This year, the Good Food and Wine Show was a buzz for me because I not only get to explore the show (again) and try new things I didn’t get to try last year – I also got to meet a truckload of fellow food bloggers thanks to an exclusive blogger-only briefing and sneak preview of this year’s show. We were welcomed by exhibition director James Lang, as well as ABC Celebrity Chef and former MasterChef contestant Poh Ling Yeow.
Our little “tour” began with some Mini Turkey Burgers tasting. It was a crazy rush as all the food bloggers flocked around the burgers taking photographs and people started introducing themselves to one another.
See what I mean? LOL.
After that, we were ushered into the Celebrity Theatre for our briefing, where James gave us an overview of the history of the show and Poh shared some of her experiences with her cooking show on ABC. We were then given tickets to see Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris right after the briefing. Here are some videos from Gary and George’s “Celebrating The Sea” show in the Celebrity Theatre:
Gary and George telling stories before they actually cook. Gary Mehigan has never had Potato Cakes before the shooting of their little promo video before the show?! I find that hard to believe.. but I love George’s cute reaction to dim sims and potato cakes and TOMATO SAUCE, lol.
George even had an epiphany while onstage…
After Gary and George’s show on Friday night, I had just enough time to head off to the Twistto stall and get my dose of Twistto Potato for the year.. yummy Chicken Salt flavored Twistto Potato :p
The next day, on my way to check out what’s happening at Malaysia Kitchen – I bumped into Callum Hann doing a cooking demo at General Traders! Did not stay to taste, but I was definitely smelling the fragrant aroma of his curry!
After watching Allen Woo’s cooking demonstration, I got hungry so my friends and I went over to the Oxford Landing Estates Show Restaurant to try some food by Celebrity Chefs Marion Grasby and Poh Ling Yeow.
I had the 8-Hour Roast Lamb by Marion Grasby as my main, and it was nice, but it tasted a little bit greasy and the meat was tender but not melt-in-your-mouth tender but rather more “stringy” meat tender.. if that makes any sense? It was almost as if the meat was cooked for too long, or cooked in slow heat but did not have enough moisture.
I have absolutely no intention of being harsh to Marion’s delightful dishes but the Panna Cotta was a bit disappointing as well… the panna cotta texture was too gluggy like eating a really soft “tau fu fa” and lacks just that slight bit of firmness which holds the panna cotta together. The lime syrup was overpowering and the restaurant ran out of strawberries which were supposed to be served on top.
My friend had Poh’s Sago Pudding and it was so delightful I had more than my fair share of a “taste”, lol. The sago was perfectly formed into a dense pudding but still had that texture which tasted like the sago beads separating just slightly when you eat it. The palm sugar syrup and coconut milk gave the pudding the perfect sweet and coconutty flavors it needed. It was perfect!
Our little goodie bag from the bloggers’ event the night before had VIP passes to taste the Choc Melting Middle Puds by Gü. Although fairly new in Australia, Gü is actually quite a well known dessert shop in the UK. The Gü was packed when I arrived, and everyone stared at me thinking “why does that girl get to taste the warm dessert?” lol. Luckily for ONE random person, the staff accidentally handed over MY choc melting middle pud to someone else!! That person just casually said thanks and walked away… whereas I kinda went “umm… that was for me” and the staff were very apologetic and made another one and I just had a giggle and thought it must be that random person’s lucky day!
The Choc Melting Middle Pud was strangely not as sweet as you would expect from a warm chocolate dessert. It was full of chocolatey flavor, but not sweet! Which is a good thing I guess. Again, I was too full to eat the whole thing so passed it on to friends to try.
Moving on to my next tasting… MORE desserts! This time it’s Mini Melts Ice Cream. Say what?! That doesn’t look like ice cream.. it looks like little chocolate chips how can that be ice cream?! Well believe it or not, you pop those “chips” in your mouth and they turn into an ice-cream texture! I had lots of these.. it was the end of the day, and the guys were pretty much giving away little mini melts shot glasses. Tasted at least 4 different flavors and love it!
My final, last minute, stop for the day was at the Bellini Multi Chopper stall. My friends have actually sold me on the idea already before the guys even began demonstrating the product so I was pretty much ready to buy, lol. Basically it is a handy little kitchen gadget which chops everything for you! Apples, pears, watermelon, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions, etc.
The blades are “squared” so you can either quickly chop steak chips sized veggies or julienne carrots! It has made my life so easy, especially chopping onions – it literally takes seconds now and I don’t have to end up crying my eyes out chopping onions manually!
That is basically my little recap of the Good Food and Wine Show, including 3 previous blog posts on Malaysia Kitchen alone. I do have more photos uploaded to my Flickr album so don’t forget to check that out.
Kimba's Living 
What a wonderful opportunity! The event looks amazing. It sounds like such an enriching experience. Thanks for sharing.
LikeLike
Sounds like great fun! Wish I was there too 😦 Maybe next time.
LikeLike
fabulous opportunity! would love an invite like that.the food looks great – too bad about the panna cotta but poh's pudding looks delish.
LikeLike
Hey! I missed Callum! GAH! Hahahaha.. and not funny… that picture of the back of my head and camera 😛
LikeLike
Hey Kimba, it was a good event, we enjoyed it too. I'm pretty sure that Poh and Marion didn't actually cook anything. I don't think Marion was even at the show because we asked to see her and they said they hadn't seen her anywhere. The restaurant there just took recipes from their cook books. Would have been great to actually have them cooking though!
LikeLike