Quick service, decent food, great company! First time taking the GF6 out and about and pretty happy with it. Fit in my jacket pocket no worries, better in low light than the GF1 too. Read the manual today and found some pretty nifty functions to control the blurring of stuff in the background, and a few other things.
Awww Mimi. Truly going to miss this beautiful girl. She’s leaving to go and live in Japan in a weeks time!
KBBQ! SO GOOD. It’s been a while!
PS: These images are the first images to come out of my new GF6! Ive come across a few issues with it already, but will go into more detail when I get to know it a little more.
This Easter the hardcore fishing crew hired out the Berowra Waters Penthouse, a lovely spot just an hour out of the city.
I had a lazy start on Friday, then made my way at around 11am and amazingly I didn’t come up against any traffic whatsoever. I did get a little lost once I got to Berowra Waters, and before I knew it I’d driven onto a ferry!
On the ferry!
I had to do a u-turn, then get back on the ferry (it’s a free ride). I then found a park (that took a while as Berowra Waters was so damn busy!) and without phone reception I started to get a little worried, but then I spotted Stevey and the guys just about to set off on the boat.
Stevey, it’s been a while! I pretty much dumped my bags and jumped right on the boat.
Colin & Julia.
The apartment we rented is the whole top floor of the Marina.
View of the marina from the lounge room.
Straight into the red!
Nem Nuong!
Scaredy Cat!
On the big boat, which is so much faster than the small boat!
Pulled Pork! Colin’s amazing, even without Mei (who sadly couldn’t make it this weekend).
Rosetta Rolls from Haberfield, slaw, home made aioli and pulled pork. Delish!
The morning after.
COFFEE!!!
Morning view.
Zi’s scrambled eggs.
Morning tunes.
Zi, getting serious.
If you look closely you’ll see mullet everywhere.
The Marina. The smell of fish and chips is getting pretty hard to bare (but we must catch our own!).
Heading out.
Massive jelly fish everywhere.
Earlier at breakfast I brought up fishing licenses. I used to have one, and thought I’d not bother renewing it, but something made me whip out my laptop and buy a license. I took a shot of the receipt with my mobile, and an hour later on the water we had the fisheries inspectors check our licenses. Phew! :)
Julia caught this eel thing.
We went all the way out to Mooney Mooney Bridge with the small boat.
Trucks going past over the top of us on the F3.
David Chang eat your heart out! Colin’s amazing Pork-Belly Pork Bun!
Willy and Alice. Back out on the big boat but still not much luck. Willy brought up a legal sized flatty earlier in the day, but the rest of us have yet to catch anything legal and I’ve not caught a thing at all yet!
Willy Alice and Zi, calling it quits (for now).
Wagyu for dinner, so spoilt!
Supreme Coffee. PS: Happy 420!
Following this seaplane out, was pretty awesome watching them land and take off.
Soon after the above shot of the seaplane we got lucky with a bit of fishing. I finally pulled in a fish, my first was the smallest bream I’ve ever seen, then a tiny tailor, then another small brim, and my biggest fish of the day was a tailor but it wasn’t quite legal size so I had to let him back in. Julia managed to reel in 2 legal sized yellowtails though, that and she pulled in the most fish of the day!
The guys went out one last time and Gloria caught this big flatty!
So cute!
Cherry feeds standing up!
Colin had his pastrami on for hours.
Zi’s tempura yellowtail (caught by Julia) and flathead caught by Willy and Gloria. SO fresh, so good.
Accompanied by the best salad I’ve eaten all year. Couldn’t get enough of it!
Colin’s awesome pastrami!
Everyone felt like dessert, the boys had a brain storm and whipped up this awesome brad and butter pudding!
All in all it was perhaps the most challenging fishing trip we’ve been on as a group. Where were the fish?! We’re pretty sure they were there, but we just failed to find them. We ate amazingly well though thanks to Colin, and despite the fishing not being amazing the weather was. Ultimately I feel very much relaxed, and happy with the mini break.
Last night the Zen Crew checked out Red Lantern on Riley. Celebrity Master Chef and Restaurateur Luke Nguyen’s second Red Lantern restaurant (the original still running on Crown St in Surry Hills).
