Day 260 - 4 things I love about Sydney

1. Sydney is where you can find the world's tastiest dumpling.

Mmm mmmmm. I could never get sick of these babies!


2. Sydney is also where you can find the first Australian Ladurée store. It's so pretty!


Having just opened a couple of weeks ago, there was a huge queue to purchase these exquisite, delicate little morsels. The salted caramel and lemon lime marshmallow blew me away - so divine, I hate so say this but they were well worth the 45 minutes wait!
3. Sydney is where I get to catch up with high school friends I haven't seen for over 10 years!


4. And Sydney is where I can get delicious grilled scallops for $3. Yum! 

Day 204 - Sydney, it's been swell

Thanks for the smiles, Sydney:

1. Ahhh Mamak. Always good!
   


2. While strolling around Darling Harbour, we stumbled upon the Chinese Garden of Friendship. Its cheesy name meant we had to check it out.
   
   Turns out it was beautiful! The moment we stepped inside, serenity and tranquility washed over us. It felt as though the world stopped turning for a few minutes for us to listen to the trickling water and watch the koi fish and ducks playfully swim around each other (some of the koi were bigger than the ducks!).
   
   I love that there's an oasis such as this in the heart of the bustling Sydney city.
   


3. We hit up Zumbo for lots of sweet treats to take home. My review of his macarons in 4 words - flavours yay, texture meh.
   


4. Then we had dinner at Sushi Hotaru which we stumbled upon while visiting Kinokuniya yesterday. It turned out to be a winner! Every plate on the kaiten was $3 (unless it's on a gold plate).. that's right, pretty much ALL the sushi there was $3!!! Including sushi and handrolls you can order off the ala carte! For sushi that tasted this delicious and fresh, I almost felt bad for paying just $3 for each plate.
   
   AND THEY HAVE FLAME TORCHES. TO MAKE THESE FLAME GRILLED PRAWNS AND SCALLOPS. OMG.
   
   

Day 203 - Hello Sydney!

Ps. This post is chock full of images. Food images, that is... I hope you're not hungry.

Ninja Brett sprung another one of his surprises today - after being instructed to "maybe pack something nice to wear... other than your normal nice clothes obviously ;)", I found myself in Sydney! Brett had organised a little get away for our anniversary, and we stuffed our faces with food (as you do) for most of our time there.

Our first customary pitstop was to fill up with dumplings at Din Tai Fung, where we gorged on chilli oil dumplings...

...and xiao long baos that we agreeably will travel halfway around the world with Anthony Bourdian for.

Lets see those plump, juicy little xiao long baos again! Ohhhh yeeeeaaah.

We wandered the streets of Sydney, and inadvertently ended up one of my favourite stores in Sydney, Kinokuniya! It's one of those stores I can easily spend hours perusing, marvelling and poring over all their massive range of goodies such as these adorable cat notepads:

We also visited Cupcakes on Pitt, and I couldn't help myself from getting a few mini cupcakes to savour.

(This is me absentmindedly stumbling upon the store 5 years ago, I was full on CRAZY excited haha)
Dinner was another amazing surprise... Tetsuya's!!! I've been aching to go to Tetsuya's for about 6 years now, it was the perfect venue to celebrate our anniversary over a long, leisurely dinner. The restaurant is unassuming from the street, but once inside the minimalistic Japanese furnishing and the beautiful Japanese garden the dining room overlooks cast a very zen setting.

After polishing off our amuse bouche, we jumped straight into the first course of our 11 course degustation menu, warm soup of field mushroom and truffle (I'm sorry for the crappy photos, trying to be discrete with photos + dim lighting + giddy with excitement = shit photos)

Followed by a savoury custard with avruga (this was a surprising winner),

And then there was a salad of the sea,

And New Zealand scampi with chicken liver parfait and walnut vinaigrette,

Then the highly anticipated confit of Petuna ocean trout with fennel and unpasteurised ocean trout caviar, Tetsuya signature dish. Stunning and delicate. Swoon!

Next up was a steamed tian of Queensland ceas spanner crab with curd, foie gras and junsai (which, from memory, was the only course that qualified as a miss)

We then moved onto meats - beautiful roasted breast of duck with eggplant and almond that was cooked to perfection,

As well as a de-boned rack of lamb with sheep's yoghurt and kale,

And finally, course 9.. dessert! There was pear sorbet and Tetsuya's intepretation of apple tarte tatin,

Oh but wait there's more dessert.. an unassuming but AMAZING floating island with praline and creme anglaise. Absolutely loved how light and fluffy the meringue was.

As they served our petit fours, just as I said to Brett "it's so nice to finish with that light floating island", they brought out a little surprise for us as they found out we were celebrating our anniversary!

Whew! By the end of dinner we felt like a couple of overstuffed turkeys, but it was the strangest sensation.. we felt full, yet not uncomfortably full if that makes sense?! Usually by the end of degustation dinners I'm clutching my tummy, too heavy to move. What an extraordinary dinner with such refined dishes and brilliant pairings of flavours... I think I dreamt of ocean trout that night.