An birthday duck at Lemongrass

It took my birthday for finally going to Lemongrass, a quite well-known and popular restaurant in Malmö. For years, I heard colleagues telling me how lovely the food was there. And if at first, the "asian fusion" confused me, then I taught that the popularity was possibly well deserved.
And finally, with our little Isabella, we decided to celebrate my 33rd birthday (sounds like the last supper...).

Located quite central in Malmö, it is not in a very beautiful building, however, the restaurant itself is quite cozy and welcoming.
The staff was very nice and polite, from tipping us on the fact that we could close the window to avoid smoke to intoxicate all of us, to recommending us to not take the tasting menu, in order to avoid to starve. Luckily, we followed the waitress advice and decided to try a bit of dishes, a plate of sushi, 3 appetizers and two main courses.

The appetizers and the sushi

The rice paper wrap, or better the vietnamese summer rolls, were ok. Just ok. We are used to the ones of another restaurant and those are great! And the hoi chi min sauce is much tastier. And for the same money we can get four times more rolls.
Another disappointment was the green papaya salad.  Ok, we are not in Thailand, but it lacked some sting in the taste and unfortunately, had quite little to do with the fantastic salad we still remember we took the first day in Nai Harn.
If these were the lows, we were enthuasiast instead of the spicy beef sallad. Finally spicy, finally fresh, had a fantastic sauce and the meet was nice and tasty. Yummi!!! Pity it was over too soon, but then there were four very nice pieces of sushi awaiting our mouths. Ok, it is not the sushi from Sushi Zanmai in Tokyo but for being in Sweden it was approved.

The main dishes

But the horror crawled on our table as soon as the main dishes landed in front of our eyes. Well, in our mouths, once again.
I took roasted duck. But I don't know if I was older than the duck. Quack!
And if the spring rolls that were served together with it were indeed nice (but nothing compared to Mattias' own execution), I had some pak choi (theoretically light fried with garlic) that had seen garlic when the duck was alive! (that is a loooong time ago).
Mattias was luckier in his choice with a crispy beef. Probably chinese inspired, it had a very nice texture and it simply tasted good. However, considering my unfortunate experience with the duck and since the crispyness of the beef was given by a quite thick glazing, I had my doubts on the quality of the meat hidden down there...

As you can possibly read between the lines, the experience at this restaurant was far below our expectations.  This teaches me to not ever trust certain people about food ;-D
Indipendently from that, although the place is nice, the personal professional and some of the dishes quite nice, I concluded that it is way over budget for the quality of the food (and the quantity) and that it didn't match my expectations over the dishes. If I could give a suggestion to the owner, I would specialize in one asiatic kitchen, instead of covering almost a whole continent without catching the right tastes.

Attack No. 1, by Chikako Urano

Atakku Nanbāwan: 7 by Chikako Urano
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I manage to read the 7 volumes of this wonderful manga all at once.
I could not stop reading it, although I knew more and less what was going to happen and I was not surprised to find that the volleyball japanese team was quite strong :-)
But if one loves volleyball, this is just lighting up the passion even more; if instead one is not that interested, this could generate some curiosity.
Kozue is not a very classical character, although quite unlucky in love, she is very determined and focused and has the tendency to heat up quite easily.
She has a strong devotion for volleyball and she grows as the story goes, turning enemies in friends and learning more about herself.
What I love most of the manga is that it gives me the positive feeling to devote myself to my work or what I am supposed to do, with the same attitude as the characters of the manga. Maybe there is too much harshness in the story, considering how things are today, but I don't mind the respect for the authority and the capabilities that everyone has to accept fate and give always the best.
The only minor sides are that sometimes certain passages are drawn too quickly, although they are crucial too the story and to the character development.
I hope I will soon have the time to watch the animated version, I can resist without thinking that it has been too many years (maybe 20?) since I have seen an episode!

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Bikini Time

Unfortunately, we had to pack all in hurry. We worked on the house until the night before and the morning of our departure we were very stressed and having a clear lack of time. Just to help out, all our things are not in any "usual place" and having everything spread everywhere made us even more confused. Especially me, matrix-based. So, so far I have discovered that I left home a couple of items: the memory card for the camera (or at least, I hope it is home...), the charger for my incredibly old phone (no comment on this) and finally, two of my bikini. I don't have many of those, since our "seaside time" is very little every year, but having available just one is too much also for me. So, I went and bought one with the sales (but was it really on sale? I never understood that) at Tezenis.

