Sydney - Mamak

www.mamak.com.au

Whilst we were in Sydney we knew we wanted to sample some of the food on offer in Sydney’s Chinatown, particularly as it was a fairly short walking distance from our hotel.

I didn’t particularly know where to go of course, so checked up on the trusty Urbanspoon website to see where was good. This is how I found out about Mamak. Mamak is apparently one of the most blogged about restaurants in Sydney, so I was keen to find out how good it was.

We walked down there on the Monday at lunchtime without really knowing exactly where it was, but managed to find it regardless. 

Mamak is described as offering authentic Malaysian cuisine and specialises in all types of both savoury and sweet roti. We regularly eat at Little Singapore up in Brisbane, so I was interested to know how it was going to compare.

Prices are really quite cheap, with mains at around $13-$18, but lunch specials are on offer for a cheaper price, with smaller dishes. 

Sydney - Criniti's Ristorante

www.crinitis.com.au

We went for a loooooooong walk on our Sunday evening in Sydney to try and find somewhere to eat, but didn’t really know what sort of food we felt like (I felt like something asian, L felt like Italian). We walked the entire length of Darling Harbour, noted Criniti’s Ristorante with some interest, then walked all the way down to Chinatown before giving up and going all the way back to Criniti’s.

One thing we definitely noted about all of the restaurants in the harbour was the elevated prices. I don’t know if this is a Sydney thing, or if its just because Darling Harbour is quite touristy and you are paying for this and the location/views.

Getting into the restaurant was not without some difficulty however. We walked up the stairs from the harbourside area and then didn’t really know where to go... no one greeted us, there was no obvious ‘wait here and be seated’ sign. Finally we flagged down a waiter and he told us to go to the area at the back of the restaurant to wait to be seated...... this is when we finally noticed that the real entrance to the restaurant is from the Harbourside shopping centre. Duhhhh! I really think that if they are going to have stairs and an entrance from down in the harbour, then they need to address this...

There were a lot of empty but reserved tables that we’d walked past, we were told that there was only one table for two available... whoops we’d underestimated how popular this place was and probably should have booked. We were escorted to our booth and presented with a menu.

Sydney - Yama Japanese Cafe

A lot of our weekend in Sydney was spent perusing the lovely Queen Victoria Building. We had had a largeish breakfast that morning and after spending quite a few dollars and dragging L around the shops buying clothes, clothes and more clothes, I was after a light lunch. 

We escalatored our way up to the top of the QVB to the lovely Yama Japanese Cafe. The menu caught my eye as they have a large variety of loose leaf teas to choose from and I was so in the mood for a pot of tea. 

We sat down and after perusing the menu I became hungrier and hungrier.

I chose the Sydney Special blend pot of tea (a mixture of black and green tea blends, mmmm), whilst L decided to be rebellious and ordered sake.

For food, we ordered gyoza (panfried dumplings), chicken karaage and the salmon lovers plate which consisted of salmon ngiri and salmon and avocado small rolls. 

The food was LOVELY. I kept raving about how glad I was that we had chosen to eat there. The salmon was fresh and delicious, and the salmon sushi rolls had an amazing sweetness to them which although I didn’t know what it was, I quite enjoyed the flavour.

The gyoza were practically inhaled, but fairly standard when it comes to gyoza.  We finished up with the chicken karaage which was crunchy and covered in seaweed garnish and Japanese mayo and came with a fresh nicely dressed side salad. 

Sydney - Diethnes

www.diethnes.com.au

Saturday night in Sydney and we had no idea where to go but wanted to experience some good food. We also wanted somewhere cheap and near our hotel. Our lovely friends who are Sydneysiders booked Diethnes and so the four of us walked the few blocks there as hungry as hippos. 

Diethnes is a traditional greek restaurant. It is situated in this blink and miss it basement type of room in the Sydney CBD. The decor is hilariously bad, featuring plastic plants, false windows and leather booths, and the waiters are all lovely old greek men. 

Our friend S had especially booked a booth for us, so we sat down and admired our surrounds. We were immediately presented with a basket of complementary bread and butter. The bread was crusty and fresh and looked delicious however we only had a slice each as we were planning on eating up big. 

