Growing up near the “second CBD of Sydney”, revisiting it after many developments, getting lost in shopping malls and a unique Malaysian experience in Sydney.
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Growing up near the “second CBD of Sydney”, revisiting it after many developments, getting lost in shopping malls and a unique Malaysian experience in Sydney.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:00
And welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am—unlike two episodes ago—your co host Geoff, and I’m here with Georgie as per usual. How’s it going Georgie.
Georgie 0:26
It’s going... you know your name in my phone is Artemis?
Geoff 0:31
Oh yeah, I, I think another one of my friends changed my name to Artemis in their phone as well, so, you know, that’s becoming a thing. I also talked about how like Artemis is actually too long of a name, I like shorter names. So. But Artie and like, Art, sound really bad, so I think I need to, I should have really thought about the name before talking about it but yeah. How’s your weekend been?
Georgie 1:04
It’s fine, yeah.
Geoff 1:06
Yeah?
Georgie 1:07
Yeah we went to, went to Parramatta yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve been there in a while, because, cause, I grew up like near there ish. And they’ve done it up.
Geoff 1:16
Why did you go back?
Georgie 1:17
Oh I was I was seeing my parents for the first time since lockdown ended and it was my brother’s birthday earlier this week. Yeah—
Geoff 1:26
So visiting the old stomping ground.
Georgie 1:29
Yeah, it’s been done up a little bit, there’s like doing the tram tracks or whatever but basically the the, Church Street which is where... Okay, so I’ll provide a little bit of history for people who have no idea what, so Parramatta, so Parramatta is kind of like a large, I would say suburb in Western Sydney. It’s, it’s a pretty central hub for like, stuff there. Like lots of businesses. Lots of shops. Big shopping centre.
Geoff 1:57
I think people call it the second city of Sydney.
Georgie 2:00
Yeah, the second CBD, or at least they’re trying to make it like that. And then so they’re building like a light rail, or if you want to call it, a tram. And that’s supposed to be ready in, I don’t know, I think 18 months, Nick actually keeps up to date with this stuff because he’s interested in like transport related things.
Geoff 2:17
That’s interesting.
Georgie 2:18
But yeah, so I grew up near Parramatta for like, 20, basically, like 20, 20 plus years of my life. So I was very familiar with the area. And there’s a street called Church Street, which is outside of the main shopping center or mall, as, it was like a multi level shopping mall. And then you’ve got Church Street, which is like an—it was kind of like part of it was like a, like a shopping strip, I guess you could say. And you kind of—there was like a town hall thing and an open kind of square with just a variety of shops, some food. And then there’s this main kind of drag of Church Street where there were lots of places to eat. And wow, it appears that I accidentally started an indoor walk on my Apple Watch in the last five minutes. I’ve been sitting in my chair by the way.
Geoff 3:20
I didn’t think there was an indoor like walk.
Georgie 3:24
What do you mean, I’ve been—don’t you get my notifications for my workouts? Or are they so annoying that you muted me?
Geoff 3:31
Errr, I definitely have not, definitely maybe, muted all of the health stuff on my watch and my phone.
Georgie 3:43
There is an indoor walk, so that’s designed for you to like, I use on the treadmill for example. Because that’s indoors.
Geoff 3:49
Oh, right. Right. No, that makes sense. That makes sense. My indoor walks are five steps in all directions.
Georgie 3:58
Oh like in your house?
Geoff 4:00
Yeah, in my house. Five steps to the kitchen.
Georgie 4:03
Okay, not gonna lie but like during, like pandemic COVID times I was, I think when I was very desperate to get my steps up I actually started an indoor walk workout and just did, quote unquote, laps, around my tiny ass apartment. Which mind you makes you dizzy after about like 90 seconds. But anyway, so actually went out to Parramatta yesterday. Yeah, so yeah, there’s Church Street, which is all of the food and things and honestly, growing up it was a pretty dodge part of town, it felt like. Like it was—
Geoff 4:41
Yeah.
Georgie 4:42
It just—no one really went there because you just went to the mall, the shopping centre, and then you never really went out unless... I don’t even think there was anything worth going to in Church Street and people are too lazy to walk down there. There’s like a theater, which has had some stuff—and they’re building I don’t know if it’s still there, I mean, I don’t know if it’s there yet but they’re building a Powerhouse Museum or the Powerhouse Museum that was—
Geoff 5:06
Oh...
Georgie 5:07
...in like Sydney.
Geoff 5:09
In the city, yeah.
Georgie 5:10
And I think they either are moving slash moved or are having another one in. Yeah.
Geoff 5:17
Yeah, I know they’re moving it. I don’t think they’re, I don’t think they’re moving it to Parra. But yeah, like for for even more of a setup, like, Georgie, you live you live on the other side of the city, you like live in eastern suburbs, and then Parra is like, what, like a 30, 40 minute drive?
Georgie 5:37
Yes. It’s like 40 minute drive. So I basically moved to the other side of Sydney.
Geoff 5:42
Yeah. The thing is we used to, I used to always think of Parra as like, way too far away.
Georgie 5:49
Yes.
