Full disclosure: I work with one of the BeermenTV guys who coordinated the Sydney Craft Beer Week, but think this is a v worthwhile event hence the writeup. Also he said he’ll buy me booze if I tell all of my three blog followers about it.

I’m guessing you don’t even read my blog*, because if you did, you won’t want your clients’ names anywhere near me.

*…which makes this post kind of pointless but whatever.

Here are the good bits:

• Spent most of my birthday week drunk or hungover or both
• Birthday dinner at Marque (post on this coming, I swear)
• Second birthday dinner at Flying Fajita Sistas, where I forgot to take photos
• Bought the 15th anniversary K boxset as a present for myself
• People giving me lots and lots of booze as gifts

The bad bits:

• I’m 30
• “It’s all downhill from here!” type comments
• Confusion re wardrobe. Should I get rid of my young people clothes now?
• Noticeably slower metabolism
• Anxiety around mortality etc

Is this where I clean up my act and be a proper grown up?

Still, I gave it a red hot go. This is another Daniel and Chika recommendation. Someone told me that if I go north of the bridge more than twice in a month, I’ll get my Inner West resident card revoked. But officer, I’d say, Daniel and Chika said the place is good. Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know – the burly policeman says, as he puts away his notepad – we completely understand, you found some of your top 10 eating places through them after all.

OK, OK, we’ll go straight to the food.

Toriciya is another one of those tiny, cosy little tucked away places that’s earned a reputation as one of the best places to find boutique sake/shochu in Sydney. It gets a little bit noisy so maybe don’t bring a first date here if you plan on having one of those conversations where you pretend to be super intelligent. Although, the decor is amazing (Daniel tells us that the owner brought over all the decor from Japan – the table outside is a modified door from an ancient sake brewery) and the food even more so, so maybe DO bring your first date here to impress them with your knowledge of small, tucked away gems in Sydney.

Hi. This is Daniel’s sake cup for the night. I still don’t know that much about sake except that there is a shit version made from the wrong kind of rice/fermentation process, and Toriciya DOESN’T stock any shit sake. There is a sake menu with a handy dandy dryness scale (did I just make that up? I vaguely remember this from the menu) if you like your sake less or more sweet. The descriptions for the drinks are charming in a Google Translate kind of way. I mean I’m totally behind any drinks list that will describe a drink as something to go “berserk” over. Restauranteurs take note.

I couldn’t really hear which sakes were being ordered so I don’t really have any useful notes around which to try, but really, just ask your waiter for recommendations and you’re sure to find something that you’d like. I never realised how vast the varieties of sake are, and how different they taste when you have them cold or warm. What I do know is that the SO was right when he said you can totally kill a hangover with more alcohol (at least for a little while).

We got the slow cooked pork hock and sauerkraut, because the first thing that you’d want in a Japanese restaurant is German food. This was on the specials menu for the day and zomg this was delicious. The meat just fell off the bones and and was nice and tender and juicy. I’m not a huge fan of sauerkraut so you know. It tasted like sauerkraut. We fell upon this like a ravenous pack of wolves, except more polite and with chopstick skills. I would also like to mention that the pictures in this post is a bit more crap than usual because we were with a new group of people and I was a bit self conscious about taking food photos when everyone just want to eat.

Ox tongue #1 – slow cooked in soy sauce. This was very rich and melt in your mouth tender. The little yellow blob on the side is mustard.

Ox tongue #2, grilled with salt and pepper. If I was rude I’d take two slices for myself because you know that, that’s what I REALLY wanted to do. So did everyone else. I think this is probably the most popular dish that night. The texture might freak some people out – it’s pretty chewy and uh tongue-y – but I thought it was super juicy and packs a whole lot of flavour. This was served with a spicy sauce.

Yeah I know, picture fail. Deep fried crumbed prawns with tartare sauce. Fried things make everything better, even a killer hangover.

Braised mirror dory in miso (I think). The fish was sweet and perfectly cooked. People at the table dared me to eat the eyeball. Little did they know that I always go for the eyeball when I have fish head curry. Mmmm fish eyeballs.

I think this was the grilled mackerel with a miso glaze. I really should have taken a photo of the specials menu. This was OK, it was slightly overshadowed by the first few dishes.

