We met up with our foodie friends and chatted about all of the yummy cuisines we would be indulging in over the next few days!
First stop: Yum Cha for lunch in Chinatown. We indulged in beautifully-presented meals that are traditional in Chinese culture at Nine Dragon’s Restaurant; some of us even tried chicken feet and beef tripe – When in Chinatown..! However, dumplings, spring rolls, pork buns, prawn toast and duck to name a few were also our groups favourites. The fun had just begun with lots and lots of laughs!
After lunch, we went for a walk around Darling Harbour then ventured to our apartments to unpack our bags, get settled in and get ready for a fun night ahead.
That night, we enjoyed a Middle Eastern banquet at a very suave Lebanese restaurant, Arabella in Newtown. The atmosphere was unreal with traditional Middle Eastern music playing. We gorged ourselves on Lebanese bread with the most delicious dips, hummus, baba ghannouj, garlic labneh and chilli walnut dip. Tabbouleh, falafels, fried cauliflower, coriander potatoes, traditional shish kebab swords with chicken and lamb kofta and, of course, Lebanese desserts with traditional coffee to finish our meal off nicely. After all of our delicious treats, we went for a nice long walk through Newtown taking in the nightlife to walk off all of the food and returned back to our apartments to fall into food comas, ready for tomorrow’s shenanigans!
Today we woke and got ready for another fun and indulgent day. We ventured to the Chinese Garden of Friendship to have a look at the beautiful well-manicured gardens and koi fish, right in the middle of the city. Today for lunch, Brazilian was on the menu at Braza Churrascaria, Darling Harbour and it was our favourite kind of restaurant: all-you-can-eat. The waitstaff brought meat on enormous skewers around to the tables and cut pieces of different meats, fresh from the BBQ right onto our plates. We tried rump, flank, hump, tri tip with provolone, sirloin, lamb, pork leg, neck, ribs, belly and home-made sausage, chicken drumettes, hearts, thigh fillet, chicken with bacon, fish and prawns to name a few and all in traditional Brazilian BBQ style! Complementing all the meat, BBQ halloumi with sides of salads and salsa and to finish off, cooked pineapple with cinnamon. Everyone absolutely loved this lunch with so much variety – it did not disappoint.
After our huge lunch it was time to walk it off! We headed to Paddy’s Market for some shopping before we made our way back to our apartments for some down time before we got ready to go out for the next feast of the tour. Indulgent doesn’t begin to describe how we were feeling at this point!
Tonight, it was group choice, we all decided on Italian for dinner tonight at Fratelli Fresh Darling Harbour. Pasta was on the menu tonight followed by yummy Italian desserts with a side of gelato. Bellissimo!
After dinner, we wandered around Darling Harbour, checked out the interactive light displays, then headed back to our apartments to get ready for another massive day ahead (and to sleep off some of the delights of that day).
Today, in true Trusted Travel Foodies style, we ventured out to Marrickville Organic Food Market. We taste tested plenty of different delicious foods along the way and pottered around the antique stores next to the markets to while away some of the morning. It was raining however it didn’t stop us having a fantastic time!
For lunch, we indulged in Peruvian at Pepito’s in Marrickville. Pepito’s cuisine is a family-owned restaurant and let’s just say this little gem of a place did not disappoint our foodies with its tapas style lunch. We indulged in Ostra de Tigre oysters with pickled salsa, Ceviche Clasico snapper with corn sweet potato and chilli, mini Sanguches with crispy fish, pork belly and olive and brie, Cantina Papa Rellena (spiced beef) with olives short rib jus with rocoto aioli, Papa Rellena mushroom quinoa with salsa verde and olive aioli, Pollo a la Brasa chicken skewers with panca and salsa verde, and some of our adventurous group tried Corazon skewers (ox heart) with panda and anticuchera sauce. All of these dishes packed so much flavour and freshness and tantalised our taste buds wanting more.
This is a foodie tour after all so what did we do? We went to get more!
That night saw us take on a Viking Feast fit for kings and queens at Mjølner Redfern. We started with a ceremony of “welcome shots” in glass horns filled with lemon, lime and bitters and we chose our knives for the feast from a large leather pouch to eat in true Viking style. We started with Gravlax cured salmon seeded rye bread with radish and sour cream and roast bone marrow and whole roasted carrot tahini yoghurt, parsley and black sesame. Our mains: “Bird Rotisserie” – corn-fed chicken with parsley, sorrel red grapes, jus gras, “Beast” – Roast pork belly with cauliflower cream, crispy kale. “Fish” – whole trout with garlic chives, spring peas, soy vinaigrette with sides of baby cos lettuce, and Crispy broccoli and baby potatoes with horseradish sour cream. We finished off this feast with chocolate marrow with brandy schnapps and poached pears in berry compote. It was a feast our foodies will treasure into the next century. Everyone couldn’t stop talking on the way back to the apartment about how unforgettable this restaurant and the experience of a true Viking feast was! Some of our foodies were already talking about next time – We’ll be back, Mjølner!
Finally, we arrived at our last day, full of incredible cuisines and excited for the last leg of the tour. We packed our bags and ventured to Circular Quay for morning tea – hot chocolates and pastries at Guylian Belgian Chocolate Café were on the menu for us this morning. We then headed over to The Rocks to have a look at art galleries and specialty shops. Just before the rain set in, we had our final group lunch at Opera Kitchen, situated under the Sydney Opera House – poke bowls, pasta and salads were a few of our favourites today. It was lovely way to end our tour, overlooking Sydney Harbour.
We said our goodbyes to our new friends on the Harbour and made our way back to our departure points. Until next time!
