Food, food, some drinks, and more food

This weekend, our friend Ian was in town. We know him from the US, but he is now living in Brisbane and came down for a visit. We did the walk from Coogee to Bondi, backwards from how we had done it before. Spoiler alert: it's pretty much the same. The weather was pleasantly cooler and the sun wasn't beating down on us like the last time we went. After the walk, we introduced Ian to the wonders of Messina gelato. This time we had the special Vanilla Manjar: vanilla gelato with dulce de leche filled donuts and salted roasted almond flakes. We also ate some yummy artichoke dip with sourdough toast at Bondi Hardware, which reminded me of a smaller, more posh version of the Hardware Store restaurant in Charlottesville, VA that apparently no longer exists. 

For dinner we ate at Cochin, a Vietnamese BYO restaurant. In Australia there are lots of restaurants that do not serve their own alcohol, but you can bring your own. I'm not sure why a restaurant would choose to do this because you'd think they would miss out on some profit, but perhaps it's easier because of permits or other reasons. We ended up having quite a large group of people since Ian's friends brought more friends, and it was a lot of fun. From there we went to the Vivid festival, which was less crowded compared to last week. We also had mango weizens at Lowenbrau in The Rocks, which was nice end to the night.

Today we had brunch at Mad Spuds. The atmosphere was fun and the food was really good. The fresh squeezed watermelon juice hit the spot. We also introduced Ian and his friends to the Emperor's Puffs in Chinatown, a favorite treat whenever we find ourselves in that area. Then wandered around the Paddy's Market there for a while until we all had to go our separate ways.

It was a yummy weekend, and we had fun with an old friend and met some new ones. Can't complain about that, except for the fact that it went by too fast.