JUstDreamInparadise: Taste Port Douglas 2017

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Taste Port Douglas 2017

Taste Port Douglas is a celebration of food and the idea is to bring some of Australia's top chefs to the north to prepare and cook five star meals in various venues in the Port Douglas/Cairns region. This year those restaurants included Salsa, Bistro H, Harrisons, Tamarind and Nu Nu.
As I looked over the programme for the weekend, some months ago, I decided that "Porkstar", to be held on the beautiful and iconic Sugar Wharf in Port Douglas, might be the dinner of choice. After all, who could go wrong with chefs Colin Fassnidge, Paul Baker, Spencer Patrick and Mitch Edwards, and who doesn't like a feed of pork.
We (five in our party) arrived nice and early to watch the sunset over Dickson Inlet and also to have a photo shoot with Colin Fassnidge who was taking care of his contribution to the nights dinner - main course.
As we entered the lovely venue with all the gorgeous chinese lanterns, we were handed a glass of champagne and we made our way to the end of the wharf and selected our seats. It wasn't long before the starters were brought around by some very cheery wait staff. The first starter we tasted was a pork and black pudding nugget that had been breaded and deep fried. It was delicious. The next starter was finely diced pigs ear and it was also very tasty although there were only three morsels left on the plate for five of us to share so two of us missed out on the tasting.
Eventually we were all asked to take our seats for the first course. This was quite a delicious serving of pork filled wonton served in a broth. The broth was poured over the wonton separately and I can only think that this was to keep it warm. It was an interesting starter.
Next came the main meal. Now, at $180/head I would have expected to have a plated meal placed in front of us but what happened next is beyond belief. Out came platters of food that were placed along the centre of the table. One platter contained sliced pork and boiled kipfler potatoes - not even a garnish or heaven forbid a sauce to go with the pork. Another platter held a whole baked stuffed pumpkin. Next came a large bowl of almost raw red cabbage and alongside this was giant chunks of cauliflower. Lastly a bowl of couscous was added to the already unappealing table. There was absolutely no love in any of the food in this course and I know that I, and probably everybody else seated at the table, could have prepared better at home.
After this disastrous course we all looked forward to the dessert. As anybody knows this can make or break a meal. What was placed in front of us certainly looked appealing. There was a large scoop of ice-cream sitting alongside what looked like a chocolate popsicle. I tasted the ice-cream first and wow - SALTY! I mean really, really salty. So then I tasted the popsicle. It was an interesting combination of frozen chocolate mouse coated with finely chopped pork crackle, but once again, SALTY! I thought maybe if I placed a morsel of each on my spoon that it may miraculously work. Uh, uh.....it just tasted like a mouthful of SALT!
All up I would give the night two stars. The setting was lovely and two of the four courses weren't too bad, but at $180/head it was the most expensive dinner on offer and I'm certain we would have received better value at one of the other venues that only charged $150/head. As the saying goes, you live and learn.