Pastizzi café, newtown
Numero uno coffee. 523 King St, Newtown. Wooden furniture, lots of natural light, and an impressively friendly owner combine to make a place that’s a pleasure to visit. Specializing in pastizzi, this café usually has options for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Coffee is good too: separate grinder for [...]
Movie: Enchanted
Starts out as a Disney cartoon, and then the characters end up in the real world. If you like the sound of this premise, you’ll enjoy the film. If you dislike Disney cartoon movies, or kids movies in general, stay away.
Movie: Bee Movie
Jerry Seinfeld’s first large-scale project in a long while doesn’t look or feel like an episode of Seinfeld. It works as a kids’ movie, and has a few moments where the adults will find it entertaining, but (sadly) it’s nothing as groundbreaking as a Pixar film.
Salty dog seafood café and gallery, coolongolook
Segafredo coffee. For kilometres heading north there are signs detailing the menu of this converted church on the pacific highway. Dedicated to fresh seafood, and providing travellers with a pleasant spot to rest, sadly the coffee for me wasn’t up to standard.
There’s something [...]
Fig and bean takeaway cafe, sawtell
Peak coffee (roasted in port macquarie). First ave, sawtell: near the cinema. Outdoor furniture indoors, a range of fish-and-chip shop fare, along with some more fancy salads, gourmet pies and sushi options.
Coffee is ground to order, and takes a long while to arrive - [...]
Myalla café, bulahdelah
Amore coffee. Stroud st, Bulahdelah. A house with a café that has taken over not just the house, but the front yard as well! Staff are quiet and efficient, going about their business with a polished air.
This is an “order at counter, take table number” kind of [...]
LEGO Galaxy Commander - I knew it as the phase 3 command ship. Did anyone else have one? It’s probably the toy I remember most fondly from my whole childhood!
Movie: Hitman
Not since The Day After Tomorrow has there been a movie so tailor-made for sitting down with my younger siblings and ridiculing. A combination of action movie cliches, this film somehow manages to be entertaining, despite its lack of substance - it’s a case of reminiscing about the movies that this film was drawn [...]
Biscotti bar, wynyard
Aroma coffee. 36 clarence st, sydney. Some natural light creeps in from between the skyscrapers in this part of the city. This place has a sense of style about it. The staff are a little cheeky with the customers, if that’s something that appeals.
Seating is in [...]
It occurred to me today that it’s been nine months since we moved in to our own home. Nine mortgage payments; nine months of train travel to and from a new train station. Nine months of putting bins out (something we never had to do while living in units).
In that time, we’ve had friends [...]
Kafa espresso bar, surry hills
Campos coffee. Commonwealth st, surry hills. The large, communal table is the first thing you notice on arriving, even more than the polished concrete floor or bright green walls: it seats 12 comfortably. Staff are friendly, and in the crowded surry hills café space, it’s [...]
On Nespresso as a specialty coffee: "if coffee is really going to be the new wine, is there any chance we can please drink it out of something other than a paper cup?"
Opera (kind of): Metropolitan Opera Broadcast: The Magic Flute
I’ve only watched one other opera in the past - Faust, and that was on the recommendation of a friend. I enjoyed it a great deal: there’s a kind of spectacle in Opera that’s unique to that artform: the costumes, the drama, and the music combine together [...]
Suggested titles for those who want to read puritan literature in 2008.
La petite crème, darlinghurst
La petit crème coffee. 118 darlinghurst rd, darlinghurst. Standing room only on a sunday afternoon, we wait for others to gain atable in this darlinghurst institution. Their special breakfast, at $18 comes with fried eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, *cereal*, fresh OJ, and coffee or tea.
Coffee is [...]
Sloanes café, paddington
Allpress espresso. Paved floor, large courtyard out the back, and cheery staff. Not a place for those in a hurry, but if you have some leisure time, a pleasant spot to spend some time.
Coffee is hot, but not too hot, and has all the hallmarks of well-made [...]
Wall café, surry hills.
Genovese coffee. This looks like a place made by designers, for designers: there are design magazines on the wall, the espreso bar area is made of concrete, not some other kind of shop-fitting material, and there are a choice of different types of seats, not least [...]