I had the rump with mash, and gosh it was good. It arrived quickly, was very tasty, and was consumed (end enjoyed) almost as quickly as it arrived.

A group of us were dining at the newly opened restaurant at The Macquarie Hotel on Wentworth Avenue in Sydney.

It’s a pub I’ve been going to for years and years. And over the years they’ve transitioned the pub from being a fairly ordinary “suburban” pub to something quite new and interesting.

Upstairs, for example, they’ve established a really terrific live music venue called Raval which I’ve been to on a few occasions, most notably thew launch of James Valentine’s CD. It’s quite a grand room with comfortable furniture, good acoustics, and where you find yourself close enough to the musicians, but not too close.

Downstairs it was pretty packed from the moment we arrived at about seven o’clock. Still, we found a great seat, and it wasn’t until the live music downstairs came on that, that we decided it was time to move upstairs to the restaurant.

It’s a “Bill & Toni’s” restaurant that does quality pub food. Schnitzel. Steak. That kind of thing. Along with it, they had a good wine and beer list, though if you wanted spirits, you had to go downstairs, but that was about the only negative. The room looks great, and the staff were very friendly, very kind, and very efficient. We were all a bit shocked, actually, at how quickly our meals arrived.

We were there to have dinner with Mikey, a fellow ABBA fan who comes from the USA via the Middle East. He was here a couple of years ago, and was back again. He’s the loveliest guy. I think most of us might have a mini-crush on him, he’s so lovely.

After dinner, we made our way to the Brighton Hotel (with their infamous Lick Her Shop sign), and then eventually the Midnight Shift.

Ours is a diverse group, and it was fantastic to see one of us who was both Christian and a bit of an 80s guitar fan having the time of his life on the dance floor as Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” got a run. One of the group later explained the gays haven’t suddenly also become 80s guitar rock fans, that it was more linked to “Glee”.

In the midst of all this frivolity, I spent much of the evening with a telephone attached to my ear making a few arrangements for our coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Life’s a little strange, eh?