Welcome to Australia | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Jun

Tea-leaf theif: Tease of the teas

Banyan Tree Seoul

Ok, so I put my hand up to souveniring interesting teas from any hotel I find myself holed up in.

Let me tell you: there is nothing worse than checking in to a
no-holds-barred hotel or villa, complete with hefty price tag, then finding miserable, cheap tea and nasty instant coffee in the room. It’s
like lining the bins with plastic Coles bags. Yet hoteliers do it
time and time again.

If I want tea, I want the real McCoy. Little leaves floating and ultimately drowning in piping hot water, a cute strainer and a pretty cup and saucer. Right now, a white ceramic teapot sits on the desk, and my office is perfumed with freshly brewing Earl Grey tea.

Recent notable exceptions include Sentosa Villas in Bali, which had not only sachets of Balinese coffee but also some pretty special peppermint leaves and great Earl Grey and the Banyan Tree Seoul, for its tea pyramids of silk, cocooning lavender earl grey. Mind you, they did offer to charge me $6 to have milk delivered to the room. Lucky it’s drunk black.

Recently, at the gorgeous Eclectic Tastes cafe in Ballarat, I was served
a pot of tea, complete with nana-knitted tea cosy and a strainer that I
just couldn’t work out. It was a rubik’s cube for tea drinkers. It was
fantastic.

A tea drinker from my teenage years, I’ve just realised why I stopped
ordering tea in cafes so many years ago – because I got sick of being
charged $3 for a cheap, tannin-stained mug filled with hot water and a
20-cent bag. At least coffee looks like it has a bit of work put into
it. At least, that’s what the psychology grads – sorry, baristas – tell us.

Eclectic Tastes, 2 Burnbank St, Ballarat (03) 5339 9252

May

Fare to remember: Brisbane on a plate

Street art, Burnett Lane

Big names, big tastes and serious coffee define Brisbane’s dining and cafe scenes.

With seafood leaping from ocean to plate, and
forests of tropical fruits, you’re not going to starve in Brisbane, people.

Beautiful and breezy, River Quay, on Southbank, is the
city’s newest open-air restaurant strip. Fast
becoming a local’s fave, Brisbane restaurateur Andrew Baturo’s Popolo is just the ticket for family
Italian: big plates made to share – the veal cutlet is a winner – or small
tastes that let you snack and watch the beautiful people jog the riverbanks in
very tight shorts. Order the Kingaroy sucking pig, fast becoming Popolo’s
signature dish, just to spite them.

The other big-news resident on South Bank is Melbourne’s Stokehouse, which now has a Queensland
cousin, and chef Tony Kelly has brought ‘The Bombe,’ a frozen white chocolate
parfait, to a new wave of adorers. Bar aficionados are making a beeline for the
Stoke Bar’s more laid-back tasting plates and signature cocktails. The views
here are pure Brisbane: river, cityscape, mangroves.

Harajuka Gyoza, Fortitude Valley

At the
other end of the budget, you’ll have to elbow the locals out of the way at
Japanese newcomer Harajuku Gyoza,
which has a devoted following for its Kirin on tap and grilled duck gyoza. It
doesn’t hurt that the Fortitude Valley winner is cheap for snacking – a plate
of five gyoza will set you back $8 – and it’s definitely cheerful, with walls
of Jap-pop kitch and plenty of shouting.

Locals will tell you they’re torn
between Harajuka Gyoza and the hipper Brunswick
Social, another new opener, also serving fried and steamed dumplings, also
$8 a plate, but with cocktails for grown-ups, rather than easy-going beer
steins. Open til late, late, late on weekend nights, it’s a pleasant
alternative to the 1am kebab.

In times
past, southerners would gnash their teeth and swear there wasn’t a decent
coffee past the Qld border, but Brisbane’s caffeine scene is a-buzzing. In the
city, Brew burrows underground into Burnett
Lane, a service lane that’s suddenly gone hip, thanks to local efforts to
fashion a laneways culture. Brew’s studenty sofas belie series caffeine intent:
not content with its single origin coffees, it’s now serving cold drip and siphon
coffee to go, in what’s fast becoming the chic strip of the city. New
neighbours on the lane, which runs parallel to Queen St Mall, include The Survey Co Bistro for classic dining
in edgy surrounds.

