back in sydney, i wasted no time in recapturing a little bit of european je ne sais quoi. a week after touching down i talked singapore girl into a spot of luncheon at le grand cafe. we have figured out by now, that the best time for lunch at le grande cafe is “early”. just before noon, there are no queues, several empty tables, and a glass case full of options.

all morning, i’d been thinking of the terrine and cornichons that i’d enjoyed on a previous occasion. i considered maybe branching out and trying the duck liver parfait with brioche. however, once i discovered that the baguette on offer that day was filled with duck confit, my choice was made.

they showed up at the table a little while later, one for each of us. the sandwich had been freshly toasted, and there was a satisfying crunch to the baguette before it gave way to succulence: i was pleased to find that the bread was generously buttered, and the filling dressed with mayonnaise, and of course, to start with, there was a good amount of naturally occurring duck fat. it all made for a very moist and tasty mouthful. the slices of crisp, sweet onion provided a good foil to the fat, as did a little dimpled bottle of orangina.

we had planned ahead and picked our desserts when we ordered our sandwiches at the counter, to save us from rejoining the queue when the lunch crowd eventually swept into the cafe around 1. the attentive waitstaff brought them to the table as soon as we were done with the baguettes.

for me: the caramel tart, which turned out to be more of a very nice pastry shell filled with a sort-of creme brulee. the surface of it lacked the crackly, sugary shell of a proper creme brulee, but the mild caramel flavour and light custardy texture was pleasing all the same. the jaunty little beret of a biscuit bore a striking resemblance to a cookie from famous amos.

singapore girl had the petit pot au chocolat, which turned out to be too much chocolat for a girl who had just eaten a baguette filled with three kinds of fat. beneath the nutty crumble topping was a deep expanse of rich, dark, chocolate. at the bottom of that, was a puddle of thick caramel. perhaps she should not have also ordered a hot chocolate as a postprandial bevvie; there was still a good amount of pudding left when the waitress came to clear the table. (by contrast, the caramel tart was completely gone.)

we rolled out the door then, and had barely gone ten metres when we came across gaffa, three floors of art space / shop / cafe housed in a handsome pink heritage building. downstairs it’s little rooms of covetable and affordable contemporary jewelry and objet d’art; upstairs it’s galleries (and studios) around a central sunlit airwell.

one of the exhibitions we perused most appreciatively was food&company, an unprecious curation of food-related stuff: photographs, drawings, tiny interactive installations, and some lovely crockery. here’s the flourishing, by gemma o’brien.

ahh… so nice to see the flourishing of unstuffy, inspiring art space in the heart of this grimy city.