AHFA glamour, cocktails and wine

Mrs Romance kicks off this week with this beautiful view over breakfast.

She’s enjoying her first meal of the week at the Shangri-La Hotel. It’s beautiful up here.

It’s a busy week ahead of us – especially Mrs R – with the final night of the AHFA Australian Hair and Fashion Awards tonight and a host of other things set to happen too. Wish us luck!

While Mrs Romance is busy enjoying the show at the AHFA, I’m at the Winery enjoying the Urban Vineyard showcasing wineries in New Zealand’s Queenstown region.

This event by ‘Destination Quesnstown‘ is featuring some of Otago’s best wines from Valli, Gibbston Valley, Amisfield, Mount Edward, Two Paddocks and Peregrine.

The awards evening, meanwhile, gets to the glamorous stage – here’s Mrs Romance with the lovely and exceptional Viola Marie Doyle – editor of The Journal Magazine and writer for Project Sweet Stuff.

My friend Peter (one of our Friday Drinks Wine Saints, no less) and I enjoy the fruits (sorry) of the vineyards’ labours and then head into town for a quiet cigar.

We head to Zeta Bar in the Hilton, which has a beautiful balcony bar overlooking the QVB. It turns out to be a poor choice when the management closes early because the bar isn’t busy enough. Funny really – we thought we were in the bar a five-star hotel. So much for customer service, ay?

This morning Mrs Romance is over the other side of the harbour at Aqua Dining. It’s an amazing venue with an even more amazing view south over the city.

We were even thinking about having this as our wedding venue it’s that nice.

On Mr and Mrs Romance today, we’re talking about our new favourite Italian restaurant Spakka-Napoli in Neutral Bay. It gets it’s name from a road that cuts through Naples called Spaccanapoli.

This place does an excellent antipasto plate – as you can see – but it’s the pizza I’ll be going back for. Here’s our review of Spakka-Napoli.

It’s 1st April today – April Fool’s Day. I had to include this excellent newsletter from Flight Centre I’ve received today. A two-for-one deal on Business Class flights… by sharing them!

I’m out with my mate Anton tonight. We end up at our favourite ramen place in Bondi Junction: Ichi Ban Boshi. Their ramen bowls, especially this tantan-men bowl. Awesome!

Another week goes by and we bring you another curry recipe. This week in our Curry Series: how to cook a Chicken Saagwala. It’s a dry curry with spicy chicken and fresh spinach. Great as is or you can add to it to turn this recipe into a completely different curry.

There’s a lovely surprise in the post today: Caroline Childerley a.k.a The Gin Queen has sent us this little bottle of semi-sweet white vermouth to have with our favourite gin cocktails.

With The Gin Queen’s help, we’ve written about the amazing new trend of Australian craft gin picking up speed in this country.

We’re such big fans of The Gin Queen we just had to share a bit more of her with everyone. Here’s our interview with Caroline Childerley that we’ve published today.

If you’re looking for ginspiration, this is the lady to speak to!

It’s not gin, but just as important: Mrs R is suffering from blogging fatigue this evening. I make the executive decision that she needs one of these: an espresso martini. It does the trick – perhaps a little too well. Now she’s having trouble getting to sleep!

I enjoy the drink though. I’ve made it dairy-free (without Baileys), vodka, butterscotch schnapps and a half-measure of Tia Maria. And coffee of course! One of the caramel flavoured Nespresso shots we’ve got in the cupboard.

This week’s Friday Drinks is the first of the month, which means it’s Wine of the Month. This time we’ve looked into the benefits of Tempranillo – a Spanish grape used predominantly in Rioja.

We let St Andrew – our Wine Saint who lived for some in north-eastern Spain – loose on this one. He’s got some very interesting and insightful things to say about Tempranillo. He’s also given some great recommendations for good Rioja too. One of which we’re trying here.

Dinner tonight is an all-vegetarian affair. We’re at Yulli’s in Surry Hills with our lovely friends Elle and Landon. Yulli’s really is a good little place and the food is very tasty.

Even better than that, their beer menu – for a restaurant – is amazing.

Mrs Romance is off to a birthday lunch today. The party’s at Bondi Hardware today – but I’m not invited. That’s okay though. I get a lot of work done at home, especially for a Saturday.

It just goes to show, the only pitfall we face with working together is how distracting Mrs Romance is! I suppose that’s a compliment, isn’t it?!

It’s a lovely day out at Bondi today. Mrs Romance snaps this pic of the beach volleyball courts whilst waiting for her bus. Such a beautiful coastline.

Sunday. The seventh day. The day of rest. Well, we get it mostly right – we head down to the Fish Markets for a yum cha lunch with our good friends Paul, Sharon and little Henry.

It’s the first time we’ve been to this yum cha – and believe me we’ve done our research. Here’s our post of yum cha restaurants in Sydney. We really like this one – though I think the food would be even better with more options if we go a bit earlier next time (we got here at about 1.30pm).

If you haven’t had yum cha before, do it as soon as you can! It’s the best!

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How was your week? Tell us all about it in the comments!

Images by Mr and Mrs Romance via Instagram: @MrAndMrsRomance, @HairRomance and of course @AngryBastard!