Abstract Gourmet

Perth Baristi - Come on down !

Jen Murray from the WA Barista Academy is organising a Barista Jam ! What’s a Barista Jam you ask ? I don’t really know, but there will be coffee, and beer, and music, and competitions, and prizes. It’s going to be held at WABA (135 Lake st, Northbridge) on Sunday the 8th of June, running from midday til whenever people decide to leave…

Baristas, Roasters, and anyone with a nose for good coffee are invited to come along and bring their grinder and beans, to share the love and see what kind of shots other people are pulling. There’ll also be a few impromptu competitions over the course of the afternoon (with some prizes being donated), such as a latte art smackdown, and a few other things.

The idea is that anyone and everyone with a love of quality coffee is invited (regardless of who you work for or what coffee you use) to come down and meet up with others in the scene and talk coffee (while drinking beer), without having to serve any customers :)

So if that sounds like you then book it into the calendar now ! Jen says that if you want to bring a grinder along (and you should !) then give her a call on 9328 7675 or an email at jennifer@baristaacademy.com.au

It would be really great to get everyone there. We’ve been in touch with Barista Magazine too, and I’ll be taking some shots from the day which will hopefully make it into the next edition.

More details are they come to hand !

  baristajam, Coffee, Espresso, event, perth

Filed by Matt at 12:25 pm under Coffee, Espresso, Events, Latte Art | Add a comment (70 views)

Thank you to Tiger Airways for getting us to Melbourne in perhaps the most cramped and undignified manner possible. At times I felt like I should have brought my own seatbelt along, as it probably would have helped make me feel moderately comfortable about traveling in an over sized chicken coop.

What I was grateful for however, is the lovely and handsome Ben Bicknell of 5 Senses, picking us up at the airport and whisking us back to the place we were staying in South Yarra for some much needed sleep (which was nigh on impossible on the plane) and a chance to make ourselves respectable, before beginning the onslaught that was to be our time in Melbourne. First stop… St Ali.

If you haven’t heard of St Ali and you live in Melbourne, then there is something seriously wrong with you. Mark Dundon’s cafe and roasting operation has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and is consistently named in the top places to visit, and from what I can gather, rightly so.

It’s located in a quiet street in South Melbourne, seemingly away from the hustle and bustle of the city and it’s many laneways. There’s no sign out the front, but it’s completely packed. I have no idea where the people are all from but there are suits galore (and not of your Man to Man / Ed Harry / Insert cheapo guys clothes store name here, variety), happily mingling with hipsters and hippies of all persuasions. It’s a Thursday morning (I think), ok maybe lunch time.

We grab a table by the bar, unlucky not to get a seat at the big communal table, but it does make surreptitious photography more difficult.

Orders are done at the table and so I grab a couple of double flat whites to begin, with a fried egg stack and chorizo for Sharon (damn i knew i should have got that), and some house made white beans with proscuitto for me). The flat whites were superb. Cutting through the milk nicely and balanced sweetness with that chocolately body that’s so inviting for a cold Melbourne morning. The food arrived and was equally great. Though I perhaps felt a bit left out when a group of 4 businessmen all ordered the same dish of Lamb Kofta balls… decadently soaked in a tomato sauce.

Still what we had was great. The beans hearty and the proscuitto salty and delicious. I tried not to eye Sharons chorizo, but it soon got the better of me and I caved… it was great too.

Next up another round of coffees, espresso for me, short macchiato for Sharon. While waiting the barista strolled over and surprised me by saying

“Sorry, this is for you, it’s a really nice looking ristretto but too short for an espresso, so I figured I’d give it to you for free rather than waste it”.

How lovely. It was a great ristretto, syrupy and dense with a great smokiness running through it. I thought about asking about the single origin they have on each day, but I was loving the house espresso blend too much to care to be honest. The espresso which soon arrived was equally tasty. More balanced and less syrupy than the ristretto, but a well put together shot. I felt at home.

