Wandering Tash

Six foods that are all the rage in Sydney

1. Halloumi.

This salty, springy cheese hails from Cyprus and has been popular in the area encompassing Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan since the Byzantine era. Wikipedia notes “Halloumi has recently become very popular in the United Kingdom.” Yup, an article in the BBC this past September attempts to address how halloumi took over the UK, elevating itself from a niche grocery store product to a staple at summer BBQs.

Add Sydney to the list. Wherever you go, you’ll delight at spotting this salty, squeaky cheese on Sydney menus — whether in place of meat in burgers and sandwiches, as an ingredient in fresh salads (especially with watermelon) or on its own, as a side, grilled and dripping with flavour. My favourite halloumi in the city is in the form of Bondi Massive’s delectable pesto and halloumi sammy.

2. Muesli

I’ve written about muesli a couple of times but it bears noting as a staple in Sydney. Whether you’re in line for your morning cuppa or you’re browsing your local supermarket, muesli jumps out at you from every corner. As in England, muesli is the king of breakfast here, beating back the efforts of that sugary sweet poster child for American healthy eating, otherwise known as granola. Just so we’re on the same page, here’s the difference:

Muesli and granola were both developed in the late 1800s in different parts of the world. Muesli was developed by Swiss-German physician and nutritionist Max Bircher-Benner as a natural, raw food to help his patients during convalescence. Granola was developed by Dr. James Caleb Jackson at the Jackson Sanitarium in New York.
Muesli is unbaked and doesn’t contain sweetener or oil. Granola on the other hand usually contains one or more of maple syrup, brown sugar or honey as well as vegetable oil or butter.
Granola is typically harder than muesli. The sweeteners in granola cause the oats, seeds and other goodies to clump together and, harden into sugary clusters. While this gives granola that satisfying crunch and pretty glaze, it also gives it that tendency to get stuck in our teeth.
In other words, compared cup for cup as an average of all brands, muesli has 289 calories whereas granola has a whopping 500+ calories. A few interesting reports from Livestrong and Shape.

If that isn’t enough reason to switch, check out this delicious bircher muesli recipe by My New Roots.

3. Chia Seeds

I first came across chia seeds a few blocks from my old New York apartment in the West Village. There is a deliciously quaint store on Carmine Street called Victory Garden that specializes in locally sourced goats milk, mastic and chia seed products. They’re better known for their goat’s milk soft serve ice cream (check out their foursquare photo feed) but Victory Garden makes a to-die-for chia seed parfait that I’ve indulged in after many a morning workout, despite lingering doubts about where it falls on the healthy breakfast vs. dessert pudding spectrum. The parfait is made with cashew milk and sweetened with a hint of agave.

Victory Garden’s delicious chia seed parfait. Pic by seriouseats.com

Anyway, I was intrigued to learn that chia seeds have had quite the impact on the Sydney food scene, with a conspicuous presence in breakfast foods, desserts and the ubiquitous grocery aisle. I’m still figuring out how to reconstruct that delicious parfait, but in the meantime, I’ve incorporated this uber super food into my weekend breakfast drinks.

4. Passionfruit

Passiflora Edulis: the other worldly flower of the passionfruit

Sydney, or Australia really, has an abundance of passionfruit. You can buy three fresh passionfruit for $2 at Harris Farms (Sydney’s answer to Whole Foods) and any crunchy grocery store will have its own version of homemade yoghurt with fresh passionfruit. You’ll also encounter passionfruit in Sydney desserts (especially pavlova) and cocktails.

Coming from the US, where passionfruit sits squarely in the exotic category alongside mangoes (also somewhat more common here) it’s been a real treat to indulge in them here.

5. Laksa

The first time I had laksa in New York, I was at Double Crown, sampling, what can only be described with political incorrectness, as their colonial British menu. It was tangy, spicy, smooth and delicious. I loved it. Funny then how you can find laksa on every street corner in Sydney’s CBD. It’s so mainstream that the popular Aussie salad bar chain “Sumo Salad” offers it on their health-conscious menu. Laksa is popular in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and comes in a variety of preparations. The kind I’ve sampled in Sydney is a rich coconut-based soup with thick noodles, prawns and a dollop of sambal. It’s probably more popular with chicken.

