Sydney Good Food & Wine Show

Mr Mel and I gave ourselves a long weekend, and headed to Sydney on Friday for the Good Food & Wine Show at the Exhibition Building on Darling Harbour (16-18 July, 2010).

We left home at about 6.45am and got there at around 9.30am, it had a 10.00am start, luckily I had booked our tickets online, so didn't have to line up with the hundreds wanting to buy at the door.

I booked us in to see Gary & George from Masterchef at 10.30am, and they were great. So much more personality than on the TV. Unfortunately they had a late start, and I think we got a bit of a condensed show, we saw Aaron from Masterchef in the wings before the show, however he didn't come on stage.

Last year we saw them and Matt plus Poh and a few other contestants came on stage, was a shame they didn't do the same this year, but still very enjoyable. And yes I have a slight crush on Georgie Porgie :-)

After the show we headed to the other end of the hall, to try and dodge the crowd of sheep filing out of the auditorium, up here for thinking :)

The highlights for us:

• going toe to toe with Hamish from Otway Estate Brewery, I'm from Warrnambool, close to where their brewery is, they say they're based at Barangarook, but it's really Colac, and everyone knows you only go through Colac to get to Warrnambool!  It was an amusing stoush, Mr Mel was shaking his head, in between laughing.  The beers were ok, Mr Mel thought they were a bit light, but I didn't mind them.
• some gorgeous & different sausages from Market Town Family Meats
• a surprisingly tasty chicken & bacon risotto made in a rice cooker with a McCormick mix
• Baileys coffee, 3 samples later tasted even better, yummo
• Petersons Champagne House, I'm a member but always have a tasting when out, great staff, great bubbles
• Birch & Waite mayo, bleeping beautiful stuff, and the girls were helpful, not pushy
• Honey from Beechworth Honey, I love honey, after tasting everything (about 10 versions) we went home with a fig & ginger creamed honey and a blackberry honey, delish
• Bondi Chai Latte, we loved it last year at the show, loved and bought some again

Things didn't really enjoy:

• people space cadetting it while dragging trolleys, people don't you realise you take up triple the room when you drag your trolley at arms length???
• weird English guy flogging brooms, he seriously looked like they'd got him off the street in London and shoved the broom in his hand
• Super Shammy - enough with the Americans flogging these, sooooo sick of them, even if they're Super Amazing Buy 1 get 12 free Shammys
• Playboy Energy Drink - what the?  lots of 8 - 15 year old boys lining up to get their photos taken with the bunnies, by their mums no less!

Last year we met Ben O'Donohue, and got to taste Manu's (drool) spelt risotto, we didn't see any celebs in the hall area this year.

Not sure if we'll go again next year, we'll maybe give it a year off, then do it again in 2012.

Till next time,