Monday 19 January 2009

Its all Greek to me...


Last Saturday night was the night we were to have attended Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical. We had received our tickets but were sent refunds when the show closed earlier than scheduled just before Christmas.

Fs still had her air tickets for Sydney for the weekend and flew up for a bit of R&R and shopping instead. I caught up with her on the Saturday afternoon and we went to the movies to see I've Loved You So Long which I will post about separately. We met up at Dendy Opera Quays which has a great location for a visitor to the Sydney who is going to spend time at the movies. The backdrop of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, the milling crowds and imaginative buskers late on a sunny Saturday afternoon constitute a minor tourist experience all of their own.

As we made our way around the Quay after the movie I heard my name being called. Amongst all those crowds were Ly and Mt with whom I worked for years prior to our respective retirements. They had just completed a sunset Harbour dinner cruise, a Christmas gift from their sons, and were waiting to meet up with the boys. As it was only 6.45pm and with still more than an hour of daylight to go I thought it odd that they had already completed a 'sunset' activity and their dinner too. They didn't seem to mind; a sign of our age group I suppose.

We chatted a while and then Fs and I caught a bus downtown to have dinner at Diethnes, a Greek restaurant as old as I am. Fs had a posting to Athens a few years back and was keen to have a Greek meal so this old warhorse located reasonably close to where she was staying at the Haymarket seemed a good idea. I hadn't been to Diethnes for at least fifteen years and that last visit was probably at least fifteen years after my previous visit.

It is not bad value. A lot of the mains are less than $20. The servings are hearty and the service is speedy and fairly attentive. After a lot of umming and ahhing about what to order we settled on sharing a Mixed Dip for starters and then each ordered the Diethnes Special, which was lamb with a selection of their savoury mains.

This meal, just twenty four hours after Dear Doctor had instructed me to watch my diet and exclude almost every tasty food I love was perhaps not such a good idea. The lamb was tender and the savoury selection enjoyable but overall the meal was much more than I should have attempted to eat. I could feel the meal sitting in my stomach as we chatted at the table and I worried that I might stop breathing at any moment.

Rather than disgrace myself by falling ill at the restaurant I suggested to Fs that I walk her back to her hotel without delay. This would help me digest all that food sitting in my stomach and recover some sense of well being.

I have Afod's exhortation to eat smaller portions ringing in my ears even as I type.

3 comments:

  1. Eating out doesn't count when following a new lifestyle plan - unless of course you eat out at every meal!

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  2. Trouble is I think, when you eat smaller portions, you eat more often.

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  3. I like Ben's thnking that as long as you don't eat out every meal. And the subsequent walk surely helps.

    Sounds like a "second meal" may have been in store for a later date if you asked for a doggie bag. ;-)

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