Prime Beef

Following up from my last post, when Mike mentioned he was taking me to a nice steak restaurant in Sydney I expected a 'Sizzler' or something like that. Instead, we went to the Prime restaurant in the GPO Sydney building where they have a steak on the menu for $155.

I thought I new about steak until I went there.

Their speciality is Wagyu beef and according to the menu:

Wagyu is a western term for a collection of Japanese bloodlines (Wa-Japan, Gyu-Cattle).

It is generally accepted that Wagyu beef is the highest grade, and tastiest beef in the world. The marbling of the Wagyu beef is the Prime characteristic that contributes to its tenderness, juiciness and most importantly its flavour.

The highest grade of Wagyu has a marbling score of A12. However, this is only available in Japan. While other breeds of cattle are not given a marbling score, it can be said for comparative reasons that other breeds of cattle having a maximum marbling score of 3.

In Australia, Wagyu branded meat is predominantly F1 crosses between Wagyu and Angus cattle. The Japanese preference when the Wagyu is not Full Blood, is for F1 crosses to be between Wagyu and Holstein cattle which we have chosen for your enjoyment in Prime.

Outside Japan there is a limited supply of Full Blood Wagyu and an even more limited supply of marble score plus 9 Wagyu.

The plus 9 Wagyu selected for Prime is the highest scored Wagyu product available outside Japan and has been sourced from David Blackmore, Australia.

So what did it taste like you may ask? God knows, the meal was on company expenses so I didn't dare go for the Wagyu. I would have been sacked on Monday!

Instead I went for the more modest Black Angus - Scotch Fillet (300g), Rib eye without bone, 200-250 days grainfed, full matured at 24-36 months old. It was nice, but I couldn't help wonder what the Wagyu would have tasted like.

I seem to be drooling.

Blogging from Sydney

I'm currently in Sydney for a couple of days meeting with a client - my first business trip of what I'm told will be many for my new employer.

I flew up yesterday afternoon with a colleague who I'm taking over from on this particular client project as he's leaving next week. We're staying in the Bayview Boulevard in the Woolloomooloo area of Sydney. The hotel is actually pretty good - it's recently been refurbished so everything is shiny and new, and I've got a partial view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from my room, as the photo below shows (taken with my camera phone).


Last night we went for a walk about and stopped off for a meal at a really nice side-street Italian Trattoria. I had Black mussels as an entree and a home-made fettuccine concoction for main. Finally had a decent Italian in Australia!

After the meal we went to a pub and caught the last 30 minutes of the Sydney FC v LA Galaxy game. David Beckham had managed to draw 80,000 to the Sydney Olympic stadium - unheard of for a 'soccer' match in Australia. They even showed the match live on Channel 10 (one of the main channels in Oz). Beckham pleased the fans scoring with one of his trademark free-kicks, although his side lost 5-3 in the end. I couldn't believe all the plaudits by the commentators after the game, and then on TV this morning. Beckham mania is still alive and strong, at least in Sydney anyway.

Mike, my colleague, has recommended a nice steak restaurant this evening so we'll be going there shortly. Don't you just love company expenses!

Last Weekend

A quick run down of what we got up to last weekend:

On Friday Rach took the day off and went to Australia Zoo with Steph and the kids. I managed to get out of it and stayed at home.


When they got back Rach, Steph and Julie from next door went for a night out in the city, returning about 2am - the dirty stop-outs!

On Saturday morning we all went to Manly for Bonny's birthday BBQ. Bonny, who's 11, is Cath's daughter (Cath is Rachelle's godmother) and both are the closest thing we have to family in Brisbane. It was really weird having a BBQ and eating birthday cake by the ocean at 9:30 in the morning. Nice though!

After the BBQ, I went home while Rach took Steph and the kids to Sea World. It only seemed like 2 minutes since we last visited Sea World so I gave it a miss.


When they got back we were invited next door as it was Reyce's birthday (George and Julie's daughter). One drink turned into many and before I new it myself and George were finishing off a bottle of rum. I left him at 1:30am passed out on the sofa - this time Navy had won in the Navy v Air Force drinking contest!

On Sunday we went in the pool in the morning (to sober up), then went out at lunchtime to Mcdonald's for Reyce's birthday party.

Not a bad weekend I'd say considering it's November. Sure beats the weekends I used to have in November - cold and wet is all I can remember about Novembers in the UK.

It's now been 6 months since we arrived and I still feel in holiday mode. I plan to stay in holiday mode!

More photo's on flickr.

A Long Weekend in Noosa

Last Thursday, Rachelle picked me up straight from work and we drove 2 hours north to Noosa on the northern end of the Sunshine Coast. I had booked an apartment for us at the Noosa Tropicana.

