I had to go into hospital for a couple of hours on Friday to have a tube put down my throat to poke about my plumbing to determine whether or not I might be gluten intollerant. I went to the GP for something completely different a couple of months ago and mentioned that I sometimes get a mildly upset tummy for no apparent reason. She did a few blood tests and the one for Coeliac Disease (Gluten intollerance) came back borderline positive. She sent me off to a specialist (who charges like a bull and is about as friendly as one too….avoid Dr Duncombe in Randwick if possible) who booked me in for the endoscopy at Prince of Wales in Randwick.
I was all quite straightforward, and like my previous visit to hospital, left me with a very positive impression of the public hospital system in Australia. All the nurses and doctors I met were friendly, professional and positive. All the machines and things were shiny and new.
The whole day took a few hours – much of theat time was just spent waiting. (Mind you the nurses kept apologising saying a number of people had called in sick and that emergency was busy that morning which had had a knock on effect for them). I answered the usual questions about health history, medication, smoking and drinking, got my wrist band and managed (for the first time in my life) to answer a couple of cryptic crossword clues in a trashy women’s magazine. When I was called, I walked into an operating theatre, told to keep even my shoes and socks on and had a needle and plastic valve thingy stcuk in my hand. The doctor and nurse explained that they would spray a local anaesthetic in my throat and mouth and give me a sedative through the tube in my hand to put me to sleep. There was mention made that they usually only give a light sedative and that people sometimes only half fall asleep and/or wake up with the tube still down their throat. No such displeasure for me. I remember smiling and feeling a bit happy as I drifted off peacefully and woke up in a lovely bed 20 minutes later.
I was offerd a cucumber sandwich and a cup of tea (the hospital was called Prince of Wales after all) and the nurse rang baba to tell him to come and pick me up.
I have to go back to the nasty doctor in a couple of weeks to get the test results. Stay tuned!
The theme of tonight’s lesson was the difference betwen cheap and expensive wines. We started on whites where we tasted first a cask wine, second a cheapish bottle ($10-$12) of Lindemans Chardonnay and a more expensive bottle of Chardonnay from Briar Ridge in the Hunter Valley – rather incogruously I thought as the Hunter is far more renowned for its Semillons rather than its Chardonnay. The three wines chosen demonstrated well the improvement one sees in colour, aroma, palate and complexity as price increases. The cask wine really smelt and tasted like the cardboard it was packaged in. The Briar Ridge Chardonnay wasn’t as good in my opinon as the Peppertree Chardonnay from Orange I alluded to in an earlier post, but was still a very pleasant wine and a reminder of why Chardonnay was so popular a couple of years ago before we all jumped on the Sav Blanc bandwagon.
Next we took a similar journey through three reds. My hopes of the quality wine being a bottle of Grange or Grand Cru Bordeaux unfortunately didn’t come to fruition. It was instead a 2004 Barossa Shiraz, Grenache, Mourvedre (i.e. in the style of a French Cotes du Rhone) from Pepperjack. To be honest it didn’t really butter my toast with it’s fairly simple fruity style and short finish. Again however the difference between it and the cask wine was marked. No doubt we were a room full of wine snobs, but the cask wine was truly awful smelling and tasted bad too. There were many screwed up faces.
All this came after a weekend of epicurian delights. It was dad’s 67th birthday, so baba and I took him to The Brasserie, an imaginitely named French…ummm…Brasserie down the road from us on Crown street. There are no mains over $30 and the food and service were of a standard one would normally expect to pay more for in Sydney. My smoekd cod puree and tapenade, Lamb’s stomach and crumbed cutlet with fromage blanc and quince pudding were all washed down with a very drinkable 2003 Cotes du Rhone St Joseph. (The Rhone Valley is totally my flavour of the month – Viognier for whites and Shiraz – or Syrrah – red blends).
Saturday saw a long, indulgent and slightly boozy waterside lunch on the first warm spring-like day we’ve had this year with a fantastic old school chum at a place called Liquidity just under the Anzac Bridge. Steamed snapper and apple and rhubarb crumble with SENSATIONAL marscepone whip were both very good, though a tad overpriced, especially when compared to the quality of the meal I’d had the night before. The Henschke Adelaide Hills Savignon Blanc we had was a more refined version of what can often be lolly water wine. It had pleasant flinty notes which complemented the tart olives and asparagus the fish was served with.
