Freebie Friday: Win tickets to see Gordon Ramsay at the Good Food & Wine Show, Sydney

It's a Happy Friday to you because Grab Your Fork has another competition giveaway!

Thanks to Johanna from Stellar* Concepts, Grab Your Fork has a swag of prizes for the upcoming Good Food & Wine Show in Sydney. This ever-popular event runs over three glorious days, enticing visitors to eat, drink, taste and purchase a huge range of food, drink, wine, cooking and entertainment products.


Good Food & Wine Show 2008

The cooking demonstrations are always a popular attraction and Gordon Ramsay will be back in town. This year tickets to his sessions in the Celebrity Theatre will now cost an additional $20, although sessions to the other chefs--Matt Moran, Tobie Puttock, Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris--will be free.

This year the Celebrity Theatre will be expanded to seat 2,500 people so more people will have to chance to watch their favourite chef/s in action.

THE COMPETITION
Major prize: 1 x double pass to the Good Food & Wine Show Sydney including tickets to the Gordon Ramsay session at 12.30pm on Saturday July 4 2009* (worth $95)

Minor prizes: 5 x double passes to the Good Food & Wine Show Sydney^ (worth $55 each)

To enter this competition, readers must answer the following:

If you could ask Gordon Ramsay one interview question, what would it be?

1. Add a comment to this post with the question you would ask Gordon. Make sure you include your first name somewhere in the comment so your answer can be identified as yours, and yours first.
2. Copy and paste your answer into an email
2. Mark it with the subject heading "Gordon"
3. Provide your full name, contact phone number and valid postal address so if you win, the tickets can be mailed out to you promptly
4. Send your email to


This competition closes at 5pm Friday 12 June 2009. Winners will be announced and notified on Monday 15 June 2009. Only one entry per person will be accepted. Duplicate entries will be deleted. No personal details will be forwarded to third parties.

The major prize winner will be decided on the basis of humour and/or creativity. The judge's decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

The remaining double passes will be awarded randomly so everyone has a chance to win.

* Please note the Gordon Ramsay session has been ticketed and cannot be exchanged for another date or time.

^ The double passes are valid for entry into the Good Food & Wine Show Sydney only. Tickets do not automatically include entry into any of the Celebrity Theatre sessions, although free tickets should be available each day. It is recommended you head to the Box Office as soon as you arrive at the Show to secure session tickets, subject to availability.


What question would you ask to get Gordon hot under the collar?

This competition has now closed.

Thank you for your entries. Winners have been announced here.

The Good Food & Wine Show visits the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre 3-5 July 2009. Session times are as follows:

Friday 3 July - 9.00am - 4:30pm (Daytime session)
Friday 3 July - 5:30pm - 9:30pm (After Dark session)
Saturday 4 July - 9.00am - 6.00pm
Sunday 5 July - 9.00am - 5.00pm

The Good Food & Wine Show visits Melbourne 5-8 June 2009, Perth 31 July-2 August 2009 and Brisbane 6-8 November 2009.

Related GrabYourFork posts:
Gordon Ramsay at David Jones Food Hall, Oct 06
Good Food & Wine Show 2008
Good Food & Wine Show 2006
Good Food & Wine Show 2005
Good Food & Wine Show 2004

Eat, Drink, Live Italian food festa, Martin Place

Eat, Drink and Live Italian.

This is the theme of the two-day food festival currently on at Martin Place as part of the Sydney Italian Festival. Unfortunately an open-air trattoria doesn't have quite the same appeal when it's cold and drizzling although that didn't stop curious city workers stopping in for a look and a quick feed.


Orecchiette on the stove


Mass plating

The tented mobile kitchen is a military operation of mass meal production. Barilla-printed blue cardboard trays are rapidly filled with serves of pasta and weighted down with a Sanpellegrino bottle. Organisers have done well to organise a gigantic canopy to protect the outdoor table set-up from intermittent rain.


Barilla lunch tray with choice of Sanpellegrino drink $10
(includes Gelatissimo bambino cone)

The blue cardboard trays look decidedly like aeroplane meal trays, especially with the plastic wrapped fork and serviette tucked into the canal in the middle. Even the roving MC refers to the diners toward the front as "those in first class".

