Mar 2 - Panama Via The Zoo

  Tricky arrived early with my nephew to get everyone roused and ready for a trip to the zoo.  It is my nephew's birthday on Sunday and we were all free today.  While we got ready to go out, I put on Horton Hears A Who for my nephew to watch.
  Once we were all in a fit state for going out, to avoid having to pack it up and carry it, we decided to do birthday cake before heading to the zoo, so it was a slice of birthday cake for breakfast.
  We had to head in to the zoo in three cars in the end.  I needed to take mine as I was not returning home after the day's activities and Gub had to take hers because she'd left her lights on again and needing jump starting.  On the plus side, I don't think I'll ever forget how to do it again.  We got to the zoo and Bertie ended up having a little trouble with her own car so Gub and I took our nephew in to the zoo to eat some lunch.  I had a sandwich of pastrami, cheese, tomato, lettuce and mayo on rye bread.  It was simple but quite tasty and seemed to have been freshly made.
  After lunch, Bertie and Tricky were still absent, dealing with a blown tyre, so Gub and I agreed to treat our nephew to a ride on the heritage carousel (built in England in 1878).  The carousel has two types of animals, elephants and horses.  The elephants are stationery and only go around and around, the horses of course, go up and down as well as around and around.  As much as I tried to convince my nephew that the horses were therefore more fun, he was adamant about sitting in the elephant.  "No Aunty Jess, I like elephants, I have to sit in the elephant."  So the elephant it was!

  Bertie and Tricky arrived while my nephew and I were having our turn on the carousel.  He was of course delighted with this and waved enthusiastically to his parents as we passed each time.  After our ride it was straight to the playground to play on yet another elephant and it took us quite some convincing to get him interested in finally looking at some animals.
  Gub wanted to see the penguins and seals, so they were first, but straight after of course, my nephew wanted to go to... you guessed it, the elephants!  But not before we stopped to have an ice-block!  I had a Paddle Pop Cyclone.
  I will digress for a moment to let those of you who haven't found out by other means know about the something new I did last night.  I am now a red-head.  I had been thinking about trying something new for a while and had even asked if Gub or Bertie would be willing to help.  When they heard the fortune cookie message they insisted and dragged me to Woolies after dinner to get the dye.  Gub did the dye job, and Bertie assisted me with the rinse.  I swear it looked like the shower scene from psycho in my bathroom as the red dye swirled down the plug hole!
  Back to the zoo, we quickly saw the giraffes and then headed off to the elephants.  Time was running against us a bit at this point.  My nephew was already showing signs of being seriously tired. We got to see part of the elephant show from the rear side of the enclosure and the elephant was blowing water about with her trunk and she also got thrown carrots as treats which she roamed about finding.  We got to see a few of the elephant youngsters too, in the other enclosure.
  Almost immediately after the elephants, everyone bailed on me!  I had hours to go before I was due at Mr Smart's for our dinner date so I decided to stroll around the zoo on my own.  I'm very glad I did.  The others missed out on seeing the new meerkat habitat which included a group of four or five baby meerkats!  They were so cute roaming about after their elders, learning how to forage.

  It was a pretty warm day today and my sun screen was due for reapplication so rather than worry about that, I took it as my cue to head out to Mr Smart's.  Luckily these days I travel with my kindle so I knew that I would be able to entertain myself if Mr Smart was still working on his agenda.  As it turned out, I seemed to be a welcome distraction and we both read and watched a little TV before getting ready to go out for dinner.
  For dinner Mr Smart and I indulged in a special celebration dinner at Panama in Smith Street, Collingwood.  This is our last weekend of 'freedom' before I start my new role and he starts back at uni, so it seemed fitting to enjoy ourselves to the fullest.  It also helped in our restaurant choice that my work was paying; a reward for taking some initiative and saving the company some money.
  Panama is on the third story of a rather plain looking building, and there is no lift.  I thanked heavens for the two relatively recent trips up to the thousand step walks as I scaled the two flights of stairs.  I'm pleased to say that I'd recovered my breath after only thirty seconds or so!  We were seated promptly and hungrily scoured the menu.
  We started with the chicken liver parfait with truffle & port wine jelly, cornichons & toast which was lovely.  Light and fluffy parfait juxtaposed with crunchy wafers of biscuity-toast and tart corichons.  Our appetites whetted, we moved on to entrees of country style pork terrine with hazelnuts, pickled mushrooms, cornichons & grain mustard and mussel and chorizo salad with roasted capsicum, potato and dill which we shared.

  For main courses we also decided to share and we ordered the western plains pork belly with sweetcorn purée, fennel, radish and nashi pear and the slow roasted organic lamb shoulder, with Provençal vegetables and green olive & almond tapenade with sides of roasted baby carrots with hazelnuts, dill and brown butter and warm summer greens tossed in aioli.

   For me the pork belly had the balance of flavours for the dish right but regrettably (in my opinion) the pork belly itself was not cooked as well as it might've been.  The lamb was brilliantly cooked and pulled apart but I thought its accompaniments were not quite right.  The sides were completely delicious and the summer greens still had a decent amount of crunch to them.  Overall we both enjoyed every dish.

  Moving on to dessert.  Dessert was the one course in which we could not share.  Mr Smart is still not eating desserts and sugary sweet things, so alas I was left to my own devices.  I ordered the the ginger crème brûlée with peach salad and Mr Smart ordered a cocktail, the Espresso Martinez which is cold espresso with Kahlua and tequila.  Though we didn't share, I think the dessert made the meal for both of us.  The ginger crème brûlée, as Mr Smart remarked, was either going to be a triumph or a disaster.  It was a triumph thank goodness.  The chef had the balance of the ginger just right so that it did not overpower the traditional crème brûlée flavours and qualities.  It was divine.

  It was a beautiful meal, good service and the portions were well sized.  Even after essentially three and a half courses each, neither of us felt stuffed or bloated which was great.  Mr Smart even joked about grabbing a kebab at the place opposite when we went for a little walk after our meal.  We did locate Huxtaburger on our walk though, I've been wanting to try that place so it's now definitely on the list for my next burger craving!

  We returned to Mr Smart's and watched Tron Legacy in 3D before bed.  I've not seen the original Tron so I'm not really sure how it compares or ties in but it was entertaining enough.  I did like the thought though, that twenty years apart, Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner reprised their original roles.  I think it's cool when actors get on board with something like that.

  I started reading a new decluttering and living simply on a budget book.  I have a feeling that's going to very quickly become more important to me in the coming months!

  Jess