1945

For our two year anniversary Nugen and I went to 1945 - a Dutch East Indies (aka Indonesian) restaurant. Having never tasted Indonesian food before, we were both very excited.

(Photo courtesy of 1945 Facebook Page) 

I'm instantly impressed. The restaurant itself is very colonial and it feels like you've stepped into a warm, stylish home. Everything about this place is unique and classic - the food is served in small straw baskets and the chopsticks rest on smooth stones engraved with the restaurant's name (which I'm tempted to steal but don't).

The menu is vast and somewhat overwhelming for first-timers like ourselves but the waitress is very helpful and recommends ordering at least 5 dishes per person. The servings are the size of tapas so the idea is to order a few things to share.

The highlights were the deep fried marinated chicken wing in caramelised cashew sauce; savoury grilled prawn basted with spice-infused coconut milk and sweet soy sauce; and grilled marinated beef ribs drizzled with fried garlic oil and served with shrimp paste chili sauce. However, because the flavours of these faves had a similar sweet soy taste to them, dishes like the traditional Indonesian chicken soup and deep fried eggplant were refreshing for the palette.

Don't order the ox tail - Nugen got weirded out by it after one bite and it's way too fatty for my liking (and I like my fat). However, do order the Es Tjintjao (grassjelly drink with pandan flavoured fresh milk and palm sugar). This drink is AWESOME. It's quite sweet so it's not really one that you have with the meal; it's more like a dessert drink so it's probably best to order it after the meal. It's got a really strong pandan flavour and it tastes like the milk from Nutrigrain cereal (an odd description but also very accurate).

(Apologies for poor quality Iphone photo. Also, these were obviously not all the dishes. Clockwise from right: eggplant, corn fritters, chicken wings, chicken soup, beef stew, prawn) 

I'll definitely be back to try the other dishes and will probably opt for the set menu to get a taste of the restaurant's recommended selection.

Roc Nation Aviators

I love my bling headphones.

Got Nugen's sister to buy them in New York for me. They're part of Skullcandy's limited edition. I prefer these because I think the standard Skullcandy headphones can look cheap and tacky.

The headphones themselves are made of polycarbonate, with plush memory foam ear cushions, and the cable is encased in cotton material to prevent any possible breakage. It also comes in a fake leather case. The sound is also awesome.

Win for me.

Woah.

I need to work out more.

I like Time Out.

Yes, it has been a while since I've been blogging but I'd like to think that I have a few good excuses. And if my absence does not exemplify my laziness, this post will as it simply consists of me copying and pasting links to my Time Out articles (I hope there are no legal issues involved).

This blog is becoming such a mess but I've always wanted to create a blog that organises my samples of writing. And seeing as the theme of this blog is about things I've wanted to do I guess this post is not completely irrelevant.

I searched for my name on Google to find old links to my Time Out articles (I swear I wasn't just being self-obsessed) and came across this recent review of mine for Trash Humpers by Harmony Korine and found myself on Rotten Tomatoes. Not that it's a major goal of mine to get onto RT but I did find it pretty cool. I'm finally semi-legit. Here is my original. NB. I did not give it three stars.

After going through Google I realised that Time Out has an internal search engine. Doh...

Here is my interview with Anthony Fabian for Skin.

My write-up for the Italian Film Festival

My piece for Latin-American Film Festival.

My review of Wil Anderson's comedy show.

My piece on Young Blood Designer Markets.

That's all I've got. For now.