Sydney Blog – Page 11

Getting ready for NaNoWroMo 2015

I don’t quite remember it but I must’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo almost three years ago. Well, their website says so. I’m not going to argue with those people. However, when I signed up, I didn’t register a novel. At the time, I just had an idea. Today, that idea is slightly more developed into a brief and unfinished outline, parts of the locations are researched and about eight characters are developed to a degree that I’m even pissed off with one of them already! So I decided that this year is the time to register my novel. See my participant banner below.

Of course, I will have to prepare for this, right? First thing I did was to paste this sign on my door.

Second, I read No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty (the founder of NaNoWriMo), printed out my own notes to go over and really prepare for the upcoming torture of writing 50.000 words in 30 days.

At the same time, I ordered our Christmas cards to be printed. They arrived and according to my address list, they are almost ready to be posted. I know that when I come out of NaNoWriMo, there won’t be enough time to post the international ones —we have a lot friends who live outside Australia.

I have just finished a course on Udemy. It’s called How to Plan and Outline Novels Using Scrivener by Sean Platt. I read books about outlining and structuring before. However, Sean’s “synopsis to outline” style really speaks to me. I totally get him. He takes you through the outlining process of their own novel Axis of Aaron and shows you how it’s done. I must admit, I do like the way Sean explains things. Well, I’ve just finished the course yesterday although I went back and watched certain parts every now and then so that I could shape “my” story accordingly. And I know that I will do the same thing over and over again until I’m happy with my own outline, characters and locations. It’s a process, Peoples.

I tidied up my desk, put away potential dust-gathering items, leaving out only what I need for my novel writing month, everything else should find a temporary home for themselves.

I ordered a DVD and a book, relating to my novel. I checked to see if the DVD is working and it is. I’m just saving it for a dry day in the hope that it might help when the time comes. I know that day will come.

I cast my characters and not everyone is good-looking. I even have photos of their homes. I struggled to find the right name for one of my characters who is a shaman/healer/psychic woman from Dayak community in Kalimantan. Who wouldn’t? Anyway, in the end I found one from an obscure book about healers from that part of the world. Sweet!

And that’s where I’m at right now. One last thing though… I just need to warn everybody that I’ll be quite neurotic during this time. Until I finish my shitty first draft, that is. Wish me Happy NaNoWriMo Peoples. If you don’t, I might have to kill you as a character in my book and you may not even be one of the darlings.

Aria, Sydney Circular Quay

For significant celebrations, my husband and I normally ask for a vegetarian degustation menu with wine pairing. As vegetarians, we hate to turn up and announce that we’re vegetarians at the last minute. So instead we ring ahead of time and ask if they can put together a vegetarian tasting menu for us and most upscale restaurants are quite happy to do that for you if you let them know upfront. Aria Restaurant is no exception.

After having suffered from the latest and the trendiest virus through our birthdays, we finally managed to keep our booking with Aria last Saturday. Our birthdays are only a day apart so we celebrate them together. We knew Aria is usually booked out so we made our booking one and a half months before our birthdays, not knowing that we were going to change it twice until we were finally well enough to enjoy our experience.

The Place
If you live in Sydney, Aria doesn’t need an introduction. If you don’t, here’s how the story goes… Aria is elegantly located at one end of Circular Quay. Therefore, the dining room has one of the most spectacular views that Sydney offers. It is owned by Matt Moran whom you may remember from MasterChef Australia series or may have already had one of his creations on your Singapore Airline flight. Aria is an award winning restaurant and holds two highly regarded Chef’s Hats as well.

The Service
I believe most restaurants give you a hint about your upcoming experience at the time of booking. I’m happy to say that Aria excels in that department. The first time we tried to book a table, they put us on their waiting list. We didn’t get the table in the end but when we rang for the second time to book for our birthdays, we didn’t have to go through the whole name and phone number process again because our details were already on their system. Now, that’s a good start.

We were given a copy of our menu including the wine – it’s called chef’s seasonal tasting menu. This is something you do not get everywhere because most places do not have an established vegetarian tasting menu. They usually serve your food and explain. Those are the places that I struggle to write review for because when it’s time to write the review everything I ate is digested and gone so is the memory of it. At Aria, I was even allowed to keep mine.

