Edit: CLOSED OH HAI! So like, can you believe it’s the end of October already? That means soon will be the end of all the Crave Sydney events argh! The Dude Food Degustation ($70 + $50 matching drinks) at Lotus (22 Challis Avenue, Potts Point) was booked out within hours of the website going live but luckily the day before the second seating I managed to catch a tweet from Dan Hong about a last minute cancellation and scored the seats. The boy came along thanks to promises of hotdogs and we joined powers tables with the awesome Dumpling Girl and Cheesecake Boy for a fabulously fun lunch.

I’d decided to try my luck with the matching drinks and a spicy Bloody Mary with celery foam is up first with the Cheeseburger spring roll and empanada doner kebab. The spring roll was crazy, I barely glanced at the menu so my brain got confused when it thought I was eating a normal spring roll and all of a sudden woah man it’s cheesey! /smacks lips and is that… pickle with just a hint of tomato sauce? Lols and that empanada took me back to seedy Friday evenings huddled at late night kebab stands with the magical restorative powers of garlic sauce.

Ah but what is better than a bowl of instant noodles on a lazy rainy day? Indomie with fried quail egg, deep fried eshays & pulled buffalo wing sauce arrives with a grin along with a glass of 2009 Salomon Undhof Gruner Veltliner. The sunny quail egg was just too cute and while I would normally stab a runny egg and mix it into the indomie I just couldn’t help but shove the whole egg into my mouth… Guilty pleasures lol I loved the crunchy shallots but oh boy was the sauce spicy! Thanks to my lack of chili tolerance I found myself pausing to chug-a-lug the sweet wine and regretfully had to pass it over to the boy.

Noods. With noodles. Heh.

Just like with the entree, my brain and tastebuds got all kinds of confused with the Pepperoni pizza wontons with napolentana consomme (with 2009 Mornington Peninsula Scorpo Rose). The bowl held deceptively normal looking wontons but the clear broth was so intensely tomato flavoured and the nubbins of pepperoni encased in tender wonton pastry skin just sent everything topsy turvy. I could’ve very easily eaten another 5 bowls.

Tasting of Hotdogs – foie gras and truffle hotdog, Chicago style hotdog, Corndog (with Coopers Pale Ale). Nawww how cute are all the dawgs yo!? We were instructed to eat the foie gras and truffle hotdog first and hot damn it nearly ruined the other hot dogs for me because it was just so freaking tasty and rich! The slab of foie gras and the truffle sauce was pure indulgent bliss and perfect on the soft fluffy buns. The Chicago hot dog was tasty but not as gloriously tasty against the corn dog which was amazeballs. The fried batter was perfect and not at all oily, with the requisite crunch before the sausage innards are met and of course what goes better with hotdogs than a glass of beer? Just like a day out watching a baseball game haha

Donut ice-cream with candied bacon, banana fritter, pretzel praline, peanut butter and raspberry jam (with Jack Daniels & banana old fashioned). I’d been looking forward to dessert and it didn’t fail to impress. From the presentation to the taste, this crazy multi ingredient dish was off the chain insane. Of course the candied bacon was first to be attacked and I looked longingly around the table to steal any bacon remnants but alas there were none. The donut ice cream was incredible- cinnamony and sweet, it was perfect against the salty schmear of peanut butter and the crunch of the pretzel praline. The banana fritter was saved till last, oh how I’ve missed my daily dose of potassium! The matching JD was a little on the strong side esp after all the matched drinks and I couldn’t really taste any banana flavour but nevertheless was finished all the same 😛

Aaaaaand my collection of drinks… Edit: hehe no worries guys I managed to finish most of the driknks. Teehee one more day to the weekend! See ya’ll next week!

NOM! So like, yeah I cut my hair haha I’m still not used to it and I can’t hide behind a curtain of hair no more! But the weather she be acting cray cray and with Summer just around the corner I thought it was time for a change 😛


We were catching up at Grandma’s Bar (275 Clarence St, Sydney), a teensy tiny underground bar with a blink and you’ll miss it entrance. As well as a round of drinks (oh boy that Nuclear Daiquiri was insane), we also ordered a chicken jaffle ($7.50) which was filled with tender chicken pieces and oozing with cheese, perfect for dunking into the kewpie mayo.


