Balmain - Kazbah on Darling

For our weekly dinners, we decided to splurge to celebrate Lish's engagement so we mosey on down to Kazbah at Balmain, handily a stone throws away from pretty much all of us. This was the first time I'd been there, so I was quite keen to try it out and see what all the fuss is about. I hear it's fantastic for breakfast as well, the owner told me that for groups, its best to book. 

Anyways, here we go. A few of us car pooled and got to the restaurant a bit late, (sorry m.t) where we were greeted by the owner and told of the thursday special which was 2 courses for $40 or 3 courses for $45. $5 for dessert sounded like a bargain, why wouldn't you do the 3 courses?

Whilst chatting, I took a few happy snaps of our surroundings before our entree came out:. Firstly, i loved their decor, their plates were so colourful. It was fate that Lish matched her plate, or a happy coincidence.The bread came out and we munched away, well everyone else did but me, as I'm trying to reduce my carb intake.

The place was decked out for Valentines Day, so I took advantage and played around with some depth of field shots with the v. photogenic Nelisa :) and btw, that is a compliment.

Soon, the entree came out - as part of the deal you must get the mezze plate which was delightful anyways. On the mixed mezze plate was i think: 

Dips Plate -Hummus, Babaganouj, Taramasalata and Breads, Fried Cauliflower with Eggplant  Jam, Chickpea Battered Zucchini Flower Stuffed with Walnut and Feta, Muhamara Sauce, Calamari Rings, something like Tabouli and something like cous-cous. I don't remember - please feel free to correct me.

Mains were pretty nice and tasty. Two ladies chose the Pan-Fried Duck Breast with Falafel, Honey Baked Quince and Sweet Potato Chips, another lady had the Kingfish with Paella Pilaf, Preserved Lemon and Coriander Gremolata and i chose the Grain Fed Sirloin with Crushed Herb Potatoes, Za'atar and Lima Beans Pork Belly, Cardamon Jus

Next stop was dessert, we decided to share 2 desserts amongst ourselves. we chose the Arabian Dessert Plate for 2 and  Kazbah Bomb for Two - Turkish Delight Ice Cream, Blueberries flamed with Kurrant Vodka. Pretty interesting dessert plate, from memory it was: watermelon & nougart salad, chocolate filled cigar, milk pudding and the last dessert looked like a macaroon but the top layer was rhubarb then goats cheese? and then it seemed like it was brown sugar. that last one was my favourite. The Kazbah Bomb wsas quite a spectacle, v. interesting the blue ring that engulfed the dessert, the girls were surprised everytime they found some turkish delight in the ice cream. 

We had a lovely night chatting and eating, so much so that we were the last guests at the restaurant, so I roamed around and took more photos - i think the owner was getting worried where I would be posting the photos.... :) I did like the decor of this place, you can tell there is a big middle eastern/north african influence.

Until next week girls...

Queensland Summer Holiday: Port Douglas

Hi Ya'll,

I'm starting backwards. What I mean by that is that I'm going to tell you all about my relaxing summer holiday in Northern Queensland in reverse chronological order. We were in Northern Queensland for 6 glorious sun drenched days, well 5 glorious sun drenched days and 1 semi wet day. Some overall stats, coz i love stats:

• Hours to get to Port Douglas from Sydney: 9 hours (3 connecting flights!!)
• Km's Driven throughout the trip: 1,000
• Beaches visited: 3
• Waterfalls viewed and posed under: 2
• Mossie Bites Received: >15
• Hideous Tan Lines: a squillion
• Average Time we left the house each morning: Midday

Anyways, so this is my post about Port Douglas itself. Port Douglas is a lovely township with a vibrant cafe & restaurant population, dotted with resorts/hotels and golf courses; v. geared towards tourists. Port Douglas main attractions include

• 4 mile beach (which at this time of year is popular because it is one of the few beaches with netting that protect swimmers from box jellyfish which are prevelant during the wet season)
• The Look Out - beautiful view of 4 mile beach. Lots of tourists taking lovely pictures, some tourists pretending to take pictures. ha ha.

• Meridian Marina - 'gateway' to Great Barrier Reef, where  you catch the boats to go out to the reef

• Fishing off the jetty - we didn't catch anything though...i did see a fish in the water! that was a shame. I think we should have used live bait. It was great to see the boats come in and out though!

•   We stayed at the lovely Sea Temple at Port Douglas which is right on 4 mile beach. It was such a lovely place. For a few nights we stayed in the penthouse which had its own bbq and jacuzzi area on the roof. Splurging is good.

They have such a beautiful pool!! I don't jump very high do I ?

