Porteño restaurant in Sydney has racked up the awards, including 2013 Chefs of the Year

Last September, I wrote a brief blog post on the Argentine-inspired Porteño restaurant in Sydney, Australia.  The Sydney Morning Herald has previously covered the establishment’s rising popularity as well as Australians’ inherent love for all things barbecue.  Given that an Argentine parrillada is one of the best barbecue experiences out there, it’s no wonder that Sydney has taken a liking to Porteño’s offerings.

Earlier this month, the Sydney Morning Herald also named the restaurants chefs, Ben Milgate and Elvis Abrahanowicz, as “2013 Chefs of the Year“. In addition, the restaurant has been listed as #20 on the Gourmet Traveller’s Top 100 Restaurants in Australia as well as the 2012 Time Out Food Awards “People’s Choice Award”.

And they didn’t stop there, in addition to their other restaurant, Bodega, the folks behind Porteño have opened a swanky, old-school bar named after the most famous tango crooner of all time: Carlos Gardel.  Gardel’s Bar is their ode to another era as their Facebook description so elegantly captures:

Named after Argentina’s favourite tango musician and actor, Carlos Gardel, Gardel’s Bar exudes the charm and style of a bygone era.

Inspired by this early-mid twentieth aesthetic, sleeve gartered barkeeps whip up classically inspired cocktails from behind the punched leather bar.

With shelves groaning under the weight of hand selected spirits and with access to Porteño’s superlative cellar of fine Argentinean wine, Gardel’s has the perfect drink for your pre or postprandial tipple.

Sink yourself into banquette in the ‘Evita’ room – named for the pictures of Eva Perron that don the walls – order-up from the from the award winning bar food selection and forget about the trials and tribulations of modern life. At Gardel’s your comfort and indulgence are our welcome guests.

Congratulations, Ben and Elvis, on a tremendously successful year. And thank you for spreading the art of Argentine asado throughout the world.  The world needs more gauchos like you!

The Cochon Heritage Fire event features many types of hardwood grilling

Having just posted on a food and wine event featuring 500 lbs. of paella cooked over wood fire, it seemed like as good a time as any to share a link to the Flickr photostream for the 2011 Cochon Heritage Fire event which was recently held in St. Helena, California on August 13, 2011.

The photos from the 2011 Cochon Heritage Fire event can be found here.

Cochon 555 is a one-of-a-kind traveling culinary competition and tasting event–five chefs, five pigs, five wine makers–to promote sustainable farming of heritage breed pigs. Each stop along the ten-city tour offers hard-working local farmers the opportunity to connect with like-minded agriculturalists, renowned chefs and the pork-loving public.

While the Cochon event is a traveling event, it is only one of several food/drink exhibitions that take place in Northern California throughout the year.  Having lived and traveled to all parts of the U.S., I can say that Northern California is easily one of the meccas for hardwood barbecue enthusiasts who are interested in skillful grilling, great food, and terrific company.
Some other events worth seeking out are:

Eat Real Festival: Oakland, CA (September 23-25, 2011)

Agricola Grassfed Beef and Avedano’s present a day of Artisan Beef Butchery: Vacaville, CA (October 15, 2011)

Homeward Bound of Marin – Fresh Starts Cooking School Butcher Demonstration: Novato, CA (October 20, 2011)

4505 Meats – Butcher Classes: San Francisco, CA (Various dates)

Fellow Gauchos: this can’t be a complete list, so please feel free to add any others you’ve attended or would like to attend in the comments section.  Eventually, I’d like to make a sidebar which lists all the wonderful culinary events in Northern California or even throughout the country.

FOOD: The Barbados Tourism Booth did an outstanding dish with slow-cooked chicken, spicy Scotch Bonnet pepper sauce, pickled cucumbers, and a perfectly cooked plantain.  It’s hard to judge many of the participating restaurants, eateries, chefs, etc. on the food they present at the festival.  Many of them are cooking in limited spaces outdoors for over 4 hours.  So if you attended and disliked a particular hors d’oeuvre from a vendor, don’t let that be the sole basis of your opinion.  Go to the restaurant, try their actual menu, then decide.  It would be like judging a band’s entire body of work based on their 30-second song snippet on iTunes.

WINE: I’ve always liked Grgich Hills (prounced Gir-gitch).  They are a winery located in Rutherford, CA in the heart of Napa Valley.  The only wine of theirs I tried at the festival was their 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, but I thought it was the best of all the wines I tried that day. I would highly recommend it to those of you looking for a solid cabernet and I will definitely consider it for my next asado as it would go very well with many of the grilled meats.

ALCOHOL:  Last year the Aperol booth was my favorite, mostly because they gave away cool t-shirts and some orange aviator sunglasses, but also because I love Campari and Aperol is a very similar bitter aperitif.  This year, the hands down winner for me was Los Amantes Mezcal.  For those of you unfamiliar with mezcal, it is a distilled spirit (very similar to tequila) which is made from the maguey agave plant.  It tastes like tequila, but because the piñas are roasted before distillation, mezcal often has a very smokey flavor similar to many scotch whiskeys.  I am an avid tequila and mezcal connoisseur with almost 15 bottles in my private collection.  It is very difficult to find new mezcales on the market available for purchase in the United States, so tasting Los Amantes was a treat and their product is outstanding.

Chef Morimoto and the Suckling Pig

Mrs. Gaucho (left), Susan Warner (right) with Wylie Dufresne (center) owner of WD-50

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS: Encountered Chef Wiley Dufresne, molecular gastronomist extraordinaire and owner of WD-50, a restaurant at the very top of my “To Do” list for New York establishments.  He was very nice and personable and agreed to a photo with my wife and friend.  Chef Morimoto of the self-titled restaurant gave a hilarious presentation on preparing a Japanese version of suckling pig.  I found it odd that suckling pig was what he chose given that Japanese cuisine features little pork, but I believe he was trying to demonstrate using Japanese ingredients with a show-stopper entree item like suckling pig.

Overall, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival is a lot of fun.  However, the biggest knock on the event is the price.  For those with a high supply of discretionary income, the $150 for the ticket is probably not a problem and you get plenty of food and drink throughout the day.  For the rest of us, the pricing is probably a bit high given the crowds, the small pours on wine tastings, and the lack of quality food tastings.  This is not to say that I don’t like the event or won’t return, but that it is a steeply-priced event and is probably reserved for attendance every few years.

Did you attend the South Beach Wine & Food Festival?  What did you think?  Leave a comment!