Weekend in Sydney

Cat and I attended the Sushi and Sashimi class taught at the Sydney Seafood School. Now I know why they charge so much for good sushi and sashimi, there is a LOT of prep work with the fish. We prepared garfish, cuttlefish and a snapper type fish, plus slicing tuna, salmon and kingfish as a group and by the end of the class, my hands smelt like fish until the end of the night. I would prefer to just eat the food and leave the prep work to others :). My sushi platter didn't look half as good as his but it sure tasted really good.

Our teacher teaching us on the importance of a good knife

His sashimi demonstration dish

His sushi dish

Sunday we were supposed to have this huge storm, where they posted warnings all throughout my building to be inside and stay away from water. Good thing I didn't listen since the weather was fabulous and I managed to get a little hike in. I went from Dover Heights up to Watson Bay. I have now walked all the way from Circular Quay all the way along the coast to Coogee beach. The South Head National Park was interesting.. apart from the normal lighthouse, there was a special beach tucked away along the route, Lady Beach which is one of three approved nudist beach in Sydney. It is around 15oC on Sunday and there were gentlemen frequenting the beach. I did not need to go onto the beach, you can see them all along the hiking path. They need a few more trees along the path!

South Head National Park; North Head in the distance

Lane Cove Beach

No matter how many times I see this view, it is still a favourite of mine!

Animal spotting

This weekend was spent at Kangaroo Island in South Australia. The Hammonds have recommended a trip down there to view all Australian animals in the wild. Fantastic advice! This is definitely the one-stop shop for animal viewing. Kangaroo Island is around 1 hour ferry ride from Adelaide and has its own breed of kangaroos because of its isolation. For those considering a trip there, hopefully you have deep pockets, because of its isolation, it is one expensive island to spend time on.

I spent one day in Adelaide and went on the Haigh's chocolate factory tour. They make their own chocolate from bean to product in Adelaide and have free daily tours AND the bigger bonus, they have FREE tastings!!! I definitely scored enough chocolate cashews that morning to last the whole day. Two of my favourite things... free and chocolate :)

Central market in Adelaide is similar to Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne but smaller. However you can wander up and down the aisles and everyone has free tastings. No need to truly buy lunch.

Saturday was the start of a two day backpacking tour on Kangaroo Island. We started with a sheep shearing demo by Rob who spoke a bit on the history of shearing and how the island's farming industry is changing. Apparently a shearer earns $2.50 per sheep they shear and a master shearer shears 200 sheep/ day. I don't think I want to work as a sheep shearer... pretty hard work.
Afterwards the animal tour starts..

Kangaroo Island Kangaroos (tougher coats and different facial features compared to mainland kangaroos, plus they are protected.)

Australian Sea Lions in Seal Bay Conservation Park.
You can smell these Sea lions and also the Fur Seals from far far away, they stink. There's some surfing in the water, a lot of them sleeping on the beach. This young male came really close to us, apparently it's mating time.

Part of the adventure tour.. sandboarding in Little Sahara. Part of the issue was coming down this massive sandpile means that I had to walk back up! It was definitely a cardiovascular challenge, since the sand was constantly shifting downwards. however I did go down a couple of times on the board which was actually more like sand tobogganing.

Sunset at Vivionne Bay.
Our farmstay was close to this beach and it was voted the best beach in Australia in 2002.
We went on a nocturnal walk to the jetty to see the fairy penguins, we definitely smelt them and spotted a few. The pictures are way too dark to post.

Koala Spotting
This was the most active of all the koalas that we spotted there, it climbed all of 2 feet, the other koalas just ignored us. I think I'd like to be a koala and sleep 20 hours a day

Tammar Wallaby

Remarkable Rocks in Flinders Chase National Park.

New Zealand Fur Seals at Admirals Arch

Pelicans at Kingscote.
By then we were caught in a huge storm so even the pelicans were bunking down for the night to ride the storm out. Only us fools had to take the ferry ride back to the mainland and that was no fun rollercoaster for 1 hour. Almost half of the boat were seasick.

So out of all the weird and wonderful Australian animals, I have seen kangaroos, emus, wallabies, koalas, kookaburra, fairy penguins, Australian sea lions, NZ fur seals and wombats in the wild. The only things missing are echidnas and platypus, and apparently those two are very shy. At least I saw them in the zoo..

