Off the Map

Lady Hampshire – welcome back to the local

December 22, 2016 by andyadmin Leave a Comment

After a lengthy closure, our local pub, The Hampshire, has reopened with a gender re-assignment, as the Lady Hampshire. The closure was long and unexplained, although there were mutterings about fire regulations whenever the locals gathered to gossip. On a couple of occasions I did a bit of lazy googling to see if there was any mention of what was in store for the pub, but never found anything. Over the years we have had a bit of a rocky relationship with our local. When we first arrived, in the ‘hood, the Hampy was a venerably run down but functional local institution. It was good for a quiet beer, but the dining room was always plagued by the sickly sweet smell of urinal cakes wafting out of the Mens every time the door opened. It was enough to put you off your parmy.

Then someone got the idea of putting someone with a bit of nous and vision in charge of the kitchen. For one shining year we had a local pub that was still run down and smelly, but which served wonderful food. Proper food too, not just schnittys and burgers. The chef, Tony, was the real deal. The main menu changed according to the markets and the seasons, but there were regular favourites. A standout was a dessert whose name escapes me, but which lay hidden within a cloud of spun sugar. And Camperdown Fries: crisp roasted smashed spuds. Served with everything, they were Tony’s version of chips.

But it didn’t last. Tony left. We never found out where he went to, presumably somewhere he didn’t have to work seven days a week. Then the pub was sold. New owners took over and in the kitchen, the faces changed regularly. With each change the menu slumped further into mediocrity. Saggy and uncomfortable lounges started to creep in from the back lane, as the new managers tried for a grunge vibe. A lone pinball machine appeared. Never a good sign. We still went along occasionally. Tuesday night trivia was fun for a while, till the quizmaster had a falling out with the management.

Then we stopped going altogether, so it was a while before we noticed that the Hampy had stopped opening. For nearly two years the only sign of life was the growth of an increasingly dusty pile of unopened mail just inside the door of the main bar.

Then last month, signs of activity. Open doors giving glimpses of ladders propped against walls, and extension cords snaking across carpets. Oh ho, I thought. Someone is going to give the Hampy the renovation it needs.

Not quite. More of a spit and polish, with a spray of graffiti on the side.

Within a week there was a some new Lady Hampshire signage up and the doors were open. There wasn’t any fanfare, just a chalkboard scrawled with “Yes We Are Open”. And of course a few lights on.

I dropped in for a quick one on what might have been the first afternoon, using the flimsy excuse that I needed somewhere quiet to read the last piece of work from my writing group before our meeting.

After such a long closure I had been hoping for some change, but the main changes were new carpets and a bunch of murals. The only structural change is the closure of one of the doors to the men’s toilet, which at least means that there is less of the urinal cake smell.

One of the major pluses of the new Lady is having Wayward Brewing’s excellently drinkable Camperdown Ale on tap. But this has to be balance by a front bar that is dominated by enormous screens, all showing competing sports channels. On that first visit, in the middle of the afternoon, the front bar was empty, probably because of the loud and unnecessary commentary accompanying a US college basketball game.

The dining room has been spruced up a bit with murals everywhere, and all the fashionably uncomfortable lounge furniture has gone. It was probably an requirement for OHS complience. Out the back nothing relieves the domestic landscape tragedy that has always been the courtyard / smoking area.

The kitchen follows the current trend towards Americana. There are tacos, and fried chicken, and a bunch of other stuff that I haven’t tried yet. So far I have had trouble getting past the taco section of the menu. Two for ten bucks – it is too good a deal for me to overlook. My favourites so far are barramundi (fresh, clean flavours) and beef brisket (smokey, melt-in-the-mouthness). Obviously there is going to have to be a lot more research done. A lot more, just as soon as I’ve made sure about the tacos. The American food trend is marked by a proliferation of those red plastic baskets, which seem to be some kind of symbol of authenticity. Still I suppose they are step up from serving food on wonky chopping boards.

The side passage that connects Parramatta Road to the courtyard, and is potentially the Lady Hampshire’s most interesting space, has now been embellished with an extremely long mural featuring enough caricatures of Australian television personalities to populate anyone’s nightmares. It draws a lot of attention from the punters, trying to name all the personalities, which is something I suppose. The young people seem to like it.

