A Mad Hatters Chinese Tea Party

Have you ever had an Alice in Wonderland themed afternoon tea in a chinese restaurant with a live spanish band playing downstairs? We have!

I really wanted to experience The Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea at the Sanderson in London but I didn't have a chance before we moved. When I saw this deal on Groupon I hoped it would be something similar.

The tea was at Pacific Penthouse in Glebe - a one stop shop trying to appeal to multiple tastes.

We made our way up the stairs from the old man section of the pub and quickly realised the chinese restaurant was where we would be eating our Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea.

It was quite dark inside with limited natural light. There was a long bar with a fish tank built in spanning the entire length. There were little chinese gnome characters with feather bowers hanging as decoration inbetween them. As a final touch there were yellow and red chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling - not quite what I was expecting wonderland to be like.

After we sat and had a few laughs at the venue our waiter delivered our drinks and a copy of the menu.

It started with a cocktail.

I did what it told me to do.

Then came the Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea

We started from the middle as we were hungover and needed something substantial ASAP.

Caterpillar Slider

Wagyu burger, lettuce, cherry tomato, jarlsberg & mustard.

What this slider really was, was a mini lump of meat with pickles. Don't get me wrong it was good, it just wasn't as great as the name would suggest.

Lizard Bills Baguette

Roast beef, asparagus, cherry tomato, cornichon, onion, mustard & chutney

I'm not sure what happened to Lizard Bill's baguette but the asparagus was hard and undercooked. It was wrapped in a thinly sliced beef sandwich filler and plopped on top of a small slice of dry bread. 

Rose Sandwich

Champagne ham, jarlsberg, cherry tomato

What you can see here is two slices of white bread, a piece of tesco thinly sliced ham (no butter - or tomato) cut into a circle shape and folded over.....

Cheshire's Puff

Smoked salmon mousse choux pastry

This was my favourite part of the savoury section. The pastry was a good representation of what was described on the menu and was a little puff stuffed with smoked salmon mousse.

Next we moved onto the sweet section of the tea.

Mad Hatters Cupcake

Hatter theme cupcake

This was good. It was a red velvet cupcake with some cream on top and an Alice In Wonderland themed message. I'm pretty sure they didn't make these cupcakes.

Again, I did what it told me to do.

White Rabbits Pocket Watch

Macaroons

These cute little macaroons had clock faces iced onto the side and a mini marshmallow on top. It would be pretty hard for me not to like a macaroon. It was good but not quite Ladurée standards. Again - we are pretty sure these were shop bought too.

These two treats were followed by some scones that were a little gritty and fell apart which made it difficult to eat them properly.

We finished the afternoon tea with what we thought would be the pièce de résistance.

Dodo Egg with Passion

Cheesecake filled chocolate easter egg with passion fruit sauce

It looked good.

I am obsessed with passionfruit and this egg looked amazing compared to everything else on the menu.

The 'cheesecake' filling was actually yoghurt and the passion was a type of puree that separated and left a watery remain at the bottom of the egg. So disappointing.

What could have been a really delicious experience in wonderland was actually a very poorly executed afternoon tea in a chinese restaurant. The food wasn't bad, it tasted okay but the standard was low and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who comes to Sydney.

An afternoon in Manly - Papi Chulo

There are some seriously good looking people in Manly. We were there for a very short amount of time but everywhere we looked we were surrounded by beautiful people. I don't know what it is but the short trip over the bay transports you into land of attractiveness.

We got the ferry over to Manly, the sun was shining and it was the perfect day.

I'm never going to get sick of this view.

We were starving from a heavy night drinking the evening before. We ended up in the first place we came across when we got off the boat and it was perfect.

My stomach has rumbled for this entire blog post.

We made ourselves comfortable at Papi Chulo. The staff were of course beautiful and so was the location.

Mmmm peanut butter and chocolate milkshake.

The decoration had a rustic seaside feel but had an expensive cute atmosphere. The view looks out over the bay and I can definitely see myself getting drunk here soon. 

The only issue is the ferry back to Sydney, I get seasick so it probably wouldn't end well.

We couldn't decide what to have so we shared two dishes.

The first one I hoovered up was this plate of mouth watering deliciousness.

Smoked pork Cuban sandwich - bbq sauce, smoked ham, mozzarella, mustard mayo, pickles on a toasted baguette

It was really rich, sloppy - yet crispy with a smokey taste - I loved it.

A side of curly fries.

Next up was the “Sloppy Joe” which had pulled kurobuta pork, pit beans, jalapeño, nacho cheese on a soft bun.

Look at that bun. Just look at it.

Teheeee

As if I hadn't already fallen for Manly's charm - they went and named a road after me. 

Darley Road.

We wondered down to Manly beach just as the sun set.

Manly is gorgeous, it has a real holiday feel to the area. 

In relation to home we have diagnosed Bondi as Bournemouth beach and Manly to Marbs. 

 

We got the fast ferry back to the harbour and got to see Sydney lit up from the boat.

I can't believe I live here! Gaaahhhhh.

Bondi Hardware

Someone from work recommended Bondi Hardware. It's pretty close to our flat so we headed there after my first day of work to celebrate.

From the outside it doesn't look anything special, there are big open windows with a few seats outside.

The idea is to share plates of food. The menu has lots of choices and it was hard picking just a few of the dishes.

To start we ordered our cocktails. I went for the 'Passionate Geezer' (clearly homesick) which had Tanqueray with lime, vanilla syrup, passionfruit & egg white with a spray of green chartreuse.

Next we had sweet potato fries with sumac & tahini remoulade.

Of course, these were banging. They always are.

Next was the Mac 'n' Cheese croquettes with truffle ranch dressing. 

We were the excited about this dish, macaroni, cheese and potato all fried into one - sounds like heaven. They weren't as special and delicious as we hoped but they disappeared pretty quickly.

Finally we had the confit pork belly with carrot, cardamom and apple.

This was our main dish and it was delicious. I sometimes find pork belly can be a little too fatty but in these small bitesized pieces it was perfect. The crackling was thin and salty and got stuck in our teeth. YUM.

The service was great and we got chatting to our waiter who had lived in England for 7 years. He ran away to Australia 5 days before he was due to get married to his fiance in the UK. (I can confirm he did tell her the day before he left - what a gent). He was strangely attractive.

After dinner we headed down the road for even more un-needed calories at WOWCOW.

The inside is funky with sporadically lit udders hanging from the ceiling.

Kate went for the healthy option of chocolate icecream with two of her five a day.

I went for marshmallows, crunchy biscuits with vanilla ice-cream and a warm chocolate sauce.

We rolled ourselves home feeling bad about what we had done.