St Ali oozes so much cool there should be hazard signs out the front when you walk in. It’s just effortless. We thought to ourselves that if the rest of Melbourne was as good as this, we were in for a good time :)

          

St Ali
12-18 Yarra Place
South Melbourne
Telephone (03) 9686 2990

  breakfast, cafe, Coffee, Espresso, melbourne, stali, Travel

Filed by Matt at 4:41 pm under Coffee, Eating Out, Travel 10 Comments (163 views)

Good.

More to follow.

I’ll hopefully be giving a series on updates loosely based on the following places:

St Ali
Journal
Vue Du Monde
Interlude
Bar Lourinha
7 Grams
Brother Baba Budan
Gingerboy
Longrain
Mini
Movida
(and a whole lot of bars)

How lucid or useful any of this will be is yet to be determined…

Filed by Matt at 3:45 pm under Admin 8 Comments (221 views)

Just to prove that I can and do still cook on occasion, what with all these fancy schmancy restaurant reviews peppering the pages of late.

This dish is a highly unfaithful recreation of a dish I was fortunate enough to enjoy at a Slow Food Perth lunch in a what seems like a lifetime ago, making sausages at the home of Vincent Vitrelli. After wading our way through a good 100 kg or so of pig, we had time for a spot of lunch. The dish of the day for me was a delicious creamy polenta topped with Monte San Biagio sausage mixture, simmered in a little white wine.

This attempt had nowhere near the finesse of course, but I am happy to announce that my love of polenta is now assured, as is my ability to think of it as something other than the dry brick served at some Italian restaurants.

For the Ragu
Take a couple of good chorizo sausages (I had neither so I used some fairly ordinary chorizo and upped the paprika , chilli, and garlic levels myself) cut them up into chunks and set them to simmer in a glass or two of red wine. Add chopped garlic, onions, and tomatoes, and let it simmer until it starts to break down. At this point I added some chicken stock, salt, pepper, and passata, and then just let it all reduce down to a stewy consistency. A dash more paprika, and some fresh parsley finished off the dish, which was probably cooking for 30 mins or so.

For the Polenta
Despite what you may be thinking, there is no real trick to it. Aside from make sure your polenta is well lubricated with water, a little milk to finish, and I season mine with butter, salt, and cracked pepper. I’m not sure if this is heresy or not, it may well be, but it personally tastes like cardboard otherwise…
Whilst I’m happy for the polenta to be the starchy vehicle to drive the ragu home in a nice marriage of texture with flavour, I would prefer to be able to do something with it on it’s own.

I used a pretty standard brand, and initially used 3 cups of water to 1 cup of polenta. Set this on a medium heat and bring it to the boil… then reduce and let it simmer and bubble away until it gets thick. At this point I add more water, half a cup at a time, and continue stirring until it absorbs. Somewhere down the line, add some milk, a 100g of butter, and a good dose of salt and pepper, until the flavour is something in the realms of tastiness and the texture is soft and gooey. I like my polenta quite runny, and find it cool to watch the science experiment take place as it firms up on the plate when served.

I’ve been told its ready when the polenta starts to stick to the sides of the pan properly, but that seems an inexact method for me, so just let you conscience be your guide.

Serve it with a rioja or perhaps some fava beans and a nice chianti…

  chorizo, polenta, ragu, recipe, redwine, sausage

Filed by Matt at 12:49 pm under Eating In, Recipes 9 Comments (280 views)

Meanwhile, back in Perth, life still goes on. It’s more than a couple of weeks before the now larger than life sized trip to Melbourne, and there’s plenty of serious eating to be done til then. As well as concerts, my Dad’s 60th birthday, and possibly some actual work.

So the latest place to get noticed on my food radar, came by an interesting set of circumstances. I was at home busily preparing dinner for guests when Sharon called. “Have you heard of 1907 ?” she asked while I busily shelled beans and tried to work out if my dates were sticky enough. “The year ?” I respond… “Only vaguely and in black and white”… (Aren’t you glad you’re not her :) ).

