FoodieChat

Some great happenings and deals in Manly until 31 August 2011 – in the organiser’s words:

Foodiechat note:  I haven’t been to many of these, but can definitely highly recommend Hugos Manly – and not just for the gorgeous long eyelashed Pete Evans

Here are the deals:
4 Pines Brewing – take a complimentary trip out of this world with 4 Pines. Simply purchase a main meal between 11am-5pm, and receive a free handcrafted, naturally brewed, multiple award-winning beer.
www.4pinesbeer.com.au

Once you’ve come back down to earth, Manly is the place to see and be seen. Hang with the hip at Hugos, flirt amongst the flamingos at Manly Wine, and chill out at China Beach. Maybe you’ll even spot a few famous faces.

Hugos Manly – Enjoy a complimentary, and now famous, chocolate dessert pizza with any main course purchased.
www.hugos.com.au

After the land of the living, why not step back in time and dine with our ancestors? Surround yourself with the spooky and supernatural at Q Station. Enjoy a unique experience of world class cuisine, beautiful harbourside dining, in haunted surrounds steeped in history. After dinner, take a ghost tour – if you dare… (more…)

OK, stomach stretching exercise number two!  The family dinner for 7.  This consisted of a 3.8kg bird, a 2.9kg ham and a few sides.  First, the bird.  I know, we eat turkey every year.  But given that we only really eat it once a year, I think that’s fine!  This year, we tried the free range turkey, and I followed Tobie Puttock’s recipe.  Big fail!!  Here’s the prepared bird – stuffed inside and also under the skin. Eww, what a gross job, touching the dirty squishy thing!  First mistake was to rub the outside with butter – the bird burnt within the first 20 minutes when we were meant to have the oven on at 220! Lucky we checked it and foiled it.

The recipe called for 2 hrs in the title, 3 hrs in the body of the text, and the instructions on the turkey wrapper said 40-45mins per kg.  how confusing is that!  We also stuck in a thermometer for good measure.  But alas, it was so dry and overcooked. Sorry family

For sides this year, I bought my first ever baby carrots.  They weren’t that baby, but I thought they looked very sweet with their little tops still on.  The prices were quite variable – $3.80 at coles and $2 at the local greengrocer.   I used a very easy glaze – boiling them for 2 minutes and then dressing with a mix of golden syrup and olive oil and seasoning.

My one experimentation came in the form of Luke Nguyen’s Hanoi Crisp Parcels that I saw on Masterchef as well as Chef’s Christmas.  I was very worried that they wouldn’t fry up, as the skins are first soaked in water to reconstitute them, then wrapped with the raw filling and finally deep fried. I wondered how something wet would fry up, but thankfully, they worked!!! Yippee!! They did take a while though, but there were no explosions or burning or sogginess.  Phew.    They tasted absolutely DIVINE when wrapped with a perilla leaf and mint leaves and dipped in the nuam choc sauce.  A fantastic kinda DIY entree.

We love our prawn cutlets and calamari in our family, and along with the Hanoi crisp rolls, we had a very healthy entree platter (more…)

There is SO much happening this month for foodies in Sydney! This Saturday as usual the first weekend in October is the Good Living Growers Market – but beefed up, or should I say porked up! Some of Sydney’s best chefs will be participating in a nose to tail BBQ there, and it’s also open until 12pm for those of you can’t manage to make it by 11am

This is part of Crave Sydney, a month long festival of art, food, music and outdoor events hosted by the City of Sydney Council.  And it co-incides with the first ever Sydney International Food Festival www.siff.com.au, which is the old Good Food Month ramped up to make Sydney a serious global foodie destination.

The usual suspects are back – the $20 Sugar Hits, the $35 let’s do lunches, and the Chefs Showcase dinners.  Highlights this year include a whole new set of hands on cooking classes, as well as some new outdoor events to add to the always popular Sydney Food and Wine fair and the Danks Street Festival.  Let’s hope the festival is a great success and something to continue to wait 11 months for during the year!  See you at one of the events!

Coming up soon:

1. The Taste of Sydney festival is on this week at Centennial Park from Thursday 12th march to Sunday 15th.  There are a few tickets on special around the place, otherwise it’s $15 for entry, then $8 – 15 for each plate.  Restaurants exhibiting include Becasse, Assiette, Jonah’s, Balzac, Sailor’s Thai. 

http://79.170.40.165/tastefestivals.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=65&Itemid=83

2. The Noosa Food and Wine festival – loads of cooking classes with your favourite chefs, degustation dinners and lunches. 1 – 3 May.

 http://www.celebrationofaustralianfoodandwine.com.au/

3. The Food of Orange Week – 17 – 26 April. I might try and get to this one this year as I have heard so much about it.  Wine tastings, markets, cooking classes, fresh produce and other events.

 http://www.orangefoodweek.com.au/