Spring Picnic
Part I: Savouries and Drinks
We had such a good time at Sydney Good Food Month (GFM) Spring Picnic last year so I was really excited when it's finally October. To think a die-hard sweet-tooth like me wouldnt have minded at all if we missed all the sugar hits in GFM but the Spring Picnic is a must else the girl would whinge, thundered, scream, nudge, wail until she had no breath. Now, that's a scary thought but that's how much I have enjoyed spring picnic last year.
The Spring Picnic was postponed to a week later due to rain. I was rather disappointed because I had longed for this day to come. Then again I was glad it was postponed because it was such a fine day, just perfect for picnic!
♥ tabeshimashita on 31 Oct 2004 @ Centennial Park 11am - 4pm
We arrived at Centennial Park around midday. There were already many families (mainly with little kids) enjoying the blue sky and bright sun. We were a little surprised though with the small crowd at the spring picnic venue. We wondered if it was to do with the daylight saving and it indeed was. The park was getting rather joyous with more and more people turning up when we were about to leave at 3pm (which was really 2pm if we hadnt switched our clock).
To tell the truth, we were quite disappointed with the spring picnic this year. The stalls were considerably less than half of last year's. I was so looking forward to grabbing Yulla's pita with their yummilicious hummus. There was also Luke Mangan from Salt serving Aussie barbie! Not to mention gorgeous ice-cream from Grace, yummy cakes from Manna from Heaven. I remembered there was also Certo and this yummy almond miso paste from Kei's Kitchen.
Heart-breakingly, Pinkcocoa hereby declared that none of the stalls mentioned above were at this year's spring picnic. *sigh* It might have been due to the postpone.
♥ Eumundi Smokehouse
There was a really long queue in front of this stall. It was serving the very typical sausage sizzle. I think it was around $6-$8 for a sausage on breadroll. We decided to skip this. We wanted to see if there was something special to try.
Oh yes. We love to try new thing. ;-)
♥ Formaggi Ocello: Italian Goodies
The next stall that caught our eyes was this. They served yummy Italian snacks. It's probably a little hard to see in the picture but there were arancini (deep-fried crumbled risotto ball), focacia (i think) and some italian sweets.
♥ Arancini: Crumbled Risotto Ball $4
This was what lured us to Formaggi Ocello. We had a mini-version of crumbled risotto ball at a friend's wedding the other day and we were enchanted by how delicious it was.
♥ Parker's Organic Juices: glass $4, 750ml bottle $7
It was a hot day and juices were just perfect as refreshment! I was thrilled to see Parker's Organic Juices. Type of juices include apple, orange, mandarin, blood orange; and raspberry.
♥ Blood Orange Juice and spinach ricotta lemon arancini
So we grabbed a spinach, ricotta and lemon arancini and a glass of blood orange juice. The juice was really refreshing. It seems blood orange is a hottie this year down under. I am seeing it everywhere.
The arancini was delicious but a tad too big though it doesnt look that big. It would have been nice if it was warm too. We were already filling full halfway eating through the arancini. It was really filling. I suspected it must be the cheese and the fact that it's deepfried that makes it so filling. I reckon the arancini would be good to bring home. All you have to do is heat it up, toss some salads. Ta-da. Instant meal!
♥ south east asian delights
next stall up is this south east asian delights serving stir-fried rice noodles (char kuey tiao) $8 and satay. Here you see the chef cooking up a large batch of char kuey tiao and the young lady was grilling satay.
Not hard to see why we skipped this stall. (-_^)
♥ Mondo Piadina
After surveying all the stalls, I decided to grab this Italian flat bread called piadina. It looked a little like pita bread.
♥ Assembling Piadina
I ordered a piadina with proscuitto, bocconcini, rocket salad and extra mushroom piadina @ $8. It was served warm with a drizzle of basil oil. There were many different self-served flavoured oils and dry herbs. Choose one that you like and drizzle as much as you like. The basil oil was recommended so we had a generous sprinkle of the fragrant oil.
The piadina was yummy! I love the flat bread. Thinking back about it, I regret I didnt grab a few of plain piadina to go home with me. It was really nice with the smoked trout dip I bought at the picnic too (sorry no pics of the dip).
♥ Shepherd's Bakehouse: Melts $3
We also grabbed one of shepherd's bakehouse melts. We had smoked bacon, tomato on lemon myrtle sourdough. The sourdough had an intense citric aroma. It was so nice that we decided to grab a loaf of lemon myrtle sourdough to go home.
We had been immensely lucky at the Shepherd's bakehouse. We had the lucky last of both the melts and the sourdough! *yay*
♥ Shepherd's Bakehouse: Pies & Sauage Rolls
We couldnt decided whether to go for the pie or the melts. We had the melts in the end. :-)
♥ Phoenix Organics: Feijoa & Apple Juice
We grabbed another juice. Reason why we grabbed this juice was because we didnt know what a feijoa was. The guys at the Phoenix Organics stall tried to explain to us but soon after gave up.They said it's really too hard to explain.
The juice was sweet and really refreshing. It went well with my piadina and ShinChan's melts.
Stay tuned tomorrow for sweets and snacks at the spring picnic!
FYI
♥ What is Feijoa
♥ What is Piadina
♥ What is Arancini
♥ What is Blood Orange
♥ pinkcocoa tabete @ Wednesday, November 17, 2004
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