It’s 3am and I’m lying on the sofa of Kev’s living room glaring at the large HD TV. I have a mouse in my hand that’s rigged up to Lindsey’s laptop, attached to the TV and we’re browsing the website for Yo sushi, and for the hundredth time I flick through the pages of the online flash menu - still confused and as indecisive as ever (yet still secretly giddy at the sheer coolness and well builtness of the flash menu).

You would think that picking six dishes to eat out of a menu would be easy, hell I thought it would be easy, but alas that was not to be the case… While starting the task thinking it would only last half an hour tops, I found myself caught up in the muddle and frustration of trying to form the perfect combo.

Kev chuckles for a moment and says

“I bet this is all going to go in your blog!”

Of course Kev, how was I not going to neglect our fun nocturnal rainbow combo menu sorting at 3am in the morning? I wanted to tell Kev off or something for his remark, but I didn’t - only because he was right, I was going to blog about it all. So ner.

Bob began planning to go see Alice a little after the whole Muse at Wembley weekend, and I suggested that if it was cool I would probably head up too and we could make a weekend of it. Since well me and Bob had bingo vouchers to use (Free Panini and drink ohh yeahhhh!) and therefore it seemed like a good idea. Bob and Alice were up for it but I was then stuck with a slight problem, I needed somewhere to stay…the only people I could think of were Gem and Kev. There was this whole hiccup about neither of them letting me stay, only because Bob had asked them for me before I had had the chance to, though turned out it was probably cool for me to stay at Kev’s the Saturday night anyhow

Bob arranged the trip so that he would be heading up to Leeds the day after his final year degree results came out! So it was a bit of an awkward timing and all, but if he was successful with getting his first then we would probably go celebrate in styllee! With some godly godly food.

It so turned out that Bob didn’t get the three As he’d wanted - gasp! nah, instead he got 5! Jammy bastard ha. But yeah he tried to pull this “I didn’t get the three As” stunt on everyone, though I had this sneaky suspicion that because of the way it was worded, Bob was pulling everyone’s leg and he had in fact got more than 3As heh. It was funny because Bob rang me a bit worried that I was upset for him or something to just let me know he was only joking hehe. But yes, he got his First! And he got it in stylee! Yay!

We arranged to go for a sushi lunch to celebrate in Little Tokyo on the Saturday, hoping it would cheaper having it as lunch, but it wasn’t mergh, but still I was glad we were going there as I’d eaten there before and it’s mm very tasty tasty.

So Saturday finally came around and I drove up without a problem and met Alice and Bob at the train station. Though I ended up having to wait for them a bit as just as when I called they had literately just gotten drinks at Nero! Grr. I told them to hurry and I pulled up into the short stay parking, trying to be a sneaky as possible to avoid having to pay. My sneakiness didn’t work though, because there were wardens about as it was a busy Saturday - this guy came over and I tried blagging it saying I was waiting for some friends who said they were on there way now. He told me that I could wait for about 5 minutes but next time he came back I would have to pay.

Shit I thought, so I rang Bob to express the emergency of the situation but fortunately after about a minute or so they turned up and I waved them over to my car. They were cluttered with loads of stuff, two, not one, but TWO boxes of krispy kremes and millies cookies 0_o I knew Bob was bringing some Krispy Kremes up but wasn’t expecting him to go all out and bring two giant boxes.

Bob declares happily that sorry they were late but Alice had brought a hot drink, well Bob mainly drank it and that they were also too busy making out (ha). Anyhow, I went to go park at the usual spot in the uni and we walked into town to Little Tokyo.

Meal Number one - Bob’s Celebration Meal at Little Tokyo

At little Tokyo we stared for the menu at bit, not really sure what to go for. Faced with scary prices and all we ordered some green tea to get us going (thankfully that was free), I did ask for a pot but they wouldn’t let us have one :( Ah well.

We pondered over what to get and I settled on a big nigiri sushi set with some vegetable tempura, hell it was going to be pricey but it would be worth it..I hoped, still a little anxious that the food wouldn’t brilliant or something. Bob went for a battered prawn bento box (which really was just prawn tempura) and Alice had a small maki rolls and small nigiri set. We also got an assorted starter to share between the three of us.

So made our orders, chatted, got out the cameras and all that usual milark, made a few jokes about the food on the menu - like one thing called the Lobster pot which cost about 50 quid and I coined as “Gem’s worse nightmare” what with it containing a stupid amount of seafood and lobster…

Then the food began to arrive and I suddenly forgot about the price and feasted my eyes on the godly starter before us.

Mmm it looks very damn tasty and it indeed was, though we did have the slight problem that the starter was catered on the two rather than three…so there was either two of everything or four or everything and well you get the idea.

Though we dealt with the hard sharing situation without too much problem, I think I pretty much got to try everything by using the system of taking a bite/eating half of one thing and then passing it on to Bob to finish ha. I then claimed a few whole things to myself mainly the tasty tasty dumpling and a rib (though the rib wasn’t that nice). Anyhow I rated the starters pretty tasty tasty, especially the weird coated seaweed thingys…

We demolished that lot and I was getting worried I would be too full for the rest of my meal, but then again in my mind I envisioned a small dish with all my sushi lined up with another small dish with a few battered vegetables sat in it. So already in my head I had thought volume wise it wouldn’t be that much food at all…

Then it all arrived.

Bob’s Food:

Bob’s bento box wasn’t that massive at first, but then when you broke it down and saw actually how much food there was in each bit it did actually work out as quite a lot. The prawns were a damn impressive sight I must say, we did a swapsies of sushi and a battered prawn so I could try one, and jesus christ these babies were really meaty! Usually when you get battered prawns they’re mainly batter but on this rare occasion I think you had more meat than batter. Good shit.

