Art, Booze and Carbs: The ABC of Happiness
Guys, I had a great weekend. Granted, most of today was spent trying to sleep off the greatness of yesterday, but even a level 7 hangover can’t dampen my spirits. Unless I puke on it (and I didn’t, hurrah for me!).
My good friends May and Cam hosted an Arty Party on Saturday as a belated housewarming. Our gorgeous hosts supplied the canvasses, oil and acrylic paints (some salvaged from Cam’s bludging fine arts days in uni) and paintbrushes while everyone else brought with them alcohol and imagination. Everyone really got into it – the room was silent as creative juices churned from brain to paper, broken only by the occasional “Who’s got the Burnt Umber?”
Of course, creativity has to be well-fed. May’s mum generously contributed baked goods for us starving artists:
Best apple pie ever, fat with chunks of spiced apple and sultanas. May said that her mum only learned how to bake recently. “Unpossible!” I said through a giant mouthful pie, clumsily spraying bits of buttery flaky crust everywhere.
May’s mum also made a zingy, creamy lemon tart. May served it with some lemon sorbet.
I’m a bit hesitant about putting everyone’s art up because I forgot to ask if it’s OK, but here’s my finished masterpiece: Read more
Posted under Events, Home-made, Maltese, My friends are awesome, Pubs, Sydney | Leave a comment: 8 Comments | RSS
Efendy, Balmain
It’s my good friend Pimento’s birthday today! To celebrate him not looking a day over 27, 7 of us went to Efendy for brunch. None of us have actually been there before but we were all pleasantly surprised.
Efendy is placed away from the main Darling St strip (it’s more on the border between Balmain and Rozelle), so the surroundings are a bit more quiet, but the place was busy when we arrived. There is a nice courtyard area at the front but the majority voted for sitting inside because it was too hot.
My SO and I both ordered tea – he had the apple tea. It comes with a stick of cinnamon. I absolutely loved it and secretly wished I ordered it instead. It was pretty sweet, but the cinnamon helps to mellow out the sweetness so that it’s not too sickly. I had Turkish tea, which tasted like black tea. Idk if it’s supposed to just be black tea, but it comes in a cool glass so whatever.
Oh man. Guys you gotta get your arses down here for the breakfast, it was pretty damn amazing. These were our choices:
My SO and Rachel ordered the Kiymali – “village style” minced lamb stew with eggs and tomatoes. This was absolutely delicious. I’m a huge fan of lamb, and the combination of spices and eggs made for a rich, satisfying breakfast. The serving plate they have is… interesting. It’s like a huge dinner plate with a bowl in the middle. When you first get it you’re like uh, that’s a pretty small serving innit, then you dig your fork in and the bowl goes on FOREVER. What I’m saying is, don’t worry about your serving looking small cos it isn’t.
Cam and Andrew ordered, uh, this. The menu on the Efendy website is a bit out of date so it doesn’t have a couple of the new dishes on it (and prices – everything is probably a couple of dollars more expensive that is stated on the old website menu), but this was a dish of poached eggs on top of buttered Turkish bread with haloumi, asparagus and tomato.
May and Pimento ordered the Kallavi or big breakfast – two fried eggs with grilled sucuk, merguez sausages, mushrooms and pastirma. Pimento opted for no tomatoes because he’s weird.
This was my pick, the Menemen – spiced scrambled eggs with banana peppers and tomatoes, plus a side of haloumi for an extra $6. This was delicious. It’s pretty much just eggs and vegetables but it’s very more-ish. It’s slightly spicy, the type of heat that just tickles the tastebuds so that everything tastes more intense. I thought that $6 for a side of haloumi was pretty expensive but they do give you generous slices of it and they’re fried perfectly.
Check out the giant platter of buttered Turkish bread in the middle of the table. I love this place and will be back to try out their dinner menu one day.
Because it was just after noon when we finished eating, the girls opted for alcohol for their second round of drinks. A birthday is not complete without some, even though the birthday boy didn’t have any.
Rachel and I got a delicious cocktail called Narosa – sparkling wine, pomegranate liqueur and bits of pomegranate. Not only are the pomegranate seeds delicious but they also provide the sort of entertainment devised by people with way too much time (and sparkling wine) on their hands, as we tried to get the seeds to float via the powers of bubbles in the wine. May ordered a Bloody Ayshe – vodka, tomato juice, Turkish tomato ezme (idk) and “spices”. It came with a pickled chilli on the rim. I didn’t try any of it cos I hate tomato juice, but it got a thumbs up from May.
Then we went back to my place where I surprised Pimento with a chilli chocolate orange cake (recipe from here). I need to get myself to a cake decorating class or some shit because this looks like ass, but I can guarantee that this recipe is tops – it was very fudgey and rich and the chilli in it packs just the slightest hint of heat that pairs very well with the chocolate. My mistake was to leave it in the fridge until we got home. Ideally you’d want it to be out of the fridge for an hour or so before eating, as it’s a bit dry when it’s cold.
Among a couple other things, I got Pimento this as a gag gift:
It’s gluten free, low sodium vegetarian bacon salt. It’s actually as disgusting as it sounds. It doesn’t taste like any sort of bacon I know. It tastes more like dried, ground up cocktail weiners. Blerrrghhh. I don’t recommend getting it for people you like.
Efendy
79 Elliott St. (corner of Darling St.), Balmain
(02) 9810 5466
ETA: I just realised I’m using my old watermark with a www in front of the URL. FML I’m not redoing the pictures
ETA II: Heads up for food bloggers: head over to Simon’s blog to win a chance to be a guest at Efendy’s food blogger’s event! There’s going to be free samples of authentic (and I’m sure) v. tasty Turkish food.
Posted under Breakfast, My friends are awesome, Not just a pretty face, Product review, Turkish | Leave a comment: 12 Comments | RSS
Taste of Sydney, Centennial Park
I’ll be honest – I didn’t even know this was happening until Legoman offered my partner and I free tickets to Taste of Sydney. A quick Internet search later, I found out that Taste is a festival that showcases dishes, drinks and food products from Sydney’s top restaurants and various food producers (boutique and otherwise). For myself, the biggest lure of the event was the opportunity to sample the tasting menu of various fine restaurants I can’t afford. This year it was held from March 11th to March 14th at Centennial Park. My partner and I went to the Friday afternoon session to avoid big crowds. We were running late so we just grabbed a cab to get there. We had a nice conversation with the cabbie until he turned out to be racist. Awesome.
The event uses books of vouchers called “Crowns” as its currency, with the price being 1 Crown = $1. Dishes on the tasting menu costs 8, 10 or 12 Crowns.
Our first dish was Assiette’s Sydney rock oysters with “Vietnamese dressing”, crispy deep fried shallots and baby coriander. Ohhhh man our tasting went off to a great start. The textures in this were absolutely divine. I like my oysters naked, so I was happy to find that the dressing complemented the flavour of the oysters instead of overpowering them, which I tend to find with most oyster dressings.
Posted under Events, Sydney | Leave a comment: 13 Comments | RSS