Service was well paced over four hours and seven courses. We even had the General Manager serving us at some stage and every other staff member we encountered was highly efficient and polite. The highlight of the service was the head sommelier, Paul Beaton. Mr Beaton has an elegant way of explaining various elements of every glass of wine and why they are paired with certain dishes.

And The Food
Truth to be told, Aria had some large shoes to fill as we recently had a 5 week European holiday and experienced incredibly well composed as well as interesting tasting menus. However, I personally appreciate the fact that they cater for vegetarians and the quality of the produce is high, I mean very high.

Now, here’s how our experience went…
We started off with complimentary smoked eggplant puree on chickpea crackers and some home baked bread with incredibly tasty butter.

Chef’s seasonal tasting menu continued with…
Salad of Australian green asparagus with cashew nuts and lemon (below) paired with 2008 Michel Arnould Grand Cru Reserve Brut, Champagne France. Those drops you see in the photo are full of delicate lemon and they were quite fluffy and buttery without being fatty. I believe adding lemon is the best way to freshen up greens.

Fennel jam with heirloom tomatoes and flowering chives (below) paired with 2012 Lowe Nullo Mountain Riesling, Mudgee New South Wales. My husband doesn’t like fennel very much but we both appreciated the way it is used in this dish. Fennel’s aniseedy flavour is balanced with fleshy heirloom tomatoes and lightly blanched flowering chives.

Confit egg yolk, kale, eshallots and baked potato (below) paired with 2014 Petit Chablis Christophe & Fills, Burgundy France. This is one of the most interesting dishes I have ever had in my life. There is an egg yolk under that coat which is slow cooked to perfection. The sharpness of kale is balanced with kipfler potatoes which are quite nutty and creamy and fried eshallots add some unexpected crunchiness to the dish.

Warm smoked beetroot with pickled rhubarb and black pepper (below) paired with 2013 Trofeo Estate Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsular Victoria. This was an interesting ensemble with its continuous beetroot slices and pickled rhubard. Rhubard is something I haven’t been brought up with so I appreciate every variation of it.

Charred artichokes with caramelised onions, toasted brioche and parmesan (below) paired with 2013 Langhe Cascina Ghercina Dedicato Nebiolo, Piemonte Italy. What I really liked about this dish is dryness/moisture balance. Usually, grilled vegetables are dry. So is toasted brioche. However, you get moisture from caramelised onions and parmesan water. Brilliant!

Miso baked eggplant with hazelnuts, braised mushrooms and green shallots (below) paired with 2013 Caillard Mataro, Barossa Valley South Australia. I am well aware of the fact that miso baked eggplant has been done before. However, complementing it with hazelnuts is quite something different. You also don’t see in the photo but there are two slices of king mushrooms there as well. Mushrooms and eggplant: that actually doesn’t work in my mind but my taste buds certainly appreciated it.

Strawberries and champagne with macerated berries and watermelon (below) paired with 2014 Dindima Moscato, Orange New South Wales. This was quite a refreshing dessert. I must admit, I do like watermelon desserts so I’ll say no more other than “Thanks to Aria Restaurant for making our (belated) birthdays special.”

We also had a selection of house made petit fours which I do not have a photo of but they were also very nice.

Finally, my favourite wines of the night are:
• Petit Chablis from Burgundy in whites (actually Riesling was nice too)
• Nebbiolo from Italy in reds

We have always liked Aria’s wine list. Even if you don’t have dinner there, you could still have a glass of wine at the bar which is highly recommended -try a glass of white Burgundy and thank me later.

Having Turkish coffee

Having coffee “in” Istanbul

I had my coffee in Istanbul, this morning.

Sometimes, you just need to grab your Kindle…

Sometimes, you just need to grab your Kindle and have your coffee in Istanbul…

Nilgiri’s Sunday Buffet

Let me tell you, Nilgiri’s Sunday Buffet is another kind of feast. Every Sunday this all-you-can-eat buffet serves an incredible variety of dishes. Some of the foods are like breads and masala dosai are even cooked in front of you. Especially those flying rotis are a must see when they happen.

