The Apollo - 44 Macleay Street, Potts Point

Ahh Valentines Day, the day to show your loved one how much you love them and shower them with gifts so everyone else can see how much they are loved.  Yeah right.  This day is an excuse to go out for dinner, stuff the roses!  I just wanted to go to a nice restaurant and eat a nice meal with my husband.  So I took the liberty to book a restaurant (yes how romantic "I" booked it) I have been meaning to go to since it opened a few years ago as, Greek cuisine would  remind us of our honeymoon.

The Apollo is a restaurant that serves Greek food in Australia in a modern way, put simply.  Using ingredients that are in season in Oz but go well with Greek staples like octopus and lamb.

To start off with we had the grilled octopus with cucumber, oregano and some thin potato chips, $26.  The octopus had a great charred flavour and the cucumber soaked up all the juices, very tasty.  We said we could have had a plate each. 

Next up we had the rabbit salad with charred radicchio and manouri cheese, $33.  This was a yummy salad, lots of rabbit meat.  I was trying to come up with an adjective that differentiated it from chicken.  I couldn't really.  It's just very similar to chicken.  The dressing added the saltiness along with the shaved cheese, a bit creamy which balanced out the sight bitterness of the raddichio.

Then we had the fried okra with mint and vinegar, $12.  I only ever had okra once Egyptian style in more of a stew so I decided to give it a go as a side to the main.  Okra is kind of like a seedy, less meaty zucchini I guess.  The vinegar and mint went really with it.

And the pièce de resistance!  The oven baked lamb shoulder with lemon and greek yoghurt, $38.  Oh my how I love this dish, anywhere in the world!  The generous piece of  meat was cooked perfectly with the crispy bits on top and the melt in mouth fat under the skin.  With a squeeze of lemon and the yummy thick yoghurt peppered with cucumber each mouthful was insanely delicious. 

I highly recommend you try The Apollo.  Great service and food.  Lots more I could try on the menu.  Thank you to the waiter who chased us up the street to give my husbands bag back when we left without it!

 

Wooden Whisk - Shop 8, 38-46 Albany Street, St Leonards

To find a café where you can book I think is quite rare.  So when Wooden Whisk took my booking for a Saturday brunch I was well surprised especially for 5 adults and 2 kids.  This is definitely a kid friendly café as they have a play corner with toys, which is hard to come by in Sydney. 

 

It's a cute cafe, with coffee bean scales as the main tables centre piece, cool herringbone wall tiles and bench style seating around the walls of this café which is under a big office building. It was pretty busy despite the eerie weekend CBD feel in this part of St Leonards.

 

The menu has great choices from "Organic maple crunch granola"  to "Croque Monseur" to good old "Eggs Benedict".  Swift service and coffee wasn't too bad either, which to you coffee aficionados out there, they use Single Origin Roasters blend.

 

Ok so this is what we all had.  Consensus was that the meals were good but not memorable despite the good sized servings.  It takes a bit to make a memorable breakfast.  For example I had the "Sautéed field mushrooms with garlic, truffle butter, marinated fetta, smoked pork, poached egg and toast."  Sounds amazing right?  Totally my type of dish - truffle butter and pork!  But alas it was lacking that punch.  Not enough truffle butter  to tie it all together perhaps?   Only a slight shortcoming but it was overall pretty good for only $15.90!

 

Wooden Whisk is a must try if you live on the North Shore.

 

My mushroom dish, $15.90

 

Corned beef and potato hash, fried egg, sautéed spinach,  oven roasted tomato, hollandaise. $14.90

 

 Fried eggs with grilled tomato and bacon on sourdough toast. $13.90

 

 

Wooden Whisk Breakfast - two free range eggs, bacon, sausage, sautéed mushrooms, tomato, black pudding, Spanish style beans, toasted sourdough, $16.90

Eggs Benedict with ham, $15.

 

 Brioche French toast with fresh banana, strawberry, mascarpone and maple syrup, $14.50.