NSW Holiday 2007-2008 – Day 13
On the second-last day of our holiday in NSW, we met up with E at long last. She picked us up from Jon’s place and took us back to her home to meet with Leika and Cobber, her gorgeous furry babies. I wish we could get a kitten, but we really need a bigger house before adding on any new family members.
I tried to take photos of the kittens, but Leika just moved too much! I did manage this one of Cobber, who was sleeping in the little cat house when we arrived.
Lowenbrau Keller Restaurant
Corner of Playfair & Argyle Streets, The Rocks, Sydney NSW
www.lowenbrau.com.au
Jac is always keen to try new and interesting beers (in this case, bier!), and we love German-style food, so Lowenbrau (one of the places on the list E sent us) really appealed to us. And I did want an excuse to go to The Rocks. And Lowenbrau’s famous giant pork schnitzel was calling my name. You can’t get more compelling than a talking giant pork schnitzel! Hahahaha!
To begin, it was beers all round! Two big biers and a little one, for me. L-R: Lowenbrau Dunkel, Hofbrau Munchen and Alcohol-Free Bier. The big biers were 500 ml (AU$10.00 ea), my baby one was 300 ml (AU$4.00).Click here to read more about the biers.
A toast to friends, holidays and feasting! Oh, and to bier, of course! I don’t see why they serve the Alcohol-Free Bier in a smaller size to the other biers. I was just as thirsty as the others and would’ve been happy with a big half-litre glass!
We started our session of gluttony with a basket of brezel – home baked pretzels (AU$10.80 for 3 pcs).
E took this photo of me spreading butter on my pretzel. My bag is open on my lap, and you can just see the top of my little black notebook where I kept notes of our holiday feasting.
The pretzels were so good. I cut into my pretzel, buttered a section, ate the buttered section, and repeated this until it was all gone.
I love how they are studded with salt. Warm, chewy, bready pretzel and soft, melting butter. Fantastic.
E ordered the wiener schnitzel (AU29.00), milk-fed veal schnitzel, served with french fries, salad and cranberry compote. The schnitzel was lovely and very tender.
E had actually asked for mashed potato instead of the fries, but they’d forgotten the mashed potato. They also forgot the cranberry compote! They ended up bringing the mash and compote in separate dishes after E asked about them. The mashed potato was really creamy. I helped E eat it. :) The cranberry reminded me of the lingonberry jam you get with IKEA Swedish meatballs. Which reminds me – I really have to go to IKEA sometime. Not to buy furniture, but to have those Swedish meatballs.
Jac ordered the wurstplatte (AU$28.00), a selection of sausages served with mashed potato and sauerkraut. Jac really enjoyed this dish. She gave me a bite of each of the sausages – one of them was a cheese sausage, and another was like a frankfurter -that one was my favourite.
And so I finally got to try the Löwenschnitzel (AU$30.00), Lowenbrau’s famous house special. The giant pork schnitzel was served with french fries and herb mayonnaise.
It was huge! I had to check what was underneath…
I was quite disappointed with the sad, sorry, stale-tasting chips. I mean, look at them! They look like two day-old chips you’ve forgotten about and left sitting in the fish and chips paper.
We also ordered a garden salad on the side (AU$6.50). Some of the rocket leaves were limp and wilted. I liked that they served semi-dried tomatoesin the salad, but it was a small serve and mostly not bursting with freshness. Definitely not worth the money.
As E and Jac tucked in, I gazed at my giant pork schnitzel, thinking, “It’s so BIIIIIG!” A few of you are no doubt wondering if I finished the schnitzel. Almost! I’d call it a respectable effort. I left only a few of the more over-done bits of crumbed crust on my plate. I know, I know, I should’ve taken a photo as proof. Next time.
