Archive for the ‘Walsh Bay’ Category
V Rating: VVV Hickson Road in Walsh Bay has morphed into a mini-theatre strip, with the Sydney Theatre Company and Bangara Dance Theatre calling it home. It’s the kind of area where you drop by before a show, looking for quick, cheap food, not demanding the best quality but needing to eat something to stave off hunger (and loud stomach noises) during the performance. But thanks to the area’s industrial past and knockout harbour views, quick, cheap food is not easy to find.
Fortunately, there is one restaurant that caters to the theatre crowd. Its name is the Walsh Bay Cafe. You probably wouldn’t guess this from the “Chinese Cuisine” sign hanging out the front. That’s why I’ve helpfully posted a photo here.
The small inside room is surprisingly cute and modern, with vibrant red tablecloths and bold Chinese character wallpaper. The restaurant is BYO, and you can scoot next door to a bottle shop if you’re after wine with your meal.
Walsh Bay Cafe offers 12 vegetarian choices, including Chinese classics like salt and pepper tofu, ma po tofu, garlic baby spinach and tofu and snowpeas in black bean sauce. We tried the stir-fry vegetables and noodles, along with a tofu and vegetable stir-fry. The dishes weren’t going to set the world on fire, but they came quickly and had a fresh, healthy flavour.
Afterwards we ambled across the road to the Bangara Theatre to see a Sydney Writers Festival event on China called “Is Communism All Bad?” The main speaker on the panel was Diane Wei Liang, a Chinese author now living in Europe who was a student activist in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square protests. There were some fairly sobering observations about the state of democracy and human rights in China, mixed with optimism for the future. Diane’s description of how Tiananmen Square unfolded inspired me to read her autobiography, The Lake With No Name. Having only seen Western reporting on Tiananmen, it was fascinating to read about it from the perspective of someone who was there. Wei describes how the protest grow from a spontaneous outburst, to a youth-fired mass movement, to a violent end when the army entered the Square. Definitely food for thought as we plan our trip there at the end of the year.
V Rating: V-ware A little while ago I wrote about how much time you can waste trying to find a nice Sydney restaurant for a vegetarian friendly work Christmas lunch. The answer, by the way, is a lot. After much agonising, we settled on the The Wharf restaurant at the Sydney Theatre Company. There were a few reasons for this choice. One was the menu on the Internet, which looked veggie friendly. Another was the recommendation from a fellow vegetarian. The third reason was the view. On this last count, the restaurant exceeded my expectations. It’s at the end of the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) on pier 4 at Walsh Bay in a converted warehouse. To reach the restaurant, you walk over creaking railway sleeper floorboards, and posters reminiscing about the stellar stars and shows that have graced the STC boards. The restaurant is in three parts - a main indoor area with two outdoor verandahs on the wings. The large, glass windows that surround the open plan restaurant let the light come flooding in. They also happen to look out on a beautiful harbour vista taking in Luna Park and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The venue was a great choice for lunch, even on the stormy, overcast Friday that we visited. Unfortunately, the menu didn’t quite live up to our heightened expectations. Perhaps we misread the menu that fateful day when we booked. It turned out that there was only one vegetarian main on the menu. Out of ten options. It did not fill me with confidence that the option was a salad. We ended up asking the restaurant to modify the seafood pasta dish. Much like last year. The entrees were more promising. Two were vegetarian, and one was figs with goats cheese. It is hard to go wrong with this dish. The figs were fresh. The goats cheese was tart, and the sprigs of baby mizzuna added a touch of pepper. However, it wasn’t quite as special as the fig and goats cheese entree at Ravesi’s, maybe because the fig wasn’t caremelised. I loved the atmosphere at the Wharf restaurant but am a bit over having issues ordering a decent vegetarian dish for Christmas lunch. This year I’m not leaving anything to chance - I’m booking something in July! |
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