It’s mainly eaten for breakfast or lunch and is ridiculously inexpensive 1-2USD. It’s also available in abundance, a store on every footpath on every street and boy have I eaten a lot of it.

What to bring?

It’s a potluck, so bring your favourite potluck dish, whether that’s a curry, a salad or a heart-shaped pavlova and we’ll all feast on a bit of this and a bit of that. Also, feel free to bring a bottle of wine, a six pack of beer or a Big Lebowski style White Russian kit.

As far as cooking implements go, there are a couple of gas cookers and a microwave but no oven and not too many pots and pans. Best bet is to bring your food in a stove-top casserole dish or something of the sort. If you are unsure, just drop me a line and I’ll be able to give some guidance.

Who’s invited?

Anyone and everyone who’s interested in food and food blogging/writing. We are a friendly bunch so feel free to bring a friend.

When?

7:00pm, 14th February.

Where?

Inspire 9. Level 1, 43 Stewart St. Richmond. It’s right next to the Richmond Train station. So take a tram down Swan St, or a train to Richmond station.

Talks.

We haven’t really had a definite yay, or nay about having talks. i9 is a great spot for something or other, so if you are interested in giving us a talk about something, please let me know.

RSVP.

RSVP in the comments here or email me at michael+meatdrinkblog@wakeless.net just so we have some idea of numbers.

There’s a couple of tricks to getting the most out of a lamb roast. Firstly, get a cut with the bone in, a shoulder or leg is perfect. The bone carries a lot of flavour and the meat around the bones is generally more interesting. Secondly, be sure to err on the side of less time than more, dry lamb is terrible. Finally, don’t skimp on the meat. Getting aged lamb isn’t particularly easy, but generally the better the butcher, the better the meat. Look for a good covering of a nice clean, white fat on the meat.

Ingredients

• 1 x good size lamb leg or shoulder on the bone.
• 4 teaspoons of smoked paprika
• 4 teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of butter

Method

Leave the lamb on the bench for a few hours prior to cooking to let it come up to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 220.  Mix the spices and oil together in a bowl to form a paste. Rub the paste on the outside of the lamb especially on the top, fatty side. Place the lamb in a roasting dish and cook for 25 minutes. Cover the lamb with a tinfoil, lower the temperature of the oven to 120 and cook for 4 hours. An hour before serving, use a meat thermometer and check the internal temperature of the lamb. The temperature should be close to 77. If it’s below 73, increase the temperature of the oven to 180 and uncover to finish it off.

Half an hour before serving, take the meat out of the oven, wrap it in tinfoil and cover with a folded tea-towel and leave to rest. Retain the juice in the roasting dish for gravy.

Finally, when carving, retain the juices and and them to the roasting dish juices.

Gravy or Sauce

This recipe is not exactly a gravy, more of a jus or sauce. Take all of the retained juices from the pan and carving and either use the roasting pan or a big frying pan. Heat it up to a hard boil. Add the balsamic vinegar and stir. Lower the heat to a simmer and add plenty of salt, pepper and the butter. Let the sauce cook down to a slightly thick sauce and serve.

Thanks to Meat and Livestock Australia for a recent masterclass on cooking lamb. It helped quantify some of the method I’ve been using for a long time.

Sure, I enjoyed it. It’s nice to be made to feel important. It’s nice to mingle with interesting people. Ultimately though, I’m not that engaged, my readers won’t be engaged if I write a post about it so I won’t.

Here’s some ideas I’ve got to better engage people like me.

You’ve got to bear in mind that food bloggers are people that love food or whatever it is they write about. They probably already love what you are doing and they probably don’t need to be bribed into writing. Show them how to cook your signature dish. They want to write – that’s why they are bloggers. You must also realise that bloggers can write any kind of post. It doesn’t have to be a restaurant review. It could be a recipe, or an interview, or anything else you’ve not thought of. Empower them to do cool stuff about you and the will.

