Shall we go to a trendy cafe?

Darlinghurst leafy love

Every morning of my holiday I was woken by my wonderful bundle of gay energy SS asking me the following magical question 'shall we go to a trendy cafe?'. He vowed to show me all that Kings Cross, Potts Point, Darlinghurst and Elizabeth Bay had to offer and my eager stomach was powerless to resist (besides it's all in the name of research right?).

Uliveto
33 Bayswater Road, Kings Cross
Sydney NSW 2011

Our journey starts at our first brunch together at Uliveto full of giggles, incessant picture taking and watching toned, tanned body builders tuck into their egg white omelettes with far too much enthusiasm (seriously guys, the yolk is the best bit!).

After inhaling my first decent coffee in 7 months we decided to order some food, my lovely companion ordered a chicken salad adorned with that beautiful Australian avocado and olives and I opted for a tuna melt slathered with cheese, tomatoes and lovingly scattered with herbs. It was simple and delicious, highly recommended.

Elizabeth Bay Cafe

Shop 2 & 3, 45 Elizabeth Bay Road

Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011 (I wish British postcodes were this straightforward)

Our next adventure took the birthday boy and I to Elizabeth Bay nursing a Beresford hangover and seriously craving ricotta. 

Elizabeth Bay Cafe is small and perfectly formed. The lunches are made with love and some really fresh ingredients, the best being these beautiful sweet tomatoes. The fresh sourdough was spread with olive oil, scattered with sea salt and toasted with a squeeze of lemon providing the icing on the hypothetical cake. It was a perfect start to a perfect Sydney day.

Birthday ricotta

Gelato Messina

Shop 1/241 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst

Sydney, NSW 2010

After our ricotta feed I had an epiphany, a birthday wouldn't be a birthday without a delicious dollop of beautifully made ice cream from Gelato Messina. When I was an Australian newbie S and I used to be flatmates. Our secret shame was our late night ice cream run to Cold Rock to order family sized tubs of cookies and cream ice cream with crushed chocolatey goodness. Gelato Messina takes this to a new level (the level that wins you best gelato in Australia).

What I love most about this place, apart from it being filled with lovely memories, is that you get to try whatever flavour you like before your buy, the hardest bit is deciding.

Fondante

Simple...delicious.

Petrol

9 Springfield Ave, Potts Point

Sydney NSW 2011

After already eating my body weight in delicious food, S announced excitedly one morning that he would take me to not one, not two but three cafes in one day. While this sounded excessive who was I to stand down from such a foodie challenge!

Starting the day with a coffee in a tiny hole in the wall (the name escapes me) and celebrity spotting Lara Bingle we decided to retire to one of our favourite little haunts, Petrol.

I really love Petrol, on a sunny day (and let's face it, in Sydney that's most days), sitting on the terrace is a dream. On a rainy day couches full to the brim with pillows provide a port in the storm. But the best thing about Petrol is it's beautifully crafted food. A favourite is the smoked salmon and sourdough platter but today I went for the Greek breakfast, olives n all complete with a poached egg, Persian feta and honey soaked sourdough. Absolutely incredible.

My handsome companion always loves to put me to shame and ordered a salad, although this was not just any salad it was speckled with slightly squidgy, slightly crunchy, squeaky and salty pieces of haloumi fried within an inch of their life. It was perfectly accompanied by soft juicy raisins and peppery balsamic rocket. Slightly warm, it was heaven on a plate.

By this point well and truly buzzing and completely stuffed we staggered our way to our final destination.

11 Cafe

It's so cool it apparently doesn't have an address

11 is a brand new cafe located on a Melbourne style lane way strip just around the corner from the debauchery of Kings Cross. The tiny little space is cool and enriched by the beautiful smell of freshly ground coffee. Swearing off food forever I took a glance at a wooden box full of desserts and suddenly was sold, there is always room for a Portuguese Tart.

