Go west to Atura Blacktown and Skyline Drive In

I'll be the first to admit that I don't go west very often - those inner city and inner west bubble walls can be rather thick.

But a recent Saturday morning event in the west presented me with a unique opportunity to go west the night before - to the rather new Atura Blacktown hotel by the AHL group that also owns Sydney's boutique QT Hotel, and the adjacent Skyline Drive In cinema.

Atura Blacktown, Cricketers Arms Road, Blacktown

For those not accustomed to going west (hi), Blacktown is pretty far from the inner city especially in after-Friday-work peak hour traffic. When you do get to Blacktown/Prospect, don't get too worried when GPS tells you to turn off a dark, rather sparse road that shows very little around for what seems like miles.

You're (probably) on the right track to reach the beacon-like, white-and-yellow-lit Atura Blacktown on Cricketers Arms Road. Opened in late 2013 as a newly-built three-storey structure, Atura Blacktown is the first of a new chain of design hotels by AHL aiming to bring some style and quirk to city fringe, suburban or regional areas where there's still demand for accommodation.

Pool table and seating on the ground floor lobby

Aside from a whole lot of corporates, Atura Blacktown targets event-goers at Eastern Creek (apparently now known as Sydney Motorsport Park) and in the warmer seasons, families and groups headed to Wet'n'Wild Sydney.

The hotel's philosophy is based around "high connectivity" and "low guest maintenance" which means free WiFi and a huge shared space lobby incorporating reception, entertainment, the Roadhouse Bar & Restaurant, and a Grab & Go pantry where quick snacks, microwaveable meals and other necessities are there for guests' grabbing and purchasing convenience.

Bedroom suite

Upstairs the guest rooms are a surprisingly spacious proposition, like a well-planned studio apartment with all the necessary trimmings. Decked out in what I can only try to describe as a modern quirky art/design style, the rooms have a desk, small sofa and table, bed (of course) and the added facilities of an almost-kitchenette.

Kitchenette

There's a kitchenette sink, microwave, kettle and pod espresso machine as well as some kitchen utensils which makes me think there was also some kind of stove implement for basic in-room cooking.

Then, there was the full mini bar with drinks, including booze, snacks and even microwave popcorn for drive in cinema or in-room consumption - the latter a rather tempting offer with the on-swivel flat screen television and free movies on offer - yes, free movies.

Artwork and sofa

Room furnishings

Bathroom artwork

Bathroom furnishings

Roadhouse Bar & Grill dining area
(Image courtesy of AHL)

Of course, for something more substantial to eat there's the Roadhouse Bar & Grill on the ground lobby floor which offers a menu of grill and modern Australian dishes with something to to suit everyone.

The open kitchen at Roadhouse Bar & Grill, Atura Blacktown

The bonus of the open and shared lobby space means that there's plenty to watch for entertainment as you wait for your meal - from cars pulling up out the front, people at reception or the pantry, to people at the lobby televisions or playing pool and in the warmer weather, probably people in the pool.

Aperol Spritz (left) and Dark and Stormy (right) cocktails

The Roadhouse Bar has standalone bar seating while it also services the restaurant with a full offering of beer, wines and cocktails.

I opted for a weather-inappropriate pre-dinner Aperol Spritz, while the Dark and Stormy was also served classically: tall with Goslings Black Seal rum and topped with ginger beer and lime.

Popcorn prawns

It didn't take long at all for our starters to arrive, beginning with battered popcorn prawns that we demolished in minutes.

Served considerately atop a leafy salad with pickled carrots, the not-small golden-surfaced prawn pieces were deliciously easy to enjoy, especially with a sweet chilli lime mayonnaise drizzled over.

Baked beetroot and goat's cheese salad

The friendly waitress' favourite dish of beetroot and goat's cheese salad featured baked baby specimens of both golden and normal beetroots. Pimped up with crunchy pistachio nuts and pumpkin seeds, the salad was a perfect balance of leafiness, tart balsamic vinegar dressing, sweet beets and creamy goat's cheese.

