Wandering Fel

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I always hear that Australia is the country to go if you are a brunch lover. After hearing so much about this fact about Australia, obviously the first thing that I wanted to do when I arrived in Sydney is...well, going to a brunch place. This is not withstanding that by the time we left our accommodation, it's about tea time. In the planning stage, I've stumbled upon a restaurant named Bills for quite a few times and read a lot of good review about the restaurant's food so we decided to just pop by and try a few of their items.

13D Australia Summer Trip: Bills, Surry Hills

The restaurant is pretty cozy as there are not many people dining in at 3PM on a Thursday afternoon. Bills was established by local celebrity chef, Bill Granger. As of to-date, he owns Bills in three locations in Sydney. He is an Australian restaurateur and food writer who has written a total of 11 cookbooks so far. I guess that's not an easy feat after all to come up with so many recipes which are loved by many people. He opened his restaurant venture, Bills, in 1993 at Darlinghurst and since then, he has branched out internationally in 2008 to Tokyo, London, Honolulu and Seoul. Bills in Australia are all located in Sydney with three restaurants at Darlinghurst, Bondi Beach and Surry Hills. The restaurant at Surry Hills is located just a few blocks away from our accommodation so we decided to visit Bills for our first meal in Australia. I have never seen fresh apples being put on sale in any cafe in Singapore so I kinda wonder if the Australian really go to cafe to grab an apple.

Bills offers a variety of dishes ranging from small plates, salads, grain bowls, sandwiches and classic brunch items. Small plates are more like appetisers such as Zucchini Fries, Nigela Seeds and Tahini Yoghurt (AUD 10.50). The salads offered at Bills are rather special too with certain unique combination such as Semolina-crusted Calamari, Grapefruit, Fennel Pomegranate Salad and Yuzu Mayonnaise (AUD 23.50). The main items are classified into (1) Bowls, Grains which is classified further into pasta such as Braised Beef Tagliatelle (AUD 26.50) and rice dish such as Fragrant Chicken, Mushroom and Brown Rice Broth (AUD 23.50), (2) Classics such as its all-time favorite Ricotta Hotcakes (AUD 22.50) and (3) Plates such as Yellow Fish Curry (AUD 29.50) and Parmesan Chicken Schnitzel (AUD 26.50). If you prefer something lighter (although I doubt there are lighter plates in Australia because the serving portion here seems to be leaning toward "generous"), you can also go for Bills' sandwiches and burgers such as Wagyu Burger (AUD 26.50) and Fried Chicken Burger (AUD 18.50).

Menu from Bills at Surry Hills Australia

We had taken into consideration the humongous serving size of meal in Australia so we decided to order one appetiser and one dish from Bills' Classic menu. My travel mate, Lee, is an avid fans of fries and there's no way he's gonna skip ordering fries at Bills. He told me that he enjoyed the thick and well-seasoned fries (AUD 10.50) served at Bills. Without realising it, we have polished the bowl to the last fries.

Fries from Bills at Surry Hills Sydney Australia

But the must-try item in Bills is definitely the ricotte hotcakes with honeycomb butter (AUD 22.50). This dish is the masterpiece of Bill Granger and we had to agree with the netizen's review that this dish taste superb. The hot fluffy ricotta and the melted butter goes very well with the slightly caramelised banana.

Ricotta hotcakes with caramelised banana from Bills at Surry Hills

Bills is located at:

359 Crown St, Surry Hills

Sydney, Australia

Opening times:

Monday - Friday 7AM - 10PM

Saturday and Sunday 7:30AM-10PM

Two of my guy friends are currently enjoying their yolo/solo trip to Australia and it kinda makes me reminiscing about my last travel to this remote country. Well, technically Australia is not that remote if your starting point in Singapore but if your starting point is let's say, USA, then Australia can be considered very far. I went to Australia during summer and managed to visit three cities, Sydney, Melbourne and Cairns within 13 days. I took a flight with Singapore Airlines from Singapore to Sydney and to my dismay, the in-flight entertainment did not work that night and I had to endure the 7 hours flight trying to sleep (I am a bad sleeper on the plane, really). The airline compensated us by giving us free travel adaptor (which turns out to be very useful during our trip later on) when we arrived in Sydney.

Every trip starts with the international airport of that particular country. I know that there is this excitement that you feel to get out there and go for your adventure once you have done with the immigration and baggage collection stuff, but there are two matters to do in the airport that may help you a great deal in your adventure ahead.

