Fave small city bars of late

Grasshopper - love the retro music and drinks in jam jars (City)

Grandmas - tiny but love that this is in the city and tucked away. The jaffles are a bonus (City)

Stitch - sewing machines at the entrance, cool cocktails (City)

Fix - by the same folk of Glebe Point Diner, bit more wine bar/restuarant than bar (City)

Sing it loud sing it proud...Top 10 Karaoke Bars in Sydney

If you're a dirty karaoke fiend like me this is a gold listing worth keeping. With thanks to TimeOut Magazine, here are the top 10 karaoke bars in Sydney:

1. Mizuya - Best for... A birthday party or a work leaving do
Where? 614 George St, City
Hours? Mon-Sun 11.30am-12 midnight

2. Echo Point - Best for... Rocking out till dawn
Where? 262 Pitt St, City
Hours? Mon-Sun 12pm-6am

3. 3-K Square - Best for... Up-to-date song selection
Where? ShpG4, 730-742 George St, Haymarket
Hours?Mon-Sun 12pm-4am

4. Ding Dong Dang- Best for... A post-bar alternative to clubbing
Where? 7 Randle St, Surry Hills 2010
Hours? Mon-Sun 5pm-3am

5.Karaoke World - Best for... Old school, authentic karaoke in the CBD
Where? 185 Elizabeth St, City
Hours? Mon-Sun 1pm-late

6.Live Karaoke - Best for... Competitive karaoke
Where? 116/120 Liverpool St, City
Hours? Mon-Sun 1pm-2am

7. Strike Bowling Bar - Best for... An office night out of bowling and howling
Where? 22 The Promenade, King St Wharf, City
Hours? Mon-Fri 11am-late; Sat-Sun 10am-late

8. CEO Karaoke - Best for... Feeling like a genuine rock star
Where? 1 Dixon St, City
Hours? Sun-Wed 1pm -12 midnight; Thu-Sat 1pm-4am

9. Big Echo - Best for... Comparatively cheap booze
Where? 104 Bathurst St, City
Hours? Mon-Sun 1pm-2am

10. Viva Karaoke - Best for... Getting a booking when everywhere else is full
Where? 210 Clarence St, City
Hours? Mon-Sat 3pm-2am; Sun 2-8pm

Ref: http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/clubs/sydneys-10-best-karaoke-bars.aspx

Best sweet treat shops in Sydney

Buppas Bakehouse: try the ugly cake, red velvet cupcakes and the peanut butter brownie
482 King St Newtown www.buppas.com.au

Black Star Pastry: try the watermelon cake
277 Australia St Newtown


Bourke Street Bakery/Central Baking Depot: try everything
City and Surry Hills

Adrian Zumbo: yes Iw as inspired by Masterchef to go there, its seasonal so be adventourous
Balmain http://adrianozumbo.com/

Chinatown Ideas

Goin' down to Chinatown: The new axes of awesome
A new wave of restaurants is changing the face of Chinatown. By Myffy Rigby

1. Uighur Cuisine Uighur
Uighur is a mix of northern Chinese and Turkish food. Expect dishes such as skewered lamb with cumin, boiled handmade noodles and pilaf.

2. Twisted Noodle Bar Yunannese
It's the noodle bar where you dictate the heat. Make sure to order a side of cold bitter melon.

3. Kiroran Uighur
Travel down the Silk Road without leaving Dixon Street. Try noodles chopped into tiny pieces with lamb.

4. Izakaya Kasumi Japanese
Four words for you: Noodles. On. A. Waterslide. This kooky new izakaya offers lunch specials for under $6.

5. Gumshara Japanese
The Fat Albert of tonkotsu ramen features soup stock so thick and collagen rich, it's like eating a delicious pork-flavoured shampoo!

6.Delima Cuisine Indonesian
Delima combines fried chicken, crab and nasi goreng-style favourites with a flash neo-Chinatown setting.