While Laksa is an example of a popular Asian dish here in Sydney that isn’t (or doesn’t seem to have made it) big in the States, I could replace this point with an entire category of Asian food. Central Sydney is an Asian food lover’s paradise with everything from fresh dumplings, “yum cha” (dim sum) and hand pulled noodles to elaborate duck and seafood preparations. Thai, Malay, and Singaporean dishes, in particular, have more of a representation here than in New York.

6. Spices

Dukkah-crusted salmon, recipe at taste.com.au

A bit broad and not technically “a food”, but I’m not sure how to put this other than to say Sydneysiders are the kings of spice. Harissa, Dukkah, Chermoula and Sambal are all fairly mainstream here and, again, feature prominently on both restaurant menus as well as in supermarket aisles. Dukkah crusted salmon, in particular, is a popular dish that springs to mind. I’m not complaining. Although our small fridge coupled with my husband’s love for collecting condiments may soon lead to some challenges…

Reforming my ways

As anyone who knows me can attest, I get restless after a few days sans workout. Living in New York has made me a total gym rat but I’ve always loved running outdoors so when we moved here, I kept myself happy by running the Opera House loop. As glorious as this was, I was hankering for some HIIT or resistance training. Fortunately there was a giant Fitness First across the street so I popped over to sign up for a trial.

Fitness First

I’d never encountered a Fitness First before this, so wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Unfortunately the salesperson who delivered my tour was as enthusiastic as a vegetarian at a steak house. The space itself was huge and even though it was slightly casino-like and underground (no natural sunlight boo!) the facilities seemed functional: a couple studios, a large weight zone, plenty of cardio machines and a huge mat area with 10 or so dangling TRX straps.

I’ve been training on the TRX for just over a year. I love it. Aside from the gains in core strength, stability and muscle tone (and the fact that there isn’t a dull moment) one of my favourite things about TRX is that the recovery time is short and sweet(er than a circuit). You can throw in a 30 minute TRX circuit before or after some cardio and wake up the next day hungry for more. Because it engages the core and spreads the work across a lot of smaller, often unused muscles, it doesn’t leave you sore and weary in the way that reps with weights or on weight machines might.

Photo from the TRX TrainStation in Toronto

Anyway, back to Fitness First…

The “club”, as they like to call it, I’d walked into turned out to be one of Fitness First’s platinum locations, meaning higher prices, fewer people and the option to upgrade to black label membership — which gets you entry to a subterranean locker room with a mechanical massage table, a makeup area, a permanent locker and free laundry service. Wait…what?

I used the first of my two free passes on the elliptical and TRX. Meh. The TRX bands were so hard to adjust that they were almost not worth it and the cardio area smelled funky. The unnatural lighting somehow hampered any possible endorphin rush.

Despite the signs, I came back the next day to give their yoga a try and I have to say that it may have been the most unpleasant yoga class I’ve been too :/. For starters, the yoga mats were half the size they usually are. When a mat can’t contain my 5’4″ downward dog, you know it’s small. And when you can’t fit both your hands and feet on a mat, you know you’re just waiting for a slip injury. Second, the instructor for some reason had decided to use a mic. drill sergeant orders some how don’t jibe well with the zen of yoga. If that weren’t enough, every five minutes there would be a loud THUMP on the roof of the yoga studio that would reverberate across the floor. Ahhhhh!

Next stop: Virgin Active

After abandoning Fitness First, I decided to check out Virgin Active. I’d heard good things and several colleagues had mentioned going there. They only have the one club but it’s conveniently located on the top floor of a mall in the CBD, a short walk from work. I headed over one evening and was given a tour of the brand spanking new facilities, including a pool, a climbing wall (big win) and a room containing “sleep pods” (very cool!). My tour guide was nice enough until I asked whether they’d waive activation fees for my partner (fairly standard practice in NYC for families or referrals): he then decided to give me an awkward analogy about buying beef at a quality butcher shop vs. 7/11. Uhhh.