Geoff 5:50
It’s like, we we work in the city. I worked in the CBD for a while and for for one of our clients, back when I was a consultant. Their office was in Parramatta—or they wanted people to go to Parramatta. So I actually had to go to Parramatta to, to work for like a for maybe like a couple of months. Oh my God, it was such a, it was such a travel. I had to take a bus into CBD and then take a train, like 30 minute train out to Parra, and it was just like the worst experience ever. And we just compla—we complained, like every other day. And we’re like, why can’t we just go to their CBD office? Like why do they have to send us out to bloody Parra? We don’t talk to anybody in this building. Like there’s no reason for us to be here. And, and honestly, yeah, didn’t didn’t really find anything too interesting out there either. Like in terms of eating or anything like that.
Georgie 6:49
What year was this?
Geoff 6:50
So that’s... 2018 I guess?
Georgie 6:55
Well, that’s not that long ago at all.
Geoff 6:57
2017, 2018... Was that only three years ago?
Georgie 7:01
That, yeah, apparently that was.
Geoff 7:03
Two, three, four years, four, four years ago. Must have been at least five years ago.
Georgie 7:08
Okay. So even even then, like, yeah, that’s not a long time ago. And I would assume that it was better than in my childhood. Because because, like the parts of it were just derro, in my childhood. And yeah, so what they’re doing now is, they’re doing it up because like I said, it’s being treated a bit like a second CBD. So they’re making it a bit fun. And there was a—they’re, they’re like, I wouldn’t... I think this is a thing in, in the city as well, or some some cafes in Surry Hills—which is close to Sydney City—they’re doing like outdoor seating. So it’s it’s kind of cool. Like, it’s they use you—the businesses get to use part of the road to put outdoor seating. So it’s kind of like, nice. What’s it called? alfresco dining?
Geoff 8:06
Strangely nice.
Georgie 8:08
Yeah. And so at the moment the, the tram, light rail, whatever, tracks are not in use yet. So they would kind of put those tables and just general outdoor seating next to, like close to the tram tracks, and then you can just walk, like, it’s very pedestrianised, I guess you could say it’s one of those things.
Geoff 8:26
Yeah. The last time I went there, I was super confused because they do have this massive works going on. And if you try looking on, like Google Maps to, to reach a restaurant that is somewhat in that direction, it’s kind of confusing. But like, the hot tip is that if it’s on that side, it’s probably actually in the train station. Like, like under, underground.
Georgie 8:26
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 8:31
So it’s really trippy.
Yeah, there’s a—
Yeah.
Georgie 8:57
So I remember when that didn’t exist, right. So basically, there’s a—this is so weird, now that I think about it, but—in the Westfield Shopping Centre, that that is five levels of shops and like up to eight levels, parking basically,
Geoff 9:14
Yeah fuck that, man, finding parking.
Georgie 9:17
The first level, level one, is actually underground, so. And, right now there is a tunnel that goes straight to the station. So you don’t have to go on the street level, you can just go to level one and go out and go into the train station, which is quite convenient. So I remember when that didn’t even exist, there was just level one. And it was one of the most boring levels out of the five levels. And you could only access it from level two, which is the ground level, and you’d go down an escalator I don’t even think there was an elevator, or maybe it’s just like, tucked away it’s not a main elevator, like the main, busy elevators for like two—levels two, through to whatever. So I now, now that I’m talking about this, I can see why you thought it was confusing. It’s like to park in and just figure out where the heck you are.
Geoff 10:12
For... find out where the fuck you are. There’s also the Macquarie Park shopping centre.
Georgie 10:19
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 10:19
Which has to also be like one of the most confusing places. They had an old shopping centre. And they built a new one.
Georgie 10:27
Yes, yes.
Geoff 10:27
Like around it. So like, just—
Georgie 10:32
Like, they expanded on it, right?
Geoff 10:34
Yeah, they expanded on it. And we’re meeting some friends in Macquarie Park for, for lunch, and I parked somewhere. And we’re like, okay, we need to exit on this one street over there. And we’re like, cool. We’ll go into the shopping centre and make our way out. Oh, my God, we took 10 minutes just running around this shopping centre trying to find an exit to the ground to a street level. And we asked two different people. Like how to get, how the hell to get out of this this shopping centre. It was just horrifying. You’d go like up a few, and the thing is, they have half levels.
Georgie 11:19
Yes.
Geoff 11:19
Right. So it just like did, did our, our heads in.
Georgie 11:25
So the way the half level is, is it’s like a staircase in the middle, which is part of the old—
Geoff 11:30
Yeah.
Georgie 11:30
The old one that they built off. And the staircase is like a spirally kind of thing.
Geoff 11:36
It’s kind of cool-looking actually.
Georgie 11:38
It’s cool, but you get lost. And you know, the funny thing is, I used to live near there as well like until I was like three years old. I used to live in like, Ryde. So I was kind of familiar with that shopping centre as well. I was like, plagued by like, complex shopping centers in my growing up or something.
Geoff 11:58
Yeah. Why can’t it just be as simple as you know, actually, Japan’s not actually that simple. But usually Japan shopping centres are square, you literally go up the square, you come down the square. And the ground level is the ground level. Sometimes they have the underground market thing, like under, like the level down, they have a lot of food kind of related store, like, fronts. So you just walking around and you can peer into some into some glass, glass counters, and they have stuff in there.
