Tales of the Subaru - Leura Gardens Festival 2018 - The Epilogue

Writing about the Leura Chinee Restaurant brought back a raft of memories from the Loong Cheong Chinese Restaurant which used to be at the end of a short arcade in Florence Street, Hornsby.  It still exists further along Florence Street, tucked into the side of Westfield to which it is otherwise unconnected.  I describe it as a Chinese restaurant because Jane Turner in her guise as Kath Day-Knight was yet to be born let alone coin the word Chinee as a culinary term when the Loong Cheong first came into being.

Our friend and neighbour Daphne worked at the Loong Cheong during its first incarnation and her name should be a lesson in what not to call your child because poor Daphne spent her entire life known as Daffy which must surely take a toll.  One can only imagine what was going on in the minds of Jack and Ida Face when they named their son Richard.  He went on to become the Member for Charlestown in the NSW Parliament then Minister for Gaming and Racing in the Carr Government until an ICAC inquiry brought poor old Dick Face completely undone.

But I digress!  I want to reflect on the Loong Cheong, not people with unfortunate names like Gordon Fang who was a dentist I once had or the Turkish boy I taught whose name was Kunt.  That apparently means strong or durable in ancient Turkish but gets a bit lost in English.  There was no time to be wasted so after a very sensitive discussion with his parents Kunt became Curt.

Now back to the Loong Cheong which was way ahead of its time with optional chopsticks back in the 60s and exotic names for some of their specialty dishes like Wah Hop Fan which might have been a crumbed chicken cutlet with sweet and sour sauce at any other suburban Chinese.  I was rather partial to this dish, particularly with a side serve of special fried rice, and it remains something of a favourite to this very day provided the sauce is more sour than sweet and not too glow-in-the-dark.

It was a winter evening in 1968 when Daffy brought my Wah Hop Fan and special fried rice to our table then returned to the counter to take people’s BYO pots and casserole dishes through to the kitchen so they could collect their pre-ordered takeaway in the very same thus saving the container surcharge which in hindsight was environmental friendliness decades ahead of its time.

That was the night the Loong Cheong lost a much valued customer. 

In walked Ed Devereaux who played Ranger Matt Hammond in the new and very popular TV series ‘Skippy the Bush Kangaroo’.  He had arrived sans pots and pans to collect the order he’d phoned through earlier as one could do now that it was the 1960s.  He was an actor and therefore presumably wealthy so didn't need to skimp on such things as disposable food containers which was pretty much the mark of affluence at that time.

All would have been fine and Ed would quite possibly have gone on collecting his takeaways from the Loong Cheong for decades more had my mother been seated on the other side of the table but no, she had an unobstructed view of both the door and counter so recognised Ed Devereaux immediately.  Things would have still been OK had my mother possessed the skill of containing herself but no!

She stood up, pointed and yelled “Look, there's Skippy’s daddy!”

The near full restaurant gasped; he glared; I shrank.  Dad had seen and heard it all before but I was 14 and it was just like the morning Mum drove me to school in her nighty and dressing gown and the car broke down in the rain so 20 years before the invention of mobile phones she hightailed it straight into the school office and called the NRMA without batting so much as an eyelid.

Ed Devereaux gathered up his order which had been packed into newfangled plastic bags and according to our good friend and neighbour, Daffy, never again returned to the Loong Cheong Chinese Restaurant.  In fact, he left the country not long after that and moved to London where I can only but hope he enjoyed relative anonymity at his local Chinese restaurant.

Tales of the Subaru - Leura Gardens Festival 2018

We pointed DeDe up the hill to the residence of the a Emeritus Principal Foy in Leura on the Friday of what was apparently a long weekend, something which is delightfully irrelevant when you're retired.  Of course a holiday tends to attract other people which is always a shame but never mind.  They usually maintain some degree of distance if you carry a walking stick and mumble a great deal.

 Blue Mountains Tucker Tip #1 - The Avalon

This is my favourite restaurant in the Blue Mountains.  It's located in the lounge and dress circle of the old Savoy picture theatre in Katoomba where the deco decor is eclectic as are the table settings and the defunct urinal in the men’s toilet - if you go you must look!  They even have some of my mother’s flowery crockery which I gave to friends in Katoomba with instructions to pass on anything they couldn't use so eating off that is a treat in itself.

