Exhibitors
Lots of wineries showcasing their latest releases, this event is really good value for money if you love your wine and liquer. Samples are usually quite generous so the $22.50 entry fee for adults is definitely worth it ($5 off with an Entertainment Card). Unfortunately, we're not too fond of most wines (Mr Label Me is a beer drinker) and I can only drink the sickly sweet dessert wines (moscato, botrytis semillon, dolcetto syrah). Sad, I know. Add in the fact that we don't drink coffee either and you can understand why we'd feel like social outcasts sometimes! But that's getting off topic.
My favourite part of the Good Food & Wine show is discovering new products. Last year, I found a couple of wines I could drink; the Pitango line of organic soups; and the Tefal fryer which uses one tablespoon of oil to cook crispy chips, amongst other things my goldfish memory can't recall.
I felt that this year was a disappointment in comparison in terms of exhibitors, except for the debut of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (coming soon to Australia "in the near future") who gave out very generous scoops in four flavours (the choc chip cookie dough was to die for!).
The one very cool product I came across though, was the "Rice Cube". It was invented by Ross Patten for his Masterchef audition and of course, I got sucked in by the demonstration. Basically you can use different flavours of rice together with meats, vegies and the Rice Cube will shape it up into a very neat cube. You can also cube up bits of cake. Here is the website if you want to read more about it: http://ricecube.net/index.html The only con I can think of is that the process is time consuming considering you're only making one cube at a time. Great idea though!
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| How to use the Rice Cube. From http://ricecube.net/techniques.html |
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| Rice Cube creations. Image from http://ricecube.net/index.html |
Celebrity Chef Theatre
This year's line up of celebrity chefs for the cooking demonstrations included Matt Moran, George & Gary (surnames can be dispensed with when they are named together), Manu Fieldel and Janella Purcell. We saw Matt Moran and thoroughly enjoyed the session. Matt actually brought out a whole lamb and cut it into sections for his dish, which was unusual to say the least. He mentioned that he will be opening another restaurant in Sydney next year with its own vegetable garden, and will also be part of Masterchef again next season. Side note is that one of the geeks from Beauty & the Geek was spotted in the audience and I thought he scrubbed up pretty well haha! Matt was a real charmer so we couldn't resist buying one of his books for him to sign.
Restaurant
There was a restaurant at the show where Gary & George, Manu and Janella had a three-course menu you could purchase from. Again the menu was disappointing compared to last year, so we shared Gary's main of bastilla of lamb, olives and pine nuts (came with a glass of Oxford Landing Estates Merlot or Sav Blanc, good value for $24) and 2 x Manu's vanilla creme-brulee ($8 each). The bastilla was quite good, with crispy pastry. However the creme brulee was not caramelised so we returned them, after which we were told the top had gone soft from "sitting there for too long". So they re-caramelised them for us. I remember loving the beef cheek main I chose from last year with an equally amazing dessert so again, a let down this year.
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Gary Mehigan's Bastilla of Lamb, Olives & Pinenuts  |
Overall
The show seemed to be more crowded this year; and we were virtually touching people as we walked through some aisles. Apart from the Rice Cube, we also came home with punnets of deliciously plump blueberries (only $3!), Dolcetto Syrah wine by De Bertoli and the Matt Moran cookbook. Although last year's show was better, I still intend to go next year and do it all over again!
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