Best of Sydney and Melbourne

In March of 2006, I bit the bullet and bought a ticket to visit Chris in Australia. I arrived in Sydney on a Monday morning and met him at the 3rd dock at Circular Quay. I later learned he chose this spot because he loved the meat pies at the stand on this dock.

Our first stop, before I even set down my bags, was Pancakes on the Rocks. The Rocks, for anyone who’s been to Sydney, is the north part of Sydney Harbor, where the designer shops and fancy hotels are situated. We made our way to a second floor hole-in-the-wall with laminated menus and full color photos of nearly every dish. Who would have guessed, but this meal was a doozy. We shared—get this—a bacon and guacamole pizza! Unreal. Don’t try this at home, folks, the bacon has to be just crispy enough to not make the pizza greasier than it already is, and the guacamole needs to be thick and chunky. Yum.

We ate a nicer meal in Darling Harbor at an outdoor table, surrounded by the typical swarm of gorgeous people that were everywhere in Australia. We tried kangaroo steaks with plum sauce, just to say we did. Later, I bought kangaroo jerky, the only food in John’s apartment for the first month he was moved in.

Once in Melbourne, Chris took us straight to the alley district in the center of town where every alleyway has its own hidden alley splitting off. We found a fish and chips spot where we could sit “outside” in the alley and people watch.

That night, Chris directed us to a Japanese restaurant he’d eaten at with his classmates previously. The food was more authentic than I was used to, being mostly exposed to sushi, so I went for the chirashi with the chef’s choice of sashimi over a bowl of rice and pickles.

Our second night in Melbourne was my first time to a Korean BBQ. We were traveling with Chris’ friend John and had spent the day in the sun walking all over Melbourne, checking out the Commonwealth Games that happened to be in town, sampling some gyros in the Greek quarter, and stopping periodically to drink large glasses of beer. Needless to say, my first Korean BBQ was not over the top, I think we all ordered off the BBQ menu, instead going for hot pot and noodles.

Later that night, Chris led us to the Croft Institute, a bar with an interesting theme: mad scientist. If the fact that the bar had clearly once been a science lab, complete with sinks built into each laminated high table, wasn’t enough to creep you out, the gurney in the bathroom would.

More than once during the week I was in Australia, we stopped for meat pies. We figured out that there were traditional ground beef pies as well as a remarkable assortment of chicken, vegetable and saucy options. I can’t decide if my favorite one was at that 3rd dock in Circular Quay for the sheer nostalgia of it, or the fast food chain Jester’s chicken and mushroom pie with cream sauce in the basement of the mall near Chris’ MacQuarry campus. I could make a trip to Australia and only eat different meat pies the entire time. And be really happy about it.