Finding places to eat is not difficult in Sydney. There is a bar, a café, or a restaurant in every corner, making it difficult to choose. On the first night I led my tour mates towards Victoria St on Potts Point (yeah, that’s right, me giving directions to a group of people!) We decided on an English pub but after everybody got settled I realized you can smoke inside restaurants in Australia, so I had to get out of there and find a place elsewhere. Best decision ever because off on my own I stumbled upon an organic place with Wi-Fi: “Grill’d”. They serve burgers and salads but with many gluten-free options. It is a chain, but to help bring their community together “Grill’d” has a program called “Local Matters” where every month they highlight three different local businesses and donate part of their money to them.

Salad and wine at Grill’d

The next night we went to posh Darling Harbour for dinner. Australians are crazy about their barbie. By the way, Aussies shorten every word so barbecue becomes barbie, breakfast becomes breakie, etc. At “Stacks” we cooked our own steak and had some more Australian wine, which I’m very fond of 😉

Grilling my own steak at “Stacks”

By far, my favorite find in Australia has been their savory pies. Flaky crust, warm creamy meat or chicken inside… Yum! I’ve been having one for lunch every day, and I can’t get enough of them. Most restaurants here are “takeaway”, and pies are easy to grab on the go. One place in Sydney called “Harry’s Café de Wheels” is so famous around the world for their pies, tons of celebrities eat there even though it’s just a food truck style place. I also found a meat pie window inside a leather purse store the other day. They are everywhere. Lucky me!

Meat pie from Leura’s leather shop

Sydney is also dessert heaven. All my hard work for the past year has been thrown out of the window after I got to Australia. They have cheesecakes, cupcakes, brownies, pies, cakes, and gourmet chocolates readily available in every corner as well. One of their most famous chocolate and coffee shops is “Guylian’s”, where I had a delicious lemon merengue pie that rivals my favorite ones from Brazil.

Lemon pie from Guylian

Chocolate and more chocolate

On my last night in Sydney I couldn’t wait to try kangaroo, so I went to a pizza place called “Australian Hotel”. I mean, everything is good on pizza, so there was no way I wouldn’t like it. I actually got a pizza with half-kangaroo meat and half-emu meat to kill two birds with one stone (no pun intended for the emu…). The emu was very salty and I didn’t care for it. The kangaroo was lovely, and it looked and tasted just like roast beef. Needless to say, I ate the whole thing plus a couple of slices of the pumpkin pizza someone else had ordered. Good thing I had gone on another jog in Sydney’s Hyde Park that afternoon.

Kangaroo and Emu pizza

One of my favorite songs of all times is “Banana Pancakes” by Jack Johnson, but I always thought he was singing about pancakes with bananas on top until one of my high school students told me about this gluten free banana pancake recipe during graduation this year. If you like bananas, you won’t be disappointed with this easy healthy breakfast.

First try: a little burnt but it still tasted good!

“Maybe we can sleep in… I’ll make you banana pancakes… Pretend like it’s the weekend now…”

I’m going away for a while and I don’t have much food at home, so this was the perfect recipe for this past weekend since all you pretty much need are eggs and bananas. When I told K.T. what I was making for breakfast though, he wasn’t very excited, but guess what, he ended up eating all of it! On my first one I used too much oil and it came out a little burned, but by my last one I had the hang of it and it looked just like a regular pancake. It is a little difficult to flip them, so the best way to make this work is to make small ones. Go ahead and add syrup and powdered sugar on top if you’d like. Don’t forget to listen to Jack Johnson while cooking them!

Gluten-Free Banana Pancakes

• 1 ½ bananas (put the other half on a smoothie or something…)
• 2 eggs
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Oil or cooking spray

Mash the bananas with a fork in a bowl, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir it all together. I like to add a lot of cinnamon to mine and also a bit of vanilla extract, but as you know, I have a sweet tooth. Put a little bit of oil or cooking spray in a frying pan and heat it on low-medium heat. Add a small amount of batter and let it cook for a few minutes (maybe 3 minutes?) Carefully flip the pancake to finish cooking it for a few more minutes. This should make about 4 medium pancakes.

Calories: about 90 calories each.

This is a twist on a family recipe. Bacalhau is a traditional Portuguese dish served on special occasions like Easter and Christmas, but it’s made with salted dried cod-fish, which I don’t really like. My mom taught me last year to use fresh cod fish instead, and it turned out better than the original recipe. This last week I had K.T. over to try it since this is a gluten free dish with organic vegetables. I think it passed the test, but next time I will add less olive oil so the fish is not floating in it – the recipe below has been adjusted.

A taste of home. Only better.

Bacalhau – Fresh Cod Fish with Vegetables

First Part:

• 1 lb. fresh cod
• Salt and pepper to taste
• ½ onion (chopped)
• 3 cloves garlic (minced)
• ½ bunch cilantro (chopped)
• 3 green onions (chopped)
• ¼ cup olive oil

Put all ingredients together in a dish and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator.

Second Part:

• 2 bell peppers (of different colors – sliced)
• 2 tomatoes (sliced)
• 2 potatoes (sliced)
• 2 hard-boiled eggs (sliced)
• ½ can green olives (pitted)
• ¼ cup olive oil

Put all ingredients in the dish with the cod fish, cover with foil, and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve with rice, more olive oil, and vinho verde.

Calories: 350 calories per serving (without the rice, wine and extra olive oil). This recipe makes 4 servings.

My organic basket from last week also had swiss chard. I remember hating it as a child (or even as an adult) and I waited a whole week until I finally decided to cook it. I didn’t even invite anyone else for dinner that night because I was sure no one in the world was crazy enough to like swiss chard.

I looked up online an easy recipe and came upon something called a 3-minute swiss chard. Patience is not a virtue I possess so this recipe sounded great. It even had a little blurb about how this vegetable is a super food like spinach, rich in nutrients like vitamins and antioxidants, and blah, blah, blah… I’m sure I’ll hate it anyway.

Besides waiting for the water the boil, this recipe was pretty simple and used ingredients I always have at home. Actually, of course, I didn’t have everything: no olives or feta cheese that day, but then I just added what I had in the fridge – onion and parmesan cheese. Wow, I’m starting to make my own recipes now!

Surprise, surprise: this dish was one of the tastiest things I had in a while! So glad I hadn’t invited anyone over. I ate the whole thing in one seating.

My new favorite vegetable: Swiss Chard

5-minute Swiss Chard with Parmesan Cheese

• 1 bunch of swiss chard (chopped, but without thick parts of the stem)
• 3 cloves of garlic (minced)
• ½ medium red onion (chopped)
• Juice of ½ lime
• 3 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Boil lots of water in a pot. Once it’s at a rapid boil, add the swiss chard. Do not cover. After 3 minutes, drain the water with a colander.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the onion for about a minute until it’s translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 30 more seconds. Add the boiled swiss chard and sauté everything for a minute.

Stir in lime juice and parmesan cheese. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Calories: 400, but this recipe should serve 2 people.