300g free range Kurobuta pork chop, potato gratin and beans

Being the cold night it was I felt like something comforting and winter-appropriate, and so ordered the larger than expected pork chop served with creamy, cheesy potato gratin and green beans.

The huge, well-grilled pork chop came with a glossy, tasty gravy but even that couldn't get me all the way through the quite lean chop, while the potato gratin was irresistibly filling.

200g eye fillet steak, Grassland, NSW

As a grill restaurant it's hard not to go with a steak and the Grassland eye fillet is one of five steak options, all served with fat chips and a choice of sauce.

Cooked to medium-rare as requested, the petite but thickly cut steak was a tender affair that was best with the rich pepper sauce.

Eye fillet steak served with fat chips and sauces

Meanwhile, the metal basket of super fat chips with fluffy innards were great with the bacon-and-garlic-scented mushroom sauce; an inadvertent second steak sauce.

Roast vegetables

A side of roast vegetables was a wintry celebration of sweet, softened root vegetables - pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato and the ever-delightful parnsip.

Queue at Skyline Drive In, Cricketers Arms Road, Blacktown 

Unfortunately we didn't have time to try desserts at Roadhouse Bar & Grill as we were due for a movie at the neighbouring Skyline Drive In - the only permanent drive in cinemas in Sydney, and with two screens.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks of Grease at the sound of a drive in and it's all the fun you imagine and more. Drive in, queue up in your car, pay per person at the entry then park in one of the many designated spots.

Watching a movie at the drive in!

Then, tune in to the right radio frequency and voilà - surround sound in the confines of your car. Note that it can get pretty chilly in winter so rug up, take a blanket or work out how to keep the heating (and radio) on without the car lights on.

Grab and Go pantry at Atura Blacktown

If dinner and popcorn weren't enough to stave away hunger pangs post movie, a quick visit to the Grab and Go pantry late at night would have done the trick.

Roadhouse Bar, by day

The next morning we returned to the Roadhouse restaurant area for breakfast. As with many hotel restaurants, the space doubles as the buffet breakfast area with the kitchen pass getting covered in vessels and food dispensers.

Cereals, milk, yoghurt and fruit at the breakfast buffet

Healthy options include yoghurts, fruit and cereal - and weirdly, I can never resist tinned peaches at a hotel breakfast buffet.

Yoghurt, fruit and juices 

Bread station

The bread station offers a decent selection of white, brown and super thick raisin bread as well as English muffins and a range of spreads including Lurpak butter and Birch & Waite honey.

Next to the breads is the conveyor belt toaster machine which warmed my English muffin though I wouldn't have called it toasted. I think I need more practice with those machines.

Scrambled eggs

From the hot food selection were heavy enamel pots of scrambled eggs, not quite crispy bacon and the best whole, buttery, button mushrooms of which I could have had seemingly endless helpings.

Bacon

Mushrooms

Buffet breakfast plate

However healthy the intention, this is what my buffet breakfast plates tend to look like. With the addition of crisp hash browns and mini chicken sausages, this big breakfast was completely appropriate for a day when the consumption of alcohol commenced before noon and not long after check-out.

The pool at Atura Blacktown

Once the weather warms up, I can imagine the pool and pool bar just outside of the restaurant dining area will become highly coveted spots for those staying in the hotel and not in the area for water park queues. Given this was the view from our room, bikini parades and people watching are also likely to be popular.

Chairs by the pool

Atura Blacktown brings some city pizazz and quirk out west with a unique offering at an affordable price point. With the Roadhouse Bar & Grill and the Skyline Drive In next door, it's a bit of an attraction in itself - worth going west for.

Atura Blacktown exterior by day
(Image courtesy of AHL)

Food, Booze & Shoes was a guest of Atura Blacktown, Roadhouse Bar & Grill and the Skyline Drive In.

Good times collective #8

I knew this year would be different, in both good and bad ways. Change, however, can be good when seeming bad and vice versa. Good or bad times, there's always plenty of good food to be had.

Tsukemen from Ippudo, Level 5, Westfield Sydney, Sydney

I first discovered tsukemen dipping ramen inadvertently in Tokyo, Japan, and have been a fan ever since. Westfield Sydney's Ippudo, which still features evening queues out the front, recently introduced one variety of tsukemen to their menu.

