Feast Perth

On Sunday last weekend, Jac, Juji and I went along to Feast Perth, a food fair held at Victoria Gardens at Claisebrook Cove in East Perth. This was a City Food and Wine Month event, like the Sausage King Competition. It was a beautifully warm and sunny day and not surprisingly, the fair was very crowded. I didn’t take as many photos as I’d have liked, but it was simply not feasible to do so at many of the stalls, especially the stalls offering free tastings, due to the large volume of people.

Here are some stall photos I did manage to take (remember, you can click on the images to view the larger versions). L-R, clockwise: Herbs for sale, City Farm Organic Produce stall, The Ginger Pig gourmet goodies, Fancy oils and Juji’s arm.

We shared a $5.00 tasting plate of Dorper lamb (right) and Wagyu beef (left). This was the first time I’d ever eaten Wagyu beef. It was superbly tender but a little bland, I thought. It didn’t seem very beef-like; I enjoyed it, but it reminded me more of pork – perhaps that’s exactly why I enjoyed it. :) The lamb was amazingly tender – and thankfully had the distinct smell and flavour that lamb should always have. I used to dislike lamb when I was a kid precisely because of the lambiness of lamb, but as I got older I began to really love it. I can’t believe all those panfried crumbed lamb chops I refused to eat when I was a kid – what a waste! :) The meats were served with what they called “lamb jam” – a delicious tomatoey relish with just a hint of mint.

Here’s some Wagyu beef being carved…

…and a couple of legs of Dorper lamb on display.

These were jars of yabbie meat – I can’t remember what varieties there were other than yabbie meat with chilli (check out that whole red chilli in the jar!), and I can’t remember the name of the yabbie farm – sorry!

Here are different oils for sampling – bread chunks were provided for dipping. I can’t remember what the oil on the far left is, but the others, L-R are: “Le Grillade” – rosemary, thyme, bay and lemon balm infused extra vigrin olive oil; oregano and garlic infused extra virgin olive oil; roasted French tarragon with a hint of orange infused canola “For Connoisseurs”.

These are sundried olives and tomatoes.

At the beef jerky stand, we discovered that Chopper Read has his own brand of flavoured peanuts. The sales pitch went something like “Just in case you ever wondered what Chopper’s nuts looked like”. Heh. Um, actually, I’ve never wondered that! :) For those of you not familiar with Chopper Read, you can find out more here .

I was still munching on some passionfruit spread and cheddar on a cracker from another stall and my teeth were somewhat stuck together with cheese – but Jac tried some of the peanuts and found them to be very good. I still haven’t seen them for sale at any shops though.

Time for more food – Star Anise Restaurant had their own stall offering a number of dishes for $5.oo each. We rather liked the sound of Caramelised Belly Pork (the description read: “pork belly, chinese master stock, pineapple, sweet soy, palm sugar,, fish sauce, cassia stick and star anise) – we bought a serve to share.

The pork came served in one of those cardboard Chinese takeaway boxes. When we opened it up, I was a little disappointed to see the box wasn’t even half full. Oh well, it was really tasty though. The sauce was sweet and sticky, the meat was moist and juicy and the fat was creamy. Oh yeah, it was gooooood. And sooooo bad. I know creamy fat is bad.

There was enough for two pieces each. By this time we were hot and thirsty. Time to find something cool.

We went to the Bare Crush stall to get fruit icicles. There were four flavours – mango, mango & passionfruit, banana & passionfruit and pineapple, but we all chose the same flavour – banana & passionfruit. There had been a Bare Crush stall next to the Lamb Van at the Royal Show last year, but Jac and I had been much too full of lamb shank, onion gravy and hot chips at the time. Bare Crush fruit icicles are 100% fruit fruit, with no added sugar, additives, colours or preservatives. What can I say, one minute we were eating creamy pork belly fat, the next minute we were sucking on 100% fruit icicles. Heheheheh.

We found some chairs and sat eating and watching the crowd go by. The icicles were delicious and creamy (heh). They tasted more of banana than passionfruit (which I didn’t mind in the least, as I love banana), but the passionfruit was well represented by crunchy black passionfruit pips.

We continued checking out the rest of the stalls. I was starting to get a little bored with the many wine-tasting and oil stalls. Juji and I found a spot to sit for a little while, and I took some photos of the scenery. Victoria Gardens and Claisebrook Cove are very pretty. If I lived in East Perth, I’d love to go for walks here. I wonder if there’s any fish in the water.

Jac found the Jarrah Jack beer stall. She sampled a couple of varieties of beer, and then bought a bottle of Jarrah Jack ale to drink.

Juji and I kept on walking while Jac sat on the grass and finished off her beer. Here are some fancy leaf teas. We have a teapot at home but I don’t think we’ve ever used it – I’m quite pathetically a tea bag kind of gal.

We happened to walk past a stall where some freshly panfried organic beef was being served up. Ooooh, yes please!

The beef had been simply panfried in avocado oil – no seasoning or anything else. It was really good – tender and juicy and not at all chewy.

When Jac caught up with us, we’d all had enough of the fair – we were hot and still hungry. We decided to head back into town and have some real lunch. I took a few more photos before we left. Here, the fruity woman plays the accordion while the banana-headed fruity man talks with three very interested boys. Those are carrot panpipes in his cart.

Another view of the water…

…and another, with a gondola.