Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2015

Three hundred and seventy food blogs in Sydney. That's how many invites Suze and I sent out for the 7th annual Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party. It's a community event we first started in 2009, providing an opportunity for food bloggers to meet, mingle and eat. Back in those early years, food blogging was a wild and new frontier. Today everyone - and their mothers - are snapping food photos and posting them on Instagram.

It's surreal to think that food blogging has almost become a long hand form of food sharing, versus the scroll and double-tap addictiveness of Instagram. Sure Instagram has lots of pretty pictures but there's a real artform to food blogging that I still appreciate and relish, from the burst of that opening para to the build-up of written details that follow, right down to the individual nuances of website design.

The Christmas party has always been about helping to build the food blogging community, because nowhere will you find so many other like-minded people armed with cameras, keen eyes and a second stomach.


Neon lights, disco balls and hanging egg chairs at Studio Neon

After enduring thunderstorms and heatwaves in previous years, we decided to leave Mother Nature out of it and booked Studio Neon, a converted warehouse in Waterloo. Hanging egg chairs, neon lights, eclectic furniture and disco balls offered a quirky backdrop for our party. Aaron Teece of Studio Neon provided the venue at a discounted rate for our community event, and we charged everyone a small fee to cover the room hire.


Frames, flamingoes and furniture

I took these venue pics during our site inspection beforehand. On the day of the party, it didn't long for the space to be swarming with food and food bloggers.


Smash cake! 

Claudia from @smash_cakes_3108 offered a smash cake for the party to help us celebrate.


The official cake smashing ceremony - yes chocolate went flying everywhere

We used it to launch proceedings on the day. ChocolateSuze smashed it good.


Delicious debris

The two-kilo monster yielded a gluttony of lollies beneath the chocolate shell.


The spread

As always, everyone brought a plate of food to share.

But first, lemme take a photo

You know what came first though. Photos. Myself included. Here's a quick round-up of some of the homemade goodness...


Smoked salmon blinis - Perfect party food.


Chicken and tofu ricey rolls by Food is Our Religion - branded packaging en pointe! I ate two.


Baked ricotta with preserved lemon salsa by alanabread - so tasty. The recipe was by Mike McEnearney of Kitchen by Mike.


Lemper by Irene's Getting Fat! (seriously, she's not) These homemade lemper are seriously so good. Fragrant sticky rice and a spiced coconut chicken filling.


Miso beef bao sliders with aioli and rocket by Mrs and Mrs Chopsticks - homemade bao! So soft. And the miso beef was incredibly tender.


Food time!


Miso butterscotch macarons by Ramen Raff - Raff's macs are always the first to disappear. Pretty sure these went in about 8 seconds.


Green tea madeleines by Eat Your Teacup - I nabbed one of these. So fluffy!


Summer berry tiramisu by Newlyfeds - So darned cute.


Ginger and honeycomb burger cookies by Oh Burger Me! - Such a brilliant job of these homemade beauties.


Giant fairy bread cake! - Best idea ever. My iPhone for scale.


So. Much. Food.


Class of #sydfbxmas2015 

Thanks everyone for coming! We had 66 food bloggers attend this year. It was awesome to meet so many new faces, as well as see so many familiar ones too!

Want more pics? Search for the #sydfbxmas2015 hashtag on Instagram. And check out the food blogs below.


Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2015 attendees:
A Little Bit of Tang | Adobo Down Under | Alana Bread | Angie Lives To Eat (and Cook) | Brunch Bandits | Burn My Mouth | Chew Your Chow | ChocolateSuze | Citrus and Candy | Cook Suck | Droolworthy World | Eat Your Tea Cup | Eating With your Eyes | Fight the Craving | Fill My Tummy | Food Is All | Food is Our Religion | From Across the Kitchen Table | Grab Your Fork | iFat Food Chronicles | I’m Still Hungry | Irene’s Getting Fat | It’s Cake Time | Judy’s Blog | Khismosa | Kningja Eats | Maddie Loves Food | Memoirs of a Foodie | Milkteaxx | Mr and Mrs Chopsticks | Ms Jay Emm | My Kitchen Stories | Nessy Eater | Newlyfeds | Oh Burger Me | Penguin Says Feed Me | Polyphagia | Ramen Raff | Sarah vs Carbs | Simon Food Favourites | Small But Hungry | Spoon, Fork and Chopsticks | The Chronicles of Hilda | The Economic Foodie | The Food Diary | The Hungry Plum | The Perks of Being a Food Blogger | The Walking Advertisement | Two Happy Bellies | Wait, the Camera Eats First | What Em Did | When the World Stops Spinning | Where’s My Sauce


Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009