The early Sydney small bars were ultra-trendy, with high price tags on drinks. I won’t name names, but their simple formula left me cold – fancy cocktails + retro furniture + no windows + overpriced bear and wine + overcrowding + nowhere to sit = not a great night out. How, I wondered, could anyone afford to go to these places and have more than one drink? Thus I became a smallbar cynic. I wouldn’t have, for lack of a better pun, a bar of them. Until Freda’s.
Freda’s isn’t small, it’s large. But it doesn’t feel large because it employs this revolutionary idea I like to call hospitality. That’s what happens when the staff can be bothered to say hello. It’s where there are chairs to sit on and music that ranges from a hum to upbeat background noise – on Saturday night, you’re just short of shouting but you probably won’t notice. It’s where the food comes out quickly and the bread comes with it, where you can order at the bar or have table service, your choice. It’s where every person that serves you treats you like a person, not a nuisance at the end of a woolworth’s deli-style queue, and you treat them like a person right back.
How to get there
Freda’s is on Regent street, just north of Cleveland. Look out for a giant red tongue of the PR agency nearby. It’s is in an alleyway, right by the dance studio, opposite the servo where all the taxis refuel. You know the place.
When you walk into Freda’s, most likely someone will greet you. If it’s early, maybe several people will. It’s an exposed brick warehouse that has been sympathetically restored, with a pared-back aesthetic, bare light bulbs, a daily blackboard menu and wooden finishes.
Food/Drink
I recommend Happy Hour if you’re skint. They always have a $5 beer and a $5 wine and some crazy oyster deal. Around 5pm they put up their shareplate menu, it’s mostly cold stuff, things that are pickled and braised and delicious. Everything seems to come with free bread and go well with drinking. The food menu changes daily and they are renowned for their pickled octopus- sounds weird but delicious. I’ve tried their eggplant and tahini (amazing), and one weekend I think we tried everything on the menu except the sujuk, beetroot yogurt and the oysters. Everything was smashing – vinegary, charred, complex, textural. The wine list is impressive as well, and of course there are cocktails. Also, they serve lunch sandwiches. And lunch coffee.
The Verdict
Freda’s has its finger on the pulse, but the pulse of someone who’s just had a leisurely latte and a pumpkin scone rather than a $20 glass of champagne and a handful of speed. And it shows. It’s about to be blogged to death and recently received a favourable review in the SMH. It’s the kind of place that’s impossible not to like, like that kid in high school who was unrealistically good looking, got good marks, was great at sport and, to top it all off, nice as pie. But cooler. And with pickled octopus on the menu.
Freda’s
109 Cleveland Street
Chippendale, NSW, 2008
(02) 8971 7336
www.freda’s.com.au
Monday-Friday 11:00am – Midnight
Saturday 4:00pm – Midnight
Sunday 4:00pm-10:00pm
Ok, so first off I am super, super excited about my new blog header! Yay! My amazing friend Amy, of Fenetik Designs designed it for me on the condition that I pay her in wine. And no, that is not an invitation for you to do that same should you ever need a talented graphic designer. But it is a testament to how awesome she is.
I was so sick of my dodgy-looking diy job and now I finally know what it means when they say you should invest in professional work. Amy, thank you so so much for making Corridor Kitchen look like an actual blog, rather than something cobbled together in a wordpress-meets-ms-paint-meets-microsoft-word-kind-of-way (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
So on to the competition! Y’all must remember the lengthy/boring video review I did of the Philips Saeco Intelia a while back (sorry, when I think of Amy, I come over all Southern). *Ahem*. Well, the time has come for one of my (Sydney) readers to reap the benefit of my good fortune. I’ve recently cut back on my coffee, as I’ve been having what feel like b12 deficiency headaches – funny story, if it weren’t for them, Corridor Kitchen would not exist. So I feel I only need one espresso machine rather than two (I already owned one when this baby rocked up).
