Welcome to the final in my series of posts about our trip to Sydney. It was quite an effort to fit all these foodie destinations into one weekend, but by gum we did it!

One of my must-visit destinations was the Ben & Jerry's scoop shop in Manly.


Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop
Shops 5 & 6
25-27 South Steyne
Manly, 2100 Sydney
Ph: (02) 8966 9219
Website

I'm not sure why I've become so obsessed with Ben & Jerry's. Maybe it's because of their strong yet non-preachy commitment to social justice. Maybe it's because they seem like super-friendly happy stoner hippies. Or maybe it is because they are 2 normal guys who built an ice-cream empire out of their living rooms.

But I think mainly it is because of their philosophy of generous, decadent ice-creams, with big fat chunks all the way through. *Faint!* (Their marketing strategy of giving away free ice-cream when opening new stores is also a plus.)

Back during my Ice-Cream Sunday project, I made their butter pecan ice-cream, mocha and choc-chip cookie dough flavours, as well as hot fudge sauce and hot burgundy cherries. (Stay classy!)

It's a half-hour ferry ride from Sydney Harbour to Manly Harbour. (How good is a noun that doubles as an adjective?!)


Manly seemed like a really nice area; close to the beach with lots of shops and eating places. I would have liked to spend more time there, but we were on a limited schedule and had only one place in mind!




It was busy, but luckily there wasn't a long line. If we'd had more time, I would have sat down and had a sundae, but we were in a rush to get back to Oxford st. The ice-creams were quite pricey, but very, very generously served. I had a waffle cone with Chunky Monkey and Peanut Cookie-Burra Dough. I didn't get a photo of it, but trust me. It was massive. Even I struggled to finish it.


The ice-cream was a little meltier than ideal; we had a look at the freezers and they were at 5~6C! Probably because the freezer doors are always open due ot the high business volumes.

Sandra's cone: Vanilla and Berry Berry Extraordinary. I normally don't rate B&J's fruit flavours, preferring the crazy-chunky-rich ones, but the berry sorbet was lovely, with a pure berry flavour.

An, that crazy boy, had a triple scoop. I can't remember what he ordered, but one of them was a coffee-based flavour.

I can now say my ice-cream craving is well and truly satiated!

Oporto
45 Oxford Street
Sydney 2000
Ph: (02) 9262-9555

I know, I know, Oporto isn't really a foodie destination, but they are a Sydney chain. We shared some nuggets and chips as a snack. (Sometimes after a big sweet hit, you need something salty and savoury to cut through it, hehe). The nuggets were made with real chicken breast, but for some reason had a super-strong lemon flavour.

I think I prefer the processed KFC nuggets. Does this make me a bad foodie?

And later that night... our friend Diane took us to Darling Harbour for ribs. Doesn't it look pretty at night?

Reminds me of Clarke Quay in Singapore


Hurricane's Grill and Bar Darling Harbour Restaurant
Harbourside Shopping Centre
Shops 433-436
Level 2, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Ph: (02) 9211-2210
Website

I like the fact that things in Sydney tend to stay open quite late. For example, on the Friday night, people were still coming into Spice Temple for dinner at 10, and on Saturday, we didn't get seated at Hurricane's until 10:30. We were worried about how our friend Di would get home, but apparently the last bus is at 4am, so we didn't need to worry! (I wasn't sure if the late opening hours were just for Mardi Gras weekend, but according to Sydneysider Di, the city is usually pretty crowded most weekend nights).

Bread with lurpak butter. (I'm such a butter dork, I was impressed by the good butter).

Garlic mushrooms - $11. Super garlicky, super buttery. Yum.

Full rack of beef ribs with chips - $34

We shared the full rack between the 3 of us, which was a good amount. I loved the sticky, sweet, salty sauce, and found the meat juicy and tender. They gave us bibs to wear, which were dorky but necessary. I am a messy eater!

Pretty view from our table

And finally, we have our Sunday morning breakfast destination...

Luneburger German Bakery
Shop 72 Lower Ground
Queen Victoria Building
455 George Street
Sydney 2000
Ph: (02) 9264-2377
Website

I have been keen to try Lüneburger, Sydney's German bakery chain, since I read about it on Duncan's blog. The closest one to our hotel was in the QV building, on the lower ground level near the train station. (And also almost opposite the Krispy Kreme, if you are feeling more indulgent than I did!)

Sandra: "That bakery looks very German."

I had to be stopped from buying EVERYTHING in the cabinet.

Lüneburger QVB primarily does takeaway, but there are a couple of tables outside, so we sat down to eat. My latte was better than expected - a good temperature and not burnt or overly bitter.

