japanese
If there's one place in Sydney to go to for yakiniku (or as it's commonly referred to, Japanese BBQ), it's Rengaya in North Sydney. Having been open since 1993, it was the first authentic Japanese BBQ restaurant to open in Australia, and has since been an iconic destination for meat and seafood lovers alike.
Read More
You're sitting at a restaurant or cafe, chatting to your partner/friend/loved one sitting across from you, when a couple sits down at the table next to you. You take a quick glance at them, just to check that they're not someone you know or a C-list celebrity that you should take a smartphone pic of, and turn back to your conversation. But then you hear one of these questions being asked:
"So have you been here before?"/"Do you come here much?"
"So do you like eating <whatever cuisine or style of food the restaurant/cafe serves>?"
"So what do you do for work?"
"So how do you know <mutual friend who set them up>?"
Read More
While I was studying at uni, I was fortunate enough to be able to go on exchange for 6 months to the Copenhagen Business School (CBS), and I still look back on it as once of the best times of my life. I loved that there were 700 other exchange students that semester and that I was living in a dorm with 100 of them, meaning there was always someone up for a drink, game of poker, or a kick of the soccer ball. I loved the Danes and their little idiosyncrasies, like NEVER EVER jaywalking and always being immaculately dressed (I always got a few stares walking around the city centre in shorts and thongs... even though it was the middle of summer!). I loved how each class at uni was only 3 hours a week and it was in a block, rather than annoyingly spread out into 4 x 1-hour classes, and that you could even bring you own laptop (notes included) into exams.
Read MoreI used to work with a guy who was an absolute fitness machine. He competed in ironman competitions (that's a 4km swim, 180km bike ride and 42km run - non stop...) and 24-hour solo mountain bike races, and even fought in amateur MMA competitions. I went and watched him fight once, just after he'd grown a beard, and without his shirt on he looked exactly like Wolverine, but without having had any photoshopping (no offence Hugh Jackman, I know you're pretty ripped too!). Oh, and he was in his mid-40's.
Read MoreFrom a young age, if you're anything like me, you made lists of your favourite things in your head (and no, this isn't a The Sound of Music reference!), maybe even sorted into the order of how much you liked them. Things like your top 5 chip flavours, TV shows, and friends; and later on, your favourite actresses (not necessarily because of their acting skills...), clothing brands (essentially anything that General Pants stocked), and Hugh Grant rom-coms (About A Boy, thanks for asking). I guess when we're young, these things help us define ourselves (albeit superficially) and help us make sense of the world. Having said that, I still have a list of my top chip flavours, so I guess I haven't grown up that much yet...
Read MoreSushi train... sushi-go-round... kaiten-zushi... whatever you like to call it, we're all familiar with the wonderful concept of sitting in front of a conveyer belt, watching plates of sushi pass before our hungry eyes, and picking off the ones that look the best before someone else down the line gets a chance. If I could sit at a sushi train instead of waiting at the baggage carousel for my suitcase every time I took a flight, I'd be a happy man - it's far more delicious and much less likely to result in me having to invoke my travel insurance to buy a new pair of socks and a new toothbrush!
Read More