Georgie 12:36
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 12:36
Pick some stuff and pick it up. Yeah, those are really cool. One flaw: as a traveller, as a visitor. It’s a bit tricky, because you go down into those markets and you’re like, oh, cool, I’m gonna go get something. But then you’re left there holding it because they don’t have any seating area to eat it. So you—they kind of expect it for people to be like on their way in for like, from work, picking it up on their way home. And not for like, the, the tourists who are sort of like there for fun. Like they’re actually there to do stuff. You’re just walking around with a bento box in your hand, and you have nowhere to sit and eat it. You have to actually go back to wherever you were staying to eat it. That’s um, that’s the only kind of like pitfall of that kind of dining. But—
Georgie 13:27
It’s not even dining.
Geoff 13:29
Yeah, I...
Georgie 13:30
It’s like takeaway, right?
Geoff 13:32
Yeah. Yeah, it’s takeaway. But the other... but I mean, Japan has its own confusing things like train stations. I wouldn’t say Cent—like Sydney’s Central is easy to navigate.
Georgie 13:52
Nope.
Geoff 13:53
But like, Japan’s one is like... I think this was Tokyo. Or was it Shib—was it Shibuya? Probably Shinjuku. But every time we would enter one side, we’d have no idea like how to get to the platform. But if we arrive from a different place, it’s kind of easy to find an exit. Just like how, how have we not figured this out after like, five days?
Georgie 14:23
Yeah.
Geoff 14:25
Of being here. But, but yeah.
Georgie 14:29
Sydney Central is um... I used to get off that train station when I went to uni. And I think the thing with train stations, like whether you’re a tourist or like, you live in this place, is, you kind of don’t hang out in there, right? Like your purpose is I’m going to get the train I want to get or I’m leaving. So I look at the signs and go okay, that’s the exit. I just need to get the fuck out of here. And so I don’t think anyone really like mem—memorises the certain like, you walk into the, example Central Station, you walk in there, and suddenly you remember, like, which side has which platforms or which whatever you—and then if you’re commuting just to work, or to and from work, you would just remember the same way you took. So then, let’s say next time, you just for some reason are on the other side, and you enter, and then you’re like, well, I have to like relearn this, and then you’re probably not going to remember it. And then when you go in there—I think the thing is that the signs actually work, right? You can, you can look at the signs and follow them. But what happens is, I think we just never like commit that ever to our memory. You just fucking walk in and go, I just need to get on a train.
Geoff 15:44
Yeah, I think you’re right, it ends up being like muscle memory. Rather than actually no, like, if anyone asked me like, oh, dude, you know, which platform the train, the train to Blue Mountains is? I’m like hell no.
Georgie 16:01
It’s like 1. I think it’s actually platforms 1 to 12.
Geoff 16:06
All of them go to the mountains?
Georgie 16:08
Okay, no, but the ones that go to the mountains are definitely not beyond that. Like it’s the Intercity ones. I don’t think actually, I don’t think it’s 1, I don’t even think 1 is being used. But yeah.
Geoff 16:20
I don’t, I don’t know what, I don’t know. I think I know that like, one platform that goes to north and the other platform that goes out west, and I just, oh, and of course this one train that goes to the—
Georgie 16:33
Bondi?
Geoff 16:34
...airport.
Georgie 16:35
Oh.
Geoff 16:35
And but I’ve never I don’t know what train goes to Bondi.
Georgie 16:39
So the funny thing is, I went, I mean, I caught the Blue Mountains train line sometimes because it went to Parramatta, and that was often like my main station that I got off at. And yeah, it’s like so to go to Parramatta, you can get like, a, so normal suburban train, which is on I think it might be platform, okay, from—I don’t remember, it was like 15 or 16, somewhere in the—
Geoff 17:06
Platform nine and three quarters.
Georgie 17:09
And then you, and then you remember that, but I think it changed, since I don’t like, since I stopped using the train to go out that way because I don’t live there anymore. But then if you wanted to go to Parramatta quicker, you could get the Blue Mountains train, which is like a—what do you call them?—like a country, I guess you could call it...
Geoff 17:30
Trans...
Georgie 17:31
Do they call it intercity?
Geoff 17:32
Intercity.
Georgie 17:34
So it skips, it only goes to the major ones.
Geoff 17:37
Transcontintental.
Georgie 17:37
So yeah, something or other, but then that would be on a completely different platform. And it doesn’t come as often. So yeah, even though you have options, in terms of where you might—like because you have a destination and there are different options for that destination there—that means that the different options are on completely different platforms. And then you could choose one and they’d be like, oh shit, there’s no train for like this long. Maybe I should go to the other one because there’s a train coming soon. And then I think that just adds to the amount of information that you have and you’re like, I’m not gonna remember all this I just want to go home ASAP.
Geoff 18:16
Yeah, I mean, like we google map everything, the, I don’t even remember the direction like driving directions to most to most places these days. I know maybe I have to go left or right on on Parramatta Road to... but yeah, I don’t think dri—driving places not not quite committing most places to memory. But Perth is super easy. You got to Perth, the train is either north or south. Either you go to the train station, either go platform 1, platform 2, and you know platform 1 always goes north and platform 2 always goes south. So.
Georgie 19:00
Imagine if there was a massive troll and they just swapped it.
Geoff 19:04
Oh my god. I think we probably—
Georgie 19:07
There’d be a riot.
Geoff 19:09
We’d probably get pretty, pretty, yeah, big riot. But we do have an intersecting train that goes east and west when you get to the city. And it’s simple, but also really, really useless. But you can’t, you can’t go from south to, to like, east, because there’s literally no train that goes there, you have to go all the way to the city and then go across.
