A wine giveaway, a staycation and I’m on TV!

February is notoriously hot here in Sydney. It does make me cranky. I know I should be relishing it, getting out to the beach, working my tan (he laughs), but all I do is heat up, sweat and complain.

It’s got so bad this year Mrs Romance suggested we move to a cooler climate just to stop me whinging. I pointed out that this was a classic ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ situation. If we did go somewhere cold, it’d just be me dealing with Mrs R complaining – she hates the cold. Nope. I know I’ve just got to suck it up. I mean, at least hot days equal nice Instagram photos, right?

Yes. So, I’m on TV. Live TV. Live Sky TV. Being interviewed. Live.

How do I feel? Somewhere between terrified and overwhelmingly excited… I’m not sure if my expression really shows that here or not. Anyway, Sky News asked me in to talk about Cuba and what it’s like there.

Thankfully, Cuba’s one of those places I could spend talking about for hours, so the 7 or so minutes went by incredibly quickly. Thank you, Ingrid Willinge, for being gentle with me!

We’re in Marrickville today catching up with a couple of very cool cats. Dee from MamaStylista.com and Kimba from KimbaLikes.com have brought us to West Juliett – a handsome little cafe that dishes up excellent sandwiches, salads and cookies. Their coffee’s pretty fine too.

“Grey skies at night, red wine delight” is my motto. And the best thing about it is it’s completely interchangeable for whatever the sky currently looks like this evening!

We’re running a wine giveaway on Mr & Mrs Romance at the moment. You have a chance to win 2 magnums of Magnum Wine and a $50 voucher to spend at Top3 By Design. All you have to do is sign up to our newsletter (we’re announcing the winner there) and email me with what your perfect at-home wine experience is in 25 words or less. Simple, right?

For more details on our giveaway, check out our latest 5 Foodie Finds post here.

While I’m enjoying my alone time with my wine at home, Mrs Romance is out and about enjoying March into Merivale’s launch party. This is the 7th year this food and drink festival has been held. You can buy tickets for different parts of the March into Merivale festival here.

By now, you’ve probably noticed my passion for burgers. Australia’s really getting deep into burger craze that’s gathering momentum across the globe. We’ve gone to the Royal Albert Hotel in Surry Hills tonight for what we reckon is the best burger in Australia. Their Royale with Cheese is superb.

To make things even better, the Royal Albert’s released their bacon double cheese burger – a 600g monolith of meat in the softest seeded bun with melty cheese, piles of pickles and of course an abundance of alliteration! It’s sensational.

This obsession has led me to write my top 10 burger list of all time. It’s an international affair and comes with a salivation warning!

Tonight we’re out with Sammie from TheAnnoyedThyroid.com and her man Mr TAT. We’ve got a seat at the rather swanky Hemmesphere, part of the Merivale Group. It was quiet when we first arrived, but now we’ve got our drinks, the place has filled up and as a result, service has dropped off a bit.

Just a good job the cocktails are delicious!

For dinner, the four of us have headed north to Cremorne. Chinaman Dumpling is a little local spot that’s only been open a little while – since around November last year. We’re just about to get stuck in to the crispy pork belly and addictive duck fried rice. Awesome!

It’s an early start this morning. We’re at The Grounds at Alexandria, reputedly the most Instagrammed cafe in Sydney. And now I see why. Everything here’s so interesting and so well styled. We’re here to talk to celebrity chef Jared Ingersoll and Dr Hazel MacTavish-West – a food scientist and biologist – about stevia.

Stevia is a Paraguayan plant that can be used to sweeten food and drink instead of sugar but which has some other fascinating properties we’ll go into detail a bit later.

The breakfast here is awesome – including these pastries and pots of granola. If I’d known this was going to be here, I’d have brought my duffle bag and scooped everything into it!

The flowers on display here at The Grounds are also exceptional.

We stroll around the rest of the cafe and meet Kevin Bacon, the resident pig. He’s busy snuffling through his trough, so we’ve decided not to publish a photo of him in such a compromising position. He deserves that at least.

Love the way they’ve decorated the old oak tree in The Oaks Pub in North Sydney. I don’t think I’ve been back here since The Oaks released their new steak challenge: the Tomahawk, a 2kg monster I took on last May.

But I’m not here to feed my face with beef. No, I’m here to give our mates Andy and Fran a send-off as they head back to the UK tomorrow. Poor Mrs R has a severe migraine, but I’ll make sure I drink enough for the both of us!

The Oaks is packed tonight and the atmosphere is great. Shame I’m here under such sad circumstances.

It’s our wedding anniversary next week, so we’ve decided to celebrate a bit early with a good ol’ staycation. So we’ve checked into the Establishment Hotel in Sydney CBD for the night. We’ve started things off the way we like to with a spot of room service!

This burger is really very good indeed. Not too juicy, which is good for ease of eating in your hotel room. If you’re ever in this hotel, do not miss out on this bad boy!

Ooh! Fruity! Mrs R just can’t resist a gratuitous pineapple shot if she gets the chance. And those bananas have just added fuel to the fire!

How’s your week been? Do you like a staycation? What’s your stance on gratuitous pineapple photos? Tell us in the comments!

Don’t forget to get your entry in for our wine competition. We’d love to give you some vino!

Images by Mr and Mrs Romance via Instagram: @MrAndMrsRomance, @HairRomance, @Christina.Butcher – Mrs R’s Insta account and @AngryBastard of course!