Jason King
AmyHuangNarooma Oyster Festival
May 14th 2011 13:03
Look out Woodstock - the Narooma Oyster Festival is on and it's time to celebrate this mollusc in true South Coast style and throw a weekend festival.
The combination of fresh and tidal water flows means the four million oysters sold each year out of Narooma are of exceptional quality - the inspiration for these three days of feasting and fun.
Throughout the weekend, numerous waterside food and wine stalls will serve up delicious fare and there will be cheese, wine and boutique beer tastings and the chance to book your own oyster experience hosted by an oyster farmer and featuring the best in South Coast food and wine.
Live music, floating sculptures, exhibitions, bungy trampolining, boat tours and a big selection of children’s amusements, the weekend’s daytime line-up is very busy and quite impressive.
By night there’s a chance to party on down at Saturday’s glittering Oyster Ball with sumptuous festival menu and live band.
This was an experience - firstly I will say it craps all over the Easter festival at local Tilba Tilba - although I do consider Tilba one of the best places on the South Coast it cannot match the scale of this festival. There are abundant stalls and I was squealing with excitement that I might get to meet Julie Goodwin and have my photo taken with her.
I will get all the negatives out of the way first.
1) Having to pay $10- per adult to visit this festival is frustratingly annoying.
2) There were nearly more sponsor tents than actual food and wine tents - I really do not care to visit a Solahart Solar Power stall at a food and wine market. And serioulsy a man in a ANZ Bank ATM suit walking around at a food festival is a bit out of place and slightly ludicrous. I appreciated the chance to win a $300- savings account so you could get all my details but this is, from my understanding, a FOOD festival.
3) Way too commercial with all those sponsors and lacking in an actual festival for the love of the Oyster
4) The queues to get in were VERY long - it was ten minutes of queuing remeniscent of a music festival.
5) The worst part of the day was I did not get to meet Julie
6) It was the windiest day imaginable and some tents became missiles capable of murder and some of the amazing sculptures by the kids were ruined by the high winds.
7) The people at the Z4 Wines stalls were bloody idiots - they ignored numerous people and I walked out after being ignored for 5mins - my mum said something and stormed off and my stepdad stayed to be treated like shit from a woman who considered talking to one person was more important than actually acknowledging the 20 people following said person - disgraceful. When requesting to taste a wine to be asked "is it on the list?" is bloody ridiculous - I hope the woman was an idiot from the local area and not someone actually from the company because my thoughts on Z4 and all it's wines is forever tainted.
That being said - everyone was having so much fun - there were local musicians performing, there were rides galore for the kids and it had so much community feel, with not enough but sufficient food, to tantalise my culinary appetite. There were stalls for everything from CWA to Rescue groups even doing demonstrations with the jaws of life. There were local indigenous art exhibitions, photography competitions and the local accomodation stall had putt putt set up to win accomodation - although this was difficult seeing the putt putt fake grass became airborn in the wind. I do also have to point out it was quite possibly the BEST face painting I have ever seen on children - my mum was stoked and kept commenting and I would have taken a photo if not for the fear of being beaten as a freaky pervert lol.
OK then there was the food of the day and OMG - most of the food I ate was insanely awesome.
I started with a garlic prawn pie that Mike and I got together and they were just sensational - puff pastry filled with a garlic prawn mornay is my best description. Mike and I both loved it and I would have had another one although I wanted to have different stuff so Mike and I moved on and shared a slice of Oyster Kilpatrick Pizza and it blew my mind and tasted heavenly. Both of the pizza and the pie were made by the same people - I think they were called Rita's Cafe but my apologies if I was wrong.
Mum ate salt and pepper calamari from MIchael's on the Beach and their amazing store. The S&P Squid was divine. We then all went for a regular favourite and opted to share Gozlemes and for the first time in my life I was shocked at how poor these Gozlemes were - too thin, skimpy on ingredients, burnt and more expensive than Sydney - not cool. But eatable for people that have no idea how good a gozleme can taste.
Then the finale of food for us was an Oyster Shot for Mike and myself shouted by the awesome ma. This wasn't your standard oyster shot - this was a version made by Michaels and named after the Simpson's toy Malibu Stacey and was an oytser in a shot glas mixed with mango, coconut, Vietnamese mint, pickled ginger and Malibu and OMG - it was beautiful.
We also bought some yummy things - the cheeses from South Coast Cheese were bloody heavenly with one of the nicest Blues I have ever eaten and the Kalamati Garlic Cheese found its way into my stomach and bag for a home block. Mike bought the Blue and mum bought the Vintage Pepper. YUMMY. I also bought a home styled made Onion Marmalade for BBQ meats that tasted superb.
The festival is heavily based on food, although flooded in sponsorship and still we are required to pay to enter, BUT the things I missed out on were the celebrity cooking challenges and competitions and demonstrations from the crew of Vue de Monde, David Maidment, Michael Stokes, Brendan Walsh, Julian Lloyd and a few more chefs from around the country.
It was a fun day had by one and all and will continue tonight with an Oyster Ball then tomorrow the festivities continue with the festival and the massive street parade. I would not pay to enter the festival again but I would pay money for the prawn pie or the Kilpatrick Pizza again - so delish!!!! And mum has promised me a trip to Michael's restaurant on the beach - can't wait - his food was great!