7. Arisun Korean
Arrive early in the evening to get a place out in the courtyard. Order a basket of soy flavour fried chicken, some shoju and Korean beers.

8. Crazy Wings Beijing
Like to eat things on sticks? This is the restaurant for you. They even offer skewered toast!

9. Mamak Malaysian
You can't book, and the line crawls down Goulburn Street for the Malaysian flatbread filled with everything from eggs to ice-cream.

10. Room 27 Taiwanese
Crystal curtains, glossy black walls and booths, Asian boy bands on flatscreens and excellent fried rice.

11. Golden Sichuan Sichuan
Try the thin strips of pork belly wrapped around Chinese celery in chilli sesame oil or shredded chicken riddled with burning-yet-cooling Sichuan pepper.

12. Little Lamb Northern Chinese
A new northern Chinese hotpot restaurant with the cutest name in town.

13. Chinatown night market Malaysian, Japanese, northern Chinese...
Wander around Dixon Street for octopus balls, chicken satay grilled over hot coals or trying ten different types of Asian style liquorice.

14. Shanghai Tang Shanghai
It's like Din Tai Fung without the queues. Order the soup-filled dumplings and the dessert dumpling filled with black sesame paste.

15. Wagaya Japanese
Touch screens! They're the first in Australia to have them, it's as close to being in Tokyo as you're going to get in Sydney.

16. Smile Mart Korean
You come here for one thing only - the gargantuan, 32cm soft-serve cone in strawberry, chocolate or vanilla for only $2.90.

17. Kana Express Korean
A Korean food bar selling chilli rice cakes, deep-fried sushi (yes, really), Korean style hotdogs and other things on sticks.

18. O Bal Tan Korean
Next door to Sydney Madang, this Korean barbecue joint feature a gigantic model of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Go figure.

19. Sydney Madang Korean
Korean style barbecue. Order secondary cuts such as beef ribs and skirt steak.

20. Best Friend Chung Jin Dong Korean Restaurant Korean
Order the whole fried chicken with chilli and an 850ml Sapporo. There's Korean pop on flatscreens and a man making balloon animals for every table!

21. Shinara Grill Korean
One of the more attractive new Korean restaurants in the 'hood. A good selection of meats and plenty of beers on offer.

22. Saap Thai
All your favourites are here: pad thai, a very spicy chicken laab and curries galore.

23. Iima Thai
Iima adjoins new bar, Mr B's, on the old Mandarin Club site. All the usuals are here – pad thai, crisp pork belly – as well as a deep fried som tum.

24. Thainatown Thai
One of Sydney's first authentic Thai restaurants. They offer everything from pork jelly soup to stir-fried pork and peppercorns.

25. Three Mama Chefs Thai
A restaurant by Thais and for Thais, 3 Mamas specialises in casual Thai diner-style eats.

26. Chat Thai Thai
Give the daytime menu a miss and turn up late for supper, where you'll be greeted by more interesting fare. Love the savoury steamed egg custard.

27. Lucky Thai Sweets and Video Thai
OK, it's a shop. But you can buy takeaway, pre-packaged meals more authentic than you'd find at most restaurants, prepared by Thai nannas in the 'burbs.

28. Chilli Cha Cha Thai Thai
This is just the place to hook into hearty serves of hot sour soup with soft pork bones or hot and spicy wild pig while the dulcet tones of Bangkok pop videos blare overhead.

29. Spice I Am Thai
Sydney's best Thai. Try the nham kao tod - a salad of crisp rice, pork sausage, peanuts and more chilli than you thought humanly possible. It hurts so good.

