While I was on my way to some awesome yaoi and yuri tiems at Room801, I passed by Hyde Park from the station and lo and behold they had another pop-up foodie event. I’ve been fortunate, no, VERY fortunate that the times I go to Sydney I always cross some big food event at Hyde Park. Last time, it was the Night Noodle market. This time, it’s the Sydney Cellar Door, a food and wine festival.
I know that Australia’s a big wine country so I wasn’t exactly surprised to see such an event like this. There were over 50 stalls offering grub and wine. The best part is the wine is free for tasting! *A*) All the awesome wines~!
In between yaoi and yuri tiems, I managed to stop by and take a look at what’s happening in Hyde Park. On my way there, I saw ANZ’s GayTM which is the bank’s way of commemorating Mardi Gras which is synonymous to the gay and lesbian parade in Sydney. They have more designs than the photo I took but yeah, I noticed much later that they’ve adorned most of their ATMs around Sydney with all kinds of sparklies. It was awesome!
After my quick GayTM distraction, I checked out Cellar Door. The food stalls were a little different compared to the Night Noodle Market. There were more stalls serving local charcuterie and cheeses. There were a couple of Asian food stalls but the event’s intent is to match food and wine so m0st of the food served were fairly safe for wine pairings.
Because I was a long way home, I was the idiot who didn’t taste much wine. And if I did, I didn’t remember the names of their vineyards. OTL. I swear to god I had a calling card somewhere but given the mess of papers I have at home, I just can’t. I am such a fail blogger for doing this but I had an awesome Rose and Shiraz in that event and I paired it with some cheese they had in their stall. Ugh. Times like this makes me wish I had more time in the city.
What I can write about was this awesome kebap stall I tried. See, I’m the girl that’s drawn to place because of how their food smells. The last time, I was drawn by the smell of pho (Bar pho was there again!). This time, it was lamb kebap. I caught the sight of two guys packing meat near a barbie. The sight and smell of charred meat was too hard to ignore. Thankfully, I arrived at their stall, Efendy, just before people started coming in their event.
I bought an Ali Nazik Lamb Kebap with strained butter, smoked eggplant, and capsicum butter. The owner was chatting me up that this has been his family’s recipe for years and I asked what makes it different from your regular kebab and he said “Well it’s Turkish!” I honestly had no idea what that meant.
What makes something taste Turkish? Who knows. But the owner guaranteed me that I will enjoy this kebap and it will help me understand what Turkey tastes like.
A few minutes wait, some more chitchat about Turkey, before I finally had my first bite. What does “Turkey” taste like? Well, it tastes like power ballad. It starts slow and then it gets strong, and then it hits all the sweet notes with such power before it’s capped off with a nice smooth melody. The lamb had a great spice, a mix of the typical middle eastern spices but not one that just feels hot in your mouth. Instead, the heat develops after every bite and just when you think you need a sip of wine, the eggplant and the capsicum butter caps it off with a sweetness that lingers in your mouth. It was wonderful although I’m not exactly sure if this is really “Turkish” but if it were, then “Turkey” tasted great.
I honestly love going to these pop-up foodie events. It gives me a chance to try out all the awesome eats from places I have no idea where to go to. I’d probably make a journey to Efendy when I have time and taste more of “Turkey”, hopefully “Turkey” won’t be a long trip from Wollongong.