Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2015 - Sydney, NSW

Comparatively,  the Mrs and I really haven't been blogging for long. Prior to starting this food blog, I regarded the food bloggers I followed as heroes and celebrities. Whenever I'd see Chocolatesuze, Ramenraff or maybe i-Fat around, I'd always freak out like a little fangirl but always be too shy to strike up a conversation with any of them. I admired and respected them so much for their courage to speak their minds and share their love and fascination for the wonderful food scene of Sydney. We started our blog as a joint side project with the intention of expressing our mutual love for food and sharing our many food related adventures and each day, I'm thankful for the encouragement we got to take the step that we did. This year, when we got our invitation to come along to this year's Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2015...you would not believe how happy and excited we were!

I'd spent the whole night and the morning after preparing my dish. I wasn't gonna let this one opportunity pass me by as I felt I just had to make something super impressive. What made things even more stressful was the fact that after the move, the kitchen in the apartment was rather poorly stocked with very limited resources and even less room. What I ended up with was slider sized Chinese steam buns (inspired by Little Bao in Hong Kong) which sandwiched thick slices of beef rib that's been marinated in Saikyo miso overnight and cooked sous-vide for 1.5hrs at 72 degrees. I then chose to serve this with a bit of wild roquette and aioli. If I had prepared better and had given myself more time, I would have liked to cook the beef at a lower temp for slightly longer and it would have been better if the beef was glazed more but for the time and effort put in...I think I managed to pull off something decent.

The venue this year was Studio Neon in the middle of Redfern/Waterloo which was a fantastic place to hold the event. The chic and cooky furniture, abundant neon lighting and graffiti really helped highlight how special this event was. When we arrived, the table was already packed with delicious looking food! Along with the overwhelming amount of food were many familiar and unfamiliar faces all happily snapping away at the items on the table...at that moment, it was clear to us that we were amongst people who understood us. Once everyone had just about gotten their pictures and started mingling, ChocolateSuze smashed the smash cake and that was our signal to start digging in!

Oh hai David! The ever dapper Frosticle

Here are some of the pictures I managed to snap before all the food got demolished. In all seriousness, I actually felt really out of depth with the photography as almost everyone had a DSLR to take their pictures with and all I had was my Galaxy S6 Edge....I should really get into the practice of bringing along my DSLR again.

Part 1 of the platter set up by Angela/The Walking Advertisement.

Part 2

Part 3

Food! So much food!

Food overload: Macarons by Ramenraff, Smash cake, Rice paper rolls by Foodisourreligion and Green Tea Madeleines by Eat Your Teacup.

I'm usually not a big fan of Sagot...this though, was absolutely knockout delicious.

Spinach & Cheese Puffs by the Brunch Bandits.

El Jannah...always good in any circumstance.

Smoked Salmon Blinis

Baked Ricotta by Alanabread

Summer Berry Tiramisu in a cute jam jar by the Newlyfeds! Kindred spirits!

Brookies...half brownie/half cookies brought by Simon Food Favourites

The most delicious Lemper made by Irene's getting fat! 

And that wasn't even all the food...as some people came sometime later, there was food added to the table after (mash and mushroom sauce by whatemdid...was the first to smash that). We also played a nice game of kris kringle where the Mrs and I nabbed a great dish set for the new apartment! The Mrs and I honestly had so much fun talking and mingling with all the Sydney based foodies and bloggers. We managed to meet and make so many new friends and I managed to meet my heroes. Overall, I'd say that was a weekend well spent. Special thanks to grabyourfork and chocolatesuze for organising! the Mrs and I are definitely looking forward to attending again next year!

Shoutouts to the wonderful people we met and mingled with:

foodisourreligion, adobodownunder, whatemdid, thewalkingadvertisement, Rachfongxx, newlyfeds, maddielovesfood, Frosticle, chewyourchow, msjayemm, twohappybellies, khismosa

Lets keep in touch!

Cafe Oratnek - Redfern, NSW

It's the weekend and it's brunch time again! This time, it's me who personally made the request to go for brunch (thanks for bearing with me Mrs). News on the grapevine is that there's a fantastic new cafe located in Redfern that's serving delicious katsu sandwiches...and I'm a sucker for katsu sandos. I was also quite intrigued because I knew that it was headed by Kenny Takayama ex-head chef of bills, Darlinghurst That's how we found ourselves driving through Redfern for a Japanese fusion brunch. Upon arriving, we were lucky enough to grab one of the last two tables available before the rush came in.

We quickly ordered our coffees and shortly after, once the Mrs had decided on what she wanted, ordered our food as well. They stock Mecca coffee at Oratnek and being one of my favourite coffee roasters, I had no issues just sipping and waiting for our food to come. The Mrs however (grumpy from a busy night) was not nearly as patient. Still, kudos to her for sitting out in the barely risen sun waiting for food with me. Additional to her standard coffee, I also ordered her a detox water as compensation.

For food, the Mrs ordered the spicy pork stuffed chicken wings served with chilli jam, chips, green laver (aonori). In my opinion, the wings could have been coated a little better (I like my fried chicken with more crunchy/crispy bits) but in terms of flavour, the dish was spot on. Each bite yielded a piping hot mouthful of juicy chicken and a spicy porcine goodness. The wings are only made better when dipped into the sweet tasting chilli jam. The only issue the Mrs had was that there weren't enough wings after sharing with me.

Now...regarding my dish, I could effectively rant incessantly about it and even then I'd probably still have more to say... I was simply that impressed by it. I'd seen multiple pictures from other food-bloggers and I had wondered if it'd be a bit small for my appetite but that concern was quickly addressed when the sandwich actually arrived at the table. The portion was sized quite well and the juicy tonkatsu had an ample thickness to it. The combination of the slightly-thicker-than-standard bread and the mustard covered cabbage made for an excellent accompaniment to the delicious piece of fried pork. To me, this was heaven in a sandwich.

Overall, I'd say I had a really good time. I mean compared to most other times when I have brunch, this meal really satisfied me. The outside courtyard would make a wonderful place to sit and have a conversation in spring or summer and I can't wait to see what they bring to the menu when the season does change.