I headed to Etch Restaurant for a catch up dinner with some of the girls from uni, I haven’t seen some of them in years so it was a long over due dinner. Every time we meet up we know we’re in for a good laugh, and a stomach work out because we usually end up doubled-over on the floor clutching our stomach with tears in our eyes from laughing too much. Dinner, even though at a fancy restaurant, was no different. We were laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes, were probably the loudest table there and I’m pretty sure the staff at the restaurant were having a good laugh at us too.

If you go to Etch I would highly recommend the degustation menu – it was frickin awesome! And at $85, it’s a bargain.
Here are the pics (sorry they aren’t great, no flash and no tripod = noisy photos that just don’t do the food justice):

Marinated Hiramasa kingfish, avocado, wasabi mayonnaise and burnt lime.
What a stunning opener.

Pan roasted Queensland scallops, cauliflower puree, bhaji, curry oil
Yum and yum with yum spread on the plate. Can you tell I’m liking the food so far?

Local sea bream, crumbed scampi, blood orange, confit fennel
The bream was so soft it fell apart in your mouth.

Crispy spiced duck, watermelon, cucumber, black bean vinaigrette
This was one of my favourites for the night. Who would have thought duck and watermelon go so well together.

6 hour braised beef cheek, spinach puree, Madeira consommé
The duck was a tough dish to follow so I didn’t highly rate this dish. The beef was really soft and fell apart on your plate, but I think I was still dreaming about the duck.

Pre-dessert
Sorry I forgot what this was and it’s not on their website, all I remember is that there’s sorbet and grapefruit and it was delicious. Oh and the pale orange looking blob wobbles.

Caramel date tart, burnt butter ice cream, Earl Grey tea syrup
O.M.F.G! This tart is THE BEST TART I’VE EVER HAD. No joke. Everyone at our table was so impressed, and everyone not at our table was jealous. No doubt there were some tables pointing and saying “I’ll have what she’s having”. I seriously had to restrain myself from picking up the plate and licking it clean.

Etch lolly tray
This isn’t part of the degustation, we ordered this separately. Right to left: Coconut cigars with sherbet, dark chocolate slice, pistachio lolly, and mint ice-cream dipped in white chocolate. The cigar and the ice cream were my favourite from the plate. The dark chocolate slice, which I mistakenly left till last wasn’t my cup of tea but if you like dark chocolate you’ll love it. I took a bite and wanted to spit it out, leaving me with a not so nice last taste in my mouth. To make up for that yukky last taste I snorted, I mean licked some sherbet.

We got a new HD flip video at the office. I love it, it’s so teeny tiny. Don’t worry I’m not going to start video blogging or anything like that, I hate being in front of the camera. But I’ll try bring it to Good Vibes to record all the old school acts like Salt-n-Pepa and Naughty by Nature. Still can’t believe the strange line up.

Even though my birthday is at the start of January we’re still celebrating. I actually wasn’t going to bother doing anything but Anna wouldn’t take no for an answer so we rounded up the troops for a Mexican fiesta at Cafe Pacifico.

I’ve wanted to try this place for a while now, I’ve walked past a couple of times and it always looked like a lot of fun. As you can see from the picture above, there’s no shortage of alcohol, in fact the drinks menu had 4 pages solely dedicated to tequila. Being my birthday dinner I was a bit scared of those 4-pages.

Because we had a big group we went with the set menu, just makes life so much easier. Here’s the run down:

The first entree was corn fritters, now I always thought corn fritters were flat pancake looking things, I guess they’re round in Mexico. Whatever the shape or size I don’t really care, they were so good and a great was to start the meal.

Next up was a dish called ‘Queso Fundido’ where you make tortillas packed with chorizo, tomatoes, olives and hot peppers. I think the fun in ‘fundido’ comes from the spicy kick at the end, which then leads to the consumption of a lot of mojito. And I don’t usually like mojitos, but this mojito was really nice, so nice that I didn’t even want to sample their extensive range of Mexican beers.

The third and final entree were these corn-chip pizza looking things topped with chicken and – everyone’s favourite – refried beans (Note the hint sarcasm).

By now we were stuffed and the main hadn’t even arrived. Nevertheless we tried our best to eat as many fajitas as possible but to be honest we barely made a dent, even the boys had to admit defeat.

After stuffing ourselves silly, we moved to the bar for a round of tequila. Just one round because like most people, we’re scared of tequila. We ordered the “Tequila of the week” because to us, tequila is tequila. You should have seen the look of absolute horror on our faces when the bartender poured the tequila, the smell of it burnt my nostril hairs and almost sent me running. And instead of the usual lick-sip-suck, we were given the tequila shot and red shot as the chaser. I was scared.

3, 2, 1, shot, shot.

Much to my surprise it was quite nice. I was expecting this nail polish remover type burn, but was pleasantly surprised with a nice smooth slightly warm sensation down my throat, followed by a Bloody Mary type chaser. Yum. I think I could grow to like tequila.

