Opera in the Opera House

We've kept busy since the last post. We went back to George's on Thursday with a chum from backgammon as he won the voucher at the last tournament. Sadly, the monthly Sunday tournament this month is not going to be at George's but at the Tuesday venue, which is not nearly as nice. We'll have to wait until we return from the UK to play at George's again.

Last night was pretty exciting. We went for dinner in the restaurant in the Opera House, Guillaume at Bennelong and I had booked tickets for "La Clemenza di Tito" by Mozart. I can't claim that I picked it with any great knowledge of the operas I was choosing between; I picked it mainly because it was only three hours long (rather than four and a half).

The Bennelong restaurant was brilliant. The view was slightly different being inside the Opera House, we got a view of the city and half of the Harbour Bridge. It's superb for people watching: the area round the Opera House is always bustling with tourists. It also rated extremely highly on the food scale - definitely the best "top end" restaurant we have visited, less "inventive" than Aria, more substantial than Astral.

We both had tuna to start, which was very good indeed. The tuna was wrapped in basil leaves and had a mustard seed and soy dressing. The dressing was subtle, but brought out the flavour of the tuna perfectly. Sean had picked this first and I was very pleased that I had gone for the same thing as I think I would have been looking over jealously if I had ordered anything else.

Sean then had barramundi for main and I had prawns; we ordered some spinach on the side. The prawns were spiced in a slightly Indian way and went beautifully with the spinach, which was just cooked and swathed in butter and garlic. Sean couldn't resist the cheese platter so I went for a pudding - apple galette and cinnamon ice cream. The pudding was executed well but it wasn't exactly what I wanted and was slightly marred by the fact that they had brought exciting petit fours with my tea and I wanted to start on them. The petit fours were mango jelly (looked a bit rubbish but was very tasty), lemon madeleine, strawberry tart (both OK, but not exciting), pistachio truffle (gorgeous) and mini macaroon (very small; looked exceedingly exciting but tasted a bit rubbish).

The waiter brought the bill with dessert saying "I just realised that you have a 7:30pm performance". We left just after 7:25pm (luckily we had had the foresight to pick up the tickets before going to the restaurant) and we almost missed the start of the performance.

I'm not a particularly large fan of opera - I'd rather go and see something choral in a church - but I really enjoyed "La Clemenza di Tito". It was light hearted, some bits were pretty funny and it was pretty fast paced for an opera. We almost missed the second half as well; I led us in the wrong door, which turned out to be the circle.

Today we have eschewed Nick's. Instead, as the weather was sunny and the sky was clear (who would think it was winter?) we bought some swordfish and ate it on the balcony. We had a pretty good meal, which started as lunch (fish and salad) and turned into afternoon tea with bread and cheese and a cake selection we bought from the bakery in the fish market.

We must make sure we do this more often before it gets too hot - the view from our balcony is better than from most restaurants.

Too busy to blog

I've been a bit busy so apologies to anyone who's got into the swing of "nothing happens all week, we do something at the weekend, I write it in the blog".

Most of note last weekend was the fact that Sean completed Guitar Hero on the hardest level. He now just has to work out how to keep himself amused until Guitar Hero 2 comes out.



Sean is the champion, my friend

We went on a walk to Glebe on Saturday, ticking off another Sydney suburb. Glebe is full of delis, cafes and bookshops; in fact we were prompted to go there as it is home to Gleebooks, whose club I joined at the Sydney writer's festival. Sean bought a backgammon book. I was very restrained and managed to not purchase anything. I will read all the books I already have before buying any more.

We also continued our trend of going out for lunch on Sunday. In fact we went back to Nick's, which had provided us with such good seafood the weekend before.

We splashed out and did something exciting on Tuesday (but we are still tired as a result). Astral restaurant, at the top of the casino, was hosting a dinner cooked by Pascal Tingaud, who is the resident chef at Moet et Chandon. We had a 5 course menu accompanied by Moet et Chandon champagnes. The wine was mostly was mostly Brut Imperial, but we got "Imperial Nectar" with ice and lime to start, a 1999 vintage with the fish and rose with dessert.

The food was good; the best were the canapes: blue cheese and candied mandarin on lettuce and pate de fois gras on toast, which we were served in the bar with our champagne cocktail. We then started in the restaurant with a kingfish tartare. The original recipe had been for seabass, which is easy to get in France but apparently not in Australia. Pascal said that he preferred it with the kingfish but I think it would have been better with seabass. Still they did the usual televised cooking for us so I can try this out myself when we are back in the UK.

This was followed by scallops with ginger (minced rather than whole scallop, which was unusual), lobster with citrus sauce, whiting rolls with truffled mash and strawberry and tomato with basil ice cream (very nice if you left out the tomatoes; these were unnecessarily inventive). I didn't eat the truffled mash and was slightly disconcerted when Sean (Connelly - the Astral chef) brought over a large truffle, made me smell it and asked if I wanted to touch it. I had to decline. It didn't look like a normal mushroom though so not as disturbing as it could have been.

