Time Out Sydney Food Awards

Sydney, Australia            

August 27, 2018

You are familiar with Time Out, a media company publishing magazines and travel guidebooks covering events, entertainment and culture in cities around the world.

Now, when it comes to bringing people together for an extravaganza of good-feel fun the people behind Time Out are predestined to nail it. With the brief being to honour the talent in the hospitality and foodie scene, the Time Out Food Awards is an event to look forward to.

This year’s shindig was held at 12 Micron in Sydney’s Barangaroo district – a venue with views, wow factor, suitable decor and one that generated pre-event anticipation.

More than three guests followed Time Out’s call to not only celebrate established and emerging talent but to attend an opportunity to network and meet and greet the great and the good of the hospitality scene.

Simply reading out a list of award winner would be a trite affair, so Time Out ensured that music, video and light all came together to create a bit of an engaging spectacle.

With sponsors like Melbourne’s Starward Distillery, which we recently visited and covered with a feature, the night began with Old Fashioneds from Starward, wines from Jacob’s Creek Barossa Signature range and Gage Roads Brewing Co providing ales and extended to canapes being served for sustenance.

The guest list was packed with hot talent alongside local industry legends, which all had a hoot as the awards for Best Casual Dining, Chef of the Year, Restaurant of the Year, Cheap Eat, Fine Dining and Café category were dished out.

Standout winners that whose services we have learned to appreciate Ho Jiak kitchens located in Haymarket, who specialise in spicy fare, and Saint Peter, which was not only voted to be Time Out’s Restaurant of the Year, but whose chef Josh Niland was Chef of the Year 2018.

Hot Talent winner was Firedoor's Ahana Dutt. Edition Coffee Roasters received the Best Café award, and Rosebery’s Banh Xeo Bar was recognized for being the Best Cheap Eats.

The Best Degustation Award went to Yellow, an etablissement we have yet to test drive and being an aficionado of everything hot and spicy, I welcomed that the Thai restaurant Spice I Am won this year’s Legend Award.

At the end of the celebration and hot off the press, the latest issue of Time Out was distributed, with features on not only the winners but the nominees as well.

The bar has been raised and one is excited about what Time Out is planning for 2019.

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Photos by @k.a.vv

Time Out - Old Mate’s Place Bar Opening

Sydney, Australia

August 23, 2018

Sydney has a new bar in its central business district that instantaneously makes it on the must-visit list both for locals as well as visitors: The triumvirate Dre Walters (ex-Lobo Plantation and Kittyhawk), Gabrielle Walters and Dan Noble (Ramblin' Rascal Tavern) have joined forces to open the Clarence Street bar with an open-air rooftop.

After hosting Wild Turkey’s recent Spirit of the Wild pop-up event and infusing it with the character of Old Mate’s bar team prior to its official launch on 23 August, Old Mate’s Place is the new haunt for day time and evening drinking with a speakeasy, set out as an old, abandoned library overgrown by plants on the downstairs level with exposed wooden beams and a staircase spiralling up to the rooftop bar, which has a bit of a treehouse theme going, i.e. a natural extension of what is going on a level below.

The focus of Old Mate’s Place is firmly on serving creative quality cocktails and a food offering that will aim to be a little more comprehensive than most bar food options, given that founding fathers Walters and Noble have both spent time in kitchens.

It is not rocket science that a charismatic and friendly bartender makes for happy customers, a feat that Old Mate’s Place easily accomplishes with its community spirit and its crew’s passion and honest love for what they are doing.

As a result, the atmosphere of this new bar is not only derived from its fitout, location, theme and physical position, but from the people driving it and the attention to detail, great music and good vibes.

If quality is king, consistency is queen and consistency is part of Old Mate’s Place in every aspect. No matter if it means education their punters through small blurbs in its drinks menu, treating its customers like they would treat guests at their home or matching the price of their liquid concoctions to the quality of products, i.e. value for money.

Summer in Australia is around the corner and the prospect of Old Mate’s Place planning a custom-built bar should add another reason enough to plan a visit – if there still was a need for one...

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Photos by @k.a.vv

It’s been almost two decades since Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlain shared a stage together, and while not a full and complete reunion without bassist D’arcy Wretsky, Denver came out in droves with love and support for Corgan and Co. for the Shiny and Oh So Bright tour.

Walking out on his own with an acoustic guitar, Corgan commanded the stage immediately and the 16,000 plus in attendance at the Pepsi Center erupted when the first chords of Disarm were struck. Pictures of Corgan as a child flashed on the screen and effectively punctuated the autobiographical nature of the song. Now, one could argue that it also effectively served the ego of Corgan, but really, what it did more than anything was set a darkly confessional tone for the rest of the evening.

