Lunch
We were fortunate to be in Hobart during the Taste of Tassie food festival, just a short walk from where we’re staying. Because it was the middle of the day, we steered clear of the many vineyard and spirit vendors, and focused on tasting some of the great variety of food on offer.
First up was Palawa Kipli who have interpreted traditional aboriginal food to make it more accessible. We chose two small bites: pulled wallaby with beetroot, wattleseed and walnut dip; and saltbush Peppered guacamole topped with crickets.
The wallaby was quite similar to pulled beef, and paired well with the beetroot. While the crickets looked intimidating, they were not strongly flavored, making a nice guacamole bite.
We moved through the main hall to an outside area where we found Vineyard Seafood Scallop Bar who were offering a ceviche Scallop. Given our enjoyment of fresh Tasmanian scallops, this was a no brainer to try.
The inclusion of the roe (coral) and ceviche preparation enhanced the Scallop flavor, which Foodie Philip really enjoyed, while Foodie Greg, who is not that keen on “fishy” flavors found it a little too much flavor!
We returned to the main hall and found the Mt Gnomon Farm stall. At the last family reunion In 2015 Foodie Philip had tried to book at the farm’s restaurant, but they had a private function on the only day he and his mother had available, so we were looking forward to this. We chose their Lao Laarb.
The Laarb has all the flavors we were expecting, and were really well executed. The young lady serving us suggested we try their sausages, which we will likely do tomorrow. The farm raises heritage pork, which has so much more flavor than modern pork.
Our final stop today was for a duck roll, as Foodie Greg was craving some, after missing the Peking Duck yesterday. Because it was from The Porky Duck, we added a side of pork crackling!
Both the duck roll and crackling were excellent, and we could have easily gone back for more.
All up we spent Au$25.00 (US$17.50) per person.
Dinner
Tonight was New Years Eve (on the wrong day in this blog because we didn’t skip a day after crossing the date line) and we did our traditional cheese, salami, grapes and champagne spread.
We had great views of both sets of fireworks, a good feed and some good bubbly!
In total we spent Au$37.43 (US$26.20) per serve and were full at midnight, with chorizo left over!