I don’t get to Pyrmont much, the parking situation means that I often stay away but when I do go there I am often rewarded with good food. On the recent public holiday weekend I was meeting up with Reem and looking for somewhere to go. Many of the usual suspects were closed, who could blame them, a public holiday weekend is nothing to sniff at. And I consulted my list of “to eat” places and gave The Persian Room a call.

A female voice answered and when I asked her whether they were open over the weekend she said that indeed they were open every single day. She added for good measure that the food that they make takes so long to cook that they’re open from the early morning. So with that little bit of a sales pitch we booked in for lunch at The Persian Room.

A jug of rosewater flavoured water is brought to the table and the woman who answered the phone is very hospitable. In fact although we want to order a bit of everything she discourages us from ordering too much.  She tells another table that they can’t have a drink because it’s too late in the day.

Kufteh $12

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One of my long held fantasies is to stay overnight in a department store with friends. We would raid the food and chocolate counters, try on makeup without getting pressure sold and try on dresses and shoes all night. I’ve held this fantasy since childhood. But what about a little twist? Instead of staying in a department store, how about staying in the house of a department store owner?

Whare Kea (pronounced far-eh-kee-ah) Lodge is named after the world’s only alpine parrot, the cheeky Kea and is owned by the Myer family (of the Australian Department store). Whare Kea was originally built as their holiday home as the Myers are keen heli skiers and they would bring friends along to stay who in turn encouraged them to open their doors to the public. The 70 acre location couldn’t be more spectacular. On the edge of Lake Wanaka near a glacier there’s nothing between your balcony door and the grass which leads to the lake edge.

The main lobby resembles someone’s living room-well if that someone was a department store mogul (it certainly doesn’t look like my living room!). It’s the corner of the lodge facing the lake and there are floor to ceiling windows and very high ceilings. After our trip travelling from Mollies in Auckland we are offered refreshments of tea and coffee and a cheese platter and something a bit more substantial as we’ve missed lunch. They bring us a cheese platter with a Talbot Forest Vintage Cheddar and brie from Geraldine, and a Fiddler’s Hill Goat’s cheese from Puhoi Valley. Splendid!

As we’re still a bit peckish we get another plate this time with gorgeous quartered fresh figs which are lusciously good, serrano jam, Clevedon Buffalo ricotta with manuka honey drizzled on top.

Come along with me and see what a department store mogul’s bedroom looks like!

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“If you can answer this question correctly, you are the smartest person in Australia” Mr NQN said looking at me over the top of the iPad. As a child of Chinese parents that was subjected to flash cards before I could talk it is pretty much a given and an imperative that I will jump when asked a question (and cringe when asked to do a physical challenge-true).

He cleared his throat. “OK so in Australia on the census, most people ticked that they are of “no religion”. Can you tell me what the next two religions are?”

I thought about it for a moment and answered, “Catholic and Anglican” and he shook his head. Apparently the next two most popular religions in the last census before this year’s was Catholic and then Buddhist! Who knew? I mean I knew plenty of Buddhists although neither of us are but I didn’t think my motley sample pool of friends represented a portion of Australia as a whole. But this little tidbit reminded me of a Buddhist temple that we had driven past many times.

The Nan Tien Buddhist temple is an enormous sky high temple and never fails to catch our eye and a friend had mentioned that they do a yum cha or tea of sorts in their tea room or the “Dew Drop Inn” (pun perhaps intended). Well yum cha in the fact that they serve dumplings but there aren’t the trolleys whizzing past or a huge choice of items like a typical yum cha. Nevertheless we were intrigued to stop there and not just to see what the temple looked up close. Call it a temple version of checking out someone’s house!

We arrive through the enormous grand arch way and flapping in the wind are flags that signify us to “Do good things, Speak good words, Think good thoughts” and we immediately try and banish thoughts of swearing about how cold it is and how we just hope we get a parking spot really close to the tea room.

There’s a pagoda in a separate building but the main building houses the tea room. Some brave souls are sitting outside but as it is a freezing cold Winter’s day where the sun fails to ignite any sort of bodily warmth due to the wind chill we take shelter inside. We grab a wooden table, they are mostly all taken but there are all sorts of nooks and crannies here, and I go to the counter to order. I take one of the large laminated A3 sized menus and peruse it. On one side is a list of drinks from regular coffees to pots of tea. On the other side are a dozen or so dumpling and noodle dishes to choose from. All of the dishes are vegetarian and there is a good range of exotic teas. The prices aren’t as cheap as yum cha but the funds go back into the temple and it’s quite a nice setting to eat in.

Lotus tea $6.50

My first choice of “cam quat” aka cumquat tea is not available so I choose a lotus tea instead. It’s lovely and warming and helps warm us up from the inside.

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