I’m giving one of you the chance to win the Philips Saeco Intelia, a fully automatic espresso machine that critics (ie myself and my boyfriend) are calling ‘pretty much ok.’ This machine retails for $999 and it’s no slouch. Quiet, efficient and mess and hassle free, it makes pretty good coffee if you use freshly roasted beans. To that end, I’m including a bag of freshly-roasted Campos Dark City blend to go with. Your welcome.
To enter, comment and tell me how you stave off cravings when you’re trynna cut back or give up something.
You’ll also need to like corridor kitchen on facebook and follow me on twitter to be eligible to enter. Competition closes Friday March 9 2012 and the winner will be announced via facebook/twitter on Monday March 12. This competition is open to those who can get something delivered to Sydney, NSW, Australia only, as that is where the PR company that sent me the machine will courier it.
About a month ago, we got talking about unsolicited PR emails, specifically, badly written, poorly targeted ones and how bloggers react to them. I asked for your take- your experience, what irks you, what you like, and what could improve this process for you. What follows are my 5 tips for PR companies when approaching bloggers.
1. Read the about page
Or any other page that might tell you whether the blogger will be remotely interested in what you’re pedalling. So many PR companies do not do this at all and it astounds me. There are many blogs that are ad free, don’t do sponsored posts or giveaways and state this clearly, sometimes multiple times. There is not point contacting someone with a policy like this, for example.
2. Read the blog!
Before you even think about firing off an email, spend some time looking at the kind of posts the blogger writes. Are there sponsored posts or product reviews? Do they write about an area related to your product? For example, I write a lot about coffee so I was offered a coffee machine to review. This was hardly a surprising thing for me to review. Look at the sidebars. Are there any ads? Do you think this is deliberate? Try and see where your promotion might be a good fit. If the answer is resounding ‘no’, let it lie.
3. Write a real email
You wouldn’t send the same cover letter out for every job, why would you send the same email to every blogger? You are pitching your product/promotion to the blogger, not he other way around. Don’t expect them to be grateful (although they may be) and don’t expect them to jump at the chance to run your promotion. Their blog is a project in which they are the writer, graphic designer, photographer, editor, account manager, etc etc. As such, may selective about the kind of promotions, if any, they run. They may also get tons of offers every day, so give them plenty of time to read and consider yours (no point emailing me about a promotion that needs to run next month, for example). And for god’s sake, get the blogger’s name, and the name of their blog, right. If I get one more PR email addressed to ‘Laura’, I’ll scream!
4. Write a concrete, concise proposal
In other words, be clear. What are you offering? Spell it out. Even minor league bloggers will get a few PR emails a month, and they are not likely to bother replying if they have no idea what’s on offer. Don’t write to a blogger asking for all their stats, especially without giving them a clear picture of what they’re signing up for. You know what your company’s policy is/what promotion you’re offering, put it in the very first email. It may be something like ‘we pay $20 for each text-based ad you run for a month for any blogs with 1000+ pageviews/month’ or ‘we would like you to review our new flavour of chocolate and can send you 1kg of chocolate as payment’.
Having this information, the blogger immediately knows whether or not your promotion will be a good fit for them. And having read their blog, you’ll know this too. There’s no point in writing ‘we offer text based ads to enhance your online profile and monetise your blog’. What in the hell does that even mean? How many emails will it take me to find out?
5. Be flexible
By approaching bloggers like a real person, you need to be prepared for a real answer. If there’s any scope at all for you to be flexible with your proposal, do so. Sometimes a blogger might have another way of looking at what you’re doing that may be of benefit. For example, you might offer to give them a free product, but they might prefer to give it away to their readers. You might ask for a review, they may prefer to use you product in a recipe.
Even with these tips in mind, you need to be prepared to be turned down. But hopefully you’ll get a reply, perhaps even one that’s speedy and polite, and you can cross that blog off your list.
What are your tips for PR reps when approaching bloggers?
Two things that I think are overrated – puns and pan-fried haloumi. At Seddon Deadly Sins I got both, didn’t mind the first and fell in love with the second.
To be fair though, it was impossible not to fall in love with the haloumi, as it was actually deep fried and beer battered, like a kind of savoury cheesecake donut. This was accompanied by a perfectly poached egg, just-crispy-enough fried bacon and some kind of relish that tasted like figs.