But the food!  Yes, the food; it's good.  I always order the pan-fried chicken fillets with a lemon & Dijon mustard cream sauce that's served with rösti potato & salad because the do the best röstis this side of Switzerland.  And can I ever go past the liquorice cheese cake?  No, never!

We met our mutual friend Kathie for drinks at the Carrington and I was looking forward to chatting with her over dinner at the Avalon but no such luck.  They had a jazz quintet playing and they were bloody loud!  They were also very good but I think management has become little confused about their core business.

I had my back to them which was as well because they were distractingly scary to watch.  The singer, who was quite the talent, had his balding hair dyed several shades darker than jet black and sported a pencil thin moustache to match.  In fact most of the band had jet black hair which projects a certain look in a group of men who are all in their 60.  The jury is still out as to whether they were taking the piss or serious but given their collective commitment to jet blackedness I'm tending towards the latter.

The Leura Gardens Festival

Andrew, Peter and I hit the gardens next morning and there were some stunners.  Best not waste your time on institutional landscapes like the Fairmont Resort, look for real gardens that surround the homes of the people who actually created and tend them.

The garden of Hawke Government minister Neal Blewett and his partner Robert Brain is one such treasure.  During his time as Minister for Health, Neal worked hand in glove with his Opposition counterpart, Peter Baume to prevent the AIDS epidemic from becoming bigger than it already was  and between them they saved thousands of lives.  For this reason they are my heroes so when Neal came trotting down the stairs to his garage where I was buying orange and ginger marmalade from some Katoomba Hospital volunteers I crash-tackled* him to introduce myself and to think him for all he has done.  The latter seemed to genuinely surprise him which is the mark of the man.

*I didn't really crash-tackle Neal because he's about to turn 85 as I write and spritely though he appears, you just never know about bone density but he did offer his hand and I haven't yet washed mine.

And speaking of 85 year-olds, we discovered another one stuck high and dry in his golf cart on our way to the Blewett-Brain House.  I'm not sure how he managed it but regardless of how hard we pushed either one or both of the rear wheels simply failed to make contact with the ground and since these are the wheels that do the business he wasn't going anyway fast - or any other way.

I'd have thought that lifting a golf cart would have been achievable but up until that point I’d failed to factor in the bank of batteries beneath the seats.  That's when a pair of Italian lesbians pulled up to lend a hand.  Never underestimate the power of a determined dyke!  Between the four of us we had the old chap and his clubs puttering off towards the golf course, and doubtlessly the 19th hole, in no time at all.

Blue Mountains Tucker Tip #2 - Lily’s Pad

Lily’s Pad Cafe in Grose Street, Leura is a great place for lunch being, as it is, one street off Leura Mall and therefore one street away from the tourist coaches.  The food is excellent as well.  I went with the all-veg three salad combination plate but both Peter and Andrew ordered pig things despite me reminding them that at the time of slaughter pigs are as intelligent as a three year-old human child and often much easier to live with.  One can but try!

Leura Art Tip #1 - Light & Shadow Fine Art Gallery

This is actually a photographic gallery with access through Lily’s Pad.  The owner’s mother has the right to print from Max Dupain’s negatives so most of the downstairs area is dedicated to his iconic images.  It's difficult not to enjoy Max Dupain but tear yourselves away and go up stairs to see what some more contemporary photographers are doing.  We were intrigued by the work of Peter Damo who specialises in nature photography but also creates montage overlays of up to ten images with quite magical results.  One such piece created from ten land and sea images he shot while in Iceland took all three our eyes collective.  Having been there ourselves just last year we now own it but will also need invest in some more walls on which to hang our growing collection.

Blue Mountains Tucker Tip #3 - Leura Chinee Restaurant

I prefer the Kath Day-Knight pronunciation of the culinary style so let's go with Chinee rather than Chinese who are people and therefore best not eaten, apparently unlike pigs who are fair game.  Did I mention that our porcine cousins have the intelligence of a three year-old human child when they're slaughtered?  The pig that is, not the child which like Chinee, you must not eat!

