we can order more food!!

Apple Orange juice

Hot Chocolate

I spotted the hot chocolate whilst we were waiting to be seated, and god does that look good or what?? Real chocolate chips slowly melted with hot milk. MmMmm look at that melted chocolate.....

Caffiene for me!

Since the eating spree was purely for MnMs (Yeah right!) we decided to order all of Bill's famous dishes to share!

Corn fritters with bacon, tomatoes and spinach

Wagyu beef burger with fries, salad and tomato chutney

Famous scrambled eggs, bacon and sourdough toast

Ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter - for dessert

Close up of the honeycomb butter

MmMmm Molten river of melted honeycomb butter

The corn fritters were crispy and bursting with corn. The eggs were silky smooth and decadent whilst the burger came with the most delicious tomato chutney I've ever had! However, the outstanding winner had to be the ricotta hotcakes. Light and fluffy and definitely orgasmic! We were so full by the end of the meal, that we had to roll ourselves out of the restaurant, AGAIN. We decided to take a leisurely stroll back to Chinatown for some retail therapy.

After spending a whole heap of money on stuff we really don't need, we headed back towards the hotel where MnMs tried to shove me onto the road to get hit by a car because "the takoyaki place shut down". And somehow thats MY FAULT. Sheeesh woman! Get a grip!!

We went back to the hotel for a bit of a rest and packed our bags since me and cookies had to go home that night. We thought we'd take MnMs to our latest favourite Korean place instead of the usual BBQ City. (We figured if we took her to enough places, she'll eventually move up to Sydney just for the food!!) As we headed towards Sydney Madang, we had to make a pit stop for a bit more retail therapy. Nothing new to us ;)

Madang is such a hard place to find! We always walked past wondering why there are so many people congregating in a back alley. It was only a few weeks ago did we realise there was restaurant tucked into the dead end of a back alley. The place is forever packed and always frequented by Koreans. Must be a good sign hey?

First up, the side dishes:

Kim Chi like vegetables

Kim Chi

Salad (with the best nashi/onion dressing), mashed potato salad and fish cakes

Fried Soft shell crab salad

Kim chi and pork pancake

Soft tofu and seafood stew

Marinated fish and cold noodles with spicy sauce

Here's a few more photos from our previous trip to Madang:

More side dishes

Potato starch stir fry noodles

More pork and kimchi pancake

Fish roe stew

The food at Madang can almost rival the food at BBQ city. The fish roe stew, which has become our benchmark in rating korean restaurants was so nice! But also so different from BBQ City. Madang's stew seems to be a lot spicier and richer, whilst BBQ city is lighter and has a lovely seafood sweetness. Madang has more seafood, but BBQ City has more fish roe. Both just as good, but we can't really say which is better.

Their soft tofu stew was outstanding! I think I prefer their tofu stew to BBQ City's as they don't have egg in it. Don't get me wrong, I love egg, but I find Madang's version lighter. Their side dishes are also really really good. Probably not as good as BBQ City, but they have this really awesome salad with a grated nashi pear/onion like dressing that is soooooooo nice!!!

By the time we had finished eating everything, we were bloated again. And most of us had lost all feelings in our mouth, and some were even getting chilli headaches. But the food was so good, we would definitely be back again. And we won't be waiting for MnMs to be up again to eat at Madangs. So, woman, come back up to Sydney again soon!!!

The start of the eating spree

After getting rudely woken up at 9am with a hangover, I managed to pack my bags for a night out with the girls and headed into the city. After dumping everything at the hotel, we caught a cab to my favourite Jap restaurant Don Dons. (I'm not giving the address as its crowded enough and I don't want the prices to go up!!) All of my friends who have been to Don Don's absolutely love their udon noodle soup. Whenever you order a meal, they generally give you a piece of sushi, or a small bowl of udon noodle soup. We always swap the sushi for their udon. ALWAYS.

Entree udon noodle soup - the best you will ever have. I guarantee it.

After their udon noodle soup, their seaweed udon salad will have to come a close second. This is a must have in Summer, and a must have most of winter as well.

