Sydney’s Double Bay still lives up to its nickname ‘double pay’, but unlike the wealthy blue rinse enclave Sabrina and I remember from the late 80’s it’s become a celebrity hangout centred on The Ritz Carlton hotel, which in the last few years has played host to Madonna, Princess Diana, Elton John and many others. I’m not quite sure how or why we’ve ended up here, although admittedly it might have been the irresistible prospect of unlimited champagne, which you can pay a supplement for on the hotel’s ‘club’ floor. At any rate, I can happily report that we are not sleeping in room 524 where INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, so tragically died a couple of years ago.
Sydney is our lodestar, and although we lived there together for barely a year after meeting across a crowded dance floor in the North Shore suburb of Cammeray, it’s the city we keep on coming back to. For Sabrina it’s family ties, as almost her entire clan left Hong Kong for Sydney when she was a little girl, while for me it’s the irresistible lure of arguably the world’s finest beach city and of returning to the beloved place that was the catalyst for the nomadic life we’ve subsequently embraced. For our daughter, who turns seven soon, it’s the seemingly inexhaustible supply of cute critters in the city’s wonderful Taronga Zoo, and the chance to twist her uncle and aunt around her little finger, which means Sabrina and I also get to escape and become a couple again for a night or two each time we visit. A limitless repository of memories old and new, in other words.
Chief among the city’s irresistible well-trodden paths for us is a visit to its peerless fish market, which is still located in the same spot on the waterfront in the gritty industrial port area of Glebe. Sydney’s Fish Market is a cathedral to seafood, with no concessions for tourists and you won’t find anyone playing ‘catch’ with the day’s bounty like the sellers do at Pike Place Market in Seattle. Sabrina learnt pretty much everything she knows about the subject from Saturday morning visits there with her mother and it was at her shoulder that her passion for food and her instinctual approach to cooking were forged.
With five kids and more often than not assorted cousins to feed, it’s no wonder that at extended family gatherings, Cantonese Steamboat (where everyone cooks individual portions of seafood, meats and an assortment of vegetables in long handed metal baskets in a broth filled hotpot, heated up on a table top gas hob), was often served and tomorrow we will be at the market buying the ingredients for that evening’s Steamboat dinner with the entire family present. It promises (as every family event I’ve ever attended here), to be a hilarious, raucous affair.
Other must dos on every visit are crisscrossing the city’s lovely harbour on its old- fashioned ferries, (always bittersweet for me, as I used them for my daily commute and have never arrived at an office or back home from a hard day before or since, feeling so energised and relaxed). Next up is a visit to Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs where Sabrina grew up close to some of the city’s finest beaches, including world-famous Bondi where I lived when I first came to Sydney and learned to body surf, Bronte with its lovely park and Sabrina’s favourite sunbathing spot Tamarama, or ‘Glamarama’ as it’s known locally. But today we’re spending time in Coogee enjoying superlative fish and chips, which we usually eat rugged up on the sand (although not this time, as despite being the Southern hemisphere winter, it’s a surprisingly balmy 23 degrees). Right above us on its rocky promontory, is the Surf Life Saving club’s hard core saltwater pool, where Sabrina learned to swim (to this day her least favourite sporting activity).
Vodka & Beer Battered Fish: Serves Four
There’s nothing like fish and chips by the Pacific Ocean, and if I had my way I’d go straight to Coogee from the airport, every time we come to Sydney. Vodka (thank you, Heston Blumenthal) is the magic extra ingredient in this recipe. It makes the fish batter so much crispier as the spirit evaporates during cooking.
8 oz all purpose flour
8 oz white rice flour plus some for dusting
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp agave syrup
1 cup vodka
1 cup beer
Olive oil for frying
4 large firm, white fish fillets (cod or haddock, preferably)
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix the two flours with the baking powder. Mix the agave and vodka together, then add to the flours and mix into a batter. Add the beer, trying not to over mix (otherwise it can lose its carbonation and go flat).
Dust the seasoned fish fillets with the extra rice flour and dip into the batter.
Fry the fish fillets in oil preheated at 430 degrees F, until they are a deep golden brown colour.
Continuing on to Watson’s Bay, we stroll along the clifftops to the ‘Gap’ and then take in that classic view of the skyline and the harbour bridge. If there’s a more beautiful prospect in a major city (although Rio runs it close), we’ve yet to discover it. It underscores the most remarkable thing about this place, which is that its lovely setting can seemingly withstand assault by any amount of manmade ugliness.
With the afternoon seemingly stretching out before us like an endlessly inviting panorama, we stop for a cappuccino at the resolutely scruffy Berlin Café in inner city Balmain, which looks unchanged from the days when Sabrina and I first fell in love and sat for hours on its terrace on weekend mornings. Time enough still to cross the Sydney Harbour bridge to the North Shore for the final part of today’s memory lane tour, with a visit to Jonah’s at Whale Beach for drinks and dinner. Of all of Sydney’s beaches this one has the most meaning for us as it’s the location of Jonah’s, the romantic clifftop hotel and restaurant where Sabrina and I spent our last weekend together before I left Australia to start a new job in London. An evening of laughter and tears which although we didn’t know it at the time, would see us re-united a few months later.
It’s well after midnight now and we are sitting on our hotel balcony looking out over the bay and toasting our good fortune with (yet another) bottle of ‘free’ champagne.
Where else can you do that in the middle of winter?
What a great tour of a beautiful city which I have yet to visit. However with family ties it is high on my bucket list.
Fish dish sounds delicious !!!
Looking out my passport after reading this!