A life without books is like a body without a soul.   Last night I laid in bed reading an eBook on my iPhone. Flipping through some-odd 10k pages on the bright blue screen it hit me. I had immediate access to any book, albeit a classic or a brand new release, at that instant. But at what cost do we experience this luxury? While, I had immediate access the same minute the book had been released, ultimately it was a cheap date, and I was left feeling unfulfilled. I think people are missing that depth, that special relationship with a book where you get to court it, admire it, then ultimately hold it and read it Ampersand is one of the places that encourage these types of deeper relationships. It houses thousands of books, many of them rarities while offering an oasis to enjoy them both privately and socially. And you can even fill your belly while doing so. During my visit, I found a cozy nook surrounded by books on the second floor where I curled up with a book while sipping on a spicy chai latte. It’s rare to find a place where you can just hang out and not feel rushed. If you’re as obsessed with breakfast, as I am, you’ll be happy to know they serve brekky all day. The pumpkin pizza also looked quite tempting. My server was especially bubbly and helpful, and my order didn’t take long, however, I recommend coming here and enjoying the full experience (books, atmosphere and all), rather than coming just for a quick meal. If you are one who prefers a social experience they have a communal table downstairs where you can chat, philosophize or debate while sipping on an Earnest Hemmingway Mojito. They also have $10 cocktails & live music from Thrusday to Saturday as well as speed dating, if that’s your thing. You could easily spend a whole day/evening here, as I did, starting with a coffee or tea and lunch, ending with a cocktail over some jazz guitars and dinner. Do give it a go if you’re after some cultural soul quenching.   WHAT Ampersand Café & Bookstore (New Location) WHERE 413 Crown Street Surry Hills, NSW 2010 HOURS 8am-5:30 Monday-Wednesday, 8am-10pm Thursday-Saturday, 9am-5pm Sunday LIVE MUSIC $10 cocktails & live music 4pm-6pm Thursday-Saturday   by Brittany Burk Image via Gastronomous

The weekend is long, the forecast is for cold and drizzle by Sunday, but that doesn't mean you have to sit at home and sulk like Aung San Suu Kyi. Saturday! Eveleigh Markets - fresh produce and food, flowers, plants and other direct-from-the-farm goodies at Carriageworks  Glebe Market - winter clothing, books, art, music, food and a family-friendly atmosphere at Glebe Primary School  Paddington Markets - gorgeous jewelry and design nick-nacks from upcoming talents + over-priced vintage clothing and gozleme on Oxford Street  Homebush Swap and Sell - if you're further out west, head to Homebush, opposite Flemington station for the giant Swap and Sell market - vintage clothing bargains ahoy, and less hipsters to battle if you get there early Rozelle Markets - another all-weekend stop for furniture, books, a small range of clothing and stacks of general useless/weird/awesome shit over in Rozelle - they have a snazzy website too! Incu Sale - They're smashing up to 40% off most of their autumn range and winter, so step into their Galeries stores or other locations and grab a nice cardigan before everything is gone. Saturday night, check one of these films at the Sydney Film Festival. Otherwise, the definite highlight gig is The Jezabels @ Hordern Pavillion - tickets still available for an easy $50/pineapple. After that, pop into Halfway Crooks for some deluxe, ultra-fine hip-hop @ Phoenix - just $10 bones on the door for GUARANTEED good times. Sunday!  Da BOM say it be raining, so you should watch Mad Men/Game of Thrones or cuddle your bf/gf all day. If you're a twit who likes to keep busy on Sunday, why don't you go to: Dear Pluto Garden Market - Awesome vintage books, movies, clothes, shoes and (no doubt) superfluous baked goods from the Dear Pluto girls in Surry Hills back lane Kirribilli Markets - picturesque shopping with harbour views, this monthly market is on Sunday and chockers with designer samples and extras. Get down early. Sunset People - a free party afternoon party at the Hollywood Hotel in Surry Hills featuring Brian Chase from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Expensive Looks from NYC and Emma from the Holy Balm - chin-stroking good times. Strange Fruit Queens Birthday Bazaar - Fredas in Chippendale 'aving it large, funky and FREE this Sunday from midday to midnight with beats and turkish deliciousness featuring Canyons, Smokey LaBeef, Silky Doyle (Dynamite Sounds), Flash & Crash (Route 66, Wolf Call), Kate Jinx (FBi) and Jack Shit (FBi), HEAVEN - GoodGod Danceteria is going hard in the paint from 9pm til dawn with an all-star cast of techno/disco/weirdo journeymen to keep you grinding til bedtime featuring: Radge / Angus Gruzman / Dreamcatcher & Junglesnake (Slow Blow) / Marcus King / Jimmy Sing / Joey the Saint Enjoy the long weekend but don't forget the reason for the season: drink heaps of gin.

