Remind me why I'm abroad again?

A brief week trip back to London brought many, many culinary treats - I indulged in my favourite things like shepherd's pie, macaroni cheese, Hertz frankfurters, and Nando's. The weather was also ridiculously nice - as I landed back in Sydney it was pissing it down.



Highlight of the trip was undoubtedly J Sheekey in St Martin's Court, deservedly known as the place to go for fish (and the odd random celeb spot). We could only get a table at the bar, but we enjoyed it all the more for it - service was charming by the bar staff, who rightly advised me to get the razor clams with chorizo and broad beans.




Oh my god, possibly the best fish starter I've ever had, although I realise it doesn't look that appetising in the pic (esp with the missing mouthful as I forgot to take a picture when it arrived). Lovely Dave was generous enough to share 2 of his langoutines with me - very very very good also.

What followed was a turbot that probably would've served six, but Dave and I still managed to polish it off.

I returned to Sydney with an extra inch to pinch. Never mind.

Kitchen injuries (part 1 of many, I suspect)

My lovely father has always said that even though I'm very smart, I have zero common sense. And he is right! I am now cultivating a lovely bruise after trying to use my wristbone to crush garlic:

Yes I'm a wooz.

Meanwhile, I returned home tonight to cook spaghetti carbonara only to have Nigella Lawson cooking it simultaneously on the telly. One very happy thing is that I have the Aussie equivalent of Sky, with a 24 hour a day cooking channel!!! Best of all, it's mainly British cookery shows, including:

• Nigella, Jamie, Gordon
• Masterchef
• Great British Menu
• Hairy Bikers Cookbook - I am currently watching them swimming naked in Namibia, thank goodness I've finished that carbonara
• Simply Ming - some American show which would probably benefit from being renamed

Yes, I am sad and obsessive.

Nice pieces of cow

I live in one of the largest wooden structures in Australia, and apparently it is a $250 fee if my smoke alarm goes off and the fire brigade are called - so my decision to cook steak in my apartment was a risk! (although I do remember the days of Teddy Hall when we would deliberately set fire to sausages in Kelly IV so that firefighters would come and rescue us)


A waiter recently mocked me for asking for a rib-eye to be done rare, and I have actually been converted to eating rib-eyes a little more cooked. So I had a very nice medium steak with an avocado, tomato and red onion salsa (with plenty of yum cow fat):

The tomatoes were courtesy of Macro Wholefoods and were very flavourful and yummy - but then at a dollar each they should have been! I still haven't found the middle ground of good food yet - it is either posh butchers selling 6 slices of bacon for $10 or being depressed in supermarkets, but I guess that is the trade-off for living right in the centre of the city.

Eating away the weekend

It has been raining more or less non-stop in Sydney this weekend, so how better to comfort oneself with lots of good food? Especially when you have new friends to play with.

Lovely new friend Tristen introduced Meghana, Oscar and myself to some wonderful food. First, Almond Bar on Liverpool Street in Paddington, a cosy Lebanese place with a small obsession with almonds. All desserts appeared to feature almonds, and there is a cute almond platter to start, and chocolate almonds with your bill - maybe they have shares in the almond market? Nevertheless, some lovely platters, their dips were particularly yum.







Tristen also introduced us to brunch at Bathers Pavilion in Balmoral, right on the beach, filled with a room full of yummy mummies. Their brunch dishes were very inventive. Tristen and Meghana helped themselves to "Biodynamic egg omelette" which apparently comes from some very well-fed and happy hens, whereas I had a very good baked egg en cocotte:

And here is Oscar looking very happy with himself as he orders baked beans with smoked ham hock - this is a man with a self-confessed obsession with anything pig:

Taking of pig, we finished brunch at 12:30pm and I went straight to a late lunch of barramundi at the London Tavern in Paddington. One has to increase fat content for the winter, no??

Adapting my European ways

Cooking has proven tough so far - the Aussie dollar is incredibly strong at the moment, and added to the distance from any other civilisation, everyday grocery shopping is expensive! Especially for imported European goods. My favourite examples of ridiculous prices:

• Creme fraiche - 75p in Sainsbury's in London - $9.95 in Sydney (about £5)
• Tin of tomatoes - 50p in Sainsbury's - $3.50 in Sydney (about £1.75)
• Mozzarella - real mozzarella appears non-existent except in posh delis

Tonight I tried to recreate my favourite ever recipe, honed in my 4 years of working late:

Linguine with Blue Cheese and Spinach (serves 1)

• 1/4 pack of linguine
• 50g blue cheese (I like gorgonzola piccante best, but normal gorgonzola, dolcelatte or even stilton would work)
• 1 tbsp creme fraiche
• 1/2 pack of pre-washed spinach

Boil pasta in salted boiling water and whilst waiting for it to cook, put the spinach in a colander. Once pasta is done, pour contents of the pan over the spinach to cook, reserving 3 tbsp or so of the cooking water. Return pan on the heat, and gently melt the cheese with creme fraiche and the cooking water to form a creamy sauce. Add pasta & spinach to sauce. Mix. Eat in front of telly.

