3 Rings at Shave's Restaurant

Getting to 6 months is pretty huge for a new couple. It means you're more than just dating and becoming more serious. Getting to 1 year means this is really serious or it's too serious, so either keep rowing or jump ship. Getting to 2 years means there is a serious possibility of a future together. That's my take so far.


On February 10th, Dave and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. Four days later was Valentine's Day. What a week to celebrate love!


It's amazing. Two years ago, Dave and I were in Korea working at Chungdahm Academy in Seoul, Korea. At first, we were hardly friends. We eventually became managers, worked closely, became best friends and then started dating - all in 6 months! In the last two years, we have lived in South Korea and Australia. We have traveled to Canada, USA, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Lao, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. We've moved apartments 5 times.We changed careers from teaching to PR/Marketing (me) and Market Research (him).  Throughout all these major life changes, we've stuck together persevering together. Many believe these major life changes account for the majority of breakups. Don't get me wrong, we've been down the path towards breaking up, but we've endured facing each challenge together and have come out 2 years later going strong as ever.


To celebrate this milestone, Dave took me to a surprise location. We met at Circular Quay home of cruise ships, ferries and the Sydney Opera House. Teasing for weeks about this day, I had no idea what Dave had planned. We walked towards Opera Bar at the base of the Opera House. Perhaps we were going to grab after work drinks and see a show. Walking upon the landmark, we stopped. Dave stood behind me and embraced me. At this moment, we had the view of Sydney Harbour, the Rocks, Sydney Opera House, Circular Quay, Luna Park, North Sydney and the Sydney Harbour Bridge against the backdrop of the sunset and cool evening breeze. What a picturesque scene!


"I wanted to take you here because this symbolises how far we've gotten. We made it here of all places - together."


From there we kept walking, but this time away from the Opera House. We walked onto Macquarie Street and stopped in front of Aria Restaurant - a world renowned restaurant owned by celebrity chef Matt Moran. I knew of this restaurant from watching Master Chef and hearing stories from my boss - this is her favourite restaurant to celebrate special occasions and we almost always recommend this place to our clients. Embarrassed by my flip-flops, I scurried to our table. This was a surprise after all! Sitting in candlelight, I took in the spectacular view. It was the same view we had seen earlier, but at a higher level with the city lights twinkling.


Eager to eat what this restaurant had in store, we ordered 3 courses. We received 5!

1. Zucchini basil soup shot with sourdough rolls (complimentary)
2. Crab - spanner crab meat with toasted quinoa, summer peas, garlic chips and foie gras ($38)
3. Rabbit - stuffed rabbit loin with zucchini flower, lemon, sautéed lobster and a sorrel velouté ($56)
4. Duck - roasted breast of duck with cherries, green beans, almonds, star anise and ginger sauce ($56)
5. Truffle oil potato mash ($15)
6. Tempered Manjari chocolate with salted peanuts, golden raisins and caramelised banana ice cream ($24)
7. Rosewater and Earl Grey Turkish Delight and Orange Macaroon petit fours (complimentary)

The meal was extraordinary. It was such a surprise to get the palette teaser and the petit fours at the beginning and the end compliments of the chef. An even better surprise was receiving our dessert with the words 'Happy Anniversary' written with chocolate on the plate.

The Rabbit Dish

Rose Water Petit Fours

The best surprise of the night was receiving Dave's gift before dessert. When the table was cleared I took off the the restroom. When I returned, Dave had a huge grin. He had a box from Pandora (like Tiffanys) on the table. When I unwrapped the white box, I found a long silver necklace with three rings. Dave stood up and put it around my neck. When he sat back down, he explained how he endeavored to get this necklace. He had asked for advice around his office. He and his colleague Peter went down one lunch break to Pandora in North Sydney. Of all of the collections, he chose the liquid silver collection's long string silver necklace with three rings. The rings placement was symbolic he said. The two outer rings were smaller and identical, but the third ring placed in the center was the larger of the three. He described how the two outer rings symbolised our two years together and how fantastic they were wrapping around our next year. The larger third ring in the center symbolised how future together - how it's going to be bigger, better and something to work towards. I nearly started crying with happiness.

Beautiful Silver Necklace with 3 Rings Symbolising Our Time Together

Spending nearly 3 hours at this restaurant and crushed by the bill, we left to go home. At home, I made Dave close his eyes in the bedroom as I laid his present in front of him. When he opened them, he was so excited to see a wrapped present. All week, I had hid the present in a gift bag with a towel laid on top making sure he never saw it. As he unwrapped it, I popped out of the bathroom in an identical present he was unwrapping; white velvet house robes. Throughout our relationship and travels, we have joked about getting fancy robes to wear around the house. Because Dave and I cherish nothing more than our comfortability with each other, there could be no better present.

