Cocktail of the month @ Astral

Blogposts about food or drinks must be one of the best forms of advertising, or at least that's how I got interested in the Sydney International Food Festival's Cocktail of the Month event, where patrons receive a cocktail and canape for $20 at participating venues. I wasn't even specifically looking up food blogs; just googling the event led to a wonderful post about the Bacco Wine bar, and I was sold (it's the photos...they fire up the taste buds!)

So the girls got together and organised a cocktail night out, starting off with really nice pizza at Pyrmont's Pizza Man, where the 5 of us ate to our fill for $8 p.p.! Then we headed to Astral Bar at Star City for our very first SIFF Cocktail of the Month.

Tokyo Ice Pick: Green tea, Belvedere Pink Grapefruit, honey and lime juice, shaken and served in a sling glass topped with ginger beer. Canape to accompany: kingfish tartare with pickled ginger.

Sadly it didn't live up to our expectations. While the view was quite nice, and we did manage to score a nice lounge after some waiting, the cocktails themselves were sub par. I'm not sure what happened to the ingredients listed above, because our cocktail tasted like lemonade, with no discernible alcohol content. I'd much rather have a smaller, but much more interesting drink. Heck, even a standard cocktail would be better.

The accompanying canape came in cute little caviar jars, and was fine although I couldn't taste the ginger. May be their normal cocktails are much nicer, but we didn't hang around to find out (the music was also too loud...it was just not relaxing!)

We had better luck at Bartino.There were only a few items on the cocktail list, but very decent for $12. We also got to sit al fresco around a cute wooden, octagonal table/lazy susan, with a tree coming out of the middle of it. It's the kind of place I enjoy chatting and having a few drinks...but the group has other ideas.We didn't get all dressed up for nothing!

Last stop, The Loft. It's been a while and I welcome their creative cocktails (that the others didn't like)! chai tea sour, chilli and rhubarb daiquiri, capsicum margarita rimmed with salt and pepper, and an unknown one that came with chocolate and tasted like cherry ripe! I'd have loved to try the hot buttered rum, but I was too busy drinking up the unwanted cocktails and chatting to drunk men haha.The Loft also offers the $20 cocktail+canape deal, but we didn't like the sound of the cocktail. If only we could choose our own!

Best thing about the night? still the pizza! :)