A familiar Taste of Sydney

Taste of Sydney, 13-16 March 2014, Centennial Park, Sydney

For its sixth year in Sydney's Centennial Park, Taste of Sydney once again battled with the weather gods to mostly prevail as one of our city's favourite outdoor restaurant and wine festivals.

The parklands were abuzz with stalls on the opening Thursday night with a host of familiar faces and a few new, with the Best in Taste Awards again hosted in the Taste VIP tent.

G.H. Mumm champagne in the Taste VIP tent

With bubbles on pour all night, it was a jovial forum to see the Best in Taste judging panel - including Gourmet Traveller's Pat Nourse, television cook Lyndey Milan, Time Out's Myffy Rigby and Broadsheet Sydney's Sophie McComas - award their picks of the festival.

The Best Dressed stall was deemed to be Rojo Rocket from the rotating Destination Dining restaurants; with the award accepted gleefully by the Taste first-timers. Another festival newbie, Aki's Indian Restaurant, took out third in the Best in Taste, with their poori offering.

Perennial favourites Porteño placed second with their charcoal grilled wagyu skirt steak, and the Best in Taste award went to old-but-new Taste participant Chow Bar & Eating House, with ex-Claudes' owner and chef Chui Lee Luk's 'Beggar's Chicken'.

Taste of Sydney - opening night

While I managed to taste two out of three of the judges' Best in Taste, my Sunday plans for Taste round two were scuppered by a pretty epic storm that's becoming all to common in Sydney town these days.

Porteño's tent kitchen charcoal grill

Luckily we got to crowd-favourite Porteño on the first night; unmissable with all the "faces of" and a huge, open kitchen tent stall that sent charcoal smoke signals direct to Taste's hungry stomachs.

Charcoal grilled entrana - wagyu skirt steak with BBQ peppers and chimichurri from Porteño

Grabbing silver in the judge's awards, Porteño's charcoal grilled wagyu skirt steak was a smoky-flavoured and tender delight of a cut of beef, sliced and topped with a zingy chimichurri herb sauce and settled upon soft cooked red capsicum.

Charcoal grilled lamb rib with marinated eggplant, anchovy
and rosemary pound from Porteño

But it was the charcoal grilled lamb rib, with crunchy pieces of skin and smoky fat covering soft lamb flesh, that had my attention; perfectly spiced and served with meltingly soft eggplant and creamy squiggles of a sauce of anchovy and rosemary.

Porteño's woodfired asado

The beauty of the Porteño approach is that they bring the restaurant to Taste, not just a festival-friendly sample. Four asado woodfire grills were set up around a pit next to the main tent, just like they have at the Surry Hills restaurant, except all lambs splayed for Taste.

Woodfired lamb from the asado with potato salad and chimchurri from Porteño

Having not tried Porteño's woodfired lamb from the asado before, it was the perfect opportunity to have their Taste Icon Dish, served atop a creamy potato salad with the same chimichurri sauce.

The succulent cuts of lamb (leg?) were tender if not a bit one-dimensional, although I did spy various other cuts of the Icon Dish, as it is in the restaurant, that offered more colour and varied texture.

Crispy pork belly with chilli caramel, aioli and mint slaw from Chur Burger

Over at 'Taste veteran but in a new guise' Warren Turnbull's Chur Burger stall, it was a range of miniaturised burgers, also ubiquitously known as sliders.

The pork belly was a winning combination of a crisp hunk of roasted belly with crackling, cabbage and mint slaw, aioli and a sticky chilli caramel; somehow all balanced within a cute, little burger bun.

Kinkawooka mussel fritter with spiced remoulade and dill pickled cucumber
from Chur Burger

The same buns also held two unique-sounding Kinkawooka mussel fritters; a little pikelet-like and floury but lifted by ribbons of dill-scented pickled cucumber and creamy remoulade as a sauce.