Seaweed udon salad

After completely stuffing ourselves, MnMs had to meet up with some friends to go to the Human Body exhibition. As I knew I'd be nursing a hangover, I decided to skip that and go to the Paddington Markets with Cookies instead. After a lot of impulse buys, we decided it was time for some cookie ice cream sandwiches!

Mochaccino - Chocolate cookies with espresso ice cream

Chocolate cookies with strawberry ice cream

God these were so good! And such a great way to celebrate our impulse buys! We really wanted their strawberry shortcake version, but they were all sold out. Oh wells, we both had bags of chocolate coated coffee beans (Creme brulee and mint flavours) and that should tide us over til dinner time.

We caught a bus back to the city, and stopped by World Square to pick up some snacks and ice cream for the night. After we got back to the hotel, we freshed up and decided to take a nap whilst waiting for MnMs to show up again. It was this time, when the both of us were in bed together, that house keeping decided to burst in. God this looked really REALLY bad. I swear there were no wandering hands under the covers!!!

When MnMs finally showed up, we did some DVD shopping before going to our favourite Spanish Restaurant, Encasa. Ever since we took MnMs here, this has become a "must visit" place. We decided to forgo the paella, and focus on the tapas. I think we got a bit greedy...

Octopus marinated in Lime

Spinach and pine nut omelette

King prawns in a saffron tomato sauce

Bread rolls to mop up the sauce

Fried potatoes with spicy salsa and garlic mayo

Chorizo fried in a herb butter

Garlic mushrooms

We were soooooooo full by the end of the meal! I wanted a lot more bread rolls to mop up all the delicious sauce, but I felt like my stomach was going to split open! But the food was so good!! I think the jug of sangria really pushed us over the edge though.

Because we were so full, and MnMs was so trashed, we decided to take a walk around the city and ended up at Darling Harbour. It was inside the shopping centre that we spent an entire hour in the shoe store because some people can't decide what shoes to buy! We actually got locked into the store because someone also insisted on fixing the shoes and rearranging their shelves!!!

After walking off all the food, we headed back to the hotel room and thats when the snacks and shot glasses came out:

Cowboy shots!

Lets just say we had a very interesting night. Lots of gossiping, LOTS of laughing, and there was an incident that involved ice cream and a window. We finally crashed into bed after 1am.

Crazy week follows a crazy weekend

Yes I know I've been really lazy in blogging. My excuse is that work is absolutely crazy! I'm in meetings a good 5 hours each day, sometimes I don't even sit at my desk for a full hour before I'm in another meeting. I'm staying back every night and I've resorted to taking things home to do as well! Anyway, thats my excuse. So what have I really been up to? Lets start with last Friday. We had a massive company wide party meeting. This was held at the Horden Pavillion at Fox Studios. We even hired out the exhibition hall next door to it. I won't go into too much detail, but basically, it was bloody awesome! I didn't take my photos the whole night since I was around my big boss, and I was preoccupied with the alcohol and food. But heres a few snaps anyway:

Acrobats

They thought it was a great idea to have these massive balloons bouncing around the room, until the balls started smashing glasses and beer bottles. My bag got a whole glass of champagne, whilst my workmate copped a glass of wine to her back. The balls disappeared quite quickly after that. They had a great band, a massive paella stand (Which I missed out on!), cocktails (Which I also missed out on!) and lots of finger food. I was busy acting sober around my big boss and didn't get much food. All I know was every time I turned around, people were munching on lamb chops, prawns etc etc. GRRRRR

I stayed til we got kicked out, and it took me a good 1.5hrs to get my bags from the cloak room and then line up for the taxi. By the time I got home, it was past 1am.

Early the next morning, I get a 9am call. MnMs is up from Melbourne, and since I had my work party, I didn't get to join her for dinner on the Saturday. The plan was to get up whenever I recovered from my hangover, head towards the city for my favourite Japanese restaurant. Somehow, I still got woken up at 9am!! Multiple times by different people! GOD DAMN YOU PEOPLE!! LET ME SLEEP IN!!

When I finally did get up, it was the start of a massive eating spree! (Which I'll do in separate posts)