A weekend in Tasmania, and the Red Velvet Lounge online auction fundraiser

The Guardian asked me to write a short piece about the food highlights from my recent weekend away in Hobart with my partner: you can read it here! And I don't think I mentioned it here on the blog, but I also contributed a few entries earlier in the year to the Guardian's Unsung Food Suburbs series (read my guide to Dandenong here, and about Sunshine here).


But back to Tassie for a sec: those of you lucky enough to have visited Southern Tasmania's beautiful Huon Valley may have been familiar with the Red Velvet Lounge, a fabulous cafe in Cygnet owned and run by the inimitable Steve Cumper. I had a terrific lunch at the RVL on my previous trip to Tasmania in 2012, and Steve's idiosyncratic blog is one of my favourite chef blogs.

In November, the Red Velvet Lounge was destroyed by fire, devastating Steve and his team. Friends in the industry have rallied to help get the RVL back on its feet: you can get involved by bidding in the #assistRVL Online Auction. There are some fantastic auction items up for grabs, including: dinners at Hobart's hottest restaurants Garagistes and Franklin, accommodation at various Southern Tasmanian bed and breakfasts, a year’s supply of Bruny Island Cheese, an Agrarian Kitchen cooking class for two, French Black truffles from the Perigord 2015 winter truffle harvest, lots of excellent cases of wine, and the opportunity to accompany John Lethlean as his dining companion for a review dinner for the Weekend Australian. Please get bidding! You can do so on the Facebook page, or email tori@brunyislandcheese.com.au to place a silent bid.

Tonics and gins: news round-up

There are all sorts of interesting things happening at the moment in the world of local tonics and gins, so I thought I'd list them all in the one place in this here round-up.

Blood Moon Tonic

There are just THREE DAYS LEFT to pledge for Blood Moon Tonic, so what are you waiting for?

If you missed my earlier spruiking of it on social media, Blood Moon Tonic is a new business run by my very good friend Karolina. She's producing Australia's first handcrafted tonic syrups for commercial sale, using whole cinchona bark instead of the synthesised quinine and artificial flavours used in most sugary commercial tonic water.

For those who haven't tried tonic syrups before, they're a bit like cordial in that you dilute them with sparkling/soda water (or still water, if you prefer) to your desired strength. You can drink it with gin or other spirits, or as a grown-up non-alchoholic beverage, or even use the concentrated syrup as a cocktail ingredient.

There are three initial flavours: one traditional recipe, one with Australian native botanicals, and one which is wholly unsweetened (ideal for those who are quitting sugar or who prefer to add their own non-sugar sweetener like stevia). I was lucky enough to taste some test samples in June and can confirm they are the bee's knees - I love being able to tinker with my tonic strength depending on which gin I'm drinking. But don't just take my word for it: Mr Max Allen wrote a terrific article in The Australian about Blood Moon Tonic and what he thought of the syrups.

My gal Karolina is doing the whole thing by hand, grinding up spices in her mortar and pestle. To kickstart producing Blood Moon Tonic in commercial quantities, she launched a crowdfunding campaign on Pozible which has been wildly successful (she met her initial target of $10k in less than three days!) and which ends on Friday. Pledge before Friday by pre-purchasing some tonic syrup and you'll be getting numbered bottles from the first batch, delivered just in time for Christmas. Get on it pronto, people! I'll see you at the launch party.

http://pozible.com/bloodmoontonic


Daylesford and Hepburn Mineral Springs Co.

Also in Victorian tonic news, it's awesome to see that Daylesford and Hepburn Mineral Springs Co has launched what they believe to be the world's first certified organic tonic water, using their terrific natural carbonated spring water and quinine from chinchona bark (read their lively blog post about the process here). Barely a month since it launched, but already an Australian Made Award finalist at the Fine Food Australia expo last week. I haven't got my mitts on a bottle yet, but am really keen to do so - if you'd like to do the same, check the DHMSCO website for stockist details.


Photo source
And in gin news:

- Later this week Yarra Valley distillery Four Pillars Gin is launching its 'Gunpowder Proof' navy strength gin, which clocks in at a hearty 58.8% booze by volume. The Gunpowder Proof replaces half of the oranges used in production with NSW finger limes (a native botanical also found in Stone Pine Distillery's dry gin) and will be a limited 2015 release, produced only while finger limes are in season. To get your hands on a bottle, place an order on the Four Pillars website from Friday.


Photo source
- Sydney has its first local gin! Newtown brewers Young Henrys launched their Noble Cut gin on the weekend at the Small World Street Festival in Marrickville (Broadsheet has photos). As noted by Callan Boys in Good Food, the Young Henrys Noble Cut gin is made with hops, cascara, Australian green tea, native pepperberry, coriander, bush tomato, juniper, coriander, angelica root and other botanicals. Look out for it soon in discerning stockists near you.