Notable
are the the drive-through
cafés by Brissy roaster Merlo, which
churns out its daily-roasted private blend to loyal locals who zip through,
arms outstretched for a hit. Its hour-long Coffee Appreciation brekkys and brunches lets you peek
at roasters, sample a few beans and get some expert advice on the best in home
brewing. Classes are held at its five
torrefaziones. Don’t know what a torrefazione is? Better turn up.

Wedged
amongst the vintage shops and seriously fabulous restaurants on Woolloongabba’s
tiny uber-block on Logan Rd, you kinda wish Pearl Café was your local. With smooth brews and a counter of fresh
cream cakes from the upstairs kitchen, Pearl’s also finessing its charcuterie
table and private dining room. The clientele is bronzed and beautiful, yet the
mood is Gallic, so order up with the French toast for a calorific start to the
day, and delude yourself that your gentle amble home will work it off.

River delight

Sweet,
salty and naughtily buttery, chef Ryan Squires’ grilled sweet corn parfait with
caramel popcorn and tarragon is worth the trip north. The Queensland lad, who’s
cut it in the world’s top kitchens, now has a riverside home at Esquire and his charcoal grill is
working miracles. Time-poor degustation devotees already know about the new lunchtime
pre-fixe three dishes for $35 in the pared-down Esq; a fine-dining bargain (145
Eagle St, CBD, esquire.net.au)

Aria, Eagle St Pier, CBD, ariarestaurant.com

Brew, Burnett La, CBD, brewgroup.com.au

Brunswick Social 367 Brunswick
Street, Fortitude Valley

Canvas, 16 Logan Rd, Woolloongabba, canvasclub.com.au

Harajuka Gyoza, 394 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley,
harajukagyoza.com

Merlo drive-through, 104 McLachlan St, Fortitude
Valley, 78 LaTrobe Tce, Paddington, merlo.com.au

Ortiga, 446 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley,
ortiga.com.au

Pearl, 28 Logan Rd, Woolloongabba,

Popolo, River
Quay, South Bank, popolodining.com

Stokehouse,
Sidon St, South Bank, stokehousebrisbane.com.au

Source: Sun Herald newspaper

Apr

Morning glory on ANZAC Day

“Where’d you get those badges?” I heard a little girl ask an old fella today.

“They’re war medals, love!” he said, pointing to the string of metal hanging from his chest.

For my foreign friends, today was, of course, Anzac Day, where Australia remembers its war dead. Sort of like 6 October in Egypt, but less glory-obsessed.

There was a good turnout at my local cenotaph, the memorial found in every town commemorating the local sons and daughters who have died for their country. There was a respectable showing of old blokes with their pressed trousers and medals, some smart older ladies with set hair and nice hats, and quite a lot of young teens wearing what most likely was their great-grandfathers medals and slouch hats. A few blokes with plenty of tatts and shaved heads had the look of Vietnam veterans about them, and amongst the flags was the banner for the Royal Australian Regiment, Second Battalion, which has served in Malaya, Borneo, Korea and Vietnam.

I remember being hauled off to Anzac Day parades when I was a kid, so it was the first time for the Jackson junior to get a dose. Admittedly, she’s a little too young to understand, but she kept quiet during the Last Post and the hymns, curled up against me in the baby carrier.

Later, as we walked away, we passed a very tall old Scottish man, leaning on his walking frame. The cheeky baby pulled a face at the old soldier. “I wish someone’d carry me,” he said, and trundled down the hill to the RSL (Returned Soldiers’ League) hall to play two-up.

Jan

Right wavelength: Heron Island

Turtles viewed from the island’s quasi-submarine

“INFANTS are just hand luggage,” a travel veteran told me before the
arrival of a Jackson jnr. “Take them to all the posh restaurants before
they can walk, and travel.”

“Families should stick to holidays in Queensland and stop
inflicting their kids on the rest of us during long-distance flights,”
sniped a chorus of online travellers. Snipers, we took your advice.

