Gelato Messina - Pavlova

I've been visiting Messina for years now (I like to say, long before Sydney jumped onto the bandwagon) and have my regular favourite flavours. In fact, my house is rarely without a tub of their gelato! Anyway, sometime in October I happened to wander past and thought "No, I don't need dessert" but when I saw Pavlova on the specials I just had to try it. It was fate because not only did I have the final scoop of the day, but this week I found out it was in fact the only day they ever served it.

Fast forward the next few months and I'd been trying to see if it would return to the specials. A friend of mine even visited their factory and it was told that it would indeed return! I had been told the same from the sales staff at the various outlets but when it hadn't returned for months I wasn't too thrilled.

Of course my clever friend hypothesised that it would return for Australia Day, so as soon as they opened I called them and indeed they had pavlova on the specials!!! I follow them on Twitter too and of course a few hours later they announced it which elicited many a comment! As soon as I hung up on the phone I drove straight away to Darlinghurst to get myself the biggest tub available - 1.5L - which I still try and explain to people is GREAT value because of how many serves you get out of it.

They told me that it would only be available for a week....so on the last day I couldn't help myself and got another tub. So now my house has 3L, less what we've eaten (maybe around 750ml?).

I got there on the first day just half an hour after opening and they were already replacing the first tub of it - see, its empty!

Now I know I am probably the only one who loves this flavour so much - in reality it probably isn't the most unique or most awesome Messina flavour ever but its definitely one of my favourites because I love Pavlova and this saves me from having to make a whole pav just to get my fix. The vanilla bean ice cream is fab, and with the drizzle of passionfruit and baked meringue chunks its to die for. Perhaps a part of me had hyped it up because I had waited for it so long, but never mind, its still a great gelato!

Giant Duck!

I finally got to see the giant duck in the harbour as part of Sydney Festival! 

To be 100% honest I was a little underwhelmed - OK so it's completely and utterly adorable and I'm a sucker for cute things but with all the hype and all the things I heard friends say I had just expected it to be...bigger! Everyone tells me I'm silly to say that because yes, it's pretty massive, but I thought it would be sooo tall!

Anyway..first for the bad pic to give a sense of how big it is:

I went on a grey cloudy day which actually made for great photo taking!

Oh look its a ducky reflection...

Quack quack, anyone?

Travel Tip Tuesday: Flights!

I'm currently booking my internal flights for my upcoming holiday - more about that in another post probably - and I remembered a tip that I use that a lot of people don't seem to know.

When booking one way or point to point flights, it can often be much cheaper to search for a return flight instead of a one way!!

Why? Well when I discovered this a while back, I asked my travel agent and he mentioned many of the airlines still haven't cottoned on that it makes more sense to charge based on single legs (regardless of whether you travel one way or return) and so think giving a discount for a return journey will entice customers. Clearly we are more savvy than that!

So if a return flight is cheaper, just make sure you book the flight you actually want to take as the first flight (i.e. outbound) then just cancel your inbound flight once you have arrived. Be aware you can't do it the other way round (i.e. cancel your outbound flight and take the inbound) as they will cancel your whole ticket if you do not turn up for your first flight.

I'm guessing a lot of people know this tip already, but for those that don't, hope it proves useful next time you're booking flights :)

Ballet shoes

I took ballet classes as a child and absolutely loved it. It's definitely one thing I wished I had continued beyond just doing first grade RAD exams. Anyway, I'm trying to mix up my normal dance classes at Sydney Dance with some ballet for some improved strengthening and toning. A few years back I tried their beginners class thinking it would skip all the stuff I know (foot and arm positions, plies etc) but it was far more advanced than I expected so now I've tried out Absolute Beginners which is definitely not for the faint hearted if you've never even tried ballet. In the class I attended a few weeks back I was probably middle of the class in terms of skill but only because there were at least 10 people there who had never even been in a ballet class!

Anyway I thought I'd finally get myself some ballet shoes instead of wearing my jazz shoes :)

Got these leather Bloch dansofts and had them fitted because I have a ridiculously narrow fitting. I love the girliness of ballet shoes - I think because they remind me of my younger ballet days. I still have my first pair of satin ballet shoes somewhere and they're just adorable!

