Sydney Day 4: Wednesday 31 October
Sun, Dec. 16th, 2018 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annarti
Featuring the Queen Victoria Building, Barangaroo and Automata.
It's like that wedge building in New York! I'm from a city built on a grid so this sort of thing is very strange to me. How does that even happen? How do two streets meet up with such a tiny wedge between them? Sydney's weird.
Breakfast in the Queen Victoria Building, without Hanh because she had been up at arse-am the previous morning and needed sleep. We decided to have a big breakfast and skip lunch in order to have room for dinner.
The famous 3-storey tall QVB Christmas tree, which would be turned on the next day so we didn't get it in quite all its glory (though I'd be back on Saturday for that).
And inside the QVB itself.
Browsed around there looking at clothes and handbags and jewellery and shoes too rich for our blood, then bought some things anyway. Well, Linda did--she got some gorgeous earrings, which I think were something like these? I'm reasonably certain strawberries were involved, definitely from that shop. I planned to buy a thing--this jacket from Alannah Hill, which is no longer on their actual website but whatever. They didn't have it in my size but could get a black one over from Chatswood that I could try on when I got back on Saturday and if that fitted, then I'd buy the wine-coloured one online. So I'm saying I bought it in Sydney. Just. Online.
Across the street (or under the street, rather) to The Galaries, where we met up with Hanh for not-lunch. I got a couple of books from Kinokunia and we got a piece of cake out the front, then we split up to go look for things.
QVB with scaffolding, because of course it did.
My destination was Peter's of Kensington, which is a predominantly kitchen wares shop with stuff for cheap. I've gotten a few things online in the past but I've never actually been to the shop, so I made a point of it this time around. Kensington is a bit outside the city, but we discovered there's one in Barangaroo, one of those typically inner-city suburbs of Sydney that sounds like it should be in the middle of freaking nowhere. In any case, it was walking distance from the QVB, so off I went in search of a mandolin.
Welcome to Barangaroo. It was about this time that I felt like maybe this wasn't the right area for a bargain basement kitchen wares shop.
So many people in suits and stilettos. There were three huge glass office buildings called International 1, International 2 and International 3. Google was leading me to International 3. I wondered if this was like their head office or something and not actually a shop at all.
It was a shop! It was tiny and filled with horrendously expensive home décor, crystal glassware and silverware. The only actual cooking implements they had at all were the Smeg toaster and kettle designed by Dolce and Gabbana. I did not get my mandolin. SOME DAY I will make it to the main Peter's of Kensington warehouse, but today was not that day.
Instead I just walked along the foreshore of Barangaroo back down to Darling Harbour.
Internationals 1, 2 and 3. I think.
With another hour before our scheduled meetup (because I was expecting a warehouse not a tiny expensive home décor shop) I went back to Hyde Park and started reading one of my books I'd just bought. Jolly delightful.
Queen Vic out the front of her building, and some of the construction to the right on George Street where they're putting in their tram. Sorry, 'light rail' (come on Sydney it's a tram).
Back to the room where Alex, now officially on leave herself for the next two days, met up with us and we all started getting pretty for dinner. We picked this accommodation partly because of its proximity to Automata, so we could just walk there from the room. First of the two dégustations to make up for missing Orana, aww yeah.
Welcome to Automata.
SO EXCITED. Somehow I missed a photo of Linda, whoops.
First nibbly buts to have with opening cocktails, which weren't on the menu so I can't remember exactly what they were. Alex's plate is lacking seafood, though, so seafood was involved in the standup cylinders. Everything was big and bold, though, so they all had rich flavours and it was awesome.
Sheeps curd, asparagus, glove artichoke, dashi, wasabi oil.
I mean what a beautiful starter! It was SO fresh and clean.
Red saké to go with part two, ooh. I didn't know such a thing existed. They always brought out the wine to go with the course a little bit beforehand, and every time it was presented it was yeah, okay, quite nice, but nothing amazing. Then the food came out to go with it and it was just perfect. Whoever does the wine matching at Automata is basically a genius.
And here's what it went with: raw kangaroo, koji cream, crisp black rice and glazed wakame, which is the seaweed on top. I've never seen roo with anything but Australian flavours, fruit, maybe in a stirfry. Putting it with such incredibly Japanese flavours, and the red saké, was just magnificent. For some reason I've never had it raw, either. It just melted, so soft and tender. Favourite course. Really inventive and amazing flavours.
Scampi, black garlic bisque, dried tomato, black lime. Again, really, really powerful flavours, just what I love out of a restaurant meal. How long was that bisque reducing to basically become a sauce? How much went into that tiny little mound of it? So much.
Grilled Tasmanian octopus, fermented carrot, cumin oil. I love cumin. This one reminded me of Mum's cooking, cos she uses a lot of cumin, and it really was as much about the carrot and the cumin as it was the octopus. Everything was so well balanced throughout the meal, everything big and bold but you could taste every bit of it.
