Goa-Doodle-Doo + 24:3 the Emperor's Soul

So back to books for a tick. I've read a lot of books since I blogged about the Passage, where I was sitting at 7 read and 2 reviews. I've read The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson, The Usurper's Crown by Sarah Zettel, the Daylight War by Brent Weeks, King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence, the Charnel Prince/The Briar King by Greg Keyes, the Storyteller by Jodi Picoult, the Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman, The Twelve by Justin Cronin, City of Dragons/Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb, Kiss the Dead by Laurell K Hamilton, the Witches Daughter by Paula Brackenstein, Jack of Diamonds by Bryce Courtenay, The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury by Robert Kirkman, the Life of Pi by Yann Martel and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. So that's 24 and 2, I got some catching up to do and that's the books I remember reading this year.

At the moment I'm reading Wool by Hugh Howey and still got that Chicken Soup for the Soul open. I have copies of Trudi Caravan's, Duncan Lay's and Bevan McGuiness' books on my to read list.

Its gorgeous really

This is a review for the Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson, a beautifully written novella that I couldn't put down until I finished it. I'm rehashing the already intriguing blurb but its hard to add anything else to this beautiful thing. Shai is a Stamper, a person trained in the forbidden art of soul stamping, a magic that can rewrite an object or person's entire being with a single touch. She's caught replacing a priceless cultural artifact with a forgery, an act punishable by death.

Or that's what would happen if the Emperor wasn't lying on the edge of death after a nearly successful assassination attempt that killed his wife and left him, mindless and an empty shell of a man. The most powerful man in the country is practically dead and has no heir, if he emerges from his 100 day mourning period and anyone finds out, the country will be plunged into chaos. The only one who has any hope of healing him is Shai WITH A SOUL STAMP.

The thing is, is that any error in a soul stamp of the Emperor would mean death for Shai, anyone involved and even the Emperor himself, so loathed is soul stamping and of course, the manipulation of the country's leader. Soul stamping requires an intimate knowledge of the nature of a person, or an object's personal history. What makes them tick exactly? Why do they like blue and not red? How can you remake the soul of someone you've never met before? Even if you had every resource, diary, personal recollection and the counsel of people who had known him since he was a child?

It is an amazingly written book with some great plot twists. It really makes you think about what makes a person who they are and what could go wrong. One of the major plots in the story is how everyone is trying to manipulate Shai into re-writting the Emperor to be sympathetic to their cause. An interesting point is that when the Emperor was younger, he was more idealistic but now, whilst not a bad ruler, is more interested in his own pleasure than changing the country for the better. Everyone is pressuring her and threatening her with death for helping and not helping them, which is no help to her.

For anyone who has read Brandon Sanderson's work, this is set in the same universe as Elantris, but there is no mention of anyone or anything from that stand alone novel.

This place!

 Anyway back to food. I like the name of this place, that's pretty much my sole reason for going here. Its the only place my Boyfriend and I simultaneously liked on first impression. He likes both of the cuisines, Goan and Portuguese and the menu. So here we are!

This is their interesting summary of themselves

Lunch menu

Close up lunch menu

The dessert menu, I really like their descriptions

Their fusion menu

Their mains

Appetizers and entrees

Drinks and junk

Their takeaway menu outside. There's no chilli ratings though

Everything on two pieces

The interior was all shiny dark wood, hand painted pictures and it really reminded me of a cantina bar for some reason. There's a piano and a downstairs bar. It seems really empty thought when we were there, that was with five groups in there too.

This is the main strip! It looks straight into a strip of the kitchen

Photos and paintings everywhere!

Their hand painted pictures is much cuter

Their coffee bar up front

Words!

Piano bar!

Their underground bar!

Their coffee menu! They give discounts to Mater staff

We chose the lunch special where you could choose between several different meals, chicken xacuti, pork vindahlo, chickpea xacuti, goat curry, pork sorpotel or vege caldeen, with a side of salad and rice. I picked the pork sorpotel and he picked the chicken xacuti.

Pork sorpotel!

The pork sorpotel is an intensely spicy, fragrant and mildy greasy curry. The finely cut pork was quite dry but it seemed to work well with the thick, slightly oily curry for some weird reason. You can see the pool of red hot oil on this following picture.

Close up grossness

See all those colourful blobs? All of them are chillies, large spicy ones, I picked them all out cause it was so spicy. My Boyfriend didn't agree with me, but I had my nose sweats on. There was also chunks of potato in this.

Jealousy on a plate

The chicken xacuti was fantastic, far better of the two. It was a very mild, creamy, coconut flavoured curry, it smelled amazing. I was really jealous of my Boyfriend's pick because it was my original pick! Then he chose it! Damn him.

For some reason, I remember that the salad was delicious. It had a fair few different ingredients in there, fancy cherry tomatoes, shredded carrot, cucumber slices, fancy lettuce and a mild vinegar based dressing.

Goa-Doodle-Do:
Atmosphere: 6, for the time we went. It was a lovely place but nearly abandoned, like no one wanted to be there even though it was a nice place! It was a very long corridor too, so it seemed even bigger and more empty.
Service: 5, ordered our food, got it, menus meh. I think they should've put their chilli rating everywhere else though, cause its only on their dining menu, and not on the chalkboard or their takeaway menu.
Food: 8, the food is good! For lunch its really good, I'm not sure I would want to go there when its dinner time due to price.