Peter and I first discovered the Leura Chinee Restaurant whilst not celebrating Australia Day in 2016 - Tales of the Subaru - Leura After Dark.  I said it then and I'll say it again now, its beaut!  They serve good old fashioned suburban Chinee Tucker, the kind you had for takeaway on Friday or Saturday nights. 

Remember when Mum would take you into the local Chinee with her own pots or casserole dishes in hand because takeaway containers cost extra?  That's how the generation that produced the Baby Boomers afforded to buy their own homes rather than sitting back complaining about how they can't get a break because of all the old people with their superannuation and negative gearing.  Come on hipsters, give up the smashed avocado and espresso martinis for a while.  Go and buy a fibro majestic starter home or a one bedroom flat somewhere that's pretty ordinary.

I rather wish we’d arrived at the Leura Chinee about ten minutes later than we did this because we would have completely avoided several families that were sitting at a large round table with an indeterminate number of self-raising children.  There was a time when taking a child to a restaurant was not only a treat but a learning experience but not these days, any public space is simply an extension of one’s own home and therefore absolutely anything goes.

And go they finally did, thank Christ, but not without a great deal of too and fro and holding open of the door on a rather chilly Blue Mountains evening.  Yes, I'm a grumpy old man and I'm seriously comfortable with that!

The young couple next to us were charming but impossible not to observe.  She looked like a blonde, non-transitioning version of Jordan Raskopoulos which would have been fine had she stuck to Jordan’s subject matter or at least something a little lighter than the dark philosophical monologue the young man opposite was politely absorbing, or at least so it appeared.  They also absorbed the best part of six different dishes compared to our two but we did splurge the kilojoules and sugar on some deep fried ice cream at the end.

I do enjoy watching and listening.  The two young people who were waiting tables were ethnic Chinese (not Chinee which you eat) but had unmistakable Australian accents which is in no way unusual but I did enjoy the exchange, in English, with the table of Chinese Chinese behind us who were being whipped into shape by one of their own number, a 30-something woman who’s passive aggression bloomed into full-blown aggression by the time they all left.  She was going to make her point and eat it too, all in heavily accented English for which I mentally thanked her.

But the best was to come.  We met the owner, a very pleasant and surprisingly tiny woman who can talk the leg off an iron pot as we discovered when I asked why the restaurant had been closed for 13 months.  It appears she slipped and fell in the kitchen which caused a brain bleed necessitating major surgery and a long recovery so they shut up shop.

Now those of us in the Brain Injury Community have to stick together and there went our second bottle of wine while we heard a full two-thirds of her life story starting from when she owned the Ingleburn Chinee Restaurant, had her son down there and her daughter in Leura (the aforementioned wait staff) as well as the advice from her father and various in-laws that got her to the point where I'm writing about it.  She also mentioned that she'd become a lot more chatty and a bit forgetful since the operation as I can testify when she came back for round two after we finished our deep fried ice cream.

She is both chatty and charming and we were very pleased to know she's joined the ranks of the survivors.  It was hugs all around before we were finally on our way into the chill Leura night, me with shorts on of course.

Next morning was a testimony to the need for retirees to avoid festive long weekends.  When we set out to view our final three gardens I was reminded, in no small way, of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene from Fantasia.  The previous day’s tourists had all split in two then done so again like rutting amoeba and the buggers were everywhere with more and more completely disinterested youngsters appearing as if out of nowhere. 

Blue Mountains Nursery Tip #1 - Longview Garden Centre

There really should be an application process for attending garden festivals - and a written test!  The gardens at The Everglades were a purgatory that neither owner Georgina Stonier nor designer Paul Sorensen could have ever imagined.  It was like a Norman Lindsay etching with the satyrs and sirens replaced by day trippers.  We pointed DeDe back down the hill with our booty from the Festival plant sales and Longview Garden Centre at Wentworth Falls which I cannot recommend highly enough for both their range and knowledge.

If my ramblings have whet your appetite for next year’s garden viewing I strongly recommend you stay overnight in Leura and hit the trail early on the Friday when it's not so busy.  If you exclude anything commercial or institutional you'll happily knock the lot over by closing time with lunch and a stop at the plant sales included.

Click on the image to view the slideshow.