So go and check out the Lady Hampshire. The food is good. Really good, so far. I’ll be going back, I plan to work my way through the whole menu. On our last visit Strop and I tried the dessert. It’s no spun sugar extravaganza but the deep-fried Golden Gaytime is exactly as advertised and does not disappoint.

Camperdown is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment with The Commons, Wayward Brewing, and now the Lady. And about time too.

Wayward Brewing and a first look at Camperdown Commons

July 7, 2016 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

The Wayward brewery is a relatively new arrival in our neck of the woods. It is hidden away, down a side street in a light industrial part of Camperdown, so it could have been here for a while. It is one of those places that you have to know about to know about. Strop and I ventured across Pyrmont Bridge Road to check it out on a cold winters night. It wasn’t our first visit to Wayward, that had been the week before, when we braved the tail end of an East Coast low to have a drink at our new local with Paul, Ashley, Ned and Mark. It was very jolly inside, with live music, a convivial crowd and quite a lot of beers were drunk. Especially by Strop.

Wayward is open four nights a week as a bar, but I assume that the brewery part is going full-time. The arrival experience a takes you down a broad ramp into a cavernous space with a bar on one side, a brewery round the corner, and a couple of smaller rooms at the back, that look a bit like Hitler’s Bunker if he had been around in the 1970s, or maybe somewhere in Falujah.

Reassuringly, the bar staff are all heavily tattooed and bearded, so at least we know we’re still in the inner west. They have a few wines for sale, but the main deal at Wayward is definitely beer. There is a row of numbered beer taps along the wall behind the bar, and above them a beer menu. There are a lot on offer, and the descriptions are pretty fruity. But in a good way – lots of pineapple, raspberry and passionfruit mentions.

The night Strop and I went on our own, the place was packed, mainly with thirty-something men. It turned out that the brewery was running tours, and most of the punters had turned up to be shown around and to try the range no doubt. Strop and I found a free table at the back, in one of the concrete bunkers. These things are so secure that no phone signals can get through, which might explain why there were some spare tables in there. The bunkers are furnished somewhat eccentrically, and feature a wide range of furniture. The chairs were very comfortable in a way that only the 1970s managed, although at the cost of aesthetics.

My first choice beer, the Camperdown (nominative determinism rule), wasn’t available, so Strop bought me an Otis, presumably named after the lifts. She chose the appropriately named Charmer for herself, which was strong and chocolatey. My Otis on the other hand had distinct passionfruit tones, which was pleasantly weird.

In the laneway outside Wayward there was a tent set up, and a sign promising Italian food. We went the whole hog and ordered ragu in focaccia, arancini, and polenta chips. It was all good but the ragu was a standout, especially on a cold and rainy night. Very warming. El yummo.

You can also get pizza ordered in from one from of the local pizza joints. Unfortunately, it isn’t one of the local pizza joints that we favour with our custom, but I will be more than happy if the guy in the tent keeps serving up the ragu.

Another new arrival in our area is Camperdown Commons. This is what has become of the old Camperdown Bowling Club. Nowadays it is a restaurant slash urban farm. I think I would have rather kept the bowlo but it had an unfortunate habit of going broke, and, frankly, serving crap food. The two facts may be related.

The new venture has high ideals, grows its own kale, has a chook yard, even serves Wayward ales, but we are yet to see if it walks the walk. There is a fair amount of style over substance going on. It is cleverly styled with lighting so subtle that Strop had to pull out the torch on her phone to read the menu. The furniture is very nice, slightly rustic, and wooden, and there are big tubs of firewood lying around as well. I kept looking but I couldn’t find a fireplace anywhere. Maybe they’re going to do wood-fired pizza.

During the schmoozing-of-the-neighbours stage of development, there was a lot of talk about this being a local joint for local people. A quick glance at the price list suggests that it is the sort of local you are probably going to save for the odd special occasion. Strop and I dropped in for a quick meal on its first weekend. The bar food was okay, but nothing to write home about.

Camperdown Commons (surely a name devised by a committee) promotes its locally-sourced everything, and ethical proteins etc, but there are nowhere near enough tattoos for my liking. Given it’s size, it is going to have to drag a lot of punters through the door. We shall see. I hope it is a success, especially after all the work they have done on the site. But unless they review the prices I will keep heading across Pyrmont Bridge Road for my Wayward beers and the ragu from the tent.