Noosa is beautiful, and includes beautiful white sand beaches; a large national park complete with spectacular coastal scenery, wildlife (including Koalas) and waterfalls; and the Noosa river which winds its way north for 85 km and continues past Lakes Cooroibah and Cootharaba to unspoilt Everglades.

Thankfully, Friday was hot and sunny so we were able to spend some quality time at the beach and make up for the crap weather we've had ever since Steph and Lucy arrived. The conditions were perfect - perfect for swimming but also with the occasional large wave to jump through/over/under. I wasn't as sensible with the sun cream as I usually am and ended up burning my back - it's still soar today!


Friday night we made use of our penthouse facilities. Having a penthouse apartment meant we had our own private rooftop with BBQ, so we chucked a few steaks on the barbie and cracked open a couple of bottles of wine.

On Saturday Rach took Steph and the kids to Eumundi markets while I went for a walk and explored the local area. When they returned Steph wasn't feeling too well so she stayed in the apartment while me, Rach and the kids went down to the Noosa river and hired a boat. We hired a 6-seater Bowrider and went exploring for two hours up the Noosa river. The boat we hired wouldn't do any more than 10 knots so there was no way we was going to make it anywhere near the Everglades. Lauren and Lucy loved it, they both had a go at steering. Lauren even took an interest when Rach taught her how to read the charts (of course we're experts now we've completed the 1 day boat course!).


On Saturday night we went to a Thai Restaurant. I drank far too much wine and woke up feeling like I was going to die on Sunday morning.

We had planned to go exploring in Noosa National Park on Sunday but it was absolutely pissing it down so we checked out and drove back home Sunday morning.

All in all it was a really good weekend, although I was a bit disappointed by the Noosa Tropicana. It's supposedly a 4 1/2 star apartment but it was in desperate need of a refurbishment.

More photo's on Flickr.

I'm on the Schmap Brisbane Short-list

Out of the blue I received an e-mail today to tell me that one of my photo's on flickr has been short-listed to be included in the fourth edition of the Schmap Brisbane Guide.

I finally get round to buying a decent DSLR camera and the photo that they've chosen was taken with my Sony Ericsson K800i camera phone. Typical! This is the photo they chose:

Two Little Witches

I'm babysitting tonight as Rach and Steph have gone to Rachelle's xmas work do. It's a good job Steph is here otherwise I would have had to go to it. I can't quite get into the xmas spirit on a Monday night near the beginning of November, especially after a long first day in a new job! I guess that's the hospitality industry for you - having to celebrate xmas when nobody else wants to.

You wouldn't think that Lauren and Lucy are 6 and 5 respectively by the way they've been running rings around me this evening! They're like two little old witches - forever conspiring to see what they can get away with, egging each other on to give me as much grief as possible. And they never shut up! I've finally got them off to bed but my ears are still ringing from their constant noise.

My First Day

Today was my first day in a new job - what will hopefully be my last working for someone else.

The role and work I've been given is much more like what I'm familiar with - security compliance. The first project I've been given is to help a client - a subsidiary of a well-known Japanese car manufacturer - achieve compliance with Japan's Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, which is Japan's equivalent of the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was brought in after the well-publicised financial reporting scandals involving the likes of Enron and WorldCom. The aim of the Act being to strengthen requirements regarding corporate governance and internal control. Amongst other things this means that companies listed on the US stock exchange must be able to demonstrate strong internal controls that can prevent and detect fraud. The Japanese equivalent, nicknamed J-SOX, was also established after scandals involving listed companies in Japan and has similar requirements.

My job is to help the client address the high-priority security weaknesses that have been identified and establish controls for these before March 2008 - when J-SOX comes into effect. What this means in practice is that I'll be carrying out interviews with different areas of their business to understand exactly what security controls are in place now and provide recommendations on additional controls. My company is then hoping that the client will ask me to help them with implementation - which will mean writing security policies and procedures, giving them guidance on securing their IT systems, as well as helping them implement new security systems where required such as Intrusion Prevention technology - the aim being to try and cross-sell as many of our companies' services and solutions as possible.

It's not the most exciting job in the world but it pays the bills.

A Washed-Out Weekend

Steph and Lucy's first weekend in Oz wasn't the best. We've had glorious weather for weeks now but since they've arrived it has been miserable.

We did take them to Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast on Saturday and braved the beach for a short while, but the wind was that strong we were getting sand-blasted.