Ohhhhh yeahhhh fried chicken, that’s what I’m talking about. Well seasoned, crispy and burn-your-face-off hot, just the way I like them.

Lightly seasoned fried fish. I don’t know what type of fish this is as this was ordered by someone else off the main menu. I did try a little bit of it and it was so good that I wish I knew what dish this is so I can order it next time.

It was around this time when everyone realised that we’ve ordered way too much. It’s OK though, we pushed on. Now this is the dish that wasn’t too sure about. This the grilled chicken cartilage. I can totally deal with weird textures but this was a bit too weird because I’m socially conditioned to spit out chicken cartilage when I bite into them. Someone helpfully described it as “like biting into your knuckle”. This tasted amazing though so I was a bit confused by the entire experience.

I think the only way to settle this is to go back, order more and make a decision. Yep.

Pork mince with a sweet soy sauce glaze. The combination of pork and sweet soy reminded me a bit of Bali.

GRILLED CHICKEN SKIN, ladies and gents. That noise you heard is your arteries slamming shut. You know what though? You’ll die happy.

This was one of the skewers I didn’t eat – a fish skewer – because I was too busy with this:

Green tea cheesecake with red beans and green tea ice cream. The dessert is only available on the specials menu and changes constantly. The cheesecake was light enough to round off the big meal nicely. I thought this was delicious but the SO was a bit 50-50 about it. More for me!

Service was really good, but food went out a bit slow because it was a busy night. All that food for 6 people (we also had two other types of chicken skewers that I didn’t have photos of) and 4 orders of sake came to $60/pp.

Toriciya
18 Cammeray Road, Cammeray
02 9904 2277

I mean, I get it. It’s a nice way to start a conversation when you haven’t seen me since I got married. Nothing’s changed due to the fact that the SO and I have lived together for about four years before we got married, but like, if they’re asking me what married life is like they’re expecting something a bit more interesting than “bugger all’s changed”, right?

“Fine, except we’re way overdue for an affair.”

“Fine, but we can only have sex in the missionary position with the lights off now.”

“Fine, I really like washing his socks.”

I’m not sure how to make this train of thought pull nicely into Station Segue Into Food Review so I’m not even going to try.

On Friday, The SO and I had dinner with Daniel and Chika, who you may remember as the people who introduced us to Bodega. Thank god for Daniel and Chika. I’m a pretty typical Sydneysider in that I don’t often venture out of my suburb, so I don’t have much of an idea of what the food scene is like north of the bridge. Restaurant 16 is owned by Daniel and Chika’s friends – the chef worked at Buon Ricordo for years before parting ways to do his own thing. The chef is also Japanese, and the food has all the punchy Italian flavours put together in a more subtle way, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t but I just had a glass of wine so whatever. You can also have sake/plum wine with your meal! Awesome, y/y? The restaurant itself is a cosy little place perfect for a first date – the noise level doesn’t get higher than “comfortable” and service is super friendly.

Seeing that Daniel and Chika knew the owners and have been there a few times, they ordered dishes they’ve tried in the past that aren’t on the specials board. It pays to have friends with connections.

Complimentary bruschetta. How do you pronounce these things? Brus-ketta? Brushetta?

As far as I can tell (Daniel and Chika spoke Japanese to the owners), we got to be guinea pigs and try out this special entree that’s not on their current menu or specials. The dish is sardines coated in herbed crunchy breadcrumbs with a touch of orange zest. I love sardines, and this dish was absolutely stellar. The crunchy breadcrumbs complements the creamy sardines perfectly. The SO can’t eat anything too fishy so he gave me half of his portion. I love being married.

Calzone filled with three cheeses and salami, topped with fresh tomato and basil sauce. The calzone pastry is a bit more flaky than what I expected but not in a bad way.

Oh my god, my heart just stopped when I saw this photo again. Linguine with sea urchin, garlic, tomato and bottarga. Wikipedia tells me bottarga is cured fish roe. Lesbianhamapedia tells me bottarga is fucking delicious.

Hands down my favourite dish of the night. Prawn and artichoke linguine topped with breadcrumbs. Just stop what you’re doing right now and rush to Restaurant 16 for this. You’ll probably kiss my feet for this recommendation. You’re welcome.