Georgie 19:35
So it’s like a cross—like a cross section. Like there’s no...
Geoff 19:38
It’s literally a cross section and the city’s in the middle.
Georgie 19:40
That’s basic. You know, this reminds me of like the New York subway where they have like the, I mean, this is one example. I think they actually do this in the US. They got the northbound and southbound like things. I have no internal compass. So if you told me like, I got to go to some northbound, but I’d be like, what’s that? Like? Which I don’t know which way is like north. I think that doesn’t work in Sydney right? You just go, where’s the north, like it just... But I’m, I’m so confused by that because I’m very bad at like, directions like internal. So someone would ask me, at Central Station, where is so and so I have to like think about it for a second like okay, where am I now? What is, exit is this? And what is that? And like which direction is this place that someone’s asking me for? And I’m like, God damn.
Geoff 20:39
Yeah, I’m pretty... I used to be pretty bad. I think I’m still a little bit shaky. But if I’m like standing in the middle of the city, and you’re like, let’s go to the cinema.
Georgie 20:51
Yeah, you’d know, right? But you would know?
Geoff 20:55
Is it that way?
Georgie 20:58
I think landmarks for me, okay, right. But then the moment someone says like, which way is like, north, I’m like, the fuck am I supposed to know?
Geoff 21:07
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 21:07
I just know the tower is that way. That is Central Station. You know like, if you go that way, you will keep going towards the harbour or something. It... yeah.
Geoff 21:18
That’s why I also hate GPS, like Google Maps will say head south. And I’m like, south...
Georgie 21:24
Where’s south?
Geoff 21:24
Like, which way’s south. And there’s a guy in an anime called One Piece. If you looked him up, his name is Zorro. He’s basically a character caricature of Zorro, the, the more famous one. And his compass is so bad. And he’s also not the sharpest tool in the shed. So he got told to go north one time and he said, what he was like, where’s north? I guess north is up. So he just went up a bunch of stairs. Like north is literally the direction of the sky. Like, I’m not that bad, but also, that’s pretty, it’s pretty funny. But yeah, the... my direct—my sense of direction, the, it takes a while to, to remember a path or where something is, in general. So I’ve had times where my friend will say, oh, yeah, go, go left and point. Right. And I’m like, “What?” That’s even more confusing.
Georgie 22:35
That’s the completely opposite.
Geoff 22:37
Yeah, I think people say follow what they said and not what they point. I think it’s actually something that most likely it’s pretty common for people to do. Is that they, they point one direction, but say the other.
Georgie 22:48
And it’s most likely that they pointed in the wrong direction. But they verbally said the right thing. Yeah.
Geoff 22:55
Yeah. I don’t even know what to call it. I can’t remember. I can’t remember where I heard this. This fact. So you know, don’t don’t listen to me.
Georgie 23:05
It’s just like some random theory.
Geoff 23:08
Yeah. Oh, so I recently went to a durian high tea. Which was...
Georgie 23:20
Was it impressive?
Geoff 23:21
Actually pretty good. Um, it was a bit touching go because
Georgie 23:27
This sounds bad already. You basically, basically put the thing on the table and you’re just like, look, it wasn’t really that great.
Geoff 23:37
Yes, in the experience was a, could be...
Georgie 23:42
Wait, question.
Geoff 23:42
...could be improved.
Georgie 23:43
Have you been to a high tea of any kind?
Geoff 23:47
Yes. I’ve been to a regular high tea. Yeah, actually. Question. Do you like durian?
Georgie 23:52
No, but I don’t hate it.
Geoff 23:54
No? Yeah.
Georgie 23:56
Given a choice, I’d just be like, nah. Oh, also, I have been to high teas and I don’t mind them. But I think they’re basically like a giant like, oh, they’re like a glorified, I don’t know, glorified tea. Like I—okay, I am a I’m a bit of a tea snob. I mean I’ll go like out of my way to find like bouje tea. And then when I go to high tea, I’m like, this isn’t really about the tea. Is it? This is about the scones and shit.
Geoff 24:25
I love scones.
Georgie 24:27
You want me to eat glorified jam on bread?
Geoff 24:31
Yeah.
Georgie 24:32
Am I right. Yeah. With some cream, which I can’t even eat because I’ll probably be farting all day because I’m lactose intolerant. And then there’s the sandwiches which like—you’ve seen my bagels right—would eat my bagels over those sandwiches any day. So it’s
Geoff 24:46
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 24:47
That’s my, that’s my opinion. I wouldn’t, I’m not like shitting on high tea. I’d do it because it’s like an experience as well. But in terms of the food...
Geoff 24:54
Yeah.
Georgie 24:55
It’s just like overpriced BS.
Geoff 24:58
So I find that high tea is still filling. So no yeah, no shade. No shade on high tea. They may price it a little bit higher, as the name suggests that we would expect.
Georgie 25:14
Wait wait wait, you know the name is more to do with the platter. The name is high.
Geoff 25:18
Yeah, I think so.
Georgie 25:20
Not the cost. Yeah. I think so.
