sydney winter festival 2009

sydney has been pretty unlucky with the weather when it comes to outdoor events! the sydney winter festival was on last weekend (18-21 June) where it managed to rain pretty much nonstop. it didnt help that i was sick either! but a plan is a plan and so Helen and i found ourselves wandering around Cook & Phillip Square one sunday morning eager for some classic winter food


look its snowing! i found it pretty amusing that there were gas heaters lining the makeshift ice rink… also, the ‘snow’ smelled like burnnning…


apparently the ice rink was the first outdoor rink in the cbd since 1959! the tix for ice skating managed to be sold out weeks in advance so helen and i hung around the edge watching the skaters and alternating between jealous glances and laughing at the falls of the uncoordinated heh heh


the currency for the festival were ‘snowflake’ tokens (1 snowflake=$1) and while i understand the need for ‘security reasons’ it wasted a bit of time having to find out the price of food before having to find the snowflake dude. one snowflake seller was calling out cornflakes! get your cornflakes here! heh i asked him why he was saying it and he said people dont really listen anyway and i was the first to ask =D


roasting chestnuts!


a drink was in order for such a cold day and i of course go with the milk hot chocolate with PINK marshmallow from voodoo (4snowflakes)


hotchocolatesuze haha shuddup im sick dammit!


there were quite a few food stalls and the spectacularly colourful paella from El Bulli drew a crowd


but not as big a crowd as the area in front of plan b where a lady was holding a tray of free wagyu burger samples! zomg for a sample size these things were pretty huge!


something that helen and i had immediately decided on having for lunch was from Del Forno- a whole wheel of brie ‘infused’ with rosemary and thyme, baked until all gooey and melty and oh. so. delicious with a loaf of crusty bread and 2 pickles on the side


and some mellow soothing music with our eats on the steps


and cheese craving not fully satisfied we stopped by at the swissotel stand for some Swiss raclette. the halved wheels of cheese are placed under a grill and the top layer soon becomes bubbly and golden and is then scraped onto some potatos, onions and pickles. the jolly chef was also very generous with his samples heh


it was a bit small but that was ok because we were slowly becoming full and sleepy from the music


and a gingerbread man from la boheme for a snack on the way home!