restaurant – Page 2 – A True Love of Mine

Afternoon Tea at the Park Hyatt

I’m pretty sure that there can be no arguments that high tea really is the best.

If you find yourself disagreeing with me, I refer you to the picture above. When else can you gorge on scones with lashings of jam and cream followed by petite desserts and artfully constructed finger sandwiches. When else can you pretend to really be from high society and sip fragrant tea with your pinkie in the air? Ok, so I don’t quite do that but I do love a good cup of tea. And scones. And cakes. And (some) sandwiches. So in January this year, to mark the end of the holidays, mum and I went to sample the afternoon tea of the Sydney Park Hyatt.

Cranky Fins Holidae Inn – Palm Beach

For me, this summer has been the Summer of Seafood. I think it actually started last summer when I got quite ill on a road trip and, against all logical thought, all I craved was fat juicy prawns. I dreamed of cracking their thin shell and peeling out the soft white flesh, dipping it in a tangy sauce and gobbling them up. All year, I have been thinking about summer and prawns. Somehow I made it all the way through Christmas and new year without indulging. My family has never done a seafood christmas (a tradition i’m keen to adopt in the future though!) so it wasn’t until the first few weeks of January that I was able to start thinking about when I would be able to get my hands on these little suckers.

I had already planned to go up to Palm Beach for a swim sometime and serendipitously hubs saw a photo on facebook that showed a huge bucket of prawns at a restaurant at Palm Beach. The website and facebook page were sufficiently fun and quirky to warrant a lunch trip to Cranky Fins Holidae Inn. I always plan to go to the beach in the morning as the afternoon summer sun in Australia is so damn strong that I always get burnt no matter how much sunscreen I put on. There is also the added bonus that the beaches always seem less crowded before lunch so its easy to park and there are fewer people in the water which makes frolicking so much more fun! Hubs and I arrived around 11 which gave us enough time for a relaxing swim and a little bit of sunbaking before lunch. Crankys opens at noon so after our swim and sun we sauntered over around and snagged a booth inside.

Chiosco by Ormeggio and The Dessert of 2015

This is a nutella bombolone.
Look at that ooze, that soft, yielding donut.
If you don’t want to go and get one of these babies right now, there is legitimately something wrong with you.

I know that this is an ambitious blog title, especially considering it is on January. Still, I stand by my call. At this little kiosk by the sea I had what i’m calling the dessert of 2015. I love a fancy dessert as much as the next girl but i’m a little bit over the finicky, frippery and mountain of elements that comes with many desserts at the moment. Sometimes less is more and being able to serve up an unquestionably delicious, simple dessert is the best skill in the universe. That’s what happened when hubs and I went to Chiosco by Ormeggio early in the new year.

We had been to Ormeggio for hubs’ birthday the month before and spied the casual dining kiosk across the jetty. We absolutely loved the dinner at Ormeggio (the dishes and cocktails were so damn tasty I didn’t even have the presence of mind to take photos to share with you) especially for celebrating a special occasion and so we thought that the casual nature of Chiosco would be perfect for a normal date night dinner. Damn straight it was.

fritto misto ($16) and daily fish crudo ($18)

Birthday Dinner: Chiswick Restaurant

This year for hubs’ birthday, la nostra famiglia took us out to dinner at Chiswick in Woollahra. I know that this place has been around for ages so i’m sure you’ve all been already but this was a place that we had always driven past and said “oh how pretty, lets go there sometime!” and never really had. I scoped out the menu online to make sure that it wasn’t going to break the bank and it looked like exactly what we were after, nothing too fancy but delicious and well presented. We weren’t disappointed!

We were seated promptly at a roomy table and began with a pitcher of cocktails. I was impressed when they arrived at the table already poured into six glasses complete with fresh garnishes and there was still half a pitcher left over. This was a mix of gin, watermelon, lavender syrup, cucumber and lemon juice and was particularly refreshing during the hot summer evening we found ourselves in. The wait staff were excellent. Often a place is let down by the waiters (or often the management when they cut costs by understaffing then the poor waiters cant help you because they just don’t have the time) but the staff at Chiswick were exemplary. Our waiter was attentive and very helpful when we were trying to figure out if the share plates would feed all of us and which dishes would work best together.