We've not had much luck with restaurants either. We went to Amici's, an Italian restaurant on the South Bank in Brisbane Friday night, but the service was atrocious and the food pretty bland. Then, with the weather being bad on Saturday we went for a long lunch while down on the Gold Coast. And it was a long lunch. Again, the service was crap, we waited ages and when our meals finally arrived they screwed up the order. Gordon Ramsey could do with taking a trip out here for his next series of Kitchen Nightmares! Seriously though we're being really unlucky at the moment because it's not normally this bad.

Movember

Over the last few days I keep hearing people talk about Movember. It seems to be a big thing over here. Curious to find out what the hell people were going on about I looked it up.

Movember is a charity event held each November where men (and I'm sure a few women could qualify for this as well) start the month clean shaven and then have exactly a month to grow and groom a moustache, raising money and awareness about men's health issues along the way.

The participants, known as Mo Bros, are subject to the following rules:

1. You don’t talk about Movember outside of the month.
2. Movember runs for 30 days. No more.
3. There is to be no joining of the Mo to side burns—That’s a beard.
4. There is to be no joining of the handlebars—That’s a goatie.
5. A small complimentary growth under the bottom lip is allowed (aka a tickler).
6. You must remain clean shaven apart from your Mo for the entire 30 days.
7. You must speak with a dodgy Bavarian accent for the duration of the month.
   

Ok, I made the last one up.

Official Movember website

Just Typical

I've just picked Stef and Lucy up from the airport. Unfortunately, after weeks of glorious weather here we've now got heavy cloud cover and constant rain (the fine rain that wets you through as Peter Kay would say), and it's set to be like this right through until Monday. Bloody poms bringing the weather with them!

The Melbourne Cup

Today is Melbourne Cup day in Australia.

Billed as 'the race that stops a nation', the Melbourne Cup is the biggest even on the horse racing calendar in Australia and seems to be a pretty big deal judging by the fact that people have been going on about it for weeks now. Apparently, aussies are more likely to throw a sickie today than any other day (I thought it seemed quiet in the office).

Established in 1861, the Melbourne Cup is a thoroughbred race held over a distance of 2 miles.

The main race is on at 2pm our time so they're putting it on the big screen in the office (the one that usually shows the status of the IT Networks and major servers). I must be the only person who hasn't put a bet on. I did get given a sweep-stake ticket when I bought a coffee this morning though, so if Black Tom wins I'll get a free coffee. Whoo ooh! I tell you, they have got serious issues with gambling over here!

Melbourne Cup Official Website

UPDATE: Black Tom came 17th out of 21. There goes my free coffee.

What a shame - Ha!

It's been a little while since I last posted but after the phone call I had today I felt the need to share. I spoke to Craig (one of my technicians from Harvey Norman) I actually called him for some advice (I've dropped black eyeliner on my cream bedroom carpet but that's another story)

He said he was glad to hear from me and had news that may interest me, John, the guy who took over my job, has gone already. He lasted 6 weeks if that. Craig said he'd somehow managed to run the branch back into the ground and it was loosing money - again. How awful!!!!

Craig told me they're really struggling and haven't run as smoothly as when I was there since I left. I don't want to sound big headed but I did put a lot of work into that branch - what a mistake they made letting me go.

It actually did me the biggest favour I'm now earning the same money in a fantastic setting and without the stress - today me and my boss spent a good 15 minutes watching dolphins playing in the marina - where am I better off?

British Army Developing Invisible Tanks

If reports are to be believed, the Ministry of Defence in conjunction with QinetiQ (lots of MOD contracts), and the British Army, are testing technology that can make tanks and troops invisible. Apparently it works by using "cameras and projectors to beam images captured from the surrounding landscape onto a specially-adapted tank coated with silicon to maximize their reflective qualities". Now that sounds familiar, wasn't that exactly how the invisible car worked in Pierce Brosnan's last James Bond film - Die Another Day?

I gasped with despair in the cinema when that scene showed - thinking that they had surely gone too far into fantasy world this time.

The question is, do you think QinetiQ got the idea from Die Another Day? Just kidding of course. Mind you, it's not the first time that James Bond films have been ahead of the game when it comes to technology. The underwater camera in Thunderball (1965) and the digital watch in Live and Let Die (1973) are just two examples of gadgets that were shown in James Bond films before they became widely available to the public.

Come to think of it, Q Branch, QinetiQ. Could there be a connection?

Engadget - British Army looks to make tanks, troops invisible

I Was Wrong - It's Riise's Payslip

According to this BBC report, Liverpool FC have launched an investigation into how John Arne Riise's payslip has appeared on the Internet.

So, if Riise is on 120 grand a week base salary, what is Gerrard on?