Please shut up

I was a bit like the Gerogery Hotel’s 1kg steak challenge last night – confronting.

(The Gerogery Hotel is located about 20 minutes north of Albury and is famed for its steak challenge – patrons attempt to eat a meal consisting of 1kg of steak, 500g of chips and four servings of salad in under an hour … it regularly appears in my Facebook feed and I stare at the photos with horrified fascination.)

I took my friend Ania to this event …

And decided to overshare with the total strangers who were our dining companions.

But let me tell you a little more about the event first.

The four venues are located in the base of a massive new apartment complex in North Sydney, just a block away from where I briefly lived for three months around 2009.

We’d just returned from New York, where my ex undertook a scholarship at Columbia University and we needed a furnished apartment while we waited for the tenants to move out of our house.

Previously I’d regarded North Sydney as being a bit dull, somewhere for officeworkers to congregate on weekdays that was totally dead on weekends.

But my three months living there were lovely, I enjoyed the busy business vibe during the week and the neighbourhood feel on weekends, plus it was so close to the city!

Over the years the cafe, bar and restaurant scene has evolved and there are so many great places to go.

The Walker Street precinct, for example, includes artisanal providore Una; Sol bread and wine; LA-inspired, relaxed dining, bar and lounge Soluna; and a contemporary Japanese dining venue called Genzo.

And I got to take them all for a test-drive last night! I took Ania with me because she lives down the road and we haven’t caught up in eons.

We checked out Una, a foodie’s utopia filled with house-made and expertly sourced gourmet artisanal produce and essentials. It features everything from local and international cheeses and charcuterie to house-made pastas, condiments, boutique wines and spirits.

Each of the Walker Street precinct venues – Sol, Soluna, and Genzo – have an ‘essential pantry items’ range available in Una that includes items like Genzo’s chilli crunch condiment; crackers made from Sol’s leftover bread; jam made in Soluna and more. The chefs upstairs at Soluna make fresh pastas and sauces to take home while Genzo’s kitchen packages up freshly made soba noodles and condiments.

We also tried Sol bread and wine, a neighbourhood bakery that serves breakfast favourites by morning and then transforms into a cosy, local wine bar from afternoon through until late.

Then we moved on to Soluna, a relaxed, LA-inspired venue that serves snacks including pressed prawn toast, herbed falafel with cream cheese and chili, and yellowfin tuna with slightly dried tomato, burrata and basil scooped up with a thick slice of toasted bread.

Then it was on to Genzo, a relaxed, contemporary Japanese dining room and bar serving one-bites like avocado and vegemite on crispy rice cake. Other snacks and sashimi hits include yellowfin tuna on a stracciatella and umeboshi (Japanese salt plum) onigiri and the scallop sashimi topped with whipped roe and wasabi; Kushi (skewers) and sutikku (sticks) cooked over the robatayaki; grilled Blackmore wagyu karubi glazed with yuzu-koshu wrapped in a Tasmanian wasabi leaf; curried Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (savoury pancake) layers yakisoba noodles, grilled cabbage, nori, and bonito flakes; and Murray cod coated in kombu butter, wrapped in cabbage leaf and oven roasted.

Everyone was enjoying their evening – including a lovely former colleague from Mamamia – when I decided to … unload.

I don’t know why, something irrepressible came over me.

You see, while the blog tells the highlights, it glosses over the lowlights.

I told them some of the historic lowlights. In terrifying detail. The past trauma burst out of me and I couldn’t stop talking.

And everyone looked like I imagine people look at the 45-minute mark of the 1kg Gerogery Hotel steak challenge … how did I get here and this is getting a bit too much to handle.

But they bravely soldiered on with the intense conversation and were very kind to me.

Anyhoo, there were some delectable pieces of wagyu left over that the chef vacuum packed for Ania’s doggo … bless them … then we tottered off into the night with me panicking about oversharing YET AGAIN.

My life. Never dull.

Oh, and so much for my pre-holiday diet, it is not going well.

Song of the day: Billy Idol “Rebel Yell”