The late noughties hang out for Sydney Uni arts students of choice, there was one real reason why we loved the Fair Trade Cafe in Glebe, which recently closed its doors. Was it the ethically correct, fine tasting coffee, or the fact the proceeds went towards volunteer projects in third world countries? Or was it the fact that you were bound to hear at least one overly loud conversation about someone's documentary project, short film or band?

No, it was the fact that, ironically, unlike the ironically titled Well Connected cafe next door (one of the first internet cafes in Sydney), The Fair Trade Cafe actually had wi-fi.

Located on the corner of Parramatta Road and Norton Street, to call this cafe unassuming would be to hype it up too much. It's pretty average in every respect - the coffee, the foccacias, arancini and croissants are all merely sufficient. But in a city where every place tries to outdo everywhere else - this is a refreshing change.

If you're ever awake before dawn and in the area you're probably familiar with this place because it opens at 4:30am. As a result, I wound up spending a large chunk of my high school muck up night here in 1997 as i had nowhere else to go, and on many a sleepless night have trecked over for a super-early pre-work brekkie of lame ham and cheese croissant with the ham only slightly warm, and strong coffee.

After getting dumped once many years ago and not being able to sleep I rode my bike over to Leichhardt at 4:30am to have brekkie, and there was a nature doco on the tele in this cafe which featured lengthy shots of elephant fornication, and i thought, 'Great! Even the elephants on the tv in this shitty cafe at 4:30 in the morning are getting more sex than me right now." I don't know why that memory stays with me, but it does.

Bar Dei Castelli is at 395 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt.

Link: http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Sydney-Australia/Chinese-Noodle-Restaurant/7778269335?ref=s

You can just picture this hole in the wall, crammed in dumpling shop being in the next Seinfeld. It's famed for it's bizarre yet cheap menu: Chicken Spring Pancakes anyone? Or how about the combination noodles - basically an Asian Spaghetti bolognese. Why not try the meat pastry - like a northern chinese pork quesadila? But the real reason you come here is the amazing home made dumplings (i'm a rebel - i like the steamed vegetarian), and well, the kitsch vineyard decor. And the fact you're so crammed in so close to your dining companions it's basically a second-base-fest with your co-workers.

Okay, so they used to be $5 but these days $7 is the going rate for a decent pub steak. And if you pay more than $10 you're obviously a tourist.

The Forresters in Surry Hills started the $5 Steak craze, seeing it as a way of getting people in during mid-week winter nights, and they put a giant model cow on the awning to let people know. And it worked a treat - the pub was regularly packed out with budget-minded carnivores. But alas it didn't last. Soon every pub was offering cheap steaks (or even FREE in the case of the Glebe Excelsior every Wednesday with the purchase of a $10 jug of Coopers). Forresters, packed out with uni students, lowered the quality of the steaks, then discontinued it all together.

But the tradition lives on, and here are my current two favourite steak-based haunts for when i'm feeling low on iron midweek.

1. The Shakespeare in Surry Hills. Okay so it's $10 and can be variable, but generally huge and hearty.
2. The Great Southern on George St in Chinatown. $7. For when you're sick of laksa and pho, go a Chinatown steak.

And where are your favourite steaks?

Right in the middle of a Parramatta Road black hole, Frank's Pizza has a menu consisting of about 6 pizzas, the coffee is bad and the service is unpretentious (read: non-existent), but goddamn i love this place. You want a chinotto? Get up and get one from the fridge yourself, lazy bum.

If you want to be fawned over, go to Rockpool. If you want cheap ($12 larges!) and authenticaly delicious thin pizzas, with big communal tables, BYO with no corkage (bring longnecks, they don't care) and loud families running around the place, then this bustling and fresh pizzeria is for you. Unpretentious A favorite with local cops, students and artsy types, it's open late and it's walking distance from The Annandale. No delivery.

Franks Pizza is at 83 Parramatta Road, Camperdown.