The night progressed to bar hopping on Oxford Street to places that for some reason, lacked sufficient A/C. After sweating it out we decided to call it a night.

I love birthdays. Great food, great friends and memento Sombrero Hats – that’s what it’s all about. Thanks for the presents guys! You know me too well – cooking and beaching. And did I mention the awesome sombrero hat?

I always thought Big Day Out was a really crazy and rowdy festival, which is why I never really wanted to go in the past. But for some reason this year I decided to give it a shot. Sure glad I did because it was is flipping awesome! Dare I say, best festival yet.

Anna kept calling me a nerd for laminating the set times and map but by the end of the day I think I convinced her that nerd are cool. Our copy of the set times was indestructible. Nerd 1 : Anna 0.

Now we originally had tickets to the Saturday show, but managed to swap over to the Friday show which worked out perfectly considering the crazy weather on Saturday where the temperature in the late afternoon dropped a whopping 15 degrees in just 1 hour. I reckon a lot of people attending the Saturday show would have gotten sick. The Friday show was great, yes the weather at the start of the day was a killer with temperatures rising as high as 40 degrees, but it did cool down a tiny bit in the afternoon.

When we first got in the heat unbearable, we were dripping with sweat and hadn’t even gone to see anyone yet. I really wanted to see Kasabian fittingly sing “I’m on fiiiiire…” but we seriously couldn’t bear the heat.

One of the highlights of the day was the set by Girl Talk. Known for his mashups, Girl Talk mixed an assortment sweet tracks ranging from The Chilli Peppers to Jackson 5, Crowded House to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, some old school RnB and he even managed to squeeze in some Kelly Clarkson. Random, but oh so fun.

After Girl Talk in the Boiler room we were so hot so we stopped by the Olympic flame for a much needed cool down. After that it was go go go where we raced from stage to stage to check out the major acts.

Dizzee Rascal was … BONKERS! He drew such a massive crowd and it was going absolutely crazy, it was a very impressive sight especially in the heat. You really couldn’t sit still during his set, you had to dance or at the very least bop your head … and then be dripping with sweat. Oh well, the music was just too good to care.

Lily Allen was up next, I was a bit skeptical about how her voice would carry at the main stage but she was great. She looked and sounded gorgeous. It’s a bit of a shame that she’s not going to continue performing but I’m glad I had the chance to see her live in action and really working the stage.

Jet, as always, were great. Calvin Harris made everyone dance their feet off. And Ladyhawke played with everyone’s delirium on her guitar with her Kiwi accent. It was a jam packed afternoon with so much to do and see, but there was still plenty more to come.

OMG Muse were amazing! When they came on stage all feelings of tiredness and exhaustion seem to disappear with the heavy sound of the drums and guitar. They really know how to captivate an audience, no matter how tired you are. It was amazing to experience Starlight live, I say ‘experience’ because it wasn’t just in the sound; it incorporated all your sense (well all except for maybe taste, you couldn’t really taste the song, but if you could I reckon it would taste pretty sweet). I’d fallen in love with this song over the past couple of months and I got the chills when they started to play the intro.

After that we quickly rushed to Boiler room to see Groove Armada. I have a much greater appreciation of Groove Armada now that I’ve seen them live. A lot of effort goes into their show and the vocals and the band are really talented. It was a great way to end the night Superstylin’.

I know I sound a bit like a raving lunatic but I really did have a great time. I think BDO is my new favourite festival. Can’t wait till BDO 2011.

I spent the weekend catching up with some mates over good drinks and good food. First up was Kuleto’s Bar, in Newtown. We arrived right on 6pm when happy hour starts and dived straight into it. When we ordered our drinks we thought the bartender kept stuffing up our order because he kept giving us 2 of everything. It wasn’t till later that we realised happy hour = 2-for-1 drinks not half price drinks.

After Kuleto’s we headed down King Street in the hunt for Thai food, being King Street there’s no shortage of Thai restaurants. We spent the night reminiscing about the good old high school days and coming to the realisation that we had quite a few bullies in our group. *cough* Sonja *cough*.

I was craving seafood so we did a quick dash to the Sydney Fish Markets. I love that place! There’s so much seafood and it’s dirt cheap. Total damage was only $26 for a seafood banquet for 2. If we had ordered the same amount at a restaurant it would have been at least triple that price!

There’s such an abundance of wildlife in the Byron area, from giant lizards to cane toads and a whole array of weird looking insects.

Every night this little green tree frog would come out and say hello. One night G went to the bathroom and saw the little fella floating in the toilet! We didn’t know what to do, so we just left it and the next morning it disappeared.We suspect it went for a swim in the pipes.

If he wasn’t in the toilet the little fella would just sit in the tree and taunt the puppies.

Sometimes it would go for a walk. (Check out the muscle on the leg).

Other nights it preferred the hammock.

Fatty!

After 17 glorious, relaxing, lazy days in Byron, I’m back in Sydney again. It’s going to take a while to readjust.

Byron’s one of my favourite places, the weather’s perfect, the beaches are beautiful and everyone’s so relaxed and chilled out.

