An evening with Tim and G..

..You always know it will be fun.

Anyway, I'm sat on the train at Great Victoria Street waiting to go to Bangor.  Looking out the window, I'm reminded of the part of the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy where Douglas Adams describes:

 

...the people of Krikkit have never thought to themselves "We are alone in the Universe." They are surrounded by a huge Dust Cloud, you see, their single sun with its single world, and they are right out on the utmost eastern edge of the Galaxy. Because of the Dust Cloud there has never been anything to see in the sky. At night it is totally blank, During the day there is the sun, but you can't look directly at that so they don't. They are hardly aware of the sky. It's as if they had a blind spot which extended 180 degrees from horizon to horizon.

I can't help but feel that Douglas was sitting in an England winter looking outside for inspiration when he wrote that.  Still, it was beautiful and sunny yesterday in the office.

So after work I met Tim and G at Ginger in Hope St.  They're both loving working there together in the kitchen; it was a prep day.

From there we kicked off to the good old Empire and enjoyed a nice couple of pints of Guinness before continuing down the Ormeau Road to Gaze for dinner.

Gaze is a superb, cosy, modernly ambient little restaurant which I have to work hard at to criticise.  The only thing that comes close to criticism from me is that when waiting (the very short 5 minutes when completely packed - another good sign) wee were effectively staring rudely into the tables of the diners who were already enjoying their meals.

Tim picked up a great bottle of red wine before popping in to Gaze - it's BYO.

The menu is large and varied with a complete array of mouthwatering choices fusing from Chinese, Japanese, Thai and even Korean dishes.  In true Asian style, you can have nearly any of the fantastic dishes with your choice of meat, poultry or seafood.

Anyway, after ordering it was not long at all before the starters came out and they were superb.  The salt and pepper prawns were so good we ended up ordering another portion of them and the squid version after the main course.

The flavours and tenderness of the food was amazing with interesting, sometimes thought-provoking textures heightening the senses (especially the filo pastry prawns and chicken).

We completely stuffed ourselves and thoroughly enjoyed the experience leaving the restaurant with that fantastic feeling of being just full and sleepy enough.  It's great to see Belfast growing and developing as it is; I'd highly recommend the experience of Gaze.

So, with that we left for the house, a cup of tea and the general abuse that goes with playing Pro Evo Soccer in the early hours of the morning.