Food: April

Where did April go? It seems to have passed faster than any of the preceding months.

My favourite meal in April was not actually captured on photo - it was when Elaine brought over a huge slab of sashimi salmon and we sliced it up and ate it with some random vegetables for dinner. So simple but totally perfect, and the leftovers made a very nice midnight - lunch on night shift.

Another pre-night shift dinner. Pork shoulder slow cooked for 10 hours in stock / paprika / brown sugar / mustard / thyme / shallots. Don't ask me where Henry got the recipe, it was so ridiculously delicious I could have eaten 3 of these.

After nights, Grace and I tried to stay awake by going to Mad Spuds cafe in Surry Hills and ordering this stack. I can't even remember what was in it, but it was quite tasty, though I think one's taste buds are ruined after a week of being awake at night and eating toast.

Then we had a second breakfast at Lumiere cafe. I think these were ricotta hotcakes with mascarpone and berries.

Baked eggs with eggplant kasundi and housemade beans at Element 6 in West Ryde. It's pretty cool how this suburban suburb got its own dose of the inner west.

Vanilla slice, prettily presented on a board at some cafe in Top Ryde.

Ippudo has been all the hype in the food blogosphere, and I've been wanting to check it out for a while. However I already have several ramen dedications (particularly Ryo's and Gumshara) and wasn't really sure if I liked the idea of paying $20 for a bowl of ramen. This was the akamaru, a tonkotsu soup with a dollop of spicy miso which lights up the soup like magic when it's stirred in. It was good, but not super-duper good - the noodles are not as fresh tasting as Ryo's and the soup is not nearly as rich as Gumshara's.

The legendary pork roll was indeed legendary, melt in the mouth grilled pork sitting inside a cute little fluffy fold with a smear of mayo and a little lettuce. A couple of mouthfuls and one wonders why there isn't a bigger one! 

A weekday dinner with Barbz at Thyme Square, our local haunt. The rest of the dinner (salt & pepper squid, steak with chips) was highly edible but nothing special. The vanilla bean pannacotta was divine though, perfect wobble and nicely offset by passionfruit.

A coconut apple slice from Sideways in Dulwich Hill.

I've said it before, but pork rolls (this one from the Ashfield pork roll shop) will definitely feature on my last supper.

Soft shell crab salad from Thairiffic  in Newtown. This place dishes out Thai which is just a notch above the average Thai joint on King St, of which there appears to be dozens. This was just the right amount of sticky with a strong sweet chilli flavour.

Apple custard brioche and sultana milk bun from Bakerie in Gordon. This newly opened artisan sourdough is a welcome addition to the dull Gordon food scene. These pastries were delightful, and I took home a loaf of green olive sourdough which I could have eaten all in one go with some cheese!

Happy birthday Eve! For such a luridly coloured cake (well, it is a first birthday..), the inside was a lusciously moist marble swirl cake.

Bar Italia = pure nostalgia. I love their "no soy, no decaf, no skim, only milk" sign.

Well well, how could a month pass by without Korean Fried Chicken? The answer is, it never does. On our last visit to Naru One I found my favourite variant of KFC - shallot flavoured! It is so mind shatteringly crispy, and the inside so tender and juicy - I could happily eat this everyday until I die of a heart attack.

Cheeseburger from Cafe Giulia. I reckon they make the bestest burgers, which is why they are always packed.
 

Finally, I have finished the last of my Ethiopian coffee. I really enjoyed the last bag of Tomoca coffee I opened, for it was much darker and earthier than the other bags. Aside from the pre-requisite punch (after all, I drink it to be alert enough to go to work), I love how aromatic the coffee is and the way it makes me want to sniffle the air long after I've finished drinking. Till the next time I get to Tomoca!

Dream: lunch at a Korean monastery

I have forgotten the beginning of this dream, which involves Grace, Sim and a baby. Well those are the trigger words I'd written down but I can't remember what actually happened so I'll skip over that part.

The first part I remember is walking down a set of very steep wooden steps. The steps were so far apart and at such an acute angle that I had to hold on tightly to the railing. Despite being very careful I kept slipping and almost fell quite a few times. Looking down made me really vertiginous, it looked as if the steps were plunging into a great big hole.

I was aware of quite a few people around me, but I didn't pay much attention to them as I was so focused on getting down these steps. Suddenly the steps stopped and there was a small platform to the side. I was relieved to get off the steps and have a rest.

The people around me were pushing me forward though, and I walked to the other side of the platform, where I saw the beginning of a trail. I followed the trail which sloped gently up the side of a hill, and folding back upon itself, I could see the horror wooden steps which I had just climbed down. At one point I could see that the steps turned into stone steps cut into the side of the hill, and I wondered whether I should have kept going.

