Noosa Food Festival

Last month we visited one of our favourite places, to do one of our favourite things - Noosa (which is sentimental to us because it's where we got married) to go to the Noosa International Food Festival. What a great weekend. We often go up to Brisbane for Mothers Day and I'm always envious when I see the ads for the Food festival the following weekend, so this time, we decided to move Mothers Day and take my Mother in Law for a weekend away. We started off the weekend on Thursday evening with a fun, light hearted, food themed concert. The QLD Virtuosi orchestra, along with special guests were a great source of entertainment, and this was almost the highlight of the weekend. It certainly kicked the festival off to a great start.

On Friday morning we breakfasted at our wedding reception spot, Berardo's on the Beach. It was a great experience as usual with amazing service, delicious food and what a view! It is a fave of ours, but also, being in one of the most stunning locations, a fave of some of the weekend guests to Noosa, the Chefs. Not only did we spot Neil Perry walking into the restaurant and sitting down at a table when we were outside chatting on the boardwalk admiring the beach, but we even featured in his Instagram snap of the occasion! (See us in the foreground with Noosa beach and National Park in the background!)

Saturday was our day to hit the festival and the rain that had sprinkled on Friday afternoon cleared up, leaving the only memory of it as the squelchy mud beneath our feet! We spent a lot of time glued to the main stage with chef after chef showing off their beautiful dishes. David Thompson from Nahm restaurant, which we were lucky enough to visit on our trip last year to Thailand, prepared a spicy stir fry, and Guy Grossi and Jacques Reymond also demonstrated some fascinating techniques.

Another highlight of the festival was High Tea by the River. In a sun drenched marquee with views of the Eric Pernoud (a local patissier) and Adriano Zumbo. What a delicious spread! We had different flavoured eclairs from Pernoud, ranging from traditional flavours to some distinct and unexpected ones; Cheesy bites from Ian Curley and then Zumbo's macarons and a pineapple and popping candy verrine that popped and tingled in our mouths. We certainly enjoyed everything that we were served and the Chefs were very gracious coming round to visit the guests at the table. I think Zumbo probably had his photo taken with every guest that attended!
river, we were treated to some great sweets and savouries from Ian Curley,

All in all, Noosa gave us another fabulous weekend and we left with more memories of a great festival and town!

Tastes on my Travels

As I travel it has started to become clearer what type of restaurants I am drawn to. Of course, I love going to the classics and trying out the acclaimed chefs' places when in their home city, but what I've noticed as I browse through the restaurant recommendations I receive is that I'm drawn to a couple of things: I like quirky buildings or locations - restaurants in buildings converted from another purpose; I love the underdog - not the top restaurant in town, but the best new restaurants, off the beaten track ones; and I love interesting produce that's a bit different to the norm, but where the preparation isn't too out there with gels and soils etc. 

Recently, I've just come back from a few weeks work and play in North America - San Jose and Vancouver to be specific - where I found some restaurants I really enjoyed which fit some or all of the criteria!

Naglee Park Garage, San Jose

This recommendation came from a colleague who thought I'd love it! Of course I did. I watched a YouTube clip of the feature on Diners, Drive In's and Dives and was really excited to try it. Classic American burger and fries but with a twist! Perfect. Even better was the courtyard out to back of the converted garage in San Jose. We sat on long shared tables and relaxed on the summers evening enjoying the food, wine and music from a jazz band playing at the back. It was a great place to kick back and chill!

Wildebeest, Vancouver

I was really excited to go to Wildebeest in Vancouver. The menu looked so interesting when I was scouring websites for where to eat in Vancouver and wow! It delivered. I really enjoy the idea of share plates which are a little bigger than starter size but not as big as a main, so you can try quite a few things. These dishes were delicious with every bite packing a punch. We had a bunch of  things including bison tartare, so interesting and flavoursome; delectable quail with the hay still smoking; tender and melt-in-your-mouth beef shortrib. The restaurant had a great vibe contrasting to the quiet Gastown street outside when we left!

