Table:30 - ParkRoyal

I think I've told almost everyone I know that work cut our pays almost a year ago. So it's nice for the store to win something and for work to shout dinner for once. We went to the newly renovated Park Royal Hotel in Parramatta. The lobby is quite spacious for a hotel in Western Sydney, but that being said, Parra is transforming rapidly with 'luxury' apartments everywhere. On Friday night they have happy hours at the bar down stairs which was quite loud so the noise went up to the restaurant. They closed off more than half the restaurants seating where there's normally breakfast buffets which would have avoided the noise more, but all the tables around us good hear the bustle down stairs since the dining area was open spaced.

No pictures but we had garlic and herb bread ($6.50 for 4 pieces). It was on a sort of soft flat bread not your normal toasted bread. It wasn't too salty or garlicy which was good. The chunky chips w/ aioli were indeed quite thick cut which almost looked like wedges, so heaps of potatoes inside and crunchy outside. Wedges also had decent chunks of potatoes and came w/ sour cream and sweet chilli, both $4.50 each for a bowl. Lemon lime bitters $4 more on the sweet side with a bit too much lemonade.

 

Berkshire Pork Double Cutlet 350g: served with sweet potato gnocchi, maple glazed carrots and spiced honey jus-$38 

I normally don't order pork at restaurants unless it's pork belly, but so glad I ordered this pork cutlet. The pork was perfectly cooked, moist and juicy with a lovely spiced jus to accompany it. Carrot cooked well and although it says maple glazed, it still had that natural sweetness from baby carrots. The sweet potato gnocchi was interesting but way too salty. I think they added the extra salt to balance the sweetness but it wasn't that sweet to begin with.

Cape Grim Tenderloin 200g: served with desiree mash, steamed broccollini and diane sauce-$45 

Had a bit of the steak and it was super soft and melt in your mouth as well. We also ordered sneaked veggies $6.50 a bowl, but they were sort of your stock standard frozen veggies from supermarkets just steamed.

 

Apple and Rhubarb Crumble: served with caramelised anglaise and vanilla ice cream-$18 

  

I didn't want anything chocolate for my dessert and none of the desserts really appealed to me. I opted for this, first time ever having a crumble at a restaurant. Tbh it loos like my morning granola. It had a nice sour rhubarb flavour throughout it, but the whole dessert was quite big so I didn't finish it. I liked how they scooped the ice cream into a super round ball, but it was on the icier side. The cremes anglaise was super sweet as expected, but paired with this dessert in a way, but I didn't touch it much since I liked the sourness and some sweetness in the ice cream was enough.

 

Sticky Fig and Pecan Pudding: served with chocolate butterscotch sauce-$19 

It was a massive pudding, so glad I didn't order this. I'm not a big fan of this sort of dessert with the rich chocolate/butterscotch sauce. Had a bit and the pudding was alright, maybe a bit dry so I guess that's why there's so much sauce.

I had a chamomile tea ($4) and they give you 2 pyramid tea bags on the side and a pot of hot water. Found it odd you had to brew your own tea.

Overall it's a fancier and more expensive dinner in Parra, but worth giving a go. I think they charge 1.1% surcharge for credit cards though. 

  

Day in Bathurst

When surprises work 👌 Her reaction was priceless haha. I'm still so glad that we did this. Missed you Happy Apple! Hope you can join next time, wasn't the same without you (: Managed to successfully surprise a friend who's on placement in Bathurst for a year, and returning in over a month's time. We've done quite a few surprises within the group, but most of the girls are quite smart and aware of things eg. see more food in fridge around the time of their birthday, and end up figuring out something odd is happening, and they sort of know a surprise is bound to happen lol.

This time we just told Jo 2 of us were coming but ended up being 6, so the surprise did work successfully. Lies were told to put her off guard, but it was hilarious! It was all pretty spontaneous, but luckily we were all free Monday night and ANZAC day. I hardly drive to rural places, so followed Tess who is expert at driving country roads and spotting hidden police. I missed all 3 hidden police cars in the dark...Can't believe this year they started double demerits on Friday to Tuesday, it used to be Tues only...and there was also Easter long weekend Thurs-Monday. So essentially driving in April 1/3rd of the month was double demerits. 