“No… (exasperated pause) I just got some spam email about a new restaurant called 1907… look it up.”

“Sounds dodgy” I reply, before getting ensconced in making sure my lamb shoulder and haricot stew wasn’t too tomatoey.

Surely enough though, that ever present need to know what is happening first crept back in, and I took a moment while the stew was simmering away (on a medium low heat for 90 minutes) to peruse this curious new venture who had decided that mass email marketing was the way to do a soft launch.

Turns out the restaurant is:

…a world class restaurant and bar housed in a 100 year old rag trade factory, situated in the hub of Perth’s former fashion district. 1907 is the result of an idea to evolve Perth’s inner city, maintaining its old charms and incorporating cutting edge design to match a world class dining experience provided by our enthusiastic team of hospitality professionals.

Well fair enough then. The photos on the website look nice, and the menu sounds interesting, and despite the fact that head chef Graeme Shapiro once appeared on an Ainsley Harriot show, I figure it’s worth checking the place out.

So on a casual Wednesday night after a gym session and realising that there was no food left in the house, the decision was made. Sharon decided to dress classy, and I went for something that could be described as post work chic (which in reality is all I can do to match up). Of course she ended up looking glamorous, and I looked like an over sized school boy.

It’s just as well we made an effort though, because this place is swish. A barely concealed frontage, with steps leading up to a set of large foreboding wooden doors immediately open into opulent surrounds. The designers have clearly spared no expense on the interior, and aside from some unfortunate choices in music (for mine), it did feel like we’d been transported somewhere very unPerth.

The wait staff were friendly without being being intrusive and come across as knowledgeable but not cocky. I thought I’d caught one of them out for a moment when I asked if the (complimentary) bread was made here, which he replied it was… small rye loaves and a slices of focaccia.

So we ordered a bottle of Bellarmine Chardonnay that I thought would go passably well with all of our dishes. There is a very limited list of by the glass selections, which the Maître d’ recited for us. Clearly quick meals and glasses of wine are not the desired way to dine here.

To start with we shared the manjimup marron and port lincoln mussels steamed in broth of
tamarind, lime leaves and coconut cream. Quite a mouthful on the menu, and equally so on a plate. Our waitress brought side plates so we could easily share the dish, which was thoughtful. The marron was personally a little chewy, perhaps it was undercooked. The broth was delicious though, the lime and tamarind create a lovely sour counterpoint to the sweetness of the marron.

For mains I ordered a seared duck breast and duck tortellini, while Sharon had the masala spiced gnocchi, braised fennel bulb and baby spinach. My duck came medium rare, as I like it, and in an oddly sweet sauce, which for the life of me I can’t remember (and it doesn’t seem to be on the menu on the website). Sharon’s gnocchi was actually good… As opposed to almost every gnocchi I’ve ever eaten. It was light and airy, and the masala worked really well with the fennel. Overall the food was good, though perhaps not heightened experience I was looking for. Though there is a “menu prestige” degustation which we could have opted for which may offer some added finesse.

The total bill came to $150 for two people. Which to be honest is not expensive if you compare it to what the vast majority of mediocre restaurants in Perth are charging at the moment. Add that to the effort that’s gone into the design and service, the private dining rooms, and the funky cocktail bar downstairs which is the latest place to be scene for inner city hipsters, and you’ve got quite a compelling package.

Now please email this post to all of your friends and let them know…

1907
26 Queen Street
Telephone: 08 9436 0233

  cbd, perth, queenst, restaurant, Review

Filed by Matt at 10:37 am under Eating Out, Review 6 Comments (410 views)

Image used courtesy of Mugley

I know what you think… You Melburnians. You think that you live in a city blessed with the finest and best value restaurants in the world. With hidden bars so cool that no one knows about them, with liquor laws so relaxed that most bums on the street are running funky little wine bars out of their shopping trolleys. Your espresso flows with the flavours that only a rich Italian heritage can imbue, and celebrity chefs are lining up to fill your casinos with the fanciest dining experiences available.

