Restaurant Review: Cafe Sydney

Just over a week ago I went for lunch at Cafe Sydney, which is located on the top floor of Customs House sitting just behind Circular Quay. Customs House is one of the few period buildings left close to the water. I am sure it was once an imposing building with sweeping views of Sydney Harbour (as befitting the tax man), but is now slightly overshadowed by the surrounding buildings and train line in front.

The restaurant was a little smaller than I expected, but looked very sleek with it's dark wooden interior. The main reason for going to Cafe Sydney is for the view. There is a great view of the Harbour Bridge, however, the Opera House is virtually obscured by the modern flats on the eastern side of Circular Quay.

My main memory is how artistic the food was, it all looked beautiful on the plate. I started with the seared scallops and white anchovy. I thought that the anchovies might over power the delicate taste of the scallops, but they didn't and were equally delicate themselves. Two of the table had the octopus salad which looked fantastic.

For the main course I had the spatchcock of chicken served on a bed of zucchini, borlotti beans, speck and jus. For me the dish didn't quite work. The chicken was very tender, but arty bowl come plate that it was served on made the chicken quite difficult to cut. The jus was very oily and bed of vegetables was a bit miserly. When I am paying a lot for a main meal, why should I also have to buy a side? It all tasted good, but I don't think came together as a plate of food.

For desert I shared the cheese plate with two others. We had three enormous pieces of cheese that the menu only described as a blue, white and semi hard cheese. The cheeses were accompanied by some lovely walnut bread, dates and a pear chutney.

It was a work event so I thought it a bit inappropriate to take my camera and snap away, hence there are no photos of the action.

I am pleased I went, but don't think that I would pay the rather expensive bill to go again. The view and ambiance of the restaurant are both fantastic, but the food doesn't quite live up to the price tag.

Balls Point Reserve

The plan last Sunday was to go for lunch and a walk in Watsons Bay. We never made it onto the ferry (long story), but had a lovely day nonetheless. It started with a walk over to Woolloomooloo where we saw the paparazzi chasing Britney Spears (although not the lady herself) before ending up at the Tilbury.

The Tilbury is one of Sydney's ultra trendy gastro pubs. Luckily it wasn't too busy on a lazy Sunday afternoon and we had a good, if small, steak sandwich on the upstairs deck for lunch. To drink I had my first lemon, lime and bitters which is a very Top Aussie non-alcoholic drink. Everyone describes it as "very refreshing", no more than water I'd say!

After our lunch we drove over to North Sydney to Balls Point Reserve for a walk and a look at the views. There were great panoramic views of the Harbour Bridge, the CBD, Goat Island, Mort Bay, ANZAC Bridge, Cockatoo Island and then the motley Lister, Unwin and Tiling crew!

After our walk we went to The Point Deli on Blues Point Road for a little treat. An apple and blueberry crumble in my case. Getting in the mood for going back to the UK and eating my mum's crumble.

Poker Night

A few years ago back in London I went to some poker nights organised by a friend from work. I was never very good, but they were fun evenings during which I always lost a bit of money. (Perhaps that's why they invited me?)

I decided it would be good fun to host a poker night last Friday. There were six of us who didn't really know what we were doing attempting to play Texas Hold 'Em. It was a good evening and I think they'll be another one before not too long.

It had recently been Dave's 40th Birthday. I missed his party when I went sailing last week and hadn't bought him a present. I decided to bake him a comedy birthday cake. It turned out pretty well, although I had to make the cake a day ahead of time and it had dried out slightly by the Friday night.

Unfortunately the poker night was the start of me feeling under the weather. I've got a few posts to catch up on, but tonight is the first time in a while I have been able to look at a computer without feeling queasy.

*For the record I won the amazing sum of $5. At least it was a win!

Sailing at Church Point

Last Saturday Dave, Kren and I finally took the sailing lesson we booked at the Sydney Boat Show back in August. We travelled up to Church Point, about an hour north of Sydney, for our lesson with All Sail.