Geoff 25:22
Oh, well. I mean, I didn’t really think about it. I was like, I don’t know. It’s tea time. It’s like an I don’t know they call it high tea because I don’t know maybe it’s later than regular tea time like high noon. Like yeah, it’s like, sun’s in the sky. But that makes sense that the, the towering, the tower of high tea is why they call it high tea. But so yeah, I’ve been to high tea. I do enjoy scones, cream and jam. And English breakfast tea is pretty standard. But yeah, I think they really do up charge the high teas in most places. A couple of high teas I’ve been to, maybe like a lavender farm back in Perth. They do lavender scones, cream and jam infused and stuff like that. So that’s pretty worth it. Blue Mountains has a high tea. I think that’s expensive because of the, I don’t, the building they’re in...
Georgie 26:20
The view?
Geoff 26:21
The experience that just the de—the decor is very like, imperial, I guess. Yeah. Like British. Anyways, so this durian high tea was really interesting. So the schedule is basically you were supposed to be there at 2:30, even 10 minutes before 2:30. Right. And we didn’t eat till four o’clock. Let me just say...
Georgie 26:46
Oh...
Geoff 26:46
We didn’t eat till four o’clock. Now. It’s quite a big event. I didn’t understand what kind of event this was. But it was a collaboration between like three or four different companies. And one of them was the Malaysian ambassador to Australia. He was there. But the office, right, so it’s some kind of... it... I didn’t realise until they started doing all this that it was a big promo. It was all about like, trying to promote. I don’t know, Malay, Malaysian tropical fruit of some sort. But we sit, we sit down and we’re greeted with this box. And it’s like, it’s a blind jackfruit tasting. Now. I’m like...
Georgie 27:34
Whoa.
Geoff 27:34
How much do you like jackfruit?
Georgie 27:36
Okay, so I actually like it a lot. Like, okay, hang on. Wait. I’ve had the cooked jackfruit which kind of blew my mind a bit cuz I was like, whoa, okay, that’s different from like, the, I don’t know, fruit jack—
Geoff 27:47
Fresh?
Georgie 27:48
Yeah.
Geoff 27:49
There’s fresh, cooked, and chip, fried.
Georgie 27:51
Okay, I don’t know, if I’ve had the fried one by love the fruit kind that you put in certain desserts and drinks and stuff. I like that. The cooked stuff, it’s just in stuff, and it’s like, whatever. It’s cool but I like the fruit, yeah.
Geoff 28:08
I really like chips, like the chip form, obviously. As little nutrition as possible, everybody, that’s when I like something. So we get this box, and there’s a survey and they’re like, fill out the survey with all your information. And then like, now blind taste these jackfruit and rank and rate all of the attributes of the jackfruit. We’re talking size of pulp, sweetness, consistency, like, texture, all that stuff. And you rank rank each one of these categories one to five. And then there’s really weird, gets really weird. They start asking how much would you pay for, like a box of jackfruit. I’m like, what?
Georgie 28:58
So you have to pay for this experience, but you’re giving them info, like, shouldn’t they be paying you that whole $50 thing for like, you know, surveys...
Geoff 29:08
Actually, that’s a really interesting point. You get paid to give them data, data is supposed to be paid for. So they start asking us how much we would we pay for jackfruit and it says like, how frequently do you buy and eat jackfruit, and one of the options is like, “none”, so I tick “none” and I’m like, what now? I can’t I can’t give you any, like, details of the five other questions, but they check it before they before they take it, so they’re like... so I’m like okay, I’ll just check all the boxes and, I don’t know, I put $30 per 100 grams, which is...
Georgie 29:44
I don’t actually know how much...
Geoff 29:45
...in hindsight, totally crazy.
Georgie 29:47
How much they’re supposed to cost. Like I feel like the only times I’ve had it is in Asia, and maybe like, once here in Australia.
Geoff 29:55
Yeah. So, so Dorinda and I are like filling out this um, this survey. Dorinda loves jackfruit. So she’s going to town on this jackfruit. And I’m like tepidly eating jackfruit because I actually hadn’t had the fruit before. This was the first time.
Georgie 30:11
Did you like it? Did you like it?
Geoff 30:13
It was okay, I prefer the chips.
Georgie 30:16
Yeah.
Geoff 30:17
Good thing is they had a pack of chips of jackfruit on the table. So. So we’re filling out this form. And then if you fill out the survey, they give you a box of frozen jackfruit. Now, they don’t tell you which one of the ones you’ve tasted is coming in the box. And we just happen to really like the one that they gave us in the box. Like that was like the favourite of Dorinda’s. So we’re lucky for that. Two boxes frozen, but they gave it to us at the beginning.
Georgie 30:51
Dude.
Geoff 30:52
So they just defrosted through the whole whole three hour ordeal. So we’re just sitting there going, is it okay that these jackfruit are defrosting before our eyes? Sure. That was, so that was that was interesting thing number one. Interesting thing number two is that there was no int—no private tables, we they made a long table and they just crammed as many ticketed people on that table. So it’s really awkward. We all sat in, like opposite, opposite the people we came with. But because there were, there were two end seats. When the final couple came along, we’re like shit. So we’re all like mapping in our head, like calculations trying to shuffle our seats around so we’re sitting next to the people that we came with.
Georgie 31:45
Geez.
Geoff 31:45
We managed to, we managed to get through that ordeal. But one of my friends did mention like, that was a hard pass for them. Because like they’re they’re being forced to socialise with, like absolute randoms at an event where you paid for a ticket. That’s kind of strange.
Georgie 32:11
Yeah.