The spaghetti jaffle ($7.50) was ordered more out of curiosity and was surprisingly tasty, the noodley innards doing their best to escape from its carbohydrate prison.


There was a toss up between trying Grandma’s daily punch or the Mai Tai which came in cute tiki mugs. But the Mai Tai won out because behold, THERE WAS FIRE!


PRETTY!

BAHAHAHAHA dinner and a show! Edit: This just in, Grandma’s Bar has won Timeout Sydney’s Best Small Bar 2011-12! Grats guys!

(CAFE ISH SURRY HILLS IS CLOSED, SEE POST ON MILK BAR BY CAFE ISH HERE) OH YES IT’S FRIDAY! Here’s to the freaking weekend! One week down and one week to go, things they be a-changing and I’m super excited for what’s to come 😀 But enough with the vagueness, get thee to Cafe Ish (82 Campbell Street, Surry Hills) where there is Tightass Tuesdays and now Pie and a Pint Wednesdays!

Pie and a Pint ($15). The weather is heating up a bit but the beer sure does help to cool you down heh heh. Each week is a different pie, one week it was a gorgeous slow cooked beef with nubbins of carrots and potatoes in a curry gravy, and the next a bacon, mince and cheese pie. It’s like a Kinder surprise. What will it hold next?!

A perfectly golden and flaky circle of pastry rests atop the bowl. I choose to stab it into smithereens on the plank and adding in the pieces later so that it doesn’t get soggy. Hope you have an awesome weekend dudes!

It’s mid week baby yeah! Man but is it just me or is this week just crawling away? Definitely looking forward to the weekend (Friday, Friday!) but anywhos a coupla weeks ago I was checking out New Shanghai’s (Shop B-038, Chatswood Chase, Chatswood) first ever Wine and Dumpling Dinner.


Line em up! I’d previously tried the dumplings at their Ashfield location and was intrigued at the Treasury Wines pairing. I’m not a huge red drinker but I found I preferred the reds over the whites with the majority of the dishes though that uh didn’t stop me from drinking the whites… /raises glass to you, you, and you.


Shredded kelp mixed with spice and vinegar; Chopped cucumber with fresh garlic; Drunken chicken, soaked in Chinese wine. I can’t handle chicken skin that isn’t fried or charcoal-y so off that went to Richard but woah that drunken chicken was tasty!


New Shanghai Xiao Long Bao steamed mini pork bun; Steamed mini crab meat and pork dumpling; Steamed vegetarian dumpling. The XLB was awesome and for those not too familiar with them, the trick is to place the dumpling on a spoon with a dash of soy sauce and vinegar and nibble at the dumpling skin, wait a couple of seconds for insides to cool a bit before drinking some of the broth inside and finally eating the rest. Just don’t shove the whole thing in your mouth unless you want to burn yourself haha


Shepherd’s purse and pork wonton tossed with sesame butter, red chilli oil and spice. I heart wontons! Sure I prefer them deep fried but these unfried babies were incredible, the wonton wrappers were soft with a bit of chew and the innards juicy, tender and um porky. Despite the visible chili seeds in the bowl there was just enough spice to give the wontons an edge but not enough to send me running away screaming into the night. That’s a good thing. I hate unnecessary exercise. All in moderation yo


New Shanghai pan fried pork bun and pan fried pork dumpling. Lisa says they look like the sun, moon and star. I say they look like fried dumplings of joy! How can you not smile? Cheer up for there is fried dumplings in your future! I did prefer the pan fried dumpling over the bun mainly because I was getting full and the bready bun was taking up valuable stomach space.


The Shepherd’s purse, prawn and tofu soup gave us a mini break to breath from the dumpling onslaught.


Braised pork belly and deep fried chicken in special garlic and chilli sauce. The pork belly compels you! Zomgs that pork belly was insane! Fatty and oh so tender, it is the perfect definition of awesome. I dream about that pork belly. I would cross the Bridge to get me some more of that pork belly. The deep fried chicken was almost but not equally as delicious, though the crispy skin pushed me into food coma land.


Slow soaked white fungus with papaya soup. Yeah really not a fan of Asian texture desserts so um doo di doo


Carnage muahahaha! New Shanghai’s Wine & Dumplings dinners will be scheduled in the next coupla months so check out their website for dates, the next dinner is at their Charlestown location.

ChocolateSuze dined as a guest of New Shanghai.