As the song ended, the rest of the band, including guitarist Jeff Schroeder and bassist Jack Bates wordlessly joined Corgan for Rocket, also off the Siamese Dream album. The Pumpkins went on to play a well-chosen mix of their entire catalog - with a concentration on the aforementioned Dream and Mellon Collie albums.

With a set designed to satiate both the casual fan with hits like Today and Bullet With Butterfly Wings as well as deep cuts for the long time fan like Thirty-Three and For Martha, Smashing Pumpkins really spared no expense in making sure everyone left satisfied in the over three-hour set.

Giselle

State Theatre

Melbourne, Australia

September 3, 2018

For the uninitiated: Giselle is a romantic ballet in two contrasting acts, which was first performed in the first half of the nineteenth century in France. In essence, Giselle’s storyline is comprised of the passions and dramas that make humans tick, i.e. the cycle of love, deceit, heartache and ultimately forgiveness. What sounds like what could be a cliché-laden exercise is one of the most iconic and hauntingly beautiful performances on this earthround and even if you perceive ballet to be “not your thing”, it shall prove hard to not be won over by the story of this classic tale, which has never lost relevance.

Two acts are juxtaposed: What starts off in a naturalist forest environment is followed by activity within the confines of an otherworldly cemetary.

Maina Gielgud’s production is traditional in the best sense as it puts the focus firmly on the expression of the dance and has both characters and the story clearly identified, so no effort is needed to follow the narrative.

Gielgud’s meticulous choreography is outstanding and at times the dense accumulation of formations is almost overwhelming, which prompts more than once spontaneous applause as the  

The sharp yet subtle and evocative stage sets of the two acts is detailed and rich courtesy of Peter Farmer, which in both cases is embedded by William Akers’ lighting which adds nuances on the dancers performances, highlighting their features, which adds another dimension specifically to the second act.

Adolphe Adam’s score reinterpreted courtesy of Orchestra Victoria under the guidance of conductor Simon Hewett frames Australian Ballet’s incarnation of Giselle in a lively and engaging context that does not let up throughout both acts and supports the narrative succinctly.

Australian Ballet’s reimagined Giselle is a tour de force of visually compelling and physically thrilling dance theatre group work fuelled by passion and visceral, life affirming energy, which finds its most impressive expressions in the vividly acted romantic duets and fluidly danced pas de deux.

Thanks to powerful and theatrical performances that have both depth like this and radiantly convey the passions the main protagonist are driven by, Giselle shall keep shining undimmed.

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Photo courtesy of Australian Ballet

Japanese Water of Life

Sake – Toji  Sake and Four Fox Sake

If you have read a couple of my previous articles, you would know that I harbour quite a few spot for Japan, its culture and its culinary emissions - Sake being only one of them.

While I was used to enjoying Sake in Japanese restaurants around the globe, my appreciation increased exponentially for this versatile spirits once I was introduced to the tradition and educated on the creation of it in country by ‘toji’, i.e. a Japanese luminary versed in brewing it in the traditional way.

Needless to say that I was delighted to come across a local sake variant named after the profession that produces the drop, i.e. Toji Sake out of Melbourne, Australia.

Yuta Kobayashi and his wife have created an approachable sake that strikes the balance between pleasing the Western palate without diluting natural flavours and the DNA that sake in its home country is appreciated for.

Toji Sake is fresh, dry, astutely-balanced, artisanal sake that can be sipped either lightly refrigerated by itself (we are talking slightly below ten degrees Celsius, not iced, you heathen) or as a base component served as a cocktail with a twist. Purity is the credo that is the foundation on which the pure Toji Sake builds with the rice being sourced from Niigata Prefecture and the H2O straight from the Asahi Mountain range – sans any preservatives.

The bottle the sake lives in is a simple, yet expressive and beautiful work of art in itself that will adorn any liquor cabinet.

Slight change of gear:

Japanese mythology is full of wondrous allegories, stories and meaningful figures and deities.

One of the myths is cantered around Inari Okami being the god of Rice, Saké, Swordsmiths and Foxes – foxes because they were the guards of the Torii gates are were only meant to let the purest of spirits pass.

That is how the name for Four Fox Sake was derived, and the etymology is paid homage to via its crest which depicts foxes with rice fields at their feet.

Given the emphasis on purity, it is not further wondrous that the water is again sourced from snow and we find ourselves back in the Niigata area if we are looking for the place where Four Fox Sake sources it from.

Not unlike Toji  sake, Four Fox Sake is a “Junmai Daiginjo”, i.e. the highest grade and purest classification of sake, and the bottle with its wooden cap and chrome finish proves to be an apt vessel for the drink.

While I usually prefer a peaty whiskey, both Toji Sake and Four Fox Sake have become staples in my bar that are enjoyed neat and independently from Japanese fair and has long established itself as a tipple and cocktail ingredient not unlike gin or vodka.

Read more Water of Life entries here.

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Photo by @k.a.vv