Finger on the Pulse: January 2007

I was lucky enough to get to go down to melbourne for IBM's summer camp. It turned out to be quite a large event, with around 700 people attending from Aus/NZ IBM. The bonus was that the Australian Open was going to be the following week, so Lisa, my parents, Donna and Jeremy also came down on the sunday to watch the tennis.

It was a great 10 days down in Melbourne, getting to catch up with Lev/Della, and meeting their new baby boy Jett. Also got to see a 2.5 yr old Kai, although not sure if he fully recognised us from when we last met (which was March last year).

Some other people we hadn't seen in some time was Pete, who was our old flat mate from London. Was great catching up with him, and he was an awesome host, driving us around and showing us some of the sights of Melbourne. Sat night, we headed out to dinner with Sarah and Alistair - hadn't seen Sarah in several years, so was great to catch up with them as well; they took us to an awesome thai bar/restaurant cnr of Collins & Swanston. Food was awesome, and they had a massive beer menu - a big plus in my books.

The culinary delights didn't end there though - Lisa booked my family into Movida; a Spanish tapas restaurant off Flinders St. Food there was awesome - in particular, the rabbit meat balls.

And as a final surprise, Donna had tried to book us into 15 (Jamie Olivers restaurant) back in Oct last year, but they were fully booked 6 months in advance. We get a call on monday morning heading to the tennis - they were on the waiting list, and the waiting was over. They had a table for 6 available for monday night. It was a tasting menu; we had A1 seats (see photo below), and the food was off a very high standard. Although doing the food/price value test, I would say it would be average, as the tasting menu was $90. But as Jeremy pointed out, the money does go to a good cause.

Anyway, to the photos -