Enjoying our New Velvet House Robes

Four days later, the love fest continued. Now we were in Valentine's day mode. We even made two batches of cupcakes to take to work so that everyone could feel the love. Our first Valentine's day was back in 2009, 4 days after we started dating. His dad and sister came to visit him in Korea at this time. On Valentine's Day we woke up nearly at noon from a heavy night out in Seoul. He embraced me and said, "I wish I had some flowers or chocolate to give you." He didn't. He rushed out to meet his Dad and sister and that was our first Valentine's day. This year he especially remembered that day two years ago.

24 Pink Valentine's Cupcakes

With no set expectations, I expected this day wouldn't be that special. Dave proved me wrong. At 10am, six long-stem roses were delivered to my office with chocolates in the shape of hearts and a note that expressed his regretfulness of the day he ran out of my apartment on Valentine's Day in 2009. It was especially sweet because Dave isn't one to give flowers. Even better, I was the first lucky girl at the Taurus office to get flowers that day.

The 6 Long Stem Roses + Chocolates + Sweet Note

After work, I called Dave at King's Cross station. He said he had dinner  reservations around our neighborhood. He told to me wait at the fountain near the police station. Ten minutes later, he walked up to me and placed my hand in the crook of his arm. Nagging him of the location of the restaurant, we approached our building and there on the glass read 'Shave's Restaurant' on a post-it with carefully written curly handwriting.

The Front Door Sign of Shave's Restaurant

The name 'Shave' comes from our good friends in Korea who saw our relationship blossom from the start. Much like 'Brangelina', we were dubbed 'Shave' for Shadiyah + Dave.

Heart shaped Welcome in Olives

When I entered 'Shave's Restaurant', I found our dining room table with two glasses, a bottle of Malbec (my favourite type of wine) and chili garlic and feta stuffed olives in the shape of a heart. What could be better than olives and wine?

Shave's Restaurant Pizza, Rigatoni and Passion Fruit Dessert

The rest of our fine four course meal consisted of a pizza bought from Woolworths, rigatoni with sun-dried tomatoes and capers and passion fruit with some of the cupcakes we had made for our colleagues. He had spent so much money on our anniversary dinner and present, that he had to keep our Valentine's Day simple. It was nice to have the dinner at Aria for our anniversary, but I can't think of a better and more comfortable way to spend Valentine's Day together. We are the type of couple who would rather spend time watching a movie on our couch than go out. Today, Dave brought the best of both worlds together at Shave's restaurant - a place more special in my heart than any other restaurant we could have gone to.

Valentine's Day Presents for Dave

The last part of our Valentine's Day was spent opening presents. He had gotten me the roses and created Shave's Restaurant. I was now feeling like an underachiever. I did however get him three gifts.

New Magnets of Us

First he opened magnets with photos of us from all over the world. We just moved into our new place and nothing on our fridge, so these magnets were perfect because not only do they help decorate our fridge, but they are a reminder of all the good times we've had travelling around Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Bliss at Sunset

South East Asia 2009-2010

The second present was a picture of me from our first island stop in Thailand when we traveled there in 2009. It was taken at the perfect time. It was our first day on Koh Phi Phi. We had just traveled from the U.S. and Canada, landed in Bangkok after a hell of a flight and took an overnight bus to Phuket, and finally took a ferry to Koh Phi Phi, where The Beach was filmed. Exhausted, yet settled, we sat on a bench overlooking the beach at sunset. I laid on his lap and smiled up at him and he took my photo. I gave him this photo in a nice white frame to bring to work. Too embarrassed of how 'revealing' it is, he keeps it in his drawer and looks at it every morning when he reaches for his cereal hidden in his drawer.

Homemade Key Lime Pie

Dave's last present were the ingredients for his favourite dessert of all time; key lime pie. Australia is completely unaware of this delicious sour and sweet pie. Instead of hunting down the impossible, I decided to give him all the ingredients to make it himself since we love cooking so much. With no graham crackers in Australia, I substituted it with a box of digestive biscuits, cinnamon and sugar. I packed in 1 can of condense milk and 4 lemons since there are no key limes in Australia. All of these ingredients were packed into a new pie pan along with a hand juicer. The following Saturday, we stayed up till 2am making key lime pie and it was delicious. Dave of course ate 90% of the pie in 3 days. That's real love right there.