Simon Food Favourites: media140

06 May 2010

Media140 Foodies: A gastronomic delight of food and the social web (5 May 2010)

Electrolux Showroom & Demo Kitchen

163 O'Riordan Street, Mascot NSW 2020
http://www.amiando.com/media140foodies

U are what u tweet

OMG, I've never seen so many people on their iphones twittering in one place. If I had an iphone I probably would be doing the same at this media140 Sydney event but I resorted to good old fashioned real people networking instead. Thanks to Bridget Davis aka The Internet Chef for inviting me along to see what this event was all about. She was supported by many sponsors including SBS Food, Wild Oats Wines, Brasserie Bread, Urban Food Market, Rocks Brewing Co, MorganWare, OneSmallPlanet and her legendary Media140 partner Mahei Foliaki from @iconic88. Apparently Kerry Dowling from OneSmallPlanet informs me that the average age for people using twitter is 39.1 years old — I never knew I was a prime statistic of Twitter. Also about 57% of users are female.

It was great to see so many familiar faces of the blogging community and to meet new people in person that I follow or follow me. I must admit I got a little bit side tracked taking photos around the wonderful professional kitchen and showroom so I actually didn't hear the speeches that clearly from the back of the room. I was concentrating more on trying all the food and photographing it instead — such a blogger trait. My favourite of the night was the salmon on an avocado tartar with crispy kale furikake. It had really nice flavours and the crispy kale furikake was very interesting. I thought this canape would have maybe been better served on a Chinese soup spoon so it could be eaten with one hand like the est Tartare of ocean trout. The Warm roast chicken finger sandwiches were very tasty although the very fresh bread made it a little awkward to hold without spillage so I thought if the bread was grill toasted a bit would have made it even better. The mini Wagyu burgers were juicy and tasty and slightly larger than the teppanyaki Wagyu penny burgers. The pastry on the TwittaPie duck confit pie was excellent and went very well with the flavoursome duck meat inside.

I've learnt that there sure seems to be a lot of people out there that use twitter for promotion, communicating and connecting with like minded people. Whether you love it or hate it seems to be here for now to either use or ignore although I still much prefer a good old face-to-face conversation with a person when given half the chance. At the end of the night everyone was generously given a freshly baked loaf of Sour Cherry bread from Brasserie Bread which was cooked in the ovens during the event. There's nothing quite like fresh bread and it went down very well with butter as a late night blogging snack.

Other blog reviews of the event:

• The Internet Chef

• Media140: Ande Gregson

• Eat Drink Play

• SBS Food

In the kitchen

"What do you mean you've lost your ring in the bowl?" ;-)

"How did I get stuck with the job of pulling out these damn bones?"

Carmel Ruggeri helping to cut up the bread

Bridget prepping the first canape

Bridget on the big screen

Tim Elwin from Urban Food Market

Chef preparing the wagyu burgers

Getting ready to make the wagyu burgers

Taking a break from the food preparation

The Food

The menu

Seasoned fresh Australia salmon on an avocado tartar with crispy kale furikake served with Wild Oats Sauvignon Blanc 2009

Warm roast chicken finger sandwiches with a lime and tarragon fresh organic egg mayo with Wild Oats Chardonnay 2008

TwittaPie duck confit pie with a red wine reduction complimented by a Wild Oats Tempranillo 2008

Miniature Wagyu burgers with onion jam and a piquant cheddar with Wild Oats Shiraz 2007

The Drinks

Selection of Wild Oats Wines

Mark Fethers from Rocks Brewing Co.

The Speakers

Bridget Davis

Wild Oats sponsor

Michael Shafran - Gosstronomy (left), Lorraine Elliott - Not Quite Nigella (centre), Franz Scheurer - @blues_junkie (right), Julie Posetti - MC (far right)