Chocolate croissant - I ordered this one because they just came out of the oven. Warm and fresh, but the dough was slightly heavier than what I'm used to.

An had a "strawberries and cream" pastry, which I think was even nicer than the croissant.

PRETZEL!!!!!!! Sandra said these were better than the Bretzel Biz pretzels that we get in Melbourne. I should have bought a dozen to take home and freeze.

What I did buy to bring home, though, was a Krustenbrot, or "Crusty". It was my favourite bread in Germany, and I was looking forward to having more.


The hard thing about transporting bread is that it gets soggy if wrapped up in a paper bag. By the time we got it home to Melbourne that evening, it actually felt soft. However, a quick flash in the toaster restored it to crusty goodness. It was great!

And that, my friends, was our foodie weekend in Sydney! Time to start saving up for the next interstate weekend trip. Does anybody have a favourite foodie destination in Australia?

For me, a trip to Sydney is not complete without a trip to one of Bill Granger's cafes. (See previous posts for example: bills 2 in 2005; bills 1, 2 AND 3 in 2006).

bills 2
359 Crown St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Ph: (02) 9360-4762
Website

We came here on a Saturday morning at about 11:30. It was a short but strenuous walk from Central station - Googlemaps doesn't show you just how hilly Surry Hills is! As usual, it was packed, and we had to wait 40 minutes for a table. The captain was really nice, and kept apologising that the table before us just wouldn't leave, even after they'd paid their bill! Grrr.

Anyhoo, after a wait in the nice warm Sydney weather, we got a table outside and promptly ordered. You'll have to forgive me; I've forgotten what all the prices were, and I have misplaced the receipt we got. Overall it was pretty decently priced by Sydney standards, which translates as "moderately expensive" by Melbourne standards, hehe.

I had a cappuccino, which looked great...

... but unfortunately didn't taste too good. The coffee was neither rich nor full bodied. I guess we are spoiled by the quality of coffee here in Melbourne!

By this time, they had stopped serving breakfast, but luckily for us there is a section on the menu of "bills classics", which are available all the time. The first 3 dishes are all bills classics, and for non-Sydneysiders, the recipes are all in Bill's first book, Sydney Food.

Scrambled eggs with toast and smoked salmon. (Portions seem to have gotten smaller since last time - our boy Dan reported he was still hungry afterwards).

Coconut bread - a light meal for Sandra, who wasn't up for a big lunch. She reportedly liked the bread, but I tried a bite and foud it slightly heavy for my tastes.
An's favourite: ricotta hotcakes with banana and honeycomb butter. AHEM. What a plate of awesomeness!

Both myself and Di ordered a chicken club - chicken, bacon, tomatoes, rocket and avocado mayo on baguette. Sounded great, and looked pretty good too!

Unfortunately, it was one of the greasiest sandwiches I have ever eaten. When I picked it up, the bottom half of the bread was all soaked through with grease and kinda disgusting.

That was mine, but Di's was the same - soaked through with bacon/chicken grease.

It didn't help that the bread was pappy, soft and white, not the robust crunchy baguette I was hoping for. After such a long wait for our table, I didn't want to send it back. I just ate the filling and the top piece of bread with a knife and fork. I should so just have ordered a cake from the counter, or the hotcakes!

Bills 2 seems to have dropped standard slightly since our last visit, but it is still worth a visit for the echt Sydney experience. My recommendation though, is to get there early, and stick to the classics!

LED-door leading downstairs to Spice Temple.

A few short hours after late-lunch at Chat Thai, we made our way to Bligh St, where we had a booking at Spice Temple.

Spice Temple
10 Bligh St
Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 8078 1888
Website

Whenever we go on holiday with the lovely An, we make sure to have at least one fine-dining experience. E.g. Rockpool in Sydney in 2005, Canberra's Artespresso last year. For this trip, we decided on Spice Temple - I wanted something a bit different from the usual modern Australian/European restaurants that we tend to visit.

However, I have to admit I wasn't sure about Spice Temple when I first heard about it. Despite Neil Perry's culinary awesomeness, the reviews that I did read were focused overwhelmingly on the decor, and not on the food. And when I say "decor", I mean the photos of the sultry, almost-naked Asian ladies that adorn the business card and a couple of the walls. From the way the reviews described it, it seemed sleazy.

It also reminded me of the 1969 Rogers and Hammerstein musical The Flower Drum Song. The film was groundbreaking in that it had a completely Asian cast, but it still had some unpleasant Orientalist overtones. Take, for instance, the lyrics to the song Grant Avenue, which describes the vibrant street in San Francisco's Chinatown.

