20210319 - Zenhouse and Steven ter Horst TURN: Elizabeth

Stephen and I bumped into Con who was wheeling his bike across the street just outside the Elephant. Even though this is the last weekend of the Fringe and it was very busy on the main road, the Elephant was again very quiet. We easily scored a table inside by the bar.

There were five of us tonight, Chad, Richard, Con, Stephen and myself. Albert couldn't make it. It's hard for him to walk to the pub and cafe.

It was my turn to choose today and I decided on the Zenhouse. We haven't been there in a while so I thought of giving it another shot. I was very impressed with it last time but am open to try something different on the menu. Richard wanted us to go there slightly earlier than the booking of 7.30pm so we strolled across around 7.05pm.

When we arrived at the cafe it sounded as though they didn't receive the booking. However, we were lucky that there was a table of 6 available.

• Richard - mushrooms in special BBQ sauce and steamed rice - 7 (Richard put salt and pepper on his meal at least twice)
  
• Stephen, Chad and myself - Yum Cha with Shangdong Chicken x 2
• Stephen - 8, Chad - 9, Myself - 7
• Con - samosas and rangdang not-mutton curry - 6

Chad commented on the very tippable type of tables they had at the cafe, but we weren't disappointed in the food. We had to wait for the Yum Cha to come out - Richard had already finished his meal, but it was all good in the end.

Richard left to go to a concert so the four of us strolled back down to Rundle Street (which was cordoned off all the way down the road) to Steven ter Horst. 

We scored a table by the door which was open (it was a warm night) and we all had hot chocolates. Very nice.

Con rode his bike home and Chad caught the bus. Stephen and I had parked up on Angus Street so we strolled back to the car.

Harshitha called me to say she wanted to celebrate Andris' birthday on 31 March with a cake. We could easily tie it in with my birthday too and the ending of Stephen's path.

Another lovely evening celebrated with friends.

20210312 Bun Cha & Steven ter Horst Chocolatier TURN: Con

It was another lovely warm day. We arrived at the Elephant early and decided to sit outside at the furtherest table from the entrance. There were gaps with every other table closed. We started out on the jugs and the jugs kept coming. You can see in the picture that at one time we had four jugs on the go at one time.

Tonight we had Con, Chad and Richard, myself and Stephen. It was Con's turn to choose and we were in for a rare treat. The Bun Cha was open until 8pm so we decided to make our way there around 7pm.

When we went to the restaurant apart from 2 people sitting outside, the cafe was empty. However, the good news was that it did fill up at the end closer to 8pm.

Richard - Dim sims and chicken salad with rice - there wasn't much of a salad just a couple of cucumbers and coleslaw type salad - not very appetizing at all. - He gave it a 7

Chad - Red chicken curry - 7.5

Con - Fried Dim Sims, sizzling steak - 7.5

Stephen - Chicken laksa - 7.5

Elizabeth - Vegetable and tofu laksa - 7 - my laksa was a bit light on for flavour and had loads of bok choy. The vegetables were raw (which was fine because of my raw food diet, but didn't taste as good as it has in the past).

Stephen played mum and poured us all a glass of water. Very sloppily I might add.

We went to Steven ter Horst for hot chocolates. Very apt considering our new team name. The street was heaving with people, but it was virtually empty in the cafe. I was very sleepy as I"d spent the previous night awake the whole night for MahaShivRatri. We didn't stay too long and walked back to Hutt Street where the car was parked.

Con cycled in and went back to his bike outside the Elephant. Richard was going on to a concert later in the night.

20210305 Feathers Hotel & Cascada Cafe TURN: Chad

It was only four of us tonight. Con, Chad, myself and Stephen. Chad's turn to choose and he was thinking outside of the box. We'd never been to the Feather's Hotel before for a Friday night and it was a great choice. The weather was perfect so it was lovely to sit outside in the beer garden which wasn't quite a garden (with bushes and shrubs) rather a pavillion but it was very pleasant. We sat on the table in the middle and I had to ask Chad to move because of the glare of the sunlight setting to the west. Stephen lamented that there were no happy hour prices. Chad made a comment about the clientelle and how we were mixing it with the conservative voters. Plenty of craft beers to keep Chad happy.

Stephen and I had parked close to the Cascada cafe and walked up to the hotel. So we all walked down to the cafe which was less than 250 metres away. We sat inside. It was a small cafe - nothing fancy.

Chad, Stephen and Con all had pizza. Stephen ordered a vegetarian pizza with extra prosciutto and choritzo sausage. He gave his pizza an 8. Chad ordered the 12" size and also give it an 8. Con, as usual, scored slightly lower at 6 but was reasonably happy with his 9" pizza.

I should have ordered pizza as well but instead ordered the veggie burger and chips. The chips were sweet potato fried - the whole thing didn't taste very nice - it was smeared in sweet chilli sauce with no dressing on the salad component. I gave mine a 5.

We had a bottle of water but to both Stephen and I it tasted a bit funny. I saw how they re-filled the water bottles with the fountain near the table. It was a very slow trickle 

Stephen ordered a glass of wine and had a taste of about 4 different wines before choosing. He eventually choose 'Down the Rabbit Hole' wine which he said was nice. Chad and Con had beers.

We stayed for coffee whilst we caught a glimpse of 'Coming to America' on the television above the front door. Gee it looks dated now.

We had a discussion about changing the team's name to something more contemporary. Team of Thrones is now old hat. We had a brainstorming session and came up with 'Italian Hot Chocolate' in honour of Albert. Chad said he would change the name on facebook. We never Richard wouldn't be happy initially about it. :-)

20210226 The Griffin's Head and The Golden Wattle TURN: Richard

Richard had wanted us to meet at the Griffin's Head for drinks before the meal which was booked for 7pm. Stephen hadn't read the message clearly enough and decided to go to the Elephant for his usual jugs of Young Henrys.

Being Fringe time, our usual parking spaces were taken, so we ended up on Angus Street, just off Frome. We walked to the Elephant and saw Con walking in the opposite directly at the Exeter. We flagged him down and went back to the Elephant. We easily scored a booth which was great. Richard came at about 6.40pm and had a mineral water whilst Stephen and Con finished off their beers. Richard had been to see a show beforehand. Chad was at a work function at Amalfis.

We walked to the Griffin's Head. We were given a flyer to see JOURNEY at the Tandyana Cultural Centre. Sounds interesting. We saw the Guru Music dancers out and about. Looks like a lot of fun but I wouldn't be doing it :-)

Inside the Griffin it was surprisingly quiet. There were only a couple of occupied tables in the dining room. What did we order?

• Richard - eye fillet which was medium but came out a little under done. Richard didn't mind that and thought it was perfect. The seasoning was superb! 8

• Con - Bangers and mash - 3 big fat sausages - 7

• 
  Stephen - a modified version of what was on the menu - schnitzel with mash and veg with pepper sauce. His comment afterwards was that the pepper sauce was ordinary and that it had red onion that was hardly cooked in with the veggies. - 6.5

• 
  Elizabeth - Nepalese curry, rice and poppadom. My criticism is that it had zucchini which wasn't stated on the menu. A bit of a sloppy affair but the flavours were there - 6

Richard made a comment that if you have to order a well done steak it's as if you haven't matured yet. The same as asking for sugar in your coffee. He was referring this comment to Stephen who didn't bite.

 We went to the Golden Wattle for a coffee after trying the Mantra (which was closed) and the outside seating at the Rhino (no coffees). The coffees at the Golden Wattle were surprisingly good. Richard left as soon as his coffee was drank to meet a friend at the Rhino room for a show.

We gave Con a lift to Norwood.