Photo source
- Here's a fun upcoming gin event: the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) is holding a pop-up gin bar *inside* the Old Melbourne Gaol on Friday 17th October. I went along with friends to a pop-up whisky bar in the Gaol that NTAV ran earlier in the year (pictured below), and we had heaps of fun wandering in and out of the cells, learning about single malts and 19th century penal reform. The $40 ticket price includes two drinks from a selection of gins and gin-based cocktails (or wine or beer, but come ON), with additional drinks available for purchase and an optional Gin Mare masterclass for an extra $15. There'll also be food, a band and uniformed sergeants rattling batons menacingly along the prison railings, to really get you into the gaolhouse spirit. Bookings can be via Trybooking here (and NTAV will also be getting piratey on 21st November with a pop-up rum bar on the Polly Woodside (!), bookings for which can be made here).


- Mornington Peninsula distillery Bass & Flinders has been running a great series of gin masterclasses, both at the distillery in Red Hill and in Melbourne, which give participants the opportunity to not only learn about gin but to play with different botanical distillates to create their ideal blend. At the end of the class you get your own bottle blended to your specifications! The October masterclass held at Southbank's Wine House has sold out, but keep an eye on the Bass & Flinders website and FB page for the November and December masterclass dates that will be announced shortly.


(By the by, gin lovers: if you find yourself in Brisbane anytime soon you MUST visit the newly opened gin bar Dutch Courage Officers Mess - 105 gins and counting! I was up in Brisbane on the weekend speaking at the Eat Drink Blog conference, and went to the bar with Elly from gin blog The Ginstress and some other conference delegates. I *ahem* got through five gins - just 100 to go next time...)

Australian gin, new Melbourne restaurants and food trends for 2014

A few quick updates on what I've been up to this summer:

- I wrote an article about Australian gins and the use of native botanicals for Fairfax's Good Food/Epicure. At last I'm putting my obsession with gin, and with Australian gins in particular, to good use. Research for the article included visiting Wilma (pictured above), the beautiful CARL copper pot still used to make Four Pillars Gin in the Yarra Valley. Expect to see more gin-related content on Melbourne Gastronome soon...

- Although I haven't published any new blog posts lately, I've been continuing to update my new Melbourne venues page and my upcoming Melbourne venues page. By my count there were 11 new openings so far this month and 23 new openings in December (!!!) so check them out (and, as ever, let me know which ones I've missed).

- Three weeks ago I was interviewed on JOY 94.9FM about food trends for 2014 by the host of the food and drink radio show Cravings, the debonair Pete Dillon. Also on the panel that afternoon was Epicure's Hilary McNevin and former Gastronomy Program Manager at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Sharlee Gibb. To find out what trends we talked about - apart from me ranting about fake alcopop "ciders" - download the podcast of the show by clicking on the link above.

The new ACCC guidelines: Australian law and online reviews

Last week the ACCC released its first guidance materials relating to online product reviews for businesses and review platforms. The arrival of the guidelines was warmly welcomed by those of us concerned with disclosures and misleading conduct online - in the absence of specific guidance in the Australian legal context, we'd had to look to equivalent guidelines in the US (see the FTC's 2009 Guidance on Endorsements and Testimonials and the updated-for-2013 Dot Com Disclosures guidance for digital advertising) and the UK (see the ASA's recent publication Blurring advertising and blogs – why it pays to know the ad rules).

In light of the confusion surrounding the ACCC guidelines from some people online ('So if I only post positive reviews of my wines on my site, is that in violation?!' one wine person tweeted to me) I thought I'd write this post setting out the guidelines, as they intersect nicely between my blogging and my professional expertise relating to consumer law.

A couple of initial points:

- Contrary to what you may have heard, these are not 'new laws' that the ACCC is introducing. Misleading or deceptive conduct continues to be prohibited under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA) incorporating the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), punishable by penalties of up to $1.1 million. What the guidelines do is help to identify misleading conduct in the specific context of online reviews.

- The ACCC guidelines relate to 'review platforms', which are defined as 'sites, sections of sites or software tools (eg apps) which publish reviews about a range of goods, services or businesses and whose predominant audience are consumers seeking product or business information to inform a prospective purchase. Review platforms generally publish reviews on their own site. Sometimes review platforms are engaged to collect and publish reviews on another’s site.' The guidelines confirm that the principles equally apply to blogs and discussion threads. It also makes no difference whether the reviews are by experts or 'everyday' consumers (eg Urbanspoon, Yelp, TripAdvisor).

The quotes below come from the ACCC guidance and the summary for businesses on the ACCC website.

Disclosing commercial arrangements with reviewed businesses

Commercial relationships between review platforms and businesses may influence the overall rating of a business on the site. For example, a review platform may allow businesses that advertise on the site to select a review to appear at the top of the page or prevent negative reviews from being automatically uploaded. This may mislead consumers by creating an impression that the business received more favourable reviews than it actually has. Disclosing commercial relationships between review platforms and businesses helps consumers make better informed decisions about the business and its products or services.

Platforms which allow commercial relationships with reviewed businesses to impact upon the content or presentation of reviews, in particular the inflation of review results, risk breaching the CCA. In circumstances where a commercial relationship does not affect the review results, it is recommended that there is disclosure of this relationship to consumers using the review platform.

