AGWA Yacht Club boat party & dinner/ singing at Mizuya

Idea: spend all day on a boat soaking up good music, then have a Japanese eating and Karaoke fest

It was sunny. It was hot. There was a nice slight breeze out on the water. I made sure to get enough sleep the night before. Yup, I was ready to board the AGWA Yacht Club boat. The MARTIN BUTTRICH JAZZANOVA AGWA YACHT CLUB 008 to be precise. Not much can beat a day out in the sun, dancing, soaking up some good music, all with amazing views of the harbour. For some reason, every time I go one one of these boat parties (this was my third one), we all suddenly turn into tourists, "look bridge, we're going under THE bridge!" "Such a beautiful city to live in" etc. etc. You can't flaw the view, especially when the sun sets over the harbour. The vibe was right, the crowd was the perfect crowd, no Big Day Out boofheads on board with racist tattoos, or girls in skimpy bikinis and not much else. It was also, might I add, quite a good looking crowd. Hmm...

We stayed on the upper deck for almost the whole time (it went from 2-8pm). There were good djs up there, and the views were amazing. Our VIP wristbands also helped us to skip the lines to get up there. The maximum capacity rule on the top deck is always quite annoying, as the toilets are on the lower two levels. But rules are rules.

The Burger Phone made another appearance, the AGWA Slushy cocktail was by far the best and we all had leafy leis. We only checked out the lower level on the way out, which is where the main acts were. But I had to keep an eye on the time. I had one of my besties birthday parties to get to, and I didn't want to be too late. I passed the Town Hall on my way, which was all lit up pwerty for Christmas.

 

I made my way from the King Street Wharf to Mizuya Japanese Restaurant on George Street. It's one of the largest Izakaya style restaurants in Australia. Now, Mizuya is one of those places that my Japanese food obsessed friends and I go to all the time. This is for 3 main reasons. 1: they have touch screens, which are fun and make your food magically appear on your table before you know it. It's also a little easy to get carried away with, but in a good way. 2: The booth tables. And 3: the chili and garlic edamame. It is AMAZING! Everyone has to try it. Even if you go to Mizuya just for some Japanese beer and the edamame, it's a must. (Sorry, we ate it far too fast for a photo!)

I'm not sure if I can remember everything that we ordered, so here's what I remember. (We did have the entire table covered in food the whole time as we stuffed our faces). We had tofu agedashi, which was cooked to perfection, with just a nice light batter. We tried out some things from the kushiage section of the menu. This pretty much means deep fried. We chose the deep fried camambert. Good in small doses. But it must be lethal if you have too much. Instant heart attack. So bad, but so good at the same time. The gyoza are also up there on my list of favourites, with a really nice touch of ginger in them.

We had some noodles, which were a bit too greasy for my liking that had chicken and vegetables I think in it. But it really wasn't that memorable. The salmon sahimi was however, very tasty and fresh.

The cocktails unfortunately weren't my type of cocktails. They were all very sweet, especially the Love Hotel, which I just had to try about because of it's name. I think I'll stick to Japanese beer next time. Unless you're a teenage girl, you're probably not going to like the cocktails I'm afraid.

We also did the Shabu Shabu thing, and unlike Ju Ju's, the water wasn't vinegary, which was a relief. We cooked udon noodles, veggies and beef in it and we all ate as much as we could, until we thought that we might explode.

Being suitable stuffed, we decided it was time for Karaoke! This Karaoke is in a seperate room, so that you can have full privacy to belt out whatever your heart desires (that your friends allow). You can also order drinks and food in your karaoke room, doing dinner in the restaurant, or in the karaoke room. We decided to try out both that night. I would recommend booking if you're interesting in doing karaoke on a Friday or Saturday night, as it gets extremely busy in there.You can search for songs via the title of the song or the name of the artist in your room. And although I wasn't programming them in, it's one of the few karaoke places I've been to in Sydney where we didn't spend the whole night trying to work out how to program a song. We were able to start cranking out New York New York by Alicia Keys, quite a few ballads and some song by the Backstreet Boys (see below images...) Yes, we went there! Backsteet Boys.

After our night there, I would recommend Mizuya. Just don't bother with going to their website, it's kind of just a pdf. Either ring, or just turn up for dinner. We had so much fun singing and eating, even if we all pretty much lost our voices and the cocktails weren't the best. Also I love the random horse lamp. Next up for the night, I was off to a party in Newtown. I know, big night!