Two types of pasta are included and whilst I'd expected to prefer the orecchiette, I'm surprised by the salmon lasagna which has soft pasta sheets, cubes of salmon and a cream pesto sauce that isn't overly salty. The citrus-style chinotto is light and fresh, only a touch bitter with less of the somewhat aniseed flavour one normally finds in chinotto.


Barilla Orecchiette with veal and porcini mushroom ragu'
and oven-baked ricotta


Barilla Lasagna with fresh salmon and roasted vegetables
with Barilla Pesto Genovese

Whilst you're eating your lunch, you can also watch the live cooking demonstrations, projected onto a giant screen for easy viewing. And when you're done, head over to the Gelatissimo ice cream cart to get your card stamped for a bambino ice cream - it's the perfect size of a weekday lunch dessert!


Gelatissimo bambino cones



The Eat, Drink, Live Italian food festa is on at Martin Place (between Pitt St and Castlereagh St) as part of the Sydney Italian Festival.

The festival has its final day today, Thursday 28 May 2009, and will run from 11am-3pm.

All profits raised will be donated to the Children's Food Education Foundation.



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RockSalt Restaurant, Menai

Before Kids.

And After Kids.

These are the milestones by which many of my friends now define their social lives.

I remember the days I could buzz people and within an hour we'd be doing the car pool and on our way to an impromptu dinner. These days it's a minefield of nap-times, bed-times, fevers and sniffles to negotiate.

And it's not until you have kids, or hang out with kids, that you notice the kiddy details at restaurants. How a trip to the fishtank can become an exciting hunt for Nemo that will temporarily halt a flood of tears. How a water feature or atrium turns into a welcome adventure for twitching legs that dangle. How a baby change table in the bathroom makes all the difference.

I'd remembered feeling that little knot of dread as we'd first stepped into Rock Salt with two toddlers in tow. I spotted crisp white tablecloths and candles and polished wine glasses on every table. This did not look family friendly.

We're seated by our friendly waiter, and whilst I'm nervously keeping an eye on the glassware (and the candle) there's a polite clearing of the throat.

"Good evening sir, we have a special placemat for you", the waiter says as he carefully places a koala cutout in front of Master Four. "And one for you as well," he tells Miss Three, who is now staring at him slack-jawed.

"Wait one second and I'll be back with some colouring-in", he apologises. Master Four turns to me with wide shining eyes, still in awe at being called "sir".

And suddenly we have two stencils of Dora along with a plastic cup filled with colour pencils. Two kids suddenly sit up straight with excitement. Two parents suddenly slump with relief.


Colouring in

It's almost enough special treatment to make me want to ask for a sheet to colour in (ha!)


Koala kids menu

The koala cts as a placemat, menu AND a mask. It has the usual list of deep-fried choices like nuggets and chips, but it's heartening to see that other options include penne napolitana, beef stea, noodle bake, battered flathead and chicken satay.

I admit to also being somewhat endeared by the two course menu pricing at "one thousand and fifty cents".

Once we settle in we note the warm decor, open bookshelf and island bar is somewhat compromised by the huge plasma screen on one wall showing the latest rugby match. It seems a pity given the otherwise cosy ambience.


Scallops in half shell $20
with lime, coriander and pawpaw dressing

The adults start with entrees whilst the kids colour in. Scallops served on a half shell are quite impressive - plump discs of fresh scallop that are just-cooked, perfumed with the smell of the sea and splashed with a gentle dressing of lime, coriander and pawpaw.


Salt and pepper squid $20
dressed with chilli, lemon juice and garlic

The salt and pepper squid is also good. Curled scrolls of lattice-scored squid are tender, dotted liberally with fine slices of green onions, mild chilli and the spicy crunch of deep-fried shallots.


Lamb shanks $30
Braised in garlic and rosemary jus with mashed potato

Lamb shanks are a hearty main of comfort food heaven: a bed of mash, a pool of gravy and tender succulent meat that falls off the bone.


