Ippudo Sydney (CBD)

Yes, once again this is another place I have yet to check out until now! What is the matter with me? Well, my only defence is, there are so many places to check out in Sydney and sometimes it takes longer to get to one place. :)

Believe it or not, it has taken about 2 months of talking about Ippudo to finally actually eat there. My friend DD and I have been planning to take a lunch break there for the past 2 months but we haven't been successful in finding the right time to do this. Sheer frustration and quite laughable actually! Work gets crazy busy and sometimes there is no time for a decent lunch break.

But we did it one fine day! And to top it off, I decided to add another lunch visit to try out different things on the menu.

Ippudo Sydney as I am sure all of you in Sydney would know is located in Westfield Sydney. It opened in December 2012 and is still going strong. In the past year there has been an absolute boom for all things ramen and I believe this food empire opened in Sydney at the right time.

For lunch we decided to have their signature Ippudo pork bun which was soft, fluffy pillow-like buns filled with braised pork and the Ippudo original sauce. Their sauce is mayo based and was light and creamy. I could have popped a few of this in!

I had the Shiromaru Tamago which was the original tonkotsu broth served with thin noodles, pork loin, bean sprouts, black mushroom, flavoured egg and shallots. This is the hakata style of ramen broth.

DD had the Karaka Men Tamago which was the original tonkotsu broth, with special spicy miso, ground pork and flavoured egg.

House of Crabs (Surry Hills, Sydney)

Crabs! What can I say about crabs except that I do love eating this crustacean! I love getting my hands dirty, cracking the claws and getting into the meaty bits. Yum! And when there is great sauce, even better!!

The first time I heard about the House of Crabs was when I saw some photos on Instagram posted by Helen of Grab Your Fork sometime last year. The crabs perked my interest.

My friends and I finally managed to organise a lunch on a wet Sunday. We got there so early we had to wait outside as the venue was not even opened yet. :)

House of Crabs is located on the 1st floor of The Norfolk. As I walked up the stairs I immediately saw all the crab like decor. There was very much a chintzy, schmaltzy vibe to the place. It was long john silver, shanty like with heaps of quirky artefacts! I loved it! Something so different and blasé with its 'in your face' American South shanty feel. I don't know how else to describe it.

We pored over the menu and decided on:

Creole Corn with Dorito and jerky salt

Fries with Cajun salt

Little neck clams with Mexican sauce

Queensland prawns with Cajun sauce

King crab with Lemon pepper sauce

Element6 Cafe (West Ryde, Sydney)

I think I have said it before on my blog that I can be so slow sometimes. Well, when it comes to this cafe I was slow! It has taken me so long to check it out and am I glad I did!

Element6 is located on the quiet and slow end of West Ryde. It is on the side where the Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club is located and is seriously the only place on the strip of shops showing any signs of life.

Who would think there would be a cool, hip and very happening cafe here? But there is.

My post covers 3 visits I have done over the past few weeks. The first 2 were at breakfast and the 3rd was at lunch time.

Moroccan spiced baked eggs with chickpeas, eggplant, haloumi, zhough and dukkah. Served with some warmed Lebanese bread.

How good was it?!? Let's just say I finished it up and was full as. Loved the spices, and the saltiness of the haloumi added another dimension to the baked eggs. Loved it!

Honeybee smoothie banana with cinnamon, yoghurt and honey. Deliciously creamy!

E6 fav of Rosemary garlic mushrooms with 2 poached eggs, haloumi, baby spinach, roast tomato on sourdough.

It was a very generous serving of mushrooms. Talk about abundance. And the 2 poached eggs were perfectly cooked. They looked too perfect to break into to but I did it anyway. Another great dish!

This time I ordered a 'green with envy' smoothie which consisted of kale, spinach, green apple, lemon, beets, cucumber, parsley, mint and agave. Suffice to say it was delicious, it didn't taste like it was full of veggies and I loved it enough to order it the 3rd time I was there. I sure felt healthy drinking it! :)

Armchair Collective (Mona Vale, NSW)

A cafe right smack in the midst of a home and decor store! How cool is this and how attractive a thought?!?

I cannot recall when I first heard or read about Armchair Collective but I do remember putting it on my list. Not long ago, I decided to take a Saturday drive with my friend MO. Partly to belatedly celebrate her birthday and partly to de-stress from what has been one of the worst weeks I have had at work.

The weather forecast on that day warned of potential rain but we were blessed with fantastic weather.

When we arrived at the cafe/store I was fascinated by the eclectic homeware and how the tables and seats were cleverly interspersed throughout the store.

After perusing their menu their corn fritters caught my eye. It was a breakfast only dish which was served until 11.30 am. We missed it by about 10 minutes. There is a section of the menu which was 'all day breakfast' but the corn fritters was not on that list. I decided to ask if I could order it and the chef was apparently in a good mood and said yes! Woo hoo!

My sweet corn fritters with avocado salsa and bacon was delicious! Beautifully plated with gorgeous colours; it was slightly sweet, salty and there were hits of saltiness from the bacon which was wrapped in the middle of the fritters!

MO had a craving for burger so she had the Collective beef burger with tomato chilli jam, Spanish onion, fresh tomato, beetroot, tasty cheese with some thick cut chips. She definitely liked the serving on a board. It was a very rustic looking serving of what was a rather delicious burger. The chips were great too! And yes..I stole a few mouthful of the chips and even had a bit of the burger! :)