Unfortunately, given limitations of ingredients, my version tonight had spaghetti instead of linguine, broccoli instead of spinach, cream instead of creme fraiche, and not enough cheese as it's so expensive. But there is Rick Stein on the telly so I'm happy.

First days in Sydney

I've been here a week now, settled into my beautiful Woolloomooloo apartment - above is the view from my window at sunrise.

First foodie trip out was to Cabramatta in search of a perfect bowl of Pho. Cabramatta is Sydney's little Vietnam, and was the setting for one of my favourite Cate Blanchett films, Little Fish. It was quite a trek at 45 minutes each way from the city, but the area is very vibrant, with apparently the best Vietnamese food in Australia.

I chose Pho 54 on Park Road - a basic cafe mostly in Vietnamese with selected dishes translated to English and Chinese, serving only Pho and Bun. Pho was 7/10 - soup was very sweet but lacked depth, and noodles were a little soft for my taste. But accompanying beef (steak slices, beef balls, tripe, and more unidentified beef) very good.

First posh meal with Matt, Emma and Deri at Manta on Woolloomooloo Wharf - all of us couldn't choose. Excellent yamba prawn ceviche (although quite ugly), and equally excellent mixed seafood broth featuring skate (slightly overcooked), calamari, prawns, mussels, clams. Most excellent was the accompanying bit of bread, smothered with garlicky pesto.

First oysters came from Sydney Fish Market - apparently "only second to Tsukiji Market in Tokyo" but a very distant second! Very nice to see lots of local families come here to buy fish to cook, as well as to go to the various seafood cafes, but the busy food halls seemed to specialise in battering any fish in view and serving with chips. I had had high hopes for the sushi bar, but when you arrive, there are only a handful of aging rolls.

However! I did greedily help myself to a dozen oysters, my first Australian oysters I believe? Huge, creamy, they lasted about 10 minutes.

One thing made me laugh about this little trip: as I got off the train at Fish Market station, everyone else who also got off were Chinese, and everyone was yapping in Cantonese. If I end up a 20-stone blob in my old age, I shall blame it on my genes :)

Past favourites

Here are some of my favourite food memories of the past few years before my little gap year:

1. Pho in Hanoi (co-starring Caris) - in some random backstreet which I shall probably never be able to find again, in probably the dirtiest place I've eaten in a while (think limes, chopticks, tissues all over the floor), but oh was this bowl of soup yummy. The stock had such depth, I've been trying to find somewhere that comes near ever since.

2. Tom Kha Gai (co-starring Yinne, Linus and Dan) - again, in some random backstreet which we discovered in what is otherwise quite nasty Phuket - the street was dirty, the chairs were plastic, but what a treat. We ate the same soup in a posher place a few days later and it just didn't have the backstreet charm.

3. Sole Meuniere at Garnier Restaurant, Paris (co-starring Dave) - I've been forever annoyed that I didn't actually order this, and Dave didn't let me eat much of it, this sole meuniere was served with a citrus sauce, very very very good. Opposite Gare Saint-Lazare, this will be the first place I go to next time I'm in Paris (hopefully soon).

4. Meat meat and more meat at New Tayyabs, London (co-starring Yamin, Fraser, Jude, Lerner, Annabel) - I lived within 10 minutes walking distance of this institution for 2 years before I visited, and god was I missing out. This time, helped by Yamin's connections, got a table without queuing! We greedily scoffed lamb chops, lamb kebab, chicken tikka, paneer, lamb korai, okra, all for about £20 each. Plus we had doggy bags :)

5. Hot Dogs in Copenhagen (co-starring Caris and Eugene) - we were all sorely disappointed with Copenhagen, very very expensive, very very cold, and the place we walked across town to eat at was closed! However, we did discover their hot dogs, served with about 5 different sauces, still not quite sure what they were...

6. Korean at Nara, London (co-starring Dave) - it became our tradition to come here and order way too much food and get laughed at by the skinny waitresses - a sashimi platter, yuk whe bibimbap, belly pork pokum, japchae, seafood pancake - a shame the shouty scary maitre d' woman has gone!

7. Sushi breakfast at Tsukiji Market, Tokyo (co-starring Caris and Gee) - I finally understood the appeal of o-toro and uni after this visit - so good that Caris and I went back 3 days later. I'm already planning my next visit. I kind of wish I never came, sushi everywhere else doesn't compare.

8. Taster menu at Morgan M, London (co-starring Dave) - we had both the food and wine taster menus, and rolled out of the place soooooo happy. Best dish was the red mullet with citrus sauce, and Dave even liked the gazpacho.

9. Beef Brisket Noodles at Kau Kee, Hong Kong (co-starring my greedy stomach) - undoubtedly my favourite food experience in the last 5 years, I have even dreamt about these noodles. Brisket has great texture, soup is sweet, noodles soaked through with soup yet still chewy - I don't care when skinny Honkie girls laugh at me as I scoff down 2 bowlfuls at a time.

I shall leave it at 9 - although people who work with me will understand my discomfort at leaving it at an odd number :)