#8 - V's first oyster...

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!

So tradition goes you only eat oyster's in months with an R in, so Sept through April.

This stems from eating native oyster season, i.e. not wanting to upset the breeding cycle or eat immature oysters, but is now more a tradition as you can eat non native oysters pretty much all year round...

One of my favourite places for oysters is Riddle and Finns on a little lane in Brighton (they also do great lobster!), generally I think its fabulous to get the taste of the sea whilst smelling the sea (even better if its in sight)

http://www.riddleandfinns.co.uk/

A great oyster should be just that - a clean fresh taste of the sea. Some are variations on this - large creamy succulent oysters that you have to chew, or smaller down-in-one swallow varieties, but they have to have that juice with the taste of the sea.

So whilst in Sydney V and I decided to go out for sea food - you can't really not on a coast location!



We went out in Kirribilli to the local fish restuarant - Garfish

http://www.garfish.com.au/


Where I discovered V had NEVER had an oyster. This was just not right, so I decided to rectify the situation right away!

We ate a lot of seafood and fish that night - but we started with the oysters, I made V taste them plain before trying the mignonnotte (red wine vinegar and shallot) dressing, and unsurprisingly she liked them: another convert!

The Camden Road Cook

#7 - EZ BBQ

This is I's favourite BBQ style, perfectly offset by the location - a park bench over looking Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House....

First buy premarinated fish skewers - we had salmon with sweet chilli and prawns with herbs and garlic

Next buy premade salads - we had greek salad and tabouleh,

Then get extras: corn on the cob, plus humous and crusty bread

chuck corn and fish skewers on BBQ - when cooked eat

Simples....

The Camden Road Cook

#6 - Gourmet weekend in Mackerel

So during my stay in Sydney we spent a weekend at the beach....

it started at midday Friday with the trip to Palm Beach (apparently home of summer bay lifeguards...), and lunch at Barren Joey's House

http://www.barrenjoeyhouse.com.au/

Not a quick lunch - we had bacon wrapped dates to start with our champagne cocktails, then steak (ummmmm) with 2 lots of chilli chips (they were good!), and then finished with desserts - knickerbocker glory for me (which has been raved about by many so I dont need to add much, except I should have left more room for it!), and chocolate Nemesis.....

Then we rolled ourselves to the ferry quay and loaded up enough food and drink to keep us going for the next month (probably!) and headed for Mackerel...

On arrival we filled the main fridge and the beer fridge (very important) and settled down to digest... and wait for the others who couldn't get the afternoon off. Unfortunately it then turned cloudy and wet - boo! So everyone crossed their fingers the weather would be better.

The vanguard turned up after 8pm - having taken the water taxi over... and having to turn back to pick up the roast chicken they left in the car - apparently they decided that they could have left it there - we did have enough food - but after 2 days in that weather they wouldn't fancy coming back to the car!

The serious cooking and eating started the next day when the sun was out - yeay! Breakfast was from B&S, gourmet blueberry pancakes with lashings of maple syrup and fruit salad, see the stack:














Then lunch was roast lamb with rosemary and garlic, saved from the attack cookaburra who vainly tried to distract us to get to the meat (who knew they were carnivorous?!). This was served with E's family recipe potato salad which went something like this...

potatoes (dur!)
dressing with a grain mustard, dill, parsley and possibly some other green herbs & mayonnaise
boiled eggs and crispy bacon pieces to dress

and a large greek salad with lettuce and balsamic dressing

This was only lunch and already everyone was full!! Dinner was brushetta and garlic bread - I's speciality, followed by meatballs and pasta and then vodka jelly which made it game over really!

The eating continued with a full fry up the next day courtsey of B&S again, and then quiche (from scratch - very impressive) from K&R (although it was mainly K's effort :P). She made bacon and cream cheese and spinach and feta - very tasty!

After that we rolled back onto the ferry carting what we couldn't eat..... all in all a great weekend at the beach!

(ps just to note that we did do other things than just eat! There was swimming, fishing, digging a sea wall, and a volleyball match to the death (nearly!))

The Camden Road Cook (having gained a few pounds...)

#5 - BBQ Sydney style...

So as I'm currently chilling out in beautiful Sydney I thought I would share with you some of the eating experiences so far....

Jet lagged brunch on Saturday was an interesting affair on the Kirribilli ferry wharf - one small coffee shop, 5 special dishes = result a great 'non-birthday' celebration. We had salmon tarts, spinach and feta tarts, ricotta pancakes, cupcakes, coffee, tea (in the smallest tea glasses you have ever seen), toasted with Australian champagne from the Orange area - really tasty stuff!

Settling into the laid back lifestyle V and I took a bottle of chilled white down to the park to drink whilst catching up. After some chucking a rugby ball around and demonstrating how not to 'touch' when playing touch rugby we were off to the next eating event... very Aussie - rugby watching & BBQ

(It was the Australia - NZ game, H&M might like to know that me, C and V were supporting NZ, whilst the boys were supporting Australia - and we were supporting them from the start, not just when they were winning lol!)

But back to the most important stuff.... food!

C&T definitely put on a spread for us - we had freshly fried squid rings (made by T's own fair hands), brushetta with melted mozzarella and feta, and then the center piece - lamb kebabs

The lamb (back strap??? what is that in English?? answers on a postcard please!) was marinated quite simply with cinnamon, cumin & olive oil, it was served with a simple salad with spinach leaves, cherry tomatoes, avocado, feta and a balsamic dressing.

In addition C made a tasty sauce which I think I can remember the ingredients for:

Yoghurt

Sweet chilli sauce

Garlic

Chopped coriander

So will definitely have to try this out on the Camden Crew when I'm back (as long as I can work out what cut of lamb to get and do a coriander free version for J!)

Other culinary dishes tried in Sydney so far include:

Morton bay bug linguine (on day 3 - pretty good going, hey Mum!?)

Laksa noodle soup

Pizza on the park bench (its my friend's 'dining table' and it overlooks the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge - such a hard life...)

To look forward to: weekend at the beach, with an attack cookaburra targetting the barbie!

The Camden Road Cook (temporarily not in Camden Road but instead Kirrbilli Avenue, and eating instead of cooking!)