122 -123. Little Italy and Forester Cabernet Merlot 2005

It had been a long time since I’d managed to get any social time with my work colleagues however, all things come to those whole wait. The AMC exam had been the main bane of our social life but as it was now all over everyone had more free time.

I stuck a notice on the wall of the coffee room for a “Post-AMC Dinner” and within a few days there were about 20 names of people wanting to join us. Birgit booked a restaurant in a famous part of town called Little Italy inside the aptly named Italian Forum. The restaurant itself was called Dante and although most folk were over an hour late we did manage to fill the 25-strong table much to the relief of the over-bearing concierge.

Starters consisted of big plates with garlic bread, bruchetta, deep fried prawns and fried baby squid. It looked like far too much but since the meal started at 5:30pm and most folk didn’t arrive till 6:30pm it kept the rest of us satisfied. It also meant that we had something in our stomach to absorb the far-to-easy-to-drink Forester Red that we ordered. At $33 per bottle it was probably the most expensive wine we’ve drank since arriving in Sydney but it was bloody good. Pure nectar and even Isla was glugging away on it as hard as she was able - not like her especially as she was planning a 12mile run the next day!

For the main course I had the best Prawn Linguine that I’ve ever tasted and I could have eaten two helpings (not that the portions were small). Dessert was a disappointing attempt at chocolate sponge which was akin to airplane food. However, everything else had been so good I ignored the pudding let-down and ate it.

All to soon dinner was over and the families headed home while the rest of us headed out for a couple of drinks. It was a bit of a one man show though, as Manish insisted – Amit-style – of getting in a massive $125 round for everyone which consisted of shots, spirits, and beers. By the time we had drank our way through that most folk were failing and so we decided to call it a night and headed home.

Yuri was driving (thinkfully) and gave us a run back to St Leonards. Charles was also riding along and was suffering a bit from all the red wine he’d drunk and insisted that the Sat Nav in the car had no idea where it was going and kept arguing with it at every turn. Poor Yuri had no idea where he was going but luckily he found his way to ours in a relatively short space of time. Unlucky for him he had another 18km of Charles’ ranting still to go.

So the night was a real success and everyone seems to be up for doing it once a month or so. Watch this space.