marching on our stomachs sydney

edit: charlotte has a lovely recipe on ginger brulee over here! what fortuitous timing :)

early-ish start to the hunter valley, but not before a pit stop at bourket street bakery for the ginger brulee that fran was raving about. one word: WOW. unsurprisingly, we ended up with a box of sweets for the road...

stuck our noses into the books on display at book cafe (opposite bourke street bakery)

before heading north to the valley.

also unsurprisingly, we were waylaid once again by the siren call of the coffee temptress and this hard to find gem had coffee that assuaged any guilt we might've felt. the valley could wait while the inner coffee gremlin had his fill.

hillsongs city sydney

lovely morning visiting the church adam grew up in, followed by lunch at ampersand in paddington where our host was in his element. there were storeys and storeys of stories (haha) and it started to drizzle so we parked ourselves indoors with hot drinks to while the afternoon away. 

hit the ground running sydney

landed bright and early at 545am. despite arriving at such an ungodly hour, adam was sweet to offer to pick us up. before we linked up, i picked up the guide and map that i ended up never opening. talk about superfluous :)

started the morning right with one of the best breakfasts ever at the iconic bondi cafe. i'm not much of a coffee fan (gimme tea anyday!) but even picky wicky me was impressed with this cuppa. and who'd have thought it be the first of a steady stream of excellent cups.

walked off breakfast along bondi and checked out bondi icebergs from a distance. doesn't the pool look so inviting in the day? revisited icebergs a few evenings later and it looks so different at night.

and some bondi mosaic as spied on the promenade...

sun's out, surf's up!

p/s: have scheduled the sydney posts to publish at 9am daily for the next few days so do check back if you'd like to see more of sydney and the hunter valley.

community service

well, not quite. but every saturday i try to expose this one to some local flavour. gotta keep it real! whilst it was hardly a heartland breakfast like last week, it was fun to check out the cool houses in the area. gotta love illegal parking, the ins and outs of parking behind a car that's got more swag than one's own (so it'd get summoned first, of course!) and how to smile sweetly at patrons just about to finish their meal so they beckon you over to their table and let you take over their seats without having to join the general table queue. all probably not kosher, but hey, singers is a small country and everybody is your uncle, innit!

ReStore

my dear cubby buddy told me about ReStore at work one day. the way she described it reminded me so much of cafe string in stockholm and i was stricken with nostalgia. made a point to visit at first opportunity and swung by on saturday afternoon. little did i know, however, that my being out of the house that particular pm was of supreme importance to a top secret mission that was being planned and executed without my knowledge.*

but more about ReStore first! 

it's a quaint little place with the best iced latte in singapore, according to my latte snob of a friend. he claims it's almost impossible to find good iced latte because the inaccurate proportion of coffee to ice usually results in a dilute mess. but this latte was done to perfection and he was secretly pleased to have scored this find. i gorged on the homemade waffles (OHSOGOOD!) and had a bit more whipped cream than healthy. and the vintage dresser for sale (picture just above the chalkboard!) threw me back to 1990 when i was 3 years old and staying with my granny. she had the exact same dresser and i grew up on / around it because granny was perpetually parked in front of the mirror painting and repainting her face :) if only i had 1k to spare, and space! would've loved to snap it up on the spot and placed it in my imaginary dressing room... i've never felt such a strong emotional connection to a piece of furniture!

enjoyed chatting with the lovely proprietress and will definitely be back for more waffles and tea :)

*baby sister was frantically packing my bag for a surprise getaway...

pigeonhole

guess who's in town!

kenchy's back for a few days and what better way to celebrate his brief return than to visit a new cafe. so after some minor miscommunication (with him stranded at palais and me at TC) we did link up and somehow made our way to pigeonhole at duxton. 

a bit slow on the uptake but i just learnt of this cool cafe :) particularly appreciating the activism and awareness raising it promotes. 

