“Which one is Pasteur?”, I heard one workmate ask another, as we headed towards George Street. “Oh, you know, it’s the Vietnamese place next to the sex shop…” As I looked up and saw the sign for the Pleasure Chest or whatever it’s called, a voice inside my laughed. She was right.

As we sat down and ate some very delicious food, I was reminded of the blog post I wrote before leaving for Europe. I knew then what I know now: that we are blessed for good food in Sydney. As I travelled around Europe, I really missed the great food from Asia we enjoy in Sydney. Tasty, fresh, and with a bit of a spice to it. And it’s cheap. Lunch today was just $12. How good is that?

That said, there are some foods which I enjoyed in Europe which I’ll miss. In particular, there’s a wonderful creamy cheese in Sweden called Carolineost, which I absolutely adored. And when I went looking to re-stock my kitchen last night, I was very sad to see nothing in the way of those wonderful heavy European breads which I enjoyed eating most days while I was away.

“Cucumber is my favourite food”, I told people over lunch today. In the same way lemon and lime are used to flavour water in Australia, I noticed Lebanese-style cucumber was used to flavour tap water in a number of cafes and restaurants I visited in Sweden. It’s a nice food-thing I picked up which I’m happy to bring back though…

Food is important, eh?