Impressed? You bloody well should be. Zuppa de pesce – fish stew with cod, mussels, octopus, scampi and calamari. The scampi as sweet as your nervous first kiss with the first person you like-like in the back seat of your mum’s car.

After all the delicious seafood, this was a little bit of a letdown. Spatchcock stuffed with egg, mushrooms and bacon. It’s not that it wasn’t tasty, it was just a bit overcooked and a bit bland compared to everything else we had that night. If I had this as the first dish of the night I’d probably rate it a bit higher.

Dessert time! Daniel had the orange tart. I liked it, but it tasted a bit too eggy for me.

Chika and I had the panna cotta with berry sauce. This was a bit of an unfortunate one because it was grainy. It really is a shame because it tasted fantastic aside from the texture.

I totally ate the whole thing though. That’s how I roll.

Earlier that Friday, a friend at work asked me to let him know if Restaurant 16 is any good. I told him I’d score Restaurant 16 using the probability of getting in your date’s pants, on a scale of 0 – 100%. Don’t ever tell me I don’t give people what they need.

My score: 90%. take your date elsewhere for dessert, and bring an extra toothbrush.

Be prepared to shell out a bit of cash, though to be perfectly fair the four of us ordered a LOT of food, plus a bottle of wine, four glasses of Prosecco and a glass of dessert wine. Damage at the end of the night was $80 per person.

Restaurant 16
236 Military Rd, Neutral Bay
02 9909 0160 (bookings recommended – it was pretty quiet when we went there but the place is small)

In the spirit of keeping calm and carrying on, here are some food I’ve had the pleasure of putting in my belly recently.

Smoked salmon with avocado, rocket, goat’s cheese and homemade pan brioche from Pizza Birra. I don’t think they have this on their winter menu at the moment. The brioche was genius – absolutely perfect with the goat’s cheese.

Pizza Birra
332 Darling St., Balmain

Beignets from Sucre. If you’re unfortunate enough to follow me on Twitter, you’d know that I am completely obsessed with these babies. I have no idea how “authentic” these are, but I do know that they’re amazing. Sucre makes these to order so they’ll always arrive at your table piping hot.

Ohhhh yes. I just had a moment. Hold me and tell me you love me.

The beignets also delicious when dipped in Sucre’s dark hot chocolate. It’s that crazy thick European style hot chocolate that congeals into an unappetising mass if you don’t drink them fast enough. Now, I really like them, and I like the fact that they have sugar-free hot chocolate so you feel slightly less guilty about drinking a cup of melted chocolate, but I always feel really bloated after having one of these. Although at $8 a cup you would expect that you won’t have to eat anything else for the rest of the day.

…Except beignets. There’s always room for beignets.

Sucre
325 Darling St., Balmain

Other things that made me happy recently:

• Adorable polar bear post it notes from BusinessClass (will take a photo of this later)
• Husband always remembering to turn on the electric blanket on my side of the bed if I’m in bed late
• Baguette vending machine
• Rotate Your Owl
• Seeing Sneaky Sound System live
• Masterchef recaps, and the following email spam between me and a friend at work to discuss said recaps

Life could be a hell of a lot worse.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about what I want to do with the blog. I’ve decided to consolidate everything into just the one blog and talk about whatever the hell I want. Mostly because of laziness in managing more than one blog, partly because I’m quite vain and I like to think that my Thoughts are super riveting.

I’m still going to write mainly about food, but every now again I’ll write about other bits and pieces relevant to my interests.

The place is going to look a right mess while I work on the template, so have a seat and make yourself comfortable. No, not there. Yeah, OK, that’s better.

1. Look for split ends in my hair

2. Watch Franz Ferdinand clips on YouTube and wonder how Alex Kapranos fit in those pants

3. Make origami cranes out of credit card bills

4. Update long-forgotten blog

5. Throw origami cranes at passing neighbourhood children

I’ve got a backlog of entries that I need to go through, but let’s start with a familiar thumb:

If you’ve been paying attention, that’s the lovely thumb of the equally lovely BusinessClass from my Perth trip. Tired of work and on a mission to find A Dress, we set off for Melbourne one cold September day. Determined to make the most of our time in Melbourne, I looked up a couple of reviews on other food blogs and found a favourable mention of MoVida Aqui on the Jenius blog. I booked a table about a week before we were due to arrive and was only able to get a table at 9:30 PM. I very nearly cancelled, and was really glad I didn’t.

