Whelp, since it’s just after midway through January I figured I’d post my food goals for the year. I can see that diet doesn’t really play a huge part in my skin. I’ve spoken to my traditional medicine doctor and she says not to worry about diet. I need to work on my stress levels and as long I’m eating healthily (most of the time) it should all work out fine.

I’ve decided I’m going to attempt eating a proper breakfast year, instead of just grabbing a muesli bar or a piece of fruit on my way out, but only on the weekend since I pretty much skip breakfast on the weekend entirely. The Mister decided he wanted a food dream this year also and as it happens, he’s a huge burger fan. Burgers it is! Might as well add desserts and make it a whole day thing! So this year, we are focusing on breakfast/brunch, burgers and desserts/chocolates. YAY!

Anyway, to the point of this post. Yesterday we hit up the Festival Village at Sydney Festival because Messina. We arrived before Messina opened. The festival website said food starts being served at 11am, but most places including Messina and Porteno’s Double Down Diner didn’t open until midday.

Since nothing was really happening we did a little walk around to check out what else was around the joint.

Wish this place was open as The Mister really enjoys his cheeses. I mean, REALLY. I’ve woken up in the morning to find bite marks in our cheeses in the fridge. I’ve tried to question him about it but I’m always cut-off with a “don’t ask, it just happened”.

We checked out Higher Ground before we headed inside the village. The toilets in the village carried through with the theme!

Look, I wasn’t the only one taking photos of the diner! Can’t believe there was already a line! This was about ten minutes before it opened.

The menu! I was disappointed the Royale with Cheese was “unavailable”, but ask and ye shall receive! Lucky!

The Nutty Piefessor
Peanut butter biscuit base layered with peanut custard, vanilla gelato, peanut crunch and topped with whipped cream

The Royale with Cheese
The Messina ‘gelato burger’ – milk chocolate gelato pattie layered with white chocolate cheese, passionfruit ‘mustard’ and raspberry ‘ketchup’, served in a warm brioche bun

It tasted better than it looks! Honest!

Finally, I’m happy to have a burger with a brioche bun! The burger didn’t look too appetising, but it was perfectly tasty! I much preferred the burger to the pie. The pie was all gelato and cream, the crust and base were solid; it was near impossible to break apart with the flimsy plastic knife from the diner. Ended up grabbing two spoons for that as they were thicker than the knife. In the end, we couldn’t finish the pie, but the burger went down a treat!

Perfect to start the burger and dessert pursuit this year with a fusion of the two!