Epic Taste of Melbourne Post

After going to the Taste of London Festival in 2009 and 2008, Pooey was super happy to find out that there was a Taste of Melbourne Fest and that she'd be present for it. To maximise her ability to eat food, she also bought a ticket for me.

It was held at the lovely REB and as we casually made our way towards the gardens, we got a frantic call from SEM saying that there was a HUUUUGE queue of people trying to get in and that we should hurry up!

I really liked SEM's description of the queue: "It's like Wimbledon!!!"
Luckily it moved quickly and we got inside with due haste.

So pretty on the inside with its Victorian fresco and post-Industrial Revolution metalworks.

The crowd mills around the stalls.

Now the thing about these fests is that one requires a certain level of shamelessness to push through the (more substantial than Pooey expected) crowd. Luckily, I have little shame and happily pushed through to the front to get our tastings!

Pooey with some extra crowns purchased later after we ate up our pre-bought crowns.

Happily showing off the roasted pork cheek on white polenta from Mezzo.

Close up of the pork cheek

Pooey digs in!

Our next stop was The Stokehouse stall to get some scallops and TheBombe - a dessert based on Bombe Alaska.

See that guy in the middle with the glasses? He was really rude. The Bombe wasn't ready yet (fair enough because it's a dessert and the time would have been about...oh, 12:30pm) but he was very abrupt about telling everyone of that fact, and he was even short with me even though I only asked for the scallops in recognition of what he said! Even Pooey said he was rude and she was standing a good metre behind me!

We eventually decided that the scallops were not good enough to make up for him being rude...

...which meant I wasn't very happy when I ate them.

To clear up the unhappy from Stokehouse, we went to the stall for Luke Mangan's new digs in Melb - The Palace at the Hilton. We'd been told the night before by Shefali that the Wagyu burger should be eaten. It was and it cheered us up big time!

Pushing in for the burger and eye fillet steak.

Excited about the Palace's Wagyu burger!

Close up...

followed by cross-section!

The eye fillet - delicious! We were a bit confused about the identity of the round white thing on top. Options included a scallop and a blob of fat before settling on it being bone marrow. Still good! In hindsight, this might have been my fave.

SEM got the tuna carpaccio from The Palace. Mmmm, raw fish....

The duck tortoloni from The European. While eating my ribeye/burger, I saw people walking past with this and decided I wanted it. I got it, and it was delicious and ducky.

We took a short break from stuffing our faces to have a look around some of the exhibits....and stuff our faces with free samples.

Horrible photo but fun story - the guy at the Ben&Jerry's stall gave me two samples. In answer to being told that he must have liked me, I replied that I gave him my bestest smile! However SEM's friend got A FULL CUP of ice cream! My bestest smile was no match for the people he really liked! :P~

This guy was very nice (and kinda hot in his nerdy glasses). The stall was for beef that is "As close as you can get to being labelled organic without being organic. Our cows live in pasture and eat grass the way they're meant to. See this cow behind me? They live like that. If I was a cow, I'd want to live in those conditions!"
I don't know about you guys, but I was convinced!

As you can see, he then cooked us up some minute steaks. They were tender and grassy tasting the way grain-fed beef isn't. Quite nice. He also gave me his card for the restaurant he's opening at The Olsen, Steer. I might go!


We visited some general kitchen-y stalls were we saw some super cute kitchen-y things. LIKE THESE SUPER CUTE SMEG FRIDGES!!!! THEY'RE SO CUTE THEY NEEDED A HUG!!!!

And these frilly aprons.

We then decided it was time to go upstairs and see what was there. Despite not being hungry anymore, we decided to get some more food.

I love French food and this was the rabbit rillettes and the game consomme from Libertine/Le Traiteur. I think the consomme was a bit too heavy for Pooey's tastes.

Wallaby tataki from Charcoal Lane. Insert roadkill jokes here! But honestly, the marinade was a bit heavy flavoured - I couldn't taste the wallaby.

SEM's hazelnut parfait from Embrasse. Delicious mint-flavoured ice!

We made our way back downstairs for more looking at the stalls. I was tempted to spend $20 on a teeeny jar of caviar, and then more money on a teeeeny jar of truffled honey, but I resisted. What I didn't resist were other sweeties.

CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN!!!

Posing with the chocolate fountain

Mini-meringues!

Despite the earlier bad experience, we went back to The BOMBE and use up our crowns. This time around, we got a much nicer serving guy who was much happier to feed me. I enjoyed The Bombe so much that I even gave him the thumbs up which was enthusiastically returned!

By now we were pretty full and tired so to finish, Pooey decided to get some cheese.

Cheese lady hands over the cheese.

The cheese.

And so rubbing our comfortably full bellies and cackling over my bag of passionfruit yo-yos, we waved goodbye to Taste of Melbourne 2010. Anyone up for Taste 2011?!

High school flashbacks

Summer Heights High is being replayed on ABC2 and having known girls like this....

IT'S LIKE BEING BACK IN HIGH SCHOOL!!! HAHAHAHHA.....ahhh....so true!