Served with thicker noodles than their usual ramen noodles, Ippudo's tsukemen is topped with thick, cold cuts of roasted pork, blanched green vegies, ajitsuge tamago soft boiled and flavoured egg, marinated daikon white radish strips and matchsticks of nori dried seaweed sheets.

The piping hot soup for dipping the noodles is a combination of chicken and dashi bonito stocks from memory, and particularly fishy for it. While they only have the one variety of tsukemen, and still the queues, I'll be seeking my dipping noodles elsewhere.

Chef - out in cinemas on 8 May 2014
(Image courtesy of STUDIOCANAL)

I saw a preview of the foodie movie Chef last week, which is out at Australian cinemas tomorrow. Chef is written and directed by Iron Man's Jon Favreau, who stars as a high-end chef. A spectacular scene with a critic sees him reconnect with his family and start a food truck, staffed by himself, a fabulous John Leguizamo and his cute 10-year-old son.

Also starring Sofia Vergara, Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Oliver Platt, Robert Downey Jr, and Bobby Cannavale; Los Angeles food truck king Roy Choi of the Kogi food truck consulted on the film, ensuring the cheffy, food truck parts were as accurate as possible.

It's a likeable, feel-good film for anyone in the restaurant or food truck industry, critics and bloggers, food lovers and any kid who's had to work in food. See the trailer here.

Santa Fe salad from The Forresters, Riley Street, Surry Hills

While change is afoot at some of Drink'N'Dine's other Surry Hills venues (Chica Linda opened where The Carrington was previously - review next), the ground floor of The Forresters hasn't altered its easy-going, something-for-everyone approach, including the excellent value $10 lunches.

There is plenty on the not-so-healthy front so I did my best with a Hillbilly apple cider and the Santa Fe salad, which turned out to be one of those slightly naughty salads that you commit to memory.

Featuring three tail-on grilled prawns, red and normal shredded cabbage, tomato, shallots and sliced jalapeño chillies in a lime dressing, the stars of the salad were chunks of pork belly, lightly battered and deep fried to a fatty crispness that obliterated any healthy thoughts.

Anchoa from Movida, Sydney Domestic Airport, Mascot

A flight delay the last time I went to Melbourne meant ample time, for once, to sit in at Movida's newest Sydney outlet in the domestic airport terminal.

There's nothing like a fino sherry to calm the getting-to-the-airport anxiety, along with a bocadillo or two and Movida's signature anchoa tapas with a salty anchovy and capers lying on a surfboard of a cracker, topped with a quenelle of smoked tomato sorbet to combat the salt content and late flight stress.

Duck liver parfait, grilled bread, pickles from Vicinity, Bourke Road, Alexandria

With more openings in the formerly industrial and commercial areas of Alexandria, the expansive Vicinity Dining has its work cut out.

A recent quick drop-in found the coffee to be decent; the duck liver parfait excellently creamy and accompanied well by plenty of grilled bread and interesting pickles; but a simple order for potato fries a little too hard, with pale, limp fries the result of the first attempt (which was then rectified).

Takoyaki from Tamayaki, Dixon Street, Haymarket

I've become a bit of a takoyaki octopus pancake balls snob since learning to make my own and visiting Osaka, Japan. The frozen, deep fried ones just won't do anymore so I was interested to check out the new-ish Tamayaki on the northern end of Dixon Street one evening after drinks, with their broad menu of "giant" takoyaki. 

With cutesy manga cartoon branding and chain store style, the freshly made takoyaki take about six minutes to cook, and are then dressed with sweet, brown takoyaki sauce, Japanese mayonnaise, katsuobushi dried bonito flakes and nori seaweed.

Being a little larger in size than what we know as standard in Sydney, Tamayaki's four-in-a-serve takoyaki are a little airy and hollow inside, and while the scallop filling was amazingly sea-sweet, the traditional octopus option delivered some very chewy octopus pieces.

