Number 87: Table for 20

Last week, my list of Sydney experiences to tackle, or in some cases relive, sat at about eighty-five.  While the ultimate goal is to have at least one hundred under my belt by next year, I figured that at least fifteen noteworthy opportunities would present themselves over time.  I didn’t have to wait long before Table for 20 made it’s way into my world and onto the list.

Now I had heard and read about this Surry Hills eatery ages ago.  At the beginning of the year my neighbour came home raving about the place.   She and a couple friends had made reservations 6 months in advance!  The idea of having that much dining foresight was beyond me; however, when I walked past the establishment’s front door on my way to work this past week, I grabbed one of their cards.  Their website, which is essentially just a blog, announces that reservations for 2011 will be made available at the start of November.  However, requests to put your name on the waiting list are always welcome.  I thought it couldn’t hurt to give them my name.  As luck would have it, I got a call the same day for an opening the following night.  So I got the details: three-course set menu, BYO w/ no corkage, $65 all up, and "legs under the table" by 8PM.  I figured fair enough.  So Friday night, armed with a bottle of Brown Brothers Graciano, I made my way to dinner.

Table for 20 is owned and operated by a lovely gentleman named Michael Fantuz.  Michael plays the host of the evening in every sense of the word.  At 8 o'clock he welcomes everyone, offers his brief mission statement, and recognizes any special occasions in the room.  For instance, one man was celebrating his birthday with a large group of friends while two other couples recently found out they were expecting.  And after a proper group toast, the guitarist in the corner starts playing and the night begins.

As each course starts rolling out of the kitchen, the family-style platters quickly help you break the ice with your neighbours at the table.  Plus, Michael came around and had a bit of a chat with our end of the table as he personally started serving up the entree.  It didn’t take long for the conversation with the people around us to escalate from learning how they make their living to who were the great loves of their life.  I’m not kidding. Table for 20 has figured out the formula for breaking down the barriers all-too-many city dwellers walk around with and having people open up to enjoy each other’s company.  I could go on for ages about why I think this place has got it all sorted.  Instead I will leave it at that and add it to the list.

City 2 Surf Slideshow

In the event you find the captions terribly distracting, you can toggle them off by clicking on the speech bubble in the lower left-hand corner.

A New Challenge

Wow, so it's officially been absurdly long since I last posted on here!  A good excuse?  I wish I had one.  I guess that's the real task when it comes to blogging, finding the time to keep up with it.  So as you may or may not remember, I previously had a blog called 7 Days to Change My Life.  On 7DtCML, I took on various projects or tasks for one week and blogged about the result.  This varied from 7 days of no texting from my mobile phone to 7 days to photograph images of the people in my day-to-day world.  What I liked about the concept was that is asked me to do more than just sit and write on the computer.  Plus, I often gained some little insight from reflecting on what I was getting up to that week.

With this in mind, I've decided that the best way to get some incentive to write on here is to perhaps take on a larger project/challenge.  This will also take the guesswork out of what to write about every week.  Which brings me to what I've been thinking about lately, this September will mark four years since I moved back to Sydney.  The majority of those years have been spent at a job where I am working with American students and often providing them with recommendations of what to do in Sydney.  While I wouldn't say I've done nothing with my time here, I must admit there is a lot around this town that I have simply not made the effort to do.  For instance, with the end of the recent Biennale, I waited until the last weekend possible before finally taking the free ferry over to Cockatoo Island.  It was a really great afternoon and the island is definitely worth the visit.  More on this visit later this week, but it was one of those days where I was on the ferry coming back to Circular Quay and wondering, "WHY HAS THIS TAKEN ME SO LONG TO DO?"

This morning, I felt like I was just letting a great opportunity race past me (quite literally) with the City 2 Surf.  Over the last couple months I have been seeing and hearing about the race more than previous years.  I was really interested in participating this year.  For those of you more American than Sydneysider, the City 2 Surf is a 14 km road race from Hyde Park in the Central Business District along the harbour to Bondi Beach.  It started in 1971 and has since become a massive race for anyone and everyone.  While a handful of friends were registering this year, I remained noncommittal until it was too late.  They capped the race at 80,000 participants!  That's right, 80,000 people had their act together whilst I sat there twiddling my thumbs. As someone who is always preaching to Americans about maximizing their experience here in Sydney, I sure do drop the ball sometimes when it comes to my personal experience here.

But no more!

The other night I started brainstorming with a close mate of mine while eating at Bodega, the perfect example of a great eatery I've been meaning to get to for ages but have put off visiting.  We started listing things we think fairly mandatory for any Sydneysider.  It didn't take long before I had a listing of over 75 things one should do, see, eat, or experience in the greater Sydney area.  Now many of these things I have done before, but a lot of them I have only heard or read about.  So instead of letting another year pass me by, I am going attack this list head on.  Over the next year I am going to attempt to do all of the things on my list bigger and better than ever before.  Granted some of these things may not be a possibility over the next year (ex. The Biennale of Sydney only happens every two years), but perhaps some of these I can simply revisit one way or another.  In fact, another Herculean task I have wanted to tackle for the last couple years has been going through the thousands of images I have shot while in Australia.  The large majority of these have never been edited, printed, or even viewed since they were originally taken.  This might be the perfect reason to start going through those.

So while I have that initial list of approximately 75 things to do, I would greatly appreciate suggestions from you.  I am not going to publish the list yet.  I am curious what you all think.  So feel free to comment on this post.  I will tell you what Number 1 will be though, next year I am running the City 2 Surf.

So while it's another year before I can tackle the first thing on my list, I did manage to get a great spot on the footbridge between Darlinghurst and Rushcutters Bay to see the front of the pack burst out of the Kings Cross tunnel.  I thought this snap was worth sharing...