'Crumbed' pork loin, burnt butter, red cabbage, umeboshi. Umeboshi is like a pickled plum, I think? I suspect it and the cabbage were all blended together in that beautiful purple purée. The pork was gorgeous, too.
Kitchen in action! Which I always love to see.
Blackcurrant chiboust, semolina, rosemary. SO fluffy and light, almost felt like it just evaporated in your mouth, and the rosemary oil was the perfect thing to marry it from the savoury courses to sweets.
Buckwheat milk sorbet, chocolate, cumquat, cocoa nibs. Birthday cake! Sort of. We all got a candle, even though I wasn't technically involved in the 30th extravaganza week having turned 30 three years ago, but I still had a birthday in the appropriate time period. That chocolate was so rich and amazing, and the sorbet was just perfect to cut through it.
Coffee, which continued to be a Sydney coffee but whatever. I wanted one.
Thank you, boys, for an awesome meal! I forgot to take a photo of the waiter, whoops. He was good fun, too, especially talking about the beverages.
Ahhhh what an awesome night! Now I'm hungry again.
It's like that wedge building in New York! I'm from a city built on a grid so this sort of thing is very strange to me. How does that even happen? How do two streets meet up with such a tiny wedge between them? Sydney's weird.
Breakfast in the Queen Victoria Building, without Hanh because she had been up at arse-am the previous morning and needed sleep. We decided to have a big breakfast and skip lunch in order to have room for dinner.
The famous 3-storey tall QVB Christmas tree, which would be turned on the next day so we didn't get it in quite all its glory (though I'd be back on Saturday for that).
And inside the QVB itself.
Browsed around there looking at clothes and handbags and jewellery and shoes too rich for our blood, then bought some things anyway. Well, Linda did--she got some gorgeous earrings, which I think were something like these? I'm reasonably certain strawberries were involved, definitely from that shop. I planned to buy a thing--this jacket from Alannah Hill, which is no longer on their actual website but whatever. They didn't have it in my size but could get a black one over from Chatswood that I could try on when I got back on Saturday and if that fitted, then I'd buy the wine-coloured one online. So I'm saying I bought it in Sydney. Just. Online.
Across the street (or under the street, rather) to The Galaries, where we met up with Hanh for not-lunch. I got a couple of books from Kinokunia and we got a piece of cake out the front, then we split up to go look for things.
QVB with scaffolding, because of course it did.
My destination was Peter's of Kensington, which is a predominantly kitchen wares shop with stuff for cheap. I've gotten a few things online in the past but I've never actually been to the shop, so I made a point of it this time around. Kensington is a bit outside the city, but we discovered there's one in Barangaroo, one of those typically inner-city suburbs of Sydney that sounds like it should be in the middle of freaking nowhere. In any case, it was walking distance from the QVB, so off I went in search of a mandolin.
Welcome to Barangaroo. It was about this time that I felt like maybe this wasn't the right area for a bargain basement kitchen wares shop.
So many people in suits and stilettos. There were three huge glass office buildings called International 1, International 2 and International 3. Google was leading me to International 3. I wondered if this was like their head office or something and not actually a shop at all.
It was a shop! It was tiny and filled with horrendously expensive home décor, crystal glassware and silverware. The only actual cooking implements they had at all were the Smeg toaster and kettle designed by Dolce and Gabbana. I did not get my mandolin. SOME DAY I will make it to the main Peter's of Kensington warehouse, but today was not that day.
Instead I just walked along the foreshore of Barangaroo back down to Darling Harbour.
Internationals 1, 2 and 3. I think.
With another hour before our scheduled meetup (because I was expecting a warehouse not a tiny expensive home décor shop) I went back to Hyde Park and started reading one of my books I'd just bought. Jolly delightful.
Queen Vic out the front of her building, and some of the construction to the right on George Street where they're putting in their tram. Sorry, 'light rail' (come on Sydney it's a tram).
Back to the room where Alex, now officially on leave herself for the next two days, met up with us and we all started getting pretty for dinner. We picked this accommodation partly because of its proximity to Automata, so we could just walk there from the room. First of the two dégustations to make up for missing Orana, aww yeah.
Welcome to Automata.
SO EXCITED. Somehow I missed a photo of Linda, whoops.
First nibbly buts to have with opening cocktails, which weren't on the menu so I can't remember exactly what they were. Alex's plate is lacking seafood, though, so seafood was involved in the standup cylinders. Everything was big and bold, though, so they all had rich flavours and it was awesome.
Sheeps curd, asparagus, glove artichoke, dashi, wasabi oil.
I mean what a beautiful starter! It was SO fresh and clean.