Alice’s Food:

Alice’s meal was a lot lighter and probably what I should have went for as lunch. Her two sushi sets arrived spaced out and well presented on a two separate nice wooden tray thingys. One being a six piece vegetable deal and the other a six piece nigiri set - tasty. Her food looked minimal compared to mine and Bob’s though it was spread out across two trays. She enjoyed it though the prawn nigiri’s tail scared her and so did one nigiri that Bob said was eel…

My Food:

Oh dear god, what possessed me to have not only a twelve piece sushi set andddd tempura is beyond me. But when both dished turned up I began to seriously regret having eyes bigger than my stomach, or head, or something…

My sushi set arrived within large circular serving dish arranged beautifully with a tiny dish of soya sauce and a cube of wasabi. Then there was this long dish with shit loads of tempura! Ah shit…I wasn’t expecting that much and I knew that I would get no help from Bob as he was already tackling his meaty prawn box.

Anyhow I started to tackle the hoard of food before me, the sushi was as delicious as I had remembered it, soft and gorgeous, the makis were also very nice though I had absolutely no idea what sort they were…same went for the fish on the nigiris too I guess, I mean I only knew prawn, tuna and salmon. I also had fun at “guess the vegetable” with the tempura, a game I also remember playing last time I was there.

It turned out Alice got a bit freaked out by the possibility of eel sitting on a piece of rice in front of her, and was somewhat put off by eating it. Bob and me encouraged her to eat it, saying that it was just like any other fish she’d tried and in the end we agreed that she would eat it at the same time as I ate mine. After much delaying we finally got round to chomping on it, and to my surprise (and probably Alice’s relief) we discovered on the eating of it that it didn’t taste like eel. It tasted more like smoked fish. Ha! After all that fuss it wasn’t even eel!

Bob still insisted that it was though both me and Alice knew that it couldn’t have been, we concluded it tasted more like smoked haddock or something…

So yes was a very very good meal in the end despite the price we paid, was tasty and I was stuffed to the point of urgh and I left some tempura (no surprises there).

We finished the meal with a dessert of DS action, more green tea and me ringing Kev to see when he was going to come meet us for bingo.

Dessert:

We debated what to do next and I also realised at this point that I didn’t have my bingo dabber with me :( so thought I could hunt down a cheapo store to get some. We set off from the restaurant without much of a plan until we decided to go drop by where Katie worked since I hadn’t met her before in the beads shop.

After drifting about outside we finally went in and I was a bit unsure what Katie looked like, though Bob seemed to have a better idea than me but was unwilling to make the first move. We stood about starring at the zillions of beads before us, I think Alice got excited by all the pwetty pwetty colours hehe. So erm yeah to stop looking like daft pricks Bob randomly declared he wanted to make a bumble bee bracelet, so we set about counting out an equal number of black and yellow beads for this venture. We collected forty all together and then set about getting some cord, we left Alice to be served and sort that out.

By now we still hadn’t said a peep to Katie, or the person who we thought was Katie, and she hadn’t twigged us either. Though to be fair I doubt she would recognise us unless we had came in with Kev or even Gem. So yeah we had paid up and was about to leave and she was at the window tidying or something, and I thought okay now or never sod it. I interrupted her and asked if she was Katie. She said she was (phew) and then I said don’t you recognise us? She looked at me with a look that was filled with a genuine sense of puzzlement and probably the starting pangs of becoming freaked out.

So I thought I should nip it at the bud, fortunately by now she figured out we were musers, so I told her who we were. And the first thing she did was throw herself at me and give me a squeezy hug 0_o Then gave others a hug and she told me how she was freaked out and thought she was being stalked or something haha.

So yeah we chatted for a bit and then hid in Starbucks somewhat why Alice and Bob got bracelet making. It turned out they had enough stuff to make two so they set about threading the beads and tweaking knots and all till finally we had two lovely black and yellow bracelets.

Then we drank drinks and ate Krispy Kremes and took photos of stuff and each other and all that. Speaking of Krispy Kremes when we settled down in our seats some guy spotted Bob was carting these giant boxes of them, and he got excited asking where he had got them from. Bob replies by asking him if he wanted one, and that they could be his for two quid each haha. Paul and Gem arrived not too long after, we spotted them walking through the walkway beneath us and we attacked them with our cameras haha. They met up with us and we did some chatting and more photo taking and basically lounging about some and killing the time.

Here is a photo of greedy Alice:

We did quite a bit of photo taking actually which I guess was expected what with there being me, Bob and Alice there. Though Gem also managed to get in on the action too by having her own “muser tribute” shot…

Gem’s Muser tribute:

Bless, I think she’s trying to tell us something.

Eventually we decided to head off and drift slowly towards bingo realm for some intense bingo action with free food and drink (well for me and Bob at least anyway). Though on the way we stopped by Katie’s work again so that we could offer her a krispy kreme but in the end she settled on stealing a Millies cookie. She got quite excited about it and it amused me that a co worker of hers noticed the giant Krispy Kreme box and asked Bob if he’d got it from Leeds or not ha.

Katie and a cookie:

We also stopped by WH Smiths to lurk about and get drinks, and then we hung about outside munching on doughnuts (I think I consumed about a month’s quota worth of them that weekend) . We then get accosted by some Gouranga monks, well I didn’t really know much about them but Gem was quite a fan of them. Turns out she loves going up and chatting to them and finding out what fun free things they have to offer in exchange for a small donation of money. Gem ran up to go chat to one of them for a bit while we sat about doing more doughnut eating.

