Classical Music and a floating bar

I was lucky enough to attend a Musica Viva gig last night thanks to Miccal Cummins from Gastronomy for the ticket. Stephen Hough played a sonata by Chopin on the most fabulous Grand Piano I’ve ever seen in my life. An absolute privilege to see such manifested talent first hand.

But now for the food, I was in the room at Ottoman Cuisine for less than 30 seconds before someone said, “you have to try those, and those and those”. My Lord is all I can say for the Sis Mantar, char-grilled mushrooms with cumin and mild Aleppo chili; I can’t count how many I ate. Then came out huge trays of Etli Borek, filo rolls rolled with slow braised veal, currants and pine-nuts, served with a pomegranate and yoghurt sauce. And another version of these filo rolls filled with feta I could have hid in a corner with a tray of them and a blindfold forever. Not sure why the blind-fold actually but there you go.

For entrée I had the most delicately moist melt in your mouth Kofte Piyazli served with white bean salad and a cucumber and yoghurt cacik that I could bottle up and bathe in. More lamb for main – 4 cutlets, can I fit anymore in right now? Yes I could there was room for Turkish Delight, Baklava, baked custard with mastica served with pomegranate ice-cream and morello cherry sauce – the cherries had been semi dried rendering them to most bitter sweet morsels for your taste buds to swim amongst.

I’ve eaten way too much was what I was thinking but there is something about cushiony chairs that seems to allow you to just keep stuffing yourself, they scream out saying, its comfy isn’t it – forget your dreams of losing wedding weight.

After this it was onto the Premise – a Drambuie funded floating pop-up bar right next to the Opera House. However my directions were thwarted by 6 glasses of good wine and we ended up on the wrong side of the harbor amongst a group of underagers drinking beer out of long-necks. Got me thinking that people who enjoy drinking parties with the best harbor views are either: a) filthy rich or b) teenagers with no-where else to go. I wondered if they really appreciated the beauty of their preferred party venue or whether it was just conveniently dark and out of the way.

Back up Fleet Steps to a taxi home, the bar looked empty anyway.