Sim's Birthday

It would be such a shame to catch up on the blog without writing about the joyous occasion that was Simon's 24th birthday! Yes, that's right folks, right here in Taipei City, our young Sim took another step further into his young adulthood - more than enough cause to celebrate.

Since we were both booked in to work last Thursday night, we decided to begin the celebration early on the Wednesday evening. My favourite blog, "A Hungry Girl's Guide to Taipei" (http://hungrygirlintaipei.blogspot.com) recommends a number of restaurants in the city for any style of cuisine or budget. After perusing some of the options, we decided to visit a little place called 'Sababa', Taipei's only hand-rolled pita bakery, serving Moroccan/Iranian-style dishes. Honestly speaking, we both can't tell you enough how absolutely amazing the dishes were! Sim ordered a plate of dips and bread with Moroccan-style chicken, and I the vegetarian version with falafel. The dips were presented beautifully, all freshly made, with hints of coriander and cumin, encircled with fresh pesto, with just enough diced cucumber and fresh tomato to give it extra texture. And to top it off, the softest and freshest pita I can say I've ever eaten! Sim thought the chicken was tender and cooked to perfection... Washed down with a couple of bottles of San Miguel... top stuff. All in a Moroccan style setting, not bad your local foodie alley in downtown Taipei. So decent prices, and no 'wankiness' about the place, all good for what we were after.

The only let-downs, I would say, would be the service (though a slow evening, you need to order across the bar, really unneccessary considering the size of the place) and that there was no baklava or desserts. Now, how you would manage to serve baklava in Taipei I have no idea, but nonetheless.. :)

So, enough of the foodie rant. From there we decided a couple of glasses of Australian wine were most definitely in order, since we haven't had a drop since we left Oz. So, we headed out to a place called 'Carnegie's', which was basically a Hard Rock Cafe-style place, just more escorts. :) Either way, we had a great time sipping Lindeman's Chardonnay and Jacob's Creek Cab Savs, and later, Happy Hour cocktails. It was great.

Well, I must run - Sim has just come home from work and looks pretty ill. This might be our first bout of food poisoning... Write more soon. x