El Loco salad from El Loco, Foveaux Street, Surry Hills

I look forward to the day one of the El Loco venues becomes my local again. With (relatively) cheap tacos, that awesome hot dog, and slushie margaritas, El Loco is a guaranteed good time.

The El Loco salad is a "healthy" option beneath the teepee (or twig sculpture?) of tortilla chips and shower of queso fresca cheese. This one had grilled prawns with shaved fennel and radish, cabbage, coriander and spring onions in a likeable El Loco dressing.

Different is good and the good times will keep on coming; you just have to make sure you're making them happen.

The Malaya, Food, Art & Films at King Street Wharf

Good Food Month starts today, and one of the first mid-week events of the festival is Thursday night's commencement of Food, Art & Films by the Wharf – King Street Wharf, that is.

King Street Wharf has partnered with Arts Brookfield to present a combination of food and art for the month of October. There will be an outdoor pop-up art gallery run by art space Platform 72, an outdoor cinema on the wharf showing foodie films, and dining offers from participating restaurants on the wharf.

King Street Wharf will host Food, Art & Films by the Wharf during
October's Good Food Month
(Image courtesy of The PR Partnership)

Free foodie movies will show at 8pm every Thursday and Friday night in October on an outdoor screen next to Cargo Bar, with free entry for the first 100 people – it's first in best dressed with the area opening from 7pm.

Films showing include one of my all-time favourites Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, as well as Julie and Julia, Fried Green Tomatoes and one of my favourite animations, Ratatouille .

Movie reward tokens

The outdoor cinema will feature a fully-stocked candy bar with popcorn, gelato and fairy floss. In addition to special dining offers during Good Food Month, participating restaurants will be rewarding diners with free candy bar tokens to use during the movie screenings (while stocks last).

As part of the launch of Food, Art & Films by the Wharf, we were treated to a preview of the Malaya's lunch offer for the month at the iconic south-east Asian restaurant by the water.

Salt and pepper prawns from The Malaya, Lime Street, Sydney

The Malaya's Good Food Month lunch offer comprises two courses and a glass of wine (or beer or soft drink) for $45, starting with ever lovable salt and pepper king prawns.

The huge crustaceans arrived crisply battered and golden fried, as a plate to share, seasoned liberally and garnished with sliced shallots and fresh chillies - some of which had some serious kick.

Coconut beef rendang

The main course of the lunch offer comprises two selections, in proper shared Asian style. The first was beef rendang, an Indonesian style curry of fall-apart tender beef in a spiced coconut sauce.

The Malaya's rendition is moderate in spice heat, with the rich curry sauce completely delectable over a bowl of steamed rice.

Kapitan chicken

The kapitan chicken was a milder curry featuring lightly battered chicken in a Penang style curry sauce with coconut cream.

The small battered fillets provided additional texture to the chicken dish, which also had a sauce worthy of eating with rice alone.

Roti

While steamed rice is the carbohydrate of choice with curries, we also had some roti flat bread on the side - not some of the best in Sydney but a welcome addition nonetheless.

Chilli bean sprouts

Providing freshness amid all the curry and carbs was a vegetable side of crunchy bean sprouts, dried shitake mushroom, Asian spinach and chilli.

Black rice pudding

Separate to the Malaya's lunch offer, we were treated to additional desserts that appear on the restaurant's '50 Years of Spice' menu, also on offer during Good Food Month.

The black sticky rice dessert arrived in thankfully petite glasses with thick coconut cream, palm sugar syrup and fresh seasonal fruit, including contrastingly tart passionfruit pulp.

Chilli chocolate ice cream petit four

Dessert was followed by chocolate-covered ice cream petit four bites; best not left to melt. I think the subtle chilli tingle was in the chocolate coating, which was then appropriately soothed via a bite of a nondescript ice cream flavour.

The Malaya's Good Food Month lunch offer is available during lunch throughout October from Monday to Saturday (minimum 2 diners; maximum 8 diners). See the King Street Wharf's Food, Art & Films by the Wharf event schedule here.

Food, booze and shoes attended the launch of Food, Art & Films by the Wharf, at The Malaya, with thanks to The PR Partnership.