First time going to Bathurst. Got there and checked in a a nice B&B, but was expensive as expected since we were only staying there one night in a long weekend. The owner has 3 dogs (couldn't get a nice pic), but they were so cute! I also had a soft serve-haven't had one in years (are my taste buds too fancy for cheap ice cream..?) Apparently it was considered quite a large serving, wanted to take a Snap but couldn't just in case it ruined the surprise element....

We ended up sleeping after 3am, really just chatting and catching up through the night. If we stayed awake an hour earlier, we could've made it to the Dawn service lol. Only got around 4.5 hours sleep, but surprisingly not too tired when I woke-probably the adrenaline.

You can easily complete Bathurst in half a day, although we didn't really visit the super big gardens or castle (don't think their castle can compete with European ones though haha). I always though Bathurst was a hole and only had the Bathurst 1000, but it actually has some decent shops and not as rural as I thought. I love how vibrant the colour of the trees are past the Blue Mountains area.

 
When your shoes match the leaves 💗
 
 
I love how this tree changes from a deeper red/pink/light pink, orange, yellow then green

 
Park. So glad it was only sprinkling since it was forecast to rain


flower house!


Pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the flowers here, was not expecting this at all. I can understand now why Dandelion visits multiple parks for flowers/trees haha

  
Husky! First time touching a husky. This was at our accommodation


Dandelion's plating skills ft: buttermilk pancakes, vanilla whipped cream, strawberries, cinnamon sugar, mandarin rind and pecans


Venue Cafe Bar: eggs florentine-$16.50, regular capp-$3.70 plus 15% surcharge.
  




that yolk porn

It's a bit pricey for a small ish portion (the other food there had pretty decent portions). The hollandaise was a bit different as it didn't have as much of that acidity, but it wasn't too salty either.

 
Annie's Old School Ice cream Parlour: Blueberry and Saffron Gold-$4

I was super full but still got ice cream since they place is quite cut win it's decor. It's pretty cheap and large serving size compared to Sydney ice cream. It wasn't that creamy and the blueberry did taste a bit artificial and the other vanilla and honeycomb flavour was quite sweet. It was just ok, and compared to Sydney it's below standards, but it's Bathurst which I thought was a hole....So for Bathurst it's good, and lots of locals do come to support them.

 


  
On the race track of Bathurst 1000!

 
Mount Panorama


at the top

 
If only I could drive a fast car round these bends...

I didn't even realise you can go on the actual race track, although max speed 60 not 200km/h like the race cars. Apparently they even have police at the bottom of the hill to catch drivers speeding...

Left in the afternoon with a pit stop at Blue Mountains. Haven't been here in years, but it looks a lot more new, well more railings and more people...and ticketed parking everywhere. Apparently after 4pm it's free even though the sign said 5pm.

I actually don't mind driving on bendy roads. Wasn't tired when driving, but when I got home and tried to finish some ethics stuff, I could feel my energy draining. Probably won't drive 7 hours in 24 hours with 4.5 hours sleep plus work again soon haha.

So glad we did this super mini road trip! Times like these I know we probably won't have anytime soon with everyone working and studying and just in different places, but thankful for the friendships (: There are heaps of places I would like to visit and road trip to. Too bad I don't have any friends who are just free to road trip during the week 😔

Preoccupied

What a week it has been. From cruise, to an Indian dance concert to a super quick yet fun trip to Bathurst (more to come, if only my photos would upload), and going to a place to eat which has been on my list to eat since first year. I used to have a physical list of places I write down and want to eat before I graduate, since who knows if I'll still be in Sydney where all these cafe places will be super hard to come to and make time for. Now it's just a mental list since all the food places to try are literally never ending.

The thing which made my day today was free pearl milk tea. There's a new asian grocery store opening at my local shops. I think the stuff is generally a bit more expensive but I guess you save petrol rather than going Eastwood and fighting all the asians for parking, or driving to Carlo or Chatswood since petrol ain't cheap these days. It's quite limited since it only stocks snacks atm, but they have milk tea which I guess is different since no one has that here at the shops. I asked them how much it was, and they said it was freeee. First day opening, and i guess it's their 'soft opening'. They sold out before 4pm, so was trialling the new machine for about 2 hours. I think the girl who made it works at the Oliver Brown opposite, since I generally remember if people if they give me discounts on coffee or tell me off for getting my card stamped when I got a discount. Not my problem the staff stamped my card...Maybe the owner was too rich and decide to invest in an asian grocery store. I think it would become quite popular.

