The starter was tasty simplicity, the main course was a little unconventional and now all that remains in my attempt to sum up Sydney is a sweet ending... and it doesn't come much sweeter than coconut mojitos and Tim Tams. These two treats for the tastebuds will always make my tummy rumble and my brain waves take a trip down memory lane.
Having explored Sydney's CBD, sampled its nightlife and taken a bite out of the backpacker's handbook, the last chunk of my time in Sydney was spent exploring the bits that most people neglect. Your average visitor to Sydney tends to hover around the harbour, taking in the iconic sites and steering clear of the parts of town that aren't quite as polished as the pics on the postcards.
For me and my fellow cocktail stalkers, landing up in a 'dodgy' part of town as a result of our 'accommodation' turned out to be a stroke of luck... a little bored of the city centre (and a little more cash-strapped than the day we arrived) we chose to spend our last night exploring our neighbourhood, the colourful suburb of Kings Cross – yes it's grungy, yes it's got as many seedy bars as it has Chinese takeaways, but my-oh-my it's got character!
We strolled through the streets without a plan. We were winging it. We were happy to wander around people-watching – it was like dinner and show, just with the dinner part at the end: petite twenty-somethings with tattoos and piercings wearing pencil skirts and pearls, businessman in suits clutching their 'sushi to go' and nursing the beginnings of a 'business lunch' hangover, groups of girls – who appear to have been in such a rush that they forgot their skirts – tottering along the pavements chatting like someone hit fast forward, and foreigners with eyes like saucers ("this is so not the Sydney we saw on the postcard!") taking a closer look at their maps.
Midway through observing a particularly mixed group of young men queuing for a table at a vegan eatery, we came across a little bar called Coco Cubano and stopped dead in our tracks when a blackboard screaming 'Happy hour special: all cocktails AUD10!' caught our attention. With the average cocktail in Sydney set to cost you a (heart pumping) AUD20 on average, we had to take Coco Cubano up on its offer.
Four (or maybe it was five) cocktails later, we emerged like a pride of hungry lions in need of a good carb-loaded meal. On the advice of the Jamaican barman we headed around the corner and down a little alley, around another corner, and down another little alley until we hit the jackpot – several fabulous little eateries usually hidden from tourists and always frequented by locals. We ate dinner at a tiny Italian restaurant, chosen because of its name (Mad Pizza Pronto!), as we drank chianti and all agreed that our night in Kings Cross was our favourite in Sydney by far.
Such a good night could only be made better by a pitstop at a little café to grab a packet of Tim Tams (The official 'you'll never drink tea the same way again' biscuit of Australia), which is why we did just that and fell asleep that n in our dodgy little backpackers, levitating above the sheets, satisfied that we'd had the real Sydney experience. Tim Tams and all...
Comments