Savoring Sydney

I am writing to you with regard to “Grill Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” (April 13). I am an expatriate Australian of nine years. On the one hand, I found this article, on the whole, very interesting and informative. On the other hand, I was enraged by the first paragraph.

The author, Margo Pfeiff, obviously had no eye for fine dining back in the 1970s. Sydney then was more culinary aware, with fine dining and extensive ethnic cuisine, than Los Angeles was. Sydney was, and still is, a cosmopolitan city, with a vast array of ethnic and seafood restaurants.

Regarding the coffee in Sydney in the 70s, Pfeiff writes: “In only a handful of top hotels or in mom-and-pop-run Italian cafes could you even find coffee that wasn’t instant.” I beg to differ. Cappuccinos have dominated all of Sydney and Australia for decades.

KIM DRISCOLL

Anaheim

With reference to the Guidebook box, “A Sydney Sampler,” concerning where to eat: I took considerable satisfaction in the author’s pointed delineation between the terms “main course” and “entree,” which refers appropriately to appetizers. Bully for the Australians, who have refused to knuckle to American ignorance even for the American buck!

The average American doesn’t understand that the word “entree” derives from the French entree, meaning “entrance, beginning, opening course or side dish,” which has been the accepted terminology for worldwide for centuries.

MARY SOMMER

Rancho Palos Verdes