Monday: I bought three items from Woolworths (yep, the supermarket!) for my lunch. First, one of those assemble-your-own caesar salad packs (AU$4.48), which came with prewashed lettuce and little packets of dressing, grated parmesan and croutons. No bacon bits (normally these are crispy bacon-flavoured *bits* that have no real bacon whatsoever in them) – I was surprised, I thought they usually included those in these assemble-your-own caesars. Second, I got a quarter chicken – thigh and drumstick, “Southern Style” (AU$2.95). Third, a lovely yellow banana (29 cents!). The grand total was AU$7.72. Not bad at all, I thought!

Everyone who saw the piece of chicken was impressed at its size. Lots of “Wow, where’d you get that?” and “That thing is huge!”

It was a very juicy piece of chicken, but I was a little disappointed with the so-called Southern Style aspect of it. I’d been expecting that golden brown crusty skin to have an amazing flavour, but it was surprisingly bland. It was pleasant enough but not as good as thought it would be.

The caesar salad was okay, but it definitely needed more dressing. And *sigh* some sort of bacon, even just bacon bits would’ve been something. I didn’t take a close-up pic of my banana, but trust me, it was good. You know, of the three items, it was probably the one truest to its name – no deficiencies, no disappointments. Just a genuine specimen of the tasty thing we know as a banana, simple and true.

Tuesday: sushi from Nippon Fare. SRM had a large pack of raw tuna and avocado sushi.

My boss had a small teriyaki chicken (no photo, sorry – see this previous one if you like!), a small salad and a pack of seaweed sushi and mini cucumber sushi.

This was the spread I had before me :-D.

Potato salad, it’s been a while. I missed you!

I had tamago (omelette) sushi, which came with two mini cucumber sushi.

I also had teriyaki chicken sushi. It was all really good. Nippon Fare usually is. :)

Chad joined us. She’d assembled and prepared her own lunch – crumbled goat’s cheese, tomato and basil-flavoured tuna and sliced fresh tomato on Ryvita.

Wednesday: Chad and I had to run a couple of errands, and lucky us, Jean Claude Patisserie – the West Leederville store -was in the vicinity! Before we left the office, we took orders from those in our team who wanted a JC sandwich or roll for lunch. This West Leederville store is so spacious compared to the tiny, cramped box that is the Subiaco store! After much pondering, I chose a chicken and avocado flute roll for myself. The chicken and avocado filling was soooooo good. I wish I had the chance to eat these more often.

But I must confess – I had a sausage roll first!

When I bit into it and my teeth sank through the outer layer of flakey buttery pastry and then the soft, savoury sausage roll filling, releasing puffs of lovely warm fragrant steam, my nose and mouth (and I guess my glutton’s brain) were in heaven. Utterly, utterly delicious. I’d just like to say at this point that after eating the sausage roll, I couldn’t finish the whole chicken and avocado roll as well. I left a third in the fridge at work and ate it for an afternoon tea snack the next day.

Thursday: I went to Nando’s and got a Classic Chicken Wrap, with the chicken tenderloins basted with mild peri-peri sauce. In with the chicken is lettuce, tomato and mayonaise. Really, really tasty… but not enough chicken, not enough filling! Too much space and too much air! :)

Friday: Hungry Jack’s Aussie Breaky. On Thursday night my boss and I attended a Christmas function put on by one of our suppliers. It was a great night, but I didn’t really have enough to eat, and when I got home it was very late and exhaustion won over hunger. I woke up on Friday morning ready for a big breakfast (boo hoo – no more McDonald’s Big Breakfast!). So off to Hungry Jack’s I went, on my way to work. I spread whipped butter and strawberry jam on the English muffin. I wish there were two sausage patties and just one hash brown instead. It was good, anyway. I ate it all.

For lunch, I went on a bit of a wild goose chase (some of you may think: “Ooooh, wild goose. Sounds good!” Heheh). L had been craving rice paper rolls, and I thought I’d grab her some of those from the Vietnamese stall, Saigon Express, at the Station Street Markets, and get myself some Saigon crispy chicken fried rice – but alas! Because those markets are being renovated, a whole chunk of the market structure has been demolished, and only some of the stalls remain. The fruit and veg stalls are still there, as is the French bakery and crepe place, the other gozleme stall and a number of other stalls, but unfortunately Saigon Express is one of those that isn’t there any more. I ended up getting sushi instead from Toraya Sushi. Quite a lot of sushi.

Four tamago (omelette) sushi. I love these.

I thought I’d try the spicy chicken sushi for a change, instead of the usual teriyaki sushi I get. As I paid for it all, the lady at the till warned me that the spicy chicken sushi was very spicy. “No problem,” I said, smiling. I wasn’t going to let her think she’d scared me off eating the spicy chicken sushi and ask to switch it for something else! But as I walked back to the office I was a little worried. What if it was too hot for me? In the end, I needn’t have worried. It was indeed spicy but really good, and I had no problems eating it. I’d eat it again!

Ah, inari. I love the sweet and juicy marinated beancurd skins. I’d eat them even without the sushi rice inside.