Here’s some bits and pieces from the trip.

Most days were spent bumming on the beach or going fishing.

Or playing with the puppies – yes they’re puppies. They’re only 6 months old. On the left is Sunshine, she belongs to Gav and on the right is Dooby, Esta’s little princess, who is recovering from having a cyst removed on her head, hence the half shaved head.

These little puppies sure did rack up a bill for Jan and Esta. First Dooby had the cyst removed, then a few weeks later little Sunshine got sick.

We still don’t know what caused her sickness, but we suspect she ate a blue bottle or something bad at the beach. As soon as we got back from the beach she started to eat grass and didn’t stop for 4 hours – which is not a good sign. The vet took a scan of her belly and it looked like she’d eaten a cloth, but when they operated they found that Sunshine had eaten way too much grass, so much that it had turned solid in her belly and was making her more sick.

There are a lot of small country towns in the area. One that I thought was really cute was a place called Mooball. The petrol station and all the telegraph poles are painted with a cow print pattern.

There’s an old railway track that isn’t in use anymore, so we went walking along the tracks, just for fun.

Across the bridge we were met with a pack of cows who were actually on the wrong side of the fence. They kept looking at us suspiciously like we were going to try steal their milk or something. Paranoid cows… must be something in the air.

One morning we woke up and there was this giant lizard just chilling out the front. When someone (I can’t remember who) walked past the lizard it freaked out and came charging in my direction, I too freaked out and ran away. Man that thing was fast!

One of the great things about having friends that live in the area is that they know all the good spots.

One day we took an inflatable boat out on a tea tree lake and just bobbed around. The lake was amazing, it’s a deep burnt red colour and the temperature varies depending on how deep the water is. When you’re walking in shallow water the water’s real hot, but as it gets deeper the temperature drops.

Another hidden gem is Whites Beach. You have to drive off the main road down a dirt track to get there, then trek down the cliff.

It’s well worth the effort. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves.

On my last day Maree and Chris took us 4wd-ing at Border Ranges National Park which is at the border of NSW and QLD. While driving around we stumbled upon a few spots that had a bunch of bee hives. Just as well we were locked up in the car, there were heaps of bees.

At the top of the national park there’s the most amazing view of Mount Warning and the ocean.

The view was amazing and it was the perfect way to end a fabulous trip.

The girls had been wanting to go to Fig Tree restaurant for a while now, they just needed an excuse, luck for them (and for me) it was my birthday. The place has an amazing view of Byron Bay which you can enjoy from the restaurant or while relaxing in the pool.

Every Thursday in Byron there’s the Byron Farmers’ Market where you can buy fresh local produce. As such, every Thursday night Fig Tree does a Farmers’ Market Dinner where everything is bought fresh that morning from the markets, and the menu changes each week depending on what’s at the market.

I should have taken a proper photo of the menu because we kept wondering what we were eating – all of which were amazing. The first entree was like a bite-size bruschetta with sun-dried tomatoes and goats cheese. I could have easily eaten 20 of these but there were another 3 courses to come so it’s just as well it was tiny and delicious.

The second entree was again, tiny but delicious, and since none of us actually read the menu properly we had no idea what was in it. It sort of tasted like Pho, but cheesy and creamy with a hint of orange zest. Okay the way I described it doesn’t sound very appealing but believe me, it was amazing, it really did just melt in your mouth.

The only thing on the menu any of us actually read were the mains – it was the only thing we had to make a choice on. For my main I went with the duck with roasted apricots and green beans.

One of the highlights of the meal was the dessert (sorry about the crappy photo, it was getting dark and I hate using flash). Home-made sorbet, poached apricot and deep-fried wanton skin with chocolate sauce. It was the perfect way to end the meal.

I couldn’t believe how good the food was! I can honestly say I think it’s the best meal I’ve had in a long time, it’s on par with the meal I had at Quay – a restaurant that’s won all sorts of awards.

If you’re ever in the Byron area, definitely make the trip to Fig Tree.

We headed to Balina for some Barefoot Bowls the other night, none of us actually knew how to play so that made it interesting. In fact we sucked so much that we had a bit of an audience watching us for pure entertainment value. Luckily there was no one else playing because we kept bowling into the next couple of lanes.

Beers were super cheap and came with these styrofoam stubby holders.

The game was neck and neck with Chris and G in the lead. In the end Chris took the game by one point, partly due to my sabotage. I tried to knock the rest of the balls away to leave mine the closest, instead I hit G’s ball out of the way to give Chris the win. I guess lawn bowls isn’t my sport.

In the absence of a designated drive and a heap load of booze we decided to stay in on New Years Eve and invite everyone over. There’s no TV reception here so watching the fireworks was out of the question, which was actually a nice change. Though it would have been handy as we didn’t quite know when the exact NYE tick over was. Instead we cheered to NYE a few times to account for the variations in everyone’s clocks.

As the night progressed out came the trivial beer games. The guys actually worked this one out pretty quickly.