“Are you embarrassed of me?” I asked Mr NQN on the phone.

He looked at me nervously. “No…why would I be?”

I considered my answer. Of course I knew the reasons; the Morticia Addams appearance, love of Halloween, out of tune singing in public, the happy dances and the OCD behaviour.

I cleared my throat and said brightly “No reason! So why don’t I ever get to meet any of your colleagues?” I asked him.

I heard a loud, long sigh and then silence. “Okay fine, come and meet us tonight” he said resignedly.

So that’s how I came to be chatting to Mr NQN’s work colleagues one evening. One of them, Dave is about as obsessed as your average food blogger and he mentioned his local restaurant in Five Dock which he visits anywhere from three times a week to once a month. And given that we’re getting a bit peckish this one evening it seemed like a good time to visit his local.

Filicudi, which is actually an Island near Sicily in Italy is on a nondescript part of Ramsay Road in Five Dock and there’s not much there in that small stretch of road apart from a Thai takeaway. The first thing that strikes us as we go in in the chianti bottles on display-just look up and the ceiling is full of them. A picture of Pavarotti sits behind the large landscapes of Filicudi that cover both walls entirely. The restaurant has been around for 35 years under different guises and 20 or so years under the name Filicudi. Dave tells us that they have real Italiana nonnas in the kitchen cooking up classic, traditional dishes.

Service is charming. It could be because we’re with a frequent diner but we suspect that you can’t turn the charm on and off. It’s gently teasing and warm and before long we’ve arrived at a range of dishes to try. The restaurant is full but as the dishes come out many families leave and the full carpark around the corner quickly empties once it comes to 9pm. And everyone that leaves has the door pulled open for them as a farewell greeting from one of the staff.

Polpi al Sugo $17.50

This is Mr NQN’s favourite as he loves spice. The polpi al sugo is soft braised octopus in a tomato based sauce. And the bread that we’re given is perfect to mop up the spicy juices. The octopus is so, so tender it just melts in the mouth.

Funghi  della casa $23.50 for 3 mushrooms (usually 2 per serve at $17.90)

We all adored the portobello mushroom topped with garlic prawns. It’s a retro dish, to be sure but let’s not dismiss this as a suburban slightly retro gem. The mushrooms are meaty and garlicky as are the prawns. Served on peppery watercress we mop up all of the garlicky, lemon juices with our bread.

Penne Granchi $24.50 (large serve)

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Good Monday Dear Readers and Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mums for yesterday! I hope you all had a wonderful day I actually had my birthday yesterday on Mother’s Day which is something that happens every seven years or so. Every year for my birthday I try and stretch out the celebrations as much as possible over a weekend- I mean the more celebrations, the more food and cake you know what I’m thinking right?

This year Mr NQN was given what would be an almost impossible task-to arrange a romantic birthday celebration for just the two of us. My husband is a wonderful being. Sweet, handsome, clever and understanding he is but romantic perhaps he is not.  So thankfully he was offered some help from the Quintessentially team, a high end concierge service and private member’s club that can help any lost soul with surprising a special someone with tickets to a film premiere or dinner at Louis Vuitton or something left of centre but absolutely unique. I felt confident that he, and in turn I, were in safe hands so I unlaced my hands that are usually firmly on the controls and sat back and relaxed.

Mr NQN’s birthday card to me

Mr NQN: A couple of things that I’ll probably never be described as are romantic and a good event planner. I have the best of intentions though for some reason I’ve never been particularly good at either of them… perhaps I just think that things will take care of themselves.  So I was extremely relieved when I found out that Quintessentially were going to help me out with Lorraine’s birthday this year. She’s hard to surprise (although I did manage to surprise her when I proposed to her) and even she will admit to being a bit of a control freak.

Mr NQN had let it slip that there were some choices, the first being a carnivale fairground that was set up with a “last meal” food station of my very favourite foods (kind of like having your last meal without being executed the next day!). The second choice was a dinner at one of Louis Vuitton’s private salons with the food brought in by an external caterer. Like any inquisitive wife I tried to get the final choice out of him by asking questions like “What do I have to wear?” and “Will there be much walking?”. I even tried sneaky things like “Are we bringing the flash?” to find out if we were going to a restaurant because we generally don’t use the flash in restaurants because it disturbs other diners. And when we were getting ready I asked him to pass me a Chanel bag out of the cupboard to which he gave no reaction so  knew the Louis Vuitton idea was not going to happen. He’s good at keeping secrets. “We’re going to be back home by 9pm” is all he tells me.

