The girls in the office decided to have some fun tonight, so we went to a Chinese restaurant Diamond in Karabar. It was a prompt decision, and it’s not something people would normally do in a workplace. You know, colleagues only go out for a special occasion. But this time, there was no specific reason. They just wanted to gather together and do something without talking about the work. And firstly it was an idea for 3 persons going, but at the last minute, someone called off and others joined in, so we made 5 and it was pretty casually arranged.

This restaurant Diamond, I actually know a bit, but never had an intention of going. Chinese restaurants in Canberra and Queanbeyan don’t sound that appealing to me It usually takes a lot of courage to make up our minds to try. And this one, was associated with some negative experience as the very last time when I was passing by there, I was fetching a package from the post office next door. On the way home, I got totally lost, couldn’t find the street where I lived. I carried a 10kg box and walked a long way till I got to Jerra. Jerra is a place full of Crescents. So I walked and walked, and found myself got back to where I started. I wasn’t panic, but very frustrated with my sense of direction. And it was impossible to ask as there was almost no one on the road. For the whole period of time for about 30 minutes, I only saw one woman standing in front of her house on Cameron Street, and another two young teenager girls playing the swings in the ground, where I got the clue which direction I should take. So basically, Diamond is not connected with any positive personal experience at all

Anyway, talk about this evening. After a short discussion, we made up our mind to go for a banquet, but not ordering the dishes separately. One of the girls is a regular, and she was keen to hear my comments about the dishes. She likes here a lot but she wanted to know if this is also okay for a genuine Chinese. So I was kind of having an assignment to submit after the dinner, not just eat up what was going to be offered.

I had a couple of words with the restaurant owner, who can speak both Mandarin and Cantonese. He asked me about the dish I ordered “Peking Home-made Tofu with Vegetables”, that if I needed meat in the dish or the pure veg one. As I ordered that in Mandarin, he just tried to confirm the one I ordered was the one on the menu. He was cautious but not necessarily required as I have lost pretty much of my taste of Chinese food to justify how a specific Chinese dish is supposed to be done, and in other words, I am not that fussy as he had thought.The final banquet included 5 dishes: Mongolia sizzling lamb, ginger and garlic oyster sauce scallops, chicken and snow peas stew, roasted pork with vegetable and Beijing Home-made Tofu. A small plate of peanuts was the entrée provided by the owner for free. I encouraged everybody to practise using the chopsticks with peanuts. Everybody tried, some of them worked really hard by adjusting the position of where they held their chopsticks. Unfortunately, the peanuts kept falling off their chopsticks. We made the floor near us quite messy

Well, after we’ve done the dishes, the girls started to order the dessert and coffee. As suggested I had some choc mousse which was made by owner himself. Alas! Dessert after Chinese, what a strange companion! But it wasn’t bad except it was a bit too sweet for me.

The only thing distinctively different in this restaurant was fortune cookie. I had my eating out in so many Chinese restaurants in this country, but this was the first time I saw Fortune Cookies offered after the meal. I pulled up the paper strip, and it said “you never hesitated to tackle the most difficult problem”. Well now, where should I apply this comment? I thought about it for seconds, then I decided to use it for tomorrow’s interview

All girls agreed that it was a great evening and we should do this often. They had showed a big interest in Japanese food, especially with the chief throwing the stuff all over and doing the chopping like a performance.