But I’m not buying it.

My last trip to Melbourne was a disaster. I was young, naive… immature. I thought I could gayly prance my way about the city and run into good food, wine, and coffee at every turn of the corner. That every tram stop was just a hidden alleyway away from the best dining experience of my life, and that every cafe was just waiting for me to order a coffee that would be the best I’d ever tasted.

Ok, so I was clearly delusional. Still, I had somehow built up that idea in my head. Only to be presented with bland over priced food, terrible coffee, and “institutions” that should have been closed down years ago (Perugrinos, most of Lygon St).

This time around, I’m not leaving anything to chance. I’ll be coming over for the finals of the Australian Barista Competition, so the coffee issue should be well and truly sorted. Restaurants, and bars however, are entirely up for debate.

I’ve been hearing many things about many restaurants of late, and have been checking out plenty of blogs for inspiration, but what I’m hoping fellow food lovers and seekers of truth will be able to share with me are those little pearls of wisdom that never quite make it into the travel guides and search results for “best restaurant melbourne”.

I really want some great, unique dining experiences that showcase the best of what Melbourne has to offer, at all stages of the price spectrum.

So far on my tentative list are:

Bar Lourinha or Movida
St Judes Cellar and/or Panama Room
Bistro Guillaume
Lau’s family kitchen
The Commoner
Rumi
The Press Club
Giuseppe Arnaldo and Sons

This of course may not work out, because I’ll be there for roughly 6 nights, and there are clearly more than 6 restaurants on that list. A little whittling down to the absolute essentials may be in order.

So… those in know… please step up to the plate. Let me know where the real Melbourne is, and also how to tell the difference between the cool alleyways, and the ones I’m going to get mugged in.

  melbourne, Travel

Filed by Matt at 1:02 pm under Travel 58 Comments (896 views)

Sometimes I feel far too uncool to be a cafe reviewer. At Cafe Zekka, that isn’t particularly hard. The places oozes cool and style, and if hipness was a liquid it would be coursing through the very veins of this new King St cafe. It’s enough to make a geek like me run for cover and hide myself in the gadget section of GQ.

Though the stylishness is not surprising however, when you consider that the co-owners of Cafe Zekka also run the funktastic Test Tube in Mt Lawley, and a tres chic guys clothes shop next door (which I will have to get the name of, and perhaps try and buy some fashion sense from).

But whilst there is plenty of style to the place, the reassuring thing is that there’s also substance.

Managers Aaron and Bill have made sure that the food and coffee is a lot more than just an afterthought. The coffee is being supplied by Campos Coffee from Sydney. It’s a big undertaking to be shipping coffee from over East, and not something I’d be doing unless I had a product of Campos quality to rely on. Will Young of Campos is ultimately committed to his product however, making sure that each of his contracts are making espresso up to his standards, and refusing to supply those who don’t.

Aaron is formerly of Tarts in Northbridge, and also helped establish Lincolns in Highgate, and really loves his coffee. Will from Campos came over to make sure he was on the right track and was happy with what he saw, which is evident in the effort he puts in. Bill was formerly the man behind much of the good food that Lincolns made, and will be making all the lunches on the premises as of today (they were temporarily supplied by the good people at Sayers), now that the ovens have gone in.

        

So what of the food and coffee then ? The espresso follows the Campos style (as it needs to), and displays a comfortable level of acidity that the Superior blend is famous for, but without going overboard, there’s some definite body and kick to it that finishes off nicely. Perhaps poured longer than I’m used to, but a lot of that comes down to personal preference and it’s good to be able to appreciate espresso in all it’s various permutation from cafe to cafe. A double shot flat white in a small tulip cup punched through the milk with ease.

The food we had was also fantastic. A moroccan lamb pie and a roast mushroom quiche, served with a fresh green salad with avocado and roast chicken. I’m really looking forward to seeing some of Bill’s creations, as he really has a flair for tasty lunches.