Original post by James Ross-Edwards at 'The Moderation Hotel' The Excelsior Hotel Surry Hills Some people I’ve seen enjoying tacos at ‘El Loco’: People that are attractive (nice). People that are attractive (disinterested). People with long, straight hair that don’t eat much. People that — due to overthinking their style — wear their clothes too tight. DJs. People with shaved chests, chunky watches and (leased) BMWs. People that pay $300 for self esteem. People that chase guys that look like scarecrows. People that chase girls that went to their ‘sister school.’ Rockabillies. People that work in hospitality and are smug because it’s Monday. People that work in social media and are smug because it’s 2012. People that call female bodies ‘rigs.’ People that have ‘sick rigs.’ Gays. People that captain local cricket teams. People that sell amphetamines. Old people. People that see investment opportunities. People that see Instagram opportunities. People that enjoy the moment. People that spoil it for everybody. The Moderation Hotel is an irregular musing by indefatigable local scribe James Ross-Edwards on Sydney's most-loved drinking establishments. Follow James on Twitter  Read more at The Moderation Hotel 

Not everyone has time for a complete, sit-down, silver service meal at lunch on a weekday. Most of the time it's stone-cold sushi or avocado on toast at your desk between spreadsheets. Which isn't healthy, nor does it inspire you to work any harder or faster, which was the whole point of the grab-and-go lunch in the first place, right? So these days we're loving the spread of lunch options from our favourite restaurants, that A) come quick and easy,  B) are bite-sized in terms of price and C) are within walking distance of the CBD. First there was Shortgrain, Longrain's answer to speedy Thai, and now there's Little H, Bar H's Cantonese inspired, canteen-style takeaway window that operates out of the regular restaurant between 11.30am - 2.30pm Monday to Friday. Coincidentally (or not, perhaps) Shortgrain and Little H are actually in the same street, and although that caused a scuffle for a while there between the two owners, we ain't complaining. Anything to get us out of the office, ey? Hamish and Bec Ingham's Bar H is renowned for its flavoursome, seasonal and delicate food, where snap-fresh ingredients are key and central to the restaurant's success. It was no surprise then, that Little H follows on in the same vein of awesome, starting with the steamed free-range shredded pork burger with paper-thin strips of fennel and mint leaves. For $12 it's a catch, the pork is sweet, sour and smokey all at once. Deep-fried silken tofu with caramelized tomato sauce offers cloud puffs of soft tofu that acquiesce under a chopstick, and the sauce? Well, why isn't all tomato sauce caramelized? It's ace, and especially well matched with the home-brewed iced tea. To finish, little pots of sticky coconut tapioca pudding with fresh figs and swirled with dark caramel top everything off on a high note. We ate spoonfuls on the stroll back to the city, in the sunshine, thanking the Gods of this town that we didn't have to eat desk sushi that day. Little H at Bar H 80 Campbell St, Surry Hills for orders and daily specials call (02) 9280 1980 or email enquiries@barhsurryhills.com   Words and photos by S. McComas

  After it's past two years of raucous success, the Old Fitroy's Home Brew Festival is back and better than ever.   Get yourself down to one of Daily Sydney's favorite haunts for 3 days of grass roots theatre/music/ food lovin.   With guests such as Caitlin Park and Fanny Lumsden, why the hell wouldn't you be there?     Home Brew Festival What: A festival of music and micro performances. Where: The Old Fitzroy Hotel, 129 Dowling St Woolloomoolloo When: May 17th- 19th  

Teaspoon of Sugar Emporium play host to a night of DIY printing and doing at Dear Pluto. Make your very own tote bag or t-shirt and take/wear it home that night. Give it to your partner or make an Etsy store for it, it's up to you and it'll only set you back $15. All materials are supplied, but if you have a swagged out design or print you'd like to attempt for your t-shirt or bag, be sure to bring it along. Space is strictly limited, so be sure to book ahead.   Also featuring: Beer! Wine! Tea! WHAT: You Crafty Bastard make-your-own t-shirt night WHERE: Dear Pluto, 5A Wilshire St, Surry Hills. WHEN: May 9th from 7pm HOW MUCH: All materials included for just $15 dollars - book ahead here!