Gem and a monk:

Now the only reference to Gouranga I know is the gaming one, in GTA there’s a bit where if you run over everyone then it comes up with the GOURANGA message or something. So anyway, according the Gem she explained that Gouranga was a word that you say that would leave you feeling happy. It…sounds most bizarre but it’s as simple as that.

So Gem went to talk to them for a bit before someone came over and started asking us for donations, then you find yourself in this awkward position where you’re very poor so in your head every little saved counts, but you also feel like a right bastard for not offering anything and it’s kinda frustrating because you really wish you could be in the position to help. Though fortunately Paul helped me a little here and directed attention from people who were poor and donated something which was enough for the guy. In return the monk gave Paul this unusual looking book, I think it was some strange spiritual self-mentoring thing, not sure.

Meal Number two - Mecca Bingo’s FREE PANINI!

We made it to bingo soon after that, and had arranged to meet Kev and Lindsey there. Me, Paul and Gem waited outside while Bob and Alice when to go sign up for membership, Bob having learnt his lesson from last time (andd wanting more vouchers) went to reregister but in his real name this time (so you know, if he did win the nationals he could claim it himself and all - heh). Eventually Kev and Lindsey turn up, I spot them a mile away across the road and up the street and I get ready to snap snap with the camera heh.

Kev’s chucking something at me :(

We head on in and go to buy our books and seek out a table. It was funny when we were queuing up as Paul suddenly dived in front of me saying he was going to take my spot haha. This was because of last time I was there I had manage to win…heh.

The last time, and well my first time also, I went to bingo and I’d managed to extremely lucky and won three times - ever since then I’d been telling everyone I shouldn’t go back there because next time I do something terrible will happen to me haha. Like I’ll step into the place and just immediately die or something to counteract the luck I’d had. So I well prepared for something deadly to happen on this next visit…

Since there were loads of us we managed to grab two tables that had a divider in the middle, Paul, Gem and Alice sat on one side, and on my insistence I sat next to Bob, with Kev and Lindsey opposite us. This worked out nicely as Bob and Alice could still be next to each other and me and Bob could still do our usual psyched up chanting we did like last time.

But before we started, me and Bob went to seek out FREE PANINIS!!

Oh for an ex student like myself the magnetism towards free stuff never ceases to exist. The idea being that no matter how shit, crappy, useless and pointless something is you’re always going to take it or have it or whatever just for the sheer fact that it’s FREE. You can instantly make anything 200% times better by declaring it to the world that yes, it is indeed free. And people, like me and maybe you and every student out there (and poor person or homeless person or greedy person or hoarding person) can’t help but say yes to the stuff that is Free.

I spent a lot of time hyping up the free food to Bob and others, and finally now would be the moment we would feast happily on it. Though you got to remember we’re getting this panini from a bingo hall not costa coffee (who by the way do amazingg toasted paninis), so it was going to be expected that the food would be sub average…When I say that, I mean it’s going to be edible but it’s not going to send the taste buds crazy - it’s something I would label “It’d do if I was starving and didn’t have anything else to eat”. However by this point I had managed to randomly delude myself enough to actually think there was a slim chance this would be amazing..

I picked my panini and ended up with a cheese and red onion one, though what I had actually walked away with was some chewy bread with melted cheese and barely a trace of onion floating about in it…But hey! It was free! But I had made such a hype about the sodding thing that i was determined to eat it all.

FREE! Panini:

Everyone turned up their nose on sight of the monster I had returned to the table with, that the oh so amazing panini I have envisioned was no more but one of those fake paninis that people microwaved instead of actually toasted, and that the toast marks were fake and probably added on during the processing point. Overall conclusion - I should have went for the pie…

Okay so! The panini wasn’t that great, though Bob’s one wasn’t as bad as mine and was probably more appetising. But we still had the free drinks, Bob played it wise and got the more pricey drink of white wine which he shared with Alice. I decided, that being someone who wanted to get the most of what she has, gave my voucher to Paul to use on something booze related in return that he brought me a coke or similar.

I won’t bore you too much the bingoing action, we played as usual and Bob did the usual chanting and giggling and what not. Lindsey who hadn’t played before struggled a bit at first but soon got into it. Bob was causing a bit of a rukus though, enough so that a lady seated near us actually came over and told Bob off for it haha. It didn’t stop him or calm him down too much mind…Kev apologised for Bob and said he had Tourettes haha, in which the people believed him and also gave sympathy for haha…

This time it was Kev with the luck, he won twice but they weren’t massive wins, but it was still nice to win a bit of cash and all. I was still hoping for Bob to win it just so I could see him go all GWARRGHHH (and probably scare the shit out of me in the process).

Midway through the games everyone rushed to grab some food there, it was described to me by Kev as being school-dinners like, he got some stew and chips or something.

Kev’s gourmet bingo food:

The games continued, no one got close to the nationals or the big money games and all was going well or smoothly until the giant disaster I had been waiting for struck.

Okay I’m being a little over dramatic here, I didn’t die or anything, nah instead I just made a giant prick of myself and caused chaos when I accidentally knocked over most of a pint of coke onto Lindsey and all over the table…Just as we were starting another round of bingo! :/

Gargh! it was probably the worse thing that could have happened at the worse time! It was weird because I remember actually thinking earlier at some point that the coke was currently sat in a cautious place, as someone will probably knock it over. But I had shook off the thought because I didn’t think anyone would be that dumb. I guess I didn’t bring myself into the equation.