You can eat, if you are in the mood,
Shark-fin soup, bean cake fish.
The girl who serves you all your food
Is another tasty dish!

Just excuse me while I barf.

Anyway, despite the reviews, the decor wasn't nearly as bad as I imagined it would be. Sexy Asian lady pictures were limited to 2 walls, and were quite innocuous.


The feel of the restaurant was more like one of those funky Chinese-style bars in Melbourne, like Golden Monkey or Manchuria. (Shout out to Adam at the Golden Monkey!)

And despite the restaurant being quite dark, the red floors and wooden seats kept it looking and feeling warm.


Water is charged at $7.50 per person - either still or sparkling mineral water, and they just keep topping it up all night long. I thought this was a great idea, especially because I drink a lot of water, and we were expecting spicy food!


We started off with some cocktails. They have a different cocktail for each animal of the zodiac, as well as some specials. The Rat (that's me!) cocktail didn't seem too appealing, and all the champagne-based cocktails only came by the jug. I chose the Rooster cocktail, which had bitter orange, aperol, limoncello and passionfruit. It tasted just as good as it sounded!

Front: Dragon cocktail - lemongrass & rose petal soda and tanqueray and fresh citrus - $16
Back: Cock cocktail - bitter orange with aperol, limoncello and passionfruit - $16

Our waiter was fantastic - best service we've had in a long time. He knew about the dishes on the menu in detail, was able to recommend an appropriate number of dishes for our table and was generally friendly and very professional - plates were cleared promptly and we never had to ask for our water glasses to be re-filled.

Not feeling super-hungry, we ordered 1 entrée and 3 mains to share. We had to wait quite a while for the food to come out, but this wasn't a problem. Well, we were on holiday and we were enjoying the evening a lot.

The first dish brought out was a cold shredded lamb salad - which we hadn't ordered! Our waiter had asked the kitchen to give us a complimentary one because we'd had to wait so long for our food.

Shredded lamb shoulder with salted chilli - $16

We were instructed to stir the salad well to disperse the salted chilli through the meat. The lamb was very tender, and I loved the salty, hot and tangy dressing.

The entrée that we actually did order was the lamb and fennel dumplings. They were tasty little pockets, not greasy at all, with a crispy bottom. The meat inside tasted very different from my usual pan-fried pork dumplings; these ones were more like dense, firm little lamb sausages.

Northern style lamb and fennel dumplings - 8 for $18

We ordered one mild vegetarian dish: stir-fried abalone mushrooms with garlic stem and chives.

Stir fried king abalone mushroom with garlic stem and chives - $19

Looking at the dish, I thought it looked like sliced chicken breast. It was in fact, sliced abalone mushroom. I'd never had it before, but they must be huge mushrooms! They were quite mild, without a particularly strong mushroom flavour, and were firm and slightly chewy.

We also ordered a pork dish, which included deep-fried kurobuta with numbing Sichuan pepper.

Hot, sweet, sour and numbing pork (Chilli, sugar, black vinegar and Sichuan peppercorn) - $28

This one was crunchy and juicy, with a delicately spicy heat. An absolute winner, and my favourite dish of the night! It was one of the red items on the menu, indicating that it was one of the hotter dishes, but I didn't find it that hot. (In fairness, our waiter did tell us that the heat varies, even amongst the red dishes).

Now, even though the pork was my favourite, An and Sandra thought the next dish was the best of the night. The 3-shot chicken was a very theatrical and dramatic dish. Firstly, half the table was cleared and a gas burner was placed down. Then, a claypot was placed down, and as it heated up, our waiter poured in 3 shots...

...there was light soy sauce, Tsingtao beer, and chilli oil.


Our waiter stirred the shots through, and let it bubble up. Then the claypot was placed down on the table (still bubbling like crazy, and soo close to my arm - eek!), and the gas burner was taken away. Ta-dah!

Three shot chicken (beer, chilli and soy) - $32

We loved this, not just for the theatricality, but for its taste. There were chunks of tender chicken, mellow (pre-boiled) garlic cloves, carrot slices and super-cute mini shiitake mushrooms. The 3 shots added different layers of flavour - heat from the chilli, saltiness from the soy, and a slightly bitter and malty tang from the beer. Amazing!

Overall, it was a bit too much food for us (especially considering the large 4pm lunch we'd had). I'd love to go back with a bigger appetite!

But there's always room for dessert...

