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My wife and I are leaving Edinburgh on January 1st and flying via Singapore to arrive in Sydney on January 3rd. What a start to the new year!
Now, we're both seriously into our food and wine. My favourite way to spend a day is trawling round the butchers, fishmongers, grocers and deli for the best local produce I can find and then spending a few hours cooking and listening to some music with a glass of wine, before sitting down to a good meal with or without friends.
Now it might sound a bit like a bad montage scene from Notting Hill, but it's how I enjoy spending my time off! The thing is, I have all my sources well sussed out here. I know who does the best lamb, who'll get me some bone marrow or calf shin when I want it and where to go for the best cheese. I'm going to be a bit lost when I arrive and I could use some expert local advice. On the one hand Sydney is a much bigger city and I expect the quality of the seafood will be off the chart in comparison (I'd be lying if I said that didn't have quite abit to do with the move), but is the Fish Market the best place to go? Do you know any nice wee butchers who will tell me where their meat is from and will sell me rabbit and nice, well hung, chunks of lamb and beef? While I am going to try and lose a bit of weight when I arrive I think cutting of the good cheese supply entirely might kill me faster than the hideaous mutated offspring of a Funnelweb and a Great White. Any good tips for Delis?
I'm well prepared for the lack of French, Spanish, Italian, Californian etc wine, but I'm hoping it'll be balanced with the opportunity to try all the great Aussie stuff that you never send over here (sly dogs!). Any good wine merchants or warehouse type places that you can recommend?
Any restaurant recommendations are also hugely welcome. Everybody knows Tetsuya and Rockpool but unless I rob a few banks, they will be an occasional treat. I'm don’t care if it's fine dining or sitting on a bucket at a market stall, as long as the food is good!
Go up to the Hunter Valley and suss out the vineyards for some good wines. Its not far from Sydney and they generally all do tastings. Very beautiful up there too!
Hi there Edinburger,
We too are big foodies, and love all the things you have listed,
We spent a year in Aus 2003/2004 We have just had our visa accepted and will be moving hopefully June 2008 to Manly Sydney,
There are so so many fantastic restaurants to choose from and not all of them are expensive we found some really really good food in "little not as fancy " restaurants where the owners were so pasionate on what they were serving, (i'll try and compile a list for you)
We also found some fantastic butchers and fish mongers, we used a great butcher in Manly it wasn,t in the main area but just outside, he was a whole sale butcher and could get you anything you wanted, I used to go and buy practically half a Lamb and he'd chop it and portion it to how I wanted it (mmmm i'm craving grilled lamb now)
The Sydney fish market is fantastic, even if you did not like fish it's great to have a look around.
Paddy's market at Darling harbour has a fantastic fruit and veg section where you can find a huge variety of fresh ingredients.
As in the previous post the Hunter Valley is one of my favourite memory's of Aus.
We spent a weekend there, we toured so many of the vinyards, the owners were so friendly and again pasionate over their produce, my best bit was the cheese factory slap bang in the middle of these fantastic vinyards, we did about 4 visits around the cheese sampling section, bought a load to take home then had one of their huge cheese boards on the decking outside with a couple of bottles of carefuly chosen, well researched Aussie wine (ok when I say researched I mean one of the hundreds we had tasted the day before)
It really is a great place, we were with a group of friends which really made it a good weekend, and has made me a huge fan of Aussie wine and Cheese.
All in all we found Aus to be a food lovers paradise and we found some fantastic restaurants from so many different cultures.
When I get a sec i'll get a few websites and names to you,
Neil
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If you are seriously interested in food and you're not a restaurant snob, try the blog called Grab Your Fork. It's run by some Sydneysiders who just blog about their dining experiences at everything from market stalls to social clubs. The pictures of the food are seriously tempting and they write succinctly and well about the huge variety of dining experiences on offer in Sydney.
As for me, I can only recomend Asian restaurants, as I am mad about Chinese, Vietnamese and South east Asian food in particular. I can tell you the best noodle place in Chinatown - the Xinjiang Noodle. More details on request.
Outstanding folks, cheers. I'll have a good look at lunch time but a quick glance suggests it's exactly the sort of thing we were looking for. Much appreciated.
I fully expect that a great many weekends will be spent touring the Vinyards. My wife worked in the wine trade in the UK for 4 years and is thinking about trying to get back into it when we arrive. Either way the tastings are a must.
Neil,
You sound like a man after my own heart! Thanks for the info, some top tips there. A good butcher, like the one you describe, is worth their weight in gold. It's amazing how much cash you save when you buy it like you describe. As long as you have a freezer, or a huge barbecue and loads of mates, you're laughing. Manly is also one of the areas we are really considering, although we might stick closer to the centre (Paddington are looks good) to start with as I'm going to be working on Market Street, and it might help us get our bearings.
It drives me mad we don’t have a big fish market in Edinburgh. We produce stunning quality seafood in Scotland and yet we rarely seem to get to eat it.
Cheese platter with some good wine in a vinyard with the sun beating down? Nah, doesn’t sound like my sort of thing at all…….heh heh. Paradise. Reckon I'll have to have a look for some places to stay up that way and book a trip sooner rather than later.
Mutikonka,
That site is outstanding, thank you so much. Read a few reviews and I'm about ready for a second lunch now. I like the look of the all goat place :D
I'm a huge fan of asian food and cooking too. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Thailand and Vietnam and the food played a major role in us deciding to pick those destinations. High on the list when we arrive will be a decent wok and a really sturdy mortar and pestle. Even considering bringing mine across for the duration but it's damn heavy.
I can't tell you about the meat and veg side, but I can tell you that if you find out where the fishing boat harbour is (not the worm drowners but the commercial fishing fleet) and go and make friends with the fishermen, they know which of their catch is the best that day and they are usually more than willing to trade in cash or in kind regardless of what the Fisheries Authority might prefer. Fishermen tend to be a fairly lawless bunch the world over, you will find, which might be highly handy for you!
Why buy a fish from the middleman hours or even a day or two after it was landed instead of buying it straight from the boat, freshly landed?
Always a good idea Gill! Just need to get that initial bit of confidence to approach and ask.
I spent my 21st with some friends up in Oban on the west coast of Scotland and we took full advantage of the local seafood. We drove out to a little warehouse that boxed up live langoustines for export to Spain. Straight off the boat and into boxes. Asked the guy for £20 worht and he handed over 2 carrier bags full of them! We ended up with over 90 of them for 6 of us, way too much for just dinner but we had some kick ass prawn mayo sandwiches next day. Did the same with some scallops and got them at about 50% shop price.
Where might be the best place around Sydney to start making friends with fishermen?...in a strictly non prostitutional sense you understand! :D
Mutikonka you're my new hero. I've spent the last 2-days reading Grab Your Fork and have a list of palces to eat as long as my arm. My boss is cursing you though, as I'm not getting any work done and keep coming out with 'Oh wow! This is the best yet! Look at that Ramen!'. So many to choose from. Ryo's Noodles looks just fantastic and it's good to know that a hearty feed of Czech dumplings and ludicrously strong beer will be available. Thanks.
Last edited by Edinburger; 29-11-2007 at 02:43 PM.
I have yet to look over the whole site myself. I did fancy visiting a Polish Club they reviewed near me a while back, and there's a Burmese restaurant just around the corner that looks worth a visit.
If you get tired of that - you could also try the reviews in the Sydney Morning Herald. However a food critic of theirs recently got sued by the owners of one restaurant he savaged for loss of business. AA Gill where are you?
