Wednesday, September 29, 2004

not just another ordinary mid-autumn festival


♥ bbq the japanese way: yakiniku

with ShinChan away and everybody else busy with work (why is it that everyonne need to OT at such festive season?), i thought the mid-autumn festival this year was going to be just like one of those many chinese festivals that we easily skipped and forgot about.

but i was totally wrong. it was not just another boring weeknights where i spent my time watching tv and munching on snacks. alright, i can munch on mooncakes on this festive day but no, i dont think i really want to do that. munching mooncakes as snacks? you must be crazy!

i am sure it is not hard to notice especially to those of chinese/asian-roots, any sort of traditional chinese festivals or celebrations has to do with one theme: 're-union'. this usually means a family re-union. i dare not say all chinese festivals have to do with re-uniting but i certainly cannot think of one that isnt.

and this year, i finally managed to abide to the reuniting idea and had a small reunion in sydney. nope. wrong guess! it wasnt a family reunion but it was definitely closed to something like a family reunion. it could be hard to believe but we had a 'SAS96 class ABCD reunion' here in sydney. the term must be strange to all of you and i am sure no one has heard of this before either because i made it up right on the spot.

now comes the explanation. SAS stands for st andrews school in brunei. yup. this is my high school back in brunei. 96 because if some of us hadnt left SAS early, we would have graduated together in 1996. now comes the interesting part. why class ABCD? basically because we had one student from each class last night:

♥ A (the geeky class): pinkcocoa
♥ B (the normal class): jasdeep
♥ C (the queer class): freda
♥ D (the gangster class): jeff aka teriyaki or wolf

yup. it's a super tiny reunion, just the four of us.

date: 28 Sep 2004
where: suminoya, sydney

♥ wolf in action: jeff firing up the bbq!

there are a number of food items that are associated with the mid-autumn festival: mooncakes, mini taro, pomelo. just to name a few. barbeque and an outdoor one definitely is one of them. weeks before the mid-autumn, there are already newspaper articles on bbq, giving out tips, hints and recipes. bbq outdoor is so that you can devour on delicious bbq gourmet at the same time enjoying the companion of the luminous moon up above the sky.

now we didnt have an outdoor bbq. not that we didnt want to enjoy the beautiful view of the moon. mind you, it was cloudy and drizzling in sydney last night. we couldnt even see a trace of the moon! we decided (more like Jeff decided because he's been craving yakiniku ever since i told him about it) to head to suminoya.

i was a little worried about not booking ahead for a table. and indeed, the place was booked out when we got there! aiks. what were we to do? i was sure most place would be booked out by then. so there we were, standing at the dark alley not sure where to go. and then. 'taaaaa-daah'! a miracle happened. someone cancelled their booking and we got a table for 4! talk about coincidence.

we went for the gourmet bbq buffet @ $39.90 per person. on our first round of order, we had all the meat dishes except for the internal bits i.e. liver and intestine. we also called on all the seafood dishes. rice and soups are a no-no for us. we wanted to get the most out of the $39.90!


♥ assorted korean pickles 'kimchee'

the kimchee or 'kimuchi' in japanese term, are on the sweeter scale of korean kimchees. if you are not much of spicy food person, you might enjoy this sweet kimchee. it doesnt have that sour acidic punch of korean kimchee.


♥ almond and tuna salad


♥ seafood and seaweed salad

salad was alright. but someone had something to say.

Jeff: hey pink, look at my salad.
pinkcocoa (looking): ya. what's wrong?
Jeff: how come only 3 pieces of fish one? so stingy.


♥ from the land

we ordered all the meat dishes on the menu. when it arrived, we couldnt really tell which was which.
from memories, we had:
beef loin
beef harami (underskirt of beef)
beef ribs
beef finger
pork ribs
chicken


♥ from the ocean
left too right: squid, octopus, scallops.

not the best looking dishes ever. in fact it looks a little disgusting on this pic. *yikes* but these seafood are certainly very delicious. on the menu was also prawns. you can catch tid-bits of the prawns at the top of this pic.


♥ bbq fish in foil

the menu said "bbq fish in foil" and we thought it was fish wrapped in foil but apparently not. what an interesting way of bbq fish! we might do that the next time we have a bbq! the fish is much loved by the ladies. it is juicy and succulent!

oh yeah. we had a bit of fire in action too! ending up with quite a few pieces of charred meats! Oops.


♥ shio beef tongue (seasoned with pepper and salt)

my bbq companions gave me disgusted look when i ordered this. not many people enjoy beef tongue. it's rather chewy.


♥ beef tartar

i think this is korean raw beef, if not wrong. mix up the yolk and thinly sliced green onion together with the beef and eat! definitely not my type of food. Jeff said it was ok but freda and i were giving him disgusted look.


♥ beef sashimi

this is 100% raw beef. i had a piece and it didnt taste like raw beef at all. nevertheless i still preferred my beef slightly cooked.


♥ beef rib rice with fluffy egg in broth

Jeff decided to have a bowl of rice towards the end. i forgot to ask him how it tasted like. we were all too busy talking and catching up.


♥ delicious looking dessert

look at our dessert! the japanese are indeed very talented in food art. one scoop of vanilla and greentea icecream served on a bed of cornflakes and decorated with vanilla wafer. on the side are fresh cream, a slice of strawberry and some soft sweet red-bean paste.

coffee jelly was also on the menu. it came in a metal cuppa, like those you would have your gelato inside. the waitress told uus the coffee jelly is 'not sweet'. she was telling the truth. it was not sweet but bitter! apart from the bitterness, the jelly dissolves right on your tongue! i would have enjoyed this jelly if not for the bitter taste!

it was an amazing night. the four of us from brunei having dinner in sydney! it is not like you get this every now and then!

uh-oh. we forgot to have mooncakes. i bought two tiny snow-skin mooncakes from chinatown before dinner. oh well. we didnt manage to go 'moon-watching' with the gloomy weather in sydney so i guess it didnt really matter if we had mooncakes or not.

jeff, freda and jasdeep:
thanks for a very enjoyable night!

if only we could do this all the time....ah well, i will just have to wait until i get back to brunei. now Jeff, you have to bring me to escapades and showed me what's so good about this new jap restuarant, okie?

suminoya
1 hosking place,
sydney nsw 2000
tel: 9231 2177
fax: 9231 211
lunch: mon-fri 12-3pm
dinner: 7days 6-10.30pm