Hannah's Pies/Powerhouse Pt II

Just outside the Powerhouse Museum there's a pie shop called Hannah's Pies. It's part of the famous Harry's Cafe de Wheels group. For my money, the pie I ate (shown below) was good, but not excellent; too peppery, and the gravy not meaty enough. The hot dogs are apparently much better. Buy a pie, or a hot dog, and sit outside the Powerhouse to eat it, in order to fortify yourself for the hours of enjoyment ahead: the vast collection of ancient and beautiful instruments, shown in a narrow corridor along which, as I walked, the sound of my favourite Beethoven symphony drifted; a replica 1930s cinema, complete with ghostly patrons; and all manner of flying machines, trains, clocks, and cogs that turn at the press of a button.

Powerhouse Museum

The Powerhouse Museum is "Sydney's museum of science, technology, design, decorative arts and social history" – quite a lot for one museum to be treating with, but its location, a former power station, is generously proportioned, and under its huge arching roof, a panoply of exhibitions are taking place, both permanent and temporary: AC/DC, Australia's Family Jewels, people in AC/DC t-shirts wandering around to the sound of "You Shook Me All Night Long"; Ecologic, Creating a Sustainable Future, maps and graphs about disaster; Benini, Creating The Look, a brilliantly designed exhibition about Australian fashion photographer Bruno Benini, complete with darkroom and studio; and The 80s are Back, a tunnel you could walk down, to the sound of 1980s music, to be bombarded with images from the 1980s. I was too frightened enter the tunnel, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't. More from this amazing museum, plus pies, tomorrow.

Baker Street

Baker Street Ultimo is a new café at 637 Harris Street, Ultimo. Located in what must at one time have been a grand residence, it's owned by Juan Duret, a baker who is an Argentinian - hence the alfajores, moist biscuits sandwiched with impossibly sweet and delicious dulce de leche. There were two types, the one with coconut (left, below) being my favourite. There is a wide range of other cakes and pastries, decent burgers and savoury tarts although, tragically, they had run out of pies.