Darlinghurst: Food: Sur Bourke

My friend Ruby, who tends to dwell on the western side of Darlinghurst Road, introduced me to this new French cafe late last year and it quickly became one of our favourite lunching spots. 

Sur Bourke doesn't look like much from the street; you could swing past on the bus on Bourke Street and barely notice it, but its healthy, well-balanced menu is a real stand-out and the prices will keep you returning. 

Inside, there is fairly limited seating and a distinct French touch to the decor.

There is de bicycle suspendu au mur.

Common bottles of water packed in a sweet wooden crate.

Colourful berets lined up in a row.

 And tins of French Cassoulet and bags of coffee grouped together on shelves.

But it is outside, on warm days, where Ruby and I love to be: sitting with the flower pots, sun on our backs and watching the world go by very slowly.

Sur Bourke serves breakfast ala Francaise, such as croissants or brioche with jam, Nutella or ham and cheese ($4.50-$6), as well as home made bircher muesli ($7.50), spelt fruit loaf ($5.50) and smoked salmon with scrambled eggs on sourdough ($9.50).

But we often go for lunch and even Ruby, who is happy to eat breakfast eggs all day long, usually orders from the lunch menu just because it is so good.

There's the obvious croque Monsieur ($11.50/$16) and a quiche with side salad ($9.50) but it's the tasting plates and salads we love.

Last time we were there, Ruby ordered the mixed leaf salad with parmesan, walnut and pear, served with a slice of sourdough and a boiled egg ($10). It's actually quite a generous bowl, despite that photograph above making it look quite small. And don't you think the eggs look like frangipanis when they are cut that way. Everything is prepared with love.

I had what I always have: the $14.50 lunch plate, which includes ham, pickles, Swiss cheese, tomato, two slices of sourdough and a side salad. 

I love picking at things and slowly eating and everything on this plate is like a taste bomb, including the salad, which in other places is often just tired old bland mixed lettuce without any dressing.

Here, it is so flavoursome, it could stand alone as its own meal.

Just writing this post has made me realise that it has been far too long since my last visit.

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Sur Burke

266 Bourke Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 8084 9376

Darlinghurst Blog: Detritus: New Nest

I've built myself a new little online nest and I'd really like to know what you think of it.**

Blogger, which hosts my blog, has been rolling out a series of new designs and updates in a bid to improve the "blogger experience", and I like to think of myself as one of those people that embraces the new, so I thought I'd try one out. 

Of the eight new designs, this "Flipcard" version seems to work the best with the My Darling Darlinghurst blog style. You can try the others using the drop-down menu at the top left of the home page, but the Flipcard is my home style.

I have also returned to a pink colour scheme, because I just can't resist a good shade of that colour and this one is not too bad. 

Unfortunately, they haven't yet updated certain blogger gadgets, which means for the time being there is no chapter section, with easy links to my posts on Heritage Items, Plant Life, Animal Life, Across the Border, Past and Present, Detritus, Retailers, Street Art et al.

Which is a shame as I kind of built this blog around the notion of chapters. I am hoping Blogger adds the gadget functions soon, so I can reinstate that and the A-Z too.

There are a few other areas that Blogger still needs to add and update, but if you haven't already noticed, I won't bore you with those details.

Anyway, last weekend my eagle-eyed friend in the Darlinghurst flatlands, Ruby Molteno, dragged me three blocks along Bourke Street with the promise of seeing "the most amazing little nest" that some street artist had created.
"I'm not going to show you where it is,'' she said.
''All I will say is that it is not too high up and it's really cute."
Well, it didn't take me long to spot it:

"Are you sure that is a piece of art,'' I said to Ruby.

"Or is it just some basket that someone's thrown out the window and it's landed in the tree."

'

"No,'' Ruby assured me.

''Look, it's all intricately woven into the branches; someone has spent a lot of time making this."

Well, whatever the case, it is kind of cute, don't you think?

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And what do you think of the new blog look? Please let me know.

If you hate it, I do hope Blogger lets me revert back to my old style.

**UPDATE: I have reverted back to my old template because there are too many glitches with the new dynamic templates designed by Blogger. Things went missing and then they also removed my links to Twitter, Facebook and the Subscriber form. So until they sort it out I'm sticking with my original design.

Darlinghurst Blog: Plant Life: Bourke Street Cactus

Back in December last year when the City of Sydney council was building its Bourke Street Cycleway, there was a story in the Wentworth Courier about this large cactus, which was planted in a garden bed next to the footpath. 

The Wentworth Courier spoke to an appropriately named resident, Clare Verngreen, who with her green thumb had kept the cactus alive for over a decade. 

But because of the new cycleway garden beds, the City of Sydney council's landscapers had decided the cactus had to go because it posed a risk to passersby. 