For platforms opting to rely on disclosure, suggestions as to how this disclosure may be made include:
- a prominent explanation of the nature and extent of the commercial relationship and its impact, if any, on the review page of the affected business
- distinguishing review results which are in any way promoted or improved because of a commercial relationship with the platform through shading or other means so that their content is not confused with ‘organic’ review results.

If you have a commercial relationship: disclose it.

The guidance goes beyond the obvious point of disclosing advertorials to include the ways in which commercial relationships between the business and the reviewer or review platform may influence in subtler ways, such as the business being able to manipulate review results.

This excellent article on the guidelines in the Fin Review by Cha's Kitchen points to @stickifingers' commendable use of the #myclient hashtag when tweeting about her clients.

‘Consumer reviews’ written by businesses or on behalf of businesses

The writing of reviews by a business about itself as though it were a consumer is misleading; as is writing negative reviews about a competitor when the author has not experienced the product or service. Engaging an individual, a search engine optimisation firm or other public relations firm to deliver reviews by persons who are purporting to be, but who are not in fact, genuine consumers is misleading.

You should not write reviews when you have not experienced the good or service reviewed or reviews which do not reflect a genuinely held opinion. You should not solicit others to write reviews about your business or a competitor’s business if they have not experienced the good or service. The ACCC considers such conduct to be misleading.

You should not encourage family and friends to write reviews about your business without disclosing their personal connection with your business in that review.

Re that last point: undisclosed personal connections can also mislead, even if there's no commercial relationship. When I write about places that are run by mates of mine I always err on the side of disclosing our connection (even if it risks making me sound like a pretentious name-dropper).

Detecting and removing fake consumer reviews

Businesses and review platforms that do not remove reviews that they know to be fake risk breaching the CCA.

Whilst it is not always possible to detect every fake review, review platforms should have appropriate processes and procedures in place to detect and remove fake reviews. A best practice approach is to reactively (relying on complaints information) and proactively (using automated or manual internal systems) seek out fake reviews, including after they have been posted.

There is no precise formula for identifying fake reviews. In relation to the detection of suspected fake material, reviews which may warrant attention include those:
- which are part of a significant ‘spike’ in reviews about a particular business over a limited period of time
- written from the same email or IP address as each other or as the business reviewed
- written about the same business, good or service where the accounts of those who wrote reviews demonstrate abnormal similarities, e.g. similar email addresses, user names, passwords or IP addresses
- which use overly positive or ‘marketing-speak’ writing styles
- which do not make sense
- which use the same exact language as other reviews of the same business or product.

Reviews may mislead consumers if they are presented as impartial, but were written by:
- the reviewed business
- a competitor
- someone paid to write the review who has not used the product
- someone who has used the product but written an inflated review to receive a financial or non-financial benefit.

Tips for businesses:
The ACCC considers conduct such as the following to be misleading. You should not:
- encourage family and friends to write reviews about your business without disclosing their personal connection with your business in that review
- write reviews when you have not experienced the good or service reviewed or which do not reflect a genuinely held opinion
- solicit others to write reviews about your business or a competitor’s business if they have not experienced the good or service.

In their online advice for consumers, the ACCC also warns consumers to 'be wary of reviewers or online contributors whose profile indicates that they have only ever written one review. The profile may have been created to write a fake review.' To their credit, websites like Yelp are going to considerable lengths to try to weed out fake reviews.

Incentivised consumer reviews

Incentives should only be offered in exchange for reviews of your business (its products or services) if:
1) incentives are offered equally to consumers likely to be complimentary and consumers likely to be critical, and positive and negative reviews are treated the same
2) the reviewer is expressly told that the incentive is available whether the review is positive or negative
3) the incentive is prominently disclosed to users who rely on affected reviews.

When an online review platform offers an incentive, it should do so in accordance with the three recommendations set out under the guidance for reviewed businesses relating to incentivised reviews. It is recommended that disclosure of any incentive which the platform offers in exchange for a review be placed by the platform prominently on the review page of the business whose reviews are affected by the incentive.

When provided with an incentive, many people tend to write a positive review: as Phil Lees notes, the Norm of Reciprocity is strong.

The ACCC's use of the term 'incentives' is sufficiently broad to cover perks like free meals, samples for giveaways and other non-financial benefits.

An incentive disclosure case study: when Third Wave Cafe in Prahran opened in October, the owner wrote to just about every food blogger in Melbourne, inviting them to come in and have a free meal. Of the 32 blog posts listed on Urbanspoon reviewing Third Wave Cafe over the last two months, 27 make some form of disclosure about the incentive they received (ranging from the specific - 'sponsored post: our meal was paid for by TWC' - to the vague - 'we were invited to visit TWC'). Five of the blog posts are silent as to whether they received incentives (it is unclear whether or not they received the incentive). Of the 27 that did disclose, a handful did not do so until the end of the post (often in the form of an italicised disclaimer). The US FTC has suggested that disclosures of this nature may not be sufficiently clear and conspicuous.

In its media release announcing the guidelines, the ACCC said it was also concerned about businesses artificially inflating their review results by offering consumers generous incentives in exchange for reviews of their products or services. Promotions of this nature may need to be reviewed in the future to ensure they meet the three recommendations set out above.

