Taste of Melbourne

[jkim]

Anyone going? Sounds exciting.

A good chance to eat dishes from Jacques Raymond and Matt Wilkinson in a single sitting (or standing)...

Never tried Jacques but heard good stuff from many friends. As for Matt Wilkinson, I first ate some of his food back when he was head chef of Alevansi, and boy was I impressed (with the taste, not the value). It was rather expensive, considering it was 100 bucks a pop and I was still hungry afterwards we had to go to a Japanese store for Ramen and Tempura. But I think that was the best french I've had in Melbourne...

I believe the website is: http://www.tastefestivals.com.au/

And it's on next weekend?

[lamington]

Lots of people I know are asking the question 'is it worth going?'... It would certainly be interesting to hear what people feel after going. Please do tell us!

[oesophagus]

I'm biased, but I thought it was really good, especially for a bigger event. The wagyu sirloin pie with bits of seared wagyu steak, pumpkin puree and 'slaw from the Circa stand rocked, as did the vine leaf-wrapped quail leg from Three, One, Two (as seen at Cumulus Inc., too), the souvlaki with chips from The Press Club, the Muslim-style chicken curry with cucumber and the tapioca pudding from Longrain (not to mention the Thai-spiced Bloody Marys), the slow-poached egg in bacon broth with puffed rice from Interlude ... there was lots of great stuff there. The wagyu burger from The Bot was totally caning it.

I was especially pleased to see all the chefs themselves turning up not just to strut their stuff at the chef's table and Gourmet Traveller demo kitchen, but actually manning their stands, doing the hard-yards cooking and talking to all the punters. Nice to see how much trouble they'd taken over their stands, too - Three, One, Two, Longrain, and the Stokehouse got my vote, though Jacques Reymond's stand was very classy too, and the Press Club guys went all out with musicians - the works.

Looking forward to the Sydney event. Hopefully we'll be seeing a bit of an exchange program with some of the Melbourne chefs coming up and vice-versa.