At the time, my friend Ruby Molteno took a photograph of the plant and a copy of the Wenty article that had been taped up nearby:

"A large cactus in a Bourke Street garden bed is facing the chop because it does not fit into council planting plans,'' the Wentworth Courier reported. 

"Clare Verngreen, who has been tending the garden outside her Bourke Street home for more than 10 years said she was notified by a project manager on the Sydney Council bicycle path project that her cactus had to go.''

A council spokesperson told the local magazine that the cactus ''posed a safety hazard to people passing by" and had to be removed because the cactus is ''of a large size and protrudes outside the garden bed and unfortunately, replanting is not an option due to the size and the dangerous 20-30mm needles.''

Well, it seems that the council and Gardener Verngreen reached a solution to the problem, because when I was passing by on sunny Sunday, I couldn't help but notice the blooming marvellous cactus, which was weighted down with bright yellow flowers:

The cactus is thriving and is even surrounded by other flowering succulents so that it has actually become a little desert-style garden.

The flowers also look so healthy, as if they are really happy to have been able to remain at their home of 10 years. 

The council has since developed a draft Greening Sydney plan that means we will see more street-side plants being encouraged and also planted, which I think is the most marvellous thing.

If you want to pay a visit to the cactus while it's in bloom, the plant is located just outside 221 Bourke Street. 

Darlinghurst: Development Applications: 234 Bourke Street Part Two

A letter-box war has erupted over the future of this insignificant terrace house on Bourke Street with fliers being dropped in mailboxes arguing for and against its proposed use as a sex-worker drop-in centre. I wrote about the proposed development last week after seeing the first flier from the Bourke Street Collective (BSC), which was opposed to the Hope Street organisation's plans to turn the residential house into a safe place for street prostitutes. Since then three more fliers have landed in mail-boxes on the street.

The first flier was from the East Sydney Neighbourhood Association (ESNA) who write that it is ''naive'' to think that the proposed centre would not attract more prostitutes to the area, bringing with them ''more drugs, more syringes, more pimps, more clients.
''Is that what we want to deal with as residents on a day to day basis?''.
The second flier arrived on Wednesday and was from ''Various Other Local Residents'' who back the drop-in centre and write that ''encouraging appropriate, proactive policies and projects to help improve the lives of those in our own backyard is the right thing to do.''
They call for some perspective on the issue: ''SCEGGS moved here in 1901 and has flourished, despite the area being, ever since the development of the Victoria Barracks in the 1840s, a noted and ongoing hub for prostitution.
''And of course no historical tour of Darlinghurst is complete without passing by the one-time residence of Tilly Devine, infamous 1920s (right up until 1968) Palmer Street prostitute and madam, just a street down from this proposed development.
''Implying that sex workers present a new, alien or surprising set of problems that belong elsewhere, or will go elsewhere any time soon, is inaccurate and looks self serving.''

The third flier arrived within 24 hours and was signed by a group who ''call ourselves the majority of local residents and we bashfully remain as equally anonymous as 'Various Other Local Residents'.''
''We regret we are as cowardly as 'Various Other Local Residents' who do not reveal who they are, unlike the community groups who truly work for the direct benefit of local residents such as BSC and ESNA.''
The flier goes on to say that the proposed drop-in centre would not ''dilute'' the problem of street prostitution but ''has the potential to aggravate it''.
They also address the perspective issue from the previous flier and write, ''The fact that East Sydney has a history of illegal activities (which includes prostitution) does not legitimise or give credence to its past.
''Today's local community needs and wants have significantly evolved and they do not warrant a sex-worker drop in centre.''

Personally, I don't think it is an appropriate place for a sex-worker drop-in centre as the block is residential. I am not in denial about sex-workers, I am happy for them to stay in the area, but if I was living in the house next door, I wouldn't want any commercial enterprise, charity, church or business - for sex-workers or anyone - moving in, as there would be people milling around outside all the time.
I don't see why they just don't sell the house, make over $1million and then buy something in a commercial area and set up the drop-in centre there. I suspect the only reason it is planned for this location is because the house is owned by the Reverend Noreen Towers and she has donated it to Hope Street for their use.
Anyway, all of that doesn't matter because the exhibition period for the development application closed on Friday. 

Darlinghurst: Development Applications: 234 Bourke Street

A group calling itself the Bourke Street Collective has been letter-boxing houses and apartments on that street with a flier detailing their opposition to a proposed sex worker drop-in centre.

The development application for the drop-in centre was submitted to the City of Sydney council on May 16 by the Woolloomooloo-based Hope Street organisation. 

Hope Street, which is run by the Baptist church, wants to turn a terrace house at 234 Bourke Street into a support and counselling centre for street-based sex workers from 8am to 4pm.

