A Few of My Favourite Things !

Something that Neil wrote reminded me of a story from my quick visit to the local supermarket a few weeks back. Occasionally the checkout staff wil not know what a certain fruit or vegetable item is, especially if they are of the more exotic variety for a supermarket item - pomegranate, persimmon, starfruit - and that’s okay with me. This evening, the girl reached the last item in my basket, a bulb of baby fennel. She waved it at me and stated “This is garlic, right?”

That makes me sad.

On a different topic, we visited the Good Food Show last Friday and can I just say what a disappointment that was? $25 per person for entry but there was nothing new to discover. Like others, we tried to purchase individual Boscastle pies but they were only selling them in variety packs, we were rushed out of the Nestle Noir tent after sampling one piece although there was no line, there just seemed to be a general lack of enthusiasm from those manning the stands.

One funny thing though was the Asian stand selling Jasmine rice. They were giving out samples of rice served with a red curry and one woman came up and said “Can we have some curry without the rice? My husband doesn’t eat rice”. You can imagine the look on the server’s face!

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…