Cultural events and picking up threads

April 30, 2016 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

We had a big week last week. A packed program, as they say. Cultural events and a bit of getting out amongst the nature. It wasn’t planned that way just a series of fortuitous coincidences.

It started out on Tuesday night with Opera on the Harbour, then on Thursday we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and finished up on Saturday with a visit to Royal National Park. The thing that tied all these activities together was friendship.

This is a much busier program than we normally attempt in a week, and it got me to thinking about our wide group of friends, and the nature of friendship. Each of these outings came about because we needed an excuse to hang out with our friends. Not that you should need an excuse to hang out with your friends, but having an event, or an outing provides an excuse, and a framework. Even though all you’re doing really is feeding and watering your relationships. But it’s an important thing to do.

The Opera on the Harbour outing came out of the blue. Mark – the dog park friend who has become a real friend – works with them as a volunteer each year, and he had a couple of complimentary tickets, that he gave to us. What a treat. Turandot. We’re not really opera fans as such, but we are always up for a spectacle. And that’s what we got, along with a backstage tour guided by Mark, a lovely meal watching the sun set behind the city, and then some great music, a flaming dragon, and even some fireworks. What more could you ask of a Tuesday night?

The Thursday night outing was with Roy and Jill. A renewal of our lapsed cultural program, this time in the form of a visit to the Grayson Perry exhibition at the MCA, followed by a fair old natter, and a bit of eating and drinking.

I didn’t know anything about Grayson Perry, so wasn’t sure what Strop was so excited about. In fact I thought he was a woman, even before I saw photos of him dressed as one. His art is clever and funny and engaging, but I found it oddly unmoving. Certainly the craft of it is wonderful, particularly the pottery and the tapestry. His work reminded me of the Gilbert and George, and also of Reg Mombasa and the Mambo artists. But it left me a little bit cold. I’m not sure what it is, but it seems to me that Reg Mombasa and Gilbert and George have more poetry, or warmth, in their work. It was certainly worth the visit though, a large and varied exhibition.

Afterwards we went upstairs to the restaurant and were able to sit outside after Strop and Jill had wrangled a table for us. The food was good and there was plenty of wine, but I can’t really remember much about it as we were too busy catching up. That’s what you do with friends I guess, fill in the blanks, add to the ongoing story that friendship creates. Twining the threads together, our lives, our families, other friends.

Our visit to Bundeena in the Royal National Park was another chance to catch up with an old friend. We have known Wendy longer than the others, and we see her less frequently, but it’s amazing how you slot back into the old rhythms. I think we all tend to imagine ourselves as we used to be in our 20s, especially when we’re with the friends that we met during those times. It’s good to be reminded that we are all ageing together, our threads fraying and fading. We had a lovely walk through the bush with Wendy, ate chicken rolls overlooking the ocean and the rocks, then got naked at a beach we used to haunt. It was good to strip off and get in the water again, even if there is a lot more of us now. Paler and more wobbly, but still us. The swell and the rocks threatened to be unkind to our soft, old bodies, so we didn’t stay in very long. Retreating to the beach, we dug in the sand and talked and remembered.

I was struck by how each of these outings were based on unrelated friendships from different parts of our lives. Friendships that only intersect with me and Strop. At first I thought it was a fragmented bunch of relationships but now I think of it as a fabric, or a web, each of us a focal point through which other people’s threads pass. For someone like me who needs time alone, it’s good to be reminded how important maintaining those threads is.

Hobart: MONA and Aloft

March 20, 2016 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

Back at the end of February, Strop and I took ourselves off to Hobart for a long weekend as part of our wedding anniversary celebration. The main motivation for going to Hobart was that we were getting sick of being asked if we had been to the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) yet, and having to shake our heads sadly while we were told “Oh, you must go, it’s” [choose from the following list: “amazing”; “wonderful”; “different”; or “well, I’ll let you make up your own mind, but you must go”].

So eventually we did, and with the anniversary as an excuse we splurged on the fancy boat tickets to MONA and a nice dinner afterwards at a newish restaurant overlooking the harbour.

