May 30 - The Perils of All You Can Eat

  A nice drive in to work this morning.  It's always nice from Mr Smart's side of town.  I don't leave home until 9am these days which allows me to avoid the traffic.  It still takes nearly an hour from my side of town, but only half an hour from Mr Smart's!  This morning as I travelled down Lygon Street I got stuck behind what appears to be Mercedes take on an armoured cash truck.  Seriously, that is one ugly car...

  I was quite keen to get to work today because I was getting to learn something new!  I guess we're all always learning new things, but when you've been doing the same job for many years, those 'new' things are usually quite small and insignificant.  Today's new task was in fact just a new twist on an old task too but I was excited about it nevertheless because usually only the accountants do them.  Intercompany journals!  I won't bore you with the details but they are just a slightly more complicated version of a general journal (which I do every month).

  Traffic after work, was not so nice.  I had a dinner date with Captain Cupcake in Burwood at Hollywood Buffet and it took an hour and a half of traffic hell to get there.  In 'normal' traffic, that trip should've taken me just thirty minutes.  I ended up being twenty minutes late for our booking but luckily Captain Cupcake got there on time and took our booking.
  Hollywood Buffet is an all you can eat restaurant at the Burwood One shopping complex, know to us south-eastern suburbanites as 'the 24 hour Kmart'.  I was pretty impressed at the quality of the food though.  Everything that was hot, was hot and fresh, everything was being made as it was needed and things seemed to flow around the buffet area pretty swiftly.  Even with a packed house, we were never waiting for long for anything in particular.  I would definitely go again at the right price.

  Thursday's food was:

• Breakfast was a 45g Carman's Classic fruit and nut muesli bar and a 35g Carman's dark choc, cranberry and almond muesli bar.
• Lunch was a 300g mild Indian masala dhal skinny soup with two slices of toasted Woolworths Select chia bread spread with two 17.5g portions of The Laughing Cow cheese spread.
• Dinner was at Hollywood Buffet and I will do my best to remember what everything was.  I had two rounds of main course and two rounds of dessert.  I know that seems a lot but it was all you can eat and you want to 'get your money's worth' and I did make sure to get veggies into me and was restrained compared to previous all you can eat adventures.

• Main courses - My first plate contained, fried calamari pieces, Thai fish cakes, pan-fried Basa fillet, honey soy chicken, roast potatoes, steamed vegetables with garlic and, squid with broccoli.  My second plate contained, more Thai fish cakes, pan fried tofu, seaweed salad, assorted sushi, green apple salad, more pen-friend Basa fillets and, a little dish of sushi salad.

• Desserts - My first plate contained, a little dish of profiteroles, two nutty slice things, an apple crumble square, two pieces of German cheesecake, one piece of brownie, one piece of Sacher torte and one piece of American cheesecake.  All the pieces were pretty small, that's a bread plate size.  My second plate contained, a piece of apple mousse, a palmier, two more pieces of the nutty slice thing, a piece of walnut brownie, a piece of black forest-type thing, apple strudel, two pieces of lemon cheesecake and whatever the thing in the middle with fruit on top is.

  It was good to see Captain Cupcake looking better.  The poor thing was quite sick last week and had only just recovered in time to make our dinner date.  We had a good chat over dinner, talking about life, the universe and how much we both despise anti-vacciners.  Captain Cupcake works with kids and her knowledge of the subject is quite extensive.  It was good to catch up and we managed to make tentative plans for our next trip to The Astor, so despite the traffic hell, the trip was well worth it.
  Jess