Taste of Sydney

Last weekend was the highly anticipated Taste of Sydney. I wasn't sure what to expect--but I looked at some Sydney food blogs and they all said such wonderful things about it that I wanted to check it out.

The tickets were sold in certain chunks of time--presumably for crowd control. So, we bought tickets for the 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM slot on Saturday. Here's the line of people waiting for the gates to open at 5:30.

We waited somewhat patiently in line, and then the crowd rushed forward.

In addition to the entry fee, you also had to pay for your food. Small plates were between $8 and $12. Most of them were $12.

Our first dish was the "Crispy Pork Belly, Cashew Nut Caramel, Watermelon & Mint" dish from Assiette/District Dining. We haven't been to these restaurants yet--but I think we've already become Warren Turnball groupies. We met the chef at the Masterchef festival a couple months ago, and thought he was a nice guy. (Hmm...maybe that's not really a sign of a great chef.)

The pork belly was pretty tasty, although not particularly crispy.

Then, we decided to get a bite from Flying Fish--which is another chef we met at the Masterchef festival. His restaurant is in our neighborhood--but has a really long wait for reservations--so we haven't been there yet.

When I first saw the dish, I thought it was salmon--so I didn't want it. But, it's actually ocean trout--and it was delicious.

I think we definitely need to make reservations (aka bookings) and have a proper meal at Flying Fish.

Fede just got the iPod Touch (thanks Kelli for sending it to us!) and took some pictures, like this one:

And then I took a picture of Fede who was so hungry, that he decided to eat the lime.

Yes, that is one of our complaints about Taste of Sydney. We spent about $70 for the two of us (including entry fee) and we were still hungry. We had imagined that we would be eating lots of different bites, but it was so expensive that we just couldn't bring ourselves to keep buying more bites.

Instead, we wandered around, checking out the various booths, and not feeling the love of any of them. Although I did love this giant paella pan--being stirred by the chef of Aperitif, Miguel Maestre.

Here's another picture, just for a better perspective:

We left the Taste of Sydney, hungry and cranky. Another eating disappointment in Sydney. Maybe it's because too many people had told us how great the food is here that we had super-high expectations--which can't be met. Bummer.