Fable Restaurant, Vancouver

Fable is another Vancouver favourite established a few years ago inspired by Top Chef Canada "restaurant wars." For a Monday night I didn't think we'd have trouble getting a table but this is a popular haunt and we just squeezed in for an early sitting! This was another colleague's recommendation (they really know me!) and it was fabulous. The highlight for me was the "canned tuna" - confit (I think) tuna with preserved lemons served in a "can" but the other dishes were delicious - perfectly cooked duck and lamb; clever potato crusted chicken and good old Steak Frites! 

 Ah, great food really makes a great holiday for me. And really makes me want to return to try some of the other menu items that I didn't pick - makes my travel wishlist that bit longer though!

Wham Bam Thank you Nahm!

Nahm..... the 32nd best restaurant in the world and we were THERE! And it was fabulous - a great culmination of a week of fabulous Thai feasting. Nahm's menu was inspired by David Thompson's studies into old Thai cookbooks. He also produced a cookbook called "Thai Street Food" and we definitely tasted some refined versions of the tasty street vendor fare. How could you choose from a 6 page menu, so we went for the set menu - a selection of canapes for entree, followed by one of each of the soup, salad, stir fry, curry and relish, and then dessert. Our eyes were a bit bigger than our stomachs, but it was delicious. 

Canapes

Our Menu

The canapes arrived at the table to kick the meal off. They were fresh little bites. The smoked fish, peanut and tapioca dumpling reminded us of a dish we'd not been so fond of earlier in the week - this was obviously the right way to cook tapioca! The salted threadfin perch with ginger, chilli and green mango on betel leaves was a flavour combo to be enjoyed in one bite. 

This was so spicy it nearly blew our mouths away, and had us giggling for a while, whilst sipping on our Thai cocktails and beer. We cooled down our mouths with some watermelon and mango dipped in toasted coconut before tackling the prawn and coconut wafers with pickled ginger.

Main

For main, we had the one of all the different sections of the menu:

Salad - Salad of fresh water crayfish with pork and Asian pennywort

Soup - Clear soup of roast duck with Thai basil and young coconut

Relish - Minced prawn and pork simmered in coconut cream with young chillies, red shallots and coriander with fresh vegetables and deep fried cured carp

Curry - Aromatic curry of wagyu beef and sweet potatoes with cucumber relish

Stir Fry - Scallops stir-fried with spring onions and chilli

The wagyu beef curry was definitely the highlight. Melt in your mouth slow cooked falling apart meat infused with delicious spice flavours. The scallops was a close second. Perfectly cooked and tasty!

Dessert

We really didn't need dessert! Sooooo full! But this is what we had 

Lychee in scented syrup with Thai Cup cakes

Sweet Thai wafers with poached persimmons and golden duck egg noodles.

The sweet Thai wafers were definitely an adaption of the street food that we had tried earlier in the week. These wafers though were crispy and creamy and juicy! 

The lychee was cool on our tongues and refreshing. The cup cakes were also a reminder of the markets throughout the week with the surprising (but not as surprising this time) salty, savoury spring onion mixture in the middle of the sweet batter.

32 in the world..... Amazing (but we rekon some Sydney restaurants are better!)

Gerard's Bistro, Brisbane: "Can I eat this everyday?"

Oysters with Pomegranate

When we were up in Brisbane the other day, we booked early enough to get a table at Gerard's Bistro. I had been scouring the internet, twittersphere and blogs for restaurant ideas and I'd come across a few posts about Gerard's which it turns out is the "Best New Restaurant 2013." The menu looked a bit out of the ordinary with the Middle Eastern twist on the dishes, which caught my eye, and the realistic prices also made me think that we were on to a winner!

Slow Roasted Wagyu Brisket

Winner it was! I loved the passion that all of the staff brought to their descriptions of the food, and the casual but classy atmosphere. We were watching a group next to us tucking in to what turned out to be one of the house specialties  the slow roasted Wagyu Brisket, and we couldn't get past it, so after a couple of oysters each and a charcuterie plate, we were brought our board with the melt in the mouth, tender beef and interesting veggie sides.

Spiced Date Cream

One comment from the table was "Can I eat this every day?" Yes....It was that good!