Ref: http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/restaurants/goin-down-to-chinatown.aspx

Where I shop in Sydney

Fave Aussie designers
Fleur Wood - Paddington or Strand Arcade
Zimmerman - Paddington or Strand Arcade
Ginger and Smart
Scanlan and Theodore
Wish - Myer, David Jones
Laddakh - Myer


Fave Chain Stores
Zara - London, Singapore
Top Shop - London, Singapore
Witchery
Sportsgirl
Country Road


Guilty Pleasures
Forever New
Barkins
Target


Fave shopping centres
Westfield Bondi Junction
Broadway Shopping Centre
Castle Towers

Fave shopping areas
City
Paddington
Bondi Junction

Best Brekky Places in Sydney

Breakfast specials

July 8, 2009

Simon Thomsen (SMH) gives his verdict on Sydney's 10 top ways to start the morning.

Sourdough pancakces with stewed berries and honeycomb cream from Brasserie Bread.

In 1993, a cheery bloke with a smile so dazzlingly white you'd never guess he was raised in Melbourne, changed the way Sydneysiders eat. When Bill Granger opened bills in Darlinghurst, few realised he would launch an industry of imitators. Communal tables, ricotta hotcakes and sweetcorn fritters became the lingua franca of cafe breakfasts. And while people might be cutting back on expensive restaurant meals at night, breakfast's popularity continues to grow. After all, it's the perfect way to socialise without it costing the earth.

1. Best bakery

Brasserie Bread, 1737 Botany Road, Banksmeadow. Phone 9666 6845.

Does it get any better than a boiled egg with Vegemite soldiers? Well, yes: sourdough pancakes with stewed berries and honeycomb cream ($12, right) and a Florentine panini (egg, smoked ham) dripping with hollandaise ($12). We love this warehouse-style mix of bakery and cafe - especially for the Allpress coffee. Toasted quinoa bread with Seville orange marmalade ($4) if you're good; toasted brioche with chocolate spread ($6) if not. Croque monsieur or madame ($10/$11) depending on your preference. Watch them baking through the glass and grab a walnut-and-fig or sour-cherry loaf for breakfast tomorrow at home.

Also consider: Central Baking Depot, 37-39 Erskine Street, city. Phone: 9290 2229. The team behind Bourke Street Bakery offers a delicious selection of pastries, tarts and pizza slices in this city spot.

2. Best CBD pit stop

Plan B, 204 Clarence Street, city. Phone: 9283 3450.

Who said cheesecake isn't the perfect way to start the day? Especially when it's made by the team from two-hat fine diner Becasse. City workers have no excuse to miss breakfast when they can swing by this bolt-hole for a pain au chocolat ($4) and Single Origin coffee. There's also a bench inside and a couple of tables on the street if you want to pause, as Italians do, for a croissant, a slice of banana bread, a muffin or the pastry of the day, perhaps poached quince with almond tart ($4). You can also leave with lunch-at-the-desk sorted plus a little peanut brittle for afternoon tea...

Also consider: Bambini Trust Cafe, 185 Elizabeth Street, city. Phone: 9283 7098. For a CBD working breakfast with all the trimmings.

3. Best Asian

Kam Fook, Level 6, Westfield Shopping Centre, Bondi Junction. Phone: 9386 9889. Also at Level 6, Westfield Shopping Centre, Chatswood. Phone: 9413 9388.

This large, bustling Cantonese-style restaurant makes shopping and shao mai symbiotic. A daily 10am start here means that yum cha gets going earlier than at most Chinatown places so you can be primed with barbecue pork buns before a spot of retail therapy. While Chatswood is a 600-seat barn, Bondi Junction holds an "intimate" 300. There's a ruthless efficiency to the trolley matrons, who are thrifty with the smiles unless you've brought the kids, so gird your chopsticks to hail what you want. The steamer contents always please, especially fluffy prawn or scallop and spinach dumplings ($7.20) and fried rice noodles with dried shrimp ($6.40). Barbecue meats and gai larn trolleys pass less frequently. Washed down with green tea and a slightly warm custard tart, you can come back in a few hours for your second breakfast.

Also consider: An Restaurant, 27 Greenfield Parade, Bankstown. Phone: 9796 7826. Vietnamese pho (noodle soup) from 7am daily.

4. Best for blokes

Deus Cafe, 98 Parramatta Road, Camperdown. Phone: 9519 3669.

