Live Entertainment, Great Coffee & More – Mick’s Five Monday Edition!

Today I have a bunch of brilliant Northside recommendations and one special restaurant that has been reborn in the Eastern suburbs. All the best for the week ahead.

1. A foxy fox chasing a sparrow at this café 🦊 ☕️ 

North Sydney has been going through a renaissance for some years now and a favoured café is the Fox & Sparrow on Arthur Street.

If you drop in for lunch I would recommend the Miso Sesame Salmon Poke Bowl, at $18 it is a lip smacking choice 👄 

If you are looking to have an office wide breakfast or lunch you can also avail yourself of the catering menu and pick up from the Fox or have it delivered to the office 🙂 

Scoring a 4.5 Google rating, the customers love the Fox. Cooper sums it up in his review “…Really friendly staff, quick service, all at a pretty reasonable price. Their Bacon and Egg Rolls are really good…”

Located at 100 Arthur Street, North Sydney and open Monday through Friday from 7:00am to 2:00pm with a great range of breakfast, brunch and lunch options.

2. Tough name but a relaxing bar 🍸️ 

The Stoned Crow is an institution in Crows Nest. It certainly has moved ahead allot over the years and is now a cool bar with great food options.

There are lots of reasons to keep you coming back including; Sunday Sessions with 3 for 2 share plates and 2 for 1 cocktails, Friday to Sunday Bottomless Lunches for $69 per person for 90 minutes, Monday to Friday 4:00 - 6:00 pm $1 buffalo wings, Lunch specials from Monday to Thursday, Happy Hour Monday to Friday from 4:00 to 6:00pm and the list goes on.

Lockie sums up in his Google review “… Stoned Crow is not a dive bar, and it is not a fancy cocktail bar; It’s somewhere in between, and there is much need for a bar such as this. Solid drinks. Lots of places to sit. Really quite large…”

The place can get quite busy so you can book a table online to ensure you and your friends have a space to enjoy.

3. Theatre for Everyone. Exciting. Extraordinary. Explosive 🎭️ 

The Ensemble Theatre was founded in 1958 and with so much heritage you can only expect the best in theatre entertainment.

This week all the tickets are sold out to David Williamson’s ARIA but you can still get tickets for The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams - 21 March to 26 April 2025 performances.

Performances in 2025

This year the Ensemble is staging; Aria, The Glass Menagerie, The Lover & The Dumb Waiter, The Half-Life of Marie Curie, Primary Trust, Emerald City, How to Plot a Hit in Two Days, True West, Fly Girl and Dial M for Murder.

Bayly’s Bistro:

Open Tuesday to Saturday Bayly’s Bistro is open for lunch after 11:00 am shows and dinner to coincide with performances. The dinner menu includes main options such as a vegetarian pasta, chicken, slow cooked beef, market fish fillet and lamb shanks plus entrée and sides.

Check out the upcoming performances and book tickets via the website.

4. Around the Perimeter for this trail 🚶‍♀️ 

The Perimeter Trail is in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, yes the national park on the Northside of Sydney.

Stretching out over 7 kms (plus 7 kms for the return to the start), it takes about 3 hours in one direction. Please be aware that the trail is also used by horses and mountain bikes.

The Perimeter Trail walk wraps around the northern side of Terrey Hills on a wide and mainly level trail, with occasional views across Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. The side trips of the main trail make the walk even more enjoyable. If you are going to do a side trip, the lookdown into Cowan Creek from Wilkins Viewpoint is well work the diversion.

Don’t forget your hat, sunscreen and some water. Please note that parking fees apply.

5. Feeling hungry for some Hungarian?

Corner 75, love the name … gives off community vibes, has been around for more than 40 years and has recently been rebirthed by new owners.

The menu is a tight selection of Hungarian fare. From starters including pork & paprika sausage, two soup choices, schnitzel and chicken paprikash for main and sides salads like the red cabbage or the cucumber salad. Plus a few choices for dessert.

I would highly recommend the chicken soup with dumplings for your starter and the pork schnitzel for main course. And you cannot go past the apple strudle for dessert 😃 

Located at 75 Frenchmans Road, Randwick (yes it in on the corner) and open for dinner Wednesday to Saturday from 5:30pm until 11:00 pm or drop in for lunch on Saturday and Sunday from midday.

Bookings are recommended which can be done online or by calling the team on 02 9399 5712

Thanks for reading!

Cheers and beers,

Mick

Founder of Mick’s Five