Portuguese Tarts are a little pleasure of mine, apparently very easy to make I occasionally indulge in some eggy, buttery goodness. Today the perfect accompaniment to my treat was a spicy chai latte covered in cinnamon.

So we took the challenge, and we won. Now if you will excuse me I need to lie down.

La Buvette

35 Challis Avenue, Potts Point

NSW, 2011

Our cafe journey had to come to and end soon (are you hungry yet?) and our journey ends here at my favourite end of Potts Point. Delis are interlaced with bookshops which hide little espresso joints, everybody seems to know each other, passers by beam with happiness as if they can't believe their luck to live around the corner. I don't blame them.

We decided to settle at La Buvette, it was 32 in the shade so juices were mandatory, with our coffees of course. Then, heady from the heat I decided to do something shocking....order a salad.

Whenever I scan a menu I am somewhat predictable, if it has a high cheese or butter content I generally order it. Less concerned with someday getting chunky thighs i'm more concerned about cardiac events so now and again I reluctantly look over the croque monsieur and get something fresh and healthy. Today I opted for a grilled chicken caesar with extra bacon and poached egg (ok so this health thing is a work in progress).

I particularly enjoyed the salty chicken and the delicious parmesan set off with crispy garlic toast. Totally delicious, totally unhealthy. I very much enjoyed my salad, although I do sometimes lie awake at night wondering what that croque monsieur would have tasted like, how thick the layer of cheese and how crispy the buttery bread....

So goodbye for now beautiful suburb cafes, i'll be back to overindulge in you soon.

Spontaneous Sydney

This is what heaven looks like

As I was sitting on my 12 hour flight to Bangkok, one bearable plane meal down, lights out and watching Coldplay live at Glasto I had a thought, isn't it wonderful having friends that you don't think twice about jumping on a 24 hour flight to visit. While this might sound terribly cheesy (picture above demonstrates my penchant for cheese) these recent moments symbolise the point I am currently at in my life, since I moved back from Australia the world suddenly seems to have opened up allowing me to jump somewhat surreally between my two lovely lives.My exhaustion was causing me to be sentimental but 5 hours away from my mid-point destination I suddenly felt like the luckiest girl this side of Eastern Russia (or wherever I happened to be at the time of writing).

My trip to Sydney was hallmarked by some major events, two 30th birthdays, lots of live music, hanging in the hot tub, a vineyard retreat and of course a lot of eating. I have decided for simplicity I will document my adventures into a few separate bits: cafe eating, a weekend in Orange to and a spontaneous jaunt to Melbourne.

So forgive my endless pictures of beautiful food and sunshine. It's a hard job, but someone has got to do it.

Oh Sydney. It's good to be home

Secret Diary of a Long Haul Girl

I worked out today that I have endured 11 long haul flights in the last 5 years. All of which to Australia. I don't want to count up how much money that is but i'm pretty sure it's a nice deposit on a house. But hey, who cares, the words 'getting a foot on the property ladder' make me physically shudder.

What is do know is that's around 12 whole days spent in the air eating plane food, having juice and water brought to my seat and catching up on a years worth of free movies.

Today hovering somewhere outside Singapore was no exception. Long haul flights are both the bain and the favourite part of my life. I often liken them to how I imagine childbirth, the sweet joy of arriving at your destination means that you conveniently forget about the pain.

I have now endured enough long hauls to feel qualified to summarise them into a few key stages.

Arrival at the airport: Freshly showered, either beaming with excitement for the possibilities ahead or mildly sobbing after saying goodbye to good friends. The prospect of the food court always makes my eyes dance with excitement

1 hour later: This is the time I like to call 'disappointment that I didn't get upgraded'. Are flight upgrades an urban myth? I sure as hell have never had one. Also, why do some people have 4 suitcases and boxes containing strange things? Today a man had 4 boxes of cherries. Is that legal?

