A starter at Barzaari, Marrickville
I met up with a few food bloggers for dinner on Friday night and have been reflecting a bit about food blogging. It’s been interesting lately. After I transferred my blog posts from eatability (bought out, turned into a crappy site) to urban spoon and zomato, things sort of heated up. Both Zomato and Yelp hired community liaison folks and started hosting events. I started getting invites to them… and meeting some of the other food bloggers. I then had a number of months where I got not only invites to some great meals and restaurants but even got sent some alcoholic vodka in the post (it was delicious). I’ve found this all rather amusing.
On the other hand, the bloggers in the know tell me that they’re souring on Zomato since the community liaison position was stopped. I haven’t paid any attention to Yelp since they invited me to be part of their Elite Squad and then kicked me out before I’d attended an event because I have a listing for my reiki business on yelp (a conflict of interest, they said, though I don’t think anyone has ever come to reiki because of that listing). TrueLocal has apparently started reviewing restaurants, and doing some giveaways too.
The thing is: while I find the freebies amusing, that’s not why I blog, though I admit to having put up a lot of shorter, insubtantial blog postings in the last year to get me blogging points on Zomato (the fact that they’ve gamified it really drew me in). I like eating; I like dining out. I like sharing my discoveries with friends, and have enjoyed hearing from friends who have found my reviews, unexpectedly, when looking up a restaurant they were considering going to.
A traditional grill in Montevideo, Uruguay
This month’s newsletter from David Lebovitz coincidentally talks about blogging in the same way (I think you can find it online here). He is an amazing chef and food writer who I started following when we were spending time in Paris. Love his recipes, love his blog, and love the feel for what he does. Anyways, he wrote:
I always considered blogging to be a win-win-win proposition. For the writer/blogger, you (or I) get to write whatever you (or I) want to write about without having to clear it through a publisher. For the reader, you get information, recipes, travel tips, or whatever it is that you’re looking for in a blog. And for businesses featured on the blog, they get exposure…
I often tell people that blogging, or writing about food (and travel), is about giving. Sure, you may be doing it for a living, but you always should be thinking of the reader first: How you can help the reader? It might be helping them find a good restaurant, bakery or chocolate shop, or it may be letting them know where there is a cookware shop in that specializes in baking supplies. Or an outdoor market, where they can spend Sunday morning shopping for amazing French cheeses, charcuterie, breads, and roast chickens…
The other day I saw a promo piece on tv about fashion bloggers that were jetting around the world, showing off their gorgeous clothes and modeling them on Instagram. I’m all for people doing what they love, but it seemed like the stakes for them were to get stuff. (And to take selfies to post online.) I’m guilty of a few selfies as well (and once in a while, I do get something), but I think most of my readers would rather see croissants and baguettes, than my mug all over the place. Even if I get a loaf of bread to take away after a bakery visit, or get invited to a beer-tasting, which I did, even though I’m not a beer drinker, but I wanted to learn more about it, it’s because I think or hope it’ll be interesting for people to read about.
That rather struck a chord with me. And serves as good advice for me as I continue to share my eating and travel adventures, book reviews, and very occasionally thoughts on life, to ask myself why I blog and generally stay true to that spirit of sharing and making connections.
The latest cooking experiment was red wine risotto with peas (delicious) and pork belly roasted over garlic, white wine and milk (good crackling but the meat could have been more tender)
I love a restaurant in an unexpected place, and while I’d heard about this much-lauded restaurant in Marrickville, it was still a surprise to walk along a humble section of Addison Road to find this stylish fit-out among the other storefronts. We had a seat at the open window, lovely with the setting sun, ordered a bottle of Spinifex Vermentino (the cheapest wine on the menu, about $40, very drinkable), and settled in for a great dining experience.
I’m not sure we could find fault in anything. The food was interesting, flavourful and fresh, often with a texture or taste that surprised me in a good way. The service was warm, friendly and efficient. A bit of grilled fig, one with a slice of pork, the other without, was melt-in-your-mouth goodness.
We were browsing carpets in PYD. Yup, we were.
We decided to go with a little less sugar and decadence this Saturday morning and so just had a palmier (which my family called ‘palm ears’ when I was growing up; I’m not sure whether they were joking or not) and a croissant.
Clocking in last year at #33 on the Top 50 restaurants in Latin America list, 
The service was exhuberant! The only fault was that they could have told us that we had ordered too much food. The steaks already come with sides, so many little interesting dishes, that the delicious empanada and grilled provolone we ordered as appetizers were unnecssary… and then only after I had mostly conquered the largest steak I had ever seen, larger than the size of my face, did he mention that people often split it between two of them.
In any case, the flavours were intense and delicious, and the atmosphere terrific and we ate far too much (and drank delicious Argentinean wine). Also, it’s easy enough to book online through their website. I’d say this is a must for meat-eating tourists!
Hmm. Coffee at 11am on a Saturday. In search of a little fuel in between the Max Dupain-inspired exhibit at the State Library and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Hilarious.
Happy D’s is a very happy place with a long, fake, ironic fishtank, a kick-arse neon sign and a good selection of drinks (wine, beer, sake and cocktails) and dumplings.
Hang out at the long counter after entering the humble, non-descript hole-in-the-wall sort of entrance.
Eat dumplings to your heart’s content, while drinking and chatting with friends. On a Thursday night, early, it was quiet enough for a good conversation but very obviously a cool place to be. We spent $30 each on dumplings and $40 each on booze!
I’m trying to eat less meat these days. It’s good to do so for the environment and for my health. But sausages are a weakness. I’ve wanted to try the Snag Stand many a time, but flashier fare has called in the Food Court of the Westfield CBD. But this was a perfect occasion to grab something quick and try it out (and this Food Court is turning into my go-to place to grab lunch after mid-morning meetings in the CBD, dentists appointments or Nespresso stock-ups).
Offering a wide range of different types of gourmet sausages, I opted for the ‘Toulouse’, a grilled pork, wine and garlic sausage, with sauteed onions and rosemary mushrooms and truffle aioli on a toasted brioche roll ($10.90).
Honestly, it was perfect. Savoury. Tasty. The right combos of texture. The aioli was delicious. Grilled and assembled on the spot, while I waited, freshly made.
Does this look like a restaurant to you? I think that’s definitely part of the charm of this breakfast and lunch eatery in the CBD right in the middle of Grosvernor Place across George Street from the cool new Ernst & Young building. It’s a very urban location with tables underneath glass parasols.
The menu seems to have changed from what’s up on Zomato at the moment: simpler and less Vietnamese inspired dishes. This left my vegetarian dining companion with only one option, a pea burger ($15.50), which was sort of a pea omelette. She thought she’d asked for steamed vegetables and got a rather large serving of luscious-looking roast vegetables. I was concerned for her but she said it was tasty.