Crispy king prawns, green chilli, lime from Longrain

We moved on to Taste (and festivals generally) long-timer Longrain and their irresistible whole fried king prawns, dressed with a refreshing lime and mild green chilli sauce.

With very well-trimmed heads (no dangerous, sharp bits), it was much like eating whole fried school prawns but better, with a crisp, well-seasoned flour coating and that fabulous, firm texture of large crustaceans.

Hay smoked chicken legs - cured and smoked chicken, corn and local garlic creme
from Biota Dining

We continued on the large, fried things path with Biota Dining's cured and hay smoked chicken drumstick.

It was an impressively large chicken specimen with a crunchy crumb coating and soft yellow cream of corn and garlic that's right up there as one of the most expensive chicken drumsticks I've ever had.

Dahi sel poori - crispy wheat pockets with spiced potato and yoghurt from Aki's Indian Restaurant

I knew I wanted to try the podium-winning dish from Aki's Indian Restaurant: dahi sel poori hollow fried wheat pockets, filled with a mix of fragrantly spiced potato and natural yoghurt, garnished with coriander.

Eaten in one or two mouthfuls, the poori was an intriguing sensation of warm and cold, soft and crisp, spice and sourness that was gone all too quickly.

Ceci e tria alla Pugliese - pasta strips cooked two ways, chickpeas, pecorino mousse
from Popolo

The only pasta offering at Taste this year was Popolo's ceci pasta strips, served as a crisp wafer with sharp pecorino mousse, and more classically with a creamy, not-necessarily-photogenic chickpea sauce.

Taco de Cochinito - pulled pork taco, corn puree, salad and salsa rojo from Rojo Rocket

The Avalon-based Rojo Rocket put up tacos, including a pulled pork one that didn't quite look like all the other ones around town.

With a puree of corn, watercress leaves and tasty namesake salsa rojo, the tortilla didn't get a chance to go soggy, scoffed within a minute or so.

Suckling pig on the spit at 4Fourteen / Four in Hand

Otto Ristorante's head chef Richard Ptacnik in the Taste Kitchen

Country Kitchen seating area

The usual Taste features - Taste Kitchen, chefs' talks, wine masterclasses, cocktail classes - were all present as too a few cooking class demonstrations and the new Icon Park restaurant/bar crowdfunding concept, making it an increasingly familiar Taste, with an annual twist. See more photos on my Facebook page.

Food, booze and shoes attended Taste of Sydney as a guest. All food and Crowns were paid for independently.

East Village Gourmet Food Festival and the Long Dinner by Longrain

Crowds at the East Village Gourmet Food Festival, 5 October 2013, Joynton Park, Zetland

I'm not sure how we can be into the last week of Good Food Month already. Work and social life have cruelly ganged up on me so I haven't seen as much as I would have liked and I've only been to the Noodle Markets once this year.

But I did attend the second annual (renamed) East Village Gourmet Food Festival in Zetland's somewhat hidden Joynton Park earlier in the month.

Table seating at the East Village Gourmet Food Festival

Taking its name from the nearby commercial and retail development, due to open mid next year, the East Village Gourmet Food Festival brought together local producers and festival favourites for a day and night of eating, drinking and lounging in the sunny park.

Festival-goers were greeted by a gorgeous day for being outdoors, with food offerings from the likes of Salt Meats Cheese and their signature cured meats and antipasti, Longrain's yellow curry, East Ocean with a myriad of steamed yum cha dumplings and Foley Lane with a bar and food setup.

The growing festival delivered community spirit in spades - from the sophisticated outdoor seating to the petting farm, it felt like a locals event with kids and dogs out in full force.

Spit roast at the Dan the Man stall

Pizza oven at Salt Meats Cheese stall

Foley Lane stall

East Ocean stall

Gelato Messina flavours

Audi kids entertainment

The East Village Gourmet Food Festival by night

This year the outdoor festival continued well into the night with fairy lights, spotlights and happy glows keeping the park alight and half of the stalls remaining open to offer dinner under the stars.