1. Data plan

First thing first, we definitelly need data (gone is the day we use the good ol' map) to communicate with our Airbnb host, find our way by using Google Map, etc. So your first stop in Sydney International Airport is gotta be Optus booth.

13D Australia Summer Trip: Airport - Hyde Park, Sydney

Optus is one of the mobile data providers in Sydney and the best thing about Optus is that they offer 500MB of data a day at the price of AUD 2/ day. This is good enough for browsing and using Google Map and I did not really use my data to stream movie or video. In addition, I used wifi provided at Airbnb accommodation so 500MB of data per day is pretty sufficient in my opinion.

Optus data plan for tourist in Australia

2. Opal Card

The second thing that you may want to get in the airport is Opal Card, which allows you take any kind of public transportation in Sydney such as train and bus including Sydney's Airport Train (which is cheaper than taking cab). Opal cards are free smartcard tickets you keep and reuse (just like Singapore version of EZlink or Hong Kong version of Octopus Card). You just need to add value to the cards and then tap on and off to pay your fares on trains, buses, ferries and light rail. You can get Opal cards from ticket windows at the Domestic Airport and International Airport stations. For top up, you can do it at one of 2,000 Opal retailers, plus top up machines located throughout the Opal network (e.g. convenience stores).

Alright, once we are done with the above, we took our cab (did not feel like dragging our luggage to the train and all the way to our airbnb accommodation) to Surry Hills, where we have booked our accommodation for the first 2 nights with Airbnb. This was actually our first time booking Airbnb and hence, the slight nervousness. When we alighted from the cab, it seems that we have arrived at something which looks like a deserted office building.

Airbnb accommodation in Surry Hills Sydney Australia

Even though we had our doubt, the studio room which is offered in the Airbnb's listing seems to be pretty similar to the picture. The bed even show the same bedsheet and that furry red pillow. Turns out Scott (the Airbnb's owner) use the same bedsheet for all his beds in his properties. Since the bedsheet is pretty much distinguishable, you can find Scott's properties listing in Airbnb pretty easy I suppose. He was quite nice and even gave us a few suggestion on where is the nearest convenience store and ideas on what to do in Sydney. One thing about staying in Airbnb's accommodation is that you have to keep the place clean for your own comfort because there is not housekeeping service available for this kind of accommodation (although I heard from my friend that some of the listings in South Korea provide housekeeping service on alternate days).

Once Scott was done explaining to us on how to operate some of his gadgets in his room like aircon, TV and water heater, we went out to explore the city. We note that apparently you are allowed to stick your advert on a lighting pole. This is not so gonna happen in Singapore, I think.

Our first destination for the day is the oldest public park in Australia, Hyde Park. The rectangular park was named after the original Hyde Park in London. The park is quite big with Park Street stretching in the middle dividing it to the northern and southern section. It seems to be a popular walking/ jogging spot for tourists and locals alike. The park is also house for a lot of historical monuments such as this artillery statue. War-related history seems to be a popular theme for a park in every country.

We visited the park around 3PM to 4PM on a Friday afternoon and the weather was crazy hot that day. Probably that explained on why there were not many people in sight. We heard that Sydney has never reached 33 degrees celcius before in late February (when we visited the country) so I guess global warming is really a huge threat to the world. Yikes. You should get your sunblock and your sunnies ready because the sun in Australia has a pretty high UV index and that's definitely not a good news for your skin. There are many activities held in the park such as Sydney Festival, Australia Day, ANZAC Day and the Food and Wine Fair. Too bad we did not really have enough time to explore the events that day.

Hyde Park on a summer day in Sydney Australia

The northern section of Hyde Park features the iconic Archibald Fountain and various theme gardens including Sandringham and Nagoya Gardens while at Hyde Park's southern end, we saw the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) War Memorial. The memorial is erected to commemorate those soldiers who participated in the World War I. The Lake of Reflections is situated right behind the memorial but it was under renovation when we visited the park. Oh well.

Hyde Park is situated at Elizabeth Street which is quite near to Surry Hills area and it basically opens 24 hours but please note that the park will be kinda silent at night because as we all know, life in Sydney does not really goes beyond 9PM with the exception for certain areas like Chinatown and well, maybe Red Light District (which I think you should avoid for your own safety, really).

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Wandering Fel

13D Australia Summer Trip: Bills, Surry Hills

13D Australia Summer Trip: Airport - Hyde Park, Sydney

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