We started our Big Day in Hobart with a trip to the edge of the bush for a breakfast date with old friends of Strop’s, Bob, Fran, Isla and Charlie. We spent a wonderful couple of hours eating excellent pancakes in their newly extended home, enjoying the view of Mt Wellington through an enormous window, and talking about kids, gardens, books and kayaks. Fran dropped us back into town just in time to be handed a glass of champagne on the ferry to MONA.

The thing about MONA is the weird way the building has no real external image. It’s kind of like there is no there, there. The building is mostly below ground, built into a headland overlooking the Derwent River. It only emerges in a few seeming unrelated structures to let in light or to provide access. As such it is a hard place to get a sense of from the outside, which explains why all the visual images used to promote MONA are of the internal spaces or of the collection.

It might be the landscape architect in me but I quite like this approach to designing such a significant building. Making it more of a place than a thing, but it does take a while to get used to. Inside, the galleries are arranged vertically, dug into the raw sandstone of the headland. The accepted approach seems to be to dive in, heading down as far as you can go and then work your way back to the surface, by which time you will be gasping for some refreshments and of course, needing to buy some postcards.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — The Rules according to Gilbert & George

The big exhibition at MONA was a George and Gilbert retrospective. Before this exhibition my only knowledge of these two was of their pudgy, be-suited personas, when occasionally appearing on television. Their art though, is amazing. Terrific graphic styles and motifs. I loved it. They kind of reminded me of a pommy, and slightly more politically focussed version of our very own Mambo artists.

We spent most of the day at the museum exploring all the galleries and having lunch on a grassy terrace overlooking the river. It was a Saturday and the gallery was quite busy but it didn’t detract from our appreciation of the place. One of my other favourite works was a long tunnel with a sound sculpture that responds to movement. I was lucky enough to go through the tunnel on my own and get the full effect of the sounds building and bouncing around as I moved along. When there are more people in it, the clarity of the effect gets a bit lost.

After our big day out we had a little lie down in our hotel before dinner at Aloft. It is a fairly new restaurant and we were only able to get a booking for 8:30 which is a bit late for us, especially after a big day out arting about. Still, anniversary and all that, have to put in.

We were pretty hungry when we arrived back to the same new pier the ferry to MONA had left from earlier in the day. The restaurant is in a lovely space, upstairs at the end of the pier, with big windows looking out onto the harbour.

Our waitress was young and charming, providing lots of useful information on the options. We decided on the banquet as it meant that we had fewer choices to make. Strop was keen to try an orange wine and the sommelier was very helpful, suggesting wines to go with the various dishes.

The food is very high concept, concentrating on the quality of the mainly local ingredients rather than on stunt presentations. We started out with a water egg custard thing and crunchy pigs ears.

As we ate, the room started to thin out, the earlier sittings heading off home or to shows.

Most of the food was great, but I did find some of it too salty. Particularly the lamb, it was probably a 1 out of 5 on Deb’s salt scale.

Apart from the salt issues, things were going swimmingly until 10 pm, when things suddenly started going pear-shaped. Our waitress must have finished her shift because she suddenly appeared with a jacket over her work clothes and sat at a nearby table to have a glass of wine with the couple dining there. Unusual, but kind of charming. Then groups of people started arriving and sitting up at the bar, chatting to the kitchen and floor staff. This all coincided with us being forgotten – as if we had just dropped off the radar. Whoever was supposed to take over from our waitress mustn’t have been able to see us because our water glasses were left empty, to the point that Strop had to actually wave her glass in the air to get a refill. By this time the other tables were thinning out, and it seemed like the staff just wanted to get away and chat with their friends. It was very odd.

Luckily, the dessert was excellent. Strawberries and blueberries in a fennel sauce with goat curd sorbet. Yummo. Then we were presented with the wrong bill. The waiter came back with the right one, and he did apologise but… There was a sense that the staff just wanted to hang out with their mates rather than look after their customers. None of it was horrible, it was just a bit of a surprise, and a contrast to the service earlier in the evening. It was definitely at odds with the image they present, as a high-end restaurant. Maybe it’s just a small town thing, a function of everybody knowing everybody else.

Our departure, after paying the correct bill, went un-noticed by the staff.

On a more positive note, the access is excellent – 5 out of 5 Susans. The Wendy value scale is a bit more problematic. 3 Wendys, maybe.

