Sydney Food & Wine Fair 2009

The end of October also marked the end of the Sydney International Food Festival 2009, but what better way to send it off than with the Sydney Food and Wine Fair in Hyde Park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. With around 80 food and wine stalls including the likes of Quay, Bourke Street Bakery and Flying Fish, what's not to love about it?

Sundried tomato chicken with pasta and vegetables

Sir D and I bought $30 worth of coupons and started wandering around checking out what each stall had to offer. We passed the Lean Cuisine stall which was giving out plates of Lean Cuisine food with a glass of wine to match, all for free! I had the sundried tomato chicken with pasta with a matching chardonnay. The pasta was cooked al dente and the sauce was very flavoursome.

Beef in red wine casserole with herbed mashed potato

Sir D had the beef in red wine casserole which was served with mashed potato and a glass of shiraz. The beef was very tender and there was a definite red wine taste in the sauce. The mash wasn't as creamy as I would have liked but then again, it is Lean Cuisine, right? Pretty good for a free meal!

Grilled ocean trout with avocado, capers, kipfler potato salad, baby leaves and coddled egg dressing - 4 coupons ($12)

Temasek, Parramatta

I've heard many times about how amazing the Hainanese chicken is at Temasek, so I jumped at the chance to go and try it when we went there recently with some family friends. There were a lot of us at the table so we got to sample a wide range of their menu. The food didn't take long to come out but what I noticed was that it came out in the order that we ordered the dishes with our waiter - something to keep in mind for next time! This was quite surprising because most of the time at Asian restaurants the dishes just come out whenever they're ready. 

Beef rendang - $17.80

The first dish we ordered was the beef rendang which has tender, fall-apart chunks of beef that are flavoursome from the spices used in the rendang. The sauce was also great with rice.

Sambal Balacaan Kang Kong - $16.80

Next up was the sambal balacaan kang kong - a vegetable dish with water spinach, sambal and shrimp paste. This probably could have done with a bit more chilli kick, but the shrimp paste and garlic added a heap of flavour to the vegetables. 

Hainanese chicken (whole) - $36.00

Sugar Hit @ Sheraton on the Park, Sydney

With the SIFF drawing to a close, I decided that I should at least try one of the Sugar Hits since I've never been to one. There were so many to choose from, but thanks to the Eat Show & Tell crew, choosing which one to attend became a lot easier from their extensive reviews! I initially wanted to go to Glass Brasserie and Azuma Kushiyaki, but they were both booked out on the night, so I settled for Sheraton on the Park.

A candy creation of chocolate and sugar in the Gallery Tea Lounge - it smelt delicious!

Almost as soon as we sat down, we were presented with our Brown Brothers Orange Muscat and Flora. Not long after that, a waitress came over with 2 Sugar Hits. The service was very efficient, almost too efficient. It made me feel a bit rushed which was strange considering that more than half the tables were still empty. But maybe that was just me.

Warm chocolate pudding sprinkled with golden almond splinters, honeycomb ice cream and a drop of chantilly cream, served with a glass of Brown Brothers dessert wine - $20

Poporo, Haymarket

Another pre-theatre dinner - this time Charm and I were watching the long-awaited Wicked! at Capitol Theatre and we were looking for a quick bite before the show. However, I forgot that Thursday was shopping night and that all the usual suspects around the area (Musashi, Chat Thai, Wagaya etc...) would be packed. As a last resort we went to Market City and were surprised to find a new place open which seemed to offer quick and tasty food, which is exactly what we were after.

Touchscreen Menu

 
Poporo calls itself a "Japanese modern cafe restaurant" and offers a variety of burgers, pasta, salad and rice dishes. Apart from the normal Japanese-style rice dishes such as curry rice and omelette rice, they also had something called "doria" which was "oven baked white mornay sauce and melty cheese on tomato rice". Everything was very reasonably priced hovering around the $10-15 mark. You simply placed your order at the touchscreen, paid at the counter and sat down at a table with your number. 

Spinach and cheese penne (cream sauce with bocconcini, tasty, mozzarella, parmesan and spinach) - $10.90

Let's Do Lunch @ Foveaux Restaurant and Bar, Surry Hills

After looking at all the Let's Do Lunch options on offer for this year's SIFF, Foveaux Restaurant and Bar stood out to us as the one that we definitely had to attend. They certainly didn't disappoint, offering two options for their Let's Do Lunch, meaning that we got to sample 2 of their delicious mains.

Let's Do Lunch Menu

Foveaux is located (surprise surprise) on Foveaux Street, not far from Central Station. We entered the restaurant and were greeted by friendly waitstaff and a nice warm ambiance. We started off with the wine which were matched to the two different dishes, and hot sourdough rolls with a generous slab of butter.

Amuse bouche

The lovely waitress brought us the complimentary amuse bouche, which was a warm smoked eggplant veloute with white sesame and cumin. It had a distinct eggplant flavour and biting into the cumin seeds released a spicy flavour which complimented the smoky eggplant. Sir D doesn't like eggplant so he left half of his veloute to me, which I more than happily finished off.

Baked rainbow trout with Victorian morel mushrooms, clams, mache sugar snaps and sweet corn puree