When we first booked for Quay’s Hats Off Dinner, I was pretty excited. My co-worker, Jackie, knowing how much I love food, asked me what I had planned for Good Food Month. I enthusiastically listed the Sugar Hits and Let’s Do Lunches we were going to, finishing off with the Hats Off Dinner at Quay. Her eyes fairly popped out of her head at the list… right until I mentioned Quay. Jackie made a face and mildly said, “I think Quay isn’t as good as what everyone else thinks.” How could it not!? I was aghast, especially since it is a hatted restaurant (and I’m quite sure for a good reason too). With some slight trepidation, but still feeling hopeful that it will be good, we hit Quay.

I love how the lounge bar of The Westin is situated; we always get a table on the “outside”, where I personally love the whole feeling of “a building inside a building” (quoting Sam, as he’s pretty much hit the nail on the head with that description) – looking up at the soaring skylight framed by the rough sandstone walls and high arches never ceases to make me wonder what and how the GPO was like back in its heyday.

Good Food Month is officially over for 2008, but fortunately we still have a few posts to go which captures what some of you may have missed out on this year. Once again, Aria shines through with it’s $35 deal of a main dish and a glass of wine with tea and coffee as well. I remember coming here last year and I was equally impressed.

Every year during Good Food Month, there is a frantic time of decision making. It’s hard to visit every single restaurant which is going against the norm to create unique and exciting dishes for the food loving public of Sydney during October. Due to the fact we were coming towards the end of Good Food Month, a flick of the coin resulted in our visit to Zaafran (Heads for Zaafran and Tails for Aria, which we subsequently visit anyway which I will cover in a later post).

During last year’s Good Food Month, the dessert on offer at the Shangri-La was easily the best of the bunch. Each component of the platter complimented each other and was scrumptious on its own as well. I was pretty excited about going to Shangri-La this year with high expectations and a hint of anxiousness that the Sugar Hit may not be as good.

If you’ve read our earlier post on Selah, I raved on about the food and dessert (naturally) there. Knowing how much I love Selah, my friend booked a table for 3 and (not soon enough!) we were seated back at this favourite restaurant of mine.

This year, the Sugar Hit at Four Seasons is served upstairs. We got a bit confused as to which side it was on – there was no waiter that came out to greet and usher us to an available table. After awkwardly walking back and forth a couple of times, one of the waitresses spotted us and showed us to a table.

I have to be honest, I haven’t really heard much about Yoshii – just a passing mention here or there; all I knew was that they make fancy Japanese food. My friend was pretty excited about coming here and his enthusiasm piqued my interest.

Good Food Month is finally here (for some reason I thought it was last month and was so excited until I was informed that I had it wrong and that broke my heart… just a teensy bit), so we decided to start off our Sugar Hit expedition over the next month at Galileo.