04 Sep Flavour Exchange, Spring 2015

Flavour Exchange, the Spring edition, was held on Thursday 3rd and Friday the 4th of September. Held at the Atrium in Federation Square it offered the chance for the public to taste and buy some of Victoria’s best products such as wines, beer, ciders and other food products like cheese, spreads and chocolate. It was a good opportunity to meet and speak to the producers and ask questions. On entry, everyone was given 14 tasting tokens to use and purchase samples before you buy.

I started the night with a lamb slider, pork slider, and panna cotta with chocolate crumb from the Vibe Hotel in Marysville, all for 5 tokens. Bargain! Soon after I collected my goodies, others caught on and the line grew steadily.

Yarra Valley Pasta cooked up all sorts of samples throughout the night, and cost one token each. This one pictured was the pumpkin, thyme, nutmeg and pinenut ravioli. Others that particularly stood out were  the free-range chicken and veal ravioli and smoked trout and goat’s cheese ravioli. All their pastas are snap frozen, so are super fresh after cooking.

Some other nibbles from the night included samples from Real Fudge, and a 3 token basket containing tortilla chips and dips from Cunliffe and Waters Preserves and Condiments.

We finished the night on a sweet note, opting for one cup of gelato for 4 tokens from gelAperia, based in Healesville. Being incredibly generous, they allowed us to have as many flavours as we wanted. After trying out a few (including the incredible, surprisingly rich dairy-free chocolate gelato), I settled on just two: coffee and pistachio. Both had an intense and distinct flavour and a lovely texture. The pistachio gelato is made from 100% pure pistachio paste imported from Italy and it was amazing – the quality of the paste really showed.

Flavour Exchange provided an interesting opportunity to try things we’d never heard of before and see some of the wonderful things that Australian makers are producing.

Disclaimer: I was invited to Flavour Exchange as a guest, however, opinions expressed here are purely my own and not influenced by them in any way