Frugal February Day 29

I wore my 'ghost' dress again today. I don't think I said before, but it was $5.86 at Target! Mum was with me when I bought it so she got one too. I didn't see her this morning so we got a fun surprise when we saw each other after work:





James and I went to Indian Aroma at Cronulla tonight. I got a shop-a-docket (did you know they are an Australian invention?) on my Target receipt the other day (gosh I love that shop) - buy one main, get one free. Not bad when a main costs twice as much as what I bought from Target!


When we arrived at the restaurant we were seated outside, in this horrid weather. We asked to move inside and James told them we had a reservation, but for some reason the waiter insisted he would have to set up the "corner table" for us. There were several other tables for two that were already ready to go (and nobody sat there all night) so this was kind of weird.


They had a lot of jazzy decor:





The panpipe covers of retro hits weren't great though. If you didn't already know, Candle In The Wind works best on piano.


We ordered a lamb korma and some kind of lime & coriander prawn curry, plus rice and naans. The meat was not great and both curries were, well, bland - they were kind of spicy, but in such a way that I could only really taste "hot", not the rich flavours you get at Murraya. The rice & naan servings were stingy; there wasn't nearly enough for all the curry sauce. The prawn one was a bit tasty though, I'd definitely order a similar dish at Murraya.

I get that not every chef will be able to create the super amazing flavours I'm after, and I also get that in The Shire a lot of people do appear to like the kind of curries you get at Indian Aroma (perhaps the sea air affects the olfactory senses?). But if they want to be competitve - and judging from the number of empty tables, they should - Indian Aroma really need to up their serving sizes. Meals can't always be delicious and generous, but they should at least be one or the other.

Also, if everything has to be premade and microwaved, they should at least wait a while before they do it. If your entire meal is served within five minutes of ordering, you are going to cotton on. We were done in about half an hour, so I guess this could be a plus if you're in a hurry?

Matching, or at least coordinating, crockery would be nice too.

For the price ($35) it was an okay meal, but I wouldn't go back if I didn't have a coupon. Even with a coupon, I could still get a nice Thai or pasta for the same price.



After dinner we went to see One For The Money using vouchers that my Nana had given us (hi Nana if you're reading! Thanks for the vouchers!). I love the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich - very light but much more interesting and original than the same old chick lit.


The movie wasn't as good as the books but I still liked it very much. It's a fun movie and a nice change from formulaic romcoms, and it was quite true to the book too. I hope they'll make more movies in the series.

Since it's Frugal Feb I made this popcorn at home. James bought a six dollar Coke. He could learn a lot from me (are you reading James?).

I was going to do a summary of Frugal Feb but I'm too tired and I have rambled enough I think. I will do it tomorrow instead.

Spent today: $20 (not bad for dinner, movie, snacks plus the emergency Coke I had for breakfast)
Spent this week: $20
Spent this month: $411.45

How was your Frugal February?