So, have you been to MONA yet?

Malacca Straits via Hilux merger and Naz ignoring

January 16, 2016 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

Hello and welcome to the blog. Today we are venturing once again into the Sydney Festival and later we’ll be trying a bit of authentic Malay hawker food…

Sorry, I’m writing this using dictation software which makes me feel as if I want to talk like a 1960s radio presenter. I’ll try to resist the urge to be a prat.

*pauses to scratch ear*

The headset I am using is very old and the original earpiece covers have long since rotted away so I’ve fashioned some new ones using leftover felt from Strop’s many felting experiments. The covers are wool though, and they are making my ears a bit itchy. The Stropolina reckons that this kind of making-do behaviour is the technological age’s equivalent to repairing your glasses with Band-Aids. Something my father is famous for, and something I’m pretty sure he would still be doing if the nursing staff didn’t control his access to Band-Aids. But that’s another story.

As many of you will know this summer has been very strange. With a big fat El Niño lolloping around in the middle of the Pacific, our weather has taken on a schizophrenic character. In fact it’s not really our weather at all. We seemed to be borrowing weather from our neighbours on short term loans. One day a large chunk of Darwin weather will slide down the weather map and sit on top of us for a few days, then it’ll get pushed out of the way by a violent slab of Antarctic weather. It makes the whole concept of seasons rather redundant.

Thursday was one of those days. First, we had the humidity of Darwin, then the baking dry heat of Alice Springs, closely followed by the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding a line of thunderstorms ahead of a blast straight from Davis Station. Obviously a perfect evening to listen to some music in a tent.

Spiegeltents don’t have allocated seating so you have to queue to get in, and we had arranged to meet Wendy and her friend Marina, in the queue. (Wendy and Marina were standing in for Bruce and Laila, who are stuck in London – although from what I hear it is probably warmer there.)

The heavens opened just after we had found Marina, who we hadn’t met before. With umbrellas deployed, we huddled close and started to introduce ourselves. Wendy texted to reassure us that she was nice and dry in a large marquee somewhere. That was a huge relief, we had been worried that she might have had cold water dripping down the back of her neck. After the worst of the rain had passed the Spiegeltent opened its flaps and let us in. Wendy timed her arrival to perfection, meeting us at the door, and looking very dry.

The show we were there to see was an Ethiopian jazz musician called Hailu Mergia (not Hilux merger, thank you dictation software). He had a three piece band: drums, bass and keyboards. It seemed like Hailu would have a go at anything with a keyboard – as well as electronic organs, he had a piano accordion, and even a melodica.

It was unusual music, a tight driving rhythm section, with slippery and almost pause-less keyboard riffs sliding around over the top. It was quite repetitive and sometimes hypnotic, drifting between African rhythms and what I think of as 1970s jazz.

Towards the end of the show another storm came through, drumming ominously on the fluttering canvas. When we emerged from the shelter of the Spiegeltent, it was blowing a gale and pissing down. The patrons waiting for the next show were gathered in the bar, watching one of those fountains that uses computer controlled water drops to write words. The fountain was trying to compete with the wind and the rain and it was losing big time. While we couldn’t make out the fountain’s messages, it was quite clear what the weather was telling us. We took the hint and scurried across College Street, pausing only to put our umbrellas back the way God had intended, and climbed into Wendy’s car.

Our destination was a Malaysian restaurant called Malacca Straits. It is in the courtyard of that big apartment complex on the north side of Broadway. There were excellent smells as we were blown through the laneway and into the relative calm of the courtyard.

Malacca Straits promotes itself as an authentic Malaysian dining experience, and the menu had a lot of dishes that featured duck eggs and banana leaf wrappings.

We started with two of the banana-leaf-wrapped-parcel dishes. One was a spiced fish mousse, and the other, a tasty lump of glutinous rice and shrimp paste. Yum. The Nasi Goreng (not Naz ignoring,), was full of large chunks of chicken, prawn and vegetables. Another yum. Kapitan Chicken was a rich, smooth curry, mild but full of flavour and with loads of coconut. The Assam Udang was a bowl full of prawns, tomato and okra swimming in a tangy tamarind sauce. Much flavour, so yum. Our last dish was very late arriving, and there was some discussion about whether we still actually wanted it. Luckily we took the path of least resistance, because The Salted Egg Eggplant turned out to be Oh So Yum. Eggplant chips, in a light duck egg batter with curry leaves. Light and crisp outside, creamy on the inside.