After polishing off that lip licking deliciousness, we got a dessert for the table to share - the spiced date
cream. It looked stunning and finished off a gorgeous meal perfectly whilst still allowing us to remember the piece de resistance, the gorgeous Brisket. We'll be back again the first opportunity we can get!

Fab Crab

Before...

I am not normally a big crab eater. I love the taste, so am happy to use crab meat in recipes and munch on a soft shell crab sushi roll or crab cakes but for a full crab in it's shell I really have to be in the mood for the fuss. Recently when in the US, the Boiling Crab Restaurant came highly recommended, and a bunch of us from work decided to make the trip. The first highlight of the evening was when were picked up from our hotel, not in a Maxi-taxi that we'd ordered, but instead a stretch limo! Oh, the irony! Of all places to be arriving in a limo.....From the sublime to the ridiculous!

Crab in the bag!

After bibbing up with full frontal heavy duty bibs, the food started to arrive. At a restaurant called Boiling Crab, you have to of course have crab. We tried King Crab Claws and Dungeness Crab, as well as Shrimps (commonly known by us Aussies as King Prawns), Corn and Cajun Fries. Rather than plates, they arrive in large plastic bags full of delicious sauce drenched seafood. You dig into the plastic bag and just chuck the shells on the table. Sounds messy? It was!!! I am not shy of getting into a mess in the kitchen, or at the dining table, but this has to be the messiest meal I've ever enjoyed. And enjoy we did!

...After

My colleague, also a foodie, who regularly frequents this restaurant, had a sixth sense of how much to order so the piles of seafood that arrived at the table which seemed like we'd never get through ended up being the perfect quantity! We feasted until we were crabbed and prawned out, cracking open the shells and sucking the juicy flesh from claws! Fabulous crab in a fun place where I didn't mind the fuss!

Food: Transforming America's Table

Food: Transforming America's Table

Food: Transforming America's Table in the Smithsonian museum of American History had been open only for a month or so - just in time for our visit to Washington DC. It was a real highlight of the trip to become acquainted with some of America's celebrity chefs from the early days, and to see some of our favourites from top chef cooking with Julia Childs' early in their careers!

Julia's kitchen was replicated looking like she'd just walked out of it a few minutes earlier and her infamous recognisable chortle resounded around the place as if she was doing a demo right there!

Julia Child's Kitchen

Another fascinating exhibit case had appliances from the ages. It was the fondue set that caught my eye having just had an experience at a fondue restaurant on the West Coast. A crepe pan, pasta roller and Dutch oven  were displayed here again, perhaps to highlight the European influences to food culture in the US.

After about an hour in the food gallery, I dragged myself away and I decided I really should see the star spangled banner as a more traditional take on American history before immersing myself in the other sights of Washington DC and enjoying some of the modern food culture at the city's restaurants shaping the new food history!

Eat Drink Blog 2012: My Top 5 Highlights

Last week was the wonderful Eat Drink Blog 2012 Conference in Adelaide organised by a fabulous South Australia based group of bloggers. The bringing together of like minds for a weekend has certainly been one of  the highlights of my blogging career, as it reinspired and energised me to lift my blogging game. Of course, I could walk through the days one by one, but since we'd all be asleep by the time the plane touched down in Adelaide, I thought I'd pick the top 5 learnings to share.

1. Sydney pulled the market short straw
I don't quite know how I've made it to Adelaide on a few occasions but never been to the Adelaide Central Market. It's a bit like Central Station in Sydney, that is, not quite in the centre, but now that I know about it, it will be the centre of my next visits to Adelaide. What happened to Sydney in all of this? We ended up with Paddy's Market, selling cheap souvenirs, while Adelaide has this great hub filled with hundreds of vendors collected under the same roof selling their speciality products at what seemed like reasonable prices, creating a real community feel whilst supporting the farmers and growers.