Suddenly I was distracted by an amazing vista which presented itself out of seemingly nowhere. There was a crystal blue lagoon with incredibly clear water filled with all sorts of tropical fish. I was a fair way above the lagoon but could still see all the schools of fish swimming around the lagoon. I knew immediately in my heart that I had to go down to this lagoon and see it up close.

But I couldn't because everyone around me was still pushing me forward. A little further up, I caught a glimpse of the horizon in the distance. It looked to be across the sea, and the skyline looked like that of Auckland's, with Auckland tower the recognisable feature.

Soon I came to a wooden monastery, and I knew I was in South Korea. As I entered the temple, I came across a woman in traditional Korean dress who was walking around the grounds sounding two chimes on an old brass bell.

I went into one of the large halls, where the walls and the floors seemed to be made of solid dark teak, giving a sombre atmosphere. There were lots of tables laden with food, so much food that I wondered how many people were coming to this meal. I walked to the other end of the hall where there was a queue for the next hall across.

"This is the toilet hall." Namiko appears out of nowhere. I am glad to see her and we discuss plans to go back to our house so we can change our bags to something more comfortable. I realise that I am carrying on one shoulder a white drawstring swimming bag, which has straps so long that the bag is almost dangling at my knees.

I wander around wondering if I should eat first or join the toilet queue first. I decide to go to the toilet hall but when I get there, everyone seems to have gone. When I turn around, there are now hundreds of people in the eating hall, cramming their mouths full of food. The toilet hall is covered in thousands of muddy footprints, and I suddenly realise that there are no shoes on my feet.

Feeling somewhat disgusted at having to go into the toilet without shoes, I start to pick my way amongst the little gross puddles everywhere. All the time my eyes stray back to the eating hall where everyone seems to be having such a great time, laughing and chatting. I feel bitter that I'm stuck inside the toilet hall.

Then the lady with the brass bell comes around and sounds three chimes. The lunch hour is over and I wake up.

On a good death

So much of what we learn in medical school is about diagnosis and treatment - we learn about all these conditions so that we can recognise and fix them. When we become junior doctors we put into practice what we learn, and our ability to execute the essential "core" of medicine - diagnosis and treatment - improves.

But what about death? We learnt almost nothing about it at medical school. There was never any teaching about what happens when people die, and it was barely talked about outside the context of statistics "one in three people will die within 5 years..."  As junior doctors we are often called to certify people dead, or at times take part in people's deaths, whether they be emergency deaths or planned deaths. I don't know what it's like for other people, but those experiences for me were rather surreal. I didn't feel like I was an active participant, rather just watching the evolution of what happens to these patients.

Sometimes it felt like someone would turn a magic switch when the direction of treatment changed from active to palliative. It was go go go with all the tests and treatments, until someone said enough, let's stop. Then everyone would hold their breath while they waited for the patient to die, and it was sort of horrible. Death is horrible by nature, worsened by the pain suffered by the dying person and the anguish of those surviving. It was an uncomfortable experience.

At some point in my career, and I'm not sure exactly when that was, I realised that there was actually quite a lot we could do about death. One does not have to hold still, do nothing and wait for "nature to take its course", though of course it is difficult to change nature's course. Talking about death, early and copiously with people involved, demystifies the process and helps people to cope because they have some idea of what is to come. Death is bad enough without having to deal with the shock of the raw physical challenges of it. Being aware of all the common problems associated with death makes one better equipped to deal with them as a doctor, and being pro-active about the management of these problems actually makes a difference to the patient and their family. Even when hope is lost for the preservation of life, one can facilitate some closure for the family when the circumstances of the death are peaceful.

Finally, when there is nothing "doctorly" to do, spending time with the patient and family may be what makes more of a difference than any treatments. We may not always "care" in the traditional sense of caring for a loved one, but I believe we have a fundamental sense of "care" as human beings.

I am triggered to think about this as I've had a couple of memorable deaths this week. One was a middle aged man who had a terrible complication of the stroke treatment he had, leading to a massive bleed in the brain which made him unconscious. The other was a young woman who was dying of cancer on her birthday. In both cases I felt that time spent with the patient and family were cathartic for me and for them. I think innately we act in some way towards people because we want to be treated the same way when we are in the same situation. The humanistic qualities of a doctor are so very under-emphasised because they cannot be taught, but they are so essential. Not only do we need to provide good diagnosis and treatment, a fundamental part of our job is to provide a good death.

Food: March

Breakfast plate from Three Ropes in Parramatta - smoky sujuk sausage, roast tomato, earthy mushies and a big slab of goats cheese with toasted grainy bread. It's pretty amazing how they get all the meals out given how small the space is and how all the equipment is stacked on top of each other.

Second breakfast at Sweet Infinity Bakery - raspberry tart, chocolate eclair, brownie and mini fig tart. Everything looked delectable at this place, but it was actually a little average - I was really looking forward to the chocolate eclair, but found the puff just a little soggy. The raspberry tart turned out the best, I think.

