If you ever find yourself on King St, Newtown, parched, the furthest you’ll have to walk for a beer is 250 metres.^[1] If you happen to be in this particular dead zone — the corner of St John and King — go with gravity and walk downhill towards the Union. The uphill option, the Sandringham, is decidedly seedy.

The news is better elsewhere. The average trip to a watering hole is only 170 metres.^[2] That’s 13 pubs over a stretch of just over 2 km.

Of course, if you’re after coffee, or Thai food, the average walk is about 3 metres.

[2] Including said dry section, and not including walking off to visit pubs not on King St.↩

All evidence points to the fact that broccoli is cruel. So bad that she rejects the yoghurt peace offering.

Found for us by a dear friend at a church fete.

Love that one-piece.

Uggh.

Kristy’s birthday was on Sunday, so over the weekend we had a good excuse to sample a variety of Newtown/Erko eateries. If you’re in the area looking for a bite, here are some goodies:

Twelve is a slightly-upmarket (relatively speaking) restaurant on King St, Newtown. It’s got big glass windows for that fishbowl/watch-the-world-go-by effect. For the first time I can remember for ages, all 5 of us at dinner (my family came along too) had no complaints or regrets in our meals. Beautiful food, well made & presented, good service, and a dessert menu that’s worth going back for alone.

Particularly the sticky toffee pudding.

Burgerlicious was Sunday lunch. Fresh, tasty, and just like your traditional local burger-shop, only a step up in quality.

Shenkin was a real winner. This little cafe in Erskineville (Erko rd, up towards the Newtown end) is run by an Israeli family – the whole family too [thanks Dave in the comments]. They do decent coffee, have a decent menu, and make simply fantastic chocolate croissants. Often when I’ve had them before, particularly from French bakeries, I’ve been very disappointed in the little hard pellet-like chocolate filling. These, however, were the real deal. The chocolate seems to be an integral (load-bearing) pastry ingredient. Excellent gear.

Finally, although this wasn’t birthday fare, The Bank near Newtown station has a brilliant Thai restaurant underneath it, Sumalee Thai. For Newtown it’s definately pricey, but absolutely wipes the floor with every other thai place, including Pothong Thai. Up in the pub, however, from 6pm on a weekday night you can get a beer plus a thai curry for $10. Delicious bargain.

Any other favourite dining places?