use real butter

Some backtracking required here. I never got around to the last day I spent in Sydney with Kell, Jerad, and eventually, Mr. Jeremy.

Jerad and Kell’s weekly routine includes a trip to Paddy’s Market for incredible fresh produce. It’s like the Pasadena Farmer’s Market on steroids and indoors. I literally could have sat down and cried in the middle of all those beautiful fruits, vegetables, and herbs. While they shopped about for the best prices, someone like me would have paid double the asking price for food I cannot even get my hands on in Colorado.

i’ll buy all of these mangoes please, and two of the plums

We paused at Oporto’s for a quick lunch and my first introduction to Sydney’s best fast food joint. Surprisingly, Jeremy had raved about this place after his last visit to Sydney. It’s all very good, but the spicy sauce makes the whole thing. The sauce - the sauce!

i could have reconstructed kell’s dental structure had she not polished off the rest

this special sauce kicks a big mac squarely in the balls

The next big treat was the fish market where the use of the terms shock and awe really does apply. Again, several vendors displaying all manner of fishes, shellfish, crustaceans, cephalopods… whole, cut, on ice, live, in tanks, sashimi’d, cooked, with side of tartare. Jerad and Kell picked up some shrimp and balmain bugs for a pre-dinner snack. They did this just so Jeremy could try a bug!

hello lovelies

After some downtime back at Chalmers St. during a much-needed rainstorm, we went to pluck Jeremy from the airport curb and return to the flat for a treat and chat. Kell set out a fabulous spread of cold seafood, cornichons and pearl onions, cocktail sauce, and her homemade lemon cordial with soda water.

kell = maestra

poly is such a lover

Dinner that night was at Restaurant Balzac (named for the writer) where Jerad worked before his current stint at Manta. I’m sure my dining tour of Sydney has been totally skewed by the fact that I was in the company of a chef who knows just about every other chef in town. The four of us opted for degustation (chef’s tasting menu) and one member of each pair ordered the wine pairings. Service was impeccable and the food was sheer indulgence. The lighting was dark and I didn’t want to use flash, so the images were blurry because a woman on the verge of food coma cannot be expected to hold a camera steady for a nearly 1 second exposure. My memory is shaky too, so Kell - please correct or add info that I may have left off.

fennel volute and seared scallop

crawfish and pressed chicken

lobster ravioli

ocean trout, calamari, and vegetables

rabbit lasagne with rabbit tenderloin and offal

beef (tenderloin? ribeye?) on spinach with marrow

the ultra special complimentary cheese plate that jerad almost died trying to finish

strawberry mess (meringue, whipped cream, macerated strawberries)

chocolate volcano with guinness ice cream

The missing plate in the above images is the venison tenderloin (the option to the beef, but they split it between each pair) and yes, that was awesome too. I don’t need to emphasize how incredible the entire experience was - all four hours of it! I find it curious that I had never tried (was willing to pay for) degustation in my life until the first of the month for our ten year anniversary at the Flagstaff House. Then I suddenly had two more within the same month! Yes, I do count Jerad’s treat at Manta as degustation because 1) it was delicious 2) it was the chef’s tasting menu and 3) I felt like I was going to die by the 5th plate. The dinner at Balzac was extra special though, because it was with our friends who actually love and appreciate food more than we do! This was our treat for them (but also such a treat for ourselves). Honestly, we could not thank Kell and Jerad enough for their hospitality and kindness.

Needless to say, our dining experiences in New Zealand fell far short of anything Sydney had to offer.

Trip theme: Delicious Australia, Beautiful New Zealand.

We left Dunedin 36 hours ago. After barely making our international connection in Auckland (yes, stupidity knows no barriers in the airline industry) everything else went over without a snag and now we are home.

Feels great! It was snowing in Denver and a cool 32F (0C) - so there is still more winter to be had. And I thought we were going to miss it all… As is now tradition for me and New Zealand, I caught a cold after spending that night in the cold, damp, fog in the Catlins. Of course, I didn’t let that stop me from going kayaking the following day and freezing my patootie off that afternoon which added nicely to the congestion. But wait - there’s MORE! With my cold in full swing, we did complete the Rakiura Track the next day, although it wasn’t a record breaker… just 34 km (21+ miles) in the damp, cold, and sometimes clouds. I wasn’t liking that hike toward the end, but that’s fun #2 for ya.

I only shot about 600 photos on this trip. Those long death marches seem to kill the shutter bug toward the latter half of the day. And our weather was almost 100% cooperative (i.e. not pissing rain) this time! Certainly, there wasn’t much to shoot in the way of the food which was really disappointing. And I don’t say that just because we (I) were (was) fed like kings (queen?) in Sydney thanks to Kell and Jerad. I think the places we tend to gravitate to… the sticks… just don’t have much of interest to offer culinarily. Auckland had some good fare, as did city center in Christchurch. Maybe next time we’ll have to venture the way of Wellington and wine country - but that’s not our thing. Cities are not our thing. Having said that, I think Sydney is by far my favorite city in the world. It’s clean, ped and public transport friendly, lively, international, green, breezy, delicious, and very pretty.

More ponderings later. For now, some photos to highlight our activities in New Zealand over the last 12 days…

day 2: jeremy atop avalanche peak

day 3: kayaking okarito lagoon on the west coast

day 4: jeremy digs into a mashie top beef pie on the shores of lake wanaka

day 5: first day of the kepler track

day 7: fish and chips takeaway after completing the kepler

day 7: nugget point at sunset in the fog

day 8: from florence hill, a local in the catlins

day 8: at mcclean falls

day 8: jeremy enters the cathedral caves from the beach

day 9: a weka investigates our kayak on ulva island

day 10: one of several coves from the rakiura track

day 11: a yellow-eyed penguin on the otago peninsula

day 12: the moeraki boulders

Jerad served up a terrific breakfast yesterday morning. It included American style bacon that he made from scratch. Actually, there were two types: maple and pepper. Both were delicious.

jerad’s homemade bacon

brekkie with jerad and kell

perfect in every way

eddie becomes crazy for smoked meats

After brekkie, we set out for the zoo, quickly catching a couple of museums along the way (the barracks and the nsw museum of art) and strolling through the botanical gardens. It was particularly warm and sunny.

flying foxes at the botanical gardens - this one special bat was white!

opera house from the ferry

The zoo was hot… but the animals were so cool! I really love the native Australian critters because they’re so different from what I grew up with - so isolated in an evolutionary sense. The reptiles and nocturnals were tough to photograph and it was far more fun trying to spot them in their habitats.

furry koala

baby wallaby

echidna

It began to cloud over and we stopped for a brilliant bird show before catching the ferry back. We returned to Kell and Jerad’s place for a rest and nosh. Jerad got me hooked on this documentary “heat in the kitchen” which tracks three Sydney restaurants and how they go about dealing with the review system (critics). Riveting and brutal. We dashed out for a spectacular dinner at Fish Face where a former co-worker of Jerad’s is a chef and brought us some freaking delectable plates in addition to our orders of sashimi and fish and chips. Sydney’s food scene is nuts. After the meal, we moseyed about Sydney at Night and yammered away about plans, ideas, life… only to return to the flat and finish the documentary series! We’ll be dining at one of the restaurants in the documentary tonight!!!