thatseriousgirl: All the RJIE: Good Food and Wine Festival Brisbane 2013

The Good Food and Wine Festival is just one big random junk I eat blog post. Its almost a cop out considering the thinness of the material covered here. I felt like big, beautiful pictures of the stalls are going to be on everywhere on the blogosphere, so I decided to go a different path.

For me, I'll just post up pictures of things I think you should eat, a little bit of the spiel that the stall holders gave me and maybe a link or two if you're lucky. For people who frequent delis and things like myself, I find the GFWF, aka Good Food and Wine Festival cause its too long to type constantly, is just a product launching place and a place to eat your weights worth in samples.

My Boyfriend and I were here for about three or four hours, we tried almost all the food samples but skipped the wine section and flagged a bit in the cheese section. I didn't take any pictures in the cheese section as there were no good clear shots, I highly recommended the King's Island smoked cheddar though, that stuff is amazing. Otherwise this photo montage is chronological in sequence.

First up was my breakfast, Maggie Beer's new malted milk and chocolate biscuit ice cream. Everyone got one free with their admission ticket and your hand got stamped with easily washed off ink to show that you had already claimed one. Very easily washed if you do a normal 30 second hand scrub that is. Anyway, it was seriously frozen when we received it, so we were instructed to warm it up in our hands for it to become nice and creamy.

The flavour is good, like a frozen malty milkshake with very small chunks of chocolate biscuit throughout it. The ice cream is very dense and super creamy. I found it to be a good ice cream, but I've had better cookies and cream style ice creams before.

Next we had some of this juice from the Berry Company. Here is their website. They're available in Woolworth's wholefoods section I think. They are no GMO, artificial preservatives/sugar/colouring/ additives free as well as gluten free. They're organic fancy stuff as well as containing lots of super foods. It tastes exactly like a normal berry drink, perhaps a little less sweeter than what you're normally used to. Try it if you're interested.

This is the exact opposite of an energy drink, this drink is made to relax you in a sweet fizzy drink form. It's called Everyday Sunday. Here is their website. All of these drinks contain valerian, rosehip, passion fruit and chamomile extracts to help relax you. They have cute, relaxing holiday designs on all their cans. It tastes like a sweet, fizzy and slightly herbal soft drink.

Cute cans lololol

Below is the Boscastle gourmet party pies! Here is their website. I've never heard of them before but they have really good party pies! You got to buy their tasting plate or frozen packages of the different pie flavours.

From left to right going clockwise, chicken, leek and Swiss cheese pies, butter chicken, beef burgundy and then Morrocan lamb. The chicken, leek and Swiss cheese one was the pick of the lot. I read somewhere that this was based off a cheese fondue, and the flavour is amazing. Smooth, creamy, rich, with large tender chunks of chicken. It was perfectly seasoned too, no sauce was required. Considering how small the pie size is, that's amazing in itself that there are more chicken chunks than there are gravy bits. It would be very easy to skimp on the filling in a tiny party pie. These party pies are about 6-8?cm across and were easily eaten. We were able to very neatly eat them while standing up in four even bites. Probably less bites if you didn't have to share.

The butter chicken pie was also a strong second, with that rich, aromatic scent of butter chicken. As soon as you bit into it, the smell came flooding out. The butter chicken could've been literally poured from your local Indian takeaway into this pie. I felt like it was an accurate representation of butter chicken with barely noticeable but not intrusive spices floating in the sauce. Just like the first pie, there were huge chunks of chicken in the pie.

The beef burgundy could've done with more red wine and mushrooms though. I found this to be the most disappointing in flavour, although it was still quite good. I found it to be quite plain in flavour, and would've guessed generic steak if I hadn't have known what it was. Still, the beef is very good quality and shredded to pieces when so much as looked at, it was very tender.

The Moroccan lamb was neither liked or disliked by either of us. I can't explain it, it was a pretty solid middle ground, we had no complaints but nothing really stand out to mention either. It is still a very well cooked pie.

So tasty

I got some free salt flakes from the Murray Rivers Gourmet company. Here is their website. I actually have no idea where my container of salt went on returning home. The salt from Murray River is a faint pinkish hue and has a wonderful flavour that is hard to describe, its delicate. This goes in all my salted caramel from now on.

