Monday, 24 September, 2018 – Another Warm Day Loyal followers of this Blog. If you find yourself in a situation where you cannot see the photos and / or the captions or alignments are messed up, please go to http://www.beauperi.com directly and all those problems should go away.
After another good buffet breakfast, we decide to go to the local fish market which Julie had visited before.
Julie entering the fish market
There was only one stall open in the market which seemed strange.
Decent Seafood Fareand More for take awayFrom the back showing the high gables
I went back to the Hotel room to do more Blogging. In the mean time, Julie pranced all over town and found some Aussie wine.
CasksKanga Rouge – what a punSouth African too
In the mean time, the kids have made there own way around town.
BurgersDouble, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble – Billy Shakespeare
The effect was created by adding dry ice to standard drinks. Julie goes out later to get take way food for us.
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Julie brought back two long bread rolls each half filled with school prawns and half with well picked Crab. Spot on. We had a picnic of sorts in our hotel room.
It is another really nice day although we were warned that the good weather was about to end. Ryan and I made our way to the usual bus stop and jumped on a red bus which took us to the brewery.
As we enter the grounds we see a lot of construction going on with some large holes in the ground. This was described as a new city being built i.e. lots of apartments.
The old brewery and the entrance for the tour
We are doing a self guided tour inside. I didn’t take many photos because, frankly, I have done many before and did not find this too much different from other old breweries I had seen.
These are all the various labels / bottles over the years
There were rides offer to visitors on beer carts driven by Clydesdales. At the end of the tour we could smell at a distance the stables for the horses.
Each stall had the name and description of the horse insideWhat a beautyIn action
Our entry gave us access to a free beer, used to be two.
Our delightful beer dispenserThe beer choicesWe went to all of this effort to do a selfie with the beer, pity about Ryan’s eyes closed
Beer Tasting
A highlight of the day was to taste several of the brewery’s beers. Our tasting guide was an American from Seattle, about 200 mile from my home town of Portland, Oregon.
First beer was a Weis Bier, White Beer made from wheat – never releasedAnother wheat beerAn IPA from Yakima Washing, just across the river from where I lived in OregonA Porter, dark beer similar to a stout
Sharing the tasting with us was a Chinese couple from Singapore. When we first arrived the girl asked me if I was from California!!! Given I haven’t lived in California for over 46 years, she had a very perceptive ear. Turns out they had lived in the USA for years. Any way, our guide had talked about a special bottle that he had found which when tried he considered not very good at all. The Chinese guy said why don’t we try it any way.
Our guide was right, it was not very goodThe full line-up
My favourite was the second beer which had very interesting clove and fruit tastes. The guide’s favourite was the IPA. All in all good fun, not bad for someone like me that does not drink beer.
Fleisch
Julie had a gala dinner at the conference so the three of us headed out to the Meat Packing District to a famous meat shop and restaurant called Fleisch.
Looking into the butcher shopLooking into the restaurant part where Tanika and Ryan are seatedLooking out to the restaurants in the former meat packing shops
I will say right now that it looked like we were in the wrong place, maybe a warp in time. Service was generally poor. There was nothing like the various dishes shown on the websites with just 3 selections, essentially, and the quality of what was provided was mostly poor. I wonder what went wrong.
We started with the bacon infused Manhattans
These were served at least 30 minutes after we ordered them. Then there was little or no bacon flavour.
Ryan and I ordered the pork dish
Again the dishes arrived a long, long time after we ordered them. Then the crackling was good but otherwise the pork was tougher than an old boot.
Crab Ravioli for Tanika
This was a major highlight of the night in that Tanika was forced to order the crab,which she had never had before, because there was no chicken on the menu. She loved it and that the big win. Of course, her course was served after a very long delay just like ours.
Our wineTanika asked us to share a cheese platter with herTanika had no cheese, this is what she really wanted
The cheese, especially the bleu was quite good. No more editorial comment other than what went wrong?
Turns out that Julie’s gala function was in another part of the Meat Packing District. So she ended up getting home much earlier than might have been expected otherwise.
JV had had an exotic previous zeroth birthday on the Great Wall of China and then being to a grand celebration dinner hosted by the Chinese Government. Her last fifth birthday was also exotic as she was feted at a Birthday celebration banquet hosted by the May of Bordeaux in Bordeaux. This zeroth was more low key in that it was held in the home town of Melbourne, but it was still exciting.
16 April – Sue & Ian’s Place
We were driven to (and from) their place by Gary Benbow – thanks a lot Gary. Sue really put on a spread:
Sue’s Magical Menu
The themes behind the menu were Black, because Julie always wears black, black and white for her Footy team and lots of other homilies relating, including Croatian words as we will be heading there shortly on our next overseas trip. We had first cocktails, a Manhattan, at the back patio and also the first course – blini with avocado and prawn. Being out of practice I did not get any photos of that part. It started to rain and so we came in for the rest of the magic.
Delightful ScallopsAn Exotic Peking-type Duck
After this course, there was a knock at the front door. It was delivery from QUE2YOU of the “smoked everything”.
The BBQ and smoked take wayGoodies UnwrappedMore Goodies including baked potatoes by SueCracking Whipped DessertThe Birthday celebrants
A stunning effort by Sue and a great time. The night melted away.
18 April – Claypots St Kilda
The birthday itself was held with Julie’s family in a St Kilda restaurant called Claypots Seafood Bar. We had opted for the multi-course fixed menu. I did not get a lot of photos.
The FamilyAgain
We were seated in the outdoor courtyard. The weather was good enough so that we did not get cold. Note: the base of the courtyard was gravel. Not sure I have seen that before. When I sat down the chair leg settled deeply in the gravel.
The Highlight Dish – Crab and MusselsJenny eating Crab
The Blue Swimmer Crab was the biggest I had ever seen and it was quite tasty.
Being a weekday, the night finished relatively early. Thanks to Ryan for driving us home.