Sydney - Lindt Cafe

www.lindt.com.au

L and I took off for a naughty weekend getaway to Sydney. L has only been to Sydney once and I haven’t really been and visited the city area for a couple of years so we were excited and fully prepared to eat a lot of food. As soon as we touched down and got to our hotel which was situated near Darling Harbour, we took off for a stroll around the Harbour area and headed straight for the Lindt cafe, which I’ve previously had the pleasure of  sampling.

 

Unfortunately it was a Saturday afternoon, which meant we had to contend with the usual multitude of tourists as well as Sydney-siders out enjoying their weekend. The Lindt cafe was majorly crowded and we had a lot of trouble finding a table. The tables that were there were also chockers with empty glasses and plates that hadn’t been cleared.

L ordered the vanilla waffles for us to share, and we resolved to buy a few of their chocolates and their yummy delices to scoff later at the hotel. 

Pho Halong

L and I are leaving in 6 weeks for a much anticipated holiday to Vietnam. Earlier this year we visited Thailand and so Vietnam seemed to be the next obvious place to go. Neither of us have travelled overseas extensively at all, so we are really looking forward to it. Mostly, the food! I’m obsessing over researching where to eat and what to eat. 

We have recently started visiting Pho Halong, a small restaurant on Logan Road at Mount Gravatt, very close-by to where we live. We have eaten at a couple of other Vietnamese places in Brisbane but nothing so far is as good as Pho Halong. 

We will usually head there on a weeknight when we’re running low on grocery items for dinner. Its so convenient for us and so cheap to eat there that its very easy to avoid cooking and head on down!

The Smoke BBQ

Having read and heard a lot of good things about Smoke BBQ at New Farm, I decided it was time we tried it out. Getting a table here is more difficult than we first thought however, having decided on a Friday night, we phoned them Monday to book the table. Uh sorry, we are pretty booked out, the girl on the phone said, but we have a table for two at 5.30pm?

Apparently even booking for two people was difficult 4 days in advance. L decided to go for an 8pm booking on the Thursday night as a compromise. 

We rocked up to the Smoke BBQ famished and ready to hook into some BIGGGGGG ribs.

First we were seated outdoors on the sidewalk on a rocky table with no glasswear for our plonked down bottle of water, amongst a few other empty tables and insects buzzing. Having passed two empty tables on the way out, I asked if we could change tables to an indoor table. I was told no, that those tables were for bookings.

I explained to the waitress that we did in fact have a booking anyway. Ummmmmm, no.... she still said.
Could we possible just swap tables then with the incoming people? They would never know that they had an indoor table instead of an outdoor one? Ummmmmmm no sorry, thats not possible.

Resigning myself to our rocky outdoor table on the footpath, I wondered how we would pour our water having no glasses on the table, and mentally gave them a big strike on the big notepad in my head.

Thankfully, they then managed to come back out and tell us that we could in fact have a table indoors. Thank goodness I said, and wandered inside where the atmosphere was much cosier and accommodating.

Strawberry Bread

Because L does ALL the cooking at home (I hate cooking dinner), I occasionally start feeling guilty and feel like I should cook something, anything.

So lately I have been trying to get into baking and desserts. So far I have had a few attempts at slices and biscuits, and a failed chocolate cake. I also don’t have many of the utensils required for baking, so am slowly accumulating various tins etc.

I found this recipe for strawberry bread by trolling through other foodie blog sites. I am a big fan of banana bread and I love strawberries and so this seemed interesting. 

The recipe link is:

http://www.natalieskillercuisine.com/2010/04/strawberry-sour-cream-loaf.html#more-337 

I usually spend just as much time on lining the cake tin as I do mixing up the batter. I like to painstakingly get it perfectly lined until there are no creases left, and in doing so usually waste about three metres of baking paper. Oh well......

This strawberry bread was super easy to make.

Ingredients:

•  1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 cups strawberries, quartered 

Archive Beer Boutique and Bistro

http://www.archivebeerboutique.com.au/

L has finished his uni practical rotation, and so we joined his prac group friends for a meal and a few beers at Archive Beer Boutique (a fancy name for a pub??) at West End.