The omission of credible consumer reviews, inflated (average) reviews and the ‘big picture’

The removal of review content is a regular feature of consumer review platforms and is warranted where it prevents fake, offensive, defamatory or irrelevant reviews from being published. Deleting or hiding reviews suspected of being fake or reviews which are offensive, defamatory or irrelevant is not misleading as consumer review platform users anticipate limited removals to improve the quality of reviews.

Online review platforms should ensure that the overall impression created by a body of reviews on a review platform is not misleading. Platforms which selectively remove or edit negative reviews because of a commercial relationship with a reviewed business risk creating an overall picture of consumer opinion which is misleading.

If the total body of reviews doesn’t reflect the opinions of consumers who have submitted the reviews consumers may be misled.

Content moderation policies of review platforms ensure users and businesses have a clear understanding of when and why online consumer reviews will be removed. It is recommended that consumer review platforms make their policy for publishing and removing consumer content accessible to platform users.

Note here that the guidelines are referring to reviews on review platforms, rather than reviews of a product on the product's own website.

The guideance confirms that if you're a blogger who only writes positive reviews then that's your prerogative; if however you went back to edit/remove your old blog posts that were critical of a business because you now have a commercial relationship with that business, that's a problem which may be misleading.

*****
One issue that is indirectly touched upon in the guidelines is the question of bloggers who solicit freebies. Provided that disclosure is made, solicitation probably isn't misleading (just tacky as hell, in the eyes of several who think such behaviour gives bloggers a bad name).

RELATED: I'm going to be speaking on a panel at next year's Chef Jam at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. I'll be on a panel with Lucky Peach editor-in-chief Chris Ying and Fool magazine's Per-Anders Jörgensen, debating 'the rise, and rise, of the food blogger'. Wish me luck!

New openings this week, some special events and an article I wrote for The Guardian

Just because I haven't published a blog post for a while doesn't mean I haven't been beavering away behind the scenes here at Melbourne Gastronome. I've finally brought my New Melbourne Venues and Melbourne Venues Opening Soon pages up to date, after the distractions of a five week trip to the US and moving house and being without home internet (HURRY UP, iiNet/Telstra). I've written little snippets about all the places I know of that have opened in Melbourne since 1 July 2013, or are going to open soon. Which ones have I missed?

This week alone the newbies include Andy Bedford's Charlie's Restaurant that opened yesterday in the site that was Marmalade and Soul, and the Van Haandel's Trocadero reborn as Fatto Bar & Cantina, opening tonight. Next week it's South Side Huxtaburger and Gelato Messina - expect huge crowds at both. And I was interested to learn that Dylan Roberts (former sous at Cutler, last seen running the Claremont Tonic kitchen) is consulting on a restaurant soon to open a few doors down from Hanoi Hannah. For more details see here and here, and keep checking back for updates.


Marina at Pelmeni Kitchen

Grilled snapper at Uncle

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU, HAROLD?! at State of Grace

René Redzepi talking 'bout brains at The Wheeler Centre
One page that I haven't got around to updating yet is the Melbourne pop-ups page, but I'll hopefully do so soon. In the meantime, here are some events worth noting:

- Good Food Month has kicked off - I attended the launch party last week and was impressed with Special Guest Star René Redzepi's candour in his speech about the meltdown he experienced over the pressures of going "from zero to hero" with Noma. He gave a great presentation the following night at The Wheeler Centre too. Browse the Good Food Month website for details of particular events: it runs until the end of November and there are over 300 events to choose from.

- As a fervent fan of the film CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman at their most smoking), I'm really looking forward to the Culinary Cinema movie matched dinner my gal BurgerMary is organising next week on the 14th with The Baron Said. If you're more of a Tarantino fan, they're doing a DEATH PROOF matched dinner on the 30th of November. Click for details.

- StreetSmart's DineSmart event runs from 11 November to 31 December 2013. I've been a fan of this initiative for years. Diners at participating restaurants are asked to make a small donation to StreetSmart on their bill ($2 or more), 100% of which goes to local grassroots charities supporting homelessness.


And for those of you who didn't already see me spruik it via social media, I wrote an article a few weeks ago for The Guardian on the Top 10 budget restaurants and cafes in Melbourne. What do you think of my list? I steered away from the obvious usual favourites like A1 Bakery, but the brief was to write about budget places in areas that are easily accessible by tourists. I decided budget meant all menu items are roughly <$20, and I tried to ensure the list had a mix of cuisines and old and new (though looking back on it now I wish the south side was better represented). Oh and to the guy who left a sarcastic comment about Thai slaw - it WAS som tam, you twonk.

For your consideration: New Gourmet Melbourne by Deck of Secrets

I'm excited to announce here on the blog that the Melbourne dining guide I worked on earlier this year, New Gourmet Melbourne, is now available for purchase!


Michelle Matthews, jet-setter extraordinaire and creator of the Deck of Secrets guides, approached me about collaborating with her on a guide to Melbourne's hottest new restaurants, dining bars and cafes. Having been a longtime fan of the Deck of Secrets, I was only too happy to accept. She and I developed the content together, then I joined the small team of writers (I wrote about a third of the cards in the deck, you'll see my name written on the bottom of each one). As someone who writes primarily online, I can't deny that holding the physical deck of cards in my hand is rather satisfying.