I’d soaked her bingo book and her jeans and the table, bingo was starting and all, and I couldn’t help but feel really dumb and bad for it. I mean it wasn’t as if it was water, it was coke! Sticky and horrible and urgh…But yeah I rescue everything on sight as much as I can, then I leg it like crazy to the bar/food place and started to explain the emergency to a worker guy there. In fact I scared the shit out of him because he didn’t realise I was there heh, he proper jumped out his skin - anyhow I apologised for sneaking up on him and explained the spillage then ran back off to try and continue playing bingo :/

Me and Lindsey moved to another table fast and some kind soul gave Lindsey a spare book so we could continue playing haha. Though not long after the cleaner guy had appeared and did a good job of cleaning up the mess I made. Making a joke about me scaring him and all heh.

Now nearing the end of the the bingo evening, quite a few people were leaving and as a result we found them donating their now spare books to us. How crazy, the concept of attempting to dab two books at once. Bob has joked about trying this out before and Kev had said he’d tried and it was harddd, though this didn’t stop us from trying again. At first it was fine it was just one book that Bob was intent on doing, and then that got divided into two, then a few more books came and somehow all seven of us found ourselves with two books to look at 0_0 And I must say it was indeed insanely hard! You barely had enough time to check one book than two, but I tried my best but it was just too tricky - I can’t spy a number fast enough. Me and Lindsey were left trying, and catching up every time someone called, but I found it was a bit futile.

Eventually bingoing ends, and we come away with only Kev’s winnings of about a fiver for the each of us. We debate what to do next, though I was worried about Lindsey covered in coke and all and apologised constantly - but she seemed fine about the thing. We went to clean up a bit in the loo and Lindsey points out this cheeky message above the mirror.

No wonder women are body concious:

We decided to head to a pub or something for a bit (despite my idea of going to the library and watching Bob blow all the money on the stacker game haha). But not without abusing some stickers we found in the entrance of the bingo hall, they were used to write messages to stick on a board about quitting smoking. Instead we used them as random name labels for each other. For example Bob got “Smells like Lundun”, Alice: “Ladybird Pornographer”, Paul ended up with “A bit gay” and Kev was “Cunt” teehee.

We went about the place trying to find a pub we could get into without having to worry about ID. Since Alice wasn’t quite of age and Bob didn’t have any ID (though he was of age), I thought this would be more difficult than it was, what with it being Saturday night and all. But somehow we all managed to get into the drydock without a problem, and Kev splashed out the bingo winnings on drinks for all of us and a little go on some bingo on the IT box in there. Bob and Alice had a game of pool and me and Bob taunted one another because I know I can beat Bob at pool but Bob won’t play me any more haha. Not since our last game the last time we were in Leeds.

At some point Bob and Alice had to head to the train station to make sure they caught the last train, I gave them a lift to the station with Kev as sat nav, but then returned to the others to continue with a bit more socialising. I tried some of Paul’s drink that he had that was some strawberry cider or beer, and it tasted absolutely gorgeous! I swear to god if I ever find more of that stuff again I would probably drink loads of it and get pissed pretty bad. Eventually what with the rest of the bingo winnings spent, we decided to call it a night. Though I gave Paul and Gem a lift to Gem’s new flat which I hadn’t seen yet, and we all piled out to go check it out.

It was a nice cosy flat actually, studenty and all, but still probably a lot nicer than most places I ever saw when I was house hunting back in the day. It was a nice building of real character too, with tall windows and a lovely entranceway to the building itself.

Soon we bid farewell to Paul and Gem, then me, Kev and Lindsey set off back to theirs for the night.

Finally I could settle down a bit, Kev got some brews on and we sat about in the kitchen chatting while Kev and Lindsey had some supper. I was still stuffed from the sushing and the (urgh) panini and was content with just having a cuppa. More sitting around in the living room later and I go dig out my laptop and start dragging the photos off it for the day. Lindsey heads off to bed then eventually, then god knows when me and Kev go to crash as well.

The next day was a pretty late and lazy start, I remember waking up and sulking about the place with a blanket and my laptop for a while. Then I saw Lindsey up and about and she told me to help myself to breakie and all that, and she fetched me some juice which was nice of her. Kev gets up at some point too, and we lounge about the front room for a while. I catch Bob on msger and we chat for a bit about stuff we could do and he tries to convince me to go over to Alice’s, though I was in a total can’t be arsed mood but I did need to find something to entertain myself with since Kev was technically busy studying that day.

I was also put off that time was getting on and all, though in the end I thought sod it and decided to go. I go do some google mapping but then I get distracted by other people talking to me. Namely Kazzie, which then led me to have the in genius idea of stealing Kev’s webcam, hooking it up to my laptop and then try give Kazzie a webcam tour of the house haha. I didn’t get very far though and then ended up skyping with her and Bob for a bit until the novelty wore off and I did something useful like go grab a shower then set off to Alice’s.

I kinda got lost going to Alice’s, well not lost just I got to Halifax I just couldn’t find Alice’s house, especially since it seems it was situated in the middle of no where on a hill side. Eventually after whizzing about with Alice on the end of the phone directing me with amazing better than sat nav quality directions I roll up outside of her house.

I am greeted by the sight of Bob pointing a zoom lens at me from the window above while Alice came outside to greet me and all. Then we zipped up the stairs to the kitchen 0_o and conservatory area where we chatted, had a few brief introductions to her mum etc. Alice’s house is weird, it is all upside down and all, but full of character is a cool way. And they even have a baby pineapple.

The famous baby pineapple at Alice’s:

The view from Alice’s house window:

I harassed Bob and Alice for food, though we didn’t really know where, so we went to the laptop and yellow pages to go find somewhere.