Anyways, it wasn't actually that sweet which is good, just a bit too much ice. I haven't had Cha time/share tea/easy way for years since I can't deal with all the sugar syrups they use. I have a sweet tooth for desserts, but that sweet is incorporated with other stuff like acidity, creaminess, tartness etc, so it's actually not that sweet in the end.

What did't make my day was finding out I didn't get paid for 2 days when I helped at another store.

Can't believe it's taken me 2 months to be able to hold a plank for 1 minute. I used to do that every week and hold for over a minute back in the dance days (i.e. before 3rd yr). In two years, it's so easy to lose all my muscles. I don't know if it's the placebo effect, but maybe 'core stability' leggings really do work.

It's also taken me over 2 weeks to finally upload all my Europe photos to FB. It's actually very, very time consuming, going through photos on my camera and phone, manually writing down the file numbers of which ones I want to upload without overly spamming everyone with one photo of everything. Then organising them since I take photos on both cameras but not necessarily of the same thing or same time, and then writing captions. I think after this time I ceebs uploading, or just upload photos straight from phone rather phone, laptop, FB. It's been using up so much time I haven't even started typing stuff or finding readings for research. Haven't even had time to finish reading a book or tidying up my desk.

Zumbo announced he has a new app coming. There better be freebies or some sort of discount for his cakes which have definitely gone up in price and shrunk in size, or else I'm not playing. It's like I didn't bother with the Donut King app since I'm not a big fan of those deep fried unhealthy things. I would rather eat unhealthy junk food like cake and ice cream than cheap donuts (they're actually not that cheap these days though).

It's strange how I'm actually pretty preoccupied these days. I guess that should be a good thing. It's taken 4 months to actually get over it, and around 5 months to just tell people without getting the feeling of judgement. Obviously other people who go uni still judge silently, I guess that's why I have become a lot more anti social to still avoid all the lengthy explanations, like if I was to join a Bible study group or something and all those awkward conversations. 100% my social interactions have declined, or the word opposite to exponential...

What the Fudge

Last year and this year, Sydney went crazy with Golden Gaytime everything. From the normal paddle pop to flavoured paddle pop pop up shops (didn't end up going since I was overseas), ice cream in tubs (now with around 4 variations), cornettos, and cafes own creations like milk shakes/freakshakes (have yet to have a big crazy one but it's just so unhealthy I'm just not willing to spend money on that...) Anyways, was in the area so definitely had to try this, being a dessert lover.

 
Deep Fried Golden Gaytime-~$15

It's actually quite nice with a thin batter coating and golden daytime ice cream inside. There's just way too much chocolate sauce here for me but I did like the crunchy choc balls and some crumbs for texture. It's just probably not worth the price for $15 since you can get like 15 paddle pops with that...

Choc+strawbs

Friend ordered this, it was alright. Can't really go wrong tbh.

 

12 Spices Lao and Thai Cuisine

Group dinner since most of my uni friends live on this side of Sydney. Most of the popular thai restaurants first open in Western Sydney, so this place has been on my go to list for a while just to compare with the other popular Thai places in Sydney. Just some photos and quick descriptions.

Spring rolls-$8

Didn't really taste that fresh, bur deep fried well and not too oily.

Ox tongue-$15.90

Nice and soft and well seasoned, would recommend.

Satay chicken-$11.80

Decent satay chicken with a nice dipping sauce.

  

Pad see ew w/ beef-$13.90

Not enough sauce or right proportion of toppings to noodles. Just felt like not enough noodles at all.

Tum Lao salad (medium heat)-$11.90

This was so, so spicy. Only like 2 of my friends could eat it without any problem.

Tum Thai salad (no chilli)-$11.90

Not a big fan of this sour sort of sauce, just a personal preference really. Both salads were really fresh and had a nice crunch from the veggies.

Pad Thai-$13.90

I found this pad thai to be pretty one dimensional. It was just sweet but not really saucy enough or have other flavours to balance just the sweetness. 

