Monday night dinner with Damien (3rd November 2008)

Woke up feeling bodily aches today. Must be all the moving and furniture fixing over the weekend. I SO need a massage right now, and possibly another weekend to rest. Haven't been back at the gym or swimming since I returned from Rarotonga either. Slacker!

I'm still getting my bearings around my flat but I can tell you so far, I'm loving it! Haven't thought of my old apartment once since my move, which was quite a surprise to me :) One thing I'm definitely not used to is having Flick around - I don't understand the cat signs and meowing. I can't help but wonder at times if Flick was just tricking me into opening and closing the door...hmm, cats...they are temperamental and hard to figure out...

Haha, and you wouldn't believe this but it now only takes me 5 minutes to get to work - 5 MINUTES...ON FOOT! And in heels!!

Caught up with Damien for dinner this evening. He wanted to come check out my new place before dinner so I had to rush home to clean up the rest of my stuff that was covering the floor in my room. Argh - messy! But hey, my room looks very neat now :) I was planning to clear up floor space in my room over the week but did it in under 2 hours instead! Photos of my now presentable room:

We had previously planned to check out this new Caribbean restaurant, Calypso Cafe, located on Taranaki Street but only found it was closed on Mondays when we got there. Oh well, we'll have to come back another time...Instead, we ended up in Piccolo Restaurant on Vivian Street, just across Calypso Cafe for dinner. Quite a change in tastebud, Damien! From Caribbean to Italian :) Oh, but this little Italian place served really nice food. I've walked past it almost every working day for the last year yet I've never stepped in for a meal. It was great that we ended up having dinner there - another tick on my list of first-time experiences. I guess you wouldn't know it was restaurant until you take a really good look at the small Italian flag outside - it was one of those 'hidden' restaurants in town.

We were looking at the menu when the waiter came to take our drinks order and I was paying attention to what he was saying but not to my menu, which caught on fire! Oh my god, I was SO embarrassed!! Just dig me a hole and cover me up! Luckily only a small bit of it was burnt. Opsie..sorry...oh, but the sheer embarrassment - I'm still feeling embarrassed talking about it now! Funny at the same time :)

We started off with an entree of Pane con olio (dipping bread with tomato pesto and olive oil) with Italian house red wine. Hmm, the warm bread in a liquid dip...delizioso! Our mains were both penne pasta from the specials board - Damien had the venison sausages in spinach cream sauce while I had the vegetarian basil pesto sauce penne, served with a plate of garden salad and olives to share. Both our mains were lovely and of course, we had to try each others' (but I like mine better!). Oh, so full! Stayed on and chatted for a bit to give our tummies some space to put in a dessert...hehe...Damien was sitting facing the dessert board the whole night and probably thinking of dessert even before he ordered his main :P We had the Sorbetto al Limone (Lemon Sorbet) to share - quite a kick as it was rather lemony/sour but still nice.

No, Damien, this is my shout this time - you paid for the last dinner! For the amount of food we had, it cost me $78 which I thought was quite reasonable. Definitely recommended and would love to come back again for dinner, just no more burning of the menu next time :)

We left the place around 9pm and walked back to my flat for a cup of tea. The weather was getting cold (or was it just me, because Damien was wearing open-toe footwear and in board shorts?). Brr, I need to warm up! Chit-chatted more over tea (I need to get those Bollywood movies that Damien played extra in!) and he left around 10pm. It was a nice way to spend Monday evening in good company - I'm looking forward to our next eating adventure, Damien!