A Few of My Favourite Things !

There are so many events on this weekend that one hardly knows how to spend one’s time – the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, the Antipodes Festival, the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show, the 12th FINA World Championships. As much as I love the latter two, I couldn’t go past the International Flour Festival that took place this weekend as part of the food festival.

The YUZU catering company does some really inventive and tasty food. We had the seafood okonomiyaki to kick off our afternoon and a side dish of sun balls (behind the prawns), which are like arancini with an asian kick – rice, shitakes, sesame seeds.

Next up, a ‘Paesan’ pizza from Pizza Farro who specialise in spelt pizza bases which are lighter in texture and great for wheat-intolerant pizza lovers.

I have never been a big fan of Mexican food but assumed that I hadn’t tried any authentic yet. Los Amates claims to be ‘the place where Mexicans come to eat’ however their Sopes didn’t do much to win me over. The handmade case is slightly sour in flavour and the refried bean, salsa and cheese topping tasteless. Is it just that my tastebuds are not tuned into Mexican food or is there a place someone can recommend me that would awaken them?

Alaysa Turkish Restaurant had a yummy looking stand filled with boreks and thick fluffy-based pizzas.

I had been craving naan and curry for some weeks now so it was fortuitous that Tandoori Den Camberwell was there. We shared a combination platter which had a scoop of each curry (butter chicken, dhall, vegetable, beef vindaloo), 2 samosas, rice and a piece of naan. Butter chicken is still my favourite but their beef vindaloo was up there too.

AMES had a stand that was selling curries and stews the like of which I had never come across. Unfortunately, we had had our fill and couldn’t try all these out

It was a great day overall but I can’t understand why there was pretty much only one stall representing each cuisine when Melbourne has some of the most amazing restaurants around. If it’s okay to have several bread stalls, then why not two or three Japanese food stands or more than one stall making roti. Surely there would not be too much overlap? Maybe that’s something to consider for next year…

Can anyone shed some light on what I was eating? Cos I have absolutely NO IDEA!

Further along the same bustling street, we encountered dessert of a different kind. The base, when we got to tasting it, was like claggy batter but the top was prettily studded with dried and glaced fruits and nuts. There was a HUGE and I mean HUGE line waiting to get a cup of this but my recommendation is ‘watch the guy making them – the pan is an interesting shape – but don’t go out of your way to try’.

Thsi vendor was making four different types of filled pancakes but I could only understand what two of them were – red bean and chesnut paste. My recommendation is ‘Skip these – sticky (undercooked?) and bland’.

These grilled scallops created the most heavenly smells and I would definitely try them next time.

Can you see the hand just to the right of the photo? Well, they weren’t too pleased with us taking photos. Maybe they thought we were about to run away with their secret traditional method of making these fairy floss-like sweet (I’m thinking, surely there is a less labour-intensive way).

Funnily enough, I saw a lady making the exact same thing in the exact same way in London’s Chinatown a week later. Too late!

Adventures in Shanghai – Part 1
Adventures in Shanghai – Part 3
Images of Shanghai

This was our first breakfast in Shanghai, savoury tau fu fa accompanied by a yu tiao and milky coffee, followed by a spicy noodle dish. Enjoyed the tau fu fa but I stuck to the hot weet version for the rest of the trip. The noodles looked great but were a little bland. The rest of the crowd were ordering yu tiao and siao long bao so this may not have been a speciality of theirs.

Going for a walk later on that day down Nan Jing Lu, we stumbled across an extremely busy little alley that had the most heavenly smell of food cooking. A detour was in order here and we came across some unusual and delicious foods.

We managed th snag the last of this batch of fried beef dumplings (not sure about name). Really delicious and the line of people waiting to get their hands on one was justified.

Steamboat-style meals are also available. Great if you want to pick and choose.

We saw these siao long bao stalls everywhere and the great thing you could always see a small huddle of workers, with disposable face masks on, moulding these. The dumplings then went straight into the frying pan. How much fresher can you get? Sold in portions of four, the trick to eating these was to make a small bite into the skin and allowing the very hot steam to escape then slurping some of the juice out before eating the meaty part. HUGE queues everywhere for these! I think the Shanghainese must literally live on these dumplings. (Warning: Don’t get the ones on the streets immediately outside the ‘Old Town’ area though as you pay tourist prices for inferior food).

Lots of smoke coming from these portable barbeques:

…more soon…

Adventures in Shanghai – Part 2
Adventures in Shanghai – Part 3
Images of Shanghai