13 November 2009

'I Ate My Way Through Singapore & Vietnam' Book Launch: Jennifer Lam, Global Gallery, Paddington (12 Nov 2009)

5 Comber Street, Paddington NSW 2021


I Came, I Saw, I Ate It!

Jennifer Lam from Jenius food blog did a great job last night in promoting her new book 'I Ate My Way Through Singapore & Vietnam' with support from SaigonSaigon who provided the Vietnamese catering and Aja Wines who provided the drinks. The gallery space was packed with a supportive crowd of fans and food bloggers — so full in fact that the heat inside the gallery felt like Vietnam as the crowd fanned themselves with brochures — how authentic. The friendly service staff were from a TAFE hospitality course and brought around trays of SaigonSaigon's Summer Rolls, Autumn Rolls, Deep Fried Prawn Wontons and Spring Rolls. My favourites were the Summer Rolls with prawn and chicken (or might have been pork) and the Deep Fried Prawn Wontons — I lost count how many I consumed. All went down well with the light tasting Dry White and Moscato Rosé.

I noticed SaigonSaigon has sugar cane prawns on the menu and wonder if they are like the version at Thanh Binh in Cabramatta which are my favourite. I'm always on the look out for a good salt & pepper squid and also curious to know how their $23 soft shell crab might compare to the delicious one at Snakebean Asian Diner. Hopefully when I'm next in the Glebe area I'll try more of their dishes. If I'd known about these guys before my last birthday I could have saved time worrying about preparing fresh rolls myself.


Autumn rolls


Summer rolls



Deep fried prawn wontons


Spring rolls

SaigonSaigon menu and cards


Aja Wines

In the kitchen with SaigonSaigon Chef



Ladies on the right wrapped the rolls

The Heart of Food in blogging mode

Speech time



Media coverage

Exhibition prints




Official photographer

Try and work out which one he was taking here on Flickr

Fellow food bloggers
Jennifer Lam and Me


The Crowd


Food bloggers fanning themselves in the gallery heat

Food bloggers deciding where to go next

8 comments:

YaYa said...

Lovely job Simon! Extremely impressed you got back of house photos!

Simon said...

Hey, nice comprehensive post. You captured the events of the night well. It's like I was there.

and there, and there... :) hehe

Yas @ hungry.digital.elf. said...

It was great turn out that evening, congrats on Jen!
And it was great meeting you in person for the first time!

the happy blogger said...

What a great night. Isn't it fantastic that all of us bloggers "saw" the same things with different eyes. Sensational photos! I asked to go to the kitchen, but obviously there was "too many cooks" already ! ha ha.

Jen (jenius.com.au) said...

Hey Simon! Thanks so much for this fab wrap-up! I'm glad you had a good time. The waitstaff were actually volunteers from TAFE's hospitality course, how awesome were they!

I also love your back-of-house photos as I didn't get to see that part in action.

Simon Leong said...

hi yaya, i'm always sneaking around to find food hehe

hi simon, hehe, it's always good seeing you in the shots. gives me an idea of what i must look like to other people.

hi yas, nice meeting you too. will surely see you around the food trail.

hi the happy blogger, it was great to see how they set up a deep fryer to cool the wontons and spring rolls. the chef was such a happy chap. you could tell he loved his job.

hi jen, thanks for clarifying the waitstaff. they did a great job.

Jacq said...

Great photos! Looks like it was a really successful book launch... too bad I couldn't make it that night :(

Simon Leong said...

hi jacq, thanks for the comment. hope the pics give you a good idea of what the night was like :-)

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