Malacca Straits made me want to go back to Malaysia and Indonesia. And I will one of these days, in the meantime though I will definitely be going back to Broadway.

Jacks Newtown – A new year and a new front opens up in the Burger Wars

January 10, 2016 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

Happy New Year. We’re back. I’ve been on a bit of a break over the last month, occupying myself with a fishing trip down to the Snowy Mountains, some eventful family Christmas celebrations, and a lot of work on my new novel.

But now we’re back to take 2016 seriously, noses to the grindstone, applying our stomachs to the eateries of Newtown.

While I was on holidays, I received a Christmas present from my employers – two tickets to a Sydney Festival event at Carriageworks. A German play called Woyzeck – a klassic, according to the interwebs.

It has to be said that Strop and I were a bit dubious, having already dismissed it back in October when we were in the process of choosing what Festival events we would attempt this year. The prospect of a play that was both in German, and very old, started alarm bells clanging away, but then, free tickets…

So on Saturday night we toddled up the hill. One of the benefits of living where we do is that we can walk to Carriageworks and home again easily, which is fine as long as it’s not raining. And Saturday night was dry and balmy, almost as if it was summer.

The plan was to get something to eat on King Street on the way to the theatre. Strop suggested a run at Rowda Ya Habibi because she never passes up an opportunity to have some of their cauliflower. I objected however, as we’d had barbecued cauliflower the night before. As a compromise, I suggested that we walk towards Rowda Ya Habibi and if nothing on the way took our fancy, there was the cauliflower as a fall-back. As it turned out we didn’t even get to King Street. The first new place we came to was Jacks Newtown, and Strop said “Ooh, let’s go there. I really fancy a burger.” Unlike the previous times we had walked past, there was no queue and it didn’t look as if they had already sold out.

Jacks is very minimalist with a spare, almost industrial set up. Lots of stainless steel and no clutter. It is very clean and efficient looking. There aren’t even any cash registers, just iPads.

The menu is minimalist too. You can have a plain burger, a cheeseburger, or a cheeseburger with bacon. And you can have any of those double. You can have fries, soda and Jack’s sauce (a kind of mustardy aioli). No chicken, and no fish but there is a vegetarian option. It is Newtown after all.

The burgers are modestly sized and reasonably priced, which is refreshing after years of bloated aspirational Gourmet Burgers. They come with lettuce, tomato, some kind of pickle and a mustardy sauce. The meat in our burgers was medium rare-ish, tender and tasty. The only thing I didn’t like about the burger was the bun. Which was soft, pappy and sweet. In other words it was American. Which I suppose is fair enough as Jacks is nothing if not a purveyor of American-style burgers. Anyway the buns are really just there to keep your fingers clean.

The soda comes out of a mixer machine in big paper cups. Strop has a set against all things Coca-Cola so she got tap water, also in a big paper cup, with ice delivered with a smile. Everything came in paper; the burgers and fries were on little paper trays as well. The fries are crinkle cut and come with lots of crunch.

There’s nothing fancy about the décor, a big black and white mural at one end, a big neon logo on the wall, and some tables and stools. That’s pretty much it.

All in all I’d be very happy to go back again.

So with our tummies full, but not too full, we set off to walk the rest of the way to Carriageworks.

Unfortunately, Woyzeck lived up to our fears. A Minimalist stage mostly occupied by a huge suspended net, German dialogue, and a cast who were so busy navigating their way around the constantly moving net that they barely had time to relate to each other let alone the audience. The music was good, but it was unclear why most of the cast we’re trying to sing like Tom Waits, other than because he wrote the music. The surtitles were positioned so far above the stage that you couldn’t read them and watch the action at the same time. It was drama without drama – or any emotional connection to the audience. Some of the audience must have enjoyed it though, judging by the whistling and stomping that accompanied the applause at the end. Strop and I looked at each other. Maybe it was just us, or maybe the others, who hadn’t drunk the koolaid had already walked out. There had been a few of those.

On the bright side though, our Festival experience can only improve from here.