Last day with my brother: wonderful meal in an obscure restaurant

Tonight was the last night I would spend for a long time with my brother in Melbourne - for he is off tomorrow to Singapore to work in research with the National University of Singapore.

Although I thought it entirely befitting him that we three should have a special farewell meal in a restaurant, it was not until midday today that I learned he was going to do exactly this. I had to work around this schedule when planning for the meal since I was busy exchanging Mummy’s bag of gold $1 and $2 coins at the bank - and as usual I had slept in very late.

Still, I did manage to be with my mother and departing brother at the appointed time of 18:00 and we went straight to the car and towards the restaurant, which my brother said was in Holmes Road, East Brunswick. Although I knew the area extensively from tram travels, I had no idea what to expect, though my brother said it was a special pizza restaurant with exotic foods like goat’s cheese and pumpkin on pizza that did not exactly appeal to me.

When my brother showed Mummy and me the restaurant, we went in to a mostly empty but well-maintained house that had a charming old feel. I looked at the menu and was not sure what to order, considering a pizza that Mummy warned against because of its hot chili before settling on a salmon one with roe (salmon eggs) that I had never tasted before. Although my brother said it would be tasty, I was very surprised at what I tasted. The flavour of both the salmon and the roe was quite different from anything I had tasted before and extremely distinctive and impressive, and that of Mummy’s pizza with it’s goats‘ cheese equally good. There was also some mouthwatering mandarin-flavoured mineral water that had much more real taste than the drinks i often but for home use or for drinking when I go on longer cycles. I could taste the flavour so intensely that I wanted to drink it in tiny sips so that I would not have it drunk up before the main meal came. (Despite my efforts, I did meet with that fate as usual).

To finish off one of the best meals I have had was a banana “pizza” (more like a pie in reality) with some quite impressive vanilla ice cream. Although - with much later regret as well as dislike form my mother - I consistently buy commercial type ice creams, I have known for a long time that top quality ice creams which we still occasionally have for dessert are totally different from parlour ones.