'Stralia Day at The Rocks

Idea: Celebrate Australia Day at The Rocks

Today was hot. Very hot. The kind of hot that makes you feel like you're melting. We headed to Cruise Bar first and after being told that they weren't doing any jugs or cocktails as they would "make us drunk" (um.. hello - it's Australia Day... I'm pretty sure that people were drunk by the time the pubs opened and it was 2pm) we ordered some Pimms and Lemonade.

Some random dude in my shot...

We watched Cuthbert and the Nightwalkers from the Rock Stage from our spot at Cruise Bar. But eventually we had to retreat to shade. We strolled up Argyle Street past all the people to The Argyle. Since I've been there last the Argyle has had a make over. A Gazebo - style make over. However, it doesn't quite work. Yes, it's an improvement from the old large booth style seating arrangements. The problem is that it's trying too hard. In the dining area, what is now called Argyle Bazar is like that nerdy little kid at school trying so desperately hard to be cool, but totally missing the point.

Menu

The ugly light shade above our table. Tacky much?

View of the bar section from our table

Passion Sangria

Trying to work out how to pour the sangria with some much fruit jammed into it. We try using a fork, a knife...

Got there in the end!

Sher Wagyu Roast Beef Tortilla $14

Char-grilled Tortilla layered with rare roast beef, horseradish,
capsicum, lemon juice & fried capers

Valencian Bread Salad  $14.  A colourful mix of capsicum, Roma tomatoes, croutons, pine nuts 
& herbs, dressed with balsamic & olive oil

Patatas Bravas $11. Crispy potatoes, served with chilli aioli. To the left: Albóndigas $17, Sher Wagyu meatballs, served with warm tomato relish

The ever elusive water. You may have to ask more than 4 times for this.

I didn't like the new stylings overall. A bit too tacky and not enough kitsch to be cool. The service, or what service should I ask? Was all over the place. Despite being Australia Day, the Argyle Bazar was not packed. We had to repeatedly ask for water and ended up getting some well after all meals had been eaten. All meals were average and too expensive for what they were. The "wagyu" meatballs were bland, the kind of thing you would whip up at home in a minute from cheap mince. The tomato sauce was too thin and no spoon - like implement was given in order to get the sauce. The patatas bravas were average, especially after the amazing ones we had in Jah Bar a few weeks ago. They weren't crispy and tasted like they had been cooked hours ago.

The Valencian Bread Salad was fine. The Sher Wagyu Roast Beef Tortilla tasted like rare roast beef on cold thin crust pizza with a few capers added for decoration. Overall I was extremely "whelmed" as Miss B would say. The Boy also had an air conditioner drip on his head, into his food and in his beer, not a happy chappy. This isn't acceptable even in a dodgy pub.

My recommendations would be to fire all of the staff and start all over again. I asked a man working there clearing plates if we needed to wait to be seated or not, and he looked confused and told me that he didn't know. Unless he clears plates as a hobby, he certainly worked there. Then we waited to try to get someone's attention. Finally, we were told to wait and a table would be set for us. This took some time. I haven't had this bad service for a long time. Next recommendation: get rid of the hideous lamps. Add a bit of character, rather than bland mass produced "attempting to be funky" stuff. And my final recommendation: use jugs that you can pour drinks out of for sangria. Oh, and one more. Improve the food and the prices. That's all for now. Yes, this is one harsh review, but come on! Up your game. There's just too many great options these days in Sydney to be so sloppy.

We decided to have a bit more picnic rug on the grass time, stopping to grab a hot corn on a cob. We were still hungry after our few mouth fulls of "tapas," read: poor excuse to serve pricey small dishes so we got some more food including kababs on sticks and gyoza from the Rocks markets. We watched some more bands then headed home on the ferry enthusiastically waving our free Aussie flags. Good work Angus and Julia Stone for no. 1 in the Triple J Hottest 100! Happy Australia Day everyone! I hope you all had a fab day!

Get your name up in lights - Sydney Festival

Idea: Get your name up in lights!

With a tag line like "For the 23rd Kaldor Public Art Project, US artist John Baldessari is giving more than 100,000 people the opportunity for their name to appear in lights on the side of the Australian Museum. Will you be one of them?" Who could resist? I couldn't! I got my name up in lights! My time was 6.50pm tonight!

So it's official people - I'm famous! And anyone else can be too (so long as you get in on time!) It's quite an interesting experience to see your name up in lights, but more than anything, it's all a bit of fun and another bit of the Sydney Festival to engage in.

Pub lunch, Wildfire, followed by a dash of Smoke & Mirrors

 Idea: A day of eating and playing

The boy met me at work today and we were in the mood for a pub lunch. I ordered what I always do at the Hero of Waterloo: Lambshanks and the Boy ordered the Bangers and Mash. Good proper pub food. It's not the cheapest, due to location: The Rocks, but it's good tasty, hearty fare. The lamb always melts off the bone, the gravy is thick, salty and goes perfectly with green beans and mash. Apart from a random, appetising, sad looking bit of tomato of the Boy's, his meal is exactly the sort of pub food that we were craving.

A Wildfire style Wagyu flat iron steak 200g, burnt eggplant, variations on onion, aerated potato ‘veloute', rosemary and oxtail jus and a glass of Stoneleigh Pinot Noir wine for $30. Yes Please. I love these Fast Festival Feasts and have tried to go to as many as possible during Sydney Festival this January.