2. Don't gush
Diane Jacobs, an expert in food writing who has written the food writers/bloggers bible, Will Write for Food, (which I can't wait to get my hands on) was the keynote speaker. As well as many other nuggets, her key advice was: don't gush... It's boring. I guess I knew that already, but do have a tendency to rave about things I love, and it would be very easy for me to gush about the Eat Drink Blog Conference, but I'll keep that in check. When I receive the book I have on order right now, I'll be putting my new found food writing knowledge to the test!

3. Write the recipe ingredients in the order they'll be used
One of the themes running through a variety of presentations was that keeping it simple for readers is the key. Readers and, more importantly, our recipe triers, don't want things to be too complicated, or they'll just go elsewhere. I hadn't really actually thought that people would really be trying my recipes, but in case they are, I'd better make them clear. One of the simplest ways to do that is to list out the recipe ingredients in the order they appear in the recipe. I can put that one into practice straight away!



4. Email subscribers are like gold

Email subscribers are the loyal friends who have requested blog posts straight to their inbox. Instead of having to go seeking through the facebook feed, competing with their friends wedding pics, the next fun event, they have opted to be sent the posts each week to distract them from work, and therefore I might actually get a look in! I had never thought about it like that till Jules from the Stone Soup's presentation. By thinking about what I am wanting my readers to do when they get to my blog, I can hopefully make it a little simpler for readers to engage when they arrive!

5. There really is too much of a good thing

Who says you can't get enough of a good thing? I love food and tasting everything I can! The Eat Drink Blog Conference 2012, however, actually pushed me to the limit! There were so many tasty offerings provided for us to feast upon by the generous sponsors: Breakfast from Red Door Bakery, Lunch from the market producers who came in on their day off to feed us at Adelaide Central Market, Coffee from Breville, A Mexican feast from the Hilton, Chocolate fountains from Providore, cheese from Barossa Cheese Company, cakes from the Cupcake Table to mention a few that I can remember! I think it's clear that I'll not make the grade as a competitive eater, but I had a great time trying!

Thanks again to Lambs Ears and Honey; The Hungry Australian; Eating Adelaide; Travelling in MaryJanes; She Cooks, She Gardens; The Natural Foodie; Playing House for organising a memorable, insightful but also fun weekend! And the South Australian Tourist Board for showcasing their beautiful state!

Waterside Inn

Croc at Sunset

Wow! This time last year we were off to Darwin! Our trip to the Northern Territory gave me a different food perspective, not an eating experience, but an interesting insight into some Bush tucker tricks employed by the native indigenous Australians. On our river cruises along crocodile infested water, it was surprising to hear about the variety of foods that were available in the river and on the banks, in addition to the crocs themselves.

Melaleuca Paperbark Trees

After catching the barramundi that are prolific in the Kakadu waters, the Melaleuca, paper bark was used to wrap the fish and give it distinctive flavours. One of the most interesting aspects was that different trees would give off different flavours - thus the indigenous people could have their choice of "seasonings."

Pandanus Tree

There were a few other anecdotes that sparked my interest: Pandanus, another edible waterside offering, provided fruit and leaves to wrap and scent food, as well as weave into baskets. The plentiful lotus flowers and lily pads around the river systems were popular, as seeds and roots could both be eaten.

Lotus

Finally (or rather the last thing that sticks in my brain!), an alternative fishing method was to grind up the mangrove leaves into a poison to float in the water. The stunned fish floated to the surface and the indigenous people could collect them much easier!

As I reflect now a year on, from the comfort of my living room, with my fridge and spice rack a few metres away, and a supermarket across the road, it's fascinating to transport myself to another world where food stuffs come from the earth and ingenious methods are employed to enhance basic meals.

Mountain Range

Grilled Chicken Skewers

This weekend we went camping out in the Watagan Mountain Range, to try out a few new purchases of ours. The first was our new Jeep "Nancy," a fun 4WD soft top, which we were keen to try on a quick weekend away to see how much she holds. The second was our new camping stove (or range!) which we'd purchased at the camping show earlier this year but hadn't used it yet. Our previous camping cooking appliance was a fabulous "Fire and Ice" BBQ/Esky combo which served us so well for many years. Last year in Darwin whilst camping though, we experienced the convenience and compactness of the gas camping stoves and decided to upgrade. We got ourselves a fabulous Colemans 3 Burner range.