Now I've got to try and get out of work early enough to get to dance class! Things have been hectic lately - this week I ate dinner at work 3/5 days - but I'm hoping to go to ballet next week :)

Nail Polish Pro store

I'd been meaning to go to the ProNail Supply store for aaages as I've been fast running dry of my all time holy grail top coat Seche Vite. The last time I bought this was when I did a mass order online with some friends from the US from 8ty8beauty to save on postage costs, but I really don't need anymore nailpolish, just seche vite. You wouldn't believe it either but when I was in the US I could not find it anywhere, and despite my searching both on the internet and in stores everywhere (even in NYC!) its quite difficult to find.

Anyway, I made a trip to the store in Sydney because I had heard they stocked it. The place is amazing for any nailpolish fiend. Not only is it cheap considering you don't have to pay postage, the range is pretty good for an Australian store. It will never live up to the US online distributors who literally have hundreds of shades but its not bad for a store that I can just walk into at any time!

They had all the major brands - China Glaze ($6 a bottle), OPI ($8), Essie ($6 from memory), Seche ($6) and a few other bits and pieces too. To be honest, I don't think OPI is worth it at $8, but the others are definitely worth it. They have a plethora of other nail supplies that you can buy in bulk too if you're wanting buffers, gels, acrylics etc.

More random tidbits

The main thing for me was that they had my Seche Vite! Woot! Now I don't have to be using the dregs of my old bottle which has now turned tinted pinkish/red from my overuse. Can you see the bottle on the left in the pic below is tinted?

I also bought a pink tone from China Glaze - then went home and realised I totally have too many pink tones anyway!

What's your holy grail nail polish colour or brand?

ProNail Supply
9 Greenfield Parade
Bankstown

Gianvito Rossi

I recently came across Gianvito Rossi shoes online - Gianvitto is the son of the one and only Sergio Rossi, so clearly shoemaking runs in the family!

There are a few pairs which are beautiful and lots of really wearable pump styles. So far I haven't found anything I am head over heels in love with, but I'm definitely keeping my eye out on him as I can foresee him really becoming a shoe idol in his own right.

I love the delicate grunge look of this gold pair above. I have to say, a lot of the styles are very...Italian. What do I mean by that? There's a very European sensibility to the designs - delicate, elegant but with a sense of personality. I wish I could describe it better but I can't so I'll stick to showing more pics!

I believe net-a-porter stocks his shoes but you can also see more at www.gianvitorossi.com

Alio, Surry Hills

Alio has been in Surry Hills for several years now - in fact I remember eating there when I was still in school some 10 years ago! Lately they've been participating in a lot of Groupon type vouchers with their 10 course degustation-like menu on offer for a measly $70 for two.

Anyway, we went recently and have to say there was a good mix of food and it was nice and comfortable being able to just sit there and have food brought to us at a leisurely pace to share amongst the table. We even got a house cocktail to begin our meal!

Pumpkin and ginger soup - pretty delectable though perhaps could be a bit warmer.

And a really terrible photo of our 'antipasto' type courses - they were all served as a communal shared tasting board which worked well but was also difficult to take photos of quickly as my dining guests impatiently waited for my photo-taking!

Of these below, the croquettes were probably amongst the best. The two on the right were the mushrooms and vegetables which were great for some variety but not what I would call my favourite.

And onto the pasta! I <3 pasta, but unfortunately by this point I was getting really full. I was unfortunately fairly ill the day we dined, but the booking had been made so far in advance that I didn't want to cancel!

And our seafood risotto... this was actually quite good, with punchy flavours and the consistency was pretty spot on.

And finally, my favourite course, dessert! The brownie (right, first pic) was definitely my favourite, but you would know I'm a big chocolate fan. The second pic shows the cute little jars of panacotta. I love the tasting plate type dessert because you get to try a bit of everything and it gives you the false sense that you're not being as sinful.

Sorry for my lack of descriptions, the Christmas hecticness is finally hitting me and I think I've hit a wall. Or maybe it's just because I'm back to work now (sadface!).

Anyway, for those who like the look of the piccies above, the Alio deal is pretty regularly appearing amongst all the group buying sites so just google and there is definitely one happening at the moment!