Eataly New York

I know! More New York posts! Really? Yes, I have been rather slow with my travel posts and I had decided to scatter them across the months rather than put up post after post of NYC! Sorry to those who would be 'so over' my New York trip by now.

The famous "Flatiron" building just outside Eataly

This post is about the time I spent at Eataly in Dec last year. It was not my first time, admittedly I did give it a whirlwind visit in June 2013 but this time I made an effort to spend a couple of hours here.

And for that, I saw aisles of dried pasta, pasta sauces, fresh pasta, recipe books, chocolates, Italian sweets, salami, prosciutto, and a whole host of Italian small goods, both packaged and freshly served off the counter. Oh and there was cheese, desserts and heaps of Italian bottled drinks. Need I go on?

LuMi Bar and Dining (Pyrmont, Sydney)

LuMi has been on my list since the first time I saw their food pics on Instagram back in Oct 2014. So far all I have read about the food has been positive reviews and I couldn't wait to dine there. Again it was for another good friend's birthday catch up but why not, eh? :)


This time it was for lunch on a Saturday and we were lucky the weather was in good form.

What a view from the restaurant!

Normally on Saturdays for lunch, there is the a la carte option or a 4 course degustation. However their website did say we could request for the 8 course degustation as long as we gave ample notice. I did! :)

We started with a tasting platter of Cheese tartlet and corn, Rice crisps with salt and vinegar, Cos lettuce with pistachio and horseradish, Potato and Rosemary Focaccia. The rice crisp was paper thin and almost melting in my mouth. And the focaccia was light and fluffy and superb!



And the Chawanmushi certainly played tricks on my mind. The dish looked Japanese but was full of Italian flavours with every mouthful. There was parmesan in the custard, tomato water with basil on top. Loved it!

White cucumber with apple and sour cream. Lovely presentation, clean flavours, crunchy textures and very summery in image and flavours.

Veal Tartare with tarragon, emulsion, roasted capsicum and buckwheat - I completely forgot to take a picture of this delightful dish! Aaargh! :( I loved the crunchy texture of the puffed buckwheat which offset so well against the smooth veal.

Spelt Ravioli with burnt butter, pumpkin, avruga, and chives. Their signature which didn't disappoint. I really liked the visual beauty of the ravioli. 

Spaghetti Alla Chitarra, with Orange beurre blanc, scampi and bottarga - the squid ink pasta was nicely al dente and I could taste bites of the sweet tasting scampi.

The Lemon Tree (Sydney CBD)

The Lemon Tree is conveniently located right under Australia Square, smack in the city centre. As a matter of fact it is walking distance from Wynyard station and I had the opportunity to check it out over two visits.

I like the look of the little restaurant, it had an alfresco feel to it and certainly reminded me of the southern part of Italy. Which is exactly what was intended. The cuisine is intended to reflect the southern part of Italy and the decor of white chairs, tables and an open air atmosphere certainly does add to the vibe.

On my first visit it was lunch time and we arrived just after noon and managed to grab a table at the bar side, i.e. high chairs with a high table. The menu is quite limited and kept deliberately simple.

There is the Bar section with dishes such as Rock Oysters, and Sicilian Olives. Primi Plati which is pasta dishes, Contorni (side dishes) such as salads and fries. And obviously there is Dolci for desserts.

For lunch we had:

Spaghetti E Vongole - this was my dish and I liked the light touch of olive oil, parsley, and fresh chilli to the al dente pasta. The Vongole was nicely cooked but the meat from the clams was a little small for my liking.

Lasagne Di Carne - this was a tasty dish, it reminded me of a home cooked lasagne. It was not overly robust but definitely tasty.

For dessert we couldn't resist the Lemon Tart. It was sublimely rich in the lemon flavour, tangy yet sweet and super smooth. Delicious! Sorry about the quality of the photo, it got cloudy and I wasn't lucky with my timing of the photo.

Bar Surry Hills and Italian Kitchen (Surry Hills, Sydney)

The story of how we came to be here is quite amusing. I hope my regular visitors will bear with me while I regale you with this snippet. My friends and I had been planning this catch up for a while now and we had decided on lunching at Tapavino.

But we had arranged this quite a while ago and Tapavino's website at that time did indicate it was open on Saturdays. Lo and behold, around 10 pm the night before the catch up, for some reason I was compelled to check the website and realised to my horror Tapavino was no longer open on the weekends! Aargh!

After some scrambling of text messages and some quick googling, I decided on checking out Bar Surry Hills and Italian Kitchen which recently launched a revamped refurbishment and menu.

At around 12.30 pm on a Saturday, I was the first to walk in and it felt quite strange to be the first one on the premise. But over the next few hours, it started to have more and more people coming in. Phew!

We chatted and chilled over drinks and some delicious food. I was very surprised at how good the food turned out.

Garlic Parmesan Crust - talk about super crusty. My friends said it was delicious! They finished the lot so that says something!

Salumi Misti Board of prosciutto, sopressa, mortadella with hand made grissini, Sicilian olives, grana and extra virgin olive oil. I shared with this my friend MA and we both loved the board. I even got to see the salumi being thinly shaved by the young cook. Loved the grissini and the salumi were so thinly sliced the shavings were practically melting in my mouth. More please!

Bianco Pizza which was a potato, rosemary, mozzarella, and garlic pizza drizzled with truffle oil. I did not expect the pizza to be as thin as it turned out. It was wonderfully crusty and the potatoes were thinly sliced yet had a nice bite. Yum!

