Cabbage flowers

1) I'm procrastinating. My LWE project was to clean up my desk and tidy up the smattering of watercolor tubes, tax receipts, half-packed gift hampers and Registration study notes. Epic fail.

2) I don't know what they're really called, but I bought them for their texture and structure. I love living near Beaufort Street...Highgate has such a wonderful selection of florists, and come to think of it, other shops too!

Ok, last post for the day. Really. Yesterday, we walked down to Northbridge for lunch. We walked from about the Inglewood Hotel all the way down to Tra Vinh, 149a Brisbane Street. My feet hurt. But, on our way home, I bought said flowers, which made me happy!

At Tra Vinh, owner had a Sunday Times "Perth top 20 eats" list stuck to the cash register, and everyone aready knows how good the food is there, so I won't go into it. As he goes to pay, my Dad says to the owner "what number are you" and the self-depracating response is a wave of the hand and "somewhere top 20 is good enough". Dad goes "but you know you are Perth's No 1 for Viethamese food", which pleased the owner no end.

I just have to say: in addition to the usual beefball / tripe pho, you have to try their special, the oxtail soup with the special egg noodles (flat, not round like Hokkien mee), and the minced pork and crabmeat one too. Bit spicy, very prawney base, add lots of mint and taugeh / beansprouts (usually this is an 'eww' food for me). Comes with two types of extra chilli (tipped all in) and black pudding, not for the faint hearted.

Also, while we were there, we nipped into Rochelle Adonis to pick up her signature chocolate thingy. Soon leaving for their other home, my Mum packed half a suitcase full of Adonis nougat; I hope it travels well! The rose petal one is particularly good. However, you MUST eat the chocolate delight (I don't know what it's really called) on the day of purchase though, it doesn't seem to keep very well.

Now, our other stop was the newly-noticed (forgot to ask if it was newly-opened?) Casa del Dolce, and what a pleasant surprise! In a previous life, we lived in Haberfield, which is Inner West Sydney. If you've been to Sydney, you know Leichhardt to be "Little Italy". I think: not true. Leichhardt is where Italians own restaurants and feed the rest of Sydney; Haberfield is where they shop. Ramsey Street is a haven of pizzerias, fresh pasta shops, continental cheese shops, delis piled high with baccala and cured meats (don't even think of just asking for 'prosciutto'...they have at least six types on any given day!), antique shops, a brilliant fruit and veg shop, and of course, Italian pastry shops. And seriously, every third shop owner was really named Mario, and if you come across a group of grandfathers on the sidewalk, watch out for the passionately flung hands and vigorous political debate! Now, Casa del Dolce was sweetly (aha sorry) reminiscent of our time living in Little Italy. We picked out what I think were ciarduna, pignoli, zeppoli and bocconcini con crema. I'm sure I routinely amused Haberfield pastry shop owners by asking to be taught how to pronounce each name. Then again, two suburbs away in Ashfield, 90% of shop signs were in Chinese, Korean or Tagalog, and hubby probably amused grocers by purchasing in a smattering of pigeon Mandarin!

I'm self-distracting! What I meant to say was, I have nothing more to add about food, but I had to share the cabbage flowers with you. Even when I buy flowers, I think of food!

Happy Foundation Day!