It's about bikes and big breakfasts here, although the inner west's laptop riders also like to hang out at the communal tables in this warehouse-like cafe. Attached to Deus ex Machina, this motorbike (and bicycle) shop is owned by former Mambo guru Dare Jennings. The blackboard menu has its own distinctive style, starting with a mountain of slow-cooked Boston baked beans with AC Butchery pork sausage, spinach and a poached egg ($17), while dill-cured salmon with scrambled eggs and toasted brioche ($16) should satisfy your pillion passenger. Service is minimal - you order and pay up front - but loose-leaf teas are a treat.

Also consider: Fratelli Paradiso, 12-16 Challis Avenue, Potts Point. Phone: 9357 1744. Park the Vespa outside the pasticceria for cornetti (Italian pastries) and a hit of Vittoria coffee. Great eggs, too.

5. Best newbie

Spicer Street Cafe, cnr Spicer and Queen streets, Woollahra. Phone: 9328 2221.

As you'd expect in this posh 'hood, there's a panache to this crisp new cafe, tucked around the corner from Queen Street but without the prices to match (it's cash only and you order at the counter). Breakfast (7am-noon) is full of imagination and class, from house-made bircher muesli ($9.50) to organic porridge with rhubarb ($8.50) and a bacon and egg roll with cheddar, mayo and roast tomato ($8.50). The eggs are organic and the sourdough is from Fuel. For something light yet decadent, it's hard to beat vanilla-scented baked ricotta smeared on toasted brioche with poached dried peaches ($10.50).

Also consider: Sideplate, 664 Bourke Street, Redfern. Phone 9699 6033.

A slip of a cafe by the Plated catering team. Think buttermilk muffins and crepes with ricotta and poached fruit.

6. Best Turkish

Kazbah on Darling, 379 Darling Street, Balmain. Phone: 9555 7067.

There's real Turkish delight in nut-studded sweet couscous with stewed rhubarb and cardamom milk ($15). Or try a spicy lamb tagine with coddled eggs and lashings of flatbread ($18). This is a legendary weekend breakfast, done with aplomb.

The food is fascinating but you can still score French toast with figs and double cream ($16.50). Try a strong di Manfredi coffee or an even stronger bloody mary with harissa. It's a weekends-only institution, crowded and loud, where friends gather to gossip and the young waiters are so cheerful you regret your previous evening's excess. The kitchen slows when the room fills but everyone's having too much fun to notice. Be sure to book.

Also consider: Cafe Mint, 579 Crown Street, Surry Hills. Phone: 9319 0848. Top-notch chakchouka, merguez sausages and kuneffa.

7. Best all-day

Big Brekky, Shop 1, 316 Stanmore Road (cnr Albert Street), Petersham. Phone: 9569 8588.

Libby Shipway liked her local so much she bought it. The hearty serves and homely approach of this petite corner cafe - which also has a space for the kids to play outside - lives up to the name with a varied all-day breakfast and Campos coffee. Former chef Nim has gone from the kitchen (incumbent Patricia Phillips cooked at bills and with Kylie Kwong) but Nim's signature poached eggs with banana chutney and pesto ($13) lives on. There's also smoky kippers with chutney on malted sourdough ($16) or brioche French toast with banana and chocolate ($13). And best of all, Big Brekky is now open daily, from 7am-3pm.

Also consider: Cafe ism, 187 Wilson Street, Newtown. Phone 9519 9665. It's cash only for an all-day breakfast menu that's big on free-range eggs and also offers good vego options.

8. Best all-you-can-eat

Jonah's, 69 Bynya Road, Palm Beach. Phone 9974 5599.

This luxurious eyrie overlooking the ocean is a fine place to bask in the winter sunshine and indulge in whale watching as they migrate north for winter. It's also simply a fine place to enjoy the polished surrounds - white linen tables, freshly squeezed orange juice and polite table service. The talent that earned George Francisco a chef's hat in the Good Food Guide is also evident at the start of the day, from buttery croissants to fruit bread with maple butter and granola with poached fruit. Don't miss the elegant eggs benedict with Springs smoked salmon and the surprise of black sea salt crystals sprinkled on top (left).