Church Point is located on a stunning natural inlet, and despite the rain forecast we had gorgeous sunshine. The buildings at the wharf are run down and drab, but luckily that's the only thing that lets them down. We didn't have high expectations as we entered the Waterfront Cafe via their grocery store for lunch before our lesson. However, the food was excellent and sitting on the deck jutting out over the water we had great views.

Our lesson was interesting! We were on the boat with another gentleman, Viv, who had been brought the lesson by his wife for his birthday. Our teacher was a Texan, whose name I can't remember. His approach was very different to the sailing lessons I had with Jonathan when I first arrived in Sydney.

He showed us how to hoist the the sails and cast off and then that was literally it. There was virtually no instruction, other than every 45mins he called for the person at the helm to change over and the odd instruction to tack. It could have been disastrous, but I actually quite enjoyed myself. I've never had 45mins uninterrupted at the helm of the boat before, even if I did make a bit of a mess of keeping a straight course. Dave and Kren were definitely less impressed with the lack of instruction although they both did better than me!

I think we had an almost perfect day; sunshine and a constant but mild wind which was perfect for beginners. The area around Church Point was beautiful and I'd like to head back to the nearby Palm Beach before I leave.

On the way back to Sydney Viv and his wife kindly gave us a lift, saving us the bus ride. Are people that friendly in the UK? We all thought probably not.

Laptop 2.0

I have been without my laptop since it died six weeks ago. I didn't have any of my recovery disks here in Australia, so was waiting until I went back to the UK in a couple of weeks. However, I discovered my friend Dave had a Windows XP disk so decided to borrow that a few days ago.

Formatting my hard drive and re-installing windows was much easier than I expected it to be, following these instructions on the Dell website. The only problem was that not everything worked as I didn't have all of the required drivers (I am guessing this is where the recovery disk that came with the laptop would have been more helpful?). Downloading them (via a second PC that would connect to the internet) was a bit painful and cumbersome. At least Dell had them all in one place.

My laptop is currently running much more smoothly and quickly than it did before. Windows was booting up in about 20 seconds before I installed Service Pack 2 which has slowed things down a bit. In truth I should have re-installed Windows six months ago, but the fear of losing data held me back.

So far I haven't noticed anything missing that I really need. iTunes is proving the biggest pain. As my computer died I didn't get a chance to deauthorise my old account. Importing my music library is going to be painful. If anyone has any idea please let me know. I am currently putting it off.

I'm going to buy some additional RAM from my friend Sarah. Then I hope my laptop will be good for another 12 months. £500 saved.

I read a few blogs by people saying that they did a full re-install every year. I'm not sure if I am brave enough to do that yet, time will tell. It's certainly made a big improvement.

Update: I forgot to mention that I've been unable to get the modem that went down in collateral damage when my PC bust working again. Not sure what is going on there......

Restaurant Review: Boot Leg Bar

Last Saturday night I went for dinner to the Boot Leg Bar in Paddington (Sydney, not the home of First Great Western trains), with a couple of friends. It's tiny place that is easy to miss, with the sign outside mysteriously just saying Bar + Italian Food. As you enter you immediately notice how small and narrow the place is. There is a long sleek bar dominating the front of the restaurant, with tables at the back and sunk into boothes for dining.

We had a couple of drinks at the bar before moving to our table. The furniture is pretty retro, and I was fearing the chairs would be hard and uncomfortable but needn't have feared. I have become so used to diverse Sydney menus that I was initially a bit disappointed studying the four or five choices, plus the specials on the board. Then I brought myself to my senses, a good focused menu is often the making of small places. Being Italian the menu was almost exclusively pasta and gnocchi. The staff were attentive and friendly, explaining a couple of the more obscure dishes on the menu.

I went for the lasagna which was amazing. Rich, without being heavy, and very tender. A lot effort had obviously gone into making such a simple dish. At our table we also had the spaghetti with prawns from the specials board and the grilled fish, both got good reviews. An interesting dish we saw at other tables was the pasta with meatball (singular). A softball sized meatball was served on a bed of pasta that oozed with mozzarella when cut open. It looked fun to eat if nothing else.