Duck confit $30
on chat potatoes with Chinese broccoli and green peppercorn sauce

The duck confit is a tower of indulgence. Roasted chat potatoes, squashed into a waxy carb-olicious splodge hold forth two tiers of aromatic duck, the skin crisped to a golden sheen.


Grilled lobster tail $38 (for the month of May only - Caribbean theme)
on steamed rice and broccolini with lemon and garlic buter

Grilled lobster tail is part of the special monthly menu for May which has a Caribbean theme. The lobster is succulent and sweet and thankfully not too heavily doused with lemon and garlic butter.


Chicken nuggets and chips $10.50 including dessert

The kids' meals arrive at different times, the veggie and noodle cheese bake arriving as our mains arrive, and the nuggets and chips a distinct ten minutes later. It's the only minor quibble with service, although thankfully it's no major drama tonight with Master Four.

The nuggets and chips arrive as you'd expect--five crumbed and deep-fried nuggets on a plate of chips--but we're all very impressed by the plating of the veggie and noodle cheese bake.


Veggie and noodle cheese bake $10.50 including dessert

Broccoli ears! Tomato sauce hair! Peas for eyes and a carrot nose! Miss Three can't resist dipping her finger into the tomato sauce bow tie.


Sticky date pudding $12
with a butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream

The sticky date pudding isn't quite the Masterchef challenge spectacle, but we do like the shard of honeycomb perched on top. The sticky date pudding itself has a pleasingly malty sweetness, swaddled between a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a pool of rich butterscotch sauce.


Baileys Creme Brulee $12
with marshmallow and filo crunch

Will Baileys creme brulee ever be downright unfashionable? It's a tad firm but lifted by the ethereal lightness of fresh marshmallow on a plank of crisp buttery filo.


Chocolate mousse terrine $12
with hazelnut meringue, redcurrant coulis
and fresh blueberries

The chocolate mousse terrine is quite the sculpture, dollops of chocolate mousse languishing like lazy apostrophe marks within a sandwich of crisp hazelnut meringue. Its sweetness is tempered by the red splash of redcurrant coulis and tumble of fresh blueberries although I'm a little taken aback that each blueberry has been carefully sliced in half.


Vanilla ice cream with choice of syrup

The kids love their vanilla ice cream too.




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RockSalt Restaurant
Menai Metro Centre
1/72-80 Allison Crescent, Menai, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9532 0699

Open for lunch on Fridays only 12pm – 3pm
Open for dinner Tuesday to Sunday 6pm – 10pm

Plenty of parking available within Menai Metro Centre

Adriano Zumbo, Balmain

There was a definite spring in my step this morning. After a week of wind and rain, Sydney woke to a surprise burst of morning sunshine. Today was the launch of the latest collection of seasonal desserts by Adriano Zumbo, an event that appeared to give even Mother Nature something to smile about.

A newly revamped website details Zumbo's recent return from a two-month stay in France where he relished working in the kitchen of pastry demi-god Pierre Hermé. The title of the new collection is appropriately titled "40 Days and 40 Nights in Paris".

Many of the desserts have working titles, their final names still in the process of being decided. I do like the fact that one of the cakes (not pictured) is Zumbo's birth date -- and not just because he's a fellow Scorpio! Counterboy Charles thought this was an ideal way for Zumbo to get plenty of birthday presents this year!

Several desserts had already sold out by the time we arrived, but here follows a virtual tour for your viewing pleasure.


! $7.90
Smoked rice orange brulee, violet curd,
pate sable with mandarin & ruby grapefruit segments


........ $8.20
Hazelnut meringue, anzac moisture,
mint chocolate disc, vanilla apple tatin chantilly,
apple tatin compote, isomalt caramel


Z $7.90
Olive oil biscuit, olive oil ganache,
vanilla candied Kalamata olives, lemon & olive oil creme,
vanilla lemon creme legere, jumbo gumbo jelly


Just 2 fingers Tiger! $7.80
Corn, saffron & vanilla custard, vanilla brulee,
chocolate custard, yuzu creme, sable crunch terrain


P $7.75
Mandarin mousse, tonka bean brulee, pain d'epice,
sour cream jelly, almond ginger crunch disc


X $7.90
Pine nut gianduja mousse, dark chocolate creme,
pate feulletage caramelise, sacher sponge