We chilled out with some cake and some tea (it was some strange vanilla tea or something 0_o but it was tasty), and Bob showed me the famous Kobiayshi vs bear video he’d been going on about to me recently. Haha that was crazy but quite amusing, we concluded to watch more of the series, including the tug of war between orangutang and man, the towing contest between an elephant and the little people…oh and the sprint race between the man and zebra/giraffe. All very amusing and surreal…

Bob settled on the idea of going to a chinese that did peking duck (yum yum) to celebrate his first, though it turned out to be pretty hard to find a good place to get it from. Bob then worked on a theory of going by the most grand sounding restaurant name possible. This gave birth to the ongoing joke about the ultimate Chinese restaurant name that featured all these adjectives that made it bigger and better heh.

We finally settled on seeking out a place that sounded good and we set off in my car into Halifax town.

Meal Number three - Temujin (with Authentic Mongolian waitresses and music)

We parked up and wandered past the wonderful sights of Halifax, including their Mecca bingo, and Nettos as well as a chinese buffet place called “The Asia”. I can safely say this wasn’t our target for the evening, though we walked past it a few times trying to find the place we were looking for. Turns out it was nowhere in sight :( we found like a zillion other places though, just no decent look Chinese place.

Sights of Halifax:

After much wandering around without much luck I decided to give Gem a ring just to see if she knew of anywhere. She couldn’t think of any good chinese restaurants but then she started to talk about this one place that came to mind. I didn’t have a clue what she was on about but she said Alice had been there before, so I passed the phone on to her.

As Alice spoke to Gem on the phone Bob started getting excited about Alice’s reaction, telling me that this meant it was good as she was ooing and such, then she mentioned crocodile 0_o which puzzled me somewhat. When Alice finished she explained that there was this place that was really cool, you would go up pick your meat and all that and they go cook it for you on the spot. Bob immediately goes sod the duck, lets go there haha, and so we set off in my car again.

The restaurant was called Temujin, a Mongolian buffet place that we found was pretty damn expensive and hence scared the shit out of me ergh. Though to be honest there wasn’t much that was very mongolian about it…not the music or people who worked there or even the place itself. Bob cracked a job about the “authentic mongolian” waitress while she was still standing next to us haha. At the last minute we had invited Gem and Paul along too, and we waited for them to turn up while we glanced over the small menu.

Temujin:

Now I was in a bit of a pickle here, I was hungry then, and I only wanted something small for the time being, but since this place was buffet stylee and costly if I would have to pay I would obviously had to stuff myself. However I was quite hesitant to do this, why? you ask? Well Kev had brought up the idea of having curry that night which I was game for. But if I ate now then no chance would I have room for curry later - argh dilemma. Ideally if I could I would have just invited Kev to Temujin now, but it was ages away from Leeds.

My solution came in the form of a starter from the menu, there were the option of “raw prawns” and after noticing the little sign on our table saying “buy one get one free prawns” it seemed like one of those too good to be true deals. I questioned the waitress further on this and indeed it was a simple case of buy one plate, get another free. The idea being with the raw prawns was that you could take it up and add your extras of choice and then get it cooked. Sounded like a bargain. It was that good that Bob even order some as well as part of his buffet. I thought - ace! It was cheaper, slightly filling but not too filling…I’ll have room for curry no probs…Me and Bob ordered our prawns and I had a word with the waitress explaining that I wasn’t going to have a buffet but just the prawns, and she said it was fine. Woo!

Prawns:

Paul and gem finally arrive, and everyone heads up to help themselves to the buffet while I guarded the table and waited for prawns. They eventually arrived and they were indeed raw and sinister looking as raw prawns can be. I went up and started to help myself to stuff, I dumped on some random vegetables and then saw the noodles and thought - hey? Why not. Instead I didn’t realise exactly how much I put on until I took it for the guys to get cooked, I returned to the table with a huge bowl of noodley goodness. It seemed like an ace idea at the time though…

The whole buffet process seemed pretty damn cool, you went up, picked up a plate and literately helped yourself to a massive variety of vegetables, noodles, tofu etc and then you reached the meat section. They had everything, even unusual stuff like the crocodile Alice had talked about on the phone (I managed to try a bit from Alice it was weird). So you would add your meat and then once you were done just take it over to the chefs who would cook it up for you on the spot. You picked the oil, sauce and topping you wanted and a few moments later you had a gorgeous bowl of grub. I guess you could imagine it as a hot food version of subway but classier and you did it yourself and there wasn’t bread involved…

Prawn noodles baby:

It was most wonderful, standing there by the chefs doing their cooking thing, it was just the mixture of the heat and the smells that were kicking off from the woks. Fucking gorgeous I must say, I could have stood there forever just smelling that cooking.

Back at the table everyone was enjoying their food, along with some complimentary rice that appeared on the table. It was quite lovely and all, very good grub with endless possibilities and combinations to be have. Though I was stuck with only being allowed two bowls but once I reached the end of my first I knew that there would be no chance of curry for me that night… Heh I did try, I insisted very hard that I wasn’t going to let Kev down currywise but alas it was not meant to be. In the end Kev gave me a call, asking about when I was heading back because it was getting late and he was hungry. I then broke the tragic news about being at a Mongolian buffet and possibly not being hungry, bless I didn’t mean to let him down, I was actually quite up for a curry and all :(

So yes, we hung about eating until we were full, I had my second bowl - with black bean sauce, the first time was with lemon and something, and it was very weird. Soon people were full and satisfied and we ended up being the last people to leave the place heh. We paid up and there was a slight issue with me still being charged for the buffet though I technically didn’t have it but at the same time I think I had been proper cheeky with the noodles. In the end paid a bit extra but I was still satisfied with the cost.

It was dark by now and bid everyone farewell as I made my lonely way back from Halifax to Kev’s again.

I got back to Kev’s area fine…I just couldn’t quite figure out where the house was though I thought I was on the right road with the turning on. In the end I had to ring Kev and he led me back to the actual right road, turns out that the road extended across a junction grr, and all was well.