Ready to use my trial pass, I found that the club and locker room were packed but civilised. I walked in to a Hatha yoga class with medium hopes. I’m not a huge fan of Hatha but at this point, I was willing to do anything for a yoga fix. The instructor was perched on a platform in a zen-like state. He welcomed us in with a warm, soothing voice and, as we began our practice, I actually felt a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, the class turned out to be a little rudimentary for my taste but the real deal-breaker was when he made us do back-bends and inversions with the lights ON. If you’ve ever tried to get yourself from a bridge to a wheel with a fluorescent light in your face, you’ll know what yoga nausea feels like.

Elixr: third time’s a charm

I gave up on Virgin Active and decided to ignore their aggressive salesperson’s calls and voicemails in favour of a trial at Elixr. The yoga-savvy wife of a colleague had steered me towards Elixr, a high-end yoga and pilates gym with clubs in Bondi Junction as well as the city. After a quick glance at their website and their packed agenda of classes, I was excited but cautious. I headed to their Bondi location and as I stepped out of the lifts, I felt like I’d been whisked away to a luxury spa. I was given a friendly, un-pushy (finally!) tour of their softly-lit, zen-like facilities, during which a member interrupted the tour to tell me how amazing her experience had been and how I wouldn’t regret the decision to join.

Elixr’s Bondi location comprises two dedicated Pilates reformer studios, a yoga studio and a fourth studio for dance fusion, boxing and other cardio classes. There is also a massive pool, a large cardio area, a small section with machines and another small mat area with free weights, exercise balls and kettlebells. With its heavy focus on yoga and Pilates and its small weights area, Elixr’s client base looks unsurprisingly to be 80-90% women. During my free trial, I attended the best yoga class I’d been to in months. I was sold. But Elixr was so nice that they extended my free trial so that my husband could come in and check out the gym as well. I then attended a reformer class and liked it so much that I had to harass them to sign me up.

Elixr's Pilates Studio, picture courtesy of the Secret Diary of a Tall Girl — Elixr’s Pilates Studio, picture courtesy of the Secret Diary of a Tall Girl

It was my first time in a group reformer class. I’ve done plenty of mat pilates at Equinox, my old New York gym, and experimented on the small reformer that you have to book private sessions at, but I’d never come across an all-you-can-eat group reformer class. I don’t think they’re as big in the States.

Anyway, nearly three months later, I’m going to group reformer classes (or “GRC” as Elixr likes to call it) twice or thrice a week. I can feel the gains in my core and arm strength, not to mention in other activities including tennis. Even better, the classes are packed into an intense 45 minutes so I can squeeze in the occasional GRC during lunch or combine it with a bit of cardio before / after. Unlike yoga, GRC is easy on the wrists and unlike running, it doesn’t strain the knee or ankle joints. The sky’s the limit.

Have you worked out on a Pilates reformer or found a group reformer class? I’d love to hear what you thought!

You say potayto, I say spud

This post has been writing itself in my head for the last three months. Every day, out and about in my new city, I hear things that amuse, entertain and delight. Many of these pronunciations and usages slip by unnoticed, similar as they are to their British cousins. Others confuse or make me laugh out loud. Here are a handful.

Australian | American | British | Last heard

Skoll-up Skal-lup Skoll-up Another scallop?

Tumah-to sauce Ketchup Tumah-to sauce More tomato sauce?

Forrud Four-head Forrud Hands to your forehead

Across it On it On top of it Is he across it?

Thongs Flip-flops What? ‘right if I wear my thongs?

Bogan Redneck Chav It’s a bit bogan

Rock melon Cantaloupe Cantaloupe Wow, there’s rock melon

Heaps Lots Loads Oh yeah, there’s heaps

Vin-yaaahd Vin-yurrd Vin-yaaahd Where’s the vineyard?