they'd a good selection of cider - i'd a pear & lemon cider while kenchy had a "black latte". get this! a black latte uses warmed, frothed chocolate milk instead of regular milk! a must try for the chocolate lovers out there :) their fresh OJ was as fresh as it gets, and their black iced latte equally delectable.

the place is tastefully done up and exudes an effortlessly hip vibe. enjoyed thumbing through the old but well preserved books on display, whose racy titles belied a more thought-provoking tome of respectable gravitas. truly, never judge a book by its cover ;) there was a rocking horse that i almost tripped over, and kenchy the pseudo heartlander sat on the reddish stone bench (first photo!) possibly pilfered from a void deck some where. 

definitely going back :) do swing by if you're in the area.

for those in the +65, have a lovely long weekend.

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kith cafe

have made it a personal mission to visit a new cafe every weekend, seeing how my wings have been clipped and overseas exploration rendered impossible by this little thing called a training contract. but, there is light at the end of the tunnel and today marks the halfway mark in my six months of pre-entry level employment. yet to risk sounding mercenary, even though i'm getting an allowance and not a salary, am relishing the disposable income that for once isn't tuition derived :)

checked out kith cafe this afternoon and it's a chilled out place by the water. pity the inside seating reeked of the "food smell". for the members of the raffles place tribe, just think of how the arcade smells and you'll get what i mean. might've been an exhaust / ventilation problem, might just have been a bad day but that was pretty unpleasant and once i saw a free table in the passageway, i pounced. whilst there were tables in the open, there was an impending shower so no go either.

kith has a cute macchiato - which they claim is like a babycino. all these fancy names! that said, i did appreciate the easter egg and marshmellow that came with it. gave my resurrection sunday some added oomph ;) also had the iced coffee with milk and honey because the name reminded me of the promised land haha. oh so theological we are today. my coffee kaki enjoyed the banana bread, but i was too full from lunch to swipe a bite.

prefer the plain at craig but glad to have ticked kith off the list. the brunch food like spaghetti looked hearty enough, even the sparrows swooped in for the leftovers at the next table.

p.s.

needs no introduction but is one of my favourite places to be on a sunday afternoon. was about to say 'hideaway' but just today i bumped into two friends so maybe it's a poorly kept secret ;) interestingly, just to digress, one friend was a belgian diplomatic and he and his wife are going to french polynesia via new zealand. turned green with envy on the spot and spent the rest of the afternoon masochistically trawling through conde nast plotting my next get away. am now determined to go to french polynesia at some point. strange how before this afternoon i didn't even know it existed but as i type, it's almost at no. 1 on my to visit list. and the other friend i bumped into is a fabulous creative type and i think i just scored myself a free museum tour :) so maybe chance meetings aren't all that bad - one new holiday goal and a freebie i can cash at leisure. can't complain!

loysel's toy

loysel's toy kitchen by day, 13wives bar by night.

mentioned loysel's toy in the 13wives post awhile back. popped by for a pre-lunch coffee and wasn't disappointed. it's opened by the same genius(es?) behind papa palheta (so if you like the pp coffee, you'll like this too) and exudes a similar laid-back vibe. the only problem is that while its nestled on the banks of the kallang river, it's a bit of a hike in from the main road so best to go by car / taxi.

forty hands

or mains quarante, but that's an inside joke.

well hidden in an unassuming neighbourhood near tiong bahru, forty hands is just about my closest coffee place. well, technically starbucks is the nearest, but who cares for generic nahnsense :) incidentally, it was the beijing-bound couple (previous post!) who first introduced me to forty hands. little wonder, seeing how 1/2 of said couple is also my immediate neighbour. but back to the coffee! tell a lie, i'm a social coffee drinker so my coffee palate is relatively under-developed. however, i've grown to depend on connoisseur friends to determine if the joe is worth drinking. and apparently, it is! or at least the lattes are...

one little nugget i can contribute, though, is that the mushroom sandwich with truffle oil is a winner!

i like the old school feel, the murals and gunny sack chairs with mismatched buttons. oh, and the sugar holders are pretty nifty too, aren't they!