Geoff 32:11
So of course these people are like, actually these these people that were sitting at a table with with mostly older people, older people from Singapore, Malaysia, they lived around that area. They enjoy durian and and stuff like that. We’re talking like maybe 60s. So I mean, of course, they engage us in some conversation. They’re like, oh, you from Malaysia? I’m like... Oh, they said it to Dorinda, and Dorinda’s like, “No, he is” and I’m like, “you threw me under the bus!” So I started engaging in you know, like, oh, yeah, I mean, I was that grew up maybe two or three years there as a kid, we ate all this stuff. We drank all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And then we—we share quips about the food later, the tea that they giving us and but yeah, for like one and a half hours, like 4pm was when they started handing out our towers, our high tea, and you know what? It was, it was pretty good. I think they gave us a durian filled croissant, to courtesy of this place called Textbook Patisserie, which has been known to do it every year. Lines out the door, 5am. Line up at 5am, pick up a durian croissant at 7am. So, in conjunction with them, they brought out like yeah, croissants filled with durian, there was a durian meringue tart, a durian macaron, and a pie with fermented durian inside it, and chicken, which was, which was pretty good. Not gonna lie. But it was super sweet like the macaron just blew away your taste buds.
Georgie 34:05
Macarons are like that though.
Geoff 34:07
Yeah, I guess so. But I mean, the, there’s like a durian macaron and honey, honey jackfruit macaron. It was just like, oh my god. The sweetness.
Georgie 34:16
So like more sugar than actual like fruit.
Geoff 34:19
Yeah. But I got full, I got full because I ate the, there was a little sardine sandwich... wouldn’t even call it a sandwich to be honest. They just had some sardine paste and—
Georgie 34:31
Oh my god.
Geoff 34:32
A cucumber slice. And yeah, so Dorinda, of course, eats more than me. So she just like demolished her side of the high tea. This thing was $88. And yeah, I think overall it was—they had speeches, they had raffles. They did all this stuff for like two hours.
Georgie 34:54
It was a full on thing.
Geoff 34:55
Starving us.
Georgie 34:56
It wasn’t just like a high tea. It was like yeah, like you said it was like, an event.
Geoff 35:03
Yeah promo everything. There’s like—they had guest speakers and yeah, a raffle draw. And yeah, they really drew out the two hours while we just sat there wasting away, waiting for food. Um, saw some food bloggers, some Instagrammers and you know, you know because they come up with their camera.
Georgie 35:28
Because the way they do it, the way they...
Geoff 35:31
Microphone, with like a shotgun microphone on the top and they even have the wind, the wind fuzzy thing on it.
Georgie 35:38
Wait, what’s the wind fuzzy thing?
Geoff 35:40
Oh it like, it looks like a furball. And
Georgie 35:43
Oh, like the mic. The microphone.
Geoff 35:46
The microphone. Yeah, they put it on a microphone, they attach this camera, I’m like, holy shit. I walked past their table. They had cut everything neatly in half. So you can see the inside of all of like the choux pastry and the and the croissant and the lemon—and the durian tart and stuff like that. Like yeah, you’re all here to like, document.
Georgie 36:08
Yeah.
Geoff 36:09
This is... Dorinda and I were just so hungry. Just fucken demolish the thing.
Georgie 36:13
Yeah, you know, I used to take photos on my food. Like, not obviously, not to that extent, but in a way to try and take a nice picture of the food so I could post it on the internet later. And then at some point, I just kind of, I just kind of got over it. Like, I think what I realised was looking back, all of my food photos looked fucking gross. Do you look, you know like 2012 era is like, I look at my pictures and go, wow, they really didn’t age well. And like, I generally find that pictures of food are not always appetising. Like sure, they’ll be nicely like laid out, they will look so neat. It will look like you set this up. But appetising? Not really. And I find the same for—and I have this thing with, especially influencers on YouTube who review and talk about food and restaurants and stuff, where I really can’t stand seeing them eat on camera. So like, I’m fine with sitting...
Geoff 37:21
Oh yeah.
Georgie 37:21
...next to someone or with other people, strangers, whatever we’re eating in a restaurant, if I look at them, or look at my friend eating totally fine, right? I don’t care even if you are a messy eater, you eat with your hands or whatever. It’s fine, right? Or, even someone just happening to film in like a hawker center. And there are people eating, and they’re just going about their business not worrying about it. And just I mean, not really even noticing that this person is filming and just eating, that’s fine. But, it is, specifically, the people who are like the subjects of the channel of the video, and they’re eating the food, and then they’re reviewing and talking about it. And when they eat it, look honest—I don’t care what you say, doesn’t matter—but it, they are obviously acting. All the time, they’re acting and it is the acting of them eating the food. And then giving a little review on it, they’re just like, I just can’t like look, it’s so gross. Like, I don’t know what it is, ugh, no one eats like that. You know what I mean? They make...
Geoff 38:22
Yeah I know what you mean.
Georgie 38:23
...make faces, they like grin too much.
Geoff 38:26
Yeah.
Georgie 38:27
They go, “this tastes great”. I’m like, fuck! Just, ugh!
Geoff 38:32
That’s, I think that’s essentially what they were doing at that table. And I was just like god, the the amount of effort. We, we took photos of the food. Like because it did look pretty, it was it was an event. I usually only take photos of food when it’s like an event of some sort. Like the mem—the food is tied to a specific memory of some sort. But yeah, just the, just the fakeness.
Georgie 38:57
Yeah.