If you’re lucky (?) enough to be a part of the CBD set, then make sure you take the time to wander a bit further down King St, and check these guys out.

Cafe Zekka
King St, Perth (in the space formerly occupied by Hudsons “Gallery”).

  cafe, cbd, Coffee, Espresso, kingst, perth

Filed by Matt at 1:35 pm under Coffee, Eating Out, Espresso, Review 10 Comments (645 views)

The Flying Taco is the latest edition to the North Perth Mexican food scene (making a grand total of 2). Owner and chef Anna (formerly sous chef at George St Bistro in East Fremantle) has an obvious love and passion for Mexican food that shows through in her simple but very tasty menu.

The concept is simple, you pick a taco, quesadilla, or burrito, then pick what you’d like to have in it.
At present the list of fillings is:

Carne Asada: Grilled sliced steak marinated in lime juice, garlic and oregano
Carnitas: Pork shoulder stewed then fried, with grilled fresh pineapple
Mole Poblano: Shredded chicken in festive sauce of chiles, nuts and chocolate
Pescado: Fresh fish, green chiles, spring onion and coriander (tacos and quesadillas only)
Vegetarian: Crispy potatoes and zucchini in a pasilla chile sauce

Then you choose a salsa to go with it, which at the moment are:

Pico de Gallo: Fresh chunky tomato, onion and green chiles
Salsa Verde: Blended tomatillos, garlic & green chiles
Salsa Chipotle: Smoky, spicy red chiles

So far I’ve dropped by for a carne asada quesadilla, and Sharon and I went back the other night for a carnitas and a mole poblano burrito. All of it has been great. The steak particularly juicy and tender, with enough cheesy goodness to bind it all together when fried inside the quesadilla.

The fact that they’re open late is something I think will be a big hit with the locals stumbling out of the Rosemount looking for a kebab alternative, as well as the late night workers and other chefs getting off work, wanting something tasty and simple to line their stomaches before crashing.

Check out the flip books at the counter for a chuckle, and try the El Salvadorian cola (if it’s there… the stuff is popular and hard to get hold of).

The Flying Taco
40 Angove Street,
North Perth
Tel: 08 9227 6393

Open Late - Cash Only

Find them on a map

  mexican, northperth, restaurant, Review, takeaway

Filed by Matt at 4:34 pm under Eating Out, Review 6 Comments (451 views)

As a little window into the length and breadth of my dining experiences, I present a not particularly succinct summation of some of the more memorable meals I’ve had in the past month or so. Please feel free to add your experiences of the same places in the comments, and let me know where I should be trying out next. Please bear in mind that these are all very much my opinion, and should no way be construed as having anything to do with reality or objectivity :)

Star Anise, 225 Onslow Road, Shenton Park
9381 9811

Another dinner with the lovely Clotilde (and the ever lovely Sharon… I am so spoiled). Marron for the ladies entrees, Jamon Iberico and 1 hour poached egg for me… The marron was delicious, the egg interestingly textured, the jamon tasty but overrated given it’s considerable reputation. Mains were a black angus steak with some amazingly meaty oyster mushrooms and a cauliflower puree, an ocean trout with eggplant purée and roasted vegetables, and the ubiquitous duck with gai lan. All very satisfying and worth the price. Washed down the lot with a 2005 Joseph Cabernet Merlot Moda (one of my favourite wines, but not the 2004 listed on the wine list). Service left a little to be desired in an overtly fine dining establishment, but that could be because I ask a lot of annoying questions and point out things like the wine being the wrong year. Worth it if you’re up for an experience you don’t mind paying for, and have great company to share it with like I did.

il lido - 88 Marine Pde, Cottesloe
9286 1111

Love the atmosphere of communal dining. Everyone sitting on long benches next to groups of other people. Sadly the people sitting next to me didn’t feel the love, and just kind of looked at me strangely when I inquired how their dishes were. The food is simple / rustic (for want of a less abused word) Italian food. Nothing regionally specific as far as I can tell, and far from the “peasant food”, they claim to be making, but all our dishes were delicious. The wine list is extensive and interesting, and remarkably well priced. A bottle of Pio Cesare Barbera D’Alba set me back around $32 (if memory serves me). A shared antipasto plate of vegetables and dips with bread was a nice way to start the meal, and my beef shin parpadelle was exactly the fall apart texture and stringy meaty richness I was after. Mains are definitely on the small side, but I had expected not to enjoy myself, so I was pleasantly surprised by the whole place. Again the service left a little to be desired, I think the waiters were getting into the communal side of things as much as we were, and expected us to order our own desserts.