So,
wary of the many evil eyes cast by business travellers on a red-eye up
to Brisbane and onward to Gladstone, the first family holiday is to that
bastion of family holidays, north of the border.

Heron Island is a coral cay 72kilometres off the coast of
Gladstone. It’s a two-hour ferry journey or, if you’re flush, half an
hour in a chopper.

To read more, click here

Jan

Well I’ll be burgered. Shopping Australia Day

It’s that time again when we celebrate sunburn, sand in your swimmers and all things beetroot.

Yes I know most of you are still reeling from Christmas and New Year’s, and the first hot cross buns have already appeared in the supermarkets in preparation for Easter, which doesn’t appear till 8 April.

But in between, we still have Australia Day, on 26 January. I remember an Irish colleague marvelling at his first Australia Day barbie in rainy, wintery Dublin. “We had beetroot burgers!” he reported back to the rest of the Dublin newsroom, eyes wide with astonishment. Oh, the culinary heights. Australian theme bars the world over (most notably London’s notorious Walkabout pubs) break out the Men at Work and Ganggagang records and the cricket and tennis are on.

This year, the Aussie Day theme seems to have gone into overdrive in the homeland. Building on the 2011 Christmas must-have decoration, reindeer antlers for your car, you can now replace them with car-safe Aussie flags. Forget that American ‘respect for the flag’ thing, our flag also appears on paper plates and serviettes, swimmers and dresses, tins of beetroot, inflatable thongs, singlets, and of course, eskies and beer coolers.


Hot, or what?

You can buy raw burgers moulded in the shape of Australia (yes, Tassie is attached), or savoury biscuits in Aussie bbq meat lovers flavour. Lamingtons, those all-Australian cakes, are on special, as are ANZAC biscuits and flag-emblazoned Nutri-Grain (IronMan food).

I nearly gave the award of most useless Australia Day object to the disposable nappies emblazoned with our Union Jack and stars, but the winner is… an Australian Flag car mirror sock, free when you buy slabs of beer from a leading supermarket. Yes, car mirror socks – you know, a sock for your car’s side mirror. Total must-have.

Have a Happy Australia Day, wherever you are.

Dec

Cheap and full of cheer

Rejoice, oh disorganised work slaves! Bargains still abound for those who don’t book their summer holidays a year ahead.

Everything about Malaysia screams “bargain” and it’s all
done so nicely. Getting to Kuala Lumpur is cheap, thanks to respectable
Malaysian budget airline AirAsia, and the shopping is fabulous, with
Chrissy sales making it even better (psst, and heaps cheaper than
Singapore). You can snap up a city five-star hotel for as little as $100
a night but for a cheap, authentic experience, try a home stay in a
kampong (village) house with a local family, eating home cooking and
experiencing the culture. The government-monitored initiative costs from
$27 a day. In January, the holiday islands of Penang and Langkawi are
starting to dry out from their November deluge but new hotels are
keeping the competition fierce – check out the new Four Points by
Sheraton on Langkawi and Penang’s new Hard Rock Hotel.
airasia.com, go2homestay.com, tourismmalaysia.com.au.

Others on the budget radar include Singapore, Tahiti, Hawai’i, Cambodia, New Zealand and our own Cairns is on sale, too.

Click here to read more.

Nov

Cairns pulls at the heartstrings

Cairns lagoon. Skin cancer central, but does have some shade!

On a busy corner of tropical Cairns, I could see OK Souvenirs, Koaland and Louis Vuitton. Then I got trampled by a Japanese tourist group. A woman outside my hotel window smoked rolled cigarettes and spat tobacco and invectives at passers-by, the hotel concierge went AWOL while I was trying to haul baby, pram and bags up the front stairs, and it was hot, humid and heavy. Cairns, I was quite prepared to hate you.

But the next morning, I’d softened. The concierge had materialised at the Cairns Hilton, which has just had a $6 million renovation. The streets were full of cute open-air cafes and restaurants and locals and travellers were splashing happily in the lagoon, a clear water pool in the middle of town. I liked the notices pinned telling you where to take baby flying foxes that have fallen out of the trees above, and the primal squeak of a hundred furry little bodies hanging from the branches like over-excited black fruit.