Geoff 38:59
And, I mean, yeah, I have no problem with taking photos of food. I don’t know if I take photos of food so that it appears appetising. But yeah. For me, it’s about a specific event of some sort. Or, or showing someone some some kind of interesting food I’m eating.
Georgie 39:22
Yeah, like I went here or whatever.
Geoff 39:23
If they actually want to know.
Georgie 39:25
Yeah, like to share with like friends and family and stuff.
Geoff 39:27
Yeah.
Georgie 39:28
Yeah I don’t care about how it looks anymore. It’s just like just documenting this moment. Basically, it’s not about the fucking food. It’s about hey, I’m enjoying this meal.
Geoff 39:39
Yeah, my parents are kind of strange in that they have their siblings or whatever... was it my dad said...
Georgie 39:48
I feel like I know what you’re about to say but go on.
Geoff 39:51
They they take like photos of their food. Every time they go out. And then they they share it with, with my my parents or my dad, and it’s just.. it’s... just... it’s just, like why. And like when I met up with them when they came over to Sydney, and they went for a meal without me, and then like the next meal, they were just like, oh, look at all of the food we had the other day. And I was just like, oh, okay, and then like, oh, sorry, that was that was a meal that your uncle had the other day. And like, what? Why do you have photos of the meal that your uncle had—my uncle had the other day? Were you there? Like, nah, they we just share photos of food with each other.
Georgie 40:40
Yep.
Geoff 40:41
And I’m like, wow, can can you guys like, take a chill pill about like, taking photos of your food. And they’re not even doing it artistically or anything. They just like boom, boom, boom, boom.
Georgie 40:58
This happens in my family as well. And I don’t know what the reason is, but so most of my extended family lives in Indonesia. And my mum always wants to take photos of like, the food or us with the food. And then she’ll be like, oh, no, we had all the food and I’ve forgot to take a photo. And like it has to be about—for some reason it has to be about “look at all the food we ate” and then share it with everybody. And I’m not—I don’t actually know what the motive is. It, I actually don’t know—
Geoff 41:29
Is it to make them jealous of the food that you’re eating?
Georgie 41:32
I don’t think it’s—I don’t think it’s that and that’s why I’m confused. I actually don’t know why.
Geoff 41:38
Yeah. But I think like, I mean recently, like we’ve done, I’ve done a lot of home cooking, some with Dorinda and we’re we’re taking photos of this stuff because obviously like looks pretty good sometimes.
Georgie 41:56
Yeah.
Geoff 41:57
Sometimes our home cooking looks pretty good.
Georgie 41:58
And you did it yourself.
Geoff 41:59
Yeah, so it’s that kind of stuff is pretty good. Today actually, we went and had lunch with a couple friends and I don’t I don’t think we took photos of our food. Like the friends, like they took photos of their food and I was—we were already like eating like, I was like, oh... I guess maybe I should... nevermind. Didn’t even notice.
Georgie 42:29
Like sometimes I want to. Take a photo of my food or like I’m with someone and maybe I know them to want to take a picture for whatever reason. Like because people take photos for different reasons, right. Some people actually want to share it with like a family member. Some want to share it on Instagram which is fine. Some just want to share it because like you said like the moment right. The moment you’re having with this person or whatever. But yeah, like I find that sometimes I’m eating and go, oh, forgot to take a photo. It looked good, but it’s too late now. Whatever. Yeah, we’re not influencers.
Geoff 43:04
Yeah, we we tasted all of the jackfruit and we realised we hadn’t actually taken a photo of the jackfruit so he took a bug from like next door opened it up it took a photo of their jackfruit and then closed it.
Georgie 43:17
Oh my god.
Geoff 43:18
Cuz yeah, cuz we were like oops, this is a pretty special event. We should, you know, document document a little bit of the of the strange, this strange event. But it’s really it’s really interesting because like they were serving durian stuff but a lot of like, a lot of the, yeah, activities, like I said, were around jackfruit. And I think they were like, trying to promote the jackfruit because they know that durian kind of smells.
Georgie 43:50
Well tell me if they do like a jackfruit high tea, may—maybe I’m interested. Because I like it.
Geoff 43:58
Yeah, thirty dollars for 100 grams of jackfruit.
Georgie 44:02
Is that... that’s expensive, isn’t it? I’m trying to imagine what 100 grams looks like.
Geoff 44:06
I don’t know. Let me, like jackfruit that’s
Georgie 44:09
That’s not very much at all, it’s like... that’s like the size of like two apples or something.
Geoff 44:17
Oh my god. Do I need like a new keyboard, this thing still doesn’t want to like... here we go. Here we go, jackfruit, how much are you, shopping...
Georgie 44:29
Can’t see your screen.
Geoff 44:30
Buy you online, here. Yeah. 400 grams of jackfruit for $4.
Georgie 44:36
Oh, yeah, that’s fine. That’s not that expensive.
Geoff 44:40
That’s reasonable. Yeah. Jackfruit... jack... 399 for 300 grams of jackfruit. Okay, we were so, so off the, the pricing. But yeah. Exciting. Um, you could get a, you could get some durian seeds, like just as a tasting plat—plate, but that costs like an extra, I don’t know. 40 bucks or something stupid.
Georgie 45:11
Whoa.
Geoff 45:12
So we didn’t do that. Didn’t do that. That’s just what jackfruit looks like. Didn’t know.
Georgie 45:17
Yeah.
