I have a recurring dream and it goes like this. I am my adult size (which admittedly isn’t very tall) and I’m on a child’s first tricycle. In my dream it’s out of control and I find myself screeching around the corner, flying over giant cracks in the pavement and going down stairs my head bobbing uncontrollably. It’s a mortal fear of bike riding. I realise it’s not normal and that millions, probably billions can ride a bike but it’s a fear of mine. It wasn’t helped by an ex boyfriend teaching me how to ride a bike in a concrete car park where I fell off  and received a giant scar on my chin. And I never rode again until Mr NQN (who rides to work) convinced me to ride on the back of a tandem bike. So when I receive the itinerary telling me that I’m booked to ride a bike around Stanley Park I’m full of trepidation. But first things first-breakfast! Mr NQN and I head off to Cafe Medina on Beatty Street in Vancouver.

Waffle porn. I wonder if anyone pinches one?

Lavender Latte

The lavender latte is delicious and distinct with the lavender flavour, tasting of dried lavender flowers. It’s also slightly sweetened so that it doesn’t need any sugar.

Moroccan

Mr NQN chooses a very intriguing breakfast cocktail containing blood orange juice and sumac. Not bad at all!

Waffles

The waffles are made fresh daily on the premises and the tempting display near the window excites me (you know I get excited about food!). Toppings are $1.00 extra and we try a few of them. I love the white chocolate pistachio topping especially when mixed with the mixed berry (tart and sweet) and the waffles are worth every calorie.

Smoked salmon bagel

I try some of Mr NQN’s bagel. We ordered smoked salmon as that is a speciality here and it’s creamy on a thin, toasted bagel giving it just the right ratio to topping (sometimes thick bagels just don’t work for me unless they’re slathered with inch thick topping (yes I’m a glutton). The smoked salmon is redolent in dill which I love and it’s accompanied by a lightly dressed rocket salad.

Fricassee

The fricassee is an item that they just aren’t allowed to take off the menu. As soon as I see beef short ribs I’m wowed and whilst I don’t usually eat short ribs for breakfast but I figure when in Canada do what they do right? The fricassee is presented in a cast iron skillet and features a bed of shredded beef short rib meat, diced green apple, rocket and two sunny side up eggs. It’s good but very rich and we can imagine very popular come the winter months.

My strategy of course was to load up on carbs and delicious food in preparation for my Tour de France effort aka cycling around Stanley Park.

Mr NQN wants an adult’s sized version in our place. In our tiny place…

I shall name thee…pineapple island!

When I told Tourism Canada about my embarrassing fear they booked us a tandem bike instead which is a huge relief. We rent our tandem from Bayshore Bikes bikes and I’m wobbly at first and we need to get our instructions clear. When Mr NQN is going to stop or change gears he tells me, or risk embarrassing himself with a screaming back seat rider. Stanley Park is one of the largest urban parks in North America at 1,001 acres and is best negotiated by bike rather than by foot. We are headed to The Teahouse in the upper section of Stanley Park which is about a 30 minute ride or closer to 45 minutes if you stop and take pictures as we do.

Canadian Beaches-with logs to rest against!

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“There are eight of us, that’s definitely a good sign!”

Now ordinarily I’m not a particularly superstitious person. It mainly extends to jinxes more than anything else. And whilst Chinese people are renowned for being superstitious, I’d say that my parents were mildly superstitious but not overtly so. The number 8 is said to be extremely lucky (and I was born on the eighth of the month so I figure that has given me plenty of luck) and conversely the number 4 is said to be bad luck. But growing up, practically overrode superstition and when they bought their first house we ended up growing up in a house numbered 44. If you know Chinese people you would know that many would either ask to change the number or they would quite likely not live at a house who has an extremely unlucky number (with 44 being double bad luck!).

So when we had our crowd of eight dumpling eaters I couldn’t help but remark about the superstitious number. Allow me to explain our exploits for the day. Our aim was simple, to find the best Xiao Long Bao soup dumplings in Sydney. You know those deliciously warming dumplings that seem to have taken over the hearts and tummies of food lovers? At best they have a delicate, silky skin encasing a pork filling with a hot, fragrant soup inside which burst open to warm the tummies (and possibly scald the tongue!). We’d see if dumpling fatigue was indeed a real phenomenon and we would test our stomach’s fortitude in the most delicious way.

Starting at 1:30pm in the afternoon (later than we’d like but David had a swim that morning) our group was made up of intrepid dumpling lovers Queen Viv, Miss America, David the chef from Perama and his wife Belinda, Jen from Truffled Pink and her boyfriend Nick came along with Mr NQN and I. Only hardened dumpling lovers needed apply. Our list encompassed nine dumpling restaurants in total spread across Sydney. Everyone perused the list of dumpling houses that we were eating at and nodded. “Also there are a lot of eights in the phone numbers!” someone exclaimed.

The dumpling-mobile aka Black Cherry

This was a mission that was planned far ahead of time. In fact it was planned almost three months in advance and in that space of time our naughty car Elphaba had decided to protest and die and we found ourselves carless. Thankfully the kind people at Toyota loaned me their new Rukus car (in a colour we christened “Black Cherry”) to help us in our mission. Thank god for friends with cars!