Fairy lights in Joynton Park

Getting into the spit roast at the Dan the Man stall

There was delicious-smelling consolation for those who missed out on the Long Dinner as part of the festival, with whole spit-roasted pigs and lambs from Dan the Man tempting all that walked past.

Tables set up for the Long Dinner

As per last year for the Long Dinner, long, white clothed tables stretched the majority of the length of a very impressive, colourfully lit marquee.

Tables for the Long Dinner

White chairs and perfectly uniformly set tables were lined up beneath some simply stunning floral and foliage displays, with the evening's menu catered by Sydney modern Thai favourite, Longrain.

Longrain owner Sam Christie was out front running the show while head chef Louis Tikaram ran the makeshift kitchen most impressively for a 250-person-plus outdoor event.

Typo-loma cocktails by Longrain

Longrain's cheeky Typo-loma cocktails were a great starting point, for drinks and chatter with nearby diners.

The martini-glassed cocktail featured tequila and grapefruit juice (Paloma, anyone?) with a supposedly Thai twist of chilli-infused Aperol and lime - and a lychee for that girly touch.

Betel leaf, smoked trout, mint, peanuts, chilli by Longrain

Dinner was a Thai banquet shared at the table, starting with my all time favourite Thai appetiser, miang betel leaves topped with smoked trout and a mix of crushed peanuts, mint and red chilli slices in a slightly drippy, sweetly spicy dressing.

Devoured in a mouthful, the sweet, sour, salty and smoky flavours of the miang were perfect palate starters, readying one for a barrage of big, bold Thai tastes for the rest of the night.

Caramelised pork, prawn, peanuts on sour pineapple

The second appetiser was new to me; a nugget of very caramelised battered pork, and apparently prawn, on a wedge of pineapple.

It was hard not to immediately think of that Australian-Chinese classic, sweet and sour pork, but there were some highlight flavours in the pork and coriander that lifted it way beyond takeaway Chinese.

Grilled king prawn, green chilli nahm jim

The halved and grilled prawns were one of my favourite dishes of the night, with shells fragrantly grilled and split.

The large prawns were served with a very well balanced, just-spicy-enough, chunky green chilli nahm jim dressing that was so good it was drinkable and more fresh coriander leaves.

Prawn, chicken, coconut cream, kaffir lime

To mains, there were three different dishes which I thought was quite a feat 250-plus people. The first coconut cream concoction was a surprise of diced prawn and chicken in a mildly spiced, rich sauce served with witlof leaves on the side, as if a modern Thai take on san choy bao.

Having not ever seen or experienced a Thai dish like this before, it worked unexpectedly well with the witlof cups although it was quite comforting to have the creamy prawn and chicken gravy just over loads of jasmine rice.

Char grilled Cape Grim beef, roasted chilli eschallot dressing

The grilled beef dish was a return to familiar ground, served medium-pink and thinly sliced with a mound of roasted chilli paste on the side for flavouring and a bit of heat.

Red curry of duck, Thai basil

The red curry was undoubtedly the piece de resistance of the meal, coming out resplendently red over generous quarters of fall-apart duck which absorbed all the complex flavours within the curry - perfect with lots and lots of steamed rice.

Steamed Chinese broccoli, oyster sauce

Along with large bowls of steamed rice were steamed Chinese greens, served healthily and simply with oyster sauce.

Banana fritter, caramel custard, passionfruit

With stomach capacity remaining for dessert, diners hoed into platters of thickly battered banana portions, the Thai theme a little wanting.

It's been a while since I've had a banana fritter, and I'm still not convinced I like them, even if the crisp batter made for great mops for the passionfruit pulp and caramel custard covering the plate.

The Long Dinner by Longrain at the East Village Gourmet Food Festival

While bottomless glasses of wine may have helped too, it was a dinner that reminded me that I'm long overdue for a visit back to Longrain.

