Monday night BoE and I were invited to a friend's birthday party, which happened to be at a new
local Australian restaurant.
I ended up getting a bottle of
VB with my food. They also had Foster's and
XXXX, plus Newcastle Brown Ale and Beamish, both of which I've had many times already, so I thought I'd try something new. But in honor of arb and the fine people of Melbourne, I got the VB, and I have to say, I rather liked it.
For the main course, the friend who was celebrating her birthday wanted to get a mixed platter for two and share it with someone, so I volunteered, not least because it had a wide variety of food I'd never had before. So I got kangaroo steaks, a kangaroo sausage, some crocodile meat, a barramundi fish steak, a camel steak, and some ostrich steaks. With all that, there was pumpkin and sweet potato purée, a roasted tomato, and assorted veggies. (I was amused that the veggies were dwarfed by all the steaks.) I didn't care for the sausage at all, but then again I'm not into sausages in general (how ironic that I'm in Germany of all places, what?). The ostrich was pretty good -- far more like beef than I would have guessed. The crocodile, like all unknown meats, tasted like chicken.
Meanwhile BoE got ostrich as well, and seemed to like it, but she's not much of a meat-eater and the sheer huge amount of meat was just too much for her. (Get this -- she actually wanted to order a salad, and they were out of salad. Ha! It's meat for you!) So I ended up trading some of my veggies (what few I had) for some of her ostrich. I think I've had enough protein for a few months now.
All in all I'd say the meats were interesting, but nothing I'd make an extra effort to get, aside from perhaps the ostrich. The camel was a bit too gamey for me.
Then dessert was a
pavlova with mixed fruit, and it was lurvely.
A toast to Down Under was raised with a glass of homebrewed ginger liquor that helped settle my stomach after all that meat. :-)
OK, arb, I think I'm prepared for my visit to Melbourne. (If I ever get that kind of money and time, that is.)