More specifically we spent the entire night in the Red Lily Cocktail Bar out the back of the restaurant. A small but racy space with wooden stools and a marble bar. Our bartender Ken was an amazing man and had us exchanging pot shots all night. We pretty much tried every cocktail on the menu, all of which were amazing discoveries, we also had most of the ‘bar food’ menu which was next level and had some of us saying that it was the best bar food we’ve ever had.
We got to briefly meet Head Chef Mark Jensen who’s the co-owner and brother-in-law, and his wife Pauline (Luke’s sister) ran us through every dish that came out. Amazingly Luke was also in the house as he was serving dinner to 2 lucky winners of a competition he ran where the winners were flown first class from anywhere in the world to have dinner with Luke at Red Lantern on Riley! In between keeping the winners entertained Luke came back to the bar to hang out with us more than a few times during the night (he’s a champ, as down to earth as they come, we’re all converted!).
Ved took a lot of shots. I’ll be writing up a full feature for Zen Garage soon!
Caught up with Jess today, which started out sunny, but as soon as I got to Jess’ place it was grey. Jess asked if we should bring an umbrella, to which I replied “nah!” and as soon as we parked up in Newtown it came pouring down!
Jess knows where to eat. I knew I was in for a treat and boom! Brewtown Newtown did not disappoint!
Starting to get really familiar; yet another converted/industrial/rust/wood/beams/more wood space.
I love blood sausages! Could not resist. Black sausage, hash browns, canadian bacon… was sooo good!
Jess got the quinoa salad, which was tasty.
These guys make cronuts, a croissant-doughnut hybrid. They smell amazing as they bake them upstairs and a little Asian man comes down the steps with fresh batches every few minutes. I couldn’t wait for a fresh batch of the glazed ones so I opted for the cinnamon and damn it was amazing! So soft in the middle. I’ll be back for more of these no doubt.
We then dropped in to White Rabbit Gallery.
This piece was massive in size, and when you look up close…
Amazing!
Church of BDSM! Such a substantial piece! Love how it was suspended too.
Loved this installation! Inner robot geek couldn’t help but geek out.
Jess, she’s camera shy!
Jess booked us in to Cafe Paci, which used to be the old Cafe Pacifico (previously open for 15 years). The building is about to be redeveloped (look closely at the picture you’ll spot a development proposal on the wall), so Cafe Paci is a pop-up store of sorts. Very smart that they just rubbed off a few letters!
The entire space inside has been greyed out, it’s a nice moody place to be, kinda feels like an art gallery.
Valentines Menu.
Complimentary Valentines Day Champers got our heads spinning!
‘Easter Egg’. Straight up, this dish reminded me of Marque. We were in for a treat.
Warm rye tacos were amazing. I would happily have had a full sized one!
Salt and vinegar fish skin, corn with togarishi and duck sandwich with pickled rose. Dreamy goodness!
Even the bread was amazing. Finnish style apparently, 3 days in the making and then covered with sticky yummy stuff.
Blue swimmer crab and plum, delish!
‘That’s Amore’. This was my fave dish. It was an angus tartare with dried tomato, parmesan, garlic and oregano but one spoonful and BAM, it tasted like a Spag Bol, perhaps the best I’ve ever tasted!
Oh, and if you’re wondering what my date looks like, here’s Jess, isn’t she gorgeous?! Not taking a selfie, just making sure her lens is clean!
This dish was interesting. Onions, lemon vinegar, mullet roe and hazelnut.
‘Photato’ – Yup, a deconstructed Vietnamese Pho. Amazeballs! The meat was next level. Loved it.
Looks like an egg, but it’s yoghurt with carrot sorbet in the middle and liquorice at the bottom. What a Heston-esque treat!
Malt, banana and parsley, over the top this dish. Super strange to me, but Jess loved it (and she hates Parsley!).
And finally, pop corn flavoured fairly floss (wild!) and pork and fennel petit fours. What a feast, Jess and I loved it. Food was awesome. Staff were amazing too!
Lobster and Parrot Fish!
Ronnie and Kim.
Whipping out them red packets!
38 and I’m still getting red packets lol.
Jess scored a couple of red packets and chocolate!
Enter the Lion.
Gobble gobble.
The Three Sisters – Lely, Helen and my Mum!
Hit up Mary’s in Newtown again. Cheeseburger with added bacon, so good. Double dipping fries into that mash. SO GOOD!
