Restaurant review - Thai Thae - Hurstville

My new favourite suburban Thai Restaurant. I've visited 3 times. Food always really good. Most suburban Thai restaurants have that almost generic menu. It's like they are all sharing a menu. They just change the title page. Thai Thae is different. Sure they have all your favourites, but they also have some of those great dishes that you normally have to travel to Thai Town in the CBD to get.

They have the curry puffs, Tum yum goong, Green Curry, Massaman Beef, Pad Thai. All the regulars, though even those are done with a little bit of pizzazz. But, what really sets them apart, are dishes like Duck Larb, Spicy soft bone pork soup, Papaya salad and my favourite, Pad ka naa moo grob. Sorry that last one in English is Stir fried crispy pork belly with chinese broccoli, to die for.

We dropped in last night for a not too heavy midweek dinner. Got there just after 6 and we were almost on our own. By the time we finished they were half full of happy diners.

We ordered 2 mains and Thai Iced Milk tea to wash it down. I love Thai milk tea or in Thai Chaa Yen and it is great that I can now get one just 5 minutes from home. 
Everything was great. We ordered the steamed barramundi with ginger sauce. Steamed whole fish with a delicate flavoured sauce. More of a Chinese style dish than Thai but very nice and enjoyed immensely. Being a whole fish it takes 15 minutes to prepare but well worth the wait.




Whilst we awaited the arrival of the Barra we had the stir fried pork belly with prik king sauce. This comes with plenty of green beans. The sauce has that sweet unctuous quality that makes you want to lick the plate clean.
  

The service is friendly and I can try out my every improving Thai language skills on the wait staff. If you are in the area you must check this place out. We have enjoyed it each time we have visited. Good quality authentic Thai food. Yum!!!

Monday

Monday , made it through another one. So many people drag themselves out of bed on a Monday and off to work feeling nothing but dread at facing another week in a job for which they have no passion. We know we need a job, but too often we don't have the courage to patiently search for a job that really brings us pleasure, or even real joy.
I guess there are a few different reasons for working a job. Obviously passion for the job itself. A job which gives an outlet for a particular passion. Maybe cooking or painting  or something like that. Then using the job as an outlet for the passion.
Then I guess there are the service jobs. A job that allows you to help others. These can range from simple waiting jobs to life saving medical jobs.
The other type are the job that simply allows you to live the lifestyle that you want. Maybe the hours you work allow you to surf every morning before work at you favourite break or give you the freedom to travel a few months each year.
For so many of us though we get lost in the wake up.Go to work. Go through the motions. Collect our pay every fortnight or week and pay the bills. We end up spending our couple of days a week of freedom feeling too drained to enjoy the fruits of our labours.
I am in the middle of a search for a more balanced lifestyle. I want to see if I can diversify my income so that I am not completely reliant on income from just one source.
I would love to have maybe 5 different income sources which each bring in $10,000 plus. On the end of this I would have maybe 3 months a year to be mobile. To travel. To hang out in Thailand so my wife can be with her family, but also so we can have time to do things we enjoy.
I think I can make it happen. Within 2 to 5 years. Building this blog into something that generates a steady, easy to relocate income source. I can write posts from anywhere on earth. The posts may be more interesting when they come to you from a small village in south east Asia. At present I am focussing on content. Find a half hour each day and just open up my thoughts and put them on the page. It's very early days. With something like this, there are always plenty of people telling you why you can't and very few telling you why you can. I thing it is important to be consistent and see where it takes us.
My current job as a Chef Manager in an industrial site's staff canteen has decent hours and pays okay wages. If I can find the other parts of the puzzle then I think I can switch to casual chef work and be happy to earn the amount of money I want and then put my feet up. I figure about a day and a half a week should be enough to get it done.
Cricket umpiring won't need too much adjustment. I figure I can simply make myself available Saturday and Sunday throughout the season and then if I umpire another 8 other days I will achieve my goal. There are school cricket matches and a few trials and social games at either end of the season and I am done.
The other 2 are definitely the most difficult. I have been thinking of running a cooking class at the local community college. I have very little knowledge of what needs to happen to make that a reality or how much money can be earned doing that kind of work.
Last of all are investments which could generate income. This will require some study to find a way.
If I can do all this, I will be on the road to creating a truly exciting life for me and my wife.
These thoughts in the back of my mind as I head through my week mean that I have good motivation to ignore the problems that get in my way and keep pressing on to an inspirational life.