Mmmm salt

There was an awful lot of dukkah floating around this year as well as coconut water. I found that this was one of the best ones though, this is from the Thistle Be Good company, located in South Australia. Here is their website. The Bush dukkah was particularly good with a sour/sweet tang and roasted almonds.

There was another one we particularly liked that was headed by a guy in chef whites, the prices were $8 a packet of spice and they were also amazing. I wish I had taken a photo now.

Blurry dukkah!

I really liked the baby baguette garlic and parmesan flavoured bites from the in season company. They had a really pronounced and quite strong flavour that would've done well with smoked meats and creamy dips. They are also super crunchy, which I loved. I don't think they have a website.

Ceres is a South African juice that is imported via Perth into local IGAs. Here is their website. I loved their lychee and pear juice. It's lightly sweet with a delicate blend of the two flavours, you can definitely tell what it is without looking on the box. It's also well balanced alternating between lychee and pear on your palate. They have really interesting flavour combinations although the only other two flavours available at the time were the fruit medley and the mango magic. I tried the mango magic and found it to be less syrupy than other mango nectars

When I went here, I bought both myself and my Boyfriend a litre of lychee and pear juice. The girl who is hiding behind that carton asked where we were in from and she said that if we presented the box to our local IGA, that they could stock it for us. She also gave me a little tetrapack one from the fridge that was in a six pack as well as a bag with a key chain, pen and some pamphlets on the juice.

Sami's Kitchen is a New Zealand based brand of Middle Eastern cuisine that's been around since 1991. I've never seen it before and was very excited to see it. Here is their website. I got two packets of their spice blends, the za'atar pictured below as well as a sharwama spice blend that I intend to use for chicken and lamb in the future.

Wonderful za'atar!

They also had a great za'atar roasted nut medley with bits of smokey almonds and za'atar crusted cashews. It was amazing and I had to resist the urge to pick out the cashews to eat them all! I had to forcibly drag myself away. I remember the gluten free nut mix was also good but I didn't pay much attention to it, as the siren call of that za'atar was calling me.

In the middle is the wine glass I never used

I remember when Bondi Chai was a new thing at the GFWF several years ago. It was an absolutely amazing flavour and sweetness, its still my go to chai latte mix. I adore their vanilla and honey chai, which is light and silky in flavour with a wonderful warm aroma. I mentioned to the stall holder that I wanted the show special including a fancy Bondi Chai hug mug and she gave me a 20 pack of vanilla and honey chai, instead of 2x 8 packs! I was very surprised and eagerly took the extra satchets.Here is their website by the way.

<3~

Organic coconut chips from Banaban, there were like a billion coconut water stalls this year.Here is their website. They were really cheap coconut chips compared to the only brand you really see outside of health food shops, Fruit for Life. Fruit for Life runs anywhere from 2.50-3 for 40g, these were $3 for 70g and cheaper if you wanted a few cans. The purple can on the left is a salt and vinegar, centre is a plain one and the brownish tin are chocolate coated coconut chips.

The Bertolli both was backed onto a cooking stage and was right beside a Campbell's stock both as a well as a tomato sauce booth. The show special they had was a bottle of organic extra virgin olive oil, extra virgin olive oil and extra light olive oil, as well as some random recipes. The cost? $6! Less than half recommended retail price! Here is their website. I just remembered when I googled their name, that they were one of the first companies to be pro-gay after the chairman of Barilla remarked that Barilla was only for traditional families and gay people would never be in their ads. Here is the Bertolli pics.

Cheap!

I got this little dips stall next to a curry stall and wandered over for a look. The stall holder was a very cheerful Middle Eastern man who had a very friendly chat to everyone and actively encouraged you to try everything. I saw his card and he's the regional sales manager, a lovely guy! I did try everything but what really stood out for me was their hummus, super, super creamy with a lovely tang and nutty flavour, I was in love! I got a 500g tube for VGirl who inhales several tubs of the stuff a day. Here is their website.

The hummus with za'atar and olive oil is also good!