I've been meaning to go to Wildfire for ages now and thought that this would be the perfect chance. I know that in the past, Wildfire's reputation for rude staff has gotten the better of it, but on our visit the service wasn't bad at all. Although, there was a minimum level of service required for us seeing as we had one meal on our menu: wagyu, which they didn't even ask how we wanted it cooked. The meat was tender, the aerated potato veloute was essentially pureed potato and cream, which was an interesting take on the idea of potato mash being served with steak. The rosemary and oxtail jus had depth and theingredients complimented each other nicely.

Wagyu flat iron steak 200g, burnt eggplant, variations on onion, aerated potato ‘veloute', rosemary and oxtail jus.

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Quite a few of the sides looked like they were worth trying and we settled on a crunchy spinach side of some kind (that doesn't appear to be on their online menu). It was crunchy and refreshing. The views were of course to die for and the Boy and I were both happy with our Wildfire experience.

Next up, we were off to see Smoke and Mirrors:

Having a nice cold bottle of white wine

In the Festival Garden - it was very packed by the time the sun dipped down.

We needed another quick bite to eat so the Boy got a Chilli Dog, which he said was satisfactory.

I got some dumplings, which were fab!

Walking through the faux vineyard

Time for Smoke and Mirrors to begin!

The strong men were my favourite act

If it wasn't sold out already, I would highly recommend going to see Smoke and Mirrors. So instead I'll say that it deserved its many awards and try to get tickets next year! What a great night!

A beachy weekend involving a crab named Craig and a game of cricket

Idea: Head to a beach house with some friends and a good ol' game of cricket

I think that there's nothing better than having a bunch of friends, a beach house, hot weather and some bbqing action! Oh - and did I mention the crab?

The beaches up around Hardy's Bay are beautiful and there's great spots for kayaking, fishing and more, and it's just over the water form Palm Beach. One of our crew even caught a crab. With a hand line. That's skill! We named him Craig and then debated over the most humane way of um... well... you know... "preparing him for our plates." We put him in the freezer, then into a pot for 10 minutes. Much to our horror, he started blinking at us as he defrosted before we put him into the water! Yes, there were girly squeals, there were calls of "stop punching yourself Craig" and lots of "we're so sorry Craig, really sorry."

Craig the blue swimmer crab turned bright orange the second he hit the water. And he tasted delicious! So fresh and lots of white meat. We decided not to serve him with any flavours, so as to not spoil the flavour. And yes, we played with the claw... It was too hard to resist. Poor Craig!

Then next day, the Boy and I were off to the cricket. My first game! It was Australia vs England. I'm Australian. He's... wait for it... English. There was some friendly rivalry going on there. I'm not a fan at all of watching sport, especially not cricket on tv. But, I have a confession to make. Going to the cricket is fun. There's drunk bogans acting up. Irish "angry elves" sitting next to me wanting to fight the Aussie bogans in the front. Evictions from the crowd. You have to get lots of beer. I suggest bringing a picnic in your bag (we did!) There's games with empty beer cups, blow up balls and kangaroos (just watch out that the fun police don't nab them). Yup, I've been converted!

Except for getting a little bit sunburnt, it was an amazing weekend of fun in the sun! Oh, and did I mention that Australia won the game? Because we did!

Learning to Fly 101 & a Camden Pub lunch

Idea: Learn to fly!

One of my birthday presents was learning to fly. There are quite a few different companies that you can do this with. You'll find that most of them go from Camden Airport, as it's little plane heaven. They go through a quick run through of the controls and such and then all of a sudden it's takeoff.

Going through low clouds

More clouds

I have to say, that there's no other experience quite like flying a plane. Once the instructor hands the controls of the plane over, it's all you. Making sure that you're pumping on the pedals correctly as well as your "joystick," not pointing the nose of the plane up too high or heading for the ground is something that takes your brain a few minutes to work out. I got to do sharp turning of corners and took the plane in almost to land (the instructor took over at the last minute!

The ball is almost in the middle between left and right!

Don't touch that!

Sydney's water supply

Coming in to land

The plane

I've done paragliding, parasailing, sky diving (all of which I also recommend), but learning to fly, or I guess, learning to do any of these that require skill, is something not to be missed. At it to your list to things to try! Afterwards, we were quite hungry, so that boy and I decided to drive a few minutes to the centre of Camden town. It's got a cute, small town vibe, with one main road down the middle. There were a few pubs and we decided on trying out the Argyle. Camden seemed like the right place to try a good proper Aussie pub lunch. The boy ordered the Argyle beef burger, which had a succulent homemade patty of beef and all the works. It was tasty, it had lashings of rocket, tomato, beetroot and more and filled up the boy's stomach.

The argyle beef burger

I went with the Thai Beef Salad and was pleasantly surprised. Often salads in these style of pubs are a sad mess of wilted greens with the odd tomato thrown in. Mine had a zingy Thai-style sauce, loads of fresh mint, crunchy fried noodles and perfectly medium-rare slices of beef on top. The greens were fresh and I ate every last scrap of this in my bowl.

Thai beef salad

We had a good experience of a pub in a cute little town, still within Sydney. Best of all, the Argyle had air conditioning, as it was amazingly hot on Saturday! The pokey section of the pub, which you had to walk past to get to the bistro section smelt quite horrible, but once located in the bistro section, the smell disappeared. Yes, my view outside the window was of the carpark, but this pub was exactly what we ere in the mood for to fill our stomachs for a very late lunch. A day of flying, followed by a good lunch.