Sunday night we went and hung out at Lounge on Goulburn Street where some people we know were DJing. As the night wore on and we ended up back at someone’s house and the grog and funny smelling tobacco were taking effect, a rather peculiar married man visiting from Osaka seemed to take a somewhat disturbing interest in comparing my hairy legs to his own and pinching my bottom. Those kooky boys from Japan. Alfred Kinsey would have been kept very busy had he visited the Land of the Rising Sun!!!
…is in Kingsford, just 5 minutes walk from my office at lunchtime. I tend to go once or twice a week to see what new stock they’ve got in. This week I got the BEST pair of trousers in the world for $8. They’re a tres-trendy Hong Kong brand. Therein lays the attraction of this particular op shop. UNSW has lots and lots of international students who chuck out lots of clothes before heading home to Singapore, Hong Kong and/or KL having paid (and plagiarised – check out the websites where you can buy essays. $50 for a pass, $100 for a credit, $200 for a distinction and $500 for a high distinction. There are even adds posted on walls and notice boards at uni selling essays to international students!!!) their way through their degrees. This means that there are heaps of fashionable, well looked after clothes that are the right size for a little skinny boy like me.What’s more, Wednesday is half price day. Yes, an op shop with a weekly 50% off day. I saw my trousers on Monday, and had a hard decision to make: Pay $8 for the best trousers in the world or hide the trousers amongst the women’s stuff and hope they’re still there on Wed. Needless to say, I was entirely reckless and spent the $8 (JPY700) and got them at full price. I wore them today and even baba reluctantly agreed that my ass looks great in the best trousers in the world purchased from the best op-shop in Sydney.
I had my first class in my “introduction to wine appreciation” course at WEA on Monday night. I decided that it was time to get out of the house and to get a hobby; hence my decision to part with a couple of hundred dollars and wander into town on each of the next 7 Monday nights to get sloshed and learn something along the way.
There are about 16 or 17 students in the class which is taught by a rotund Kiwi called Don who reminds me a bit of my dad – except that Don tells far better jokes. I’m not entirely convinced I’m going to learn a great deal because Don tends to just ramble a bit and the other students in the class have vastly different levels of background knowledge.
We tasted 8 wines on the first night – four whites, a Rose and three Reds (one of which was corked and a brilliant example of what wine shouldn’t taste like. Interestingly 4 or 5 people in the room put their hands up when Don asked them if they enjoyed that wine).
Next week, week two possibly looks like the most interesting when we will be looking at the difference between cheap wines and expensive ones. Chateau cardboard to Grange (well maybe not quite up to Grange standard but something posh…)
We went to Newcastle on sunday to visit the Sapphic sisters T & H-chan. They live in a little house in Raymond Terrace. It took a shade under two hours to drive up there from our place, which was quicker than I expected. After a cup of tea and a bit of a chat at their place, we drove into Newcastle which is a surprisingly vibrant small city as opposed to being a big country town. We had lunch in Cooks Hill which is a trendy little inner-city suburd complete with cute terrace houses (wich we could actually just about afford if we wanted to buy one) and a cafe strip better than anything baba and I could find in Brisbane a couple of ears ago and possibly better than Adelaide too. The beaches around the town were pretty. The only disappointment really is the fairly destitute city centre (Hunter St??) around the station – though that may be because it was under several feet of water a month or two ago.
We went for Chinese at Golden Century last Satuday night. Friends from Japan are in town. One of those friends is actually a Chinese woman who has been a friend of my dad for years and years and who has lived most of the last dozen or so years in Yokohama. She’s the key. The Chinese have a word gaunxi which means “connections” or relationships.
My old man had booked a table for us. The restaurant wanted to seat us upstairs which for Golden Century is a big no no. Downstairs is where all the action is and more importantly, our chinese friend has gaunxi with the floor manager downstairs. This is very important, because no sooner had we arrived than a cancellation magically appeared for a downstairs table. No menus were produced; just a conversation about what was good and fresh that day and what we felt like eating. A big communal bowl of soup and double shot of whisky (“tea”) for our Japanese friend both arrived without mention or fanfare. Then dozens of Tasmanian oysters, abalone, praws, steamed fish, pipis etc etc all washed down with a couple of bottles of rather pleasant Eden Valley Riesling. As smokers stepped outside for a puff, staff suddenly appeared offering European cigarettes and gold lighters. When the bill came it was mysteriously small, but was compensated for by a very generous tip.
Golden Century is very good at the worst of times (I love the fact that every waiter’s name badges always either say “Ken” or “Trainee”), but with connections, it’s a perfect – almost regal – dining experience.
