Sunday, January 10, 2010

Eating our way across Sydney part 2

On Day 2, we decided visit to Balmain to visit somewhere that may have been popular before, but apparently became huge following the Masterchef phenomenon - the Adriano Zumbo patisserie for macarons (oh, and the cafe for lunch).

We took a ferry to get there.

Lydia enjoying the ferry ride sans seasickness.

Going under bridge.

Leaving the Opera House behinds in our ferry wake

View of the bridge from Balmain East ferry stop.
I can't remember the name of the park.

Because the ferry we took stopped at East Balmain and not Balmain Balmain, we had to take a hike up the Darling St. hill to get to the main strip of Darling St. where all the shops were. This is where our second motto of the trip (after Je ne veux pas travailler) comes in - oh! To be young and fit! - as we powered up that hill. By the time we got to the main strip, it was only 12:15pm or so and neither of us were hungry. We thus decided to look at the shops which is how we ended up buying a pair of shoes each and I got another dress to boot.

For lunch we had the quiche of the day - chorizo and Potato, which we both felt was slightly false advertising because we got hardly any chorizo, followed by some of those famous macarons.

Some of the macarons.

So what did I think? Well, the top of the meringue were crusty and the flavour was fullsome...but I felt the inside of the meringue bits and fillings were too soft. At one point I went to lift a macaron out of the box only to have the crust bit detach from the rest of it - quelle horreur! I prefer them to be a bit chewy, these fell apart in my mouth. Lydia didn't have a problem with it, but not how I prefer macarons to be.

For dinner on day 2, we had ramen. Regular readers may know that when I eat ramen in Sydney, I usually go to Menya. However, I had disturbing news (from Lymbo) that since they have decided to expand, Menya is no longer the awesomeness that it used to be. As a result, ramen dinner was instead at Ramen Kan based on the review in the link. I find it difficult to judge Ramen Kan on whether it was superior or inferior in terms of the ramen quality. It had a good soup base which we both commented on, but part of the power of Menya was the freshness of the noodle. To determine superiority, I would have to eat a bowl from each place in quick succession. Alas, I was unable to do so.

2 comments:

KH said...

You must go back to Menya and report back!

mallymoodle said...

I think I'll need another opinion to come with me!