No photos of any food I'm afraid - I'm back to forgetting the camera whenever we go out.

Highlights of the weekend

We go to the Theatre

On Friday evening we went to see "A Large Attendance In The Antechamber" at the Sydney Opera House. The play was about Charles Gaulton, the "founder of eugenics" who was quite an interesting chap. Some of his other works include "A Beauty Map of Pretty Girls in Great Britain"* and a piece of on the (in)efficacy of prayer. Unfortunately the play was not so much about Gaulton as a piece of performace art exploring the concept of "the play". I thought it was quite interesting (although I would have preferred to find out more about Gaulton) but Sean fell asleep.

We host a Backgammon Chouette

On Saturday afternoon and evening we had some people over for a chouette at our flat. A nice time was had by all, except possibly for Sean, whose chouette winning streak appears to have come to an end.

We go for lunch

On Sunday lunchtime we investigated Nick's seafood restaurant, which is a kind of anti-Jordan's i.e. it is opposite it on Darling Harbour and serves upmarket seafood at a similar price range.

I had seafood chowder (nice and full of fish but no evidence of any other seafood) followed by blue eye and snapper pie (absolutely choc full of fish). Sean had scallops followed by Moreton Bay Bugs.



Moreton Bay Bugs



Sean eating Moreton Bay Bugs

We shared a cheese platter at the end, or rather Sean ate the cheese and I ate all the fruit that came with it. We both agreed it is better than Jordan's so we may be venturing over to the other side of the bay more often.

Sean fails to complete Guitar Hero

Sean has now unlocked all the extra songs on Guitar Hero and has completed all of them except for the last song (Bark at the Moon by Ozzy). He's got to 99% complete a few times but not quite made it.



Sean... nearly there

I finally make a cake

When we came away, I foolishly relinquished my big blue cookery bible, which I have sorely missed, and brought my Rose Levy Beranbaum Cake Bible, which of course I have not used at all. Until now! I've bought a slice of banana bread a couple of times for lunch so I thought I would make my own loaf. I am now going to try for making at least one cake a fortnight - in the chapter with banana bread are loads more exciting cakes.



In the oven



Slice of cake

* In case you were wondering, the largest concentration of pretty girls was in London, whereas the most ugly girls lived in Aberdeen.

New Fudge



Mmmm, Fudge

I finally managed to buy some fudge from the Harbourside shopping centre. The shopping centre is too ridiculously close to our flat for me not to have managed this before.

I was buying the fudge merely for comparison with the Farmer's market fudge you understand.

The fudge is of the same type as the Fudge Kitchen in Cambridge, very sweet and very gooey. They also only sell it in the same units as the shop in Cambridge i.e. multiples of large slab.

This meant that I could only buy one type of fudge (even I have more sense that to buy two large slabs - although I know many people who came undone because of the buy 3 get the 4th free offer in Cambridge). Shortlisted were: Tia Maria Coffee (plain coffee would have stood more chance), choc jaffa, cookies and cream, maple syrup and walnut, and chocolate.

As a first tasting I decided on the classic chocolate. I ate a small bit at lunchtime and then managed to make myself feel sick by eating most of the slab after dinner. And I mean really sick - the kind where you have to lie there with your eyes shut hoping it will all go away.

Unfortunately it didn't come close to the Bowral fudge, although I am duty bound to try some other flavours (not for a little while though) just to make sure.

Another day, another restaurant (or two)

We started the weekend by dining at George's on King Street Wharf. This was partly because the food is excellent but also partly because we had won $100 worth of dining vouchers for George's while playing backgammon. (George's is where we go for our Sunday tournaments.)

We bravely sat outside, although it turned out not to be so brave as they had heaters galore and the area was covered. Still, despite being from the UK, we were still a little chilly by the end of the evening.

A quick explanation about Winter here in Sydney. We already told you about the locals complaining that it's cold and in a sense they are right. The air temperature, particularly in the evening is quite low and if you get caught in a wind it can be pretty nippy. But, if the sun is out (which is most if not quite all of the time) and you are sitting in it, it is as hot as summer in the UK. We are a bit worried about what is going to happen when it is summer in Sydney; we'll have to deal with that when we get to it.

We both had scallops to start, which were lovely and then Sean had baby chicken with mushrooms, peas and herbed potato while I had barramundi fillet with squash, sweetcorn, chorizo and clams. The squash and sweetcorn was made into a kind of mash underneath the fish and flavoured with cumin. It was all delicious.

Oddly, it was Sean pushing for dessert so we had a chocolate pudding with orange anglaise and mint to share. I'd enviously watched several people eating this pudding while we played backgammon - it's of the type cooked in a brulee dish and liquid in the middle. It was even better with the orange sauce (which had the mint in it); it didn't last very long.

