Sydney – New South Wales – Australia – 2017

Tags

Australia, Bay Hong Restaurant, Carole King musical, dinner with friends, Friends, New South Wales, Surry Hills, Sydney, Vietnamese food

Two trips to Sydney

I love returning to Sydney as I lived there for around thirty-years and loved going into the city.  Now I especially like going up for a long weekend to visit friends or see an opera or musical.

My first visit for this post, was whilst I was still working last year and with my work colleague, I travelled from Canberra for a meeting and I decided to try a Vietnamese restaurant in the inner city (Bay Hong) which was recommended by a friend and had rave reviews on-line especially for its vegan menu.  However first, after work, my colleague Helen and I decided to take a walk down to the harbour,  I must say Sydney harbour is one of my favourites in the world (little biased perhaps) but it is pretty spectacular along with our Bridge and Opera House which are pretty special too…A little later we walked up to Surry Hills, an inner city suburb and found our restaurant which was pretty cute inside along with a very sweet and attentive waiter.Another four of my friends met us and we ordered some fabulous food; everyone decided on the vegan menu which was great for me as I got to try all dishes.  Our entrees were home made spring rolls with a light sweet chilli sauce, deep fried vegetable puffs and steamed dumplings with a side of dipping sauce.All were very good.  Our main dishes consisted of two curries; one a lemongrass tofu curry and the other a deep fried tofu with vegetable dish.  Then a mock chicken dish with finely chopped lemongrass and onions.  All ‘yum’.  I was so lucky to enjoy such a large selection of food.

As for my second visit, every year since we attended a 25 year school reunion twelve years ago, three (now four) of my school friends and I meet together for a long weekend, usually at one of our houses, but last year we decided to meet in Sydney and see the Carole King musical ‘Beautiful‘.  We all grew up with that fabulous ‘record’ ‘Tapestry‘…

I booked us an Airbnb home in a nearby suburb called Paddington; which has great shops, restaurants and cafes..so convenient for us to dine after the musical and great for breakfast the next morning.  What a magnificent home and we looked on line and it was for sale for over $3m AUD.  Little bit too expensive for me!!The musical was excellent and we sang along to all the songs and had a bit of a tear during some parts.  No photos allowed during the show of course but I managed one of the stage before the show commenced.As we attended a matinee session, we were finished around 5pm so decided to walk back to our Airbnb through the city, Hyde Park and then through the main street of Paddington where we stopped and had dinner at an Indian restaurant I used to go to when I worked in Sydney all those years ago.  Great to see it was still there.

Our lovely views of the city…

Two great visits in such a lovely city.