Fratelli Fresh: Cafe Sopra

On Saturday I did some shopping - and bought an amazing dress, by the way, but more on that another time perhaps - and so had to refuel halfway through. Stopped by at Fratelli Fresh - Cafe Sopra  and didn't have to wait too long for a table, but they were so slow moving that there were several empty tables for at least 5-10 minutes before they even acknowledged us to seat us!

Anyway, the food was good but not wow, and to be honest I don't really get the appeal? So OK I do admit its good value for restaurant quality, restaurant service but in a chilled out cafe feel but it wasn't anything amazing to write home about. Perhaps let me know if you think I should have ordered other things!

We had the trout salad and panfried gnocchi with mushrooms. They were both good but I think I just had high expectations to be absolutely amazed and I just wasn't all that satisfied. It could be that I was in the mood for something with more flavour.

And this was the cannoli we ordered for dessert First off, I don't think this was worth $14.50 (it wasn't very big) and most of all it just didn't have the type of flavour balance you want in a dessert. It wasn't sweet enough for my liking (and I don't even like sweet sweet desserts!) but it had an odd 'fake' orange taste which I just didn't like too much. So maybe I'm too fussy? My main gripe was that this took aaaages to come out. Now I understand that during peak service times the wait can be a while but this is dessert, it just needs plating and there wasn't a single person around us having dessert.

I was also a little disappointed by the frazzled service - some wait staff were amazingly attentive and friendly but there were a few who just appeared to chat to each other the whole time I was sitting there (which was a while). Don't you hate when you see staff letting the rest of the team down?

Vacation countdown

I'm heading to Bali today so you won't hear much from me over the next few days! Never fear, I'm only gone for 5 days and I may have scheduled some posts in the meantime ;)

I'm excited to just be getting away from life in Sydney for a bit and really taking time out to RELAX! I haven't done that in the longest time!

If you have any Bali tips send them my way, I'll be checking my blog most probably :)

I spent the last few days trying to pack and got to the realisation I should just be packing swimwear and floaty dresses. Priorities, right?

Here's my swimwear rotation:

So blogosphere, I'll catch you all on the other side of my holiday!

Oh and one more thing - HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my American friends. Times like these make me miss the US =(

Chanel Little Black Jacket

I know I'm really late with posting about this but I went to Chanel's Little Black Jacket exhibition a few weeks back and it was AMAZING. I loved the ambience of the space - I love that empty warehouse feeling, I would love to have an event in that kind of space. The photos were of course also exquisite and just go to show how much of a genius Karl Lagerfeld really is.

For those not in the know, the exhibition showcases a whole lot of celebrities all photographed in incarnations of the famous Chanel Black Boucle jacket. Of course they're all impeccably and uniquely styled (Carine Roitfeld was involved, after all!) and most are also black and white.

Yay the flags herald the exhibition!

Beautiful day, beautiful view. I heart Sydney!

Probably the two most famous images from the exhibition were hung out the front as giant banners. Excuse the crappiness of the next few shots - I was in a rush!

Anna Wintour, totally identifiable even from the back of her perfectly coitured hair.

And Carine herself bearing a striking resemblance to Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, of course.

There were 'no photos' allowed inside but I did manage a few sneakies with my phone...

One of the best photos in the exhibition was of this amazingly cute girl - Scarlett Utzmann Huynh - daughter of Carine's assistant. Isn't she just adorable?

I also came across this video showing a 'behind the scenes':

The video above is from the Chanel video channel on Youtube and there are actually a tonne of amazing videos relating to LBJ exhibition. Check it out!

Life in Photos: November 2012

You might recall a while back I blogged about being invited to a wedding? So I ended up attending that wedding last week - it was a really beautiful personalised wedding which was great. I wore some of my fave net-a-porter purchases - YSL Arty and black Miu Miu metalasse clutch. My sister decided to copy me and wear my nude metalasse with her Chanel ring.

On Sunday I decided to go to The Grounds again for takeaway brunch - an amazingly tasty and gourmet chicken burger with fries. The fries were fabulous, but I am on a detox and health kick to try and get my body in beach body shape before my trip to Bali in a little under 2 weeks time! =o Gotta get exercising...

A few weeks back my friend from London came back home for a visit so we went for a girls dinner at Jamies Italian. It might shock some people that I still hadn't made a trip there mostly because I was away for 5 months of the year, but also because I could never be bothered lining up. I love good Italian food, but queueing for hours never really seemed to make sense when there are so many other food choices in Sydney!