• Talk. The owner, the chef, the sommelier or the head barista needs to introduce themselves and make themselves available to answer any questions.
• Taste. Invite the people you are trying to engage for a tasting. I’m not talking a free lunch here, more like 1 of every dish on a table for them to sample. Give them time. Let them take photos. Let them talk to each other.
• Access. Show them the kitchen, show them the produce in uncooked form. Show them what’s so great about the coffee machine, show them the wine cellar. Show them everything and anything. Let them take photos. Answer questions.
• Timing. Bloggers have other jobs. Make it easy for them to get to it. After work is great, a weekend would be nice.
• Teach. Show them how to cook your signature dish. Show them how to pull an awesome shot. Tell them why the wine list is as it is.
• Relationships. Build an ongoing relationship with bloggers that are active in your area, suburb or space. They’ll be more willing to contact you if they want to write a story or have a problem.

You’ll note that nothing here is outrageous, in fact is far less outrageous than pouring a shitload of good wine down my neck and I’ll appreciate it more.

It’s worth reading the series of posts that Thanh wrote about his experience at Steer Bar and Grill. For some more interesting reading, check out Stickifingers take on the PR industries view of food bloggers. Here and here.

As I mentioned SEO is one of those things that is easy and hard at the same time. My advice is to focus on the basics that you can control and not worry too much about stuff you can’t control.

I didn’t mention on the day, but it was in the final slide. I’d love it if you are linking to this presentation if you could link to my other website (my winery directory) Terroir.me.

But today, they’ve taken a big step backwards – they spammed me on my mobile phone. I received the SMS message “Gogo is a-gogo, Chin Chin’s new underground cocktail bar is now open daily….”. I presume the only way they would have my number is because I’ve left it on file for them to call me back when my table is ready. Sounds like they’ve sent this message out to everyone who has done the same. Not cool.

What I find so interesting though is that they would even consider that they needed to do it. The Twitter and Facebook campain that they used prior to launch of the restaurant worked a treat, at time of posting they have 1581 followers on Twitter. The Twitter account regularly talks about all things Chin Chin related and no one would really care about a week or so worth of Tweets about the new bar.

My bet is that whoever sent that Tweet didn’t consult people like Jess or Ed and they are now regretting it.

Since moving on from Outpost, Paul Jewson has been a busy man. I’ve seen him in the kitchen at St Ali, he’s been working at St Ali in London and turns out he’s and partner Marco Pulagni have been turning the Waldorf in St Kilda into the beautifully rendered Fitzrovia. At 155 Fitzroy St, it’s just near the newly opened Golden Fields, Baker d Chirico and Miss Jackson in what’s becoming a fine-food hotspot.

I’ve long been a fan of Paul Jewson’s food. It ticks all my boxes (I don’t really have boxes to tick), it’s generous, has big flavours and is always seasonal. It’s hard to say what the plan is, but when we dropped in on Sunday the daytime menu was poorly printed on the dodgy computer printer. We were told it was “temporary”, but I’m not so sure it was, not in the sense that it will ever be “fixed” anyway. It was the same at Outpost and the ever-changing menu works perfectly, especially when the food has this sense of style. I just wish they’d get a good printer.

The dinner menu, though, is a far more refined affair in presentation and substance.

The restaurant comprises 2 separate areas. At the front, a 2 level, minimally lit, glass atrium, perfect for breakfast or brunch and come evening a perfect place for a pre-dinner aperitif or glass of wine. The dining room is a more traditional dining area with a huge open doorway into the kitchen. Currently the walls are sparse, but trimmings are coming and it won’t take much to turn it to a understated, classic dining room.

The kitchen itself is somewhat of a feature, it has a huge marble-topped island table crowned by a rustic, hanging pot rack. It doesn’t have the carefully manicured design of Outpost, but it is far more functional and will provide a great vibe on a busy night.

