Recentish stuff …

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Seen

• Micmacs – interesting, quirky
• Welcome – depressing, no punches pulled
• Agora – underrated and underexposed, a little loose in its historic portrayal
• Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky – intense, lavish and introspective
• 2012 – lol
• Iron Man 2 – hell yeah
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – brutal, great cinematography, intriguing, too many endings?

Dined

• Thai Country, Holland Park – awesome food (pumpkin curry, thai green curry with king prawns), average service, food makes it all worthwhile
• Treacle, The Grange – always a pleasure
• Asian Fusion, Fortitude Valley – red curry, a bit salty
• Wah, City – great food (thin-sliced pork & kim chi, kim chi pancakes), a little stuffy, service is ok
• Hien Vuong, Sunnybank – hellz yea – crispy skin chicken in glass noodle soup, combination spring rolls, pork & chicken with rice vermicelli – can get a bit crowded, service without a smile

Cooked

• Signature Roast Pumpkin & Salad with baby spinach, green olives and fetta-stuffed peppers
• Some concoction with kim chi, chicken dumplings and rice vermicelli stir-fried in sesame oil.  Needs refinement.

While the weather’s been gloomy this weekend, I managed to have a great one anyway hanging out with Michelle and going to a few different places.

Saturday morning I popped into Photo Continental to have a 20×24 print made of Dove Lake and Cradle Peak, and investigate their range of pre-made frames.  I then caught up with Michelle at Garden City and we had some lunch, before heading into the city to take some photos at St. Andrew’s Uniting Church.  On the way, we popped into an alley in the CBD, where I shot the following 360 degree stiched panorama, which I call “Factory Fresh Coffee”!

We then made our way to St. Andrew’s, where a wedding had taken place and guests were clearing out.  We met Rev. Ray Hermann and got the okay to start photographing, but our time was a bit limited.  I managed to get 5 of the stained glass windows, and hope to head back for some more expressive architectural shots at a later point.

The following is a combined image portraying the 5 stained glass windows I shot.  Each of the stained glass windows was combined from 3 images, and each image was combined from 3 bracketed exposures.

After a bit of window shopping we were famished so made our way out to Underwood and had a steamboat dinner at Antarctic Circle. The service was fast, and the food was great.

Sunday we met up for lunch again, and went to Treacle, a favourite of mine.  One of the daily specials was Zucchini Flowers stuffed with seafood mousse, which I went for without hesitation.  We then went to Newstead House which neither of us had been to before.   It was quite interesting, especially the “Rum Warmer modeled after an early steam train”.  To cap off the day we had a quick browse at Wray Organic at Newmarket, where I picked up some chai tea, cacao powder and a Mangosteen, as I had never tried one!  I totally recommend them.

After I got home I managed to formulate a spiced chai mocha but combining 1.5 tsp of chai tea with my normal measure of ground coffee and pouring an espresso shot from that mix.  I combined that with 2 tsp cacao powder, 2 tsp demerara sugar and the stretched milk.  Awesome!

All in all, a really great weekend