Something funny happened yesterday!

Well, not exactly funny I guess.. but just pretty cool 🙂 The background is, we did an IQ Test at work and the winners got to go to the IT Fund For Kids charity dinner representing the company.. and I was one of the lucky ones that fluked a seat 😛

Anyway, found out yesterday that Microsoft also ran the IQ Test in the office… and…….. Chris was one of the winners too! Except his is more impressive than mine considering there’s about 500+ people in his office. Thought it was such a co-incidence that both of us are going though – on 2 competing tables – HA HA!

Gosh, I’d better start eating a lot of fish.. the dinner’s this week so I don’t have much time. Must get smarter ASAP. Must not let Chris beat me. We’re glad we’re both going to the dinner though, albeit with 2 different companies 😛

bills
59 Crown Street
Surry Hills, NSW 2010

Anyways, Chris and I were both feeling better today (kind of).. so we headed off to bills, owned by the fabulous Australian chef Bill Granger. I’m a HUGE fan of bills (yes, all in lowercase because they’re too cool to need an uppercase. I guess?) – I’ve got his cook book and am going to start cooking up some of his recipes soon 🙂 We went to the Surry Hills branch, as we normally go to the Darlinghurst branch. They were busy, even with about 8 wait staff around. We waited about 20mins for our food, which is pretty much the maximum amount of time before I start getting feisty 😉 They were really nice though, and even accomodated our request to shift to a table outside since the weather was cool and lovely.

I started off with my favourite Sunrise drink of orange juice, banana, yoghurt and berries. They gave me a large even though I asked for the small, and at AU$7, I thought it was really pricey. Utterly delicious though, and lovely and creamy :)~ Chris had his standard Hot chocolate with Callebaut which is essentially dark chocolate flakes at the bottom of the glass and hot frothy milk poured on top.. and you mix it all up together. Really really rich and sweet!

We ordered 2 mains to share, and it was our standard choices because we’re really boring people and never venture out to try new things 😉 So we got Sweet corn fritters with roast tomato, spinach and bacon – this kicks my homemade corn fritter’s ass!! I really must learn to cook them like this.. so so good and tasy and crispy and with the perfect merging of flavours. I think it’d be even better served with a few slices of fresh avocado, so that the moist creaminess of the avocado can really contrast against the salty crunch of the corn fritters.

The other main was the famous Ricotta hotcakes with fresh banana and honeycomb butter. Just sublime. I’m determined to re-create this at home and will try it out next weekend for breakfast. The hotcakes are really special because of the creaminess of the ricotta. It’s served with maple syrup that you can drizzle on top and makes the most wonderfully decadant dessert. Mmmm!!

All up, it was $50 for those 2 dishes and 2 drinks.. which I consider really $$$ for what was supposed to be “a light brunch”. But bills is special and none other comes close, so it’s worth it 🙂 That is, until I figure out his secret to the corn fritters and ricotta hotcakes.. then I’ll cook them at home for a fraction of the price and we’ll never have to go back! Bwahaha.

bills

The big blackboard menu

Open kitchen

Just a random cheesy photo Chris took of me

Sunrise drink & Hot chocolate with Callebaut

Sweet corn fritters with roast tomato, spinach and bacon

Ricotta hotcakes with fresh banana and honeycomb butter

After we were happily fed, we headed off down the road to the annual Surry hills Festival. It was huge! Tons of carnival rides and tons of stalls.. oh yeah, and TONS OF FOOD! I went all wide-eyed and greedy, gawking at all the different cuisines like Turkish, Himalayan, Mexican, etc.. until Chris had dragged me away from it all. Then……. I SAW IT. The food that I consider one of my all-time favourite foods ever. A CORN DOG. Otherwise known as a dagwood dog or whatever else you guys call it. Sausages are my favourite food… and a deep-fried sausage?? HEAVEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I always go on mad corn dog cravings and rampages but I can never find ’em because they really only sell when there’s a carnival.

Anyway, so there I was looking at the corn dog stand.. and I WAS FULL! 🙁 The eyes wanted to eat, the stomach didn’t – it was pure torture. And so I did something I never thought I could ever do.. I walked away from a corn dog stand WITHOUT buying one. I’m still quite shocked (and really feeling quite smug) that I resisted – fair enough, I was full so it didn’t take much resistance, but I still did it. Quite amazing, right?! But now I feel all deprived and sulky that I didn’t get my corn dog and I’M REALLY CRAVING IT NOW. Bah.

I did get a cupcake though, from The Cupcake Bakery. I’d never seen them before and if there’s something I can’t resist, it’s a cupcake. I’m pretty particular about my cupcakes though, I like them super moist and soft.. I can’t stand those cupcakes that are dry and crumbly or just taste all wrong and artificial.

After lots of deliberation, I decided on a Sticky date cupcake with cream cheese frosting. It was heavy in my hand, which meant that it would be lovely and solid and not bread-like. One bite and I was in bliss – I normally don’t really like icing that much and scrape it off, but this icing was delicious!! Not sickly sweet and complimented the sticky date cupcake perfectly. The cupcake itself was fudgy and thick, and so decadant and heavenly. It would have been nicer served warm though.. mmmmm… However, I’m sad I didn’t get the Chocolate cupcake and the Vanilla cupcake as well – I bet they’d have been great too. They don’t have a store yet (boo!) but I saw on their website they’re at the North Sydney markets, which is walking-distance from where I live, so I’ll be there bells ringing next time the markets are on!

Lots of people

Over 250 stalls were sprawled out all over the park

Some wall mural people were painting

There was a petting farm there too. No ferrets tho – bah!

The Cupcake Bakery’s stand

Sticky Date cupcake with Cream cheese frosting – mmmmmmmmmm… ahhhh…. :)~