The week of Gluttony

In my attempt to eat through the recommended restaurants of Sydney, Fiona and I tried one of the top 5 burgers in Sydney, The Rockpool Bar and Grill burger. This is the David Blackmore's Full Blood Wagyu Burger with Bacon, Gruyere Cheese and Zuni Pickle. It's a good burger, but probably will not be one that I go back again for. The price tag of $22 makes it a bit steep. I have my fair share of good food before this trip, but Cat and I decided to splurge a bit and try Quay restaurant. This has been named #27 on the S. Pellegrino's World top 50 Restaurant list. It is the top one in Australia with 3 other restaurants that made top 100. I have to say that this is a spectacular meal. Taking my boss' advice and ordering the full tasting menu of 7 courses was brilliant advice. Well worth the $210 and a very special occasion meal, given the quality of the food. (Sorry for the dark pictures, there's not much lighting in the restaurant)

First taster of Tuna tartar, cavier and horseradish mayo

Sea Pearls: Sashimi Tuna (top), Aquaculture cavier, sea scallop, smoked eel, octopus, mud crab, abalone (bottom black ball). The best ball is the scallop one

Mud crab Congee (hand shelled mud crab, palm hearts, Chinese inspired split rice porridge)

Crips confit of pig belly, braise of abalone, silken tofu, Japanese mushrooms, chive flowers

Butter poached quail breast, pink turnips and onions, white lentils, morels, truffle, custard, bitter chocolate black pudding, jamon de bellota, milk skin

Slow cooked pure bred Suffolk lamb loin, young vegetables, comte-infused custard, roasted quinoa, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, hazelnuts

Strawberry Guava Snow Egg

Eight textured chocolate cake

My favourite is the pig belly dish, it combines all my fav food, mushrooms, tofu and pork! The chocolate cake is my favourite dessert, it has hazelnuts mixed into it and an awesome way to end the dinner. Needless to say, i worked harder at the workout sessions to burn off the extra calories!

Taronga Zoo

Sunday was a great day for the Wotherspoons and myself. We headed out to Taronga Zoo in Sydney and it's fabulous! It was Mother's Day and there were tons of people there. We managed to see most of the animals including the newborn baby elephant! It's a toss up for me between the koala bear and the platypus for my favourite animal.

Baby G with Scotty and her favourite new toy, Koala

Nice Cuddly KoalaWhat a view of the city, especially if you are that tall!

Baby Luk Chai only 2 months old

Hmmm.. what's on the other side!

This week I had visitors from Melbourne, Scott, Meg and Baby G. This became a great excuse to eat out and try different restaurants. We tried the fantastic sushi platter as takeaway from Makoto Sushi Bar which always have huge line-ups and similarly, Chinese food from the popular Taste of Shanghai. Meg and I ate out at Spice I am, one of the top Thai food places in the city according to Time Out Sydney. We had the deep fried mini spring rolls, the recommended Red Duck Curry and Pad Prik King with Prawns. Both dishes were quite spicy and delicious. We ended the night with Asian ice-cream (Lychee Rose and Coconut flavours) from PassionFlower. For Scott who was babysitting that night, he had the Pad Thai take out

Red Duck Curry and Pad Prik King

Saturday was a big day for us, we rented a car and headed up to Hunter Valley to explore the famous wine region. The first stop was to Brokenwood winery. Our first taste of the Brokenwood products was last year on our graduation party where one of our consultants opened up 2 bottles of Graveyard Shiraz from his cellar. We got a chance to taste quite a few of their wines and Scott managed to find a way to ship wine from there tax free back to North America, which is a big achievement!

Our lunch stop was at Mojo's on Wilderness. This restaurant has been rated as best restaurant and cafe overall on the eatability Sydney website, which is quite impressive as they have quite a few big name restaurants on that list. We stopped there for lunch and that was the best decision of the day. Not only was the food fantastic but also the setting was perfect for us. They have a large yard and they have set up multiple beanbags on the grass so not only did we get to enjoy the weather, it also meant that Baby G had her own little beanbag as a highchair! The food was also wonderful with mushroom, Gruyere cheese and prosciutto pizza and Thai beef side salad for my lunch and a great tangy lemon tart as dessert. A must-do for anyone going up to Hunter Valley!

Apart from wineries, we also stopped at the Binnorie Dairy cheese tasting store. I am not the biggest cheese eater I actually enjoyed this cheese enough to buy it. This is Labna cheese which is cheese from yogurt marinated in chilli, garlic, rosemary and olive oil. The taste is fabulous and quite unlike anything I have tried before. I will be making chicken stuffed with Labna this week!

The perfect setting in Hunter Valley!

A weekend in Sydney

Feels like I have spent every weekend traveling and no time in Sydney.. Tania (one of my friends from the Tassie tour) is leaving Sydney to go back to Portugal so we headed out to do the Spit to Manly walk before she left. The weatherman actually predicted the weather right and you can see from our start of the walk it was cloudy but it cleared up by the end of 10km and we got rewarded with a beautiful sunset. It was a great hike through parts of Sydney's national parks. Definitely the great part of living in Sydney is that you can be in the city and don't feel like you are part of 4 million people since there are great hikes and national parks within the city.

Spit Bridge

Sunday my cousin and I went to feast on a seafood buffet at Four Point Sheratons. The best part of the buffet was the bugs, prawns and the salmon sashimi. I definitely ate my fair portion and don't feel the need to eat for the upcoming week. However, Fiona and I got talking about black credit cards (or the Centurion card) and she told me the story about the Dutch prince who met his spouse in the Slip Inn in Sydney and lived happily ever after in Copenhagen. Lo and behold as we are walking down to the harbour, we passed the Slip Inn with the placard in the front. One day I will meet my prince with the black credit card as well!