Back at Kev’s I chilled out in the livingroom with Kev and Lindsey and we watched some random TV. Including some terrible show where you know it shows people having freaky icky accidents and them talking about it after. Then we watched some Top Gear and Kev made us watch the sodding Rhianna video for the Umbrella song because he was addicted to it at current.

Lindsey soon headed to bed leaving me and Kev to chill out some more and then finally get round to start sorting out our rainbow combos for Yo sushi the next day. Up until that point I hadn’t really given it much thought, figuring that I could just work it out on the day but Kev was insistent on perfecting the right selection before going. We slapped on Lindsey’s laptop and headed to the yo sushi site. Where we flicked through the menu and sipped tea and had a supper of fruit while pondering out our menus through. With Kev telling me every time we hit the Yo rolls page that the Yo rolls were really good ha.

This process takes a while, with Kev making notes and me operating the mouse I slowly got wrapped up into the need to perfect my combo too. In the end Kev manages to work out a combo and then sets about producing the most amazing menu ever to hand to the waitress…in wordart…

Yes, we’re sat there at 3am in the morning, while Kev types out his menu using word art and then as a finishing touch adds some clip art. Brilliant…

We crash soon after that, though I spend some time playing DS until the tiredness kicks in. then I finally sleep….

Next day, Monday, I get up later than planned, even Kev was up before me heh, I get some breakie and I grab a shower and all. Meanwhile time was getting on and Bob rings me saying when were we going to meet for Yo Sushi? Because it was getting late and apparently it closes at 6 on a Monday. I thought shit because I thought they opened till late…Anyhow they were on their way to town but we weren’t ready to go yet. I said I’ll call them back, and after finding out that not only did it close at 6, it also stopped taking orders at 5 I arranged to meet them around 4.30 at the station.

Kev decides of instead of getting ready that his priority would be to print out his lovely word art menu in colour. Though first he makes a slight adjustment and then as a consequence somehow manages to corrupt the file haha. There’s this brief panic as Kev tries to rescue his menu, though in the end he finally goes to get ready. I thought he had failed to retrieve it but he comes trotting down the stairs waving it about in hand heh. Finally after phafting about we head off and grab a bus to town.

How Dew?

Unfortunately it turns out that Alice and Bob were also running late, their trains kept either being cancelled or delayed, so me and Kev arrived at the train station quite before them. Meanwhile time was ticking fast and it was becoming a clear possibility that we may not be able to sushi it that day…

Kev says to see if they arrive by 4.45, if they did then we could still probably sushi it, they do arrive just before but Bob was also sensing that it would probably be easier and better to leave it for tomorrow. This meant I would have to make an impromptu extra day stay in Leeds and Kev’s but this wasn’t really a problem, I didn’t have any reason to get home.

So with the Yo sushing idea abandoned till tomorrow we decide to eat elsewhere, but first hid in cafe nero for a bit of DSing with multiplayer tetris. We debate where to go get food from, Nandos was suggested but I really wasn’t in a Nando’s mood at all, but then Bob brought up the duck hunt again. He was still after his sodding celebration peking duck so it was decided we’ll attempt again to find a chinese. Then maybe finish off the evening with some bingo too. I did invite Gem but she wasn’t feeling very well so gave it a miss.

DS Action:

We left Nero with Kev leading the way, The duck hunt had begun (again)!

Meal Number four - Bob’s Celebration Duck (with the Legend of the hungry hungry man)

Kev led us the the chinese area of town, which literately looked like a giant car park haha. Again after what seemed like ages and hopeless walking we decided to try out one place, called Lucky Dragon, that was there. It didn’t look too much from the outside, but as soon as we went in it was quite clear, well to me at least anyway, we had hit a realllyyy good place. The first sign of a good restaurant is that the only customers in the place at the time were chinese.

Bob instantly asks the important question, Can you do us a peking duck? They said yes! So we decided to stay there and were taken to a table and given menus. Bob did the right thing and ask for some chinese tea, while we pondered over the menu.

Lucky dragon:

The first thing that struck me was that they sold stuff like dumplings and buns, and the tasty dish of chicken feet! Ha this was a proper proper place, the sort of place I would happily take my folks to. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work with the ordering but I wanted to get some buns and dumplings, and somehow between me and bob we decided to get a bit of each sort. I also half jokingly half seriously said to Bob we should get some chicken feet and get Alice and Kev to try it. Bob wasn’t into the idea at first but then agreed with it, we said though that if we got them that Kev had to try some and he was game for it.

Kev decided to order a dish to himself because the rest of us were ordering stuff he couldn’t eat, I’m not sure if we got much else as the duck alone was pretty damn pricey. Kev got Bob to order for us and to do it in chinese as well ha, which made the whole experience a bit weird for me ha. It’s very rare that I find myself in a mish mash realm of English and Chinese, probably the last time that happened was at my Aunt’s wedding…Anyway Bob made the order on the rest of us behalf and Kev did his bit.

Silly Kev, the first thing he ordered was prawn crackers! Now in my eyes ordering from your local takeaway yes, but here? Its just not the sort of thing people would order! Me and Bob instantly told him off for that move heh. When they arrived we saw much to Kev’s surprise the plate was massive! There were loads of the damn things!

There’s a strange moment when a waitress comes up to Bob and clarifies whether he wanted peking or aromatic duck, the difference being (and I didn’t know this myself either) that the peking is just the skin. Now think about it, you’re about to pay £25 odd quid for a whole duck to be told you’re possibly about the receive just it’s skin… I would have started feeling a bit uncertain about it too. Bob wasn’t sure liking the sound of this, but yes he still makes it clear that it’s the peking he wants. We’ve made it this far, it has to be the peking!

