The last few days have been fairly busy and on Thursday and Friday I had to be in Brisbane for an important meeting.

On Wednesday I forgot my lunch and after a frantic morning I was in a café and spied a Chiko roll. I haven’t had one in years. My maternal grandfather‘s brother told me many times when I was young that our family had somehow been involved in the invention of the Chiko roll. At the time they owned a Chinese café at a truck stop in Rocklea in Brisbane. They used to sell these super large spring rolls mostly composed of cabbage and chicken. They sold them as chicken rolls. Mum and her brother have confirmed this story for me. They claim someone got the idea for the Chiko roll from my grandparents chiekn rolls at the Golden Pagoda in Rocklea. The Golden Pagoda was destroyed in the great flood of 1974 and the loss destroyed my grandparents and immediate family. They never really recovered.

Later that afternoon a work mate said she was going out to get some chocolate and I asked her get me some. I love my work mates. They know me. Look at what came back

That night I didn’t feel that hungry but had some chicken thigh meat thawing (and no I didn’t eat all that chocolate in one sitting).

The chicken burgers were tasty, you can see I used an English muffin for one and a hamburger roll for the other.

The next morning I woke up early for a 0620 AEST flight from Canberra to Brisbane. I like that the Qantas Club has breakfast.

On board the flight I had another breakfast.

I spent Thursday night in my hotel room working. The view of the Brisbane River from the twenty-fifth floor was pretty good.

I went and bought a couple of hot pies and an apple crumble to get me through the night.

In the morning the view was better. I left Brisbane in 1995 to live in Darwin until coming to Canberra in 2007. Brisbane city has certainly grown.

Look at the huge tree. they are amazing. I love them.

I indulged in a Starbucks breakfast of toast and a caramel mocha with cream.

So on the way back to Canberra I spent time chatting with a work mate and eating.

The pork buns here were crap. They are from the Sydney Qantas club and rubbish. You want to see a nice barbecue pork bun go to the Dumpling Inn. Check out the image here.

The soup was a spicy Mexican lentil dish.

On Saturday we went to Costco to buy some food. I hadn’t had lunch. I tried a Costco hot dog. It wasn’t that good.

For afternoon tea we went to Ricardo’s Cafe at Jamison and had a caramel praline mousse.

Last night Bron and I cooked dinner together. I cooked a steak with an onion dijon sauce and Bron cooked the cauliflower blue cheese gratin. The gratin was amazing. I ate two. I wanted more.

Bron cooked a caramel chocolate tart and a lemon tart for dessert. They were out of this world. Bron is amazing.

This morning we went light and had a poached egg before our big lunch.

Related articles

• Five years living in Canberra (garydavidlum.com)
• Brisbane (garydavidlum.com)
• Brilliant Buffet at the Hilton (durbandiva.wordpress.com)