Heavy fog that morning meant that a whole heap of flights were delayed and I arrived about 2 hours later than my original scheduled arrival. BusinessClass and I only JUST made it for our reservation, not helped by Melbourne’s lack of signage and dark alleyways. Note to Sydney travellers: the alleyway it’s on is dark and creepy. Just run with it.

The kitchen was about an hour away from closing and we were kind of rushed to order. I was really cranky at this point and was thinking, well why the fuck would you give us this table if we won’t have any time to even make up our minds? Any irritability was quickly soothed by the sheer number of attractive people staffing the joint. Melbourne, just keep on keeping on. And the food? Well. Best tapas we’ve ever had. I’m sure that being with my bff had a lot to do with it, but we were having foodgasm after foodgasm.

We started off with Anchoa – “hand filleted Cantabrian Artisan anchovy on crouton with smoked tomato sorbet” and a serving of oysters. The anchovies were Out. Of. This. World. BusinessClass and I still shed tears when we talk about the anchovies. The saltiness of the anchovies are offset by the tangy sorbet and the textures are like a party in your mouth where only attractive people are invited and they all want to sleep with you. The oysters were oysters. In hindsight we probably should have had the oysters first. I mean, they’re good, but taste-wise they’re a comfortable house party with your good mates. One of them might want to sleep with you, but they’re too shy to ask.

Anguila – “smoked eel brandada with sorrel and crispy tocino”. Creamy, salty, crispy and oily. You’re back at the anchovy party. Someone in leather pants just bought you a drink.

Sardinillas – “baby sardines on charcoal served with fresh curd and a 65 degree free range egg”. If you’re wondering, this is what a 65 degree egg looks like:

It looks – and tastes like – finding out the person in the leather pants has an identical twin.

Patatas bravas. Let’s not beat around the bush here – they’re fried potatoes. Then again, everyone loves fried potatoes. BusinessClass and I certainly do. It’s not quite the anchovy party, but it was hot, satisfying and delicious. Kind of like your mom

Cerdo – “confit pork belly with dutch carrot salad and quince puree”. The carrots taste minty. Pork belly was as pork belly should be – a layer of crispy crackling, melty fat and soft meat. The quince puree complements the pork belly perfectly. Someone at the anchovy party just suggested a game of nude Twister.

Dessert time! In hindsight, our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs – we were really struggling at this point but we weren’t going to leave without sampling dessert. We had Carajillo con Merengada – “coffee rum granite, merengada foam and chocolate truffle” and Ganache – “hot chocolate ganache with saffron sauce, turrone, and anise ice cream”. I liked the granita enormously but the ganache was wayyyy too rich and thick for me. The anise ice cream was sensational though.

Oh, and we had a shitload of sangria. Don’t be fooled by the size of the jug – it looked small when we ordered it but we were plastered at the end of the meal. It was a pretty expensive meal, but who cares? Ambience was great, staff were friendly (and hot), and the food fucking amazing. They let us take our time eating even though they were about ready to pack up by the time we finished our dessert.

We emerged much, much later in the night, bellies full and heads spinning. We heart you Melbourne!

MoVida Aqui
Level 1, 500 Bourke St, Melbourne. (Access via Lt Bourke St)
03 9663 3038 (be prepared to interact with an automated phone system)

What up? At the moment I’m sitting in front of the computer wearing bright pink penguin pajamas, having taken the day off because I’m coughing my lungs up every 5 minutes. It’s a great time to get stuff done though. So far today I have: answered some work emails (and was told off by my boss for being out of bed already), eaten muesli with yoghurt, read through several pages of I Am Maru, faffed about on Facebook, Twittered and went through my usual early morning anxiety. Now, I write.

Last month my good friends May and Cam organised a day out with a bunch of us, starting with mini golf in Narrabeen (I failed spectacularly), then degustation at Restaurant Balzac in Randwick. I’ve always wanted to try out Restaurant Balzac, and our timing was good – they had a special 11 course degustation menu that week to celebrate Bastille Day. It was priced at $110 and $180 with matching wines. I made a big show of umming and aahing about whether to get matching wines or not, but I really didn’t need any encouragement as I’m only one drink away from being an alcoholic.