I wonder, should I buy a new charger and a new memory card for my forgetful packing operation?

Clover, Kuroba, by Toriko Chiya

Kurōbā: 1 by Toriko Chiya
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I judge this number of Clover based on the fact that I have actually read the whole story.
It starts as an OL manga, but then ends up to be a bit more like a classical shoujo. This is even admitted by the author in one of the free speech parts in the last numbers. This is also due to the fact that the manga was published on different magazines, with different targets.
However, the story is pleasant to be read - some parts are a bit too long and trivial - but all together, there are some sparks and get surprised there and then.
The characters are very nice, since they develop quite much from the beginning. It is interesting to see how they mature in time.
In general, a pleasant reading, maybe not the most original piece of art, but for us "foreigners" it is a good key for understanding some parts of the japanese culture and daily life.

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Snails problems?

Have you ever tried to keep a garden and keep it free from snails (with and without shell)? Well, good luck to you! That and weeds are the most annoying thing I have found so far in our garden! But I have got a good suggestion for eliminating them without using pesticides or chemicals. Beer. Yes, they drown, they are drunk and they get out of your plants!

It is enough to put a container in the ground. Fill it with beer and wait :-)

Last of the Wilds

Last of the Wilds by Trudi Canavan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have started to read the book a long time ago, however I had to break it constantly (and in the meanwhile I also read other things).
I finally found time to focus on it, lately, and since then I enjoyed every single bit of it. I like the story. It is intelligent, interesting and I like the characters. I am starting to like more and more Auraya and realizing she could be one of my favourite characters, although I don't have a big recollection of the first book of the serie.
I am now looking forward to have the possibility to read the next book!


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Copenaghen Tivoli

It is quite incredible that in 10 years that I have been living here, we have never gone to the Tivoli in Copenaghen, considering that it is one of the "major attractions" of the town.
Actually, I remember trying to squeeze ourselves in during Christmas time, many years ago. The queue was so long that we resigned and decided to walk around, instead. In another occasion, we were all ready to go in, however it was closed for the season... This time, we checked that it was opened and being a Friday, we were sure there would have not been any queue.
Unfortunately, though, we got all possible rain and once back home we noticed that no rain had touched Lund ground. Always lucky, uh?

Nevertheless, we had a good afternoon. The only attractions we enjoyed had been the culinary ones and the acquarium.
The first impact constituted by an italian pizza (very nice indeed)alla Vecchia Signora. Here we had the luck to observe and study young vikings attempting to explore foreign food (spaghetti dying to have some tomato sauce on top) with their hands in a very elegant manner (lovely).

Isabella was not very convinced in letting us go up in the Demon, even though Mattias' chinese sweet tooth was ringing a bell (and we all know how much Mattias love all these reckless attractions). She was almost pushing us to try Vertigo, though, but we decided that we preferred to keep her company looking at the people climbing up on the Golden Tower. We decided to take just a stroll around, leaving the arabic thematic area behind us, when we met a couple of ducks, who wanted to show us a bit of the lake around.

They guided us towards Petzi's world (leaving the Pirate ship on the horizon), where we entertained Isabella and other kids playing enormous instruments, like a gigantic xylophone.
Pity that it started to pour rain just then and we walked then very fast reaching Woodhouse. That was a very tempting place, with nice pastries and nice menus (Isa preferred to eat those). A little shop, within the building, was selling something very delicious...dipped in chocolate and whatever else. Pity (again!!!) we stuffed ourselves with the cakes and never reached that part...

At that point, we decided to actually do something and we saw that there was an acquarium. We went there and Isabella was fascinated by the enormous fish that could be seen, like the rajiformes and was calling them all "uaua" (cat). Here we managed to assist (almost) to some octopus show (it was trying to open some jar). While waiting for mr octopus to get its food, we noticed that the clock was ticking and we had to run home. Maybe next time there will be no rain and we will actually try something more advance like the classic carousell?