Working Interstate
In all my jobs I have had, I've never been fortunate to go interstate and I know a lot of people hate it. For me it is more of a privilege as it never happens so as soon as i was offered the opportunity to go to Sydney and Newcastle for four days i jumped to the opportunity. I got to pick where I stayed and who i saw and what i did. I clocked close to 950km (590miles) in those few days. I was really concerned about the coffee as had been told it was not that good. I found out that they had been wrong. We arrived on Sunday afternoon at 12;00 pm and picked up the car and i learned something valuable when hiring a car make sure it is in the airport not a local suburb that you need to catch their taxi service. They had poor instructions so it took longer to get a car than it should. We picked up the car and then headed to meet my cousin for lunch, on the way to go meet her we drove past a brewery and popped in and got some ales to take with me. The brewery is called Batch Brewery and the staff are friendly and it is a bit of a hipster place but if I go back to Sydney I will go back.
My cousin told us that there is a good Cafe that she has wanted to try called Brewistas but when we arrived they had already closed the kitchen. They used coffee from Melbourne's cafe Proud Mary (I have done blogs about this place). We started talking and I found out he is good friends with Nolan (Proud Mary owner). He made the coffee well but we had not eaten so we walked around for a while until we found a lovely cafe'.
The Wedge Espresso is a small cafe that has a nice selection of food and coffee's
We ordered some sandwiches and coffee's, i wanted a filter coffee but they had run out but what i was told to have was the Elixir coffee that's brewed over 17 hours.
The coffee has the colour of whisky, texture of a light tea but a sweet coffee and i loved it. It was a cold brew so they are more fruity and no bitterness.
The meals we ordered was the roast beef sandwich and the cheeseburgwich. They tasted amazing, the beef was cooked so it melted in your mouth. I bought some beans so i could make coffee in the hotel.
.
After lunch we went for a walk around, we walked to the fish market.
We got to the hotel and unpacked, but that stage it was about 5pm so we relaxed for a while then went to find dinner.
It was so sweet and the beef in the Pad Thai was so tough i struggled to eat it. Very disappointing as we have had amazing Thai before .
Monday was a very busy day so for dinner we decided to go to Din Tai Fung and it was really fresh and tasty.
They had little bowls with ginger, i added soy sauce, vinegar and chili of course.
For starters we had cucumber salad in vinaigrette salad, it was a bit spicy but sweet with an aftertaste of sourness with being crunchy.
The dumplings we ordered was the spicy vegetable and pork dumplings and this what you come for at Din Tai Fung. The dumplings are amazing and all made fresh in store. Din Tai Fung is the first dumpling restuarant to get a Michelin star.
The next dish is Spicy pork mince noodles and it was hard to share once it was mixed together, but was different.
We ordered the Shrimp and Pork Wonton with tangy sauce so it was not spicy. We never order shrimp wontons so it was nice for a change.
For desert i ordered the Ice Mango desert, i was told to order the small one and it was still big.
We really enjoyed our meal here and went for a walk after eating all this food, the center that Din Tai Fung was in is a pretty place.
On Tuesday we drove to New Castle to stay at a beautiful B'n'B called overnight reflections. It was so peaceful.
For a busy week with lots of driving it was nice to get home. i got to try a few different cafe's and restaurants which is always nice to do. I really enjoyed Sydney and hopefully will go back.
Thanks you for reading
Kind E-Gards
Dale Stewart
