Everyday Food

Cafe Ish

I can never go past a chance to try out a highly recommended café, so despite my bad health I joined a few of my friends to have brunch at Café Ish at Surry Hills. Café Ish is a fusion Japanese café and their unique dishes incorporate elements of Japanese cuisines into Australian style dishes. I had previously heard a lot about this café and had high expectations, but I was still pleasantly surprised with their unique flavours.

Croc in the Rock - crocodile sausage, egg, shallot and organic fetta in toast with tomato relish. An exciting Aussie combo that's hearty as well as healthy. 

Veg Omelette. This omelette has spinach, sweet potato and tofu stuffing. There was too much spinach, too little sweet potato for my liking but the sweet and sour sauce was very garlicky and tangy. The tofu isn't naked but coated like agedashi tofu that absorbed the sauce well.
 

Crab omelette - karaage soft shell crab, avocado, shallot, garlic, chili, soy, ginger dressing and lime

Cafe Ish is a great little cafe I highly recommend you try.

Cafe Ish

Ph: (02)9281 1688

82 Campbell Street
Surry Hills NSW 2010

MH

Winter Vegetarian

On a cold night there is nothing better than warm comfort food, but for those who don't eat meat it can be a bit tricky. My old favourite, Vegetarian Risotto, fills the gap with its overload of vegetableas and beautiful creamy texture to create a delicious meal to drive out the Autumn chills. It's so easy to make so long as you make sure you use fresh veggies, hot stock and keep stirring regularly.

A glass of wine, some freshly shaved parmesan and perfection!

Saké Restaurant & Bar

Once in a while my friends and I love to try out new fine dining restaurants. Since we are all still poor uni students, it’s usually on special occasions. The first time we went to Saké was for my birthday a couple of years ago and wow, what an experience that was! The food, the drinks, the ambience, the service, everything was fantastic! And every time I go, I look forward to coming back again.

Saké Restaurant & Bar is a contemporary Japanese restaurant created by the sushi master Shaun Presland, located at the historic Argyle Precinct at The Rocks, and it is truly one the best restaurants I’ve ever been to. I can go on and on about how great it is, but I’m sure what your dying to see is the pictures, so enough of me rambling.

I love absolutely every dish there but here are some of the best of the best:

Tonkatsu cups- pieces of panko-fried pork belly & spring-onion bites, served in lettuce cups with mustard miso and Japanese barbecue sauce.

 Popcorn shrimp- bite-sized prawn tempura pieces tossed with creamy spicy sauce.

 Kingfish Double Crunch- kingfish, jalapeno mayo, coriander, cucumber, tempura crunch finished with sweet soy and spicy masago.

 S Expresss- scallops, spicy mayo, cucumber, seared salmon, witlof and sweet sauce.

 Kingfish Jalapeno- Hiramasa kingfish, yuzu soy, thin jalapeno slices & coriander.

 Sashimi tacos- tuna and salmon sashimi filled baby tacos with chilled tomato salsa matched with Kozaemon Junmai ‘sake shots’.

The cocktails and sake here are one of a kind and you must try some of them!

And of course, the best way to finish a meal:

Hope you try it out!

Saké Restaurant & Bar

http://www.sakerestaurant.com.au/sydney/

Tel +61 (2) 9259 5656

12 Argyle Street
The Rocks Sydney NSW 2000

MH

Food on the Run.

A bit of food on the run, takes all shapes and forms but you really can't go past a meat pie and when you are confined to the food on offer at special events, such as the recent Caravan and Camping show. The expense at these types of events can really make you think twice about whether one should take a packed lunch.
We had a very pleasant surprise at the quality of the pies on offer and went for the basic meat pie, the sauce was actually free! and at $3.50 it was better value than expected. The filling was the perfect temperature and it actually contained pieces of beef instead of mince, the flavour was spot on. So it is sometimes worth taking a chance on the humble meat pie and bypassing the "healthy" options.
Alternatively, for a quick Friday night filler, hot dogs with caramelised onion, sauce and cheese on top, melted under the grill until bubbling. Truly not for those watching their waistline but it fills the gap nicely, I will now need to take up running! LG

Noggi~~

Another obsession of mine is ice-cream. Yes, I have a very sweet tooth and my body is probably suffering from it. But! I can’t stop my cravings and I certainly cannot resist the temptation and end up giving in. So I was very excited when I heard about these frozen yogurt places. At the moment they are everywhere across Sydney but my favourite is Noggi in Macquarie Shopping Centre or at Strathfield.

Noggi offers four different flavours of frozen yogurt; original, green tea, biscotti and my favourite, pomegranate. They all have enough flavour for you to recognise the differences but it’s not too overpowering so you don’t have to be scared to move away from the original. They also have a lot of choices in toppings, from all different kinds of fruit to timtams, mini oreos and mochi.

My favourite combination, and my “usual” is pomegranate yogurt with strawberries, blueberries, and mochi. For those of you who don’t know what mochi is, it’s like small chewy rice cake.

Since their opening, Noggi has become one of my guilt-free pleasures, and whenever I’m in the area, which is pretty much all the time since its 2mins from our uni, I can’t go past it without having one.

Thank goodness its 98% fat free right?

Find Noggi at:

K411 Macquarie Shopping centre, 

Macquarie Park, NSW 2111

2/2 Albert Rd,

Strathfield, NSW 2135

MH

Restaurant Break Food 2

Break time again, and eager for what was going to come out, and surprisingly it was one of china's most eaten, maybe most healthy, and most simple food, congee.

Like western porridge, chinese use congee for sick people since its mainly water and rice with toppings, and is very tasteless by itself, although adding in meat, fried bread sticks, ginger, and many other ingredients to boil along with it, the congee brings out a very fragrant and healthy dish which everyone is able to enjoy sick or healthy. And i was especially enjoying it!

ST