And then of course there’s the Australian penchant for adding “o” or “ie” to every word that extends beyond a single syllable. My absolute favourite is “bottle-o” as in the bottle shop. Other words I try to shoehorn whenever possible into daily conversation are: “cozzie” for swimming costume, “brekky” for breakfast and “tradie” for tradesman (I don’t know if we have a word for this in America). So fun! 🙂

Bondi Farmers’ Market

After recommendations from several friends, last weekend we finally checked out Bondi Farmers Market… and immediately regretted not having come sooner! Down on the south end of Campbell Parade, next to the public school, the market has food and organic produce every Saturday morning till 1pm. We were more in search of groceries than snacks when we arrived, but ended up partaking in many of the below. This is as good as (possibly even better?) than the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers’ Market, which is saying a lot 😉

Let’s get started!

Lovely mural at the entrance

Waiting for dad

Freshness

Fun mats at the entrance

Keen-wah brekky

Keen-wah parfaits

Take home keen-wah

The chai tent was a hit

The raw garden

The oyster lads

We had an amazing lychee-rose dessert from here

Peruvian brekky

The music maker

The honeymaker

Real bees

A scary closeup

Best food in the market: the fritter house

The farmer’s feast

The artisan slushie

Muesli

Shopping for greens

Fresh veggies

The checkout line

Buns by former Tetsuya chef Darren Robertson

This was possibly the best bun I’ve ever had

Melt in your mouth pork bun

Fresh flowers

I don’t know what these are called

Picnicking in the grass

The chai tent

Chattai mats around the chai stall

Beautiful colours

And patterns

And fresh Sydney rock oysters

The Great Barrier Reef

Last weekend, we took a spontaneous trip up to Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef, the “GBR”. My dear friend Joyce (our first visitor from America!) had spent the preceding week with us as part of her 3 month world tour / planned job hiatus. We’d had a fantastic time showing her around — the beaches, the (blue) mountains, the zoo, the restaurants — but she was planning on continuing her Australian adventure with a few days in Cairns (a place both she and my husband had a very hard time pronouncing). The friend she was hoping to explore Cairns with cancelled last minute and it seemed a shame to let her visit the GBR alone. So Thursday evening, we booked flights leaving for Cairns early Saturday morning and returning Sunday night.

Cairns is a three hour flight from Sydney. We set our alarms for 430am (a time I would have considered ungodly early until recently — yeah that’s what Sydney will do to you) and were out the door at 510. The airport was buzzing and the excitement was starting to course through our veins. We were going to see the Great Barrier Reef! As we split a ham & cheese croissant at Sydney airport, we laughed at the last time we’d taken such a spontaneous trip — nearly 7 years ago when we were living in London.

Sydney is no London when it comes to accessing glamorous European destinations in a weekend, but the airport sure helps make up for it. We didn’t even have to bring ID! I’ll repeat that because it’s so awesome: all you need for a domestic flight in Australia is your boarding pass. No more “remove your liquids”, “remove your shoes”. We’d checked in online and breezed through to our gate in 10 minutes. The plane spat us out at Cairns airport at 930am and, by 10am, we were walking around the CBD.

Cairns’ central business district consists of a mix of large and small streets with a ton of restaurants, cafés, bars and hostels. It oozes that beach town vibe but it isn’t packed, at least not at this time of the year, not like Bondi Beach. From the CBD, it’s a 10 minute walk to the water where a lot of the larger resort style hotels have set up shop. Joyce was staying at a hostel and in the spirit of keeping it real, we’d decided to hostel it too. Before you conjure up images of 8 people packed in bunk beds with one bathroom, our hostel, Northern Greenhouse turned out to be awesome and we had our own room and (most importantly!) our own bathroom.

We grabbed some breakfast, a walkabout and a much needed power minute nap, we headed to the pier with Joyce to catch our ride to Green Island. Green Island is a coral cay on the Great Barrier Reef with island rainforests and white sand beaches. We’d picked one of the many half day packages offered from Cairns and set sail at 1230. By 1.15pm we were changing into our gear and getting ready to jump into the water.