So if you've been wondering where all my reviews of Melbourne's new dining hotspots are, the answer is they're in the guide. Please buy a copy! The decks of cards retail for around $9.95 and are sold at bookshops and newsagents around town (see the list of stockists for your nearest option) and online from Readings and Book Depository. And for iPhone users, if you'd rather a virtual deck there's a New Gourmet Melbourne app for $1.99. Let me know what you think!


Oh, and just a reminder: although I haven't published any other new blog posts recently, I am frequently* updating my new stand-alone pages dedicated to New Melbourne Venues, Melbourne Pop-ups and Melbourne venues opening soon - so be sure to keep checking them. Did you know that THREE places (Jimmy Grants, Shop Ramen and N2 Extreme Gelato) opened last Friday night in Fitzroy alone? Madness!

*I have been updating them frequently since I published them on 1 July, but having said that, on Saturday I'm heading off on holiday to the US for five weeks. I won't be able to monitor the Melbourne hospitality scene as closely from the land of the free and the home of the brave, so any tip-offs about new/upcoming places that you could send my way (by email, Twitter or blog comment) would be greatly appreciated...

New and upcoming Melbourne restaurants, cafes and bars

Happy New Financial Year! To celebrate, I'm sharing my reference lists of Melbourne hospitality venues that are going to open soon, or have recently opened. Links to further information, reviews and third party sources provided. As these are standalone pages that I'll be updating as new information comes to hand, my hope is that they'll end up acting as something of an historic timeline for Melbourne food and drink openings. Let me know what I've missed!

For the list of anticipated places opening soon, click here.

For the list of places that have recently opened, click here.

'The Changing Menu' panel and visiting 'Gusto! A Culinary History of Victoria'

Hihou. *swoon*
A quick bit of self-promotion: next Thursday I'm speaking on a panel that Hilary McNevin has convened and will be chairing, entitled The Changing Menu, discussing Victoria's diverse dining scene. The other panellists will be The Age senior food writer Richard Cornish and restaurateurs Simon Denton (Izakaya Den, Nama Nama and my new favourite bar in Melbourne, Hihou) and Dan Wilson (Huxtable, Huxtaburger - and Huxtaburger II opening soon in the CBD!).

The Changing Menu panel is on Thursday 27 September, 6:00-7:15pm at the State Library of Victoria (see SLV page for full details). The panel is FREE, but booking is strongly advised, as seats are filling fast.

Alain Chapel, Jacques Reymond, Mietta O'Donnell (Rennie Ellis, gelatin silver photograph, 1987)
The panel has been organised as a side event by the State Library of Victoria in honour of their exhibition Gusto! A Culinary History of Victoria. Exhibition blurb:
Savour the rich culinary history of Victoria in this free exhibition, featuring gastronomic treasures from our collections – from the first Australian cookbook, published in 1864, to an actual World War I army biscuit.
Gusto! explores Victoria's historic and contemporary culinary landscape, covering subjects such as the history of viticulture, Indigenous foods, sustainable food practices, fine dining and food rationing, and also features the fascinating stories of significant Victorian culinary figures including Jacques Reymond, Rita Erlich, Guy Grossi and Stephanie Alexander.

I went on a tour of the exhibition last week with curator Tracey Judd Iva and Melbourne food legend Rita Erlich, and absolutely loved it (yes it includes an actual army biscuit from 1914!). I particularly loved seeing the 70s and 80s menus of Melbourne fine dining restaurants, donated from Rita Erlich's own collection - the version of the Florentino menu without prices (ie, the menu "for ladies") was a particular eye-opener. I also loved that the exhibition includes both the Peter Wegner portrait of Jacques Reymond (a finalist in the 2004 Archibald Prize) and the knife bag that belonged to Jacques' grandfather and which features prominently in the portrait.

The exhibition is also FREE and on until April 2013, so go see it!

Booze: the shadow over our land (Melbourne, Victorian Prohibition League, c 1930)
Inspired by the exhibition, I went to the Hill of Content and bought a copy of Rita's new book Melbourne by Menu: A memoir of Melbourne's restaurant revolution through the 1980s, which I am currently working my way through. Loving it so far.

Victoria Market, Melbourne (Ruth Maddison, gelatin silver photograph, 1984)

Online reviews and the race to be first

A quick plug on a related issue: I'm speaking at the Melbourne Writers Festival this year, as part of the New News conference. The panel, called Everyone's a Critic, will be discussing criticism and the effect the online world of blogs, social media and crowdsourcing is having on professional criticism. As well as me the panel will feature Ed Charles, Alison Croggon, The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones, freelance travel writer Tom Neal Tacker and Herald-Sun restaurant critic Stephen Downes. The event is on Friday 24th August at 1pm at Fed Square and it's FREE but you need to make a booking (here). Hope to see some of you there!


