March Into Merivale Launch Night
The annual March into Merivale launch night is a must for any foodie which attracted a sell out crowd of 1500 people. A celebration of the food festival that Merivale puts on each year show casing there oodles of restaurants (well 14 to be exact).
For this year’s ticket, you only had to fork out a mere $23, which entitled you to 6 dishes and 2 drinks (an excellent bargain even for the scrooge’s!). Entrance to Ash St was bustling with attendees, making it quite hard to mosey up to see what’s on offer; instead we (Swah, JJ & Sophie) went and explored upstairs which wasn’t as chaotic!
After doing a happy lap around the stalls, I was intent on trying the spit roast pork as the whole pig was on show. Unfortunately at this stage the crowd also figured out it was a tad quieter upstairs making the line double in size in no time. After waiting a bit (the lining up system seemed quite disordered), I decided to try both the dishes from Bistrode CBD and skip another line up.
After receiving both dishes I was very impressed I made that decision. The pork was a close second from being the best dish of the night. The beef pie looks were deceiving (thinking it was an ordinary mini pie) but wholly molly it was a good pie!
The next dish to temp us was from the Beresford Hotel which was a Panzarotti. I didn’t actually know what a Panzarotti was but the waitress informed us it was a deep fried pizza. Unfortunately this didn’t live up the previous dish, it tasted a little too doughy and oily, though I would probably fall in love with this after a big night out (replacing the good ole kebab).
At this point in the night we did a little celeb spotting including Adriano Zumbo, Matt Preston and Brett Lee. They seemed to blend into the crowd without anyone really noticing them.
Citi Bank had a photo booth that we decided to participate in just for kicks. The back drop was the harbour bridge (it was a bit random) with plastic drinking props! All for free :)
Downstairs in Ash St I was tempted by the cheeseburger spring roll- Yes that’s right peeps a spring roll that tasted exactly like a deep fried cheese burger! This was definitely the highlight of the night (apart from catching up with my bloggin buddies). Dan Hong, surprise surprise was the mastermind behind this creation who was on hand dishing them out to the public and also smiling for the cameras! Those spring rolls are still making my mouth water.
After about 3 hours the food was starting to run out, so I quickly lined up for a lamb pie with a delicious mushroom dip. The creator behind this was Felix, whose chef Nathan Johnson tweeted the next day it took 3 days to make all the pies to sell out in less than 3 hours!
Desert time and yes there was a couple of options- a pavlova and a mini tart. I opted for the pav which was amazing- so gooey in the middle. Who would have thought Mad Cow could do fantastic steaks as well as awesome pavs!
What a great night. Merivale really put on a show even including models down to their underwear posing for the theme; ‘Eat my words’ and live bands to keep everyone happy whilst eating away. Over the next month and a bit Merivale will be putting on around 60 events with the popular $33 meal deal. So the moral of the story (well the blog) is to get on Merivale’s site and book all those things that tickle your fancy (remembering most book out very quickly).