Blogging

Hi, back again today. I was feeling that yesterday's post lacked a bit of cohesion. I guess that's the nature of this format. For me it is really early days in my journey (sorry about the cliché) as a blogger. I have decided that perfection is not the goal when writing a post. At this point simply writing consistently and putting out content is the most important thing. As time goes by my writing should improve to some extent just by continuing to write. Practice makes perfect.

What does that really mean? Really practice gets us closer to perfect. Unfortunately we are usually starting a long way from perfection. It also doesn't mean that every post will be better than the previous one. Sometimes we need to step back in order to move forward.

One other thing I am undecided about is what I really am aiming to write about at this stage. Basically I am attempting to sit down and type whatever comes in to my head. That, obviously can be hit and miss. I am trying not to over edit. I am just typing, followed by a quick read through (most of the time) and the clicking publish and share. I also, don't want to label my site with too exact a title. I thought I was going to be publishing recipes and ideas on self improvement but now I am thinking "relax and let this thing grow organically". Let's see where the blog takes us.

Hopefully this week I will sit down and type maybe 4 or 5 times and hopefully some of what I type will catch a few reader's attentions and who knows? I know one thing. I do like the idea of being a writer of some type.

Lately I was thinking that when you get investment advice they all tell you to diversify your investments. The idea being that if one goes bad the others with make up for the losses in the weaker area. Most people as far as I can see though earn most of their income from a single source. Our job. We might be a baker or a chef or a lawyer or a garbage collector. We earn most of our income from that single income stream. If things go wrong there, we feel like that world is crashing down around us. How will we survive. All of this leads to stress and grief. My possible solution. Diversify. What if we had say 5 different activities that we earn an income from? Say for example you currently earn $50,000 per annum from your job as a chef. If things go bad at the kitchen and you get laid off you are left with nothing. Imagine if you had 5 different jobs that earn $10,000 per year each. If you loose one job then you still have the ability to tighten the belt for a while whilst you either try to get a bit more out of the other income sources or find a replacement for the job you have been laid off from.

Clearly this is easy said and more difficult to achieve. For example, I could work as a casual chef or find permanent part time work maybe 1 or 2 days a week which would earn $10,000 dollars a year. As I have mentioned in an earlier post I am a cricket umpire during the warmer months of the year. This brings in about $3500 a year. Maybe I could umpire every Sunday as well as Saturday and pick up some other appointments in social game to increase that number to close to $6,500 a year. And maybe I could also referee Rugby League in the winter or umpire the winter competion based in the Moore Park area of Sydney. That could bring me close to $10,000 a year. That is two fifth's of the way there.

If this blog took off and I was able to earn income from it that could become a 3rd stream. The local community college runs adult education classes. Maybe I could run a cooking class a few nights a week and bring in income stream 4. And then investments. Investments that generate income without me having to manage them on a daily basis. That could be number 5.

It might just be possible. Time to go. Thanks for reading.

164 hours free to live life in the future. What about right now?

Oops, not exactly tomorrow. In fact it's 2 Saturdays later. But let me continue.
I would love to be blogging regularly. Wouldn't mind writing a book, learning a language. I am currently learning Thai as you can see from other posts on this blog. I think I would like to be based at least for part of the year in Northern Thailand. My wife's family live in Chiangmai, so that has some real benefits. I love being there and am making so real progress with my language skills in recent times. Chiangmai is an amazing place. The cost of living is low, but it also has all the modern societal comforts. It would also mean a great base to access all of Asia.
But what will make us really happy? I guess I am thinking mainly about freedom. Freedom from deadlines. Sitting done at the start of the month and thinking "What should we do?" I could do that now. But now I have only evenings and weekends to act on my plans. I have to squeeze them in between work commitments.
That's got me thinking. Why don't I do that right now? Live the life I am currently living more fully. Surely I am guilty of waiting until my plan succeeds to really live life. Why not just grab the bull by the horns and start having more fun today. Not in a year's time. RIGHT NOW.
Sure my travel plans are limited by time, but everything else can be acted on.