And with dessert you need tea or coffee...
Guanyin Tea - $5.50

Spice Temple has quite an extensive tea menu. I chose Guanyin tea (goddess of Mercy - woohoo!), more for its name than anything else. I find tea is always great after a heavy meal to aid digestion.

An had a latte. Check out the funky cup! They had brown sugar cubes as well, a nice touch.
Latte - $4

We shared one dessert between us, a peanut butter parfait.

Peanut Butter Parfait - $17

There was a cripy meringue-type base, the creamy peanut butter parfait in the middle, and a salty, fudgy salty caramel on top. A small splodge of chocolate sauce and some crunchy sesame-and-sugar encrusted peanuts finished it off. Wow.

A few little crispy almond cookies came out with the coffee and tea. They had a lightly salty taste and a savoury spicy taste that I couldn't quite identify.

The whole meal was a lot cheaper than I expected - $187 all up for the 3 of us, including cocktails, an entree, 3 mains, and a dessert. I loved the food, the ambience and the fantastic service. I'll definitely be visiting again next time I'm in Sydney!

Hello hello!!! I am back from a fabulous weekend in Sydney! Lots of food, lots of friends, a little sightseeing, and yet another viewing of Wicked the Musical. Oh, you know, and a tiny little parade.

I came back absolutely knackered! Running between restaurants and cafes and ice-cream parlours was a lot more strenuous than I anticipated. Sydney, you are awesome, but what is up with all those hills and that humidity? Phew!

Anyhoo... we arrived at about 4 on Friday afternoon, and feeling peckish, took a walk around the hotel. And look what we found!

Chat Thai
20 Campbell Street
Haymarket
NSW, 2000
Ph: (02) 9211 1808
Website

Chat Thai. Famous Thai restaurant, always packed. However, because it was an odd time, we only had to wait 5 minutes for a table. Wahey! It also happened to be directly opposite the Capitol theatre, which I took as a good sign. (Our show of Wicked wasn't until Sunday night, but so we were happy to stumble across the theatre!)

Look to the Western sky...

Inside the restaurant is all sleek and modern, with dark wooden floors and gleaming silver benches. There is also a pretty awesome dessert bar, where you can watch fresh Thai desserts being prepared!
Crunchy things in bags (Sorry not exactly sure what they are, but they look unhealthy, hehehe!)

Mmm... cakes
Mmm... durian with sticky rice, and more beans and jellies and other Asian dessert awesomeness.

But, as I said, it was about 4:30 by this stage, and we had a 9:15 reservation at Spice Temple, so we had to say no to the desserts. Next time!

Even though it was 4:30 in the afternoon, the restaurant was still packed. Mainly with students and young Asians.

Hot humid weather needs cold caffeinated refreshment (and I know Sydney isn't Thailand, but come on, I am from Melbourne where it is generally cold and windy!). Thai ice coffee with condensed milk was the answer.
Kaffe Yen - $3.50

At first the coffee was super thick, but got a bit easier to drink once the ice had melted.

We ordered 2 dishes and rice between the 2 of us. I ordered sticky rice, which came in this cute little container:
I also thought the water glasses were very pretty, but I must admit they did look a bit carcinogenic!

Sticky rice - $3.50

GAENG KEAW GAI - $14.
Chicken curry made with a spicy green paste of galangal, kaffir limes, lemongrass, garlic and long green chillies. The chicken and aromatic paste is cooked in coconut milk with apple eggplants and then finished off with finely sliced kaffir lime leaves and basil.

The Gaeng Keaw Gai was a fantastic green chicken curry, with cute bitter mini-eggplants (they're the green things that look like peas). It was well spiced, rich and satisfying, but didn't leave us weighed down with coconut milk. A well balanced dish.

GAI TORT - $12.
Crisp fried chicken marinated in coconut milk, coriander roots and garlic. Served with nahm jim jeaw.

Yes, I know, 2 chicken dishes. But Sandra doesn't eat seafood, and I really like crisp-fried chicken, ok! Hehe. Nam Jim, as anyone who has read a Neil Perry book will know, is a Thai chilli sauce. Chat Thai's version had the sweetness of regular bottled sweet chilli sauce, but with a fiery kick. I really enjoyed the chicken - it was juicy within and crispy without - everything I want in a fried chicken dish!

Chat Thai was good value (especially for Sydney prices). All of the above, plus a coke, came to $39. I'd love to go back with a bigger group, so that we could try more dishes. And those desserts! Mango with sticky rice is one of my all-time favourites, and I'd definitely have tried Chat Thai's version if we didn't have dinner reservations later that evening!