One of the first food blog posts I clearly remember reading (a year before I started Melbourne Gastronome) was Ed Charles' September 2006 post about Lau's Family Kitchen, written ten minutes after he got home from the opening night. As a restaurant enthusiast largely unaware of the nascent food blogging scene at the time, I remember feeling really excited by the fact that I could already see photos and read descriptions of a restaurant I'd been anticipating for months, knowing that it'd most likely be some weeks (or possibly months) before I'd see a review in the newspaper. This excitement about what blogs could offer readers was a key inspiration for starting my own blog.

A desire to be seen as a pioneer with a finger on the pulse of what's new and shiny, coupled with the easy immediacy offered by the internet, means that the temptation to be the first to write online about a new venue (and to benefit from the resulting SEO perks) can be great. I'm no angel: I've been guilty of it myself a few times, when it's a place I've been particularly excited about (see, eg, my first glimpse of San Telmo post).

But the race to be first seems to be reaching new, hilarious heights in Melbourne. Take the case study of Nama Nama (the new Japanese cafe from Izakaya Den owners Simon Denton, Miyuki Nakahara and Takashi Omi): it opened its doors for lunch on Thursday 21 June. The Three Thousand review went up by about 2:30pm that same day, the Milk Bar review went up at about 9:30am on Friday, and the Broadsheet review went up around Friday lunchtime - all three within 24 hours of the venue trading. Nina Rousseau's review was published in Epicure this week, 26 days after it opened.

Or take the example of Seddon cafe Common Galaxia, which reportedly had reviewers from two websites show up at the door at 7am on opening day. Or the reviewer at another venue's recent opening day, asking only half-jokingly whether "any of those [rival website] bastards" had been spotted yet!

Some publications, particularly the old-school ones, have policies of waiting some weeks after a venue has opened before visiting to review it, even if it means getting gazumped by others: Zoe Curtis from the Herald-Sun confirmed to me that their policy is not to visit in the first month. And as Stickifingers pointed out when we were discussing this issue on Twitter, many pieces being referred to as "reviews" are more properly characterised as mere opening announcements, with fleshier stories coming later (I'd say though that all too often there *aren't* fleshier stories - after the initial flurry of fawning publicity when a place opens, most tend to drop off the radar).

The industry argument that it's unfair to rush to judge a place that's brand new and still working through its teething problems is countered by the view that if that you're open to customers and charging full prices, you're open to reviews. And in any event, reviewers tend to be overwhelmingly compliant and uncritical, only too happy to feel part of (and feed) the hype.

But c'mon, isn't this competitiveness getting just a tad ridiculous? In a recent interview, I pretentiously characterised the internet as providing a welcome democratisation of the public discourse about food in our city. The ability to widely broadcast opinion is no longer confined to a precious few, and many of the newcomers feel they don't need to play by the old conventions. But in terms of this race to be first, maybe a bit more common sense should prevail, hmmm?

MIFF 2012: films showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival that already have release dates

We interrupt the usual food-related content on this blog for a quick post about another obsession of mine: the Melbourne International Film Festival!

Happy MIFFmas, everyone!! If you're not a MIFF member already smugly clutching an advance copy of this year's program to your bosom, there's a copy in tomorrow's Age (Friday 13th). I look forward to setting aside several hours over the weekend to curl up with my copy and go through it with a fine-tooth comb, narrowing down the list of films I want to see and coming up with a workable schedule (extra degree of difficulty for me this year as I'll be away in Hong Kong (!!!) for the first week of the festival).

Because I like to maximise my chances of catching films that can ONLY be seen at the festival, I tend to exclude from my shortlist films that I know already have an Australian cinematic release date. I do this by checking the film release date schedules on websites like AtTheCinema and atonalFILM, and cross-referencing them with the MIFF 2012 program. This year, I thought it may be helpful for other similarly-minded MIFF nerds if I presented my findings on the web.

These lists are correct to the best of my knowledge based on what I've found online (EDIT: I've now also included films that have distributors but don't yet have release dates, thanks to the excellent list on Mel's blog A Wild Young Under-Whimsy). If you know of any additional films that should be on the list, dates/distributors that have changed or any other relevant information, please let me know! Updated as at 24/7/12.

The following films screening at MIFF are scheduled to screen later in the year at either the Nova, Palace Cinemas, or both:

• Opening Night film The Sapphires (showing at Nova and Palace from August 9)
• Bully (showing at Nova and Palace from August 23)
• Holy Motors (showing at Nova from August 23)
• Vulgaria (showing at Nova from August 23)
• Moonrise Kingdom (showing at Nova and Palace from August 30)
• Damsels in Distress (showing exclusively at Nova from September 6)
• Monsieur Lazhar (showing at Palace from September 6)
• Your Sister's Sister (showing at Nova from September 6)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (showing at Nova and Palace from September 13)
• Warriors of the Rainbow, Seediq Bale (showing at Nova from September 13)
• ParaNorman (showing at Palace from September 20)
• Liberal Arts (showing at Palace from October 11)
• Ruby Sparks (showing at Palace from September 20)
• On the Road (showing at Palace from September 27)
• First Position (showing at Nova from September 27)
• Shadow Dancer (showing at Nova from October 4)
• Wuthering Heights (showing at Nova and Palace from October 11)
• Harakiri: Death of a Samurai (showing at Nova from October 18)
• Safety Not Guaranteed (showing at Nova from October 18)
• The Intouchables (showing at Nova and Palace from October 25)
• The Sessions (showing at Nova from November 8)