Escape from a Columbia Rainforest $8.00 (gluten-free)
Flourless chocolate sponge, dark chocolate fizzy disc,
cherry cola jelly, cherry cola syrup, chocolate sabayon mousse


This season's macarons $2.00
Blackcurrant
Rice pudding
Rhubarb crumble
Salted butter caramel
Mandarin & tonka bean
Baklava
Chestnut and passionfruit
Toffee apple
Salted butter popcorn
Pine nut and gianduja
Quince
Tasmanian honey and walnut




Tarts


F $7.00
Gianduja ganache with caramel in a pate sable shell


H $7.80
Crumble cubes, acidic white chocolate ganache, roast quince,
rhubarb, dried figs, dates and dark chocolate quenelles


Sticky date teacake $16.00


Orange almond cake $15.00


Pain au chocolat $3.50
Crossiant $3.00


Pear and macadamia sticky buns $3.00
brioche fuelletage baked with a nut creme
and pear slices and caramel macadamias


D $17.00
Smoked toasted marshmallows and chocolate cake


S $17.00
Tomato, chocolate, olive oil upside down cake


Adriano Zumbo in France

Celebrating his recent travels in France, the shop window is decorated with a huge collage of photo souvenirs. I particularly love the photo above which is a cheesy "let me pose with my food" shot every food blogger can relate to!


Coonamble Star is Born

And whilst Zumbo has enjoyed plenty of press coverage as the hottest pastry pin-up, it's touching to see that it's his picture in a poster for The Land magazine that gets prime position.


Cake and hot chocolate

There's something deliciously indulgent about saying "I'll have one of everything" please.

Charles is delighted when Billy utters the magic phrase. "That's what I've been telling everyone to do all morning" he says, "but noone listens!"

Which is how six of us find ourselves trundling up the road to the the Adriano Zumbo Cafe Chocolat, a happy box full of treats soon to be unpacked onto plates by the ever-helpful staff.

As soon as we sit down in the courtyard however, the heavens open, as if Mother Nature has now decided to remind us this is in fact, a Winter Collection. We are not so easily dissuaded, and the six of us--Billy from A Table for Two, The Pom, Chocolatesuze, Noods, Bowb from Raging Yoghurt and I--shuffle and huddle under the shelter of eaves.


! $7.90
Smoked rice orange brulee, violet curd,
pate sable with mandarin & ruby grapefruit segments

The smoked rice orange brulee has us divided on its flavours. Without even reading the description, Bowb detects its smokiness. On the one hand, it tastes like someone accidently burnt the rice pudding. On the other, there's something so alluring about the contrast of the smoky rice pudding against the smooth violet curd, the buttery pate sable, the grittiness of rice grains and the fresh citrus of mandarin and ruby grapefruit.


X $7.90
Pine nut gianduja mousse, dark chocolate creme,
pate feulletage caramelise, sacher sponge

The pine nut millefeuille is an easy crowd pleaser. The pastry is crisp and flaky with a rich dark chocolate centre sandwiched between layers of gianduja mousse that has a distinct pine nut flavour.


P $7.75
Mandarin mousse, tonka bean brulee, pain d'epice,
sour cream jelly, almond ginger crunch disc



The P reminds us all of the Sputnik satellite. Its gingerbread flavour is a huge hit with chocolatesuze.


Just 2 fingers Tiger! $7.80
Corn, saffron & vanilla custard, vanilla brulee,
chocolate custard, yuzu creme, sable crunch terrain



Two striped eclairs perch on top of a rice crispy-studded biscuit ledge in the Just 2 Fingers, Tiger! The chocolate striped eclair holds a chocolate custard, but the real winner is the orange racing stripe that marks a decadent custard filling of corn, saffron and vanilla.


........ $8.20
Hazelnut meringue, anzac moisture,
mint chocolate disc, vanilla apple tatin chantilly,
apple tatin compote, isomalt caramel

The ....... continues the vertical disc theme that was last the Wheely Wildly Wendy. I make the fatal mistake of going for a huge chunk of the isomalt caramel. It's not until I chomp down on the luminous red toffee that I realise my jaw is stuck tight. We're not sure if today's humidity affected the caramel, or whether Zumbo was planning on giving you a dessert that lasted you literally for weeks, but the caramel exterior is guaranteed to give you lockjaw or possibly remove any new fillings as you attempt to prise your teeth apart.

