It was time for my tri-yearly catch up with Mish so, as usual, we raided her Entertainment book for the best coupons. Corelli’s cafe in Newtown was the winner with a 2-for-1 coupon. Total damage for a heap of coffee and a belly full of good food $10 each. Bargain.

Whoever first thought of serving coffee in a soup bowl is genius, perhaps a crazy caffeine-addicted genius but a genius nonetheless. I must admit I struggled with my coffee, I’d nearly finished my bowl when I realised my hands were shaking so I thought it best to resign and admit defeat. Should have waved the white flag earlier, I was up half the night buzzing.

The corn fritters are a must. I was so into my corn fritters I’d forgotten I about the pile of bacon on the plate.

After stuffing ourselves silly we ventured down the road to score another 2-for-1 deal at Cold Rock Ice Creamery. Being in the mood for something different I decided to make up a new mix: Mango Yoghurt ice-cream with Bounty mix in. Strange, but it was actually really nice. I guess a better indicator of taste would be: Would I order it again? Sure would.

With ‘Shire people’ never leaving The Shire, we all made the long voyage down to there to celebrate Nga’s Birthday. It was Opah restaurant for a Greek banquet where I had to make sure I paced myself or suffer the consequences of being too full for cake – the surprise Cold Rock ice cream cake. This cake was a killer with 3 different layers of ice cream goodness:

The first layer: Cookies and cream ice-cream with Maltesers
The second layer: Vanilla ice-cream with gummi bears (Nga’s favourite, though most of us ended up spitting out the gummi bears)
The third layer was: Ferrero Rocher ice-cream with nuts and Nutella.

Drool… It really was an awesome cake and I think a new standard for birthdays to come. Agata – you’re next!

I don’t know if it was because we were in The Shire but it seriously did not stop raining! Even the simple task of walking across the road from the restaurant to Northies (or the RSL as Jenny would call it) required a lot of persuasion, and we’re usually not one to need a lot of persuasion when there’s alcohol. Speaking of alcohol, I think the birthday girl had a bit too much.

Happy Birthday Nga!

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.

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?

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.

Anna’s probably one of – if not the most - stylish people I know, so it’s only natural to celebrate her birthday accordingly. We went to the Gazebo Wine Garden, a gorgeous restaurant in Elizabeth Bay with flair. As you can tell from the name of the restaurant there’s a lot of wine.

There are a few kooky things that give the place a unique charm, one being the bathrooms, which would have been a bit inappropriate to photograph so I didn’t. You’re just going to have to go there yourself to check it out. Another odd thing was the Christmas Tree and Tasmanian devil (?) stuck to the ceiling.

With a party of 20+, our table was split into two and we were in for a set menu. I’m usually not the biggest fan of set menus because of the limited selection, but I was pretty impressed with the choices.

Instead of the usual 2 options for entree our table was given a variety of plates to share. It was great to be able to pick at each of the different plates. My favourite was this glorified sausage roll.

For my main I went with the ocean trout, ever since my recent Byron trip I’ve been craving seafood.

For dessert I went with the good old chocolate brownie. I was away from my seat when it came out, so Brendan decided to draw a little face on the ice cream. Looks a bit grumpy, probably because I was about to demolish it.

The atmosphere was fantastic, very happening, very lively and very festive. Every time a birthday girl/boy ordered a drink, the staff would stick a sparkler in it, ring a cow bell and shout and cheer as they brought the drink to you.

Good venue, good food and good friends. What better way to celebrate a birthday. Happy Birthday Anna!

That was our plan of attack at trivia last night, if we didn’t know the answer, we just went with Abba. I would highly not recommend it though, we came last. Good effort team! But I think it’ll be a while till we can show our faces at The Rose again.

Even though we totally sucked at trivia, we were still able to take advantage of the trivia food deal. If you play, you can order small pizzas for $10 each and they’re well worth it. Great pizzas, crappy photo (My bad, I hate using flash).