Perfect day :
Wake at 4.50am 5 minutes of activity to get the blood flowing. Maybe a plank or situps , pushups, rapid curls to get the arms going.
5.00am shower, followed by quick breakfast and a 15 minute meditation. I have been using the headspace app for the last month or so and am enjoying it.
Then off to work.
The search continues for happiness at work. The last week has seen me tick some boxes in that area. Acceptance of the things around you. Control what you can and don't listen to your ego. (Eckhart Tolle , A new earth can help in that department)
Get out of work on time. 2.30pm to 3.00pm if you are me.
Arrive home at 3.00pm to 3.30pm.
Now where do we go from here.
First, I should do 15 minutes of exercise. Exercise bike, walk or run.
Followed by moving of my chess pieces on gamenot.com. A game against the computer or as many as it takes to get a win. Then, 15 minutes of chess study.
TBC

168 hours in a week, If you could earn a living in 4 of those, what would you do with the rest?

The 4 hour work week is the title of a book by Tim Ferriss. The book talks, okay I believe it says, as I haven't read the book (not yet), I believe the book outlines a plan to condense your earnings (enough to survive) into 4 hours a week so that you can free up the rest of your life for things you would rather do.

Sounds fantastic, doesn't it?

I know I would love it. Imagine working only half a day each week. Now a lot of people when they hear 4 hour work week want to have a crack at Tim about the things he does in his week that look from the outside like work but are actually optional extras to his schedule. Projects that he has taken on which he enjoys. That's not what I want to do here. I want to brain storm what I would do with the other 164 hours in the week.

Imagine it, really imagine it. Most of us can't chase down these dreams because we never stop to think how amazing it could be. We all want to be happy, right? We all could be happier too. 164 hours a week to build that happiness. 

When you talk about being happy in our world you are considered to be a new age kind of person, maybe even accused of being some kind of hippie. Surely that reflects poorly on our society as a whole. We all have a list of things to do and then we will be happy or comfortable. The guy from Wallstreet the movie from the late 80's, I think, with Charlie Sheen. He tells the girl that he is going to make his fortune and retire at 30. After that he is going to ride a motorbike across China. He doesn't realise that he could work in any menial job and save hard for a year and take his trip across China. ( I borrowed that from Tim Ferriss who in turn borrowed it from another guy named Rolf Potts who wrote a book called Vagabonding). 

So, I have lost my way a little. I was going to write about what I would do with 164 free hours a week. Imagine clearly my ultimate life. 

I would still love to spend time working with food. Maybe spend some time writing recipes. Then each year or so, we don't want too many deadlines, put out a cookbook. 

I would still like to be spending time umpiring cricket matches at as high a level as I am capable. Travel, Travel, Travel. Go and get lost for months at a time. Do the overland from London to Sydney without ever boarding an aeroplane. Wander through Asia finding those awesome little places that cost almost nothing to stay at, but camp in your memory bank for the rest of your life. 

I have long had an interest in Primates (some, I think unkindly, think I look an ape). I would love to see Orangutans in their natural habitat. Wouldn't it be amazing. Hiding out in the Jungles of South East Asia with one of the Great Apes. 

Sorry folks time is up. I'll continue tomorrow.

Restaurant review - Taste Fresh Dumpling House - Hurstville

I have stood outside my favourite Hurstville coffee shop and looked across the street to the restaurant called Taste Fresh Dumpling House for a few months now and thought "We should try that place out". Last night was the night my thoughts became reality. And ... we weren't disappointed. The price was great and the food tasty as well. The restaurant was busy but not crazy busy. Easy to get a table on a Saturday night without the need to wait.