The use of isomalt, a sugar substitute more commonly found in diet soft drinks, does intrigue me. Suze likens the use of peppermint to a Christmas candy cane, although the flavour of peppermint does sit at odds with the natural sweetness of apple.


Z $7.90
Olive oil biscuit, olive oil ganache,
vanilla candied Kalamata olives, lemon & olive oil creme,
vanilla lemon creme legere, jumbo gumbo jelly

Zumbo seems determined to surprise with his latest Collection and the Z is the biggest challenge of all. The look on all of our faces at the first taste of this one is priceless. There's an overwhelming sense of sour saltiness, like the salted plums favoured by Chinese grandmas the world over.

We deliberate over each layer and correctly identify the use of olive oil in the ganache, the biscuit and the creme legere. It's the strangest tasting-dessert but I end up quite liking this one, in a weird savoury fetish kind-of-way.


Escape from a Columbia Rainforest $8.00 (gluten-free)
Flourless chocolate sponge, dark chocolate fizzy disc,
cherry cola jelly, cherry cola syrup, chocolate sabayon mousse

The Escape from a Columbia Rainforest is perhaps the playful descendant of Zumbo the Kid. Stylised to resemble a cola can, the attention to detail is impressive, from the aluminium can shape of the cake, to the silver-painted chocolate ring pull and even the little indent where the supposed tab has been pushed in.


Cola can dissection

Bowb is entrusted with the most difficult task of can dissection, and her concerned pleas about "there's something really hard in here I just can't cut" is revealed when we finally get the cross-section "money shot".



A thick pool of cherry cola jelly and cherry cola syrup floods the plate as it's released from its cave made of chocolate. Flourless chocolate sponge and a chocolate sabayon mousse make this a dessert for the chocaholics. We like the sprinkle of cherry red powder that fizzes on the tongue like a cross between Pop Rocks and sherbet.


Dark hot chocolate $6

I chase away the afternoon wind with an intense dark hot chocolate, whilst Suze rugs up with her eggs and toast scarf (I want one!) and a toffee apple macaron.


Suze contemplates what to have next


The degustation


The demolition


The debris


Toffee apple macaron $2


Baklava macaron $2


Macarons $2 each

And because I believe in thorough research, my taste-testing continued after dinner with the new season's collection of macarons. The two most striking flavours are the baklava macaron and the toffee apple macaron.

The baklava macaron is for fans of rosewater syrup only, and whilst I like the idea of sandwiching a macaron with pastry, it struggles presentation-wise in its syrup-sodden cellophane packaging

The toffee apple macaron wins over the kid in all of us (a macaron! on a stick!) although it's covered in the same isomalt toffee that seems engineered to keep dentists busy.

My favourites of the lot:
rice pudding with its sandwich of gritty rice grains;

chestnut and passionfruit which tastes less like a Taiwanese chestnut sponge cake and more like a European Christmas with a hint of the tropics;

salted butter caramel - salt! butter! caramel! oh so good!

salted butter popcorn reminds me of my favourite popcorn Jelly Belly beans. It really does taste like buttered popcorn. I'm sure there's a chunk of butter in the middle and the macaron itself tastes of corn.




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Adriano Zumbo Patisserie
296 Darling Street, Balmain, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9810 7318

This has been included as an Intrepid Eat on Grab Your Fork's Top 10 Sydney Eats for Tourists. Read the entire list here.

Opening hours
Monday to Saturday 8am-6pm
Sunday 8am-4pm

The winter collection, "40 Days and 40 Nights in Paris",
was launched Saturday 23 May 2009.

Related GrabYourFork posts:
Adriano Zumbo Macaron Day photos (Oct09)
Adriano Zumbo Macaron Day flavour list (Oct09)
Adriano Zumbo Patissier, Balmain ( May09) , (Jan09) and (Nov08)
Adriano Zumbo Cafe Chocolat, Balmain (Nov08)