My so-cool-it-hurts Melbournite chum ordered an equally stunning breakfast of herbed polenta, which came with poached eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, grilled haloumi and harissa. This was photogenic to say the least.
Seddon Deadly Sins, located in Seddon (funnily enough) also boasts decent, if a tad too hot coffee and incredibly friendly service. While I waited for my friend to arrive I sat in the front part of the cafe, spellbound by the cakje fridge, as regulars came and went for coffee and breakfast. We soon moved to the relaxing little courtyard out the back to order breakfast from the Little Golden Book encased menus.
Seddon Deadly Sins has one of those menus that makes decision virtually impossible as the choices are varied, creative and yet somehow familiar. I tossed up between the the beer battered haloumi, the sweet potato latkes and the thai pork skewers for a while before making my choice, but to be honest, I was pretty much tossing up between most of the menu. FYI, they also have a decently priced beer/wine list.
The decor is thematic and not really to my taste (a bit Lord of the Rings/Dungeouns and dragons meets the local organic food co op). But that’s pretty much irrelevant. I’m still dreaming of the perfect, gooey cheese encrusted with crispy bgolden beer batter…
Seddon Deadly Sins
148 Victoria Street
Seddon, VIC, 3011
Tuesday to Sunday 8:00am – 5:00pm
Closed Mondays
I kept thinking Cornersmith was called Cornerstone. I kept meaning to go there and never making it. But I finally made it the morning of the Sydney Food Bloggers Picnic last month, and I wasn’t dissappointed.
Cornersmith is the kind of joint that’s closed for pickling on Mondays. Yes, really, I didn’t get that from some kind of Hipster’s Encyclopaedia of cafe descriptors (remind me to write that, if I ever get a chance). They do all kinds of locavore/DIY things like buying backyard produce and making their own jam. They have a beehive on their roof! Basically, they’re the cafe equivalent of a Portlandia sketch.
All this and more means that I was there with bells on at whatever time it was that Saturday. Cornersmith is right by Marrickville station, which is super convenient for someone like me who hates buses. It’s got great decor, clean white walls, jars of pickles adorning the counter and a good mix of natural timber and understated vintage furniture.
Me and my mate order and pay at the counter and nab the only free table. Our toast/coffee/toast/macch order comes out at $32, and I realise there must be a mistake. That’s the problem with order-and-pay-at-the-counter with somewhere as busy as Cornersmith – mistakes are bound to be made. Our bill gets downgraded to a much more reasonable $19, phew!
I’m a fan of the coffee and I’m a fan of the vibe, although Saturday morning is pretty hectic. I’m enjoying my Mecca macchiatto, apparently my friend’s mocha is no slouch either. The menu is simple, a lot of toast-and-toppings on offer, with many tthings made on site – from honey, to pickles, chutneys and jams. Cornersmith strives to be self-sufficient. They also sell their products, and other peoples’, instore.
The reviews have generally been positive and I can see why, although they’ve also been victim of some pretty harsh graffitti, with ‘yuppy scum’ painted across the storefront and the windows bashed in. All in all I will definitely return if I’m ever in the hood.
Cornersmith
314 Illawarra Road
Marrickville NSW 2204
(02) 8065 0844
Tuesday to Friday 6.30am – 3.30pm
Saturday and Sunday 8:00am – 3:00pm
Monday – closed for pickling
On the hunt for delicious, cheap and easy meals to whip up in my tiny kitchen. Also searching for the best coffee wherever I go. Honest accounts, nothing too serious. Read more...The Potluck Club – on sale now!
Popular posts this month…
Review – Philips Saeco Intelia posted on January 10, 2012
3 great hole-in-the-wall CBD Cafes posted on April 13, 2012
Café Review – The Grounds of Alexandria posted on April 4, 2012
Kosher Whole Orange Cake posted on July 5, 2011
Lau’s Ultimate Corn Fritters and the four fritter truths posted on March 1, 2013
