The Cheese Festival rolls into Prahran market

This was a free event for all celebrating all good things about cheese. Here there were many different cheese to taste including King Island Dairy's range from Bleu cheese to Vintage cheeses. All went well with a drink from the bar. A drink and a plate of cheese was $15.

The free books if you buy cheese from King Island Dairy

The makings of a platter

Soft cheese

Menu

Totopos from La Tortilleria. They were also making the cheese queasidilla samples for people to try.

Spanakopita for sale at Sweet Greek

Free entertainment

The ingredients for the pizza by A25

A25 was there and they sold exceptional margarita pizzas.

Making the pizza

 

Apples- they work well with the cheese

More King Island dairy cheese

What greeted us when entering was Market Lane Coffee's cheese and hamburger stall outside their shop. The burgers were $10. There were also other stalls in the market such as A2 pizzeria and Sweet greek with their small bite sized pieces of sagnaki. The entertainment was lively.

The fondue at the Blanco Kitchen was $12 for a small cup. Here you got to watch them demonstrate the cheese.

Alice in Frames was there MCing the event and the cheese platter was fun to try as there were many different elements.

Also as the day grew on there were more samples of the King Dairy Cheese at the demonstration kitchen. People should have stuck around until 2:30pm.

There were too many lines at the various cheese stalls. I think what the Market needs to do is to have paid entry say $33 and on that day people's tickets are scanned in and there would be more stuff for those that paid to be there and they kick out those that did not pay just for that day only.

Lentils as Thorncote

There is a new Lentils brewing in town and RNIS had heard about it for a while but forgot that it was sitting in their Facebook feeds until now. And after the Vinitalia event and gym we went. We had paid for the meal online.

Love the cute sign

Flower hanging

Dogs

Soft toys for the kids

Lentils is a vegetarian café which is a pay as you go café. It supports the homeless people and people needing jobs. You can volunteer at Lentils if you want. They pride themselves on fresh and organic produce and having fun in the kitchen.

But it was busy and crazy busy. Things in the kitchen and on the floor were super disorganised. I waited and waited ages for mains and dessert. Service was really hard to grab hold of and once we did it was all good.  Meanwhile there were people after me who got food first.

When the main came it looked really beautiful on the plate and tasted good. Everything was fresh. But waiting for the dessert took ages and ages but at least we got some samples of the cheesecake base.

The chai was really beautiful and creamy and the music was just great.

Rating: 10/20- please sort out your teething issues or otherwise you might just end up like Abbotsford café which is down the drain. The locals might not like you.

Mama Bear

Mama Bear is in Flemington near a tram stop and a stone's throw away from Flemington Racecourse. This morning there was a power fault at Flemington Racecourse which brought my tram to a halt and several others rushed to get the train. It was a long wait for the next one.

Hence this is why I decided to visit the cafe. I have read that other bloggers really liked the cool vibe amoung other things. The atmosphere inside was homely and it had that rustic feel in a working class suburb.

Here they use locally source produce meaning that your food is always good. But they don't have filtered coffee though. Rather they do single origin long blacks and after reading in the paper that sugar and milk in coffees is not good for you, I decided to skip both.

And skip both I did because the coffee turned out to be really good. It was nutty and a bit chocolatey in flavour, making it pure gold.

My usual of scrambled eggs turned out to be quite good too. The plate was huge for $9.  They were creamy but some chives would have been nice. And I added in the apple cider sauce for an extra $3.50 as it was interesting and I really wanted to try it. It was quite eggy and there were subtle hints of apple cider. The parsley and herbs added a nice touch to the meal.

Rating: 17/20- do visit the cafe whilst waiting for the tram. You can get takeaway coffees too.

Pomodoro Sardo's fregola pasta

RNIS was invited by Zomato and did not have to pay

"Fregola is a type of Sardinian pasta which is tiny grains" This is the definition of it from Wikipedia.

RNIS was promised last time by the owner about this and so they booked again to try this one. Here we mingled with some international foodies who did not know what Sardinian food is.  One of the guys did not know what medium rare and I'm confused to this day as to what it is as I'm not a steak fan.

But the fregola was pretty good but the soup was a little bit salty but I did not mind. Some chilli would be nice to go with this dish. There were a lot of mussels to this dish. This dish was a bit pricey for $32 but since I came after 7:30pm and the dish did not come until 8:20pm I could not complain about the sizing.

The complimentary bread was a little bit hard this time but I cannot complain since I came late.

Many thanks for having me Pomodoro.

Vinitalia festival

RNIS was invited to this by the Italian Chamber of Commerce as they were the organisers of this event.

The event was about promoting Italian food and wines to the public.

Normally its $45 for just some wines, food and music. Masterclass is extra. This event took place in the beautiful Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens. It was mainly about wine but there was some cheeses as well.

Free wine glass

Pasta 

Cakes being showcased

Cannoli- one of Italy's good desserts

Hard cheese

Preparing tastings

Grissini

Champagne

Coucous

Wines

Car on display thanks to Alfa Romeo

Artwork

Promotion for Italian language class

DOC Pizza box. I love the design

We got drunk on some wines and fruity prosecco. Prosecco is Italian wine.  We had a ball just trying the wines. We wouldn't do this everyday though as we'd get drunk and put on weight. Their sponsor is Riedel which is a wine company. Another one of their sponsors is Italian chef.

There was food and people bought them. But I think that food could have also been included in the entry fee like the Flavour Exchange where people got tokens and bought stuff. Enoteca Silenco had some lovely sauces and their bread was very fresh. They did have a showbag for $25. I would love to go into their restaurant and try their food. Aranchini art was there with their fine aranchini which I tried at the Good Food and Wine festival.

Italian Chef had a very good looking pumpkin pasta and a very good looking pizza deal for $13 on Tuesday nights, but unfortunately I can't go due to Fibclub. Wednesday night is usually better for most people.

Benedict Imports had a lovely coucous dish which was free and I really enjoyed the salad with fresh tomatoes and fresh coucous.

William Angliss had their gelato machine which wowed people as they enjoyed the flavours of the gelato and the authenticity of it all.

The band was lovely and so were the artworks on display. Someone took home the prize of a Delonghi machine at the end and many people enjoyed trying the coffee from Illy. Unfortunately I could not as I don't drink coffee in the afternoon.


The restaurant awards were presented and Grossi Florentino won three times so of course three sets of glasses were given. For every restaurant that won an award a set of wine glasses by Riedel was given.

Many thanks to Vinitalia for the invite and next time Salami should be included in the menu as well as pizza and what would be a better idea is for it to be held at Melbourne Exhibition centre. That way more people can come.