Sunday, 9 April, 2017 – Melbourne City

For the third year in a row we are to go to another MFWF event – The Red Spice Laneway lunch – outside Red Spice Road in McKillop street city. Kate and David Rosner join us for the third year in a row and Jan and Hugh this year.

As you can see the Laneway, McKillop Street, is totally clear. Actually we suspected that this might happen as the weather forecast was horrific with lots of rain, hail, wind etc. But the good thing is that the Red Spice Road restaurant itself is quite large inside and they were able to set-up enough tables to fit everybody in. We were shown to our table by the long time head maitre-d, Mark.

We are shortly joined by Kate and David and we set-up so that the three girls are together and the 3 boys the same.

Note we are all drinking Rose. The following is the menu for the day, as always at RSR – very generous.

Eventually after the place filled up the food started coming.

We were seated at the table with another group of 5 ladies who turned out to have been sitting next to us in the last (real) Laneway Lunch. Photos did not turn out but we agreed to try to line up with them for next year’s event.

Eventually we finish up and return home via Uber again. The vile weather did not occur until much later that night so theoretically they could have had the lunch in the laneway but we were glad that they did not – it would have been quite cold otherwise. Inside, it was a bit noisy but not bad otherwise. Off to bed early.

Friday, 7 April, 2017
Tonight we have another real MFWF event which should be a real treat. This is a tasting of 13 Shirazs at Armadale Cellars.
Armadale Cellars, Licensed Grocer

The event advertises a light supper at the end of the tasting so I decide we should have a generous lunch before hand. I select a place where we have been a couple of times with David & Kate – Dainty Sichuan Food in the City.

Dainty Sichuan in Lonsdale Street, City

So Jan, Hugh and I do the hike down Fitzwilliam again to catch the Tram to Glenferrie and then the Train to the City. This all passes smoothly and when we get to SD there is a table available, it never got totally crowded like it does at night. We were the only Ang Mos there – a derogatory term from Singapore which means all white people look the same and have Red Hair – all white people have red hair. Eventually one other table of Ang Mos showed up

Dainty Sichuan, or SD as David calls it, has several outlets around. This one, on the outskirts of Chinatown, serves only Hotpot style meals with lots of spiciness available.

There are two parts to ordering here – (1) selecting the Broth(s) that each person would like to cook as their hot pots. I warned the guys that the hot ones could be quite spicy but they ordered split versions with half a regular stock and half a very spicy one.

(2) Order the types of foods you would like to cook, individually, in the hotpots – the following are what we ordered.

One more thing to do after the orders are made is to go to the condiments carousel and pick up bowls of stuff to add to your cooked goodies – includes chillis, garlic, sesame seed paste (my favourite) and lots of others.

It is all a lot of fun and the food is good too. We did not quite finish everything but gave it a good try. Afterwards, we go back to Lara for a rest before the main event that evening. That event is another wine and food festival event titled “MFWF Shiraz Challenge 2017”.

So we do the trudge down Fitzwilliam again, the guys eventually became quite expert at it, to catch a tram. But this time we continue on past the Station to connect to another tram on High Street – the Number 6. When we arrive at Armadale Cellars, Julie is already there, having walked – of course. We are each given a glass of sparkling Shiraz, of course, and lead down the stairs into their cellar where the tasting is being held. It is at a horseshoe like table with our host in the middle section with all the wines.

You will note that in the upper middle of that list is a 2010 Grange, obviously the highlight of the tasting at $935 per bottle. The wines are served in random order in 3 flights of 4 Shiraz. The object as tasters was to try and guess which wines were which and, in specific, which one was the Grange.

I did not record which wines were in which order but they are lined up left to right in this photo, forgetting the Grange box.

What I did do was pick which one was the Grange, based solely upon the nose. The young girl next to me also picked by the colour, well done.

I also selected the Grange as the wine of the night but would have to say I would never consider spending $900+ on any wine. The wines under $60 were nice wines and much better value. As advertised, there was a light meal after the tasting.

All in all a very good experience. Thanks to Armadale Cellars. As per usual, we took an Uber home to collapse.

UPDATE
After the publishing of this page, a number of my followers asked what was the order of the wines that were served. (That number was actually zero but I thought I would do it anyway). The number in the Qty column represents where this particular wine was served with the flight being 1, 2 or 3 and the wines 1-4 left to right e.g. the Grange was #11 (Flight 3, second from right) and Morilla Muse #1 (Flight 1, Leftmost).