Opening the menu we were drawn to the set menu for 2 people - 3 dishes from a list 2 pages long with rice and sago for dessert for under $30. We picked the chilli chicken (below),pork with mushroom(right) and the egg and tomato omelette. Chicken was our top pick followed by the pork. We also had combination dumpling in sour soup as the waitress had identified the soup as the traditional way to eat them. The dumplings were yummy and definitely soft and fresh tasting. Thumbs up from this diner. The dumplings are available steamed, pan fried like a gyoza, as a pancake or in soup.


One thing we both enjoyed was that the serving sizes were made so that 2 people could comfortably eat the 3 dishes and not feel overly full. Only the desire to taste the dumplings made the extra dish necessary. I noticed that the servings for the set menu were larger at other tables because they had more people. I had a crown lager with my meal and tea was placed on the table as soon as we sat down. The beer was only $4, would have been rude not to have one. Sago in coconut milk (I think) was brought to finish the meal.

 In total the bill came to just under $45. You can't beat that. Definitely a thumbs up from 2 happy diners who will be back for more.

Mental Unpacking or Emotional Vomit

Hi.
Welcome back.
To me as much as you.
Blogging.
I like the idea.
But....Hmmmm. Can I make the time???
It all starts now.
I think part of the problem is trying to put out perfect posts. I think that is wrong. Whatever I type here will be posted at the end of this 30 minute session of typing. A brief edit and click post. It doesn't need to be perfect. Consistent is more important. Every week at least one post. This one is a what's on my mind post. Others will be recipes. And of late, I have been thinking of taking a photo each day and just posting it on my page. Hopefully (I'm not much of a photographer) it will capture something in my day. Maybe it will relate to food or maybe cricket umpiring (when the season it right) or just the day to day.

I just flicked through a couple of potential posts that I started last year and never completed. One is from the day before I commenced my new job as a Chef Manager. It talks about stressing at work and feeling frustration and angst. 6 months on, not much has changed in that area. I have a new job with good pay (relatively) but I seem to find myself feeling more pressure than other people in the same position. I guess at age 42 we all carry baggage from life's experiences, but why do some people feel, or seem to feel, the pressure more than others. A quick glance at the post it occurred to me that I was trying to fit too much into my days. It reminded me of a quote I heard recently. "People often overestimate what they can get done in a day and underestimate what they can achieve in a month or a year". I guess the lesson that I remember from school days when practicing or rather failing to practice the saxophone or clarinet for the school band. Mum would say that I would be better to practice 15 minutes a day than one big session a week. Something like that. The little daily improvements can and will lead to greater change in the long run.
It's Saturday morning of a free weekend. Time to do as I please. Release the tension of the week. I started the day by dropping my wife at the train station.
Wait a moment. Something just occurred to me. Not really just now. I have had this thought previously. And, I can't really claim it as my own.
When I was a young single lonely guy I thought "if only I could get a girlfriend, then everything will be better". The fact that I have a wife, means quite clearly that I have achieved that. Is everything thing better? No. Don't misunderstand me, My relationship with my wife is as perfect as they get. I couldn't be happier with that part of my life. But, I am a long way from a Zen being at this stage. My point I am struggling to make is that too often we think that when so and so happens we will be happy and in doing so, we forget to enjoy the here and now.Can you relate to that? Or do I have all this crazy for myself? I don't think so. Share the madness people. We all have some (plenty of it) in us.

The problem with typing an article for a set period of time is that the article can lack a conclusion. Sure, I could look at my timer and say 5 minutes to go and start to wind things up, but. Actually, that's not a bad plan. So, let me know what you think of my first post of 2016. Sorry that it is probably all over the place in terms of content. It feels like an emotional vomit. That is way to harsh. Maybe a mental unpack is a better way of putting it. Whatever you and I think, this is it. Raw and, as I said only with a brief edit prior to posting.
Have a great day whatever you are doing.