Geoff 45:19
Looks close to durian.
Georgie 45:21
Yeah a little bit, I guess.
Geoff 45:24
But, but yeah. Let us let us know if you like durian because I’m always on the hunt for durian... durian lovers unite. It was, it was very plainly clear that most people there were of Malaysian descent. Turns out that my dad—my dad’s friend was there. He was at my table.
Georgie 45:51
Did you find that out after the fact?
Geoff 45:54
Oh, I had an inkling when someone mentioned his name. And I was like, oh. So I went and double checked with my family that it was the right person. And... I wasn’t gonna say hi, I’m not...
Georgie 46:05
Hahaha oh my god.
Geoff 46:08
I met the guy maybe twice in my life. And he clearly didn’t recognise me, so.
Georgie 46:14
Oh, my God. Are you the kind of person who will recognise someone like you went to school with or something. Even though it was like years and years ago. Are you the kind of person to remember people and then kind of know that they probably won’t remember you?
Geoff 46:29
Yeah.
Georgie 46:29
That’s me. Yes.
Geoff 46:30
I have a I have a better I have a better recollection of people that I’ve met than other people generally have a recollection of people they’ve met.
Georgie 46:39
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 46:41
I’ve had people apologise profusely. Like—
Georgie 46:45
They don’t remember you?
Geoff 46:46
I remember. I remember their name. But they don’t remember my name.
Georgie 46:49
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had that too.
Geoff 46:51
I try to avoid that.
Georgie 46:52
Yeah, that’s why I’ve kind of stopped saying, like, I don’t mind like saying hi to pe—if I you know, mean, most people in my past that had like, okay, whatever, like, nothing was like, the bad, or whatever, unless, like, some relationships or whatever. And so like, sometimes I’m okay with saying hello. But then it’s just happened too many times where they’ve gone, like, “I don’t remember you” or whatever. And I’m like, shit, man, this is embarrassing and weird. Maybe I should just stop saying hello.
Geoff 47:21
Yep. I’ve decided to stop saying—I don’t say hello to anybody that I recognise. Unless they recognise me.
Georgie 47:27
Unless they—yes.
Geoff 47:29
Yeah. Yeah, it’s safe, safe.
Georgie 47:31
Make eye contact and they’re like...
Geoff 47:33
I don’t like to talk to people.
Georgie 47:37
Yeah that too, that too. The barrier.
Geoff 47:40
But at that particular, high tea, it seemed like everyone at the table has had at least a bit of a conversation with me. And Dorinda’s been like, you made eight friends that day. Yeah, they’re all they all talk, talk to me. Like, I don’t, I don’t want to talk to you people. I’m, I’m just you know, I’m a, I’m apparently a good conversationalist. So I won’t—I won’t turn people away. I’m a polite person.
Georgie 48:12
Yeah
Geoff 48:12
But please don’t talk to me.
Georgie 48:16
Can you imagine if like we’ve become really—we become like famous from this podcast or something. Someone like sees you in the street, hey, are you Geoff from Toast & Roast.
Geoff 48:26
No, my name not Jeff.
Georgie 48:33
This reminds you actually this, a friend of mine who used to work at the company I worked for now. He said he knew, he knew me, before we started working there. I was like, what? He’s like yeah, I think I know your blog or something. And he said, I was like, kind of intimidated by you. I was like, what? Get out of here. The fact that somebody like knew me, and then like, almost kind of maybe was nervous about talking to me, because they know of me. It’s just like, woah.
Geoff 49:04
Yeah, I don’t know how it feels. Like, I mean, I don’t know how I feel about it when someone like, mentions that they know somebody who’s mentioned me and now they they know of me. It’s like a whole reputation preceding a, a conversation. And well, just a testament to how small Sydney is, I guess. But go, go to meetups for our kind of like, kind.
Georgie 49:33
Industry.
Geoff 49:35
Our industry. And, and yeah, it’s like, I mean, that was that time where I went to a lot of hackathons. So I did interact with a lot of—a wide variety of people that went on to for, for whatever reason they want to mention my name, maybe like someone’s like, oh yeah, I went for an interview at Domain and like, oh, I know this guy called Geoff, he said he worked at Domain. So yeah, I don’t know how to really feel about it. It’s happened maybe two or three times. Yeah, I can’t imagine what it’s like being famous. Please, no. Please don’t make us famous.
Georgie 50:19
Yeah.
Geoff 50:23
Speaking of things that you shouldn’t do is... listen to any more of this podcast, because it’s gonna end.
Georgie 50:31
That’s right.
Geoff 50:34
So don’t forget to follow us on @toastroastpod on Instagram and Twitter, mostly Twitter.
Georgie 50:42
And you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the big disappointing high tea.
Geoff 50:49
Oh man. That’s that’s bad. I don’t think it was disappointing.
Georgie 50:54
Well you seem a little bit eh.
Geoff 50:57
It tasted good.
Georgie 50:58
All right.
Geoff 50:59
Let’s put it that way. Just—
Georgie 51:00
As long as it wasn’t flying across the screen, am I right?
Geoff 51:03
Yeah, exactly. I can relate more to this one, than flying—durian flying across the screen.
Georgie 51:09
Ooh yeah.
Geoff 51:09
Yeah. The big carpark? The—oh yeah, new episodes every Monday so...
Georgie 51:17
We will see you next week.
Geoff 51:19
Bye.