Now that I’ve gotten most of the restaurants and cafes out of the way, it’s time to blog about everything else that happened in Sydney!

First stop, Central Park to see both the wooshy sculpture thing, as well as admiring the heliostat, but more importantly, to check out a super hyped up cake stall and check out what else was around at the Brewery Yard markets. We managed to get there early while Kraving K was still setting up, so I hopped over to a fancy steampunk stall instead. After a conversation about their different products, I decided to impulse buy two very pretty, live mechanism pendants:

But alas, when I turned around to see how the cake stall was doing, the line was already half an hour long! Me being me, I commented on this to the steampunk stallholder, and my huge expense quite literally paid off – they had a friend who was waiting close to the front of the line, and allowed me to join them, essentially skipping the queue. Win!

And this is what all the fuss is about. Very pretty cakes topped with very pretty flowers! So we bought some of their mini ones to try it all out:

They make for great pictures! Strawberry fruit tart, beetroot and chocolate cloud cake, yuzu cloud cake, and matcha cloud cake. For me, these were only worth getting once for the pictures, though I attribute a lot of that to no longer having much of a sweet tooth – my sugary cravings are more and more infrequent these days. The strawberry fruit tart had little golden crispy malt balls, and I believe a hazelnut paste. Quite nice, and not too sweet.

I’m not sure if I like chiffon cakes at all, and I guess I don’t like matcha. The yuzu was okay, though my brother said that it didn’t taste like yuzu – it was more just citrussy. The beetroot one was quite interesting because it actually tasted like beetroot, and while the flavour combination worked, it didn’t stand out too much for me. I guess I like a buttered up, beautifully layered and flaky pastry better!

Now the next overhyped thing, the Aqua S shot. One day I just started seeing a lot of these pictures pop up, and it’s just so over the top! Why have ice cream in a massive cloud of fairy floss and take a picture of it in front of their wall of blue and clouds?! So I had to go do it too. They had either apricot or espresso flavour alongside their sea salt, so I chose espresso. It’s weird, but since I drink almost exclusively espressos and filter coffees these days, I don’t like many espresso flavoured products at all. Also, I just wanted Fairy floss, marshmallow and pop rocks, but there wasn’t a price point advertised for three toppings (there were costs for 1, 2 and all 4), so I chose to get everything. I could barely hold the thing and take a picture of it with my camera at the same time because of the size of the cloud! I also spent a long time eating it as it was quite the quest, so my strategy was to consume the cloud first, taking with it the caramel popcorn and poprocks. The ice cream had to be licked throughout this to prevent the melty bits from dripping, and then the toasted marshmallow was consumed while in the ice cream, since it was impaled on a pocky stick. Then, the standard consumption process.

I’m definitely not a fan of almost all ice cream (wow, I’m such a hater!), so I had this mainly to say that I had it. It’d be interesting to try out all the flavours, but while they might be nice, I just don’t think I’d enjoy it to the level I like. It was still fun watching everyone else taking that same picture, over and over and over!

I really do love Japanese food, so off to Jugemu Shimbashi I went, for their soba. Ah, their soba is so delicious! It wasn’t terribly busy at lunch time so I easily got a reservation for myself, and had a nice view of the street. However, this was also the day that I managed to poison myself with caffeine, so I wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t finish this duck and mushroom soba. I felt so bad!

Even though I was on the brink of death, I had to still make sure I was eating normally, so that night I went to Burger Project (no, Neil Perry wasn’t there on any sweep of the premises I conducted, so he still remains elusive) and sampled their cheeseburger (for no burger is complete without cheese!). Even with a diminished appetite, this was quite nice, but nothing standout for me. it’s great for a cheap, good quality burger though! Plus the place has excellent table lighting for perfect pictures.

I have a love of taking pictures of animals, especially birds, so I revisited a couple of parks (and the usual places where seagulls flock) to snap some pictures with my newfound camera abilities, so that I had a better idea of what I was doing compared to the last time.

And of course, some non bird pictures around the city:

I love capturing sparkles in my pictures! After taking a few pictures in cape town, I’ve discovered that water features are also great fun to take pictures of. Then there was this shot of the bridge, where I found the Luna Park ferris wheel (I think it’s a ferris wheel in Luna Park) was actually reflecting in a very standout manner!