The house last traded in 1977 for $23,000 and is privately owned by the Reverend Noreen Towers. It is zoned residential, but is just around the corner from the Liverpool Street sex-workers's beat, which according to the collective, police are actively targeting.

In the flier, the Bourke Street Collective said they are ''very concerned about the negative affect this proposed facility would have on the safety and amenity'' of the street, which is in a residential area and close to SCEGGS junior school and across the road from a child care centre. They believe such a drop-in centre would be more appropriately located on William, Victoria or Oxford streets.

''The reality is that the sex workers are often drug addicted, desperate and hostile,'' the Bourke Street Collective writes.

''The facility will invariably result in these women loitering on the street . . . these women often fight with each other while working on the street, and often abuse the general public.

''Centres that attract sex-workers will reverse much of the hard work the police have been doing to reduce sex workers on the streets.

''It will also make it hard for police to move sex-workers on when working on the streets, as when a sex-worker is stopped by police the woman will simply be able to say to the police that she was 'on her way to the Women's Space'.

''The facility will tend to attract the men seeking out the sex-workers, as they will learn that sex-workers are coming and going from the centre from early in the morning.''

The collective ends by saying that they are not opposed to the ''concept'' of the drop-in centre as they ''are conscious of the need to help these marginalised women''. They just don't want it in their backyard.

The development application is on exhibition until June 10 and can be viewed at the council's site here.

Darlinghurst Blog: Detritus: Police Action

There was quite a bit of police action on Bourke Street in the early hours of Friday morning and my trusty spy in the Darlinghurst flatlands, Ruby Molteno, was on hand to capture it all. The incident began about 1.15am with the sounds of car tyres screeching and an almighty crash, followed by the thuds of people running and a police siren. The next thing Ruby heard was a policeman yelling, ''Hands behind your head, or you'll get shot''. 

The police had cornered two suspects in an empty lot on Wisdom Lane. After cuffing them, the police made them lie face down on Barnett Lane, aka Ten Buck Alley, as they waited for back-up. 

Soon after, the police dogs arrived and barking like crazy they ran sniffing around the laneways before homing in on another two suspects who had jumped a fence into someone's back yard. 

All four were taken to Kings Cross Police Station.

So what was it all about? According to police sources that Ruby spoke to, the four men (who, incidentally, had shaved heads and mullets) were allegedly travelling in a car on William Street, when they tried to evade a Random Breath Testing stop. They veered out of control - nearly hitting a policeman - before crashing into a bike rack on Bourke Street and then making off on foot.

Night owl Ruby, who was passing by at the time, managed to see most of the action and later captured these pictures of the car being towed. 

I don't know what the men were charged with, but the bike rack no longer exists.

Darlinghurst: People: Michael Kelly

My friend Ruby Molteno was out wandering through the back alleys near her home in the Darlinghurst Flatlands, when she came across this wonderful scene. 

Usually when you come across painters with their easels in public places, the artwork is often dreadful and of a cheap touristic style, never failing to include a well known Sydney landmark. 

But this artist's work, was quite different. It was actually very good, Ruby said. 

Not an Opera House sail in sight, just a romantic depiction of a random Darlinghurst back alley, called Barnett Lane, better known as Ten Buck Alley - after the corner cafe on Bourke Street and the prostitutes who frequent the area. 

There's a picture of the alley on the My Darling Darlinghurst Facebook page here.

The artist's name was Michael Kelly and he told Ruby that he likes to paint old Darlinghurst buildings and streets, but he is worried that these kind of scenes are disappearing. 

Kelly was born in Orange in 1956 and graduated from Darlinghurst's National Art School in 1985. He has since held 11 solo shows and been in countless group exhibitions, and is now represented by Woollahra-based art dealer Eva Breuer. 

Kelly mainly paints en plein air and there is a gallery of his work, ranging in price from $880 to $7700 at the link below. 

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www.evabreuerartdealer.com.au

Darlinghurst: Food: Miss Chu

Ah, Miss Chu, I missed you. For a while there, I thought I may never eat here again after Ruby Molteno decided she had eaten enough Miss Chu to earn her honorary Vietnamese citizenship. Ruby lives across the road, you see, and she quickly became addicted to Miss Chu's efficient service, delicious desserts and handy location on Bourke Street.

So Ruby went on a Miss Chu fast, which happily for me, ended last week.

From afar Miss Chu's shopfront doesn't look all that interesting. But move closer and you'll find the finest Vietnamese attention to detail, character and colour:

The service window with bamboo awning, bamboo steamers and bunches of bananas.

The blackboard specials with opening hours.

Note: Miss Chu does not open weekends.