Soft shell crab-$21.90

I could actually tolerate the chilliness in this. Not many crab pieces even though it looks like there is.

Green curry-$13.90

This was so spicy but still good with the coconut fragrance and creaminess combined with rice.

 
Special fried rice-$17.90

It was pretty average fried rice, didn't have many toppings either. Steam and sticky rice were $3 each. Takeaway boxes 30c each.

 
Watermelon+lychee-$6, green tea, sour sop (custard apple) fruit shakes-$5.50

They randomly gave us a mixed drink even though my friend ordered lychee only and no one ordered a green tea. I started drinking my green tea thinking it was custard apple which it wasn't. Shouldn't have told them when our actual drinks arrived since they probably chucked it out haha. The custard apple had a hint og the fruit, but more on the sweet side. I just normally get a cold drink anyway to help with all the chilliness in the food.

Overall, it's an average thai place, but I think I prefer places like Holy Basil and Green Peppercorn a little bit more.

12-Micron

For those who don't know already, I love my desserts. When there was a tasting menu featuring 7 desserts for dinner, I knew I had to try it. It's part of all the new restaurants in Barangaroo, but 12 Micron is level 3 in a building. It's a bit fancier than your modern Australian restaurant, but a bit laid back and not quite fine dining. They have heaps of windows throughout, so I can imagine day time views are decent, just don't really see the Harbour Bridge unlike all those top restaurants on Circular Quay side.

(I just wanted a pretty picture for my thumbnail featuring my fav dish)

First impressions was that the restaurant was so spacious. There were 2 open kitchens: one for savoury the other for dessert and both were really big. So rare for restaurants in the CBD since rent ain't cheap. You could choose between bar or table seating. If you go for bar, you can see them make your food (and obviously gets to you  faster, rather than your ice cream melting on the pass waiting for a waiter). Even the tables and chairs were spacious, like I sat on a whole lounge seat myself (although I was a tad bit short for the table since the seat was a bit lower than normal).

dining area

unique glassware

savoury kitchen

sweets kitchen

long tables


bar

Now onto the real deal: desserts. I have never eaten off such fancy plates before, so I have to commend them for their ceramics. Each dessert you get a new set of spoon and fork. The menu only lists the flavours of their desserts, so I'll try my best to expand on each component. At times, I did fulsome dishes had way too many elements to get everything onto one spoon, and too many flavours going on. It's also a degustation, so serving sizes around half the size of a la carte, and the price reflects that. The seven course desert degustation is $85pp.

1.  Gin & Tonic

Four Pillars Gin | Lime | Lemon | Cucumber | Juniper

   

This was my second favourite dish from the night. I loved how you can taste the gin and tonic throughout, especially in the clear jelly. The thing in the middle had an icy texture with a hint of cucumber in it. There was also lemon pannacotta but not too creamy, and a lime sorbet which I think they spray gun dusted it. Everything just went together in a not really sweet but nice alcohol taste.

2.  Rose

Apple | Yoghurt | Strawberry | Beetroot

Favourite dish of the night. I love the colours of this with the crystallised rose petals, and deep red beetroot sponge cake. There was a sort of strawberry mousse and yoghurt inside which added a creamy element. The apple sorbet was very refreshing as well.

3.  Olive Oil

Dark Chocolate | Bread | Smoked Salt

The most interesting element was the olive oil jelly. It's in the middle of a jelly and parfait texture since it's opaque and a bit denser and creamy, yet still light because of the flavour. Weird but cool to eat. Couldn't taste much of the toasted bread in the ice cream, but you can taste some bread flavour. The dark choc ganache was quite heavy so the olive oil flavour in the jelly and around the plate helped. I forgot what's under the choc disc, some sort of cake...There was also a mini piece of toast for a crunchy element, which you could pair with any of the elements.