Mr NQN: The communication with them started by email (which was my preference as I can’t take calls during work easily) then as the day got closer Belinda from Quintessentially rang a couple of times to discuss the night and the final confirmation of details. My original idea of taking Lorraine to Breakfast at Tiffany’s unfortunately couldn’t be done but we went back and forth with some alternative ideas that would impress her. We discussed possible ideas for the night with some great suggestions and I made a decision, clarified some details and locked in a date. I was a bit nervous as I didn’t hear back from them until a few days before the event when the final details needed to be organised (important things like what her favourite macaron flavours are etc). I got the final details the day before.

Mr NQN’s birthday present to me

“They’re going to blindfold you too” Mr NQN warned me. The first thing I thought was “Are we going somewhere that I already know?” At 6pm sharp his phone rings and our driver and car have arrived. We slide into the seat of the very tinted windowed car feeling very excited indeed. Oddly, there’s no blindfold and the driver then confirms the address with us which seems like a bit of a glitch. Mr NQN keeps trying to tell the driver that has he no idea what the exact address is and that it is meant to be a surprise for me (in order to get him to stop talking about it in case he reveals the location name)  and quite comically the driver keeps asking to confirm the address. I see Mr NQN tense a little as he squeezes my hand so I whisper to him “Dont’ worry, I don’t recognise the address” although admittedly I spent the whole trip racking my brain to recall places in Camperdown that I know.

Mr NQN: Keeping the secret and chuckling at Lorraine’s attempts to work out where/what we were doing was fun. However I was a bit disappointed by the briefing of the driver. The main issue for me was that there was no blindfold where I had warned her a few times that she would be blindfolded and she loves anything exciting or mysterious. The driver kept asking me to confirm the address which was a bit odd since all I knew was that it was in the inner west somewhere. Given the location (down some VERY small dark streets) the lack of blindfold didn’t really affect the surprise though.

The car enters a dark alley and by dark it is almost pitch black. We turn into a street where there is only one door open and it’s a car dealership. “Oh” I say to myself, “am I taking a car out for a test drive?”. I look at Mr NQN and he smiles “We’re here.”

Our driver opens the car door and I alight. To my left opposite the car dealership a door has opened and a woman is standing there smiling at me. “Lorraine?” she asks. She is Mr NQN’s contact from Quintessentially. She leads me into the door where an illuminated Moulin Rouge sign greets us. She introduces me to Michael who owns this space which is full of every single prop you could imagine. And well, you know how much I love props right?

Belinda tells us that Michael will be our host for the evening. Wearing a mask and a costume he introduces himself and gives us each a mask to wear and we follow him him through the dark walkway past mounted white tiger heads, giant Easter Island statues and costumes. This is as much of a surprise to Mr NQN as it is me and we arrive at a stunning room. Michael explains that this room is called “The Velvet Canopy.”

Mr NQN: I wasn’t sure what to expect when we arrived. I was really blown away after arriving and being greeted by Belinda and then a masked Michael in costume who gives us each a mask to wear we were lead through a warehouse full of props. Finally turning the corner into an amazing room with a masked bartender. They most definitely undersold it in the emails!

There are two nubiles that greets us, ceilings are draped in red satin, a vintage chandelier is suspended from the centre of the room, ornate velvet and leather Louis XV style chairs and sofas abound, glass eggs, bird cages and lit candles perch on every possible surface in this room. The entire room is a lush spectacle and one that I could spend hours playing dress up and play pretend in. Mr NQN is given an embellished Spanish matador jacket and I’m given a fur stole.

Michael introduces us to Alan the bartender who is actually a member of the Knights Templar wearing his Knights Templar medals no less. He pours us a glass of Pommery champagne each and we settle ourselves on the velvet bar stools and look around. Alan senses my fascination with everything and he advises that I try out every seat in the house as says that once I do that I’ll feel totally at home.

So like Goldilocks I try each and every seat in the house. Some are soft, some are hard and some are juuust right. I can’t take my eyes off everything in there as there is just so much to look at and touch. There is the old fashioned telephone, the elaborate headdresses and there is even an Indian feathered mohawk which are all a result of Michael collecting for the past 15 years for his events business called Pure Events.

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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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