Thursday, January 13, 2005

Warm fuzzy bookshop

Yesterday I stopped in at Hawker shops to check out Ron's Bookshop. This secondhand bookshop used to be at the Jamison Centre but has recently moved to a larger space at Hawker shops. I was looking for a Phil Rickman book but instead I got the first in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. Yeah, it's (kind of) a kid's book. So when I brought it up to the counter, Ron asked me, "Are you a teacher?" I said "no", and didn't add, (I just like reading kids books). He could see what I was thinking, and told me that he only asked because often teachers come in and buy kids books for their schools, using their own money. He said he keeps a stash of kids books to give free to teachers.

How cool is that? Three gold stars to Ron.

UPDATE: Clearly Hawker Shops is the place to be, at least if you're me. I had dinner last night at Rock Salt. I've heard a lot of buzzing noises (the good type) about this slightly pricey restaurant for ages but this was my first time there, mainly because I'm cheap and I live walking distance from Dickson with all its lovely and economical restaurants. Rock Salt specialises in duck dishes and lots of other meat-y things. As a vegetarian, I didn't think this would be the sort of restaurant where I would fare too well. I received the menu and thumbed through several pages of exotic meat dishes, noting a couple of side dishes that might do as a meal for me. Then, to my surprise, I hit... the vegetarian page! Yep, a whole page of vege entrees AND mains. Choice!

All of the food was beatifully presented and everyone seemed happy with it. My meal of pesto risotto followed by apple and nectarine crumble, was fantastic. They even served the ice cream in a separate bowl which made me super happy, because I hate melted ice cream with hot food. They even served little dishes of lemon sorbet between entree and main. So, Rock Salt gets gold stars too.

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