Red saké to go with part two, ooh. I didn't know such a thing existed. They always brought out the wine to go with the course a little bit beforehand, and every time it was presented it was yeah, okay, quite nice, but nothing amazing. Then the food came out to go with it and it was just perfect. Whoever does the wine matching at Automata is basically a genius.
And here's what it went with: raw kangaroo, koji cream, crisp black rice and glazed wakame, which is the seaweed on top. I've never seen roo with anything but Australian flavours, fruit, maybe in a stirfry. Putting it with such incredibly Japanese flavours, and the red saké, was just magnificent. For some reason I've never had it raw, either. It just melted, so soft and tender. Favourite course. Really inventive and amazing flavours.
Scampi, black garlic bisque, dried tomato, black lime. Again, really, really powerful flavours, just what I love out of a restaurant meal. How long was that bisque reducing to basically become a sauce? How much went into that tiny little mound of it? So much.
Grilled Tasmanian octopus, fermented carrot, cumin oil. I love cumin. This one reminded me of Mum's cooking, cos she uses a lot of cumin, and it really was as much about the carrot and the cumin as it was the octopus. Everything was so well balanced throughout the meal, everything big and bold but you could taste every bit of it.
'Crumbed' pork loin, burnt butter, red cabbage, umeboshi. Umeboshi is like a pickled plum, I think? I suspect it and the cabbage were all blended together in that beautiful purple purée. The pork was gorgeous, too.
Kitchen in action! Which I always love to see.
Blackcurrant chiboust, semolina, rosemary. SO fluffy and light, almost felt like it just evaporated in your mouth, and the rosemary oil was the perfect thing to marry it from the savoury courses to sweets.
Buckwheat milk sorbet, chocolate, cumquat, cocoa nibs. Birthday cake! Sort of. We all got a candle, even though I wasn't technically involved in the 30th extravaganza week having turned 30 three years ago, but I still had a birthday in the appropriate time period. That chocolate was so rich and amazing, and the sorbet was just perfect to cut through it.
Coffee, which continued to be a Sydney coffee but whatever. I wanted one.
Thank you, boys, for an awesome meal! I forgot to take a photo of the waiter, whoops. He was good fun, too, especially talking about the beverages.
Ahhhh what an awesome night! Now I'm hungry again.
no subject
Date: Sun, Dec. 16th, 2018 05:48 am (UTC)Also ahhh, even as a Sydney local I freaking NEVER get sick of visiting the QVB, even if I can't afford anything in there. It's just so dang freaking BEAUTIFUL! Did you see the painted moving clock tower?
Also, to be fair to the scaffolding on the QVB-- it's been under scaffolding for about two years now (restoring it) and this is actually the most scaffolding-lite I've seen it in a while. There was a stage where half the entire building was hidden!
ALSO, RE: KITCHENWARES! For if you come here again.
1) should'a gone to Victoria's Basement! Which is a similar store to PoK but situated right in the basement of the QVB. (Hence the name X3.) YOU WERE WALKING DANG OVER IT THE WHOLE TIME.
2) If you are determined to get to POK, I will say, although it is a fair ways out of the city as the crow flies, it's also on a major road (Anzac Parade) en-route to UNSW. Ergo, catching a bus there is actually super easy and super fast! There are bus routes literally ALL over the city going down Anzac Parade at ALL hours of the day and night, and they have a special bus-only speedway so it's pretty fast too. Maybe about 10 minutes if you catch an express? So yeah! Definitely doable. Also by the next time you come here the light rail out to Kensington will have been finished too.
no subject
Date: Sun, Dec. 16th, 2018 05:56 am (UTC)QVB is always stunning, regardless of scaffolding and tram-works on George Street XD The clock tower, the tree, the stained glass windows, even just having carpet underfoot as you're walking around what is essentially a shopping centre just feels so lovely. First time I've ever bought anything, though it technically wasn't from the QVB, but I tried it on there and picked the colour there and bought it online sitting in there! It totally counts!!
Mum and Dad told me about Victoria's Basement when I got home, damnit XD;; NEXT TIME. I will do a proper kitchenwares day and get my mandolin, if I haven't bought one already.
(lol they've got you saying 'light rail' too. Why are they calling it that when there's already a word? Is Sydney that desperate to not look like they're copying Melbourne?)
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Date: Sun, Dec. 16th, 2018 06:01 am (UTC)BUT YEAH, ESSENTIALLY SAME THING.
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Date: Sun, Dec. 16th, 2018 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Mon, Dec. 17th, 2018 05:46 am (UTC)More relevant: that food looks amazing.
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Date: Tue, Dec. 18th, 2018 09:48 am (UTC)Food WAS amazing.
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Date: Tue, Dec. 18th, 2018 09:16 pm (UTC)I should go on another fooding trip to Sydney. There's so many nice places to eat.