Every couple of weeks, often on a Friday, I have a hankering for a burger and chips. I know it’s not good for me, but sometimes, just sometimes, you need to indulge your tastebuds.

So I go along to the local Hungry Jacks, incorrectly choose the queue which looks like it’s going to move the fastest, but which in fact has at its head the little old lady who has never been to Hungry Jacks before and is asking the counter staff what each item on the menu is. Eventually I get to the head of the queue and order a Bacon Deluxe Value Meal, but with an OJ instead of a Coke. (Occasionally it’s something else, but that’s the usual one. Yes, they have allegedly healthy salad-oriented meals now. Would I order one of those? Hell no. If I want a salad, I don’t go to Hungry Jacks.)

The counter person will ask me if I want to upsize, and I will say no. They’ll ask if I wish to eat in, and I’ll say yes. With attention and skill they prepare and bring my meal, and I go and get a strawer. Then I’ll try and grab a napkin.

Is it just me that has trouble grabbing the napkins out of the napkin dispensers at Hungry Jacks? It’s like they’ve been specially set up to resist giving you anything. They’re wired up so tightly that if you try and grasp just one napkin, all you get is a tiny bit of torn paper. Thus you have to try and get a grip on three or four napkins, and you end up with too many.

I find a seat, eat my meal, ponder why fast food is so often just a little bit disappointing in terms of taste and general satisfaction, ponder the napkin dispensers, and try and calculate how many K’s walking I should do to work off the burger. I use one napkin to wipe my mouth and hands, and take the rest back to work with me to use on another occasion.

Café culture — or should I say Coffee culture is well-established in Melbourne. These days coffee lovers have a reasonable expectation that they can get a decent coffee at most places. Anything inferior is quite likely to result in a backlash and loss of patronage.

As I’ve remarked previously, the standard of tea hasn’t come this far. Far too many cafés and restaurants will go to enormous lengths to do a great coffee, but us tea drinkers pay our $2.50 or $3.00 or whatever and get boiling water and a teabag. I’ve even had to ask for milk on occasion.

Woe betide if it’s a hot day and you want an iced chocolate. Some places know how to do it. Yarraville’s Just Try This, for instance, do a superb iced chocolate, as do many other places. A good iced chocolate should be in a tall glass, with icecream, maybe a little cream, a long spoon. It should attract envy from the coffee drinkers.

The Rive Gauche Café at Southgate, despite the wanky name, does a terrible iced chocolate. It didn’t have any icecream in it. Milk, chocolate stuff and a whole bunch of whipped cream on top, in a plastic cup. They were smart enough to collect the $3 ($6 actually, Marita wanted one too) while the drinks were still being prepared. An old style milkshake in a big metal cup, or even a Big M would have been better.

I wonder if their coffees are any good. Not being a coffee drinker, I might never know.

Outrage in the office. A note at the scene of the crime, the fridge:

Further investigation revealed that in fact two victims had had their yoghurt go missing. It seems there is a serial yoghurt thief among us.

I’ve moved away from Carnegie, but our old regular Friday night dinner places are worth a thumbs up…

Herbs Pizza, corner Koornang and Neerim Roads, Carnegie — These are brilliant pizzas. Seems a little expensive until you find the Two Large Takeaway Pizzas for $19.50, which should leave enough for breakfast or lunch the next day. The Mediteranean Chicken and Patatara can’t be beat. Super yummy, and thankfully not too far away.

Paradai Thai, Koornang Road, Carnegie — Apart from one time when the service was a little sloppy, this place was brilliant. And even on that one occasion, the food was delicious.

I’m amused that Tony’s review panning a Yarraville coffee shop is so high (current 2nd hit) when you Google for their name. My review of a local Bentleigh restaurant is now the top Google hit for their name, too…

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend: I’m of the generation who has grown up being about the same age as Adrian Mole, and reading each of them along the way. This is a great read; very very funny. Adrian’s just bought a loft apartment at Rat Wharf. I think my recent thoughts about my mortgage/level of debt may have been partially prompted by his endless cycle of debt. Adrian reaches new levels of hopelessness, but seemingly redeems himself at the end. The book seems to have some closure, so I wonder if it’s the last one? Shame.

I also recently read Accidental Empires — the review is over on geekrant.org.

Mace and Grace, 457 Centre Road, Bentleigh: Ah good, another Friday night dinner option. A mix of cuisines, quite yummy.

(I’ve had numerous comments and emails suggesting places. Thanks for all them; I hope to try the suggestions. Note that the ideal Friday night dinner venue is in Bentleigh itself, not a nearby suburb. Makes the whole get off train / find dinner / have a drinkie with it / stagger home routine effortless.)

Ajisai Japanese Restaurant, 377 Centre Road, Bentleigh — across the road from Zagarellis, but couldn’t be more different. Very nice food, generous servings, reasonably priced, unobtrusive but quick service. Green tea icecream for dessert. Delicious.

My quest to find more good restaurants in Bentleigh continues…

Zagarellis (Italian, Centre Road, Bentleigh) — Essentially over-priced for what it was: big serves of fairly ordinary (but edible) food. Companion’s dish arrived with the wrong type of pasta, and I’d have preferred smaller serves of nicer food.

I hope there’s some better restaurants in Bentleigh, concealed in the sidestreets or something. At first glance it’s looking a bit more barren than Carnegie. There’s plenty of daytime coffee shops, and a couple of pizza and other fast food places, but how about some nice restaurants?

Chicken parma, Metropolitan Hotel, North Melbourne — How could one resist a meal touted as “Fat arse chook parma”? I certainly couldn’t. And yes, it was huge. A fellow diner commented that no part of a chicken is that big, and the waiter agreed. Perhaps it was really turkey parma, or ostrich parma? It was pretty tasty, too. Sadly, the connoisseurs at superparma.com haven’t found this one, but they have recently awarded the crown for best parma to the nearby Leveson Hotel, also in North Melbourne. Still, this one must get full marks for size… I’ll point them to it. $16 well spent.

Million Dollar Baby — Another of Hollywood’s best, most thought-provoking movies from Clint Eastwood. What starts as a reasonably straightforward, but far from mindless, engaging drama, then takes an almighty twist as the characters agonise over what is an important and topical issue. A great film, marred only by way-too-obvious advertising for Everlast.

Over on Geekrant, I’ve been re-living my past geek-glory writing computer games.