Menu for Sunday Buffet changes every month, focusing on a different region, community or different style of cooking. It is an incredible opportunity to try interesting dishes. However, sometimes the theme is based on a traditional festival, like Diwali (the festival of lights).

Prices for Sunday Buffet:
$37.50 per adult
$3.00 per year of child for children between 3 & 11 years of age (both inclusive)
Children under three years are free.

Diwali desserts from Nilgiri’s.

Nilgiri’s, St. Leonards, Sydney

Our tastebuds are dancing with A-joy every time we go to Nilgiri’s; no exceptions! This has been the case since we discovered Nilgiri’s about 13 years ago. Soon after our discovery, we became friends with Ajoy Joshi (the owner of Nilgiri’s) and today, we are one of their regular customers. Of course, we introduced our friends to Nilgiri’s too. Here’s how you can measure up our feelings for you, friends: if you think we’re friends and we have never, ever taken you to Nilgiri’s then you’re not that close to us. But if we took you there and dumped you later on, well, it’s because we don’t love you anymore. You were a mistake and we happily moved on 🙂

I have always been fascinated by Indian culture, not just the cuisine. Especially, since my health situation had been saved by an Ayurvedic physician about 25 years ago, my fascination took a different turn and I even studied Ayurveda in the end –received my diploma in Advanced Ayurveda a few years ago. When it comes to Indian food though, we have been taken on an exquisite culinary journey through India at Nilgiri’s so far.

Nilgiri’s Food
I am one of those people who enjoys sophisticated alchemy of Indian cuisine. My problem with many Indian restaurants, though, is the fact that their food tastes like a mixture of every single herb and spice that is grown on the face of the earth which makes it almost impossible to identify any. Wait, I even have a name for it: spiced mud. At Nilgiri’s, however, every dish has its own star spice, a lead singer in a band so to speak. The star spice is then well-balanced by other spices (back-up singers) and well-orchestrated by the other ingredients carefully (like the rest of the band) and all of that is put together by the fantastic team of Nilgiri’s. And, this is the kind of music you can actually eat!

Gobi 65 (above)

There are many things about Nilgiri’s that sets it apart from other Indian restaurants. Usually you get a particular style of cooking or region depending on where the owner comes from and that style never changes. Neither does their menu. It’s because Ajoy was trained by six Indian master chefs who are experts in their own regional cuisine, Nilgiri’s Sunday Buffet menu changes every month and each time it is another exciting regional food that blows your mind. Moreover, Indian food you have at Nilgiri’s is quite contemporary yet all solid foundation of the cuisine is still preserved.

Aloo Gobhi (above)

The Restaurant
Nilgiri literally means Blue Mountain in many languages. This world class, award winning restaurant is located on Christie Street in St. Leonards. Upstairs, there is the actual restaurant and private function rooms. Downstairs, there is reception and tiffin room.

Malai Kofta (above)

Private Function Rooms
A friend of ours once told us that the current premise of Nilgiri’s used to be a Japanese restaurant and that’s how you may be able to explain some of those function rooms with a hole in the middle through which your feet go, in a dangling-in-the-air fashion. You take your shoes off before you enter and the table area has cushions on the floor. Each room is named after five elements in Ayurveda: boomi (earth), vayu (air), jal (water), agni (fire) and akash (space). Private function rooms are excellent for celebrations or get-togethers. We celebrate our birthdays with my husband as they are only a day apart.

Tiffin Room
Tiffin means snacks; quick and easy bites people eat between meals in Southern India. At Nilgiri’s, they serve thalis, biryanis, dosais and uttampams. Open during the day for lunches.

Ajoy Joshi
Ajoy Joshi is an award-winning master chef, an authority on Indian food, not just in Australia or in India but overseas as well. He also appeared on TV and radio as guest chef –including New Zealand television, yes, Dad told us. Apparently, Ajoy founded Nilgiri’s in the late 90s and is supported by his wife Meera –whose masala chai recipe is a killer –and his son Aniruddh –who is a pretty handsome fella. And of course, let’s not forget the fantastic team at Nilgiri’s.