Melbourne and the Taste of Melbourne

Taste of Melbourne
A gathering of the most recognized restaurants and chefs so locals can sample their creations in one location and the restaurants benefit from a different form of advertising. We attended the Sunday afternoon session, thinking it would be more relaxed. Sadly it was a bit of a zoo. Located in Melbourne’s Exhibition Buildings, the front entrance area was dedicated to local restaurants such as Verge, Three-One, Two, The Press Club, etc. All very well know restaurants to those who live here.... Overall the food was good. The best dish we sampled by far was the quail wrapped in marinated grape leaves sitting on a bed of short grain rice, barley, lemon, pomegranate and hazelnut salad. The texture was fantastic with little explosions of lemon and crunch nutty bits. The longest queue was for Nobu's black cod dish. We tasted it and, it tasted just like the black cod in London's Nobu AND Cafe Japan. Always good but a bit overrated when you can buy the dish at most grocery stores in Tokyo. The secret ingredient is the sake lees. Of course, you do have to travel to Japan. Yet another food item to import. Another surprise was Verge's slow roasted pork belly served in a mirin seaweed soup. A bit too sweet but the textures and flavours were good. Along with the restaurant were wine and beer producers, cheese makers, magazine reps and ice cream makers. One of the more recognized wine producers in attendance was Dalwhinnie. Located in the Pyrenees, to the West of Melbourne, they are most recognized for their Shiraz grapes.

Dalwhinnie Wines
http://www.dalwhinnie.com.au/

The 2005 Southwest Rocks Shiraz was overly mellow for such a young wine. There were no tannins and was amazingly a very quaffable jammy fruity wine with notes of fresh fruits such as raspberries. The grapes are single vineyard, 100% Shiraz, 50% French Oak, 50% new oak, single vineyard wine. A bit overpriced at $60 a bottle.




Ice Cream
Gundowring
http://www.gundowringfinefoods.com.au/

We tasted the award winning vanilla along with raspberry. Both very good and creamy. Given that I'm not a die hard ice cream fan, I am not the best person to be sampling ice cream but I'm not about to give up my love for Bologna's Sorbetteria. Their gelato is still king!

Australian Snow ...Tiddly pom

Can't help but think of Winnie the Pooh when it starts to snow large snowflakes. ..

What have we been up to for the past week and a half? Zooming about, to and fro from Melbourne and then to Mt. Buller for a weekend of skiing. Yes skiing. This drought ridden country is full of surprises!

There were no preconceptions of what the snow would be like; well I did think it might be wet and little of it. However judging by Richard's skiing prowess, I knew the conditions needed to be half decent. He skis better than most of the Canadians I know (mind you there are few of them these days :P ).

Beach to ski mountain took over four hours. Mt. Buller is in the Great Dividing Range aka Eastern Highlands, to the east of Melbourne. One might know the area from the movie- The Man from Snowy River. Yup, the very same area.... Yeah I was excited about that as well. Our downhill and cross-country ski images are on the video (sorry no music yet as music collection is in the Melbourne port being radiated for bugs).

bread marvelous bread

This is the most amazing little bakery. Old friends of Richard founded it a year ago. We spent a couple of hours with one of the founders, nibbling on various pieces of buttery toast from their bread range leaving us very excited to have discovered such a local gem.

August

The famous stove.... I can now light the wood stove within a few minutes! That IS progress. I am still burning down a small tropical forest but it is either that or frozen fingers, not a difficult choice.

It seems we've been here for over a month. Time flies when you're freezing! My local "knowledge" has still not increased by leaps and bounds but I can provide you with a few insights of " my first impressions".

Everything is different but much is the same. They speak "differently". Yes it is still english but people speak with more slang and I have to stop them mid sentence to understand what they are saying. A few example are:

He is such a galah
A galah= a bird, but also means a silly and slow minded person

That is really daggy
Daggy= something uncool

Is it very exy?
exy= expensive

There is a smash this morning off the bridge...
a crash or a smash= a term used on the radio for an accident (they believe car collisions are never accidents)


An now to Melbourne.....



The cute but annoying locals in Melbourne, the possums!





Last weekend we were in Melbourne visiting Art Melbourne in the Unesco World Heritage Site, the Exhibition building. People here have money to spend. Most of the aboriginal art, averaging $15,000+ was sold. The main focus of the show was contemporary art from gallery owners across Australia, New Zealand, Korea and a few from China. Not quite as avant guarde as London's Frieze but equally as insightful to what this side of the world is commenting on. The day we attended it was full of people.

While walking around Melbourne we passed through the botanical gardens. Mom look at the size of this magnolia! HUGE. They are all in full bloom, winter blooming down here.....




I am still searching for a local farmer's market we can attend on a regular basis. We took the tram to Richmond (a local neighbourhood in Melbourne) to attend the Abbotsford market. Located right beside a city farm, the market was more of a community fair than farmer's coming into town to sell their produce.
















While walking along the Yarra River and into downtown....


















Back in Barwon Heads and the locals out for a bit of surfing....