Sydney Eats Part 1: Duck burgers, cider and Zumbo magic!

At the end of March, my wonderful boyfriend and I abandoned our responsibilities and our basil plant (it's okay, it survived) and headed south for five days.  After two nights in the lovely Blue Mountains town of Blackheath (possibly our favourite place in the world) to visit my charming cousins, we headed to Sydney; Sam, to speak at a conference on patient-centered care, on which he is rather the expert, and me, to eat as much delicious food as possible.  In honour of the very exciting return of Master Chef (and more specifically, of Adriano Zumbo) last night, I thought I would share with you my small culinary adventure.

On the evening of our arrival, we headed to Newtown to meet our lovely friend Nicola.  Newtown is my favourite place in Sydney, we spent a few days there last year eating and wandering through it's amazing weird shops.  Being in this very trendy and neato suburb, I was keen to sample some sort of exotic Asian fusion type food I'd never tried before that I could tell everyone about - this sort of thing seems somewhat lacking in Brisbane.  However, group consensus was to something we have coming out of our ears in Brisbane - a burger joint.

There are about five burger shops on the main street in Newtown and on the recommendation of  our hosts we selected Moo Gourmet Burgers.  Sam and I both order the Duck and Bacon burger.  Yes, that's right, a duck burger.  This burger also featured lettuce, tomato, homemade mayonnaise and most interestingly, orange jam.  I have borrowed the picture below from eatshowtell to give you an idea of the glory of this burger.  Needless to say, it was delicious.  I also enjoyed an organic ginger beer.

After the burgers, we ventured to a hole in the wall bar called Corridor to sample Nicola's current favourite beverage, Rekorderlig Cider.  Although I am not typically one to spend $14 on a drink, I was particularly curious about a drink that looks like beer (thus, street cred I normally miss out on because I entirely dislike beer) but tastes like strawberries and limes.  Yummo.  Despite it's deliciousness, I only got about half way through the 500mL bottle (was still pretty darn full from my duck burger experience) so Sam chivalrously downed the rest.  Anyway, the moral of the story is, try the cider amigos.  You will not be disappointed.  There are also pear, mixed berries and apple flavours for those of you wanting something a bit less girly sounding.  You can find out where to get it, here.  

The next day, Sam was off to his conference, so I decided to venture to the lovely suburb of Balmain, with the sole intention of visiting the patisserie of Adriano Zumbo, the crazy and incredible patissier made famous by his crazy stunts on Master Chef, most notably, his macaron tower.  I caught the train and then the ferry (feeling very worldly of course) then walked up Balmain's Darling Street, taking pictures and enjoying the sunshine, but all the while a deep sense of anticipation growing inside me.

Darling Street is pretty long and pretty uphill, so I stopped at this little cafe for brunch.  This avocado and mushroom combination left me feeling healthy, satisfied and a little bit cool for ordering such a chic meal - everything you want from a brunch, really.

After my yummy toast, it was time.  I ventured a little bit further up the road to Zumbo's.  The patisserie is a teeny tiny little shop with exactly enough room for the staff, the food and a huge queue of people longing for macarons.

But, if you wait, quietly and patiently, the tiny glorious masterpieces will soon be revealed.  For me, actually, the line was too short, as when I got to the front I still didn't know what I wanted the most.  Eventually, I decided on hazelnut layer cake (it had a fancy clever name but I was a bit overwhelmed at this point and forgot it).  I also picked out one of each flavour of macaron they had that day - rose, musk, salted caramel and more unusual, mango and macadamia and apricot and rosemary.

Some foolish folks were standing outside wolfing down their Zumbo delights on the side of the road, but I carried my little bag all the way back to the hotel so I could savour every bite in air-conditioned bliss.  The hazelnut cake looked like this:

I cut it down the middle to reveal SEVEN layers of goodness: the dark chocolate icing, a hazelnut mousse, a rice crispie type thing, more mousse, hazelnut cake, MORE mousse and a biscuity base that was sort of like an Anzac cookie.  It was H-E-A-V-E-N.

The macarons were delicious also.  My favourite was the salted caramel.  Wasn't the biggest fan of apricot and rosemary, but it was really interesting to try and DID actually taste exactly like apricot and rosemary.  All in all, the experience was rather a success. :)