The next thing to show was Kev’s soup, there was quite a bit of this too and he kindly offered it to the rest of us, I only took a little bit because I knew there was loads more to come, and was a nice little starter. The the rest of the food came, namely the duck, and low and behold the peking duck skin arrived, served on a massive bed of prawn crackers!

Bob’s degree celebration duck:

All of us didn’t know that we would be getting all those prawn crackers as well and I started to chuckle at how silly Kev’s move was with ordering prawn crackers. We now had a hilariously stupid amount of them! Though Kev amusingly said that he was determined to eat every single one of those prawn crackers haha.

The rest of the food shows, including the dumplings, rice, buns, and thankfully a whole other dish with the meat of the duck used in it, and the glorious chicken feet. As well as Kev’s own meal, a giant dish piled high with rice, with some vegetables and a layer of roast chinese pork, crispy pork and crispy duck. Phowerr… Now let me pause, and tell you a story… An old wise tale passed on from generation to generation…

The Legend of the Hungry hungry man

I am about to tell you a tale from times where mobile phones were all the rage and the internet took up a stupid amount of people’s lives, where social networking was as essential as going to the pub. Here in this primitive age there lived a man, who was neither of fair hair nor dark, neither handsome or bold or dashing, but feared for his noble dealings with code. It was said that he could code a webpage faster than he could draw a sword, and the code confused his enemies with might. This man, born of the bloodline of Dew, hailed from the Northern lands where this tale commences.

One day, this man of code wandered into the banquet being held for the Bob de awesome to celebrate his grand success on conquering the lands of degree. So sacred was this moment that Bob de awesome have demanded that one of the rarest ducks, the ducks of peking were to be sacrificed to mark the occasion. The chefs who have prepared the feast had a well known challenge, this challenge was a dish so giant, so grand that no man could dare consume it to themselves without perishing.

The man of the bloodline Dew sat before Bob de awesome and demanded to the chefs that he be served this largest dish known to man, to consume for him and him alone!

The guests gasped with horror, did this man know what he was taking on? He, the man not of fair hair or dark, did he really understand what he was asking of them?

The chefs startled and worried that this man may overwhelm them with code for their hesitation, rushed off to the kitchens to prepare the dish. The famous dish known as the “dish of three meats”, was built from the finest rice and the finest meats, an immense tower of food that wise men have said that it would take at least three men to conquer! It was believed that the man of code would not survive the feat!…

At last the dish of three meats was finally prepared and brought out the man of code, and placed before him. It was said that a twinkle of horror was seen in his eyes, his voice on edge as he spoke next “There’s loads!”

A crowd gathered around to view this event, could he really consume the whole dish? Or would he fail?

A glorious battle commenced, much blood spilled from either side but the chefs gaped in awe as the man of the bloodline dew slayed the dish with all his might! Constantly eating and eating and eating, until the dish was no more…

The man of neither fair hair nor dark walked away from the battle, overwhelmingly full and never needing another meal again so long as he lived.

From that day forth the chefs named the man of bloodline Dew “the hungry hungry man”, and hence forth told their tale to every man who dared to face the challenge of the dish of three meats.

“You may try…” they would say “and most fail…but there was this one man…”

And they would tell of the tale I have just told you now. And so ends this tale, of the legend of the hungry hungry man….

In other words, Kev ate this entire dish he had ordered to himself, and later on we find out from the waitress. The dish he just ate was meant to be shared between three people hahah. So now we joke of how the waitress will tell every customer that comes in about this one guy who came and ate this meal for three. It was amusing as I didn’t help by scraping the excess rice into a pile with a spoon and was telling him that he had to eat the plate clean, otherwise he won’t get married to someone pretty (ie. you’ll marry a minger) - this being a silly thing I had be told when I was young (obviously to make sure I finish my meals at home).

Bless Kev I think by the end he was sick of duck and rice! And prawn crackers too as he did finish the lot he ordered haha.

Tasty Tasty Food:

Meanwhile the rest of us were feasting on the duck and the pancakes, and Bob is so glad he didn’t crack at the last minute and went for the aromatic duck. I was loving it like crazy too, I mean this just edges as being the best meal of the weekend. The duck was bloody nice, and Kev managed to try some but he had a prawn cracker version instead of a pancake haha. Everything was just soo nice and tasty and good, and then came the eating the chicken feet.

Now this sort of thing doesn’t phase me or Bob, though it had been a while since I’d eaten chicken feet I must say. Kev, Bob and me each got a piece and we all dived in at once to eat it. It was pretty tasty and Kev discovered it wasn’t as bad as it sounded, it could be described as like chicken wings, it’s all about the skin. Bob then got Alice to try some next, she was a lot more freaked out by the idea but she did try and didn’t like it because of the texture - Bob insisted again, but I don’t think it helped that Kev decided to go on wap on his phone, search for a photo of “chicken feet”, then showed it to Alice saying that’s what she was eating. I must say on seeing the photo, it was probably not the most encouraging of images…

Bob caned through the duck haha, he just kept on rolling and eating, rolling and eating, and I found myself getting pretty damn full somehow from everything. So much so I had to leave a bun that I would take with me to eat on the go haha. Though to be honest we were all pretty damn stuffed to death by the end of it all.

We called for the bill and was given the usual dessert of orange segments to finish off. Yum yum.

Photolising the orange:

We paid up and we were quite scared of the bill, but it turned out pretty okay especially since we’d bob ordered a sodding tasty duck.