The Sydney Morning Herald have given the bar a rave review, loving it's New York vibe. I'd have to say I didn't think it had an NY feel. But I wouldn't disagree with all the positives. My only gripe was how close together the small tables were. My elbows would definitely have been clashing with the person next door had the adjoining table not been empty.

We had a rude shock when we stepped outside the calm sophistication of the restaurant that cocooned us for two hours, and into the madness that is Kings Cross on Halloween.

Six Bridges Walk (plus One on a Bus)

On the last Sunday in October I took part in the Seven Bridges Walk. A 25km hike around the Sydney Harbour crossing seven bridges along the way.

When a friend at work suggested the walk I was very keen to take part as I thought it would be a fantastic way to see Sydney. My hopes were sadly dashed by what turned out to be a very soggy day.

There is an excellent map of the event here. We met at Pyrmont Bridge and managed the short walk over the Anzac Bridge before the rain set in. There were some enterprising kids along the route selling water proofs and drinks to the crowds.

We managed to trudge round four more the bridges keeping our spirits high. However, by the time we reached Lane Cove I was beginning to flag. There is only so much driving rain you can take............

We decided to stop for a pub lunch and much to my surprise found a fire to huddle round and dry out slightly. We didn't resume the walk afterwards and took a bus back into town over our final bridge - The Harbour Bridge.

I was hoping to write a blog about what a fantastic day I had, and how much of Sydney harbour I had managed to explore; but it was not the case.

The BBC website has some amazing photos here of Breakfast on the Bridge which started the walk in the sunshine. (A ticketed event I sadly didn't make the guest list for.)

BBQ in Pyrmont Park

My conversion to everything Top Aussie continues with another two important boxes ticked this week.

The vast majority of Aussie parks seem to have communal BBQs in them. I hadn't used one before this weekend, but on Saturday I went to a BBQ in Pyrmont Park organised by my friends Kerensa and Dave. My first quintessential experience was to BBQ in the park. I was expecting the BBQs to be a bit naff, but they weren't and best of all they are free use. It was a really great way to spend the afternoon. I made a desert of fresh mango and coconut sticky rice which went down well.

Secondly, I bought myself a pair of Havaianas flip flops (not on display in the photo). Literally EVERY Australian has a pair, so I thought I needed some.

David Thompson: Thai Street Food

On Friday night I went to Gleebooks for a talk by David Thompson to publicise the launch of his new book Thai Street Food.

David Thompson is the writer of the seminal tome on Thai cooking; Thai Food. But I suspect he is someone that not everyone will have heard of. He isn't a celebrity chef in the mould of Jamie Oliver et al. I would be very surprised if there haven't been TV offers, but having been to his talk, I don't think it would be his style.

David Thompson wasn't at all what I was expecting. To lead a restaurant kitchen you need to have a bit of dynamism, charisma or energy. He didn't seem to posses any of these characteristics! He was a very quietly spoken and considered person, who captivated the audience. He said a lot of things about Thai cooking that ring true from my experiences of Thailand. Some of the best food is on the street and that there are very few high end Thai restaurants in Bangkok. He also spoke about the history of Thai street food, which I was surprised to hear is a relatively new phenomenon (last two decades). Before then food was very much centred around the family home; but modern urban living and mass migration from the countryside, have both helped to make street food more prevalent.

After his talk there were some questions from the floor. David Thompson must recently have said something semi-controversial in the press which he was asked about, and went largely over my head. There was also a bizarre lady who kept pushing him on where to get the best coconut milk from. One of the last questions was about his experiences in London (where he was head chef at Nahm). He started so well waxing lyrical about how London was one of the greatest cities in the world, and then descended into a five minute rant how it call also be the worst city in the world. Describing when the tube breaks down and you get stuck in a tunnel, escalators don't work and you encounter surly and badly trained shop assistants. All true, but there was no need to argue the point to eloquently!

As for the book I didn't buy a copy and I am not sure I will. It is A3 in size which makes it a bit cumbersome. Although I dearly want to eat some of the food he cooks, I think he is a bit inaccessible for your average home cook. He's the sort of person who wants to make his own fish sauce, pulp his own coconuts etc... It's not really the sort of thing you have time for when you get home from work.