The pilgrimage to Zumbo

One of the places we wanted to visit in Sydney was the original Adriano Zumbo shop. For those of you not addicted to cookery-based reality TV, Zumbo is a dessert chef who is renowned for over the top cakes and weirdly tasting 'macarons'. He has a few 'outlet' shops in the city but we wanted to see the place where it all began in Balmain, a suburb just to the west of the city.

We got a ferry out to Balmain on a beautiful sunny Australia Day and climbed the hill out of the wharf. We almost made it all the way to the top before the need for shade & refreshment kicked in and we sought shelter in the excellent East Village Hotel, which offered a very tasty pint of Hop Czar 

 and a somewhat bland but very refreshing pilsner

Suitably fortified, we continued our trek and finally reached the chocolate mecca (cue angelic choruses and shining lights)

The queue for sweet sweet goodness

 and so much choice for macarons

 A proud moment

 The first taste of a salted popcorn macaron whilst waiting for the ferry - very tasty

We also got a 'Jack & Jill' and a 'Bananaman', both of which were beautifully made and presented

Unfortunately they were a little disappointing, with too many layers leading to over-complicated flavours and a sweetness overload. Although that might be partly because neither of us have a particularly sweet tooth.

 Then again, who needs a sweet tooth when you have a chocolate vulva?

Sunshine & Technology

Here you go boys - a Melbourne band instead of a Sydney group, but still a cool song...

 

Scenes of Sydney

We were in Sydney for Australia Day, and it was a beautiful sunny day. Some things we saw whilst wandering around.....

 Cockle Wharf

Bikes like this never go out of style

 Balmain Wharf

 A floating stage being pushed into the bay via ferry

 Views from the ferry

 The Opera House

 Luna Park

 Indigenous flag over the Harbour Bridge

 Australia Day firework & laser display

 And subsequent smog

 Unfortunately the weather didn't hold out and the rain came down for the second two days

 A community bookshelf in a park in Bourke St, covered by an attentive local

 Reminds me of 'home', and why I left!

Al Fresco living at the Rocks

 Sightseeing in the rain

 

Can you guess where I've been?

I've been back in Sydney and this time we stayed for a long weekend. Which was most enjoyable, and also lucky as we missed out on the storms in Brisbane. The only consequence was a wet last day and a very delayed flight, and I'm still getting over the subsequent late night.

So more posts due in the next couple of days....

Not such a bright idea...

Anyone that's had any of my beers will have experienced the joy of a foam snake, a seemingly endless rush of foam that floods out of the bottle when you open the beer. This happens because there was too much sugar in the brew when it was bottled, so instead of just carbonating the beer it amps up the pressure in the bottle to breaking point and when you open the cap it all tries to get out at the same time.

If the bottle doesn't flex when you press it then it's going to be lively (or it's glass, although that should be self evident). Generally the easiest way to cope with this is to let it foam.  Have two or three glasses to hand, gently but quickly open the bottle over the sink and let it foam into each glass in turn - even squeeze the foam out. The foam will eventually abate and each glass of foam will eventually turn itself in to a third-full glass of beer. Which pitched together makes a glass of beer, which is a good thing.

Of course that doesn't always work. I recently opened a bottle of 'bright' Spitfire Saison - beer that I bottled two weeks after the start of fermentation, instead of after another two to three weeks in a secondarty fermentor - and it didn't go according to plan. Those tiles (along with the other walls, the floor and even part of the roof) are not normally stained brown

 and I'm normally drier than this

One night, two showers and one state later I can still smell it on me....

It's all about the bikes. And ducks.

I was in Sydney last week for a few days, staying at a new hotel. I wandered in and the first thing I saw was these above the bar / restaurant area

 A Tomasini, a Leopard Trek plastic wonder and a Cinelli

 A Merckx, a hideous Trek time-trial abomination and an unknown classic old singlespeed roadie

Always a good omen to start the visit. Alas they weren't available to be lent out, and although it was great to see them it was also a shame to think of them just sitting there gathering dust. Especially that old singlespeed.

They also had an in-house coffee roaster, with green beans on racks on the walls. The coffee was pretty good, but we have fresh Merlot beans in the office and it's hard to beat that.

 Cutest of all was in the lake outside, with these blue-tip beaked ducks doing synchronised begging

Do you reckon the the Queensland variety has evolved a maroon tipped beak?

In honour of Lance

The response to the whole Lance Armstrong soap opera has been fun to watch. Before the doping allegations became well known in the mainstream media it was mainly cycling fans that had their suspicions, but half of them didn't really care too much as they accepted it was an integral part of riding at the time. The public at large considered him clean and an out and out hero for bringing it home against the cheaters.

After the USADA report was published the fun bit for cyclists was ticking off the bits you thought you knew and the bits you'd argued with supporters about, although a surprising number of people still clung to his silence as justification for their belief. Those that crumbled were busy burning their Livestrong memorabilia and taking to the internet to attack those that held strong.

Now it's pretty much all over, after a carefully managed 'interview' that exuded heavy scripting on both parts and was clearly done with specific outcomes in mind. The coverage is, as you'd expect, mainly negative and you have to feel sorry for the few people who undoubtedly watched it expecting fiery rebuttals. Cycling fans were keen to deride the whole popularist approach and generally declared 'they would be riding their bike instead', but I bet a fair few tuned in and you can guarantee that there will only be one topic of conversation in the coffee shops tomorrow morning....