Oh look it’s Monday again. Did you guys have a good weekend? I spent mine at the mac store seeing if I could get my poor laptop fixed but to no avail ugh but luckily I managed to get some pics off the hard drive and found some places I haven’t blogged yet.

Late last year I was at the new Darling Quarter area with the lovely Anna and oh boy isn’t that area all pretty now! Loving the ping pong tables and crazy playground for children of all ages! In the mood for some Japanese, we decided to hit Umi Sushi & Udon (Shop TR10 Darling Quarter, 1 Harbour St, Sydney) where I started off with my all time favourite Sapporo beer and nabbed a plate of salmon sashimi ($7) from the train. I’ve eaten at their Capitol Theater location quite a few times so was keen to see how the DQ measured up.


I spy with my little eye something that looks like deliciousness! Crispy Salmon Skin ($5.80) is amazing, crispy and salty and so freaking moorish, it is the perfect beer snack!


Decided to go with the Udon ($7.50) with an additional Onsen Egg ($1.50) and well, generally my mind doesn’t go kaboom when eating udon noodles in miso soup but it was piping hot with clean flavours and a perfectly gooey egg. The noodles had a pleasingly chewy bite and a spoonful of fried tempura bits and seaweed fills my stomach with happiness.


Anna has opted for the Salmon and Avocado Salad ($10.80) and holy moly it was one ginormous salad! As expected the salmon was fresh as can be, and packed with creamy avo slices the salad looked to be pretty damn filling.


Last but not least, Nasu Dengaku ($7.80). YEAH BABY! Now that’s what I’m talking about! I loooove eggplant which alot of people find surprising thanks to my texture issues but I love eggplant BECAUSE it’s squishy! Whack on some miso paste and grill until slightly charry and the eggplant turns into freaking awesome on a plate!


Will definitely be back for the eggplant and I reckon some plum umeshi one weeknight will be on the cards soon 😛

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Well hello there, it’s been a while since I’ve done a knife photo! And what a shiny knife it is, because woohoo there’s a new steak joint in the hood! Black Angus Grill & Bar (312 Church St, Parramatta) is the newest kid on the street so the boy and I rocked up over the weekend and sat outside to enjoy some Vitamin D with our lunch.


We received a complimentary bread roll complete with a knife stabbed into him and it was pretty damn good with the warm, crusty exterior protecting airy pillow soft innards and made all the more better when schmeared in butter. Oh and my latest <3 is the strawberry & lime Kopparberg cider ($8) and not just because it's pink :P


Haloumi skewers ($15) are impressively fat buggers, 3 skewers of ginormous cubes of squishy squeaky haloumi is pretty generous and are topped with a dollop of pesto and a pile of rocket.


My protein of choice was the 300g Kobe Wagyu Rump ($35) and I chose the jacket potato over the mash or fries option mainly because I loooove sour cream. I couldn’t resist the mushroom sauce ($2.50) but weirdly tasted like the Ikea sauce on the meatballs? But still good! I was undecided in ordering the steak basted or unbasted and I reckon I should’ve totally ordered it unbasted because as delicious as that hunk of meat was and cooked to a perfect medium rare, the flavour was kinda drowned out by the bbq sauce. But definitely worth a revisit.


Noods has his eyes set on the 500g OP Ribeye on the bone ($38) choosing chips and mustard butter ($2.50). One look at that mustard &#8216;butter’ and we were like hmm what’s up with that&#8230; We were kinda thinking a mustard butter would be more I dunno, solid? Solid it was not. Neither was it very mustard-y. But the ribeye was freaking amazeballs, charry edges and an incredible flavour that only meat on the bone can taste.


Aaaand of course I always look at the desserts on the menu first and the Banoffee Pie ($9) was definitely on my hit list. Pretty impressive looking huh? Under that cloud of freshly whipped cream lay a buttery biscuit base, slices of banana and HOLY MOLY about an inch thick of rich caramel! I swear my heart skipped a beat after all that sugar! Mega sugar high for the rest of the arvo! Will definitely have to come back and try the ribs and the burgers next time haha it’s all happening in the hood!

BRB, running to higher ground.

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You know what word I can’t pronounce? Pintxos. No matter how many times I hear it I just cannot for the life of me say it right! We were at The Carrington Hotel (565 Bourke Street, Surry Hills) where every Tuesday from 6-10pm there is a special pintxos menu at an incredible $3 each. In the end it didn’t matter how to pronounce pintxos (Helen: &#8220;it’s just PIN-chos!&#8221;) because we x ALL the y&#8230; ie, we ordered ALL the foods! Two of everything from the specials menu ($3 each) and 2 of everything from the normal pintxos menu (at normal price) and holy moly it was a lot of food.



Paella Ball with Calamari ($3). Tee hee so cute no? The deep fried tentacles waving about in the air? Just me? It was hard splitting the 2 balls (that sounds dirty but truly I’m not even trying) for 3 people and it was all a matter of who could finish chewing first to grab the left over piece. And oh how glorious it was, biting into the crumbed outer layer of the fried paella ball and into the rice innards.



The Chargrilled Skirt Steak Skewer ($3) was slightly on the chewy side but my jaws need a mastication workout every now and then. The meat was incredibly flavourful, bags of flavour indeed it was.



The Manchego and Rosemary Tortilla ($3) is loved by all, and c’mon what’s not to love? Who’s not friends with potato? Me and potato are BFF‘s in whatever shape or form it wants! The tortilla was just so satisfying, flat slices of potato layered with buttery Manchego cheese ohhh baby why so delicious!



Smoked Eggplant & White Anchovy Tostada ($3). I kinda wished there were more anchovies on the tostada, cos I mean, look at that singular anchovy staring at me/you/us. It taunts us! Lying there all sexy looking. The eggplant was smoky as promised and I would’ve happily eaten it with a spoon. With anchovies to wash it all down 😛



Classic Beef Cheek Slider ($3), Calamari Slider ($6), Meatball Slider ($6). Woah! That was one platter of awesome! With pillow soft buns my fav of the lot was the calamari slider packed full of crispy batter coated tentacles. The beef cheek slider was rich and filling and while I loved the sauce in the meatball slider there was a certain spice I had a bit of an issue with.. thyme? Is that you?



Kingfish Pastrami on Rye ($4). I um don’t seem to remember eating the kingfish but I do remember really liking the coleslaw uhhh doo di doo



Maybe I don’t remember the Kingfish because of what came next: the Chicken Liver Parfait & Pear Chutney ($4) is by far my favourite of the lot, the parfait is smooth and creamy and just unbelievably tasty. I’d totes come back and order 10 of them next time. And not share.



Tomato Bread and Iberico ($4.50) is the last of the pintxos onslaught and well, you can’t go wrong with Iberico ham mmm



Stuffed beyond belief we had to share a dessert between us, the Carrington Mess was our pick especially when we hear the magical key words of &#8216;brown sugar meringue’. Shards of crazy awesome meringue make friends with berry compote and jelly and topped with a tart passionfruit sorbet. Not too sweet and not too rich, it is the perfect dessert to end our epic eating.