— is the blog of Amit Karmakar about photography & life in Sydney, Australia
I love Friands! I simply L-O-V-E friands. You get the idea. Friands are those magic things that make your afternoons easy, it makes a cup of tea even more satiable and a worrying mind more at peace. It must be comfort-food for it does release a lot of endorphins for me. A café across from where I work sells Friands and while they are OK, $3.50 for a rather average Friand leaves a lot to be desired. I still indulge in the ocassional binge.
Chances are if you like cooking you’d already know Cookbooks are a dime a dozen. Well not quite. They usually cost a bit — the good ones anyway. You can get cookbooks for under $5 too but often those recipes are inedible and lack oomph or presentation. The thing to remember is — its worth spending that extra $$ to cook better and use a tried and tested recipe that doesn’t leave you in-satiated. D & I both love cooking and get into it often. Its a nice way to relax and know what you are offering your body. Dare I admit we’re both foodies and relish anything to do with our ‘inner man’.
We all like the excitement of visiting a new place. So much more if you’re moving to a new place of your liking. But with moving comes the responsibility and the hassle and the nasty packing and un-packing. The idea is always fun but over time when you realise the work involved the feelings miff out a tad. The ‘in-between’ or ‘meantime’ period of the move is at best… mildly put — tiresome even for a good organiser! 
I’m sure you’d agree if you have experienced it, unless you’re a free-spirited wandering hobit who walks the earth carefree with little possession.
Or maybe I have too much junk I carry around…. don’t we just gather and horde so much as we go through life. Funny that!
All men are created equal. No matter how hard you try you can never erase those words…
I’m a bit late to the party but can I just say I loved this movie. Pure, simple and just gold! Its a movie of epic proportions; fighting for ones basic human rights, fighting for gay rights in America sure wasn’t easy. It isn’t any easy now, and it surely wouldn’t have been two decades earlier. A lot has been said about gay activism, gay rights & campaigns against homophobic people, anti-gay religious groups and broadening the human mind, this movies does just that, it truly goes to show how America or Castro – a district in California was, back around late 1970s. This is an extremely heart-rendering and sensitive movie that touches on many aspects of the lifes tapestry. I simply love how beautifully Sean Penn brings about the vulnerable, fallible side as a gay lover. Harvey Milks social standing is huge and the price he and his friends paid and stood for has liberated many.
Holi, also called the Festival of Colours, is a popular Hindu spring festival observed in India, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad, the UK, Fiji and Nepal. In West Bengal of India and Bangladesh, it is known as Dolyatra (Doljatra) or Boshonto Utsav (“spring festival”).
Photo credit: Photo credit vikashkrgupta
Hope you had a good start to 2009 and still keeping up with your New Years resolutions. We certainly have, one of ours being: Sydney Bites Restaurant review site.
Well, we love going out for good food as much as cooking at home and trying out new recipes. We usually lug a camera along and we enjoy blogging. So what better if we can merge them all and have something thats fun, creative and would help people find good food reviews(with photos) and give Sydney another added edge over other good food cities in the world? Very ambitious but you get the picture… so here we are: http://sydneybites.com
There, you know it now, We watched Blowing Whistles last night at the Darlinghurst Theatre after a nice meal at Arun Thai. It(the Restaurant) never seems to disappoint…
As for the play, well where do I begin… In my opinion it seemed rather average despite the accolades wreathed on the Darlinghurst Theatre site. Looks like they’d talk up anything to get their seats booked. Its a ‘very’ average play, with some clever moments juxtaposed with again ‘very’ average and somewhat smutty humour. But obviously it seemed to have appealed to a lot of people there as some were in stitches time to time and kept thumping the floor in acknowledgement. Hmmmm, humour is a funny thing after all isn’t it?
Happy Diwali to all your readers. If you’re unaware what Diwali means, its the festival of lights where candles and handmade earthen oil lamps are lit to celebrate the victory of good over evil. D gave me the surprise of my life when we had sparkles pre-dinner on Diwali night here in Sydney… Awww bless, very thoughtful and we celebrated again tonight pre-dinner with D’s family. We have had two celebratory Diwali nights even without being in India So spoilt, so blessed.
After a much long hard working week… Friday came by and boy it was well deserved. Apart from being the miraculous day Fridays always are we were also catching up with HP and going to City Pocha — a Korean BBQ restaurant where we have been umpteen times as the food is really good. When you see a lot of locals eating here the obvious reaction is it would be worth the while — the food is always good there and rather fresh. But to our surprise and disappointment while the food was really nice the service was despicable. At the end of each table they have a buzzer, yeah bit weird but a very practical idea, except that we pressed it many times and they would just not service our table. To be fair and honest to the situation City Pocha was inundated and seemed under-staffed but thats no excuse not to serve patrons or have waiters that are clueless. Okie get this, one of the waiters who was initially servicing our table didn’t speak a word of English and didn’t know what lettuce was even after pointing out to what Lettuce looked like. I have nothing against people that don’t speak English but honey don’t be in Hospitality or the Service Industry with such brazen assurance. Far worse, we asked for more Kimchi at least three times and they never bothered. Finally after waiting for about half an hour while they frantically served others and pissed us right off, we were truly at the end of our tether and HP had to go to the reception to ask them to serve us. Not the best way to spend Friday evening but at least the food was fresh and tasty.
