Carlton Italian Fiesta and wine

The Carlton Italian Fiesta was on and it was all about good food and wine. Here the Italians enjoy their food and wine. They mainly enjoy pizza.

During the daytime, it was quite busy but at twilight, it was quite fun to dance, eat, drink and be merry. I have never been to one of these before but I do enjoy a good festival at night where there are no kids. Kids ruin my enjoyment- they run around with balloons and things and I do not enjoy.

But here at the Salumisti bar, it is peace and quiet and free canapes. But you have to purchase a drink. I purchased their on the TAP white wine which was good with my pizza and the anchovy canape. Other canapes featured pork which is Salumnisti's specialty.

There was a cheese one with a capsicum piece on top. That would work well with the Shiraz.

My pizza from 400 Gradi was good. It was doughy and cheesy just the way that I liked it.














Do come to next years festivities in Carlton as this year was great.

Victoria Street Lunar New year festival

This festival was free for all to go to. Set right in the heart of Victoria st in Richmond this is a must see every year. Every Chinese/Lunar new year a lot of people go to the festival to see the dragon and taste the food. Each year there are many Australians as well as Asians who attend this festival.

I must admit that taking the tram there can be difficult as they closed off the line and you have to walk to McKay st which is nine minutes away. There are replacement buses which don't stop in Victoria st so most people took the train. I took the number 78 tram from South Yarra to Richmond and at the end took the tram back.

Cherries

Foods on display

The stage

The makings for Longan drink

Samosa samples

The games really were a waste of space. They are not what people come to these cultural festivals for. The balloon one was very nauseating for some people.

We love coming to these cultural festivals just to try new foods. The new foods we tried were the longan drink which symbolises good health and wealth for the coming year. To me the seaweed and grass in that drink was quite foreign to me.

There was this other Bun (Vietnamese salad) which had chicken and you had to mix the coconut sauce in with the fish and vinegar sauce. To me that was just weird and it drowned out the flavour of the salad. But still noodles bring longevitiy for the new year.

The watermelon drink was quite a refresher for me on this warm day.

Also I loved the lion dancing and that was so much fun for all to watch. On a day like today many people got dehydrated and someone had to be taken to hospital.

Many thanks for the festival Victoria st. Can I make a suggestion for next years one and that is to remind people to stay hydrated on a really hot day? People should bring two bottles full of water if they can and one big tank is not enough for a festival this size. Drinks here are quite expensive.

The Stables of Como and Paris to Provenece

Paris to Provence is a once a year event which brings everyone together. It is at Como house, which is about a one minute walk from the tram stop or for those who are adventurous and love walking a ten minute walk from Hawksburn station. Actually if you choose the latter you can bring the dog without the need to bring the car. In fact there was a huge line of cars going in on the way there and that was at 12pm.

Fairy floss

Sign

dips

Cheese  platter

Cheese tastings

Cheese menu

Cheese tastings

Wine tastings

The spirit of France

Garden

Wine

Wine

Donuts

Books

Fountain

Kelpie

A few people like myself paid online and it was $17.50. One guy thought that it was a waste of money, but to hire out this lovely place it would cost them a fortune. And if they were to let people in for free it would be too crowded and everything would be trampled on. To keep the numbers low they had to charge a fee.

Included in the fee was the wine and cheese tastings. And for the lucky ones a free tart at the cooking demos.

It was a lovely sunny day and I enjoyed sitting outside. I brought my own lunch but had afternoon tea at the Stables of Como which is inside the festival. There was a Yarra Valley Cheese place outside and there were a few stalls outside of the stable selling champagne and savoury delights. The Stable of Como had been blogged about by 35 other bloggers and all for good things.

The place was small hence it was busy. They do table service and service was very friendly. In fact it is run by French people and they had croquet monsieur which is a French dish. Seeing as this is a French festival, I thought it fitting. Croque Monsieur is the normal ham and cheese toastie except this version is much more eloquent. And it was a delight to eat. With that came my tea.

I enjoyed being here. Being here and trying croquet monsieur was fun and as International students in Melbourne you should try many different and new foods such as this. There were crepes as well at the festival but we get them everywhere in Melbourne. The monsieur you do not.

And the dogs you don't get to see either unless it is an outdoors café, event or a park. Do come next year and many thanks for having us, Paris to Provence.

Classes: Cooking class at Mr Collins

Mr Collins is an Italian place in Collins Square which is a stones throw away from Southern Cross station. Here they were blogged about by six people all of whom were invited or who liked the place.

We paid $10 to attend this one hour masterclass. It included a non alcoholic drink, the demo and the meal. It started at 2:15pm.

Preparing the ingredients

Here we came for the cooking and the eating. We met up with chef Francesco from Sicily. He made this lasagna with ragu which was cooked for about three hours.

The event was attended by foodies and office workers alike.

The lasagna was cold but flavoursome. It was also soggy. But the coffees and the tea that I had was really nice, so I might just come by for a coffee and to try the cannoli which looked so good. Someone else said that the pizza was great here, so I might have to try that.

The chef made the sauce first, putting in the 70g of butter for the bechamel (in a seperate pan) and the diced carrots and celery.  When the ragu was cooked he put the sauce in between the sheets as well as the bechamel. It took about 40 minutes to cook in the oven.

It was just fun watching the chef make the food.  He made one with the Barilla sheets and one without. The one without was much better.

Do sign up for the classes in time for Christmas and summer

The Japan festival

This was held in Collingwood town hall and was a lot smaller. The one at north Melbourne was bigger and it occupied two levels. There was a train which went straight there.

If you are in a kimono or yukata entrance is free.

Food

Drinks

Alcohol

A traditional Japanese game

Calligraphy art

Matcha

Outdoor activities

Coffee

At the market stalls

Crockery

Toys and more toys (below)

 This time I spent $10 on entrance, raffle (I won nothing but sweets) and the tea ceremony. It was fun to drink the real matcha which was bitter but we had a few sweets to go with it. It was also fun watching the maiko make the tea the traditional way.

At a tea tasting stall

The coffee is from seonsory lab and was made by the Japanese volunteers. It was $2 but it was good coffee. If they had even bigger it would be better and more types done then more people can enjoy the unique flavours of the coffee.

There were some unique daifiku  (Japanese dessert) but I was full from lunch. The other plates which were small were between $5-$10. I had expected some sort of Japanese sushi bentos to be sold there as they were last time at North Melbourne. Oh well at least they sold some real Japanese drinks.

Also the food vendors were very small this time. At North Melbourne there were lots. The only vendors were Zero Lam and Wabi Sabi garden which had some sort of Banh Mi which is actually Vietnamese.