Rowda Ya Habibi, Newtown

Rowda Ya Habibi is no doubt one of the best Lebanese restaurants in Sydney. Excellent value aside, the food here is always freshly cooked, tasty and served in copious quantities. The cushion room upstairs makes it a great venue for relaxed group feeds and the spectacular tapestries draping the wall add to the Middle Eastern atmosphere.

We had the Extra Special banquet for a mere $25 which

Rose of Australia Hotel, Erskineville

This was our first time to the Rose of Australia, and it was obvious it has gone a recent refurb with a trendy purple and chocolate brown colour scheme and a focus on stylish yet comfy. Even though it was a Sunday night, the place was buzzing with yuppy locals.

Upstairs the "fine dining" area was all crisp white tablecloths, mood lighting and even deer antlers on walls. The food was excellent--

Good Food & Wine Show, Sydney Convention Centre, Darling Harbour

What with everyone jumping on the foodie bandwagon these days, the Good Food & Wine Show is these days packed with people trying to eat as many samples as they can to justify their entry fee.Weeding our way through the prerequisite overpriced "gourmet" riffraff, the Danoz-inspired toaster bags (Rowena, how you've fallen since those Sons & Daughters days of glory) and pizza stone contraptions (who

Campsie Festival

The annual Campsie Festival (recently changing name from the Campsie Korean Festival to much controversy) is a celebration of the local Korean, Turkish, Lebanese, Fijian and Samoan communities. We loaded ourselves up with 2kg bags of kimchee and enjoyed the street entertainment.

The threatening rain clouds held off until about 3.30pm (the hula dancers were visibly shivering) but a good time was

Perama, Petersham

Perama has now closed. David Tsirekas has now opened a new restaurant Xanthi at Westfield Sydney. Read the GYF post.
Reviewed favourably by the Sydney Morning Herald, we were keen to try Perama--tucked away in Petersham's Little Portugal.

Perama's mission is to offer Greek food derived from both classical and contemporary Greek origins. The lamb was the hit of the night, flaking beautifully with

The Little Snail, Pyrmont

We used to visit The Little Snail back when it was in a pokey premises on Broadway. The new location at Pyrmont offers romantic water views but is compromised by the questionable interior decorations of plastic palm trees, swinging monkeys and fake tree stumps.

The garlic snails are always a winner although we really should remember to order bread rolls to mop up the garlic butter remains. The

Zaaffran, Darling Harbour

Founded in 1998 by two brothers from Bombay, Zaaffran prides itself on serving modern Indian without abandoning the long-standing traditions of Indian cooking.

Head chef Vikrant Kapoor (formerly chef de cuisine at Raffles in Singapore) says: "Whilst you might find many western dishes use three or four ingredients, our dishes will typically have a dozen or more herbs and spices. It is the uncanny