Adelaide Through The Eyes Of A Rockstar – Eating at the White House, Adelaide Zoo and various capalang before we come home

The following are my capalang bits and pieces notes from the rest of the trip, sorry if it doesn’t tie together well, you’ll see a bit of why when I’m done getting this one down and can blog about our arrival home 🙂 

I egg all the time, it is my comfort food when I don’t have enough sleep, and I can eat many, many in a week. My mum had 6 a day on top of her regular meals when she was pregnant with me. You would’ve thought that would make me sick of eggs, but no I love my eggs.

And then we went to The White House. The people at The White House are nice, they explain the differences between the wines of this “cooler” region and those of warmer areas, chat to Rockstar… They even have hardboiled eggs in those little egg cups, Rockstar’s favorite. So then we return for a second breakfast of awesome scrambled eggs, (fried, in Kings’ case), giant mushrooms, grilled tomatoes with basil…

Inside The White House:

Eros Kafe was another one we went back to – technically we ate there three times, once at the nice Eros restaurant next door to the cafe, and twice at the cafe for brunch. I learn what “green” eggs are – a scramble with Basil, served with shaved ham and mushrooms. And the “Kaiyana” eggs are traditional scrambled eggs cooked with tomato sauce and feta, served with spinach.

On the table at Bracegirdles House Of Fine Chocolate where we have brunch is a schedule for

1) Chocolate Appreciation with award winning chocolatiers
2) Wine and Chocolate pairings
3) Beer and Chocolate pairings

YUM! I’ve just started to like an occasional beer. Too bad I can’t make any of the dates.

“I don’t like. Too sweet.” Erm, Rockstar’s right, in the sense that the pot of molten chocolate that has come with his waffle tastes like melted Cadbury milk chocolate, the very sweet kind which seems to be all-sugar-little-cocoa. (Though… sometimes we do like that…)

The table next to ours with an adorable baby smiles indulgently at Rockstar’s iPading. When they leave, I happen to glance at their table. They ordered the same waffles we did for Rockstar (which he rejected after having a lot of fun drizzling chocolate over it and took over my whole-grain toast which I then buttered liberally for him – I “had” to eat the waffle). Rockstar’s plate is a large puddle of melted leftover ice cream and chocolate-drizzled waffle (he deigned to eat the half of the waffle without any chocolate on it). The plate at the newly-vacated table is empty- save for a pile of untouched strawberries.

(Come to think of it, in general there’s a bit of difference in snack preferences, Rockstar comes home from school back in HK saying there are kids with Kiwi fruit at break time can he get some too (I haven’t let him pack fresh fruit to school because of summer and my worrying it might spoil), and I’ve met mums who allow their kids zero candy out of Halloween goodie bags… Sometimes I felt guilty even in our church baby room, when a mum opens a flask of porridge that is just totally green (our pediatrician used to recommend 50% veg for under-2 Rockstar), and mums exclaim things like “WHO gave you a breadstick?”

Here it’s a lot more laid back, we got recommended chocolate truffles and cakes for a Rockstar snack by wait staff… Doesn’t matter that much to Rockstar, though he gets curious he doesn’t usually get hooked, but I was just thinking it must be harder to encourage a fruit-and-veg habit where there are a lot more sweets everywhere, a lot more people bake, or more kids going to school with your kid might not eat veggies…)

Handed Rockstar the cookie above, sprinkle-free end first (one can hope, right?) then when he came to the fruit gum he stopped, saying he didn’t like it and I dumped the rest… And THEN we could feed him dinner :P:P They should NOT put jars of these things at the entrances to restaurants, and this was not the only one either.

From scary smiling cookie faces to panda bears…

At some point, we also visit the Adelaide Zoo. I know, already did an animal post, but I do love animals. The first thing I ever wanted to be was a vet (this should not come as a surprise, what with my hamster posts.) What was interesting however was that none of us could name the wide-eyed creature sitting on its haunches perched on a branch and were looking for the board with a matching picture of it when two tiny little girls about Rockstar’s size (he of the lowest 3% of boy population for height) dance up to the enclosure and chirp, “Meerkat!” Uh, what the hell is a Meerkat? It looks like a ferret. There go the vet aspirations.

That was an epiphany – walking JD along the Peak and various other dog trails in Hong Kong, we often come across local kids who have no idea how to act around her. From stomping feet to shrieking in terror to running away (which is exactly how most dogs would end up chasing them – but JD tends to herd only 4-legged creatures anyways, not upright ones haha) to barking at her. (Ok, some grownups too. Well, actually they also bark at me. JD is right at the cutoff definition for large dogs in HK (17kg) that require leashing, but I keep thinking You Know, If I Have A Small Child Hanging Around The Dog You Might Infer Maybe She Is Not A Vicious Killer?)

The biggest crowd by far (why’m I not surprised?) is by the pandas Wang Wang and Funi. No one cares nearly as much about the kangaroos (except us) haha. There was a totally separate panda-themed gift shop, a little garden with statues depicting pandas in varying stages of growth. It seemed like you could get up to them a little closer in this zoo than I remember at Ocean Park… Maybe because there used to be a Panda Channel where you could watch the footage of the close-circuit cameras in the enclosures live on Now TV so…..

Then back to our rented apartment to pack and fly home in the morning… We had dinner two nights at Red Salt Restaurant And Bar (doesn’t seem to have a website) at Crowne Plaza hotel next door… Love the place we rented, it’s a fairly nice yuppie apartment – didn’t love the used condom we found stuck in the toilet but got used to it being there after a couple nights. Kind of. I took a picture. But I will spare you.

Good bye, Adelaide. Muah.