Edited: The name of the thai place is Sumalee Thai in Bank Hotel Newtown. Thanks D.
As you would have figured Be like Others *was* depressing. Luckily D took me to a lovely Thai on King Street. Having a senior moment… the name escapes me. (will update tomorrow) I hadn’t been to this one before. The entrance is right from King Street and you go through the pub area down 2 flights of stairs it comes out into a whole different semi-outdoorsy feel sitting area with gas-heated lamps… Nice. Ages back as I was told by D one side of the building was oopen to the tracks where you could see the trains go past… Even though we were seated right in the heart of Newtown there was no noise, almost expcept for the ambient chitter-chatter. We had the traditional Green Curry. I *love* a hot and spicy Thai green curry I do! And also the traditional massaman. The food was really nice but we had to pay separately for extra rice — odd! And yes we didn’t get water. Not the best service but not bad enough to turn up our noses. Not yet anyway. We could have sat there for another hour and cogitated! but we had a show to catch.
Continue reading ‘Newtown Thai, Colbie Caillat and Nouvelle Scene Paris’
Thank you all who came to the Tupperware party. It was great to see you all and we did have a fun afternoon. Thank you all also for the lovely nibbles that you got and a big thank you to DS for keeping the kitchen going so smooth when we were all having fun.
At some stage Claudia would have mentioned to you how very much I really like the Antarctica set and on doing the math post our party I did qualify for one. Yay! I am really happy about that and a big thanks to you all. Of course now that I’ll have the Antarctica set with me soon I’m starting to feel the need for some pantry organisation. And nothing organises your pantry better than those versatile Modular Mates… the cranberry lids do look nice. I bought myself the Cool Cubes, On the go set with a sports bottle, the lime/orange squeezer. Looking forward to my delivery. What did you get?
Up until Sunday the 1st of June 2008 I truly was a Tupperware Virgin. I knew what they meant and had heard good reviews from Tupperware converts and people that used them but never ever held one in my hand or knew what they could possibly do and what life changing experiences they could bring about! It was nice of Adrian & Richard to invite us over for a lovely Tupperware party. Great experience and need I say that I learnt a few things. Having had done practically no research at all I was under the impression that I would find something nice to buy under $20.00 well! That was about to change soon! Although David had dropped in a hint to say they are not really your average run of the mill plastic. Yet I landed up buying a bit even for my first experience. The stuff is really good! Trust me Or maybe I’m easily convinced. But I’d like to think the former!
Sydney as many of you already know sports the minus 5 degree experience in the Opera Quays. While this has been open about 2 years back I never had the opportunity until yesterday. I finally experienced the Ice lounge at Minus 5 where everything is made of ice… the seat, the cocktail glasses, the ice table, ice chairs the ice sculptures of-course. The girls who serve at the front desk and on the way in through the antechamber seemed rather miserable though! No smiles, flat as a sheet of paper, totally bereft of any emotions. Too much cold weather does that to you! Seriously though, thats a very small whinge to the fun we had in there…
Given the love we have for food and dining out its almost impossible to pass up an opportunity and given we hadn’t seen John, Tanya and Pam in such a long time it was only fitting we caught up nice and proper.
We did pose for a quick snap, unfortunately it was long after dinner and coffee. The Ginger Room, 165 Wycombe Road, Neutral Bay.
The Line of Beauty , appropriately named or not, or am missing the link still, sure makes for an enthralling story that takes place in the Thatcherian UK — early 80s when Britain is experiencing the winds of change. Reading the reviews in the newspapers the other day I wondered if this would go wayside but soon caught my attention as I started watching the drama on ABC last night. The story starts with Nick Guest(Dan Stevens) moving in with Toby his best mates family — the wealthy Feddens. All through his graduation years at Oxford Nick has fancied Toby but moving in with the affluent Feddens at their London home brings about a sea change in the young heart of Nick. He experiences his sexual urges, falling in love head over heels after losing his virginity, drug induced highs and lows… dysfunctional and dramatic living, till things start to heat up. Amidst the euphoria of the champagne and parties, Nick witnesses political scandal, the deception and hypocrisy of the rich and desperate tragedy of the outbreak of AIDS. It truly makes for a gripping family drama. I’d say its a must watch if you’re reasonably broadminded. Here is a review from The Guardian Unlimited.