Boarding leg 1: The sinking feeling sets in as you realise that your obscurely timed flight that you assumed would be empty is completely full which invariably means that you run the risk of being stuck in the dreaded of all seats...the middle of a 4 seater. Is there anything worse in life than that seat? You walk past 1st class and business with a pained smile, everybody hates people who fly business. I also hate the extra leg room people, they always look so smug and DVT free. Also the ones who get the front row with the TVs mounted on the walls, they are always reserved for kids. Why should my sexy childless legs suffer for my life choices thus far? Ok fine, maybe a child does take up more room than my laptop

1 hour in: This is the point where you wonder why you always think long haul is so bad. This is amazing, peanuts, can of coke with lots of ice, meal being served and you've picked from the nice menu, you are halfway through a romantic comedy, you got a window seat and the sun is shining. This isn't so bad

Post meal: Mmmm more tea please, why do I always think plane meals are so bad and how do they get the veggies to be so delicious and buttery and the bread a little crisp? Mmm...

4 hours in: Ok so i've seen 2 films and i'm tossing up whether to watch some rubbish that i've seen a dozen times or to peruse their terrible selection of TV. Could I bring myself to watch 'How I met your mother'? What is that show even about? Also while we are at it, why is the Big Bang Theory now so popular? People I love and respect seem to like it, odd. It's getting dark out and everyone seems to be sleeping. I've already lost track of the day and time.

6 hours in: Ugh my suprachiasmatic nucleus says it's morning and they are serving me noodles in 30 minutes. At least I get some more of that nice warm bread

Halfway: I shouldn't have had that 30 minute sleep just before landing, now my body wants to sleep but my brain knows that I am going to have to engage my brain to find the gate at Bangkok airport. Why do I have to go through security again? Why is my secret stash of water always confiscated? After 20 or more years of being told to drink more water i'm suddenly being punished my the hydration police. The war is out there, leave my Mountain Spring alone.

Can't beat a good sunrise

At gate: Ugh what day is it? Surely I haven't still got 12 hours to go? On the plus side I live for the following: free internet (everybody is invariably checking Facebook, including me..what have we become?), those elusive loungers that you have to wrestle a child to get, a hazy sunrise or sunset, the almost alarmingly clean toilets, the serenity and the unfamiliar languages, mulling over whether to go for some traditional breakfast congee with the locals but always going to McDonalds for a sausage and egg McMuffin, entertaining the fantasy of becoming a spontaneous extremist and jumping on a flight to some remote Thai island.

1 hour into leg 2: Ok this is getting a bit painful, the aforementioned cute menu is no longer appealing, the smell of this bread is making me feel ill, this seat is way worse than the last one why didn't I sleep instead of watching 'What's Your Number?'. It wasn't Anna Faris' finest hour. I have no idea what day it is. Time for Tetris

5 hours into leg 2: I hate my life, I hate these seats, I hate the people next to me, there is a very real possibility that is somebody offers one of those horrible bread rolls then I might throw up. I hate everyone who is peacefully asleep. I wish I had managed to get a boyfriend mainly because putting my feet up on him right now would be amazing. How do some people look so fresh? I've never realised how bad my skin was before. I am never getting off this plane. How can there be 6 more hours to go?

2 hours until landing: Ha! In your face sleeping people! I too got some sleep, albeit broken and unsatisfying. I feel like I've spent 5 days in the same spot. I would sell my cookbook collection for a shower and a teeth clean. I have consumed 4 bottles of water and my mouth is still dry, why are these breakfast sausages so weird and oddly delicious? How do they get the omelettes perfect every time?

Arrival: Yes! I'm off the plane! I made it! Isn't life wonderful, oh the customs queue. Mental note must get one of those weird new passports. Oh it's good to be home, i'm never doing this again. I wonder when I can get back to Australia?

I hate long haul
Ps- I love you

Disclaimer: This post was written whilst heavily under the influence of Carol King's Tapastry somewhere near Singapore. 15 hours until landing