The following films have been picked up by distributors in Australia, but I don't know where/if they will be screening outside of MIFF (some of them will end up straight-to-DVD):

• Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (August 23, Roadshow has distribution rights)
• Wunderkinder (August 23, Umbrella has distribution rights)
• Amour (August 30, Regency has distribution rights)
• Mental (October 4, Universal has distribution rights)
• Robot and Frank (15 November, Sony has distribution rights)
• Being Venice (TBC, Curious Film has distribution rights)
• Beyond the Hills (TBC, Madman has distribution rights)
• Caesar Must Die (TBC, Palace has distribution rights)
• God Bless America (TBC, Potential Films has distribution rights)
• Hail (TBC, Madman has distribution rights)
• The Hunt (TBC, Madman has distribution rights)
• The Imposter (TBC, Madman has distribution rights)
• Last Dance (TBC, Becker Film Group has distribution rights)
• The Loneliest Planet (TBC, Palace has distribution rights)
• Miss Bala (TBC, Transmission has distribution rights)
• No (TBC, Rialto has distribution rights)
• Rampart (TBC, Madman has distribution rights)
• Sister (TBC, Palace has distribution rights)
• Tabu (TBC, Palace has distribution rights)
• The Taste of Money (TBC, Madman has distribution rights)

So, film nerds: what films at MIFF this year do we HAVE to see? I can strongly recommend using this extremely useful FestivalSessions festival online planner - it's brilliant!

And for the foodies still reading: any dining tips for me for Hong Kong??


(Other random non-food-related research I've been doing recently that I put online in case some readers may find it useful - I'm researching options that would allow the choir I sing in to sell our music online. iTunes, digital distributors CD Baby, TuneCore and ReverbNation, and direct-to-fans sales platforms like Bandcamp: here are my findings.)

Fortnightly round-up (23 May): Melbourne Gastronome 5th birthday edition

I'm afraid to report that life (and a trip to Sydney) got in the way over the past few weeks, so I decided to skip the previous scheduled fortnightly round-up and pick things up again this week. Today is the day Melbourne Gastronome turns five years old! I've jotted some fifth anniversary reflections at the end of this post.


Who needs meat on the BBQ when the mushrooms taste so freaking good? Every Saturday, from about 9:30am until they sell out (generally around 2pm), Market Lane Prahran sells a mushroom burger to end all mushroom burgers. It was created by "Mr Barbecue" Bob Hart, costs $8 and comes with chipotle mayonnaise, Parmigiano-Reggiano 18, finely sliced salad onions, herb butter and a Damian Pike-sourced portobello mushroom in a Dench bun.


Speaking of delicious mushrooms, at a family dinner the other week we had a sensational wild mushroom ragu with wet polenta, mascarpone and thyme (adapted from an old Karen Martini recipe).


Although L'atelier de Monsieur Truffe is best known for the chocolatier's sweet skills, it does a great sideline in savoury too. One of the brunch specials the other week was truffled eggs, potatoes and chives served in a jar (about $14, methinks). Dipping the toasted corners of bread into that gooey richness was a real treat.


And even more obscenely decadent is Truffe's tartine au chocolat ($7): slices of brioche topped with house-made chocolate chips and toasted so that the chips go all melty. Chocolate-wise, it's your choice between milk 38%, dark 52% or dark 70%, and of course it tastes best with a lil' pinch of the sea salt served alongside. If eating more than one piece defeats you (as it did me), ask one of the many attractive men who work there to box up the rest of it, then scoff it at home at 2am after a night of LuWow dancing.


Since my trip to Japan in January I've embarked on a (mostly fruitless) search for great ramen in Melbourne. It's a curious blind spot in Melbourne's otherwise shining culinary landscape, it grieves me to say (Sydney claims to do much better ramen - of course they do - and I've been meaning to check out Gumshara Ramen up there for ages). Ramen Ya, Menya and Ajisen have been variously recommended to me as dishing up Melbourne's best, but I find them all to be wildly inconsistent - usually falling short in the broth department. The most consistent place I've found in Melbourne is newcomer Kokoro Ramen and at $9, their lunch special is also cheaper than most. The noodles are handmade, the ajitama (flavoured soft boiled eggs) are delicious and you get to choose from four different stocks, all of which are MSG-free (but none of which are vegetarian): tonkotsu shio, tonkotsu shoyu, tonkotsu miso and Tokyo (pure chicken and seafood). After trying all four on four consecutive visits, using pork as a control substance, shio is my preferred stock.


But the Japanese cafe that's really swept me off my feet this month is Purple Peanuts, right down at the Southern Cross end of Collins Street. I seem to be the last food blogger in Melbourne to have heard about this spunky little cafe, but everything about it is just perfect. Dishes I've tried and loved so far are the tsuke don (sashimi marinated in sake, sesame and soy and served with a salad on vinegared rice, $10.90) and the char-grilled chicken kare don ($9.20, or pay an extra dollar and get it with brown rice).