 Home baked cinnamon scrolls - how they fill a house with warm yeasty homely smells!

Assorted glutinous rice balls - peanut, pandan with palm sugar stuffing and black sesame. It was pretty fun rolling these, but it was so easy to over-eat.

Vegetarian eggs benedict from Thyme Square in Hornsby. This was surprisingly good, the eggs perfectly runny with a good solid bearnaise sauce, and a good portion of sweet potato & roast eggplant as the meat substitute.

This was an amazing dinner from Thairiffic in Newtown, or maybe I was just good-food-deprived after a week of work. Prawn in betel leaf (left) was texturally terrific and the special duck spring roll (right) was so moreish - I could have eaten both plates by myself!

What a good looking chocolate eclair. From La Renaissance in the Rocks. 

This photo is blurry because the chicken was steaming hot - original & sweet/spicy Korean Fried chicken from Naru One. If I ever had to have a last meal it would be this.

A wagyu burger from Moo in Newtown - with caramelised onion and a chunk of brie. So messy, so delicious.

 A boat of basil at the Rozelle market!
 

 One day I realised that Haberfield is only two suburbs away, hence this ricotta cheesecake from Papa Pasticceria is really only 10min drive away. How did I take so long to find this cheesy heaven?

 Seaweed salad from Wagaya in Newtown.Well balanced with tofu and bonito.

Pork ribs from Hurricane's. I have no idea how they make these ribs so tasty..

These were so cute! From some random cafe on King St. 

Nasu dengaku from Iiza in Newtown. The eggplant has a perfect creamy texture all the way down to the skin, and the two dark/light miso marinades complement the eggplant so well. I would give up a whole year of gelato just to eat this dish.

Assorted platter from Bavarian beer cafe in Manly. The pork belly, schnitzel and red cabbage were the highlights for me.


Last but not least
A long lunch at Henry's.. (he can really cook)

 Grilled scampi marinated with lime. 

Pipis steamed in sake.

 Chinese style pork belly with extra crispy crackling.

 Crab risotto with truffled pecorino

 Almond pannacotta with candied figs and almond macaroon crumbs

路上

你喜欢  不如我喜欢
你的不满  成全我的美满

左等右等

你爱我  不如我爱你
不为谁带来什么麻烦

我悲伤  不等于你悲伤
那么简单

就把这情歌乱弹
你来听  我来唱

Two dreams: herbs for dinner, and a passage to a new world

Herbs for dinner

The dream starts with me standing in the corridor outside Henry's place. Everything looks totally normal, I knock on the door and he lets me in.

I note that there is no aroma of anything cooking in his house, which is very unusual as there is always some sort of nice food smell or other.

I sit down at the table and he brings two bowls of rice, which look ridiculously perfect - shiny, glossy plump grains of rice sit rather photogenically inside beautiful ceramic bowls glazed a rich dark brown. Strangely, the wonderful looking rice has no smell of rice at all, though there are slender tendrils of steam coming off them.

Then he brings a large claypot, which he sets in the middle of the table.

He lifts the lid off, and inside is a dark concoction of Chinese medicinal herbs. All of a sudden the smell is overwhelming, and I want to gag.

Then I wake up.


Passage to a new world
In this dream the enemy is coming. I'm not sure who or what the enemy is - perhaps they are aliens, or another country, or some sort of religious persecution. I have no idea but I know that they are on their way.

I choose to escape to the basement of my building. The carpark appears to have metamorphosised to a bomb shelter with two levels. The lower level is brightly lit and has a sensible layout of a central foyer with lots of rooms leading from all four sides. Each room contains a round table and a circle of chairs, enough for around 20 people to sit down. The upper level is a much more disorganised space, with mismatched sofas and lounges scattered about the place. It's dark and smoky, almost difficult to see to the edges of the room.

After looking at both levels, I go to the lower level and watch as people stream into different rooms. No one appears very hurried, and everyone settles down in their own space, laughing and chatting. I look in several rooms but know that it is not the right place for me.

I go to the upper level and there are perhaps 10 people in the entire room, which is a lot less than in the lower level. I sit down on a sofa and feel somewhat restless.

Then a man comes up to me and says: come, I will show you the way to the other world, but you must keep quiet.

He leads me to a narrow space between two sofas, and I can see a dark passage leading to light at the other end. I look around and realise that I can only see this passage standing in the exact spot where I am, and that it is invisible if I move just an inch to the left or right.

I follow the man along the dark passage and after what feels like an awfully long time, we emerge into a glass enclosed tunnel. All around us are trees, and it looks so strikingly different to the dark basement that I am awed by its beauty.

Here is your new home. The man says. This place is a hospital, but at least it is a beautiful one and it will be so very different to your previous life.

Geez, I think in the dream, I go all the way to a new life and I still have to work in a hospital??

Then I wake up.