Some extra specials

So you order at the little window, give the server your name and within 10-15 minutes your food is ready in a white paper bag. If you don't want to take it with you, you can eat it at a little footpath table:

Because we were breaking a fast, we ordered up big and spent about $45 on food for two:

Fresh Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls - $6 for two

Deep Fried Spring Rolls - $5 for four

Lemongrass Beef Vermicelli Salad - $12

We also ordered some Traditional Peking Duck Pancakes ($2.20 each) and Steamed Dumplings ($5 for three), but I scoffed them before I remembered to pull out my camera. Oh, and I ordered a dessert too, which was like a coconut agar-agar wrapped in a banana leaf jewel box ($3).

Refreshing Lychee Crushie - $4.50

Now there's something I really should tell you about Miss Chu. She doesn't take any shit and has zero tolerance for idiots. But lucky for this idiot Miss Chu's present target is the City of Sydney council who last week fined her $3000 for loud music and for having more outdoor tables than she is permitted. Soon after, this sign appeared in her window:

WHAT NO MUSIC??

No because the City of Sydney Council received an anonymous call complaining of misschu's music and extra seating on the footpath so council were obliged to issue us with a $3000 fine; and no, council will not approve our application for more seating other than the existing nine chairs and three tables which were originally approved 25 years ago, and definitely no music!

And then in finer print:

Misschu will move out of the neighbourhood when our lease is up so that the neighbourhood can return to its foccacia and muffin greasy average food ways and those who love it the misschu way can still order in - we'll just deliver to you from our new store at the Opera House on our electric push bikes.

The Electric Push-Bikes

I told you Miss Chu was feisty. But the predicament outlined in her ballsy letter, just exemplifies the stupidity of the City of Sydney council who publicly say they are promoting the "Villages of Sydney" in trendily-designed fliers that bomb our mailboxes, but then behind the scenes refuse to be reasonable to small business owners.

The letter also highlights the nonsensical fools who move to buzzing, busy Darlinghurst and then complain about noise. I believe the complainant lives on William Street, which is possibly one of the noisiest streets in the neighbourhood, so I am assuming that personal reasons - and not noise - were behind their complaint to council. Or perhaps they really are a fool.

I just hope Miss Chu is not being serious about the move to the Sydney Opera House when her lease expires next year. As the Queen of Vietnamese Finger Food, she already provides catering for the Opera House, so it's not such a big leap. And she already offers electric-bike home delivery within a 1km radius of the Miss Chu tuck-shop, so that's nothing new either.

Oh, Miss Chu, please don't leave us to die a slow food death from foccacia and muffin-greasy-average-food!

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Miss Chu

1/150 Bourke Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 8356 9988

www.misschu.com.au

Darlinghurst: Street Art: Cupco

Loitering around the Bourke Street badlands in Woolloomooloo and Darlinghurst today, these colourful characters caught my eye. They look like some bent, Japanese comic book heroes and monsters, and there were posters of them all the way along the street. I like to think of the pair above as Three-Eyed Web Man and Twin-Pocket Geek.

The chap above would have to be The Crab Monster.

These two look like Redneck One and Redneck Two.

You may have noticed the word CUPCO in large capital letters beneath each character and you may have thought this was just another plastic-cup promotion stunt.

But no, a genuine artist is behind these posters and the only thing he is selling is felt dolls, which look like his mad characters, and have detachable heads. He's a bloody genius. I have a secret fondness for dolls and now I want one of Luke Temby's hand-made friends. He even offers a custom-made doll service where you can have a felt character made in your likeness.

Temby, who is in his late 30s, was inspired to make his wacky dolls during a five-year stint in Japan. He arrived back in Australia, with his own living doll, wife Mayumi, and set about building a doll empire of more than 100 pieces.

Temby has made dolls of Osama Bin Laden, female suicide bombers, Jesus, Satan, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Joan of Arc, the multi-armed Hindu goddess Kali and former standover man turned author Mark Chopper Read.

He has also held a couple of solo shows at the Damien Minton Gallery in Redfern, in inner-Sydney, where in 2007 the doll of Hubbard - being shot out of a felt volcano - was listed for sale at $850 and dolls of the Pope and the Queen sold for $950 each. Joan of Arc being burned at the stake - while listening to The Smiths on her walkman - sold for $850.

I rather fancy the Suicide Angels, which are limited to an edition of ten, and are relatively inexpensive at $350.

Temby lives in Summer Hill, in Sydney's inner-west, so I'm guessing it was one of his minions - or a fan who requested free stickers through his website - that pasted these colourful posters up around Darlinghurst.

Darlinghurst: Street Art: Ruins

I was mooching around the back-streets of Darlinghurst today with my girlfriend, Ruby Molteno, when she spotted this spooky stencil of a man's face hiding among the ruins of a terrace on the corner of Bourke and Stanley streets. As usual, the Horizon manages to sneak in to the shot.