Sunday, June 18, 2006

Happy Birthday to Me! (oh, and that other dude...)

Tetsuya's. For Seeeedneysiders one restaurant stands on its own as the pinnacle of culinary mastery. Named simply Tetsuya's after legendary head chef Tetsuya Wakuda, the exclusive restaurant is nestled in its own private Japanese garden in the midst of the skyscrapers of downtown Sydney, a haven for the powerbrokers of the city looking to momentarily escape the hectic pressures of the markets or seal a deal over a lesiurely 10 courses. At least, it was exclusive until they made the mistake of letting a pack of washed up C-list wannabes through the front door...

Tetsuya's trademark is their 10 course degustation menu, a unique fusion of French and Japanese influences. The meal begins with a superbly fresh set of oysters topped with a lavish ginger sauce, and eventually builds to a crescendo with the restaurant's signature dish - confit of ocean trout garnished with trout roe and giant kelp seeds. Each course is matched with a carefully selected choice of wine. The highlight for Rock was undoubtably the aforementioned trout; the hightlight for Jared (above) was not falling out of his chair as the fifth glass of wine was poured. At least it did give him ample opportunity to enjoy the luxiouriously appointed bathroom facilities ;)

Rock also showing the signs of a few too many glasses... Fortunately, the alcoholic effects lingered long enough for the bill to appear as an illegible blur...

Cheers! The birthday boys pose with their legion of admirers and the organisers of the surprise dinner. The problem is, with Tesuya's recently being rated recently as the fifth best restaurant in the world (see the full list here), how does one top it for the 25th milestone next year? Over to you, girls...

(As an aside, Jared dug up this piece of trivia on head chef Tetsuya: Back in Japan, Wakuda has appeared as a character in a manga cartoon, Oishinbo, where he appeared as a hardworking Japanese chef who wears plain black polo shirts, drinks Krug and works in a suburban Sydney restaurant. Now is that cool or what?)

Monday, June 12, 2006

Allez! All the action from the Adelaide AFF2 tournament...

Another tournament, another weekend spent in a freezing cold gym... Now that the camera is unthawed enough to download some pics, here's the wrap.

Base of operations for the weekend - the Adelaide Hilton. The taxi driver, obviously not taking this pack of rabble seriously as Hilton material, first headed out for the nondescript Hilton Hotel, a run down pub and pokie joint in the coincidentially named suburb of Hilton. When we did eventually arrive at the real deal, Paris had unfortunately already headed off back to the Greek shipping lanes to trawl for some new talent for her latest, web-only, amature productions...

Just enough time for a quick snap before the fountain freezes over... Don't be fooled by the blue sky folks, it's bloody cold out there.
The picturesque campus of the University of Adelaide. No ugly concrete blocks or muddy sheep padocks here, just the weighty granite of traditional stone buildings and a nice river bank to kick back on between lectures. But hey, I bet there's no Fishtown a few blocks away to fuel the students into finals week...

An AMD model from E3 poses with another fan...

A view of the room before it gets trashed with soggy, smelly fencing gear hanging from every corner.

And finally, time for action! Team Kiwi contemplate the interminable wait between the pools and the DE in the icy gym. Luckily, as products of the NZ system, they are well equipt to deal with such conditions ;)

Jared in action against double Olympian Seamus Robinson in the quarter-finals. So fast is the action, it's all a blur for our camera. Unfortunately, it was all a bit of a blur for Jared as well, as he bowed out 7-15 to finish up with a hard fought 7th place.

Meanwhile, Rock has the pleasure of seeing his opponent blow his top and drop kick his mask across the room for an instant black card, after he scores 6 unanswered touches to storm back from a 9-12 deficit to take the win. But after that Rock stalls out in his quarter-final, finishing up in 6th place. Still, a solid showing with 2 kiwis in the top 8.

The finalists are presented with their medals, as big Nick in 8th place takes offence to finishing behind the NZers and stoops to the ol' sheep jokes...