Jim's Home Page

Last night, Steve put on a party for his 50th birthday. This sounds like a doddle, but bear with me as I give you some background. For a number of years, Steve lived in a place down in the industrial area in Brookvale. The place with a little house surrounded by a bunch of factories, leading to the ability to get a large PA system in and put on live music, usually done by Steve and a bunch of his muso friends.

But about six months ago, Steve had to move out of the place in Brookie. We had a last huge bash the night before, as you can probably guess.

Anyway, when the 50th was coming up, another mate of Steve and myself said to each other that there was no way he was going to get by without a party for the big five oh, and so we started researching places for him to put a do on. All this was behind his back. Unfortunately, the other mate is Steve's flatmate, and the secret didn't last too long.

Once Steve found out, he ran with it himself, and ended up inviting about 150 people to this bash which he arranged at a local pizza place that has a large function area attached.

My contribution was to do the sound for the bands on the night. We had three hot acts, all of which were great. Unfortunately, this made it a really long day for me, starting at about 3pm and finishing at 3am the next morning, but gee it was fun stuff.

A top night, which we might just have to repeat with any minor excuse.

As there are a number of things to celebrate for us in the beginning of September, we went out to dinner at Milson's Restaurant in Kirribilli. Surprisingly, we all ended up ordering the same things, which is fairly unusual,

A nice little amuse bouche was served up just after we ordered: oven dried (but not too dry!) cherry tomato, crème fraîche, with fresh thyme on a small pasty. The tomato was intense.

Entree was pork belly with braised pork cheek cannelloni with sauteed mushrooms and speck with celeriac puree. Fantastic! Especially the cannelloni, which was just a taste sensation. The belly was cooked to perfection, with the pork fat just melt in your mouth.

We followed this with the hiramasa kingfish served with mussels, asparagus, confit tomato and leeks with mussel broth. Again this was wonderful, with the broth making the dish.

And the meal ended with another nice surprise: blood orange sorbet.

I selected a bottle of 2004 sauvignon blanc semillon from Cullen's winery in Margaret River to go with, and I must admit, I think this was the meal of the year so far.

Lee Kwiez and the team over there certainly deserve their ongoing acknowlegement from the SMH Good Food Guide. Keep up the good work guys!