The brief:

• Try steamed xiao long bao and the pan fried pork buns if they had them on the menu
• We could order any drinks that we needed (dumpling chasing is thirsty work!)
• Try not to loiter if the place is busy
• We would score the dumplings on four criteria: the pastry, appearance, filling/flavour and soup. They would be scored out of 10 with adjustments allowed

Din Tai Fung, World Square, Sydney CBD

Our first stop was aiming high. We had all at other times visited Din Tai Fung and knew that their Xiao Long Baos were fantastic and whilst there was some debate about the flavour of the dumplings with Mr NQN insisting that Shanghai Night‘s were better for flavour, there was no mistaking how pretty these specimens were. Said to have at least 18 pleats in each individual dumpling these were mini works of art. As we walk towards Din Tai Fung we see a huge sign saying that they are not affiliated with any other dumpling restaurant which is oddly large for such an announcement.

Mr NQN, Queen Viv, Miss America and I meet the rest of our dining pals in front of this sign. “We’ve been kicked out!” Belinda tells us as they had been sitting there waiting for us but when they asked for a table for eight, they were asked to wait outside for a table. Yes it’s that sort of place. There is always a queue outside Din Tai Fung, pretty much at any time of the day.

“We’ve got to take turns explaining to them why we only want Xiao Long Bao” we agree and I go first. I fill in the form on the table ticking the boxes for two lots of Xiao Long Bao (we’re hungry as it is past our lunch hour) including several orders for the terribly refreshing lychee and mint drink and beers and two lots of xiao long bao.

The waiter hesitates “Just two?” “Yes just two, we’re on a diet” I offer. To their credit there’s no gnashing of the teeth (the large drinks order probably bought us an extra 30 minutes at the table) and they bring us a little stand for our handbags which comes with a cover cloth.

Xiao Long Bao

Our dumplings arrive quickly as they tend to here and they are very pretty specimens indeed. On the table are small bowls with threads of ginger on them and you add the vinegar and soy to these strands of ginger and dip the dumpling into this. There is even a guide telling people how to eat a Xiao Long Bao so we carefully followed the instructions and deliver a soup, gingery specimen to our lips. The dumpling skin is wonderfully silky and smooth and thin and the filling is less dense and less tightly packed than other dumpling restaurants. The soup with its helpful injection of ginger in the sauce is also just the right amount. Popular with the group, we pass around the scorecard and mark them.

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“It’s like a Southern baptism!” The Second Wife exclaims when the bottles of Coke come accidentally crashing onto the table. Pointing out that perhaps in the South they don’t do things by halves and Coca Cola could quite likely be the choice tipple over plain old water. Our waitress is apologetic and soon afterwards we are good as new with the tables and booths mopped up. It’s that kind of day.

Mr NQN, The Second Wife, Gravy Beard and are sitting in a retro style booth at Jazz City Diner on the northern end of Crown Street. Jazz music is playing in the background and the item that we thought was merely a prop springs to life and a black and white video of a jazz band appears. On either side of this screen are brass plaques with names on them. We enquire as to who these people are – we have heard of people buying a seat at restaurants and figured that this had happened. However here, they’re the name plaques of regular diners that frequent the place seemingly every night or every second night and send their friends and family along. Two waitresses pass by in traditional red and white diner waitress outfits straight out a movie.

Open for four months since the beginning of December, I’ve seen reviews come and go about Jazz City Diner. Some have mentioned the milkshakes and cans of A&W root beer which at $10 and $8 respectively are on the expensive side but the food itself seems quite reasonably priced (and in an American touch, there is a glass on milk on the menu should you want some to have your meal or pie with). Most mention the comfort cooking of the American cuisine-and you know me, I love American food. Oh and the restaurant is cozily small too so best book if you want a table. This is a small restaurant that agrees with the idea of allowing customers to book.

Chef Dan McGuirt

Chef Dan McGuirt comes out to bring plates to other tables and a menu enquiry leads us to learn that his initial ambition to serve fine dining American cuisine was altered to fit in with customer’s demands and tell us that one night there was a group of eight that all wanted chicken and waffles. Dan emigrated from America to Australia in 1993 as an I.T. worker for the I.T. boom and ended up staying and pursuing his real love of food.

The Ultimate Texas Chilli Cheeseburger $20

We’re starting off big. Just because we think that’s how they would do things in Texas. The ultimate Texas chilli cheeseburger is enormous and comes with a large Texas style spicy chilli beef square patty, guacamole, jalapeno chillies and cumin sour cream. It’s tastes like Tex Mex Mexican food meets soft burger bun and is fabulously soft and comforting. This is the only burger not to come with a choice of sweet potato fries or onion rings, this comes instead with some spiced tortilla chips which are served as crunchy long threads with a spicy seasoning.

Backyard BBQ Beef Burger $16

I try some of Gravy Beard’s Backyard Beef burger which is topped with a smokey beef burger bun, bacon, homemade BBQ sauce, bacon and coleslaw. This too is lusciously soft-I do love how American burgers have the super soft bun (crunchy or hard buns just aren’t the same) and the coleslaw, always  for me a very welcome addition on burgers and hot dogs, adds a creaminess to the smokey burger patty. The onion rings are fabulously crunchy.

Southern Fried Chicken Burger $15

Out of the three, the Southern Fried Chicken burger was perhaps the least wowing. It wasn’t bad but I was hoping for a earth shatteringly crunchy deep fried southern fried fillet. This patty is minced, seasoned chicken with a very thin coating of batter and didn’t quite fill up the bun. A big plus was the Tabasco mayonnaise and fresh, juicy corn kernels in the burger which I’ve never really seen in a burger and the very fresh and crunchy shredded lettuce. The sweet potato fries are crunchy and have a lovely saltiness and sweetness contrast to them.

Chicken and Andouille sausage gumbo $18

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