Northern Suburbs Exploration

Our first suburb of call was Northbridge. There really isn't anything here except for the famous Tokyo Mart, and the reason for this expedition in the first place. It's located in Northbridge Plaza, a small suburban shopping centre with quite a few gourmet shop. Tokyo Mart was much smaller than I expected, stocking all sorts of Japanese goodies. What was disappointing was that there was not a lot of the food I saw in Japan, and everything was ultra expensive. We were hoping to pick up some bento boxes there for lunch but there weren't any available. The household items were also small, nothing like Daiso in Vancouver and the 100 Yen shops in Japan. We only picked up some rice vinegar, instant noodles, and a Yubari Melon caramel from Sapporo.

We wanted to lunch at Neutral Bay, but everything was closed, so we headed over to Crows Nest for Indian. Alas, all the places we were hoping to go to were also closed for the holidays, so we ventured to Pino's Fresh Pasta instead. The verdict? Read my review.

After lunch, we went to the grand daddy of all organic stores, Macro Wholefoods Market, which I was quite impressed with, lots of fresh produce, deli with tastings, great bread, with ALL my favourites, including Infinity, which I haven't been able to find at many places. We picked up some Zuppa Uno soup and Infinity Potato Bread before heading off.

The last stop was to Manly, for their annual Jazz Festival. The roads were chockers and there was no parking, and we knew why. The place was packed! The atmosphere was great though, and after we picked up some NZ Natural ice cream, kicked back to enjoy the music, we couldn't complain.

Info

Northbridge Plaza
79-113 Sailors Bay Road
Northbridge
NSW 2063
Phone (02) 9958 2648
Website

Tokyo Mart
83 Sailors Bay Road
Northbridge
NSW 2063
Phone (02) 9958 6860

Pino's Fresh Pasta
2 Clarke St
Crows Nest
NSW 2065
Phone (02) 9439 3690

Macro Wholefoods Market
13-19 Willoughby Rd
Crows Nest
NSW 2065
Phone (02) 9004 1240
Website