Tuesday 18 March 2014

Taste of Sydney 2014

Rain, rain and more rain. That is what I saw when I looked out of the window on Sunday. Really? Sydney is always hot, too hot if you ask me. And just when I want to go to an outdoors event it starts pouring down rain. The people who were in the St Patrick’s Day Parade weren’t happy either. 

So I waited until the rain stopped before making my way to Centennial Park where the event was held. It took a while. The event had been open during Friday and Saturday evenings but was due to close at 5pm on Sunday. It would be a brief visit to Taste.

And I was hungry. We were hungry. But we walked the wrong way and had to basically walk through centennial park before finding the event. However, it was worth it!

This was my first visit to Taste of Sydney so I did not know what to expect. I had already seen quite a few posts from food bloggers who received VIP access and had the opportunity to make really nice pictures. So don’t expect too much. I’m a beginner! 


Rekorderlig Cider Bar






















I LOVE rekorderlig. It’s a Swedish cider, but I have never seen it when I still lived in the Netherlands. I have tried all the flavours, but the apple guava flavour is certainly my favourite.











There were also a few other bars at the event, including a Margarita bar. 












Hay Smoked Chicken Legs with Cured and Smoked Chicken with Corn and Local Garlic Cream from Biota Dining





This was more like a/one chicken leg instead of a few chicken legs. But the one chicken leg which was served in a nice cup was beautiful. The chicken was so crispy on the outside, I reckon you could even hear the crunch when I took a bite. The flavour was quite special as you could taste hay in the chicken meat. I think it’s pretty amazing you can achieve such a nice flavour by smoking the chicken in hay. The sauce was nice and creamy and even a bit tangy. I absolutely loved this dish and Mr BehomeforT had instant food envy. 


Ham and Cheese Croquettes from Biota Dining




























This was Mr BehomeforT’s order. The croquettes were lovely and crunchy on the outside, gooey and creamy on the inside. It was not the most amazing ham and cheese croquette I have ever tried, but it was still pretty good.


Iconpark
I booked my Taste of Sydney tickets through Iconpark 







Iconpark allows people to develop a restaurant concept, and 6 of these concepts were showcased at Taste of Sydney. Buying tickets through Iconpark gave you a free Iconpark dish, worth $10. The type of dish depended on the concept you voted for. I voted for ‘Sedgwick Avenue’, not on the basis of their restaurant, but on the food they had on offer. Each concept restaurant was offering one dish only, and Sedgwick Avenue had an interesting combination on offer.


Brooklyn’s Finest De-Boned Free Range Wings with Grilled Watermelon and a Light Blue Cheese Sauce from Sedgwick Avenue @ Iconpark

I loved this combination. So tasty! The sweetness of the watermelon went very well with the saltiness of the blue cheese sauce, which was not too heavy. The chicken had a nice crunch and a lovely flavour. There was just not enough of it! I was surprised to see that Sedgwick Avenue has dropped to a fourth place, however, they are still in the competition. 


Savannah Estate Winery

I like wine. I LOVE wine! One of my favourite things to do is driving to the Hunter Valley and spend the weekend there to eat nice food and taste amazing wines. When we go to the Hunter Valley to taste wine we always end up with a car full of wine. The last time we brought home 42 bottles. And 3 wine memberships. 





We only wanted to taste some wine at Savannah, but the wine was so good that we ended up buying 3 bottles. We bought the Shiraz, the Premium Shiraz and the Chambourcin. Delicious! 





Wagyu Rossini with Shaved Fois Gras, Truffle and Madeira Jus from Chur Burger


I’m not big on burgers, but MrBehomeforT is. And he liked this fancy burger. This was Chur Burger’s icon dish at Taste, and therefore more expensive than their other dishes. Because Mr BehomeforT’s choice was not available anymore, he was offered to purchase the icon dish for half the price. Yes please. Now, I thought this was a pretty good burger. The beef patty was juicy and the madeira sauce gave it an extra dimension. I was missing some vegies though. I know, a burger falls apart easily when you add vegies, but just some beef, cheese and bread is not for me...


Suckling Pig with Smoked Potato Salad and Crushed Apple from 4Fourteen/Fourinhand 


I have been to 4fourteen before and had the most amazing pork dish. It had fantastic juicy pork, a fabulous and different crackling, amazing cabbage, colcannon mash, applesauce and a fantastic reduction. It was so good! This dish was not. I have to be honest. I expected a lot more!! The potato salad was bland, there was no crackling, the crushed apple was just... crushed apple and the pork was flavourless. It tasted like it looks... Sadface... 




Time for a drink at the Gardenbar where we had a nice cocktail. I had the mango and basil smash with mango, lime and vodka and Mr BehomeforT had the spiced apple mule with apple, ginger, honey, honey and ginger vodka and blanc vermouth. Both cocktails were lovely although mine was a bit sweeter. There was a nice area where we could relax for a bit before going to the beer tasting class





Beer tasting class
Taste put on a few wine and beer tasting classes and we were keen to try the beer tasting class. Everyone received a copy of wine magazine and got to taste 4 beers. 




The first beer was the Stone And Wood Pacific Ale. A lovely, light and not overly hoppy beer. I would describe it as a ‘girly beer’ because it was so fruity and easy to drink. 

The second beer was the Bridgeport KingPin from Oregon in the US. This is a triple hop double I beer. I might have said that wrong. I don’t know much about beer but this beer had a lovely deep flavour and the colour was almost caramel like. One of the makers argued that this would go well as a dessert beer. I agree. It was a nice rich beer to drink and it would go well with something made of chocolate.





The third beer was a vintage beer called Devon, made by Stone and Wood. It consist of a combination between malt and hops. The maker said that this would be ‘Coopers on steroids’. I don’t think I ever had coopers but I thought this beer was easy to drink, not overly fruity and not overly bitter. 

The fourth beer was Mr BehomeforT’s favourite. Apparently he ordered it a few times when we were on holidays in Austria. This Austrian beer is called Trumer and comes from a 400 year old brewery outside Salzburg. The way it is made it quite special and this manner is not often used in modern breweries. The top of the beer is skimmed off and then more yeast is added. This gives it a creamy balanced finish. You can imagine that such a production intensive process results in a high price. This is definitely not the cheapest beer, but surely tasty. 


The beer tasting was fun and I really enjoyed it. It was something different and perhaps I will try a cheeky beer here and there more often now.


We completely forgot that we did not have dessert! Because the festival was closing, stands were selling the last of their stock for a good price. We got these beautiful petit fours from Croquembouche Pattisserie. 


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