Pendolino (Sydney CBD)

Pendolino is an Italian restaurant located in the historical and iconic Strand Arcade. I absolutely love walking through the Strand and browsing the shops. And when I have some additional time, I like browsing the 1st and 2nd floors of the retail shops.

But in all these years I have yet to dine at Pendolino. It was time to meet up with my friend SH and celebrate her upcoming birthday. Silly me forgot to bring her presents so that means I will have to mail them, wont't I? Duh!!

It was the first time I went to the Strand after hours and I was surprised at how everything was gated right at the start of the arcade. I couldn't browse around even though I was 15 minutes early for the dinner.

So I took the lifts and when I exited I was literally stepping into the restaurant. It was unexpected and it threw me a little.

The lightning was low, which to me means dark! Terrible for trying to take photos but great if you are here for a romantic dinner. Lol! They even brought out a mini lamp for diners to read the menu and they take the lamp away once the orders are placed. I was so tempted to ask for the lamp to stay on the table.

We had:

Three types of olive oil served with some delicious bread. I liked that they labelled each of the oil so we knew what we were tasting. There was the fruity olive oil, lemon infused, and blood orange. My favourite was the lemon infused. SH preferred the blood orange. And I really enjoyed the walnut bread.

Entree of Carpaccio Di Manzo All'Abese - free range raw beef carpaccio with truffled white walnut purée, Testun di Barolo cheese, rocket cress, wild baby olives and handmade rosemary grissini.

Entree of Burrata Con Insalata Di Rape Rosse - warm beetroot and red radish salad with burrata, crisp breadcrumbs, Cabernet vinegar, and Ligurian honey dressing.

I was thoroughly enjoying my entree. The burrata was lusciously creamy and the beetroot was sweet and perfectly cooked. The crisp breadcrumbs provided the much needed crunchiness to the lovely salad.

SH finished her dish up and her verdict was the carpaccio was delicious! Enough said!

Dinner at Via Napoli Pizzeria ( Lane Cove, Sydney)

What a night to pick for dining out!! It was wet, cold and windy but my friends and I still met up.

It was bucketing!

I had been itching to check out Via Napoli for a while now. Even since I heard about their metre long pizzas! On top of that after seeing thesuzchef's IG photos of their pizza earlier this year, I was salivating. And to add more salt to the wound, the recent Time Out magazine's special on pizzas voted Via Napoli as the number pizza place in Sydney.

That was it! I had to go check it out!!!! The blah weather was an absolute dampener but not enough to deter me.

I couldn't believe how popular the place was. Packed to the rafters! So much so we were relegated to the back of the building. An annex that was only accessible outdoors. Out came the umbrellas!

Our meal consisted of shared plates of:

Prosciutto E Bufala - Prosciutto Parma with Buffalo Mozzarella. I had been eyeballing this dish since I perused their menu a few days ago and it was delicious. The mozzarella was so fresh and had a great texture and the prosciutto was full of flavour. I have yet to find a local prosciutto that can match to those I had in Italy but this one was pretty good!

Grilled prawns with rocket salad. This was one of the specials of the day and the prawns were beautifully cooked. They were succulent and had a lovely smoky taste from the grill. More please!!

Mediterranean Marsfield Restaurant

I have been to this restaurant many a times over the years and it always gave me the impression of being consistent in its flavours and authentic dishes. Plus there was always this image of it being packed with diners and very popular with the locals in the area.

So when I was told at quite the last minute of a change of plans from lunch to dinner by my friend, I had to quickly search for a suitable restaurant located in the area. Fortunately I was able to get a booking here.

Having not been here for a while, I noticed the colour of the restaurant signage had been brightened up and it has a slightly different name but the menu is pretty much the same. But I am not complaining, just noting how some things stay constant, which is a nice thing sometimes.

We decided to go for the daily specials and also had some bruschetta to start off our meal. One thing that put me off but was out of my control was the lighting. The red lights distorted all my photos! Aargh! Frustration but not enough to put off my enjoyment of my meal! :-) So, apologies in advance for the not so nice colour of my pics!

I had the Pasta D'Olio which had octopus, scallops, eggplant, roasted capsicum, English spinach and fettuccine tossed through with olive oil and chilli sauce.

My friend decided for a meaty dish and ordered the Rack of lamb with ratatouille and red wine fig jus.

We thoroughly enjoyed our dishes as we spent the evening catching up with each other's lives.

The Brooklyn Bridge and Pizza at Grimaldi's (New York City)

I have mentioned before about my mental to do list (as one would say a bucket list) that I occasionally get a chance to scratch an item off. During my recent trip to New York, I managed to scratch quite a few off my list and my walk across the Brooklyn Bridge was another scratch off!!!

It was another warm and sunny morning when we walked across the bridge. It was also high in humidity and we were sweating profusely as we slowly walked the bridge busily taking photos of Brooklyn and also of Manhattan.

Photo courtesy of Sami Lukis

There were parts of the bridge that was undergoing repairs which accounted for some sections being covered by construction walls and ropes. But that didn't bother me, I just wanted to soak it all in. I was really walking across this iconic bridge! Across some parts of the bridge I could see little locks along the metallic chains. Fascinating.

Photo courtesy of Sami Lukis

As we arrived at the other end and we were in Brooklyn itself we took a quick stroll around and ended up in the park next to bridge. It was a lovely park designed for families. There were mothers with their children playing in a cordoned off area. There was a little alcove where we could take pictures of the bridge from the Brooklyn end.