Piccolo - 44 Angove St, North Perth
9227 5250

My second trip back to this little suburban gem was supposed to be much better. The new Scottish chef Graham Stewart definitely has a thing for the number three. There’s pork cooked three ways, beef cooked three ways, and salmon cooked three ways. I guess I’ve discovered that I’m just a monogamous kind of guy… because after the first three way it all got a little too much and the excitement was over far too quickly, and I really just wanted one dish done really well. The dishes at Piccolo also bely the name. The entrees are huge ! An order of squid was enough to feed everyone at the table alone, and the crab tian in gazpacho could have swum back to the ocean on it’s own. Still, the food is generally good, well priced, and with no wine list, it’s a byo paradise. I’m hoping at my next visit it will spring back to it’s best.

Ha-Lu - Unit 4, 401 Oxford St, Mt Hawthorn
9444 0577

Simple and tasty Japanese food. Ha Lu has done a great job at making a relatively soulless / odd shaped little restaurant into a warm, inviting space. The menu is set out like an izakaya in that the dishes are small plates designed to be shared. Unlike most izakaya you will find in Japan however, it isn’t full of salary men getting morbidly drunk after a hard day pretending to work. Rather they focus on the food, and the clean flavours that make Japanese food so good. We started with fresh sashimi of tuna, salmon, and kingfish, moved on to pork belly kakuni, sliced duck and eggplant, agadashi tofu, dorper lamb cutlets with fried camembert, ramen, and rice. “I think you have ordered… a little bit too much”, our waitress politely but insistently suggested… so I cut the ramen to make her feel better. All the dishes were superb…the sashimi fresh and succulent with just a dash of wasabi and soy, the standouts for me being the pork belly (in which I have a vested interest), and the duck. Word of advice though… DO NOT ORDER DESSERT. I was foolish enough to order a chocolate parfait (I know, I know… what is a parfait anyway??). I could see our waitress toiling for a good 10 minutes before presenting me with a monstrous concoction of (I kid you not), ice cream, cream, crushed oreo biscuits, cocoa pops (!), pocky sticks, and ice magic… Such a sad way to finish an otherwise great meal.

Basil Leaves - 82 Royal St, East Perth
9221 8999

Proof that you can not take friends to a restaurant you plan to review. Good friends will improve the experience of any bad restaurant by an amount completely undeserving of certain establishments. Brad and Nat are such friends, and Basil Leaves is well and truly one of these restaurants. The atmosphere was non existent outside of the sparkling repartee of our group of comic geniuses (and Brad). The toilets a near hazardous waste area, the food a clever mixture of every kind of Asian you can think of. At last count there was a total of 6 separate ethnic regions represented in all their generic glory. As Nat so aptly put it… It’s not often you come across a restaurant bold enough to put all their faith in iceberg lettuce. But Basil Leaves perseveres. If you’re feeling like Indian/Thai/Vietnamese/Chinese/Malaysian/Japanese or “other”, it may well be the place for you.

  asian, cheap, expensive, perth, restaurant, Review, wa

Filed by Matt at 10:06 pm under Eating Out, Review 4 Comments (388 views)

So I’ve finally decompressed and mostly decaffeinated myself from a heavy weekend of espresso based activity at the W.A Barista Championships for 2008. And what a weekend it was. A myriad of competitors (well, 18 of them anyway), all of excellent quality, were vying for the title of W.A Barista Champion, and I’m proud to (secondarily) announce the winner was Jen Murray of the W.A Barista Academy.