Beer trivia! Beer tasting! Beer comedy! Beer lectures! Beer drinks! Beer in glasses! Beer in bottles and beer in taps! Beer in kegs and beer in YOUR BELLY!sydneycraftbeerweek.comFor the remainder of this week, explore the boutique end of the beer spectrum with talks, dinners and discount nights around the eastern suburbs and The Rocks precinct. The flagship event is the Australian Beer Festival, which shuts down Gloucester St (out front the Australian Heritage Hotel in The Rocks) and fills it with mystical brewers, all waiting to ply your gullet with their finest potions and beverages. The 7th Annual Australian Beer Festival How much: $15 (includes tasting cup and 10 tasting tickets) For bookings: visit the Australian Beer Festival website.For a full listing of Sydney Craft Beer Week events, check out sydneycraftbeerweek.com

With around 300 food blogs in Sydney alone, the competition is grisly out there. You might have blogging skillz coming out of your ears, but if you're looking for tips on how to improve your website, writing and photography by some of Sydney's noted food bloggers such as Lee Tran Lam from The Unbearable Lightness of Being Hungry and Katie Quinn Davies from What Katie Ate among others, then you would be well advised to get yourself down to the Surry Hills Library on September 1 for the (free) inside scoop. Sydney's Food by Blog September 1, 9pm-10pm Surry Hills Library, 405 Crown St, Sydney 131 500 Free Sophie McComas soph_mccomas@hotmail.com

Kenji Maenaka manned the dessert station next to the coiffed and tattooed boys at Bodega for years. Recently he's flown the coop to open Izakaya Fujiyama on Waterloo Street (another cab to join the rank next to Orto Trading Co. and El Capo), a Japanese bar and restaurant with an enviable sake range that is watering mouths all over the city.Izakaya, to put it bluntly, is a Japanese bar, with affordable food to match the drinks. There's a lot on offer from the deep fryer, which goes down nicely with their range of frosty Japanese beers like Saporo, Asahi and Yebiso. The spicy Japanese fried potatoes, fried snapper with Japanese escabeche or KFC (Kenji's Fried Chicken) with a sweet mayonnaise would start the night well if you were stopping by for a pre-dinner snack.You might be lucky enough to try a special of soft and smokey cubes of miso-cured and lightly seared salmon, or you could go all neanderthal and order the whole grilled tuna jaw, a toothy, prehistoric-looking dish which you pick away at, leaving the gleaming carcass behind. A dish you need to order just to say "yeh I eat fish skull, what of it?" The sashimi is sliced with razor sharp precision and is fresh and juicy but it's the teriyaki beef ribs, sticky and dark, whose tender flesh has been sliced and laid across the bones left for you to chew on, is a contender for best dish to smash with a beer in Sydney. However, the lime-flavoured kingfish with miso and fried wedges of tortilla was a little lack-lustre, the beigey-brown colour and oil-soaked tortilla could have been a little more vibrant with more citrus.The desserts echo those plated up at Bodega, warm chocolate cake with baked quince and condensed milk ice cream, or vanilla bean ice cream served with a toffee and Japanese vinegar topping will finish up a night of snacks and sake rather nicely.Izakaya Fujiyama52 Waterloo St, Surry HillsOpen for dinner Mon-Sat from 5.30pm02 9698 2797No Bookings  Sophie McComassoph_mccomas@hotmail.com 