Veg, potatoes and patties (for the kids)

We are known for our gourmet camping menus and this one was no different. We started off with some honey soy chicken skewers. Normally on the BBQ it would take about 20 mins to warm up and then about 30 mins to cook chicken but these were cooked through in about 15 mins. Our main was sirloin steaks with veg stir fry and potatoes. Again the stove did a great job. We had the grill plate over half for the steaks and used a fry pan for the stir fry on one of the other burners. What a great dinner to christen the stove for many more excursions to come!

Barnacle Bills

Scallops Deling

On a recent trip to Cairns even though short we of course had to pay a visit to his favourite restaurant Barnacle Bills. When he was living and working there it was a real institution and he knew and hung out with the some of the family of the family owned and run establishment. It is a classic seafood restaurant on the esplanade with a fabulous menu and generous portions. We started off with a share plate of scallops and pork belly. Yum! What a delicious combination.

Seafood Curry

For some reason I had been craving curry for dinner and unusually for me I chose a seafood curry from the extensive picks of seafood options. I typically don't go for dishes where the seafood flavour has been masked by a strong sauce but this one was perfect. There was just enough heat but the sauce really complimented the perfectly cooked fish and seafood. After filling up on entree and main full of the flavour of the sea there was no way I could fit in dessert, but a great evening and can't wait for our next trip to TNQ so we can pay another visit!

Sarap in Parap

I was looking at my photos from last year's Darwin trip and was inspired again! The markets in Darwin were one of the highlights of a trip to NT, and we weren't even there for the famous Thursday/Sunday night Mindl beach markets. We headed to the Saturday morning Parap market on recommendation of Marion from Masterchef's and our great foodie's friends, to find the Green Papaya salad and Laksa. The markets are an ecclectic mix of Australian, indigenous Australian and Asian, all surrounding one block of a suburb on the outskirts of Darwin.

We had been advised to look for the woman with the big wooden pestle and mortar bashing the green papaya salad together. I guess we found her, and if we didn't (there seemed to be several large pestle and mortars on various stalls) it was certainly a salad worth the hunt. I regret not picking up one of the green papaya shavers (an implement I'm sure I could substitute with one of my mandolin slicer attachments, but it's just not the same!) as the salad was so expertly and quickly thrown together, with the shards of fruit, bashed up chilli, fish sauce and peanuts (I'm sure there's other secret ingredients). When I placed the order, I was asked how many chillis. I think we got two in our "medium" salad - I didn't want to be too blown away! It's a shame I wasn't in Darwin long enough to figure out how many I do - chillis that is - I think I could have gone hotter, but good to start off safe.

The market was bustling and surprisingly, despite the heat, the queue for the laksa was a few people deep. Not only was this the busiest, so the people were crammed in waiting for their turn to order and pick up their pots of spicy soup, but it was situated right in the heart of the market with the heat from the stalls and the day making us a little hot and bothered.

When ours finally arrived we escaped to a cool table under a tree to cool down, but the sweat didn't stop pouring off the brow with the heat of the laksa broth and the kick of the papaya salad. This, however, was sweat of contentment!

PS. Sarap means Delicious in Tagalog (the language my family in the Philippines speaks) I couldn't help thinking "how appropriate" the whole time I was in Parap markets!

Bicol Express

Bicol Express

One of the specialities of the southern Luzon province, Bicol, where we spend a few days on our recent Philippine Trip, is the spicy food. JB from J.B.Jose recommended we try the Bicol Express, which was exactly to our taste buds. It featured on the menu of most of the restaurants we frequented but one of the highlight meals of the trip was on our last day in the area at Kozina Tyche where we ordered Bicol Express along with several other stand out dishes!

Pork Sisig

Along with the speciality spicy pork and chilli, Bicol Express, which wasn't a disappointment, we ordered Sizzling Pork Sisig, a rich combination of minced pork, calamansi juice, served with a soft egg; Chicharon, crispy pork crackling; Crab Relleno, a stuffed crab dish, and Pinaputok na Cream Dory Fish, a beautiful looking dish of fish wrapped in banana leaves, which 

Pinaputok na Cream Dory Fish

The dishes were presented beautifully, looked and tasted delicious, reinforcing that Bicol was a great place for sampling typical local cuisine.