And finally if it's high end Japanese you're wanting, I can strongly recommend the recently opened Akachochin, one of the suite of restaurants in the beautifully restored heritage cargo sheds at South Wharf Promenade, hugging the Yarra just past Jeff's Shed and the Polly Woodside. I attended as a guest, part of a journos and bloggers progressive dinner thing, and I'm going to head back there soon under my own steam so that I can properly explore the interesting menu by Head Chef Kengo Hiromatsu (previously Head Sushi Chef at Nobu). But even on this initial visit, the sashimi, hiramasa namerou (Japanese tartare with delicate rice crackers), stuffed chicken wing dumplings and seared wagyu with mushrooms all impressed.


Links of Note:

- Last year I was one of the guest judges in the Sommeliers Australia 'Best Sommelier of Australia' grand final (noted in a previous fortnightly round-up). Last week Sydney's Franck Moreau from the Merivale Group and Melbourne's Mark Protheroe, head sommelier of the Grossi Group, travelled to South Korea for the Best Sommelier of Asia-Oceania Competition: read Somms Australia president Ben Edwards' write up of how they fared on The Wine Guide.

- Lauren from the Footscray Food Blog has found the best breakfast in Footscray (hint: it doesn't involve smashed avocado, poached eggs, pulled pork or ricotta hotcakes).

- From French for Foodies, a list of the best places in Paris for coffee and cheese.

- From yellowtrace: a cookbook you can read, bake AND eat as lasagne!

- A great list of Michelin starred restaurants in the UK, ordered by affordability of their set lunch menus.

- In the US, FTC guidelines on endorsements are getting more specific: the FTC can fine both the blogger and the company for not disclosing an arrangement where the company compensates the blogger for a review, positive mention, or sponsored post.

- It seems like old news now, but Stephanie Wood's article gave a neat summary of the Matt Moran "cash for tweet" brouhaha.

- Excellent article in the NYT on Craig Claiborne and the birth of modern restaurant criticism.

- The Big Fat Undertaking: one blogger's attempt to cook all the recipes in Heston Blumental's The Big Fat Duck Cookbook.

- Winter is coming... to Ned Stark cakes (WARNING: CONTAINS MAJOR 'GAME OF THRONES' SEASON ONE SPOILERS).


As the fifth anniversary of writing Melbourne Gastronome has rolled around, I've been thinking a lot about the evolving food blog landscape. Both of the food blogs I wrote about in my first post in 2007 and wished to emulate have long since stopped writing. Recent well-intentioned emails from fledgling food bloggers in their early 20s telling me that they've been reading Melbourne Gastronome since they were in high school make me feel ancient (even though I know some other blogs have been around even longer). When I started blogging in my corner of the internet half a decade ago, nobody had heard of Twitter, nobody used Facebook beyond their immediate friendship group, and no PR agency would ever DREAM of emailing a food blogger. Life events coupled with the inevitable ebb and flow of writing means that at times over the years my motivation to keep blogging has waned, but for now I'm keen to continue. There's just so much to write about in this great city of ours!

Anyway, to those of you still reading... I just wanted to say thank you for reading.

Melbourne CBD lunch venues in the sunshine

When you work in a skyscraper like I do, days like this make you YEARN for the outside world and the feeling of the sun on your face. On a similarly sunny day a few weeks ago, while I was waiting to meet up with Emily for lunch, I asked the Twitterverse for suggestions of lunch venues in the city where you can sit outside in the sun.

(Sidenote: we ended up having a disastrous indoor lunch that day at Crazy Wing, where the "offensively spicy" titular dish lived up to its name and nearly destroyed my tastebuds. Warning: those crazy wings be crazy.)

A list-in-progress of sunny al fresco CBD lunch spots (please leave a comment to add venues):
Arintji
Beer DeLuxe
The Carlton balcony (lunch Thursdays, Fridays and weekends only)
Cookie balcony (tiny balcony, hard to get an outside seat)
EARL Canteen
Espressino
The European / City Wine Shop
Federal Coffee Palace
Fugazza
Grossi Florentino / The Cellar Bar Grossi Florentino
The Hardware Societe
Hare & Grace
Le Traiteur
Le Triskel
Madame Brussels (limited menu - chicken sandwiches recommended)
The Mess Hall
Miss Chu
Movida Aqui and Terraza
Mr Tulk
Piadina Slowfood
Ponyfish Island
Pure South
Riverland
Sarti
Shanghai Street Dumpling (limited seating outside)
Transport
Trunk / Trunk Diner
Wallis & Ed
Plus the usual string of cafes along Degraves Street and Hardware Lane
The courtyard at the end of Madame Brussels Lane (assorted cafes)

And one of my personal favourites (which I had today)...
Take-away bánh mì from N Lee, to be consumed in Treasury Gardens

What's missing? Must be: (a) in the CBD; (b) open for lunch during the week; and (c) have outside seating, preferable in direct sunlight.