Ok, more birds! This time, a funky looking chicken. This is a separate post as it features the Grounds of Alexandria. Though it could technically fall under a cafe post, I didn’t dine at the cafe itself or consume any coffee, but rather explored the place to get a feel for it, so it falls under Sydney instead. The petting zoo is pretty cute, and I love all the different food outlets they have to cater for different tastes.

I visited The Potting Shed, as their menu looked appealing, plus they have an adorable macaw there! The charcoal bun pork belly sliders were really nice – better than the ones I had in Adelaide. These ones were softer, and the flavours worked better.

The strawberry pot plant was also adorable – look at those mushroom meringues! There was a great flavour to the strawberry sorbet too. The only thing I didn’t like was how dense the cake was though. It was mainly pistachio based, but also seemed like it was possibly gluten free or vegan in texture, for it wasn’t fluffy or even mudcake-gooey, but rather, missing an ingredient. The meringues were my favourite part of the dish.

And here is Fluffy the macaw! She’s quite a large bird, and I learned that she’s only about a year old. Incredibly well behaved though! She also knows how to dance – well, she bobbed her head up and down at one point when I was taking pictures. Definitely one of the star attractions of this place! I probably will have to come back for their coffee.

Another section that’s too small for its own post, is exploring the Hunter Valley. I went there for a friend’s wedding, and was a little worried it was going to be a rainy one – but lucky the skies cleared and we had some amazing weather for a great outdoor wedding! We stayed in a house that had some pretty scenic views of vineyards, mountains and cows, though due to the recent storms, this area was actually flooded so that the vines were dead. Hopefully they’ll grow back once the water evaporates!

There were also a couple of dogs in the area (very friendly!) that visited our holiday home, and they loved the attention that we gave them! My friend had to make sure that her cat wasn’t around during that time though – he doesn’t like dogs!

I’m also happy that we had bought flowers from Flemington markets the day before and arranged them ourselves – it turns out this was way cheaper than hiring a professional florist to arrange bouquets. The flowers lasted a long time and didn’t wilt, so much so that when I took them back home, they were still good for at least another week!

After the wedding, we had brunch at a nearby restaurant called Emersons, which I didn’t realise until later did degustations for dinner. It must be a fancy restaurant! It was already a fancy cafe as it had lamb’s fry – which in this case was liver – which is probably the first time I’ve ever seen it served in my time at Sydney (ok, so this isn’t in Sydney) cafes. It was a tad more cooked than I liked, but it turns out I really do like the taste of liver now, so I was fine with it.

And a revisit to The Tea Room. I was having a belated Mother’s day outing with my mum, trying to figure out where to take her for lunch, when she reminded me that she’s never been to the Tea Room before. I’ve had several visits there already, and forgot about it after my last few experiences weren’t as great as the first. However, I wasn’t as knowledgeable about teas back then as I am now. I was a little apprehensive at going back, but since my mum hadn’t been, I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to revisit.

I’m glad I did though –  this experience most closely matched my first experience here. We had a really nice waiter who walked us through the tea menu, and even brought out a sample of a few of his favourite teas for us to smell. I like interactive experiences, and my mum has a great nose, so she had fun talking to him and identifying the different teas presented. For once I didn’t choose an earl grey, instead I went for the Tarry Lapsang, a variation of lapsang souchong. I really liked this tea – it had a very strong smokey smell, but when drinking, there was a lightness and fruitiness to it that was very pleasant. My mum chose a yunnan black tea, which was so smooth, malty and quite satisfying.

The standard afternoon tea set came out, and I love the fact that their little polenta tart is still on their plate after several years – it’s my favourite item in the afternoon tea set. The macaron was my least favourite, since I’ve eaten quite a few amazing macarons around the place.

Overall, I certainly had an epic adventure packed into just 11 days. From visiting old favourites to checking out new places, these were some highlights of the trip:

Being able to walk right into Sepia and meeting Martin Benn

Tasting a Burger Project burger

Getting a Mary’s fried chicken burger and that was an overhyped burger that actually met expectations! So tasty!

Rockpool Bar & Grill David Blackmore full blood wagyu burger is still the best burger ever

Artificer was a place I overhyped for myself and was also totally worth it!

Eating lots of ramen

Visiting my first Izakaya and really liking the offal

Sokyo had the most amazing sushi

And probably a lot of other stuff from my adventures! I guess poisoning myself with caffeine counts as a standout too, as unpleasant as it was!

I heart Sydney!