Eye Eat: Taste of Sydney Festival

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Taste of Sydney Festival - Centennial Park

Driving to Centennial park, I was super excited at the day's activity - going to the Taste festival and eating lots of yummy yummy food!!!

The festival ran from the 12th - 15th of March and entry costs $30 (or $25 if you pre-bought them online). There's also the premium tickets which cost $50 (they include entry and 30 crowns). As $1 = 1 crown, the premium tix were a bargain (well... kind of).

I was in awe when I first lay eyes on all the stalls. Food glorious food!!! and icecream!!! and hatted restaurants!!! The aromas filled the air, my stomach was grumbling, and to the Wagyu beef burger we headed!

Becasse (or rather, Plan B) was offering Gundooee organic grass fed wagyu beef burger (12 crowns). The bun was fresh and crisp. And the beef patty? OMGosH - it was soooo super juicy and tastey and really, words cannot describe it! It was truelly awesome. I think I could have eaten like, 5 of these things! My partner, however, didn't really enjoy the burger because it was too juicey and rich for his likings (however, in retrospect, he did mention that it was one of the best things he had that day).

Wagyu beef burger - 12 crowns

The next on our eating agenda were the rock oysters from Assiette (10 crowns). On top of each of these babies were crispy shallot and baby coriander, dowsed in Viet dressing. Mmm... they were fresh and smooth and creamy and really yum. If only there were more!

Oysters with viet dressing, crispy shallot and baby coriander - 10 crowns

For a little discovery, I could not resist but to zoom right to the chocolate tasting store. The lovely man from zokoko patiently described the ins and outs of his stores chocolate making process. They slowly roast their own cocoa and they experiment with different types of sugars. The result? Heavenly tasting chocolate that smoothly melts in your mouth, leaving a sweet sweet taste. The man said that their store was opening the following Monday - and he didn't have any stock for me to buy!!! How could he do that??? Expose me to chocolate which is on par with Godiva and not have any there for me to take home!!! >.< Anyway... his store is now open (as it is past Monday) and the tasting bar is situated in Emu Heights. Must must must go there!

Zokoko - chocolate tasting

More chocolate- this time, tea-flavoured from iTea. Their shop is situated in Bondi Junction. Again, lots of free chocolate tasting like ginger chocolate, coconut green tea, chai etc etc. Interesting and yummy - but compared to Zokoko? You can probably guess who wins hands down~

chocolate from iTea

Now to an equally delicious store - Serendipity Icecream! I was so excited about my Chocolate Fudge and Peanut Butter Disaster double scoop (6 crowns) that I actually finished the icecream before the notion of "needing to take a photo" even popped into my mind. The conclusion? I must move closer to Marrickville so that I can ship home all the flavours without the tubs melting (or buy one of those freezer trucks)!

Serendipity Icecream

Now back to some proper foods from our featured hatted restaurants. Pilu at Freshwater (a 2 hatted Sardinian restaurant) offered mussels and vongole with fregola (10 crowns). We were also lucky enough to see Mr Pilu make this dish live at the Taste Kitchen! These mussels were cooked just right. Not too tough yet soft and tender with all the juices soaked up inside of them.

Mussels and vongole with fregola - 10 crowns

Taste Kitchen - cooking demos!

Mr Pilu tellin us to never eat fastfood takeaway again >.<

We also saw Thomas Schnetzler from Lindt teaching us how to make chocolate mousse and choc caramel tart.

Mr Lindt dude

After the demonstrations, it was food time again. This time, our noses took us to Restaurant Balzac for the suckling pig with crackling and baby garden peas (12 crowns). The suckling pig was sooooo tender and full of porky flavour. The crackling was also super crunchy. I have to admit, although the richness and aroma of the fat filled the meat and really made this dish, I did feel a tad guilty about eating pork fat by the mouthful! But, all the adverse health effects are probably worth it!

Suckling pig with crackling - 12 crowns

Being out of crowns, we didn't gtet the wagyu beef bourguignonne with truffled cauliflwoer and onion rings (10 crowns), but they sure smelt nice!!!

Wagyu beef Bourguignonne - 10 crowns

To finish off - more sweet stuff. This time, from Sublime Gelato (award winning gelato). We got the roche flavour (4 crowns). This was nice... but no where near as sublime as Serendipity :P