We headed to Haberfield to catch up with with Vick on Sunday night. We usually go to Dolcissimo, which is probably one of my favourite Italian restaurants in Sydney, but since a few new places had opened up we thought we’d be brave and try something different so we headed to Napoli in Bocca. I apologise now for the lack of photos, been feeling a bit off-key all weekend and was a bit too dizzy to take any proper photos.

Because I was feeling sick I went with the prawn penne (thought I’d keep it simple), it was great, a little on the garlicky side but I love garlic so it’s all good. G’s marinara was probably one of the best marinara’s I’ve had in a while, which is a high call coming from me. I’m a big marinara fan and if you stuff it up, your restaurant is as good as dead to me. Also, if you’re a lasagna fan, like Garfield, you would love this place. Vick’s lasanga was enormous! Seriously, it was huge! I think Garfield would even have trouble finishing it.

My only complaint: the rocket in the Rocket and Parmesan salad was too bitter, as was the Chinotto. But then again, I also thought the gelato we had after was too sour, so maybe it was just me.

I seriously did not stop eating on the weekend. It felt like I went from one meal straight to the next and it was all Italian food. It started with Pizza at the Beresford on Friday, then pasta (from Pizza Hut) on Saturday night, then the big one – Sunday.

Sunday started with pancakes for breakfast (at 11am). After “breakfast” I headed to Criniti’s at Darling Harbour for lunch with the girls. We love going there, especially after Agata introduced us to their Brescioli dish (pictured top centre). Rice dumplings with melted cheese on the inside. If you ever go there you have to order it!

After lunch, I drove home then straight away drove to Dee Why for dinner (with a full belly of food). It was Matty’s birthday and every year, without fail, we throw him a surprise dinner (or at least we try). I’m pretty sure he’s clued on by now and half expects a surprise every year, but never the less, it’s still fun.

Dinner was at Moltofino and the food’s pretty good. I highly recommend the Seafood Paella (pictured bottom centre). Yumo!

Anyway, Happy Birthday Matty! Quarter Century. Getting old…

Our company was nominated as one of 10 finalists for the Dell Small Business Excellence Awards. As such we were invited to the finalist lunch held at Quay Restaurant. I was uber excited because Quay was recently announced the winner of the 2009 Best Restaurant of the Year – SMH Good Food Guide, and 2010 Restaurant of the Year – Australian Gourmet Traveller. It also has an amazing view of the Harbour Bridge AND the Opera House.

Time for the food.

For entree I went with: Seared sea scallops, baby leeks, fennel, confit tomatoes, lime crème frianche, basil and lime dressing. Spectacular!

For my main meal I chose the: Victorian Pyrenees lamb rump, eggplant, eschallots, Ligurian olives, roasted tomatoes. Had this lunch been a year ago I wouldn’t have dreamt of choosing lamb, but now I love the stuff.

These potatoes were a big hit on our table and there was much discussion as to how they got them to be that shape. Pushed through a machine? Smashed, then shaped? Hand-carved? We’ll never know.

Dessert was highly anticipated: Seven texture valrhona chocolate cake.

It took us a while, but we eventually found the seven textures (I think). Here’s the breakdown (top to bottom):

1. A thin sheet of dark chocolate
2. Light chocolate mousse – not quite white chocolate, but not milk chocolate either.
3. A thin sheet of milk chocolate
4. Dark chocolate mousse
5. Some kind of nutty chocolate mixture – tastes like crunchy Nutella
6. Chocolate biscuit base – yum!
7. Chocolate sauce along the base.

Just a word of warning, you seriously cannot eat the full thing to yourself. I could only really get half way through it. Dan finished her’s but then felt sick the rest of the day.

The other option for dessert was Crème caramel, sauterne jelly, caramel cream, caramel ice-cream. It looks amazing, but it’s seriously death by caramel.

With a belly full of free food I can definitely see why it won Best Restaurant of the Year. If I were paying, I might have seen things differently. Free food always tastes better.