The view from our balcony

Eating out at the restaurants and cafes. We ate a few nice places including On the Inlet where you can see fish swimming about right underneath you. They have a huge Groper called George that comes around daily to get a feed. Unfortunately i did not take any pics of the meal we had there due to the rain. We also dined at Salsa a modern australian restaurant that has a nice selection of seafood and meats. When we went we had for entree different styles of salmon, mains, i had the barramundi and simon had the jambalya. I thought their decor was quite interesting, they had plates lining their roof. 

 
• I don't remember where we had brekkie that one morning, but we had difficulty finding breakfast places on the Sunday morning. but we did find one place where they served my mocha with an 'm', lucky for me my initials are the same upside down!

 
So that was Port Douglas, will post on Daintree, Great Barrier Reef and Atherton Tablelands later. 

Happy Hump Day!



mw

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010!

It's been a hectic couple of days gone past, I've finally had some time to go through the photos I took of NYE. Let's start with a teaser, Sydney sure does know how to do a firework display... the new decade definately came in with a blue bang.

But i digress, let's recap from the NYE day. My sister offered to host NYE dinner at her house where we were treated to sashami, oysters, lobsters, salads and we managed to polish off a bottle of Brown Brothers Rose Zibibbo Champagne (yum) and 3 different types of sauvignon blanc wines. Picture of food below

Good photo of mum & dad enjoying the food

We managed to see some of the fireworks from my sisters balcony, but I didn't get any great shots - so heres smoke instead. Top photo is taken by Simon and is what you can usually see, bottom photo is the 9pm fireworks in action.

Then we decided to take some silly photos to kill time before the midnight photos using my new tripod and lens. Here are some of the funnier ones of everyone on the night, starting with mum & dad. Had to get them to pull some faces...

It was easier getting funnier poses out of Malinda & Lan. Check out his guns! Malinda was obviously not ready for the first photo so was a bit taken a back by the forward movement.

Simon and me were a bit more creative, not sure which one I like more, the vogue or the glasses...

Needed to get to Cahill Expressway by 11:50 to attend the midnight session. Thanks to Phil for giving us the tickets to the session. Thanks to the RTA for balloting the session so it wasn't so packed. We were in a posing mood, so this was us waiting for the bus. The black and white photo was taken whilst we were on the bus. Not sure why he was walking around with an empty case on his head - strange.

We started the walk from Hyde Park towards Cahill Expressway, we stopped off to pose at the giant chessboard. Atmosphere on the street was quite festive, with the road closures, people were just wandering aimlessly and generally having a good time.

It was a bit strange walking on the Cahill Expressway, since I've driven on it so many times - v. cool though. Took the opportunity to take some shots I would never be able to get -

When we got there, after a bit of a port-a-loo debacle (ahem) the crowd had definately formed. It was pretty packed by 11:45pm and we just muscled our way to the quasi front. Some people had definitely gotten into the spirity of the 'blue' theme. We waiting patiently for the countdown to begin, our view was pretty spectacular.

Unfortunately, the photos I took of the fireworks weren't great - mostly smoke. Next time I know to bring a tripod and leave the flash at home...but here are a few that are ok. The first set is supposed to be blurry ...really.

 

We had a really good view of the other participating city skyscrapers that had fireworks launched off their rooftops. The AMP building looked especially good with the blue I thought.

We didn't take many people photos during the 12 minute firework display, but here are 2:

The finale was quite spectacular, although I got mostly smoke - I thought the colours were really nice.

Aftermath of the fireworks below - people cleared out within 20 minutes. We hung around to take a few photos. Smoke cleared up within 10 minutes which was pretty quick.

Finally managed to get to the front when the spectators had vacated the prime spots so we took some happy snaps

We departed and we were swept in with the masses battling the public transport system to get home...

We took a scenic route and posed for a few pictures before arriving at our bus stop. Heres the view from the top of Bridge St

We moseyed on to Martin Place where it was quite packed, people were ready to flood the bars. We took the opportunity to pose on Pitt St - the road says 'US' .. ha ha.

This photo is to show you the wrist band we had to wear to get into the Cahill Expressway area and the top photo is of a bentley...i think.

We then walked to King St where I wanted to take a picture in the middle of the road. Apparantly I wouldn't hold still, and then came the traffic, and then I got scared because I heard the fire trucks - hence the 'running'

Anyways, we got home by 2am ish so it wasn't too bad. All in all, a memorable NYE for 2009. Here's hoping that the new decade proves to be better than the last. Hoping that your twenty ten is filled with happy and memorable adventures.

Bye!

mw