Hundreds of fish less than 2 metres from the shore! Some of the highlights were the pointy nose blue gar fish, a humongous sea cucumber that had anchored itself to the sea bed, and a giant school of silver fish that encircled us in a continuous and rapidly moving line whenever we came close. I wish we knew the names of everything we saw. We snorkelled in a few different spots and saw some awesome fish but Green Island was a tad crowded in the end. I was surprised to see so many tourists from China, most with large families. Many of the signs and menus had translations in Chinese.

Surrounded by silver fish

This sea cuke gave me the willies

More silver fish

We got back to Cairns by around 430pm and after a shower and a rest, headed over to Fettas for dinner. I love all kinds of Mediterranean food and had spotted this little gem on our walk in town. We wouldn’t have committed to going there, however, had it not been for Joyce’s success in getting the lowdown on Cairns from a group of local lads.

Fried Greek cheese (to-die-for), tarama, tzatziki, hummus

Spicy chicken

Lamb chops

Meatballs, tomato salad and fish

Fettas was amazing. It was quite possibly the best Greek food I’ve ever had. All three of us got the banquet which meant we’d get to try a little bit of everything and, most importantly, wouldn’t have to make any decisions (big win). The belly dancer and plate breaking (I counted at least six) only added to the fun.

After dinner, we headed over to Gilligan’s, the place we’d gotten the most reccs for as the not-to-be-missed part of a trip to Cairns. I’m not sure how to describe Gilligan’s. It’s technically part of a hostel but it’s really a gigantic indoor / outdoor club…

Before you judge it though, let me tell you it’s super fun and completely unpretentious. People were gathered along long communal benches and a cover band was playing a mix of 80s rock and top 40s. We kept telling ourselves we’d leave and call it an early night but we ended spending the next few hours dancing to the perfect 80s mix. Interestingly, the dance floor never got too crazy. Is it possible the 80s were lost on this younger crowd? Eek!

The next morning, we awoke bright and early for our ride to the Outer Reefs. We were going to hit up three sites and see the actual GBR. We packed up and went back to Macaron cafe, the lovely French place we’d eaten at the day before and put away some delicious croissants and quiches before heading to the pier.

There were 50 odd people on board, a mix of snorkelers and divers, and the tour was very structured. A fantastic guide gave us an overview of the types of marine life we’d see. We were also fitted with “stinger suits” — lycra suits that were meant to protect us from sunburn and from blue jellyfish, also known as “blueys”. A friend had warned us that on an earlier trip to the GBR, she’d been stung by a bluey on her FACE. Wtf!

Pretty yet lethal

Blue jellyfish

The hour it took us to get out to the reef flew by quickly and before we knew it, it was time to jump in the water. The fish were huge and would come right up to the boat for food. We’d been instructed to look out for Nigel, a giant blue parrotfish who’d been domesticated by the boat’s photographer and was always willing to pose for a good shot.

The coral was amazing and endless and took on all kinds of forms. Our guide had told us that coral nomenclature was fairly straightforward — e.g. looks like a boulder? It’s called boulder coral. Looks like a brain? It’s called brain coral. And so on.

Staghorn Coral

Boulder Coral

We had lunch after jumping in at the second site and tea after the third site. We also went on a 30 minute snorkelling tour with the guide who dove down to retrieve and show us various types of sea cucumber. He also led us to a giant sea turtle! Swimming with that massive creature was just incredible.

We also finally got to see “Nemo”, which had been hard till now because clown fish typically hide in a stinging anemone that they alone are immune to.

After the tour, Joyce and I wandered off for a last bit of snorkelling. On our way back to the boat, I spotted a nurse shark! We chased him for a while and got a few pics, but he eventually out-swam me and disappeared into the deeps.

By the time our boat pulled back in to Cairns, it was 430pm. We were exhausted and my hair was a giant, salty, dried out mess. We got back onto the pier, found the cab we’d booked and headed back to Cairns airport for our 6pm flight to Sydney. What an amazing weekend!