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Tag Archives: Surry Hills

Lunch and Dinner – Criniti’s Restaurant – Darling Harbour and Longrain Restaurant- Surry Hills – Sydney – New South Wales – Australia – 2017 & 2018

14 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by SueT唐 梦 琇 in Sightseeing and eating around Canberra/Sydney

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Australia, Criniti's Restaurant, Darling Harbour, Longrain Restaurant, New South Wales, South East Asian cuisine, Surry Hills, Sydney, Traditional southern Italian cuisine

Lunch overlooking the Harbour in Sydneyfullsizeoutput_132

My friend Sharon had to travel to Sydney a couple of months ago and after meeting up with another friend Katrina, we decided on lunch overlooking Sydney Harbour at a restaurant serving traditional southern Italian cuisine.  Yum I thought!  We chose a table directly overlooking the Sydney Eye.  Now having recently been on the London Eye, it was nothing like that; not as big but I think now a lot of cities around the world have one for visitors to get a birds eye view of the city.fullsizeoutput_131We decided to share an entree and chose a tomato bruschetta with a difference.  This one was huge, it was a large wood fired Italian bread with tomatoes, red onions, basil, olives and oregano and some extra virgin olive oil – delicious!fullsizeoutput_133I ordered the vegetable risotto which was absolutely delicious and came with baby spinach, asparagus, mushroom, shallots, sliced avocado, semi-dried tomatoes and fresh chilli, topped with a perfectly cooked poached egg.fullsizeoutput_134Katrina ordered the lamb salad with avocado, feta, oregano, fresh rocket and semi-dried tomatoes with a garlic aioli dressing – fabulous she said too.fullsizeoutput_135And Sharon ordered the beetroot salad with roasted pumpkin, goats cheese, shredded carrot, roasted walnuts and  fresh rocket with a raspberry dressing along with a side order of haloumi.  The food here was an absolute winner.  This is a chain restaurant and is also located in other locations in Sydney and Melbourne…just wish it was in Canberra.fullsizeoutput_136It was great to catch up with these friends and enjoy good food and after a while another friend joined us and he chose a healthy option of a marinated chicken salad  with cos lettuce, sliced avocado, cherry tomatoes, red onion, shredded carrot, feta, semi-dried tomatoes, roasted capsicum, mushroom and cucumber with a chilli aioli dressing…looked pretty good too.fullsizeoutput_137

Dinner in Sydney’s trendy Surry Hills

fullsizeoutput_138Like me, two of my other friends retired last year, so I said I would travel to Sydney and go out to dinner to celebrate their retirement.  I chose a restaurant serving South East Asian cuisine and known for being very popular (Longrain) and had come highly recommended by my ‘foodie’ friend Jane.

Reservations are limited [first in best dressed rule] and seating is at large communal tables.  But as we had a table of nine I was able to make a reservation for an individual table.  I wouldn’t suggest this would be a good place for a first date with the communal tables and no guarantee you will be seated across from each other – you might have to sit side by side!image

(source: http://www.longrain.com.au)

We arrived early for our 6pm reservation and lucky we did as were told we had to give up our table at 8.15pm as the restaurant has two seatings per night -one at 6pm [us] and the next at 8.30pm [too late for me].  I really don’t like this system as with a large group you don’t really get the chance to chat to everyone within that confined timeframe…but we had no choice.  We were seated at a round table which only had room for eight so we had to squash together to accomodate the nine of us.longrain-melbourne-function-venue-entire-venue-7

(source: http://www.longrain.com.au)

Our waitress encouraged us to try each dish banquet style which we did and ordered a range of dishes including an eggplant curry, a northern Thai lamb curry with pickled garlic and fresh ginger, a chargrilled chicken dish with mustard greens and crispy egg noodles, salt and pepper silken tofu (really good) and a plate of stir friend Asian greens with garlic and oyster sauce.fullsizeoutput_143

fullsizeoutput_13c
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Image 5
fullsizeoutput_140
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fullsizeoutput_13bSome of the girls tried the desserts which I was told were very good and presented beautifully.   A coconut sorbet and a coconut ash ice cream swirl with a cashew nut praline were the desserts of choice.fullsizeoutput_141fullsizeoutput_142In the main the food was very good but it was an incredibly hot restaurant (too many tables with too many people I think) which made me rather uncomfortable and extremely noisy.  Made it very hard to hear friends across the table and those up the other end of the table, I had no idea what they were saying!

 

 

 

 

Sydney – New South Wales – Australia – 2017

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by SueT唐 梦 琇 in Sightseeing and eating around Canberra/Sydney

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

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

Two trips to Sydney

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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…%zv8MOxzSIW+EeTrutIxxg_thumb_89KU1olzeEQ0CLQpzt6FUdRw_thumb_99FFV2G+k7QEqu5ofa4IvNIA_thumb_87A 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.3u%6wBomRaSRhcjRAMeh4A_thumb_9eAnother 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.2IqB%aWnSPKBXUIHSBbn+w_thumb_92uMKF7qILT6SVIs8QOOvyHA_thumb_90yhhyAmjPS1K+QxCdXwpMNQ_thumb_8cAll 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.

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qG3du4YOQFmX5NhGEjOsbw_thumb_9aAs 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!!SIh0MwwkSvGSxLUbHgw_thumb_a9t2kZBLUNTQiew61EybK+mQ_thumb_a0ZMrYqoM+S8G33bAj0H%hIg_thumb_9cThe 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.vsnI46ooQ+q4tWtanJ+ACQ_thumb_a3As 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…CTxz8mRJRh2XDKFdUSGL8w_thumb_9bK8F4NO9KRoigrARiMnlHyg_thumb_9fUNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_88Y6QAl3rSQsWEnpKGx0W1Sw_thumb_a5E6Xdr8oOTtaijJf352q93Q_thumb_93

Two great visits in such a lovely city.

 

 

 

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