Marque

This three hatted Sydney restaurant deserves an entry just by itself. Marque is in Surry Hills, with chefs Mark Best and Pasi Petanen. It received great reviews and I actually managed to find someone else who is as much as a foodie as myself, so Fabia and I tried it the second last day in Sydney. It was a divine experience. It was $95 for three courses which is all I can manage to stuff down. However I am sure that the degustation experience would be well worth the price. Since all the dishes are brilliant there is no clear favourites! Sorry I don't remember the exact ingredients of the dishes and due to the lighting these pictures are a bit dark.

Amuse with soft boiled egg

'Risotto' with calamari and prawns: the covering sheet is a flattened sheet of prawns and the 'risotto' is actually little chopped up bits of calamari.

Roast Muscovy duck with Jerusalem artichoke, Buckwheat, date and coffee: the duck was perfectly cooked and not too tough, the coffee sauce was brilliant, it almost seems like i'm eating a dessert!

A pretty strong palate cleanser, caramel with custard

'lemon tart': so this has all the ingredients of a lemon tart, the base is chocolate biscuit crumbles as the tart base, the lemon portion is a frozen sphere with lemon meringue, mandarin ice-cream and something else. It was an unexpected twist and very tasty

At the end of the meal, we get 4 little candies and good thing the server told us what it is before we tried it. It is supposed to represent the four tastes, bitter, savoury, sour and sweet. By telling us what the candies were, we were able to start at the bitter side and work our way up to the sweet. The bitter is the one on the left and it has licorice in it. The salty is chocolate with peanut in it, Sour is lemon candy with white chocolate and sweet is this gelatin candy with orange in it. Great ending to a great meal.

One of the best things about Sydney

Without a doubt Sydney is a foodie heaven and I definitely took advantage of it these past two weeks. Now I just have to workout twice as hard!

First stop: the Burger joint in Darlinghurst.
Sherri wanted to try an Aussie burger since I have sung high praises of the burgers I have had here, so we went down to burger joint #3 in the Sydney Timeout best burger list. We both had the Aussie burger with beetroot, bacon and egg. It's not a bad burger and it's very reasonably priced with massive portions. Overall, good place for a burger, but I'd still prefer the Wagyu burger from Plan B.
Next we had to try a brownie and Central Baking Depot was on our way from the Sydney harbour to Darling harbour. This was also on Sydney's Timeout top 5 brownie list. I had the orange cheesecake chocolate brownie, nice and moist, and great flavours all throughout. The brownie portion is massive but no worries, I finished every crumb of it. My only excuse was that day we climbed the Sydney bridge
Sherri and I went down to Surry Hills and tried Holy Cow, an Indian restaurant that was highly rated at Eatability. Combined that with no corkage for BYO, it made it an easy choice. We had goat Madras which is interesting since I've never had goat before. It taste like lamb, quite gamey, but the curry definitely masked a lot of it. We also had pistashio chicken which is quite creamy. I personally preferred the goat despite the gamey-ness just because I don't like the creaminess of the other dish.

Goat Madras

Pistachio chicken with naan and rice

The last place I tried with Sherri is Fish on the Rocks. As the name implied it's at the Rocks which means that it had pre-theatre specials. For $45 you can have an entree, a main and a glass of wine. So I picked the tempura prawns with Thai spice sauce and the kingfish fillet with sauteed field mushrooms, English spinach and pureed pumpkin. The fish was very fresh and the prawns were perfect. (sorry about the dark pictures)

Tempura prawns

Fillet with mushrooms, spinach and pumpkin

Australian slang

When I first got to Australia, I thought I had some issues with my English because I had a hard time understanding what people are saying. 6 months later, I still have some difficulties but it's getting easier. This is my Canadian translations to some of their commonly used words, as I understand how they are used.. Thanks to everyone who provided input into the list!!

Mate = friend/buddy/dude

Blokes= guys

Schooner = pint of beer

Nugget = no real translation, just anyone who's fat and short.

