Gourmet Food Safari comes to Eastwood

Maeve O’Meara, well known from SBS television’s “Food Lover’s Guide to” and ‘Food Safari” has now started taking walking tours around Eastwood sampling our local Korean restaurants, food stores and shopping outlets.

Her last tour was on Saturday October 29, when Maeve, together with Korean cooking teacher Heather Jeong, took 20 foodies from all around Sydney and down to Wollongong, around the eastern side of Rowe Street and Railway Parade.

The first stop was Surasang  Charcoal BBQ restaurant where Heather demonstrated the cooking of Bulgogi Beef and a Korean pancake with garlic chives and spreads of various temperatures. Korean green tea was sipped and packages of different Korean food sold in Eastwood were presented.  From there, the group headed up Rowe Street to Eastern Gourmet, a store  that takes pride in preparing the Korean side dishes (Banchan). A variety of kimchi and their preparations were explained.  These dishes are bought by local Korean families for ease of preparation to accompany their main courses cooked at home.

Maeve then directed the safari to La Vigne where the baker, Jai, gave away samples of his Korean cakes and sweets. This local coffee house and bakery has a delightful outdoor area at the rear which is a popular location on weekends.

The safari then moved onto the Eastwood Mart at 73 Rowe Street where the participants were able to see the Korean foodstuffs on the shelves including the different rices and grains that are popular in Korean cuisine.

The group’s final visit was to Kamhook Fish Market at 14 Railway Parade before the day was completed by a return visit to Surasang Charcoal BBQ restaurant for a delicious lunch. We ate seafood pancake, steak tartare (accompanied with julienned nashi pears), seafood & tofu kimchi soup, table top cooked pork belly and beef kalbi washed down with a sparkling rice wine.

These Korean visits to Eastwood are proving popular with the next visit scheduled for 19 November 2011 already fully booked.

http://www.gourmetsafaris.com.au/cart/index.php?mod=events&catid=6

- The Eastwood Eye