Yesterday we kept the average up by eating out twice! At lunchtime we ate at Jordan's, which we have frequented a few times already. Sean went once while I was away and was disappointed by the fish and chips so this was a last chance for the restaurant. We tend to operate a two strikes and you're out policy; usually it leaves us feeling pretty silly as we repeat a dreadful meal but in this case Jordan's redeemed itself.

We shared the whole fish of the day. We ummed and ahhed over whether to go for it grilled with lemon oil, but plumped for steamed with ginger and shallots. We were told it would be 35 mins so we had a starter of grilled prawns to keep us going.

And now for the most exiting bit: I remembered to take some pictures of the food! I also include a rather nice one of Sean preparing to devour the fish.



Steamed whole snapper



Chips



Salad



Sean vs Fish

Saturday evening we went back to Viva Goa. I've only been once before but Sean became a regular while I was away. Excellent food, 5 mins from our door and low prices. It's a wonder we go anywhere else really.

Fitness Punchers

I've just found some photos that I managed to take of some fitness punchers so you can see what I was talking about when I mentioned them before. This seems to be a popular keep fit routine here in Sydney.

No one does anything like this in the UK.

Last Saturday, this Saturday

I promised at the end of my last post to tell you what we did last Saturday. Now it is Saturday again and I don't remember doing anything of interest in between. Work days are pretty much work - sleep - work - sleep etc. for us. I didn't even go dancing this week as I need to build my legs muscles up again after they atrophied in the plane. Last Saturday and this Saturday are, after the customary pattern, all about food.

Last Saturday was the Sydney Good Food and Wine show. I bought the tickets in advance and I was a bit worried that I wasn't going to be feeling awake enough to go to this either. Two nights of sleep seemed to do the trick though...

We made it over about 12:30pm. The Good Food and Wine show was hosted in part of the Sydney Convention Centre in Darling Harbour. (I found out that this is also the same building as Sydney Exhibition Centre further down - the building just extends a long way). We had to resist the temptation of the used-Auto exhibition or something similar on the way but managed it.

There were lots of people there. It was hard to get around and some stalls (such as the Lindt stall giving away free samples) were permanently over subscribed.

It was really interesting as a comparison to the Sydney Growers market (this Saturday) as a lot of the food had quite clearly not been "grown" - a lot of the stalls were run by instant noodle and stir fry sauce companies doing continual demonstrations. My favourite food I saw (I'm not sure I would eat it) were some almost luminous red and green nachos, which were brilliant because they were so far removed from nature.

We went to get a glass for Sean and a "show bag" for me. The show bag was slightly disappointing, containing mainly advertising material, a bar a Lindt (OK that bit was good) and a Mazda sponsored cheese slice. I was confused by this and thought it might be some kind of window scraper.

I tried a few free samples: some gorgeous yoghurt, some fake milkshake (a powder that you add water and ice too - why oh why??), some soup, some acai juice (from the Amazon rainforests, tastes a bit like blueberry) and some Ocean Spray Cranberry juice. I have to admit that I did know what the cranberry juice tasted like (Ocean Spray appear to have a global monopoly on it) but I was thirsty by this point. Sean tried various wines.

The best thing about the show was the existence of real life marketing shows. Every 5 stalls or so was set up like a program on the shopping channel where an enthusiastic chap tried to sell you some (often only vaguely) food or drink related product. One chap was even American (he was also clearly the best salesman). We resisted his attempted sale of chamois cloths but we succumbed to the usual slicing machine. We have since used it - it's great for onions and slightly less good for apples if you don't have a corer but I've bought one now. Stir fries will now be organised around vegetables that can be chopped using the gadget. Goodbye mange tout.



Slicing Machine

This Saturday was again the Sydney Growers market outside the casino. We know pretty much what is there now so we can just go and buy what we want and come home. We got some cheese from a stall we visited last time and also from a not-yet-visited stall for Sean. He is now getting into quite hard (mainly French) cheeses as long as they are not too runny.

I resisted the fudge, although it is a little easier at the moment because there is a fudge stall in the shopping centre in darling harbour and I am determined to try that fudge first before indulging in the Bowral fudge from the farmers market again.

There was a new stall selling samosas (and I think also some ready made curry sauces) so I bought one of those for breakfast. Sean had a raisin pinwheel from the French patisserie tent.

We had decided to get another duck and eat it on Monday and accordingly went to the duck stall and asked for a frozen duck. They offered to get us one from the van but couldn't understand why we explicitly wanted one. They sold us a fresh duck instead that they assured us would keep until Monday. After we had bought the duck we realised that we had become confused by the fact that the duck was frozen before and it made much more sense to eat it tonight. It is in the oven now.

We have been watching a lot of the world cup, which is adding to our need to sleep. The games are usually at 1am or 5am - 5am means getting up early, 1am means getting up in the middle of the night (we can't stay up that late any more). Tonight is England-Portugal at 1am. We might stay up as it's a Saturday (and we've already had a little sleep this afternoon) or we may have a nap beforehand.