Unit = someone who's big, not necessarily fat, just big

Tucker = food

Spewin = angry

Reckon = you bet

Arvo = afternoon

Feral = wild/ nasty

Heaps = lots

Thongs = flipflops

Servos = service stations

no dramas = no probs

Ta = Thanks

No worries = same as no dramas

lollies = jujubes/ candy

Mackers = MacDonalds

ambos = ambulance

tomato sauce = ketchup

Waggin off = call a sickie/ slack off the day (be careful of using that one, it can sound inappropriate)

Ginga = ginger red

ranga = Red, originally came from orangatan

figjam = F***ing I'm good just ask me

footy = Aussie rule football

Roos = kangaroos

and my absolute favourite: Bogan = no exact translation but similar to our rednecks

For my surgical friends

catspaws = sens retractor

diathermy = bovie

hemostat = snap

nibbler = rouguer

plaster trolley = cast cart

So if I are using different terms when I get back to Australia.. this might help a bit..

Funky Australian wildlife

Sherri and I went to the Sydney Aquarium, mostly because it was pouring rain outside. It's not as good as seeing the creatures in the wild, but then it was nice and dry. Plus you are guaranteed to see the creatures, unlike the wild; apart from the platypus, we stood in front of the tank for so long and still didn't spot the creature. Good thing I saw it at the Taronga zoo.

Ribbit..

Dugong: They are part of the Sirenians, same as the manatees. They eat a lot of lettuce and are close to extinction. They live near Moreton Island, Queensland.

Nemo! we also spotted Dory and Gill there as well!

Dah Dum Dah Dum Dah Dum..

Part of the Blue Mountains tour included a visit to Featherdale Wildlife Park. My favourite is still the koala! The Wombat is a close second!

So Soft! I want to be the koala!

Wallaby and its joey!

What are you looking at? Stop before I peak your eyes out!

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat, this one doesn't look friendly!

Oh Feed me!

Bridge climb and Blue Mountains

My friend Sherri came from Toronto to visit me for a week and I had a great time with her. Unfortunately I could not take more time off work but I had both weekends with her, plus a half day during the week. I had a great time with her (hopefully it was the same for her too!). We completed the Bridge Climb and then went to Blue Mountains the next weekend

The BridgeClimb was an expensive adventure but the view was well worth it. We completed the Discovery Climb which went through the lower ring of the bridge but then we walked up the stairs that connected the lower ring with the upper ring so that we still get the view from the top. It was a beautiful day and it was money well worth spent for the experience and the view. Unfortunately we aren't allowed to bring anything including cameras but the guide took some relatively good pictures of us

Sherri and I on the top
Views that you get with the Discovery Climb

For the following weekend, we went to the Blue Mountains. Initially I was going to take the train but then I thought it was going to rain, so hence we decided to go take a tour which included a few extra bonus. You can see from the pictures how terrible a meteorologist I would make, it did rain in the morning but blue skies and sunshine dominated the rest of the day. However the tour did stop by the wildlife park and we got to take pictures with a koala so it's well worth it! (the animal pics will be in the next blog)

Three Sisters, Blue Mountains

Sherri and I

Scenic Railway, the steepest railway in the world, I felt we needed seatbelts!

Animal spotting

I have been slacking in my blogging duties as my time in Australia is drawing to a close. Now is catch up time before Australia finishes and New Zealand starts!

June long weekend, aka Queen's birthday was spent up at Gold Coast Queensland. Not exactly what I had in mind but overall a pleasant long weekend. I've been up at Gold coast when I was a kid and all I could remember was theme parks. This time, slightly different activities.

Day 1: Bryon Bay, this is actually in New South Wales and is the most Eastern point of Australia. Bryon is many of my friends' favorite town, partly because it's super laid back and relaxed. It's only 1.5 hour from Gold coast so I thought I'd check it out. There's a great little hike up to the lighthouse and also the most Eastern point. Once up to the lighthouse, I could spot dolphins in the sea everywhere. The beaches were fantastic, although it's a bit cold to go in.

