Crave Festival

During October, The Sydney Morning Herald (and Citibank if I'm going to name drop) help to put on the Sydney International Food Festival called Crave. There have been special nights, special menus at restaurants and most importantly, Noodle Markets. 

The Markets are set up in Hyde Park and the first thing you notice when you walk into the park is the smell. It is amazing. Sizzling beef, sauces, onions. Its pure bliss and slightly sensory overload. The night we went it was busy! I'm not sure if it was like this every night of the market, but it made decision making that bit more stressful. There were stalls all over pouring out their sights and smells and the lines were long for some and even longer for others. People walked past with things that looked and smelled delightful and my stomach was growling from the moment we got there. First we did a loop of all of the stalls, then lined up for a drink in the hopes that would make decision making a little bit easier, then we headed off our separate ways to try to figure out which stall was serving up the best noodles. 

The setup was great. As the sun was setting we suddenly noticed that we were surrounded by fluorescent chinese lanterns and the trees were illuminated in blues and pinks and yellows. It was almost romantic, if al fresco dining is your kind of thing. Our first choice was a Vietnamese place where we got beef and noodles with mint and a beautiful sauce. It did not disappoint.

It started to get too dark for my little Samsung, so I stopped taking pictures of the food and places, but we had some more amazing food. Our next stop was for some Massaman curry and fish cakes which were also fantastic. I'm not sure anyone was serving anything underwhelming there, but if they were we didn't know about it. We capped it off with some ice cream from Serendipity. Wowza, its good. They need to get themselves into the city so I can consume them every day this summer.

There are a few events that coincide with the festival that seem to work alongside the idea of good food and drink. Last weekend there was the Moveable Feast. They closed off part of the main street and filled it with all of the food trucks in Sydney and a bit of live music to eat with! Unfortunately we didn't make it because I've been a little bit more than slightly under the weather. But we will be heading to the Beer Festival next weekend to cap off the month. Stay tuned for the review!