The Snook and I celebrated in our traditional way: going out for a nice dinner. We’d made a reservation earlier in the week for Redoak. They were doing a special Valentine’s set menu, and they also had two new recently-launched beers that we wanted to try. WIN-WIN! We got there about an hour early, thinking we’d hang at the bar and try the new beers. We talked to Janet about her family in Victoria surviving the bushfires, which seems pretty miraculous. Apparently a lot of the produce they use in brewing comes from the family farms, so they’re waiting to hear how much of it (if any) survived. Well, we gave them our support by ordering half a dozen beers over the night. My favorite was the new Biere Blanche, a Belgian wheat beer (somewhat similar to Hoegaarden). Our table was free so they seated us pretty early and we got stuck into our dinner. For the first course, I had an onion and blue cheese tart while the Snook had calamari with pasta. For mains, I had an absolutely fantastic sirloin steak while the Snook went for the bream fillet with risotto. Dessert was a shared plate with four different morsels on it. We left feeling well-fed and happy. I’m glad Redoak has managed to survive in Sydney over the years. We need more places with great atmosphere, great food, great service, and most importantly, great beers.

Emily came over yesterday and brought us a present: a bag of “Obama Blend” coffee from Campos.

Great depth of character, strong, and eloquent. This very appealing blend unites coffees from Africa and the Americas to produce a cup which has gotten us excited. Formidable middle palate flavors, syrupy with an uplifting finish. Excellent drink for going forward.

HA! Rodd and I are both enjoying it right now.