The most Eastern point of Australia

Bryon Bay lighthouse

lucky shot!

Bryon Bay beaches

Day 2 was supposed to be kayaking with dolphins, unfortunately no spotting of dolphins but the kayaking was a nice exercise and we did spot some swamp wallabies on South Stradbroke Island.

Day 3, whale watching and tall ship cruise. For those who are prone to seasickness, this is NOT an activity to embark on. I felt so bad with all the people who were throwing up and not being able to enjoy spotting the whales, why pay $100 for the joy of throwing up?? However sitting in the front of the boat was like riding a little rollercoaster and once we are out in open sea, we were able to see 5 whales going around. Unfortunately I don't have the super long lens or a SLR camera, so after going through all my attempts of pictures, these were the best 2.

best shot with the fin and Gold coast skyline

Whale tail

The afternoon was spent on the tall ship cruise to South Stradbroke Island and going around the island to check out the sand dunes. I have learnt my lesson, sandboarding = weeks of getting sand out of clothes which means that I try not to participate unless I like to do laundry. However it is still a pleasant cold walk up and down the beach. The tall ship brought us back to mainland and we got the treat of the skipper feeding the eagles.

Day 4: Hinterland trip to Springbrook, another World Heritage site in Australia. The tour included hiking through the rainforest there and checking out the glow worm caves and also visiting a fruit farm that has all different tropical fruits for tasting. Overall a good day except for the rain that came down in the afternoon, rain makes hiking semi-unpleasant.

glow worm cave

Pademelon in the wild, yet another Australian marsupial!

Island of sand aka Fraser Island

Fraser Island, Queensland is listed as one of Australia's World Heritage site and my friend Ben Isserlin suggested a visit to it and as usual he is right about how enjoyable this trip was.

I spent the weekend there enjoying a two day tour with the Cool Dingo Tours. They are based out of Kingfisher Resort and is a well-organized backpacker tour company. The two days are packed with activities and the food for those two days were fantastic. There were 9 of us on this tour with most people speaking German! Currently there is a lot of Germans traveling around the country.. however there's also one other couple from Quebec and one guy from England.

Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island, so inevitably the whole trip is about the sand and how it gets into my clothes. The first day was spent in Lake MacKenzie. Beautiful turquoise water with great beach for sunbathing. To keep things in perspective, this is WINTER for Australia and the highest temperature we had was 23oC and SUNNY. However it is still freezing cold in the water, I got as far as going ankle high in the water and then went for a hike instead.

Lake MacKenzie

Amazingly on this island of sand there is vegetation and a huge rainforest. We went for a rainforest trek after Lake MacKenzie and was told to hug Big Jim, a massive santinay tree, as hugging Big Jim will make sure we see a dingo the next day! The different forestation and vegetation around the island is pretty amazing and it's neat how this cycle of life is all based on sand.

Big Jim

Second day was spent on the Seventy Mile beach and going North. This is a stretch of beach that is the length of the island and this is the main highway. This is pretty neat as all the 4WDs go 80 km/hr on this stretch of sand and there's no road signs. There is even a airplane strip on the highway and unless you know about it there's no way to tell! We then went to Champagne Pools (a sea water pool that again is freezing cold) and Indian head to spot the wildlife. I saw quite a few stingrays, and some big fish but no turtles/sharks/whales there.

The happy news is that we did finally spot two humpback whales on the way down the beach and they even did a tail flip for us! We also spot a dingo as well around Eli Creek which was our last stop. Plus we had the most perfect sunset and to end the perfect weekend, we went to the main resort to use their heated hot tub! Trust me it's a lot warmer than the natural lakes and pools!

Seventy Five Mile Beach
From the air

Maheno shipwreck from the air

Champagne Pools

Indian Head

lunch on the beach

Eli Creek

Last chance at spotting the dingo! (Big Jim came through!)

Sunset