Categories: uncategorized
Date: 14 January 2006 11:52:37
I had a wonderful dinner with Singing Semele and her boyfriend at Thai Pothong restaurant in Newtown tonight.
Briefly, Newtown is a rather interesting inner-city suburb. It was originally a reasonably prosperous suburb, and there are a number of stunning Victorian mansions still around that signify this; in the early 20th century, as people moved out to newers suburbs, it gradually became working-class. After the Second World War many European migrants moved in, and in the 1970s students from the nearby University of Sydney moved in, giving it a very bohemian atmosphere, which it retains to this day -- though I see some form of gentrification at work as with many inner-city suburbs. Newtown has a large gay and lesbian population and the tolerant atmosphere has also attracted a number of other cultural subgroups such as Goths: a few of which I saw tonight. Sydney's Anglican Theological College, Moore, is also located in Newtown.
But on to seeing Semele and dinner. It was wonderful to see Semele and her boyfriend again: I saw them laden with shopping bags from their various expeditions around Sydney. And a wonderful surprise: Semele had bought me a lovely icon: apparently the Greek Orthodox Church in Newtown was selling them out the front! [On the topic of churches, the Anglican parish of St Stephen's (next to a large graveyard), only a few blocks away from King Street, the main street, is a beautiful (and large) church and walking past you feel as if you are miles away. Unfortunately I couldn't find a website or pictures to show you.]
Dinner at Thai Pothong restaurant in Newtown was fantastic. It is a huge restaurant, and there was barely a spare table to be found. They also have various items for sale, a kind of shop within a restaurant (and the art on the wall is for sale as well -- Semele was rather taken with a carved piece of wood depicting elephants -- a steal at $700).
We started off with drinks, and Semele and I scored rather well with the coconut juice. It came in a coconut. We spent most of time scraping off the coconut from the inside afterwards. For our entrées (starters for our American friends) we got a mix of Satay Chicken, Fish Cakes, Spring Rolls and Vegetable Curry Puffs. Mains (entrées for our American friends: the French must be screaming at your abuse of their language! ;-)) were Steamed Mixed Seafood ("one of our most popular and exciting dishes"), served flambé; Pad Thai; and Stir-Fried Chicken and Cashew Nuts. Absolutely delicious.
Despite the sheer size of the place, and its busy-ness, the staff were very on the ball and couldn't do enough to help you. Water was poured and refilled whenever it got low; Semele had placed her napkin on the plate after the entrée, and straight after they took it away they were back with a new one; and one of the staff in particular, a young man, was very friendly and engaged us in conversation.
After our dinner, we all needed a good walk so we walked down King Street. We reached a Gelato place where we indulged (I had cardamom gelato...mmmm), and enjoyed it on a bench outside while the rain gently sprinkled down. As we finished the rain got heavier, so we got up and called it a night.
A wonderful meal; wonderful dessert; wonderful to see Semele and her boyfriend again. A fantastic evening.