Eat as much as you like for $45. It's all very, very good.

Also consider: Park Hyatt, 7 Hickson Road, The Rocks. Phone: 9241 1234. Watch the sun rise over the Opera House sails at this five-star waterfront hotel with either the buffet ($40) or hot a la carte breakfast ($45).

9. Best between exercise

The Bathers' Pavilion Cafe, 4 The Esplanade, Balmoral. Phone: 9969 5050.

Serge Dansereau's no-bookings cafe keeps everyone content. This is breakfast as ritual. Kick off with a basket of pastries ($7.25 for two) and a "Balmoral sunrise" - orange and lime juice with egg and honey ($7). After poached rhubarb French toast with figs and honey mascarpone ($18.50), things gets hearty with baked beans and smoked ham hock ($19.50).

And the chef's Canadian heritage comes out in blueberry pancakes with maple syrup ($19.80). The day's hardest question is whether to do the waterfront promenade before or after breakfast.

Also consider: Ruby's Diner, 173-179 Bronte Road, Waverley. Phone: 9386 5964. After a bracing swim - or the Bondi-to-Bronte walk - head up the hill for French toast, poached eggs and fresh fruit at this retro cafe. Or go crazy and start the day with a burger.

10. Simply the best

Cafe Giulia, 92 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale. Phone: 9698 4424.

A blend of bustle and cool, sprinkled with a European vibe, pervades this former butcher's shop with its rambling blackboard menu and open kitchen.

If your mood's light, go muffin ($5.90), perhaps packed with halloumi, tomato and poached egg . The broad menu includes Tuscan toast with ricotta and honey ($8.90), kefte (meatballs) with scrambled eggs and mint ($15.90), Belgian waffles ($12.90), omelettes (perhaps Spanish chorizo and parmesan, $12.90) and boiled bagels ($2.50). Even when you don't rise until the clock hits PM, breakfast here is a fab start to the day.

Bars and pubs I like to drink at

Often get asked suggestions on venues in Sydney hence the following:

Wine Bars
Bambini Wine Room - consistently lovely, very Parisian
Industrie - been around for yonks, perfect size, city getaway
Bacco Wine Bar - lovely bar in Chiefly Tower and is a Pasticceria to boot!
Small Bar - very Melbourne type bar in a terrace in the city, hope it lasts
Mille Vini - you can't book but it's worth it
Sticky - tiny bar above Table for 20, nice mix of everything, good cheese platter
Taste - cute bar in the city, Westpac Plaza, staff are lovely


General Bars
Gazebo - love it any time of the day
The Winery - obviously same crew as Gazebo but in Surry Hills and love it
Bloodwood - Newtown
Pocket Bar - Darlinghurst
The Passage - the cross
Grasshopper - laneway bar, love the 80s music and the staff
Civic - old school
Bayswater Brasserie - great cocktails
Mocean - Bondi, loves it
Fouveaux Bar
De Nom - nice for a quick couple before the kids arrive
Madame Fling Fong - art deco bar for Newtown, nice change of pace
Opera Bar - for a city bar with a view
Longrain - killer cocktails
Darlo Bar - old fave


Pubs
The Vic - in Annandale, simple pub - but killer bundi bistro for a pub like this
Three Weeds - great dining
Welcome Hotel - great food, rugby and Irish pub
Old Fitzroy - Woolloo
The Courthouse - Newtown
Carlisle Castle - Newtown
The Rose - Erko
Lord Dudley - Paddo/Woollahra, great rugby pub but gets packed early on game day
Grand National - Woollahra
The London - Balmain

Post 2 am options - on the end of a large session
Kit & Kaboodle
Hollywood Hotel
The Courthouse - Taylor Sq
Piano Room
Tatler