We started off with my favourite meal in the entire universe – bread and butter. Seriously I can survive on good bread and butter for weeks on end.

First course: rillette of rabbit with pickled gherkins and crispy bread. My rabbit anecdote: I refused to eat rabbit meat when I was 9 because I had pet rabbits. Whenever my dad bought rabbit satays, he would tell me that they’re chicken. It didn’t help me get over the rabbit thing, but it did make me distrust him AND food for a while. It felt a bit weird eating the rillette as a result, but my dysfunctional childhood had no impact on the taste – it was good. The gherkins did their job of making everything just that little bit better.

Second course: truffle and artichoke veloute. Creamy, rich and truffle-y – like getting in a bath with Cleopatra, minus poisonous snakes.

Third course: Endive Tart Fine with Fresh Goat Curd, served with 2008 Shaky Bridge ‘Pioneer’ Gewurztraminer. The wine was the first of six glasses, which would prove to be my undoing. I enjoyed this immensely, but not quite enough for me to think of an analogy.

My unfinished wines from the third and fourth courses. I’m a goddamn lightweight but the last time I had too much white wine, I ended up in a strip club in Petersham so I had a reason to be careful around them. That second wine is a French 2007 Domaine Matassa ‘Nouge’ Muscat/Maccabeu/Viognier. Yes, I just copied and pasted that from their online menu. It’s a very minerally wine that goes well with the scallop in the fourth course.

Fourth course: roast scallop with celeriac and caviar. I took this photo and was like, duh, the main component of the dish is the scallop – it should be turned the other way round you dumbarse. So here’s a closeup of the scallop to make me feel better:

This was pretty fucking amazing. The scallop was perfectly cooked and sweet, and the celeriac puree was out of this world tasty.

Fifth course: galantine of pheasant and guinea fowl with a mushroom salad. I liked the mushroom salad more than the galantine. The dish was slightly ruined for the SO because they forgot to take off the glad wrap casing around his slice of galantine. Our sommelier assured us that someone will be shot for it. The SO still complains about it now, I just pretend I can’t hear him. This was served with 2007 Passetoutgrain, Domaine Taupenot – Merme from Burgundy.

Sixth course: cassoulet of lamb shoulder with haricot beans and fried lamb sweetbreads, topped with breadcrumbs. I loved the medley of textures it, but the SO and May thought it was a bit bland. The wine for this one is 2005 Medoc, Domaine Lapalu ‘La Patache’ from Bordeaux, France. Started to get shitfaced around this time and stopped paying attention to the wine.

This was the highlight for almost everyone at the table. Seventh course: deboned oxtail ‘a la Bourguignonne’ topped with a slice of bone marrow, and veal tongue. The meat was melt in your mouth tender though I have to say I still feel a bit wrong when I eat veal. It’s like getting a Swedish massage by angels – strong and delicate all at the same time with a slight fear of God. Served with 2008 Poonawatta ‘The Four Corners’ Shiraz which the SO liked almost as much as he likes me.

Eighth course, but who’s counting? A cheese plate consisting of a truffled brie (brie infused with truffles) and roquefort. Sry2say that I’m a cheese philistine who can’t appreciate blue cheese, which the SO ate the most of. I absolutely loved the brie though.

Ninth course: a palate cleanser/pre dessert that I liked better than the dessert itself: apple jelly with Calvados sabayon.

Tenth course: ‘Iles Flotante’ – May said this means “floating island”. A little island of meringue in a bed of light vanilla brulee sauce, topped with crunchy praline. It’s quite light, which was a blessing because I was down to the last notch on my belt.

Just when I thought the food was never going to stop coming, we got to the eleventh course of petit fours and tea/coffee. We had vanilla macarons, truffles and madeleines. It was nice enough, but at this point I really just want to pass out and sleep for about two weeks. Not just because of the rich food, but because the degustation took five hours from start to finish. Not the restaurant’s fault obviously… an 11 course degustation was always going to be an epic affair.

Restaurant Balzac
141 Belmore Rd
Randwick NSW 2031
(02) 9399 9660