Bingo was free that night, so we decided to head over after and catch what was left of it, we didn’t get many rounds as we arrived quite late. But it was still nice for a bit of brief free fun especially with the chance to win moneh. After Kev took us to Dr Wuus to see what was going on that night, turned out it was a kinda random talent showy night, and we walked in on some guy doing some magic trick on stage. Well when I say magic, he was merely trying to figure out who was lying and who was telling the truth about which glass on the table has white spirit in. Despite him succeeding, the sceptic in me said that it’s not that hard to work out logic or smell the white spirit… His act ended abruptly at the end though as some random guy who was sat on the floor by the door at the time, got up, started strumming on his guitar and singing while he sort of pranced out the door and trotted off somewhere 0_o

The act that followed was a solo female singer, though her song writing was somewhat strange and questionable, she wasn’t the best vocalist ever but wasn’t bad either, she needed fine tuning somewhat. It was okay for watching but I think it was a bit dull after the first act, and it was quite busy and crowded for our liking, Kev had spotted some people he knew though so we hung about for a while until he was done then headed back out and drifting towards the train station.

We loitered about outside and played loadsss of DS action, right until we had to leave Bob and Alice at the station for their train. I’m telling you multi player tetris is somewhat addictive and fun…Especially when it was three on Bob ha.

Me and Kev are left to go wait for the bus back, wasn’t a bad thing kinda chilled out and it allowed us to digest the vast amounts of food consumed ha. Soon we were on the bus back, and this is where I would say we got back to Kev’s and all was well, but no instead I’ll tell you about how Kev had this bright idea to get off a stop or so early near Sainsbury’s. He was intent of nipping in and getting some supplies for food, though it so turned out that it wasn’t 24hours and had literately closed the moment we got there. Gay!

Instead we walk the rest of the way back to Kev’s which wasn’t so bad as such, it was just it was a bit nippy and everywhere was wet from recent rainfall, meaning the pavement was covered with stupid snails and slugs who thought it would be a clever idea to try and cross over. Unknowingly putting themselves at risk and danger to dumbasses like us walking home in the middle of the night. Now I hate killing things (apart from spiders) if I can help it, so I tried my best not to squish the snails as we walked, though the sound of them crunching underfoot is not the most appealing if one of us accidentally trod on one.

The walk took about twenty minutes at least, though I wasn’t really paying attention to the time, fortunately it didn’t feel that long and it didn’t didn’t start pissing with rain either. Though Kev did have his waterproof with him…camouflaged style…

Shit where did Kev go?

We made it back to the house much to my relief, as my brain had begun screaming out - God I need a cup of tea! ha… So I put the kettle on and settled down in the living room with Lindsey while we told her about our evening and the insane meal. I was going to go finish making the tea but Lindsey insisted she did it. Then we ended up watching the end of sex and the city while Kev buggered off somewhere. The rest of the night is quite quiet going, me and Kev watch Hollyoaks on 4oD then we eventually head to bed, we had to be up pretty early to make sure we were in town in time.

Meal Number five - Yo Sushi Rainbow combo

The day was Tuesday, crikey this was turning into the longest weekend ever…

There wasn’t any problem with getting up in time and getting into town, though we did have a problem finding somewhere cheap for me to park. This made us a tiny bit late for eating time, though not too much. We met Bob and Alice at Yo Sushi and already found they were seated and ordering up their grub.

After the traumatic rice/duck experience Kev decided to change his combo menu last minute, and he began working it out on the back of his old one, though he didn’t have a pen, only his bingo dabber haha…So there he was, writing out his menu on the back of his word art menu using a bingo dabber…

I won’t go too much into other stuff though, apart from the bit where Kev was being a prick, and kept turning on the water tap without a glass so it went through the hole in the table and gave me a wet foot, or the crazy amount of green tea that was consumed, the crazy amount more of DSing action we had post the meal. Or how Kev proudly showed the waitress his menu with glee, and attempted to chat her up a few times, or about the “whoop ass nuts” we found being sold in that department store or how Kev went to get sprayed with some women’s perfume that made him stink.

Nah, let me just introduce you to my rainbow combo instead.

Salmon skin handroll and Vegetable Yakisoba

Both extremely delicious, the salmon handroll was the new thing here, Bob had been raving about how ace it was ever since he tried it. (It was also good value for money too what it being a green dish, not that it mattered that much in the combo deal). Heh note in the photo I kinda took a bite out of it before I remembered to snap a shot. It was indeed very tasty tasty. The Yakisoba was nothing new to me, though I went for the vegetable one because I wanted to save my pricer dish for something else.

Spicy Katsu Yo Roll and Chicken Gyoza

Both sort of new to me, though I’d had gyozas before. The let down of the meal was the Spicy Katsu Yo Roll, I ate it in the end but I think it was something to do with the sauce used with it, just wasn’t appetising at all. The gyozas were bloody delicious but very very hot in a I almost burnt my mouth off way.

A dessert and Assorted Maki/Nigiris

When I was sorting out my combo the other night, I decided that it would be nice to have a dessert of some sort to finish off the meal nicely. I forgot the name of it, but Bob had tried this green pistachio thing before and it was apparently very nice. Though by the time I got to eating it I was eating it for the sake of eating it, and though it tasted nice I couldn’t really enjoy it heh. Plus there were blackberries that I don’t like and I ended up feeding them to Kev ha. My platinum of choice was more to do with value for money than trying out anything exciting. Plus I needed to get some sushi in there some how.

The whole thing was very tasty, and I was most certainly stupidly stuffed by the end of it:

The rest of the afternoon is pretty normal, we paid up and went to Morrisons then Fab cafe which wasn’t a cafe and hence didn’t sell tea :( We hung out there until my parking up due, and I bid farewell to everyone before finally heading off and burning it back home. But not without being stupid and taking photos of rainbows while driving…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 4:31 pm and is filed under (Mis)Adventure, Food, Social Life, Travelling me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.