I wish there weren't so many queues because the food is fab. I didn't take a picture of my main meal (ravioli, my fave, of course!) but I did take a pic of my amazing Eton Mess. Anyone who reads my blog should know my love for meringues and Eton Mess so this was a must have me. Too bad all the berries were raspberries (I'm not a big fan) but this was such good value for $10!

And then to round off Good Food Month a few weeks ago we went to Sofitel for their Sugar Hit. Look at the thing! Spectacular, right? I wish I had taken my good camera with me because this iphone picture doesn't really do it justice.

#18: Monica Vinader

I still have some net-a-porter credit leftover so recently when they had free shipping to Australia I couldn't help but order some new jewellery. I'm the first to admit I don't need new costume-y jewellery but I've loved some of Monica Vinader's stuff on NAP and wanted to get my hot little hands on a piece.

First off, I love the packaging - the magnetised box is slimline and just perfect for a beautifully fine piece of jewellery.

I chose this silver bar/union jack inspired piece for a bit of colour and because I thought it would work nicely stacked with my dogeared karma bracelet. Actually that reminds me, I haven't even posted about that! I've been slack oops!

When worn its not as rounded as it looks in the pics - it actually sits flat on the wrist which is what I love. It is a little too big, but I have that problem generally with my wrist being so small.

Sony NEX-6!

I've been a little naughty recently with the technology purchases, with my new toy arriving this week - a Sony NEX-6!

Even though I already bought a new camera earlier this year (plus an iPad and upgraded my iPhone), my justification for this expensive purchase was that I was able to get a very good staff discount deal from one of my very generous friends. Who could say no, right?

This camera only just got released as well so I was pretty stoked.

I've only played with it a bit and I already love love love it! As much as I would love a DSLR purely for photographic quality, the size factor has always stopped me because I just know I'll never carry it around. This is a great compromise as not only is it still fairly small, it is also very lightweight! There are a few things about it that annoy me - namely the kit lens isn't great for macro and some of the functions aren't as user friendly as my other Canon cameras, but the pure responsiveness, shutter speed and photo quality (with its APS-C sensor) cannot be beaten.

I'm excited to take it on my upcoming holiday to see how it fares!

Meanwhile, my camera collection has grown ridiculously so I am officially on a technology spending ban! Four of five of these cameras are mine (the 5th is my sisters) and I have now handed on the S95 to her because I do not need 4 cameras! So if I even blog about contemplating purchasing something new, please stop me!

Sculptures by the Sea 2012

A few weekends ago I went to Sculptures by the Sea because the weather was AMAZING! My mum's boss had a sculpture there too so it seemed like another good reason to go.

I have to admit, I didn't stay for that long so I probably missed some here and there and I didn't go into the indoor exhibits because the line was too long but these were definitely my favourites:

I loved this dome as both a decorative and perhaps slightly functional structure (it could be an amazing gazebo like feeling for a wedding?).

This memorial to the Bali bombing victims was by far my favourite in terms of being meaningful and beautiful. The sound these made was haunting and eerie and is such a perfect reminder that those people must be looking down on us everyday.

I love ribbons so couldn't help but like this one!

Did you manage to go to Sculptures and which was your favourite?

What's in my bag?

I've been meaning to do this post for a while but never got round to it. I've been changing bags a lot lately so thought I would show you all the junk I carry in my bag everyday! There are rare days that I don't carry all this stuff, but because I'm a planner I like to make sure all those things are there 'just in case' and its representative of what I carry 95% of the time.

I realised when I took the photo that I totally forgot to include my phone in this pic...but I've posted pics of that before :)

So what's in my bag?

From the top row across and down - I always carry a little fold up tote bag in case I have extra stuff! Gum, camera and Oroton make up bag are of course mandatory. My make up bag actually has a lot in there from emergency medicine and bandaids, foundation, bobby pins and the like!

Then the second row has my T&Co keyring (love this because it's so small and not heavy), a box of chocolate snacks (I never leave the house without snacks!) and my favourite Chanel purse.

Then the boring stuff in the bottom row - work ID pass, Smythson card case, mirror and must have make up items (perfume atomiser and lipgloss go with me everywhere, no matter what size bag!) and then another zip case of extra bits and pieces for work mainly.

What's in your bag?

Youtube: Apple Fanatics

My friends alerted me to these two videos recently - I'm ashamed to say I can totally relate to some of the things mentioned here!! Pretty funny viewing if you are an Apple user and want to have a bit of a laugh :)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Are you an Apple or Android user? There's also an Android version of the video!