Life As A Pom: November 2014

So it's been a while since I last posted on here and things have been busy. Emma's arrival meant it was time to leave the luxury of the Penkivil penthouse behind and move 5 minutes down the road to our new apartment in Bellevue Hill.

We were really excited to move into our new flat. The first night we got the keys Kate and I let ourselves in to find the first (of many) cockroaches having a party in our lounge. As you can imagine we were absolutely horrified, cried and left immediately. Since then we've learnt a lot about these disgusting vile creatures.

Firstly - they are indestructible - after 3 pest patrols and lots of home made bombs we still see the odd occasional roach try to make its way to the kitchen.
They can fly - I thought this was some sick joke but it's true.
And finally - they are immune to gravity and can walk upside-down across your ceiling.

Although we're all still absolutely repulsed by these invasive and persistent creepy crawlies we've come along way and can now stand a foot away with bug spray and kill them without crying.

I'll upload some better pictures soon but for now this is a picture of my bedroom and our roof terrace. (Check out our flamingos!)

Just as we settled into our new place October arrived and we had our first set of visitors. The first people to get here were my Mum & Dad, followed by Lindsey a few days later and then Georgie the following week.

Here are some snaps of where we went, what we did and most importantly what we ate along the way.

Here we have a Tennessee-style hot fish sandwich from Papi Chulo.

Cornmeal crusted fish, spicy tartare, lettuce, pickles and a soft bun.

The cocktail you can see there is an almost healthy frozen blend of Vodka, coconut water, lychees, fresh mint and lime - perfection.

This is the view from the bandstand in Watsons Bay.

We visited the blue mountains and saw the three sisters.

The lumps on the rocks below are the sisters, and there's three of them.

As a housewarming gift my parents bought us a barbecue so we pigged out on meat and drank lots of wine at our first official Aussie BBQ.

We fed kangaroos & touched koalas

Look at this little guy, how could anyone not love him.

We had a Korean BBQ where you cook the food yourself on the hot plate in the middle of the table.

After dinner we headed for icecream at N2 Gelato.

I had KAT ON KRACK - milk chocolate gelato with crunchy feuilletines, a chocolate top, waffle ears & a shot of chocolate ganache for an extra calorific touch.

I took a day off work and we went back to the Hunter Valley for some wine tasting in the sunshine.

It was Kate's birthday in October so we flew up to the Gold Coast for a long girls weekend of drinking and food.

We went to a restaurant called Elston in Surfers Paradise for dinner one night during our trip. It was soo good we went back the next day for breakfast.

Sous vide eggs, toasted solders, pancetta, black true, parmesan cheese

This was, without a doubt the best presented breakfast i've ever had. Not the most practical but it looked fantastic.

For dinner I had the pulled pork bruschetta to start - pulled pork shoulder, with herbs and mayo served on ciabatta

I had the grilled fish of the day with a waldorf salad and hand cut chips as my main

Georgie had the fondu for two, for one at Max Brenner.

We visited Dream World, a smaller version of universal studios.

Sooo fun but not the best idea hungover.

We visited the Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Park and got of our schnoodles.

Dinner at the Rook

The plate below is a salad dodgers dream - deep fried mars bar and vanilla bean ice cream

We finished off the three weeks of excessive eating and fun with a famous

'Harrys cafe de wheel's pie'

Oh ma gad, such a good pie!

So, that was a sample of what we got up to during October.

Now everyone has left and normality has been restored i'm here rolling around bursting out my jeans and shaking the floor with every heavy step.

Paleo time.

Kill me.

Yes its been a while but..... i'm baaacck.

It's been about two and a half months since Kate and I went for Sunday lunch at Coogee Pavilion, the newest addition to the Merivale groups successful collection of restaurants. Here are some pictures of what (food) went down.

It took three months to makeover what i've been told used to be a complete dive. Now the pavilion is filled with families and guests enjoying the naughtical vibes. The perfect place for both family meals and Saturday night drinks.

Located on Coogee beach the menu has a wide range of food from fish, pizza, juices, sushi, meats, desserts, coffee and of course, vino.

Kate went for the mini lobster roll with celery, lemon mayo & chives

I had the fried chicken sandwich with b+b pickle slaw and spicy mayo on a soft bun

For dessert we shared a choc-chip and marshmallow cookie sandwich with honey ice cream. I expected the cookie to be warm and gooey so it would melt with the icecream but instead they were hard and crunchy which was really disappointing and a struggle to break.