The combination of fresh and tidal water flows means the four million oysters sold each year out of Narooma are of exceptional quality - the inspiration for these three days of feasting and fun.
Throughout the weekend, numerous waterside food and wine stalls will serve up delicious fare and there will be cheese, wine and boutique beer tastings and the chance to book your own oyster experience hosted by an oyster farmer and featuring the best in South Coast food and wine.
Live music, floating sculptures, exhibitions, bungy trampolining, boat tours and a big selection of children’s amusements, the weekend’s daytime line-up is very busy and quite impressive.
By night there’s a chance to party on down at Saturday’s glittering Oyster Ball with sumptuous festival menu and live band.
This was an experience - firstly I will say it craps all over the Easter festival at local Tilba Tilba - although I do consider Tilba one of the best places on the South Coast it cannot match the scale of this festival. There are abundant stalls and I was squealing with excitement that I might get to meet Julie Goodwin and have my photo taken with her.
I will get all the negatives out of the way first.
1) Having to pay $10- per adult to visit this festival is frustratingly annoying.
2) There were nearly more sponsor tents than actual food and wine tents - I really do not care to visit a Solahart Solar Power stall at a food and wine market. And serioulsy a man in a ANZ Bank ATM suit walking around at a food festival is a bit out of place and slightly ludicrous. I appreciated the chance to win a $300- savings account so you could get all my details but this is, from my understanding, a FOOD festival.
3) Way too commercial with all those sponsors and lacking in an actual festival for the love of the Oyster
4) The queues to get in were VERY long - it was ten minutes of queuing remeniscent of a music festival.
5) The worst part of the day was I did not get to meet Julie
6) It was the windiest day imaginable and some tents became missiles capable of murder and some of the amazing sculptures by the kids were ruined by the high winds.
7) The people at the Z4 Wines stalls were bloody idiots - they ignored numerous people and I walked out after being ignored for 5mins - my mum said something and stormed off and my stepdad stayed to be treated like shit from a woman who considered talking to one person was more important than actually acknowledging the 20 people following said person - disgraceful. When requesting to taste a wine to be asked "is it on the list?" is bloody ridiculous - I hope the woman was an idiot from the local area and not someone actually from the company because my thoughts on Z4 and all it's wines is forever tainted.
Sculptures made by local school kids out of paper lined the waterways - sadly the giant creation was anihilated by the wind
That being said - everyone was having so much fun - there were local musicians performing, there were rides galore for the kids and it had so much community feel, with not enough but sufficient food, to tantalise my culinary appetite. There were stalls for everything from CWA to Rescue groups even doing demonstrations with the jaws of life. There were local indigenous art exhibitions, photography competitions and the local accomodation stall had putt putt set up to win accomodation - although this was difficult seeing the putt putt fake grass became airborn in the wind. I do also have to point out it was quite possibly the BEST face painting I have ever seen on children - my mum was stoked and kept commenting and I would have taken a photo if not for the fear of being beaten as a freaky pervert lol.
Best Garlic Prawn Pie you will EVER SEE
OK then there was the food of the day and OMG - most of the food I ate was insanely awesome.
I started with a garlic prawn pie that Mike and I got together and they were just sensational - puff pastry filled with a garlic prawn mornay is my best description. Mike and I both loved it and I would have had another one although I wanted to have different stuff so Mike and I moved on and shared a slice of Oyster Kilpatrick Pizza and it blew my mind and tasted heavenly. Both of the pizza and the pie were made by the same people - I think they were called Rita's Cafe but my apologies if I was wrong.
Strangest but most sensational pizza I have had in years
Mum ate salt and pepper calamari from MIchael's on the Beach and their amazing store. The S&P Squid was divine. We then all went for a regular favourite and opted to share Gozlemes and for the first time in my life I was shocked at how poor these Gozlemes were - too thin, skimpy on ingredients, burnt and more expensive than Sydney - not cool. But eatable for people that have no idea how good a gozleme can taste.
Then the finale of food for us was an Oyster Shot for Mike and myself shouted by the awesome ma. This wasn't your standard oyster shot - this was a version made by Michaels and named after the Simpson's toy Malibu Stacey and was an oytser in a shot glas mixed with mango, coconut, Vietnamese mint, pickled ginger and Malibu and OMG - it was beautiful.
We also bought some yummy things - the cheeses from South Coast Cheese were bloody heavenly with one of the nicest Blues I have ever eaten and the Kalamati Garlic Cheese found its way into my stomach and bag for a home block. Mike bought the Blue and mum bought the Vintage Pepper. YUMMY. I also bought a home styled made Onion Marmalade for BBQ meats that tasted superb.
The festival is heavily based on food, although flooded in sponsorship and still we are required to pay to enter, BUT the things I missed out on were the celebrity cooking challenges and competitions and demonstrations from the crew of Vue de Monde, David Maidment, Michael Stokes, Brendan Walsh, Julian Lloyd and a few more chefs from around the country.
It was a fun day had by one and all and will continue tonight with an Oyster Ball then tomorrow the festivities continue with the festival and the massive street parade. I would not pay to enter the festival again but I would pay money for the prawn pie or the Kilpatrick Pizza again - so delish!!!! And mum has promised me a trip to Michael's restaurant on the beach - can't wait - his food was great!
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