The birthplace of the Tropest film festival, this cafe symbolises all that is soul-less and generic about modern Sydney. During the day, it's packed with obviously unemployed people in designer clothes slaving over their masterpiece screenplay on their laptop, pretending to be talking to their "agents" on their mobile phones, all the while a dozen or so plasma screens blare bad 90s music. The coffee is not bad, but the food, a rather generic and small menu of mediocre foccaccias and pastas, makes McDonalds or Subway look like a home to individualism.

I had a mate who used to love this place and would constantly be dragging me here. Why? I worked out he wanted to be "somebody", and where was he spending his time? Sitting crammed in a cafeteria full of other wanna-bes pretending to be somebody.

For the record, my favourite Sydney cafe is Cafe Berardo of Glebe (RIP), which was full of unemployed musicians and writers who at least knew they were nobodies... and the coffee was sublime.

Tropicana Cafe is at 227 Victoria Road, Darlinghurst.

A slice of serenity in the back streets of Surry Hills, Cafe Lounge really is the only Melbourne-like little bar/cafe in Sydney. In fact, it feels like exactly the kind of place the Australian Hotel Association is petrified of. Yes, it's a dark little hole and it serves chardonnay!

It's a cafe, open late, that serves beer. HOW NOVEL! It can get packed out by Surry Hills trendies on a Friday or Saturday night, but for a quiet beer after work (and i do mean quiet - this is probably the only place you can actually hear someone across the table speaking to you), or a romantic date, this place is great. In fact, for those closet alcoholics who don't mind a drink alone, you often see youngin' tucked up on a couch reading a book with a beer: yes, such un-Sydneylike behaviour is tolerated here. Beer prices, while not cheap, have remained steady over the years, at $7 for a Little Creatures at the moment, and the coffee and cocktails are pretty good too. If you're a VB Addict, please look elsewhere.

The music was better when I used to DJ there, but it's still not bad.

Cafe Lounge is at the corner of Crown and Goulburn Streets, Surry Hills.

Okay about time I mentioned a pub.

Like Sydney in general, The Old Fitzroy in Woolloomooloo crams a lot of multiculturalism into a small space. There's a very London-like Fringe theatre downstairs, one of Sydney's best Laksa's from the Thai restaraunt out the back, a front bar to rival any Irish pub and a retro upstairs lounge. Thank god it remains tucked away one of Sydney's scariest streets, as this is a hidden gem. Oh, and it has Blue Tongue Ginger Beer back on tap and available by the pint.

The Old Fitz is at 129 Dowling St, Woolloomooloo.

One image sums up Norton Street in my mind: a young man doing tearing up the block doing a wheelie on a Vespa Scooter. Say no more.

Lygon Street's poorer little brother, this was originally Sydney's home of cafe culture and Italian food, but has in recent years become a poor imitation of its former self. It's crowded, overpriced, and with the arrival of the Forum, a fake imitation. Yes, Norton Street is very Sydney indeed.

We love Chinatown. Where else can you get a 500 gig hard drive for the cost of train ticket AND hepatitis A - all on your lunch break?!?!

Sydney is home to Australia's largest Chinatown (Melbourne''s is a laughable back alley by all accounts), and is home various food courts, Asian bakeries, restaurants, massage facilities, pubs with gaming rooms, sushi bars, Falun Gong information tables and weird shops which sell either kids toys, electronics or phones (we're not exactly sure).

Amongst other things Chinatown first gave Sydney includes bubble tea, gambling (originally illegally) and 2am BBQ Pork (should be illegal).

Located near such Leftie workplaces as The ABC, the ALP head branch, various unions and Central Railways, Chinatown becomes a lunchtime hub for well-paid, white anglo Communists who think of themselves as multiculturally aware and very tolerant, You'll see them scoffing combination Laksa, bubble tea and cheap computer accessories in the noon-day sun, all the while in real life they would never think of living outside their very white and very safe suburbs of Pyrmont, Balmain, Potts Point and Roseville.

When loud obnoxious rock bands play the Entertainment Centre (I'm talking about you Deep Purple), the only true cross-pollination of Sydney's disparate racial groups takes place, as drunk bogans from the burbs descend on Chi-town, can't believe there's no parking, drunkenly order "fried lice" and then get booked for drink driving on the way home. Ah, karma, you must be Chinese too.