Let's Get Laud..ico!

Adobo Shitake Mushroom Cappuccino

In Manila we were delighted to be invited to a family lunch at Chef Laudico Bistro Filipino at the Fort to try some modern Filipino cuisine. I loved the idea of the menu as soon as I read it: All you can Eat Degustation. It was perfect for trying all the restaurant had to offer. You could order whatever you liked and it would come it in small portions - allowing you to try many more dishes than had you ordered A la Carte, but with much more flexibility than a traditional degustation. The most daunting, but smart thing was the clean plate policy - we had to eat everything up - but it wasn't too difficult!

Sisig Shooters

One of the signature dishes of the restaurant is the Adobo Shitake Mushroom soup which was served just like a cappuccino but tasted nothing like it! The creamy mushroom flavour was so smooth and flavourful - yum! Another favourite was the Sisig Shooters. The sisig was served in a crispy cup on the top of the shot glass with a quail egg shooter in the glass. Interesting presentation, and whilst I'm not a huge fan of hard boiled eggs, the sisig flavour was delicious.

Crispy Pata

A range of more main style dishes were presented to us at the table: Telapia, Adobo Overload, Crispy Pata, Beef Estofado and it seemed many more plates for us to dig our forks into to try. Then came the desserts. I had a few of the mini dessert offerings, but by far the tastiest was the Yema Balls - donut like balls with custard, to dip in chocolate sauce.

It was a fabulous meal, lots of delicious food, laughter and great times with our Filipino family.

Heavenly Hanuman

Hanuman Oysters

Jimmy Shu's Hanuman restaurant was one that was overwhelmingly recommended by those hearing we were heading to Darwin and for those that know us, they could have been pretty sure it would be a hit with a signature dish of oysters with a spicy sauce - our favourites all rolled in to one!

On the menu for us, as well as the signature oysters, we also had some delicious Trumpet Mushrooms, with lightly curried pork & prawn mince, and a coconut sauce, and tandoori prawns.

Rogan Josh Lamb Shanks

The Indian inspired Rogan Josh Lamb Shanks were probably the best lamb shanks I've had -l'll be trying that out when the cold weather comes again next year!  My fave Indian dish, chicken tikka masala didn't disappoint, and we left feeling very satisfied, but not satisfied that we'd done the menu justice and had to come back again for another try, this time of the Thai style dishes. For our second visit, we tasted the Meen Moolie, barramundi spiced with turmeric in a creamy coconut sauce and Cam's staple Thai favourite - Red Curry Duck. What is usually a sweet dish, was beautifully balanced with great spicy and fresh pineapple to counter balance.

Trumpet Mushrooms

We didn't even look at the dessert menu we were so full, but could quite happily come back for more another time. Just a shame Hanuman Sydney isn't on the cards.

Top End Dining

Garlic Prawn Salad

Heading out into the bush with a small Engel fridge, $20 Big W Wok and fry pan set, and a mini sharp knife challenges our foodie creative juices to come up with space efficient, easy to prepare, convenient dishes. Normally shunning prepackage, preprepared food, we gravitate to the relatively unknown when camping. Not prepackaged food like boxed macaroni cheese mind you, but the presliced stir fry veg packs and bags of salad.

Steak and Salad

Steak and salad is a staple camping repertoire. Seared med rare meat with healthy greens being a no fuss option for our first night. One of our highlight meals was a frozen pack of garlic prawns tossed through Italian leaves for a protein rich light dinner. Although frozen, the prawns tasted delicious and stayed fresh a lot longer on oiur travels than had we have bought fresh, and far superior to a canned fish option as an alternative.

Camping Kitchen Stir fry

We attempted a few stir frys, slicing our own meat to add to the pre-sliced veg pack. It was so simple to have fresh meat and crispy veg flashed in the wok and was wonderful and tasty!

Top End dining while on the road - convenient but delish to keep these two foodies happy!