The Long Dinner also did a fantastic job of fitting into the local community feel of the East Village Gourmet Food Festival - at least for those lucky ones of us which can call this our local community.

The Long Dinner at the East Village Gourmet Food Festival

See more photos of the East Village Gourmet Food Festival on my Facebook page.

Food, booze and shoes attended The Long Dinner at the East Village Gourmet Food Festival as a guest.

Three's a charm at Taste of Sydney

Taste of Sydney 2013, Centennial Park, Sydney

Another year, another filling weekend spent at Taste of Sydney. Blessed by the weather gods this year, I was particularly looking forward to the four days at Centennial Park following a preview 'Taste safari' trip with the organisers and PR firm the week prior.

The chefs of Taste of Sydney 2013

On arrival at the Miele VIP lounge on a cloud-threatened Thursday evening, it was Laurent Perrier champagne and canapés all round as we readied for the Best in Taste awards announcement as part of the opening night gala event - a little 'Oscars' of Taste.

It was chock-a-block in the Miele tent as Kitchen by Mike was awarded the best front of house display. Popolo won third place in the Best in Taste with its pasta offering while Longrain took out second place for its rice noodle dish.

It was full attention for the announcement of the Best in Taste award which went to Taste first-timer Porteño for its wagyu beef brisket, cooked in an American style barbeque which was shipped over especially from the US.

Elvis Abrahanowicz and Ben Milgate from Porteño

Post the awards announcement and a quick bubbles top-up, we made a beeline for the Porteño restaurant stall, which turned out to be a very good idea as they queues quickly grew and stayed that way for most the rest of the festival.

It was all hands on deck with maitre'd Sarah Doyle in charge of distributing plate upon plate of barbecued goodness from the hands of Elvis Abrahanowicz and Ben Milgate.

BBQ wagyu beef brisket with BBQ sauce and pickle from Porteño

The best dish of the festival as deemed by the judges, Porteño BBQ wagyu brisket comprised a few slices of fat-streaked beef, smoked to a point of redness and fall-apart tenderness.

The rich meat was set off perfectly with a subtly smokey BBQ sauce and a pickle, while the crisp and creamy coleslaw mound beneath was a total highlight for me.

Chorizo with chimmichurri from Porteño

I couldn't resist Porteño's chorizo dish either; something I had in mind to try on my next visit to the Surry Hills restaurant.

The chubby and chunky pork sausage burst with flavour and spiced juiciness, and was served a with fresh and herbaceous chimmichurri that was a meat-eater's match.

Jackie M and Poh Ling Yeow at Malaysia Kitchen stall

We scurried towards the unmistakeable spice smells of Malaysia Kitchen feature, where Jackie M, Poh Ling Yeow and a Malaysia Tourism official launched their first year of participation in Taste of Sydney.

A demo kitchen was set up aside stalls selling Malaysian sauces, pastes and snacks, while a different pop-up restaurant was featured every day.

Poh Ling Yeow demonstrates Hokkien noodles in the Malaysia Kitchen feature

Poh did a quick demonstration of Hokkien noodles in a dark soy sauce, which had the tent area salivating at the aromas and queuing for the subsequent samples.

Dilmah tea lounge

Dilmah had quite the luxurious tea lounge on site where free cups of tea were offered alongside a high tea experience.

Biota Dining chef James Viles in the Dilmah Chef's Skillery tent

Also a new feature of Taste was the Dilmah Chef's Skillery which was presenting chefs in a number of up-close sessions demonstrating a particular skill, with a few tea leaves thrown in, of course.

Bowral's Biota Dining chef and director James Viles was good fun to watch as he torched tea leaves to make a smoked tea butter, churned with a KitchenAid and 45% fat content cream from his local dairy farmer, and strained through a (brand new) blue Chux wipe and served on a river stone.

Croquette - Southern crayfish with paleta and Biota garden onions

Biota had a restaurant stall popping-up as part of the Destination Dining feature which this year featured three regional NSW restaurants.

Viles' passion for his sustainable practices, and a few pre-event tweets, had me excited for his croquette offering. The crunchiest golden crumb you ever did see, or hear, held fluffy potato-ey innards with sea-sweet Southern crayfish flesh.

And while it was the crayfish I was most excited to try, I was blown away by the creamy white onion purée served beneath the three croquettes which had sweetness and heat in equally thrilling parts.

Roast Murray Valley prok salad, crisp rice, mint, chilli and peanuts from Longrain

We shuffled next door to the Taste-seasoned Longrain guys whose Thai salads are a never-fail. The topping of triangles of pork crackling bode well for the roast pork salad, with the amazing crackling balanced with fresh flavours of mint, lime and a fair whack of fresh chilli.

Chia seeds with a Nudie crushie

Pasta from Pasta Gallery

Chocolate, yuzu curd, miso butterscotch from Three Blue Ducks

While there was a suitable amount of tasting to be done across the exhibiting stalls, not even including the dozens of wine stalls, we found room for dessert from Three Blue Ducks, drawn in by the promise of yuzu curd.

It was a surprisingly harmonious combination of rather diverse ingredients with just the right amount of richness: chocolate ganache, curd, cake bits, citrus segments lightening the whole lot and even honeycomb from memory.

Taste of Sydney weekend

Weekend crowds at Taste of Sydney

I returned to Taste on the weekend, where a it seems a great proportion of Sydney decided to spend a rare sunny weekend. The stiflingly hot Saturday was somewhat better than the windy Sunday, but in all, it was great outdoor festival weather, and Sydney was loving it.

Cointreau Strawberry and Mint Fizz

Having being introduced to the Cointreau Fizz recently (with Dita Von Teese), it was hard to resist an icy, freshly mixed drink in the heat.

Most irresistible was the plastic Cointreau conical flasks the drinks were served in, with strawberry and mint or cucumber and lime or a number of other flavour combination, and Cointreau and soda water as a base. I'll be able to make my own fizz in a flask at home now too.

Jackie M char kway teo demonstration at the Malaysia Kitchen feature

Over the whole festival, Jackie M and Poh were alternating demonstrations in the Malaysia Kitchen feature. I caught Jackie M doing char kway two with chicken, which she told the audience wasn't exactly traditional but "whatever" - totally my attitude to cooking.

Martin Boetz (soon to be ex Longrain) in Dilmah Chef's Skillery

I also managed to catch Martin Boetz in the Dilmah Chef's Skillery, putting together a smoking mix for a hunk of kingfish. Green tea, various fresh and dried spices, rice and citrus peel made their way into the mix, which Boetz would normally smoke in a wok.

His departure from the Longrain kitchen after 14 years (last day is 30 June) is bittersweet as he moves on to focus on his Cook's Co-op farm: a couple of hectares of land up Hawkesbury way where Boetz is growing produce for Sydney restaurants in an attempt to reconnect chefs to the land, to where food really comes from.

BBQ ocean trout with tangy Mexican street salad from Peter Kuruvita's Seafood Barbeque

Just over at Peter Kuruvita's self-named restaurant stall, the grill burners were pumping out gorgeously fresh dishes of seafood.

The barbequed Petuna ocean trout was cooked beautifully and barring a few bones, it was an excellent match to the 'Mexican street salad' which could also have been named a tropical fruit salad given it comprised paw paw, dragon fruit and grilled pineapple.

Fregola alla zafferano con ragu di Maialino - Saffron infused toasted fregola pasta,
suckling pig ragu

I made a point of trying out Popolo as it's somewhere I've wanted to visit since the restaurant opened last year. Its fregola pasta dish also achieved second place in the Best in Taste awards, probably solely for the mouthwateringly rich suckling pig ragu.

The little pasta is much like Israeli couscous, like nubbins of a thick round noodle, and perfectly textured for the meaty sauce.

Slow braised pork cheek with black fungus relish roll from Claude's

The feasting continued at Claude's where the pork jowl rolls we sampled at the preview were going like hot cakes.

Slow cooked, fatty slices of pork cheek will do that, especially when it's on a scoffable little bun with a relish of black woodear fungus to cut through the fat.

Head chef and owner Chui Lee Luk of Claude's

Twice baked cheese souffle from Claude's

There's none of Claude's chef and owner Chui Lee Luk's Malaysian heritage in the Icon Dish of a cheese soufflé though. It's pure French decadence as we attack the hot, cheesy mound, made to order on site. It's almost an unfair advantage, but it might well have been the best dish I tried at Taste this year.

Chef Mike McEnearney of Kitchen by Mike

The Kitchen by Mike stall was also doing a roaring trade in its fairground themed offerings of sweet corn on a stick and Pluto pups.

Mike's pluto pup (front) and sweet corn with jalapeno salsa (back) from Kitchen by Mike

It was definitely my first battered sausage on a stick in a very long time, and I have a feeling fairground ones aren't this good with a smokey sausage inside golden batter, and a house made to tomato and capsicum sauce - an easy dish to love despite its apparent simplicity.

Cha Begendy - Scotch fillet cha kebap on charcoal spit, eggplant and kashar puree

It was meat central at Efendy's stall, with a couple of charcoal spits fired up over the four days for lamb, beef, eggplants and capsicums.

, The Scotch fillet cha kebap was the easy choice with thin slices of the tender, fully cooked beef laid atop of a smokey eggplant purée I could have eaten by the bowl.

Deboned and roasted sheep's head with local garlic and cherry tomatoes tandir

I wasn't game or too keen on the sheep's head offering which was served deboned - although I had a funny if not ghoulish vision of sheep's skulls doing the rounds at Taste.

By all accounts, there was meat to be had in the head, in addition to plenty of roasted sheep's brain. Eyes were not mentioned.

Mussels and suckling pig on at Four in Hand / 4Fourteen

Wagyu brisket coming out of the barbeque from Porteño



Cheese plate from Salt Meats Cheese

Inside out pizza boxes from Salt Meats Cheese were the accessory of the festival, highlighting the popularity of grazing at reasonable prices.

The generous 'plate' of three cheeses came with copious amounts of thin, Sardinian style crisp bread; and while the super stinky soft cheese polarised some, the hard (parmeggiano or pecorino) was a definite winner.

The Sommelier's Natural Environment session at the Plumm Taste Wine Theatre

We spied some free seats at the Plumm Taste Wine Theatre just in time to join GT Wines' Nick Stock and a panel of sommeliers going through five wines and potential food matches.

It was a very entertaining session with some interesting new tastes and tidbits learnt. The Between Five Bells rose was a fruity, summery highlight I'll need to seek out again.

Chocolate dipped pistachio mastic ice cream from Booza

I finished at Taste with the guys at Booza who were making plenty of friends over the hot weekend weather with their unique mastic ice cream. The authentic Middle Eastern flavours were made modern with a Zokoko chocolate dip and popped on a stick; just perfect for festival strolling and scoffing.

The sesame-based halva flavour was superb although I still can't decide whether I like the rose Turkish delight or pistachio flavours more.

Taste crowds on hot and windy Sunday

As Taste continues to grow and mature, I once again departed the white tented stalls in Centennial Park pretty stuffed, wallet pretty emptied but pretty happy with the state of food and wine in Sydney and beyond.

See more photos from Taste of Sydney 2013 on my Facebook page.

The big pink Taste fork at the entrance

Food, booze and shoes attended Taste of Sydney 2013 as a media guest, with thanks to Stellar Concepts. Food and Crowns were paid for independently.