Men have skills. Bullfighting skills, computer hacking skills, bear hunting skills, skills at leaving the toilet seat up… But women have skills too, and Tough Titties is all about showing them off.Lou Helliwell and Alex De Bonis’ zine Tough Titties was first released into the world at the MCA annual Zine Fair this year. It may have been the boob-shaped cupcakes given away with each copy that drew us in at first but the zine's neat design and content with heart hooked us in from page one. The clever little publication (complete with a pocket-sized, cheeky guide to flirting) sprang from their fantastic blog that squares its focus on the fairer sex. “We started Tough Titties mainly out of frustration,” Lou says, “As female graphic designers we felt very under-represented in our industry, all the big design players are men and all of the blogs we were reading seemed to focus on male studios and artists, so rather than just complain we decided to start a blog that promotes women.” The zine is smart, punchy, and utterly hilarious. There are no feminist rants, no anti-men propaganda, just women celebrating women.Tough Titties is curating an exhibition this year called “A Touch of Class” from August 3-28 as part of the 2011 Sydney Design Festival. The theme this year asks the question “is old new again?” so TT have invited an all-female line-up of 20 artists to create works using oversized paper doilies as their canvas.Why doilies? Lou and Alex “wanted the artists to consider the utilitarian function of the doily and the role it played throughout history for women as a symbol of social etiquette and status.” The artists each have very different skill sets. From designers, typographers, paper sculptors, photographers and illustrators to graffiti artists they will each project something very different onto the frilly white canvas that we know and love, with a touch of class of course.Tough Titties: A Touch of Class Exhibition Part of the 2011 Sydney Design FestivalOpening August 3rd 6pm-8pm - August 28Somedays Gallery: 72b Fitzroy St, Surry HillsYou can purchase the Tough Titties Zine online HERE for $6 + postageSophie McComassoph_mccomas@hotmail.com

Think you know the difference between Sauce Vierge and Salsa Verde? Can you spot Matt Moran from Matt Preston? Know your cocktails inside out? Impressive. Fight it out amongst the know-it-alls at food trivia. Both Longrain and the Woollahra Hotel hold trivia nights solely devoted to food and drink with some pretty neat prizes awarded to those victorious, study up food nerds!Longrain Food & Drink Trivia Night Every Monday night at 7pmLongrain Cocktail bar (downstairs): 85 Commonwealth St, Surry HillsThe Woollahra Hotel (Moncur Terrace) Foodie Trivia Every Wednesday night at 7pmMoncur Terrace, The Woollahra Hotel, 116 Queen St, WoollahraReserve a space for up to 8 people on (02) 9327 9703 Sophie McComassoph_mccomas@hotmail.com

Unlike the mushroom patches of small bars that are spreading all over Sydney in the past year, Caffè Sicilia opened its doors to the Crown St hustle a couple of months ago to reveal a sprawling restaurant taking up the majority of the block just off Cleveland St, decked out with a bar, dedicated imported Italian cheese and salumi counter and a pastry kitchen.A row of tables is tucked onto the pavement beneath the black and white tiled patio where you can sit and watch the Crown St riff-raff go by while you sip on a negroni or a glass of Sicilian white wine. The chatter of the Italian waiters pouring Prosecco might just convince you that you're in Italy for a moment if you squint your eyes for long enough, that atmosphere alone was enough to make us want to come back.It's quite charming and quaint to be served off a silver platter by waiters dressed in spotless white jackets that actually speak Italian, and to drink out of ornately embossed, gold rimmed wine glasses. It's also refreshing to eat at a place that isn't peddling hot dogs and tacos like the rest of Sydney's cuisine du moment. Instead they're serving up downright traditional Sicilian eats, think Italian-style three bean soup with mussels or a 300gm parmesan crumbed aged veal cutlet with roasted potato and carrots, not a pesto or bolognese in sight.A dome of soft, warm buffalo milk ricotta atop a savoury, vinegar-laden melanzane caponatina of eggplant, tomato and capsicum is purely Sicilian although the orecchiette stunned us with its punchy flavours of sausage with a hint of fennel, salted ricotta and spinach that had been cooked down into almost a melt-on-your-tongue sauce. The Snapper Al Cartoccio, snapper baked in a paper bag with capers, prawns, tomato and potato, was fresh and juicy, although a little on the small side for a main course, and the canolli filled "at the moment" with a sweet ricotta and dipped in crushed pistachio was authentic, crisp and light, splintering at the first bite, just as all good canolli should. Leave room for the hazelnut semifreddo too, they might even pour an espresso over the top if you turn on the Italian charm.Caffè Sicilia is all about good old-school Sicilian peasant fare served with class and if you've had your fill of Sydney dude-food, it offers a pretty good replacement. They are also open for breakfast if you like your eggs with a side of herbed focaccia or a sweet Italian doughnut.Caffe Sicilia628 Crown St, Surry Hills(02) 9699 8787Open Mon-Sun 7am-late