Jen’s performance was fantastic and polished. Her style relaxed and natural, her technique rock solid, and most importantly, her coffees tasted fantastic. Jen works as trainer for 5 Senses, and you can tell the time spent correcting other peoples mistakes definitely pays off. Perhaps one of the issues many baristas face when coming into these competitions is that it’s not just standing behind a machine and making coffees. It’s communicating and connecting with the audience and judges to convey that you know what you’re doing and why. Jen’s consummate ease in explaining what she’s doing, at the same time as doing it, set her up for a well deserved win.

Runner up this year was Vanessa Moore of Epic Espresso. Vanessa consistently performs well in these competitions and was always going to be at the top of the field. The consummate ease in the way she goes about her work and her dedication to the job will serve her well when she competes in the Open Heats before the Finals in Melbourne later on in May. She also took out the latte art throwdown (!) (or was it a smackdown) with a seriously symmetrical rosetta.

So then onto the fun end of the day. After the final competitor of the barista competition, and a steady lineup of hopefuls wanting to take out the latte art crown, it was up for the final event of the day. The W.A Cupping Championships. Cupping is of course not what you think it is (if I know my readers), but is the method by which roasters and coffee tasters break down the flavour profile of coffees by grinding them relatively coarsely, adding water, and slurping and smelling the coffee to work it all out.

The idea behind the competition then, is to have 8 sets of 3 cups. Two of the cups have the same kind of coffee in them, the third has a different one. The fastest person to correctly identify the most number of odd cups from each set, wins. Now I’ve cupped coffees before. Not on any great scale or length though. I’ve been to cupping sessions at roasters and cafes, and done a little at home when I was back in my home roasting days. So I figured, what the hell… I’ll give it a shot.

                 

Mc Grendel did an excellent job of building the drama, as he went down the line and announced whether each cup was a “Yes” or a “No”, and despite my attempts to look relaxed, I was getting the shakes (though that might have been to the 20 or so coffees I’d had to judge earlier). So to cut a not very long story even shorter, it came down to a final group of competitors. The score to beat was 4 out of 8 cups correct. I took my time, slurped, swirled, drew in long questioning breaths, and made my choices.

MC Grendel then went down the line and lifted the cups… “No”, “Yes, “Yes”, “Yes”, “Yes”… wait for it… “Yes” !, “No” :(, “Yes” ! 6 out of 8 in total. I was pretty happy with that, mostly because i’d just been judging baristas for the past two days and assessing how their coffees tasted, so if I had no palate of my own to rely on, it’d be only fair to question what the hell I was doing there.

So I thought I had it, but you can never think too soon. Catherine Ferrari of European Foods and Brazilliano was right next to me, and as another barista competition judge, wanted to make sure she did well. Which of course she did. Finishing well before me, and eventually coming through with 7 out of 8 cups correct. It was an excellent performance, and testament to her skills that even after two days of coffee tasting, she could pull up the win.

After all was said and done, and we’d been through the score sheets with the baristas to make sure they each get some good feedback from the event, and hopefully feel encouraged enough to try again next year (which they should ! the standard just keeps on getting better and better), it was off home to relax, rejuvenate, and not drink another coffee for a looong time (well the next morning anyway).

Special thanks for the event must go to Ben Bicknell, whose tireless efforts at pulling the whole thing together almost single handedly do not go unnoticed. Also Rob Forsythe for being a font of knowledge and a great help to all the judges. To Nicki and Azza Kindred for winging their way over from Tassie to help out, and to all the other judges and helpers, and time keepers. It’s people like these that make events like this one happen, and continue to grow the coffee scene in Perth.

Bring on next year :) and go Jen Murray for Australian Barista Champ 2008 !

  barista, Coffee, competition, Espresso, perth, wa

Filed by Matt at 9:37 am under Coffee, Espresso, Events, Latte Art 3 Comments (242 views)