Another visit to Hartsyard, Newtown

First of all, apologies. I’ve been a bad blogger. Life has been incredibly busy lately and I recently realised that I haven’t posted much at all in the last few months!

To make up for it, here are some exciting new dishes from Hartsyard. It’s no secret that Hartsyard is my favourite restaurant in Sydney, and I’ll use any excuse I can to go there for dinner. This particular trip was for my birthday in late October, and I’m going back next week for my hens’ night – the boys are jealous! 

Confit duck dumplings fried in duck fat

I am obsessed with few things in life, but duck and dumplings are definitely two of them. While shopping for ingredients to make dumplings the other evening, I had the GENIUS idea to combine the two. Even more brilliant, I got my friends to help make them! They didn’t quite turn out quite as prettily as my usual dumplings (I’ve had a lot of practice) but it was great fun. We also made some spinach and tofu Ladakhi mokmok (aka momos in Tibet or Nepal), which I’ll post separately for the vegematarians

Hartsyard, Newtown – revisited

Since our first trip to Hartsyard on their opening night, we’ve been looking forward to going back and trying other dishes… and trying the duck again! This time we brought four others with us so that we could order just about everything on the menu.

Dragon Den, Darlinghurst

I recently organised a birthday dinner for two of my loveliest friends at Dragon Den, near the Green Park Hotel in Darlinghurst. Planning a dinner for 20 odd people is not always easy, but the staff at Dragon Den were amongst the most helpful, accommodating and flexible I’ve encountered (along with Javed and the team at Delhi O’ Delhi).

Hartsyard, Newtown

The space which was once The Gourmet Viking has been transformed into the most exciting restaurant Enmore Road has seen for a long time. Husband and wife team Gregory Llewellyn (chef) and Naomi Hart (front of house) have worked hard to create their ‘seed and feed’ style eatery, complete with greenhouse for herbs and flowers, benches made from rescued extinct Tasmanian timber, and carbonated water on tap.

Easy entertaining canapés: Deconstructed Peking duck ‘pancakes’ and baby pear and walnut salad bites

So last night was my hopemonth canapé party which raised over $800 for Hope Street – woo! I’ll be posting the cooked canapé recipes individually, but these cold canapés which I invented were so easy and really, really popular. Perfect for easy, no cook starters to serve before a barbecue or dinner party.

Delhi O’ Delhi, Newtown

 My favourite Indian restaurant in Sydney has to be Delhi O’ Delhi. The food is always impressive and incredibly good value; the ‘house special’ banquet is just $34 per person and you get to choose four mains (excluding seafood)!

District Dining, Surry Hills – Take 2

On my first visit to District Dining, I was impressed. After my second visit, I was smitten!

Grasshopper, CBD

Nom Nom Pom had been telling me about Grasshopper for months, and we recently had the opportunity to try it out. It is hidden down a laneway. It is a small bar. It is unusual for Sydney. That’s all I’ll say. (I refuse to use the M- word in this post, so overused!!)

Essen Restaurant and Beer Cafe, Ultimo

A restaurant which serves a variety of local and imported beers, deep-fried camembert and eight kinds of schnitzel? That’s a Mr Black kind of place. So I took him along to Essen using a Jump On It voucher, and to my surprise, I liked it so much I took another friend there a month later!