4.  Smoked Vanilla Ice Cream

Plum | Barossa Valley Wanera | Thyme Sable

Our least favourite dessert, hence it only deserves 2 pictures. The flavours were so weird and not really to our palate. Separately they were ok, just not really together. I've had plum and cheese before, but a sweeter sort of plum and a creamier/stronger cheese flavour. The plum sauce around with bits of plum was that weird jammy taste with a bit of sourness and not completely sweet, and the cheese wasn't that creamy either. I guess there was the honeycomb to add some crunch, sweetness but also bitterness, it's just not the same amount of sweetness compared to the plum sauce when they cook and reduce it. Also, the ice cream was already melting when it arrived on the table, so probably sitting on the pass for a good minute or so, which sucks, since by the time I took photos it already half melted. Couldn't really taste the smokiness in the ice cream. The thyme sable was soft and salty with a hint of thyme, but I couldn't appreciate the savoury to complement the sweet. Liked salted caramel works, just not sure how salted plum, bitter and sweet flavours comes together. In this dish. The actual plate was quite heavy and very interesting to look at, but I think it makes the plate too busy and crowded.

5.  Roast White Chocolate

Banana | Coffee | Passionfruit | Avocado

Interesting combo of flavours. I like that sort of banana mouse which is caramelised just a tad bit so it's not like fake artificial banana flavour. Maybe would've liked a bit bigger piece of the banana bread  it's more like a small cube here. The parfait with the white choc flavour and roasted white choc ice cream not too sweet either. There was a coffee crumb which helped balance out the sweetness from the white choc. That passionfruit jelly thing which was more like a fruit gel thing was super sour, feels like they added sourness to it lol. The other passionfruit piping cream was a bit sweeter, and avocado piping tasted like a slightly sweet avo, again interesting. Somehow the flavours worked.

6. Cheesecake

Fermented Strawberry | White Chocolate

inside

It's a lemon cheesecake which was light and tangy, with nice acidic strawberry centre. Loved that pink gel on top, makes everything so pretty. Fermented strawberries taste not as sour or sweet, but more strawberry flavour, looked a very off pink. The sponge here looked like but it tasted kind of like bread with a denser texture. The crumb was nice and not too buttery. Don't think it needed the white choc since I liked just the acidity from the lemon flavour and strawberry. Another favourite, and I loved the plate it was served on.

7.  Mandarine

Salted Caramel | Tonka Bean | Chocolate

inside 

I was drawn to all that gold dust sprinkled on the dessert that I ended up getting gold on my phone...Finishing with a relatively heavy dessert, but luckily it had more bitter choc so not too sweet. As you may know, I have a sweet tooth but I'm not really a fan of chocolate. There was a nice mandarin liquid centre inside the centre inside the dark choc mousse. Salted caramel could have been salted a bit more in the chocolate. There were the mandarine balls which sort of tasted like passionfruit. From memory, the ice cream was a tonka bean flavour which tasted a bit like vanilla but melted quickly (quick google search shows tonka beans used as a substitute for vanilla, so my memory was correct). The chocolate crumb was average, not too dry or buttery. There were also some hard but thin caramel bit which looked pretty but didn't do much.

Petit three: caramel chocolate truffle, mint + white choc biscuit, blackberry jelly

Didn't even realise they had complimentary petit fours here (well three since only 3 things). I was full but I like to maximise my value for money lel. Luckily the caramel wasn't too sweet in the dark choc truffle. I don't like mint flavour things, but this mint biscuit reminded me of peppermint tea, which is nice to have something refreshing after a dessert, even if it's in the form of carbs...thank goodness the white choc wasn't sweet. I actually don't like those jelly fruit lollies encrusted with sugar, but still had it anyways. I just don't like the grainy and mushy texture, but the black berry flavour definitely came through.

I hope I remembered all the elements correctly with their corresponding flavours. I love my desserts, but I think my new maximum is definitely 7 plates. We were all so full afterwards. The tasting menu didn't say per person, so it may be possible to share a tasting course between two so you don't feel so bloated afterwards. Most desserts weren't actually sweet and had a good balance of flavours. It's just that when you only eat desserts continuously for hours, it does end up being too much. I wouldn't mind coming back here some time to try the savoury items since they looked pretty good as well.

Tl;dr, order the Rose and Gin & Tonic.

  

This post actually took me over 2 hours to do. I can understand how some people can blog about food as a full time job. By the time you travel there, eat, take photos, go over and select photos, then start blogging, it's about the equivalent hours of a normal working day...Too bad this wasn't sponsored haha. I just love eating desserts (: