Sweet Cherrie Pie: Festival

Showing posts with label Festival. Show all posts

8 March 2011

SBS Food Journey Festival 2011

With the picturesque Royal exhibition building in the background and delicious aromas wafting through the late summer air, you wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

I was at the SBS Food Journey Festival. It was the first year this event was held for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. The interesting thing about this festival was that half of the stalls were outside. Usually these type of food festivals, the stalls are all indoors. The stalls indoors were producers of all sorts like Ganache, Movepick and Toscana to name a few. The outdoors stalls were the food stalls where all kind of cooking was being done. We managed to buy a few different foods to try but it was just too many to chose from.

There were numerous stages dotted around the garden where performances or demonstrations were being held. The main stage was the Feasting Stage where Maeve O'Meara hosted a variety of presenters that have been featured on Food Safari. There were also other popular chefs that were scheduled over the 3 days of the festival. Adriano Zumbo, Tetsuya and Gabriel Gate to name a few.

Maeve O'Meara hosting a cooking demonstration

A few food bloggers were invited by @SBS_Food to come along to the event. I was lucky to be one of them. Adrian, Shellie, Thanh, Penny and I met up at the Alfresco Dinning Area to have a few bites to eat before heading off to each of our assignments for the day.

I had a while before my scheduled task so, along with Hubby, Mother-in-law, Deanna and Thomas we wandered around to take in the sight and smells of the festival.

Soo Twisted Potatoes Stix. A snack that has recently found it's way to peoples heart and stomach

The Senor BBQ stall grilling up a storm

The Senor BBQ boys

The Senor BBQ chorizo sandwich

Mobile Wood Fired Ovens were cooking pizzas

A load of bull pizza from Mobile Wood Fired Ovens

Paellas being cooked

Inside the Royal Exhibition Building

Movenpick Ice Creams

Ganache Chocolates

Toscana oils and balsamic Vinegar

Tasmanian Gourmet Sauce Company

SBS stand where Costa Georgiadis was signing books

Thanks to @SBS_Food, I was a guest and was able to attend this first ever event and even got to review the internationally renowned chef, Gabriel Gate's cooking demonstration. You can read it on the SBS Food Website

It was a great day of eating, sampling, watching and meeting chefs and producers.

Bon Appetite,

Cherrie

27 August 2010

Taste of Melbourne 2010

I was fortunate to win a double pass to Taste of Melbourne 2010. This Event is held annually at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton and is held over 4 days.

There are 12 Melbourne restaurants and a number of bars to chose from. You don't decide where you are going to eat but have to decide what to eat. The restaurants feature 3 signature dishes each, so there are many to chose from. There are also a number of exhibits you can have a look and try some of their produce.

The Chocolate Master Exhibit

Ben and Jerry's Ice cream van

Sweet By Nature Exhibit

Before you enter, it's a good idea to have a look at the menu here and decide (if you can!) what you are going to eat because once you get in there, it can get really busy and you might miss something.

Hubby and I went on the opening night, Thursday. We had a fairly good idea what we wanted but we still just wanted to have a look around at all the stands to see what looked good. You also have to buy "crowns". This is the "currency" used at the Event. $1 = 1 crown. You can buy crowns at the crown banks located around the event. There are also crown sellers that are roaming around.

Organic slow braised pork cheek, white polenta, raisins and marsala sauce from Mezzo Bar and Grill (8 crowns)

Wagyu Burger by The Palace (10 crowns)

Salted Western Plains Pork and prawn sweet roll with pickled vegetables by Longrain (10 crowns)

Pistachio "Panna Cotta", salted Caramel Popcorn by Sarti (8 crowns)

The Bombe - strawberry sorbet, white chocolate parfait, and toasted meringue (10 crowns)

Swiss Chocolate by Movenpick (4 crowns)

My pick of the night was definitely the pork cheek from Mezzo bar and grill. The meat was so tender and flavourful. The white polenta was fluffy and silky. Another winner was the Pork and Prawn roll from Longrain. Oh my, this little roll was full of flavour and the pork had a little crunch from the crackling. We aslo tried the Wagyu burger from The Palace. I'm glad we got a chance to taste this as they had run out later in the night and not everyone got to try it.

For dessert, the bombe was "The bomb". It was so delish. The different layers combined into each other. The sorbet was tart while the chocolate parfait was sweet. Perfect.

Hubby and I left the event feeling so full and satisfied. There was nothing there that we could say anything negative about. The entire event was worth the wait in the rain for.

11 October 2009

It's been a busy year..

So... Here I am again. It's been a while since I posted anything on my blog. The past year has been quite busy with our Nando's store and being pregnant but I vow to get my blog up and running again... promise :)

Here's a few pics from the previous year that I managed to get pics of...

Deanna's 3rd Birthday. I baked and decorated her birthday cake. I got the idea from a book called "30 minute kids cakes". The birthday girl help decorate it.

Mooncake Festival 2009 at Queen Victoria Market. It was actually quite disappointing as there were only a number of food stalls. There weren't a lot of choices but we were all hungry so made do with what was there.

Cherry and strawberry picking in Bacchus Marsh. My family loves to go cherry picking in Summer. We used to go right across to the other side of town to Red Hill to do it, however we discovered cherry picking only 20-30mins away from us in Bacchus Marsh. Oh the joy!