The Peppercorn company were frying up random sausages all day, they were all absolutely amazing. You followed your nose right up to their stand and stood there eagerly while the stallholders kept slicing up sausages for you to try. I loved their Welsh dragon sausage, freshly ground pork, leek and cayenne pepper. The sweetness of the pork and leek with that mild spiciness to cut through the fattiness of the pork was a match made in heaven. I tried one of their lean, organic chicken sausages earlier in the day as well and it was beautifully tender and moist, which was great cause chicken sausages have a tendency to dry out a bit. Here is their website.

+_+ so many flavours to try

The Collective Australian/New Zealand company had a wonderful stall on! They had these thick, creamy smoothies that they gave generous samples for, the strawberry one was as thick and creamy as Greek yoghurt. The vanilla and honey one tasted like vanilla and honey shampoo smells, so lusciously sweet and creamy. If I wasn't so heavily lactose intolerant and unsure of when I was going home, I'd have bought some of the 1L bottles to take home! I really should've bought an esky that day. Website here.

They also had muesli and yoghurt tubs you could buy and try. As well as some amazing cheeses.

HALOUMI?

Their haloumi plate was one of the best meals of my day as well as the cheapest! A plate of freshly grilled haloumi on sourdough with rocket and lemon set you back only $5! The haloumi was absolutely beautiful, I eat a lot of haloumi and the Collective's haloumi has now replaced Olympus haloumi as my favourite brand. Its super creamy, just the right amount of salt, with a lovely texture and that perfect squeak. I could've easily had another plate! The rocket was perfect with the mixture as well, just the right amount of bitterness along with the sour lemon to contrast with the haloumi.

I basically Instagram'd this photo as soon as I sat down to eat it. The Collective NZ/AU gave me some really nice feed back about it :).

Amazing haloumi +_+, try it!

I saw this super cute tea set and wandered over, Numi organic tea. This is a US brand of organic, premium, Fair trade tea. It has some really interesting flavours such as toasted rice green tea and rooibos chai. They also had your standard favourites like jasmine green tea, a decaf black vanilla, an aged Earl Grey, Morrocan Mint and a breakfast blend. I tried their breakfast blend at the stall and it was a strong, well scented blend of tea that quickly became pleasantly bitter in the little cup I had. It was gorgeous with a tiny bit of sugar and a dash of milk.

I decided to buy the breakfast blend and when I asked the stallholder if there was a sample pack, she kindly gave me a sampler pack that was part of a different show bag! That show bag had the tea sampler pack, two jars of pesto, some grissini and something else I can't remember, all for $15! I wish I had gotten that instead hahaha.

Cute individually wrapped tea

All the packs!

I decided to have lunch at this Maggie Beer restaurant.

The menu!

I picked the Barossa chicken and mushroom pie with bitter salad greens and Barossa tomato sauce. The pie was wonderful, the pastry was short and flakey, the cubes of chicken, tender and juicy with a wonderfully creamy green herb sauce with chunks of mushrooms everywhere. The filling was perfectly seasoned and didn't need that tomato sauce at all. The bitter salad was too bitter for me and I ignored it, I normally love endive and radicchio but this was too much for me.

I completely regret ordering the duck and orange pate. It came with cubes of bitter orange, pickles and a rosemary and verjuice cracker. I found the pate to reek of alcohol and be very bitter, the aspic on top tasted exactly like alcoholic shots. The cracker crumbled too much for my liking and one cracker was too big for one bit. I basically had two smears of the pate and asked a waiter to take it away. I personally found this a waste of money and if I had realised what was in the dish, would've gone to the Maggie Beer shop and bought myself a tub of duck and orange pate there for about $5.

This was echoed around me by quite a few people. The other main dish with the lentils was panned for being such a small serve, and I heard quite a few people murmuring that as I was waiting for my pie.

My Boyfriend didn't want anything from the Maggie Beer restaurant so he got a chicken schnitzel wrap from the stand right outside the restaurant. For much cheaper, we both that meal immensely more satisfying. I wish I had taken photos of it, it was just the perfect wrap. It had the perfect filling to wrap ratio, great sauces, fresh ingredients, ahhh it was amazing.