Overall, I thought the pretzels, meats and mashed potato were good (though my schnitzel was a little overdone on the edges – the rest of it was tender and porky though), but the salads and chips were terrible. The biers were refreshing. Service was slow. Given the price of the dishes, you’d think they’d be able to get their fries and side dishes right. $30.00 is a lot to pay for a schnitzel (even a big one!) with shitty fries. Based on the food, I’m undecided whether I’d wholeheartedly recommend the place. I’d have to give it another go to make a decision. :)
EDIT: And I do have to say that despite any disappointments with the food and service, we had a great time with E, who is wonderful company. When we weren’t eating, we were talking, and when we weren’t talking, we were laughing… and laughing. I had a great time!
After lunch we walked around The Rocks for a while, checking out the shops. Jac bought her mum a T-shirt from the Ken Done shop. I thought of this walk as exercise to help make room for sweets…
Pancakes on The Rocks
4 Hickson Rd, The Rocks, Sydney NSW
www.pancakesontherocks.com.au
Jac and I really liked the sound of pancakes, and so we joined the queue waiting outside Pancakes on The Rocks. We don’t usually have the patience to queue up anywhere for food, but perhaps being on holiday made us more willing to trying *new* things. :) Plus, I really REALLY felt like pancakes, and didn’t actually mind waiting.
When we finally got in, the service was friendly and efficient. Jac and I had each chose the same – the Bananarama (AU$10.95). This dish normally consists of two buttermilk pancakes with grilled banana and homemade butterscotch sauce, topped with cream and vanilla ice cream. We chose to have our Bananaramas with crepes instead of buttermilk pancakes, and got two crepes in place of each pancake. These were the best crepes ever! They were so buttery, with crisp caramelised edges. I love cooked/hot/warm banana! It was good that the butterscotch sauce was just drizzled over, so you really got to taste the crepes and banana properly.
E chose the Vanilla & Choc Surprise (AU$10.95), which came with one buttermilk and one chocolate pancake, with vanilla and chocolate ice cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce. She did offer me a taste, but I was battling to get through my crepes and couldn’t spare the precious tummy space!
If you like pancakes, check out Pancakes on The Rocks’ sweet and savoury pancake menus. I also thought the non-pancake meals looked pretty good too. Another “next time”! Juji, when we get round to going on our eating holiday in Sydney, we have to go to this place!
After pancakes, we said good-bye to E and went to meet up with my sister JadedLotus at the Argyle (18 Argyle St, on the street right next to Lowenbrau!) for a drink. We made plans to meet up the next morning.
Sausages and salad dinner
By the time we got home, Jac was still really full – I was hungry enough to eat again, but of course that’s not unusual for me! Jac’s brother had made a couple of salads and was planning to cook up a barbie – a relaxed farewell dinner of sorts, on our last night in Sydney.
He’d made this enormous Greek salad.
And a yummy potato salad – I thought the best part about this salad was the fresh mint. I think my tastes have really been changing this part few months. I used to really dislike fresh mint leaves in salads, but now I love them. I used to dislike miso soup, but I now really like it. I’m sure there are more things I used to dislike which I’ve changed my mind about, but I can’t think of them now – what about you guys? Anything you used to hate eating but have had a change of heart (or taste) about?
Jon had bought beef sausages and pork sausages from a butcher. He had bought some steaks too, but we didn’t think we’d manage steaks as well as sausages, after our big day of eating. But then Jon ran out of gas anyway before he’d had a chance to put the steaks on, so it was sausages for everybody, and the steaks went back into the fridge. The sausages were delicious. I loved the pork ones best. Can you tell which is which?
My plate – note, minimal traces of feta, once again.
Pheeew. One more holiday post to go! It’s still so hot here. It got to 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit) today. It was still 39C when I got home from work, just after 6PM. And Jac just had a shower (at around 9:15PM). She put on a pair of clean knickers she had hanging on the towel rack, and they were warm. Ewww. Goodness knows how I’ll fall asleep tonight. We have no air-con, just fans, which are no help when the air being circulated is hot.