V Rating: VV
Where: Crossroads Bar, Swissotel, 68 Market Street City.
When: Sunday, 2pm - 5pm.
Tel: (02)9238 8888
Price: $25 or $32.50 with a glass of sparkling wine.

Last Sunday I went to the Sydney Foodbloggers event where we shared a High Tea spread and lots of foodblogging dirt.

The food was nice and prettily arranged, but did not quite live up to my expectations. The chocolate fountain was a visual highlight and I enjoyed my mango pudding served in a small glass with raspberry garnish. The options were vegetarian friendly as most dishes were cakes and puddings. However, vegans would be disappointed, with little more than fresh fruit to get them by.

I was disappointed that there wasn’t more savoury food as I’m not much of a sweet tooth (not that this stopped me from having two full plates of food).

To be fair, my expectations were high. My first ever high tea was at Harrods in London. You sit in the stately Georgian room and share a three-tiered tray of food (tier one is cucumber sandwiches, tier two is scones, and tier three is sweet cakes.) Waiting staff circulate and refill your trays as many times as you like.

Legend has it that an English schoolboy once ate 64 cakes. Sure that was a fun bus trip home. Even as a hungry and poverty-stricken backpacker I couldn’t come close to this record.

My second go at High Tea was at the Hyatt Hotel in Canberra, the gorgeous 1930s building designed by John Smith Murdoch (the architect behind Old Parliament House). This a cornucopia of afternoon tea dishes, with plenty of savoury foods and love handle inducing sweet treats. I remember the atmosphere as being suitably parlour-like, although the hordes of people gave it a slightly unruly air.

The best part about the Swissotel High Tea was getting to meet all the other bloggers. The day was organised by the lovely Helen from Grab Your Fork, the doyen of Sydney foodblogging. I was really looking forward to meeting her and finding out how she takes such beautiful photographs (sadly, the answer appeared to be talent, although a tripod and good light helps).

I also got to meet the uber-lovely Emily from Pickos, Suze from CChocolatesuze, Nic and Tiff from Sweet Little Treat and Canadian Kevin from Kevin’s Travelling Food Journal. He impressed us all by running from afternoon tea to a cake competition that he’d entered. Hope you fared well!

Cucina Rebecca and Sydney Cafes, two of the oldest food blogs / websites in Sydney, were also represented, but with a big group of people I didn’t have the chance to annoy them with questions meet them properly.

Putting faces to blogs was interesting. Most of the bloggers were young women who had other jobs. Some bloggers wrote exclusively about food, while others wrote about eating among other parts of their lives, or had second interests like the creative Nic and Tiff (check out their t-shirt stall at Paddington Markets on Saturdays) or traveller Kevin.

It was great to be able to swap tips on cameras, photo-taking etiquette, blog programs (most people went with blogger, though a couple of us use Word Press and Moving Type) and programming tips. After asking some really impressive questions about restaurant photography (i.e. do you actually use a camera, or just a mobile phone?) I distinguished myself by running out of camera batteries and not being able to take a photo.

So if you want to check out what the Sydney foodbloggers look like… you’ll have to keep guessing. But if you want to see what you missed at High Tea, check out these gorgeous pics from Helen and Suze.

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