The 2 brunch dishes we had were sticky lamb ribs on a smoked corn salad and scrambled eggs with bacon and tomatoes. The ribs were in the no-fork-required territory with the sauce overpowering the flavour of the meat. The scrambled eggs were as good as they get, endless folds of soft, rich egg with a tomato chutney with a nicely balanced tang. The chutney was so good that I ended up eating the last of it on toast.

As far as food goes, I’ve asked Mr Ron O’Bryan to ensure that the vegetarian’s amongst us are catered for. I know it was a little bit shit at the last one.

As always, everyone who is interested in eating, writing about food, tweeting about food or talking to a swathe of random bloggery types is welcome.

For the talk/entertainment, we discussed at the last meetup of having a few different people (bloggers old and new) talking for 3-5 minutes about how and we they blog and a little bit of Q&A. So if I could have a few people volunteer for that, that’d be great or perhaps we should pick names out of a hat on the night.

As always, please RSVP here in the comments so we can ensure the venue is ready for the onslaught.

It’s also worth noting that mEatDrinkBlog is coming under the heading of the Fringe Food Festival and in the future the announcements will come on that site.

The story of Suffield Wines is much the same story as how we stumbled upon it. With no experience of winemaking or vineyards, Nick and Lyne bought the vineyard in 1998. At the time they were living in the US managing their businesses and bought the cute little farmhouse and vineyard with the goal of taking things easy. That never happened, but spending a short amount of time with Nick, that’s no surprise – he has an insatiable passion for everything and anything he mentions.

The house was run down, with dirt floors, no bathroom and in desparate need of attention. The vines too were in a similar state, left to their own devices for god knows how long. The house was run-down and the state of the vineyards were no better. The exact years of planting aren’t really available, but they estimate that the Shiraz and Riesling are around 80 years old. Neither of these have ever seen much irrigation, so they have deep root structures and a consistent harvest. Turns out the age and establishment of the vines were their saving grace, and with a bit of well placed pruning, some active maintenance and a lot of hard work they are seeing better days.

At the time the Suffield’s bought the vineyard, most of the fruit was sold by contract to Henschke. Since then, the have continued the contract selling but have started making an increasing amount of their own wines. Using a combination of minimal intervention in the wine making, the help of a contract wine maker, and great fruit the wines Suffield is producing are not only sensational but also great value.

The earlier vintages of Shiraz were heavy-handed and off balance, but age has treated them well and they are well priced. The newer vintages have been made with a far subtler hand and will mature into some crackers. The older Rieslings have the roundness which I love in older Riesling and the later vintages have fantastic acidity, almost to a fault. The 2010 vintage was bone dry, all citrus and acid and lacking in complexity – this Jim told us is the style that all Eden Valley Riesling are moving towards. Personally, I like a touch of residual sugar, it plays well with the acidity and lifts it.

I’ve heard rumours that they soldout because it wasn’t making enough money but who knows. One thing is for certain, Coles offered enough money that they sold and now the shop is a Vintage Cellars.

I suppose what makes me the saddest is how great a member of the wine loving community of Albert Park Randall’s was. The master classes they hosted were not only awesome but affordable. I’ve learnt a lot and experienced some awesome wines that I probably would never have even considered through them. All Saints, By Farr, Teusner and Adam Foster to name the more memorable. They were hosted in the little Japanese restaurant next door by the friendly and knowledgeable staff and always had ample cheese and generous pours.

To make matters worse another locally owned wine shop has recently closed down, though I don’t believe it was sold – just the lease was not continued. That was the Prince Wine Store in the Clarendon Centre and it was replaced by the soulless institution that is Liquorland, complete with it’s shitty selection of wine and cheap beer. Thankfully, there still remains a Prince Wine Store around the corner in Bank St, but it closes far too early for my liking and isn’t open on Sundays.

To get my local wine retail fix, I’m going to have to start shopping at the Richardson St Cellars again. I feel bad, since moving closer to Randalls I haven’t been to Richardsons and I’m going to feel like a traitor. Better to support them with than the behemoth that is Coles I suppose.