Flying foxes, just hanging out in Cairns.

Then, there was the discovery that the Hanuman restaurant in the Hilton is of the same family as the legendary Darwin Hanuman, and I was unnaturally thrilled to learn they even do bento, basically upmarket take-away, comprising two perfect curries, rice and some rather exciting pickles.

Pulling out of the harbour on a boat turned toward Fitzroy Island, I could smell the massaman curry and jasmine rice, and the prospect of enjoying it on a tropical island seemed pretty damned good. Cairns, welcome back into the heart.

Nov

Salalah, Oman

We love a ‘top 10’ and the Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities is always good for a spot of cultural biffo.

I’m going to be a snob and say up front that London is a rather ho-hum choice for the number one city to visit out of all the world, and Orlando in the US leaves us cold, but hey, Australia’s always got Darwin. Yes, Darwin. Land of jumping crocodiles and topless barmaids. Sorrrrryyyy, that’s SUCH an awful picture of Darwin. We like our most northern capital.

Happy to see the entire Middle East hasn’t been written off, and we’re big fans of Oman and Hong Kong is perpetually fabulous. Of course, the game is to see how many you’ve already ticked off before the Lonely Planet got there…

Here’s the list in its entirety:
1. London, UK
2. Muscat, Oman
3. Bengaluru (Bangalore), India
4. Cadiz, Spain
5. Stockholm, Sweden,
6. Guimaraes, Portugal
7. Santiago, Chile
8. Hong Kong
9. Orlando, USA
10. Darwin Australia.

In the top 10 countries, Uganda is the ‘too cool for school’ number 1, with Taiwan and gorgeous Jordan in there. Ukraine? Horses for courses, man, and Cuba’s still a goer while the Castros remain in power, with the ever-powerful tagline, ‘go before it changes irrevocably’.

The top 10 regions include coastal Wales, La Ruta Maya (central America), northern Kenya, Arunachal Pradesh (India), Hvar (Croatia), Sicily (Italy), Maritime Provinces (Canada), Queenstown and southern lakes (New Zealand), Borneo and Poitou-Charentes (France).

Oct

More icing on the cake: Daylesford

Australia’s premier spa town just keeps getting better – and tastier. Discovers what’s new in Daylesford.

“PLEASE, no mobile phones,” requests the Lake House’s restaurant
menu. And, “Please, no thongs.” Oh, only because you ask so nicely, I
won’t wear my thongs into your two-hatted restaurant for the first
showing of its spring table.

They like to keep themselves nice in Daylesford.

Click here to read more/

Sep

Notes from the back of a Daylesford wine bottle

Good Catholic Girl ‘Teresa’ Riesling 2010, Clare Valley:

‘St Teresa of Avila b. 1515 (patron of headache sufferers) is said to have been viewed levitating during deep prayer. My mother Teresa, prays, but to this point has not achieved levitation. The consumption of Clare Riesling over many decades has not caused her to levitate either. Could this dry crisp Riesling be the one?

Grapes grown by good catholic boys Faulkner and Pearson of Penworthham and Marsson of Watervale. Blessed with 600 dozen. Julie Ann Barry, Maker. www.goodcatholicgirl.com.au”

This excellent young Riesling was sitting perkily in the fridge of Monastiraki (Greek: ‘little monastery), the latest offering from Tina Banitski, the artist and mastermind
of The Convent, in Daylesford.

The forbidding former Catholic nunnery and school is now a cheeky art gallery, as well as Bad Habits cafe and the Altar bar (because the bar contains a chunk of the original altar in it, as well as the tabernacle).

Tina has also recently renovated a nearby house, stuffing it with work from her favourite artists, curios and wine to create Monastiraki, the perfect getaway for a bunch of friends or family.

People, it is officially Out There, from the paint-splattered mannequins hanging from the coat hooks to the scarlet or lime green bedroom walls, the fabulously wild artworks, cushion-tastic daybeds and buttock sculptures, essential, of course, for any self-respecting boudoir.

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