After work, most people like to have dinner with friends, maybe have a drink with colleagues or just go home to the comfort of loved ones.

Me? I like going grocery shopping.

Something about walking up and down the aisles hoping to snag a bargain or to discover a new product that can change my life reminds me of my existence outside of grocery stores. That and I always wander into the ice cream section and hope that Connoisseur is on sale.

One thing I’m guilty of is buying stuff I don’t need when I go shopping hungry. I’ll walk in with the intention of buying a bag of carrots and walk out with three cans of Pringles, a six pack of Red Bull, a family size roast chicken and three tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

So I thought I’d circumvent this increasingly frequent habit by going to a restaurant that featured a grocer: Jones the Grocer in the CBD.

Jones the Grocer has been one of the major attractions of Westfield Sydney’s level five for a while now. As per usual with the staff here at iFat (ok, it’s just me) , I like to get to trendy eateries a solid year after their initial buzz.

You know to avoid getting caught up in the hype. Not because I’m slower than dial up internet.

So, due to the fact that I’m a bad student that once again failed to do his research. I managed to trick Anna from Polyphagia into helping me with my shopping list.

Here’s what we got first:

You know how they say you don’t make friends with salad?

Son, you shouldn’t be friends with people who don’t like this salad.

Talking about the calamari would be easy. It’s salt and pepper calamari, it’s hard not to nail it.

The salad base was incredible. I’ve had a lot of Thai over my lifetime and all the flavours were smack bang authentic. I loved the addition of bean sprouts as their natural crunchiness was great. The sour tang of the lime in combination with all the herbs and chilli was fantastic.

I’ve only ever had risotto one other time and it was made by an extremely hungover girl on New Year’s Day who didn’t cook very often.

Needless to say, Jones’ risotto was the best risotto I had ever had. I’m a big fan of mushrooms and Jones was incredibly generous with the amount scattered throughout the dish. The cream and grana padano cheese’s texture made this a fantastic dish.

Totally makes up for my lukewarm start to 2009.

Let’s get crackling shall we?

I love pork. Pork belly at its finest is amongst one of greatest things you can put on a plate short of engraving every single one of my funniest puns.

The crackling was immaculate. You know how some crackling can be hard and threaten to ruin your smile every time you take a bite? On the flip side, have you ever had soggy crackling that made embodied every bad decision you’ve ever made in your life?

This crackling straddled the line perfectly. It was crispy but not hard, it was soft but not sagging like elderly anatomy.

The salad and caramel apple served as the ultimate complementary sides like a burger with fries.

I swear I didn’t intend for that to rhyme.

This sticky date pudding was the quintessential winter dessert. Every bite just made me felt warm in every pore of my body, it was like every time my grandmother told me I would be successful in life. She has no idea I spend half the day thinking about bad food jokes.

It’s a sticky situation. Heh.

But wait there’s more.

The salted peanut caramel base was awesome. I actually think the most optimal way to enjoy this would’ve been to just pick it up and eat it like any other sandwich. Unfortunately I was in public and expected to act like what society calls a ‘responsible adult.’

Alas, this ice cream sandwich was fantastic. The ice cream didn’t melt at all and we dragged out our eating session so we could spend more time with this dessert. It had an extremely resilient, almost buttery texture. It somehow withstood the combined hotness of Anna and myself so you can’t deny it’s imperviousness to heat.

….I’ll see myself out now.

Here’s the TL;DR for everyone else that thought I’d cram a keeping up with the Jones’s joke into this post:

– Yes, I am secretly a middle aged housewife that enjoys grocery shopping and picking up the kids in my station wagon..

– Did somebody say porn belly? Heh.

– All the cool kids are having two desserts now.

***

Jones the Grocer, CBD

Level 5 Westfield Sydney

Cnr Castlereagh & Market Streets

Opening Hours:

Monday-Saturday: 8:00am-late

Sunday: 8:00am-7:00pm

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