Pet shop puppies

Like Pooey, I am somewhat torn between admiring the cuteness of puppies in petshops and the belief that they probably came from puppy farms.

Beagle x Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

Chocolate Labrador

Is it just me or do they look kinda bored and sad? I dunno :(
But for those who do think they look sad, go to http://www.closepuppyfactories.org and sign the petition to close puppy farms!

Painting of the week - Old Skool by Banksy

Banksy, Old Skool, Clerkenwell Rd (Now removed)
London
(Source)

To Mischka, the image on her dirty 30 birthday card!

Cha siu bao and poison pork rolls

The other night as I made my way home after an exhausting day in the lab, Pooey requested that I get her a snack. The choice of snack was up to me. I decided to go to Nam Loong on Russell St. to pick up some cha siu baos (roast pork buns). At $1.50 each, I think it's a pretty good deal when you're standing in the cold with a bag of steaming hot buns in one hand and digging into the bun with the other (and your mouth).

Mmmm, steamy

Mmmm, porky

When I got home with the buns, Ma was so insulted at the idea that I paid for the buns that she declared she was going to make some for us! And she did!

But then because Spuey was coming back from G-town, Ma also got us some poison pork rolls! Or more correctly, banh mi thit. We only call them that because a few years ago they were linked to salmonella poisoning. But the danger only makes the meal more worthy!

My poison pork roll. Sneaky Spuey nearly ate his and mine!

Mmmm, fillings

I actually don't know what's the going rate for these bread rolls anymore. About 10 years ago they were $2.20 which means they're probably around the $3 mark? I dunno. I just eat them.

Hail fail

Tuesday was a night of awesomeness and heartbreak. Firstly, I went to the gym and managed to row 2000m in 10:06. Personal best! Now all I have to do is cut off those last 6 seconds!

Anyway, it was steadily raining as I left and I decided that since I wore Dunlop Volleys in to work, I would remain in my gym clothes on the way to meet with the brother at Borders cos I knew they'd get soaked. As I strolled down Tin Alley, the rain got harder and I decided to run to the Physics building. It then started to hail. Oddly enough, it seems I've never been caught in a hailstorm before because I never realised being hit by hail is like having people form a circle and then throw a constant stream of gravel at you. IT HURT!!! And holding an umbrella did nothing because it was coming in sideways! I then decided to use the Physics Building wall as a windbreak rather than try to run for the bridge.

I huddled under the bridge and decided to ring brother to find out the status. He was 10 minutes away so I decided I may as well keep on walking to Borders *sigh*. That was when I dropped my phone into a pile of hail. And then it died :( With a dead phone, I was unable to phone and say *change of plan!* so I kept walking.

The hail piles

But as I was walking, I had to periodically stop because my gym pants are elasticised and they were now so soaked with water that they kept falling down! And because I was stopping, they were getting more wet! And constantly falling down!!!

I did eventually get home with my shoes squelching so I took them off and placed them in front of a heater. About 30 minutes later I found out that my shoes had a sponge core - and that drying them basically shrunk my left shoe :( This actually upset me more than breaking my phone because the phone was five years old while my shoes were only four months gone! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. So I this means I won't be going to the gym and getting down to 10 minutes any time soon :(

Horoki take two!

Pooey is back in Melbs and happy to no longer be eating alone. Other than eating at...er....Mrs. Parmas, Pooey was greatly enticed to eat at Horoki after reading this post of mine from last week. So, for the SECOND time in one week, I was back eating at Horoki. But that's okay with me because I love Horoki so I got to eat some favourites again :D. Mimi, who shall henceforth be known as SEM (to be explained later) joined us for some utter deliciousness.

Green tea! A few years ago, I read a manga and a character said that it's good luck to have tea with a stick floating vertically in it. I hope that means I've got good luck!!!

To start! The special of the night, some beef tataki...

..and the tuna carpaccio. Miam, raw food!

Followed by even more raw food! The Daikon and sashimi salad comes up again!!!

The spicy cod roe and butter pasta! DISH OF THE NIGHT!!!

And a close-up of the pasta because the Vanderpoons are trying to replicate the dish! It definitely has a touch of cream and paprika - definitely not just butter and definitely not chilli-chilli. Happy recreating - always happy to taste test!

The duck breast and eggplant. I've had this previously and really liked it, especially the sauce, but tonight I found it still tasty but little dry :(

Didn't stop Mimi from trying to be a seagull and steal Pooey's duck!
She's now called the Sneaky Eating Machine (SEM) from trying to get extra duck!

After realising we were still hungry, we decided to order some salmon and spinach croquettes. Mimi didn't try to steal any of these from our chopsticks.

For dessert, some green tea ice cream. Green tea-y.

Dinner ended at the relatively early time of 8:30 and decided to get some hot buttered mulled wine from 1806. Pooey thought it was so delicious that she ordered two! Happily for us, the bartender told us that the drink wasn't seasonal - he can always make it for us whenever we want it during bar hours.