Archive offers 2-4-1 meals on a Wednesday evening. L and I have been here for this deal once before. I had a steak on this previous occasion and although I ordered it medium-rare it had come out almost well-done.  As such I was a bit apprehensive about eating here again, although who can pass up 2-4-1 meals?

Archives main claim to fame is their awesome craft beer menu. They have a few on tap as well as offering a huge list of bottled beers. They also have gluten free beer for those intolerant ones amongst us.

A few of the beers on offer

Vapiano

http://www.vapiano.com.au/

Vapiano has been reviewed just about to death already but I still plan to add in my 2 cents as this was our first visit.

This restaurant is located in Albert Lane, a very cute extension off Albert St in the city, which contains several interesting and yummy choices for eating and includes one of my favourite shops, The Tea Centre (but that’s another story). 

We headed to Vapiano, keen as mustard, with 2 of our good friends for lunch on a Saturday. Upon entry you are presented with a card each. Instructions were to head to each counter for pasta, pizza or salads as we desired and to swipe the card when ordering. At the end of your meal you head to the front counter to swipe your card again and pay, this is a massive bonus if you have a group of people and need to split the bill. There is also a full bar inside as well in case you fancy an alcoholic beverage. 

Bishamon Japanese

 

I was very reluctant to write this post. We’ve been heading to Bishamon for a long time now, and it seems that more and more people are discovering this wonderful Japanese restaurant. We’d like to keep it all to ourselves so there’s more for us, but because its one of my favourite places to eat, I would like to brag about it a little.

Bishamon is located in Spring Hill on Boundary Street across from the International Hotel which handily has a bottle shop in case you want to grab something to drink. Bishamon is BYO wine as well as being licenced and offering a range of beers, plum wine and several types of sake or rice wine. 

The menu offers a huge variety of appetisers and larger meals which are best enjoyed when sharing numerous plates between you and your friends. There are the usual suspects including sashimi, gyoza and sushi as well as some other interesting choices.

Bishamon also has a small teppanyaki bar squeezed in front of the main kitchen, we have never eaten from this part of the menu, but would imagine you’d have to book specially to sit here. 

The highlight of the menu for us is that you can order all-you-can-eat Shabu Shabu or Sukiyaki for $32, which is something we ALWAYS get due to the great value. Imagine as many plates of thinly sliced melt in your mouth wagyu beef as you can eat. If you aren’t familiar with each of these dishes, they basically involve a hotpot simmering away on your table within which you cook beef and vegies then dip into a variety of sauces with the Shabu Shabu or raw egg if you order Sukiyaki. Rice is included. 

Little Singapore Sunnybank

http://www.littlesingapore.com.au/ 

Although we live so close to the many restaurants of the Sunnybank area, we have only recently started venturing over there for dinner. We’ve eaten at Little Singapore at Sunnybank numerous times and also at their Uptown branch in Albert Lane in the city.

Little Singapore is located in Market Square at Sunnybank, amongst an absolute plethora of tasty and cheap places to eat. We’ve tried a few places in Market Square but find ourselves going back here to eat. 

We drove over there this past Wednesday night, having bare cupboards at home and not being bothered to head to the supermarket to get anything. It was almost eight thirty when we found ourselves seated however the restaurant was still super busy. We have been there at random occasions ie late at night on what we thought would be quiet weeknights and yet this place is always packed. It must do a fantastic trade.

Falafels

He died with a Falafel in his hand....

A couple of years ago whilst visiting Brunswick heads in NSW on a holiday, we fell in love with the falafels at a vegetarian cafe there (Yamis for anyone wanting to know). This was actually my first time eating falafels, I’m ashamed to say, I’d previously written them off as being “gross vegetarian food”. I am a fairly carnivorous person in my defence.

Anyway, my fiancé L came up with a recipe searching on the web here;

DedeMed Mediterranean Cooking

Falafel Recipe:
2 cups dried garbanzo beans
1 1/2 cup dried fava beans
1 cup coriander leaves
1/2 cup parsley
8 garlic cloves minced
2 tsp salt
1 tbs ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
1 very large onion
1/2 tsp blk pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 cup bread crumbs

1/4 cup flour

2 tsp baking soda, added 15 minutes before frying

1/2 tsp baking powder