Sexy Enmore

I like where I live.

Not a lot of people can say that.

Of course, there are still places that I would like to live over and above the place that I live (New York, Paris for example) but seeing as I need to remain in Australia, I like the little part  of the world I live in very much.

In many large cities around the world, there are small areas that represent a free thinking, generally politically leftist perspective. In New York, this might be Greenwich Village. In London, it’s Hoxton or the East End. Belleville in Paris.

 I live in a section of Sydney that you might call Bohemian.

Newtown is the main suburb which is primarily a university burb. This keeps it youthful, fresh and interesting. The food is one of the most interesting things about Newtown. It’s usually excellent, cheap and plentiful. $7 lunchtime Thai specials are plentiful and you can always get a good filing meal with a drink for under $20 at night. There are many different cuisines and plenty of little novelty shops and good record stores. A small cinema and plenty of books stores and second hand stores finish off the look.

After Newtown, moving toward my suburb (Petersham) is a very cute little suburb called Enmore, and this is just about my all time favourite place in all of Sydney.

I like Enmore a little more than Newtown because it has less of the hustle and it is less conformist. Newtown could be accused of being a little overrun with the wealthy left, but Enmore can’t. Oh the rich houses may be there in the background, but in the main street the dingy op shop sits next door to the funny looking local organic produce market.

Enmore is the thinking person’s bohemia. 

Newtown is for the tourists and visiting Sydney-siders to the area, but Enmore is for the artists, the Goths, the music heads and the unemployable. It has latex stores and corsetry stores as well as the cat protection society.

Eating in Enmore is not quite the pleasure that Newtown is, but there are hidden treasures. A stunning little cafe, packed on weekends, sits gently in the middle of the main street, while if you want a little more bang for your buck the industrious lesbians of Scrambled will make you a less subtle breakfast with all the fat flavours of good old home cooking.

For a suburb three blocks long, it has 2 Mexican restaurants, 5 Thai restaurants, 2 tattoo and piercing parlours, 4 pubs, 2 wine bars, 10 cafes, 2 latex stores, 3 industrial goth / steampunk stores, and 1 enormous block long famous Australian music venue, the Enmore theatre, that hosts the likes of Nick Cave and PJ Harvey when they grace our shores. 

 This week, Alice Cooper is playing there.

All this in walking distance.

No wonder I love where I live.