As fervent members of the foodie tribe, it was only appropriate for our pre-Australia trip planning to partly focus on which fabulous restaurants we would grace with our presence. We had a handful of dinners and lunches in Melbourne and Sydney where we could really tuck into multi-course meals served by professional staff who take pride in their craft.
But where to go...where to go... For those of you who know us, there was one cuisine sitting head and shoulders above the rest. The absolute-must-have, would-die-to-miss, can-we-have-more-of-that-please cuisine would be... Mexican!!
Finally, cuisine from south of the border that was lush and crisp and inventive and balanced. At
Mamasita's in Melbourne, every morsel satisfied my tastebuds. Only my stomach protested, knowing this mouth-imposed stuffing would ultimately lead to its being blamed for my body feeling sluggish for the rest of the day.
I just wish we hadn't gone on our last day in the city, otherwise I would have eaten every meal there. Not to fear however, we found more mexican en route to and in Sydney. It was more street food style, as we find at
Cha! Cha! Cha! around the corner from our place in Portland, but still, hella good!
We also managed a few self-catered meals, most memorably on this hot-pan bbq contraption next to a cabin where we 'camped'. (I cannot quite equate an en-suite bathroom, small kitchen and TV with camping.) We gorged on an Australian ribeye that was pleasantly tender and sampled some kangaroo kebabs. I wouldn't say that they're poised as the next big food trend, but the meat had a nutty, venison-like flavor and texture that was perfect with A1.
Accompanying our food focus was an interest in regional wine and beer, a passion obviously shared by the locals. (To say that these fine beverages are 'plentiful' in Australia would be a vast understatement. Comparatively, we are mere hobbyists -- even on our early morning flight from Adelaide to Melbourne, the guys behind us were joshing with the attendants for pints to improve the flight.) While celebrating the sunshine or nursing a rainy afternoon, we managed to avoid those big cans of Fosters while imbibing great
craft brews.
On the advice of a few friends, we also found a few fab wineries in the Yarra Valley outside Melbourne and the Hunter Valley outside Sydney. Head and shoulders above the rest was
Tarra Warra near Healesville (where we played with the koalas and kangas). The building and grounds were stunning, the tasting was free (with bottle purchase --yes please!), and the vintages just kept outdoing each other. It was a sad day when we realized that we can't ship to Malaysia, even sadder when they told us how much it would cost to ship home.
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