Entertain me

With a two-day deadline to use the vouchers and the card of last year's Entertainment Book, I put together a half-hearted challenge to see how entertaining it could really be. The results are mixed, but the weekend was busy.

Marinara risotto at Rouge Bar, Australia Square

It starts with a voucher at Rouge Bar, smack in the middle of Australia Square and facing formidible competition from Ryan's Bar, particularly on a Friday lunchtime. Pretty standard CBD fare to choose from, sandwiches and an odd arrangement of pasta - select your carbs and then a sauce to match; hence the rather unusual marinara risotto.

By all accounts, it's lovely - in a tomato based sauce with quite a bit of seafood presence, rather nicely accessorised with deep fried sweet potato strips. Don't ask about the pepper dusting around the edge of the plate though.

Chicken penne

My penne pasta looks promising too, the julienned beetroot kind of unusual but healthy, I thought. There's poached chicken pieces, vegetable bits, cheese shavings, and penne, of course. What there isn't is flavour - I can see that it's meant to be a tomato sauce, I just can't taste any tomato. The sauce (or what little of it there was) was watery and bland, rendering the entire meal quite insipid - which was slightly better than the service. Next.

Mexican pizza from Crust, Crown Street, Surry Hills

The Crust voucher is one of the awesome value ones that two can get five or six meals out of - although that figure depends on how much pizza you can eat. The Mexican comes a few of man's favourite things - and by this I mean some of the boys I know. Chorizo, Spanish onions, jalepenos and chilli flakes with slightly more girly roasted capsicum on a refried bean base.

It came with one container of sour cream and another container of an avocado salsa, which had great flavours but I only wish it were fresher. This pizza is hot, even after I had pulled the green jalepeno slices off. I was torn between being beaten by the heat and how yummy the salsa was served on top.

Philly steak pizza

My choice is the Philly steak: thinly sliced black angus roast beef, roasted red capsicum along with fresh varieties, more-ish caramelised onion, mushrooms, drizzled with a little too much dijon mustard and not quite enough rocket leaves - all on a tomato sauce base.

Pretty awesome the next day too, although I don't recommend microwave reheating. If you can't be bothered with the oven, I suggest using a sandwich press - but make sure the non-stick surface is still doing it's thing otherwise the cheese and dijon are going to make matters sticky.

Dinner at Foveaux, Foveaux Street, Surry Hills

To the card - one last time, though embarrassingly I only have four scratches on the back of the Gold Card. What a monumental waste, but not for lack of trying. There are a bunch of unexciting CBD options on there, loads of hotel restaurants and definitely nothing new. Foveaux was one I'd been meaning to scratch off, and in the typical nature of doing things at the last minute, here it was - post to come.

Ten pin bowling at AMF, Belmore Road, Randwick

So there's no food or booze involved in the AMF voucher, but there are some pretty funky shoes. Well, not really. I never thought bowling shoes were cool, retro nor any other remotely positive word. Are they even necessary if you're not doing that pro slidey thing?

There's no beating ten pin for some guaranteed fun - I think so, anyway. I love it - it takes me back to younger, freer days and while I'm not superb, I don't need bumpers. I'm a bit of a lightweight so it's six or eight pound balls only. Even then I manage to strain my forearm a little - though I did forget to stretch. It is a sport after all.

Bowling turns dark and party-ish

Mid way through our first game, the lights dim, the neon lights start flashing and the music pumps up - it's apparently kids party time. Luckily they're right down the other end, so we can dance away as we please; celebrate like mad when we get a strike or spare; and not be tempted by overpriced hot chips, hot dogs, chicken nuggets or whatever else is deemed party food.

I have the highest score at the end of both games, but we're all winners as it's been a supremely entertaining weekend. Looking forward to seeing what new restaurants and establishments are included in this year's Entertainment Book.

Crust revolution

I remember, back in the day, a school friend who used to bring sandwiches to school with the crusts chopped off. Just a personal preference, I suppose, and catered to by mother dearest every day. I, on the other hand, enjoyed my crust as it was the slightest of variations on a dependably mundane sandwich. That is, the crust provided distraction to the same-old peanut butter on white, or ham and lettuce on white. That's not to say that the odd seagull, or entire flocks of pigeons, didn't benefit from my eternally boring sandwiches.

There's nothing boring or bird-charitable about Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar though. It's all stylish, fresh and about as far away from a ham and lettuce sandwich as possible - thankfully. We hit up Crust in Surry Hills on another one of those awkward in-between meals, most likened to afternoon tea on this occasion. Almost forcing ourselves in the door to a just-opened store, the menu is quite a new and different pizza experience for the Crust uninitiated.

The variety of base sauces alone is staggering - your standard tomato and barbeque for sure, but olive tapenade, refried bean, pumpkin, and satay? I need to sit down. Luckily, Crust have done most of the work in putting together combinations and slapping on a straightforward, no confusion and indecision-reducing name along the lines of prosciutto, pepperoni, peri-peri chicken, tomato or smoked salmon.

Pizza box from Crust Gourmet Pizza Bar, Crown Street, Surry Hills

Decisive one chooses; indecisive one agrees; animated chatter; presentation of pretty pizza box - it's the natural cycle of ordering takeaway pizza. With news and sensation surrounding swine flu all but disappeared, we're unintentionally heading on a flavour trip to Mexico.

Mexican pizza

One look at this crazy melange of toppings and the tastebuds are watering. The first thing that hits, other than the headily tempting aroma, is the liberal squiggle of green sauce - as if someone went a little over the top with silly string. A quick menu check reveals that it is in fact fresh avocado salsa. We're game and dive in, me studiously avoiding the jalapenos.

Up close with the Mexican

I don't think I've ever had such a topping-rich pizza, supported most capably by the base. On that, the Crust crust is definitely up there with the best - thin, golden, crisp and crunchy - giving even traditional Italian bases a good run for money. There's no throwing away of these crusts. On this Mexican pizza we have the refried beans base, which is an interesting first but nothing to write home about. There's the perfect amount of stringy cheese covering thinly sliced spicy chorizo, slivers of Spanish onion and roasted red capsicum, and easily sighted and picked off jalapenos.

The combination of toppings meld together well, the avocado salsa working surprisingly hard in tempering the overall spiciness of the pizza. There's a good ratio of chorizo to vegetables though somewhere during my third slice I begin to wish for a tomato sauce base instead of the heavier refried beans.

The Heart Foundation-approved Crust pizzas

I also note that some of the Crust pizzas have the Heart Foundation tick of approval. Quick scan - not the Mexican. It's pretty impressive anyway for something that's traditionally lumped in with the fat fast food files, but then again I think even McDonalds has some ticks on some menu items.

Well, I'm not eating pizza for a health kick, my point driven home by the quick stroll up the road to the Dolphin Hotel for a drink by the fireplace - pizza that good deserves a beer and those pesky seagulls to be kept far away.