GoMA and Paniyiri!

Yesterday was a beautiful day in sunny South-East Queensland.  We set out early in the morning from the Gold Coast to trek up the M1 to do brekkie with my family.  We were celebrating my grandfather's 85th birthday.  We dined at Watt at New Farm Park.  The coffee was fantastic.

My little sister bought these beautiful birthday treats for Pop, from the Powerhouse Farmer's Markets.

 

I'm yet to hear how they were, but they looked delicious.  I'll have to call the G-pares for an update.

We wandered through the markets after breakfast.  My sister  purchased  a punnet of fresh raspberries and six fresh figs. I could live on these two fruits.  I love the colour of fig flesh, and the burst of the seeds as you bite into them.  The raspberries were so plump and juicy. Walking through the market, and being close to the Brisbane River made me miss living in Brisbane!

After breakfast we headed over to GoMA to see the Ron Mueck hyperrealism sculpture exhibition.  I highly recommend it.  BF and I will return to see it again.  We both felt as though we wanted to reach out and touch the sculptures.  The detail in Mueck's work is so precise.  From the little creases in the crook of a knee, to the shimmer of sunscreen on the skin of  man reclining on a lilo.  It is hard to say which of the sculptures I liked the most, but the one that creeped me out the most (due to it's freakish realism) was Wild Man.  I loved the detail in this. The perfect distribution of fine good bumps on his flank gave me goosebumps . You could see the whites in his metatarsals from pressing his feet to the ground.  Everything about this was so perfectly imperfect and so human.  Mueck is an artistic genius.

I could have spent the rest of the day at GoMA, if it hadn't been for the scent of halloumi and souvlaki wafting over from Paniyiri at Musgrave Park.  Paniyri is one of my favourite food festivals.  It always has a fantastic vibe, and the food is great.  Luckily we were in a big group, so getting to taste as much as possible wasn't a problem.  To start with we bought a serve of moussaka, a lamb souvlaki in pita, a cabbage roll and a serve of halloumi.  The cabbage roll was tasty.  I grew up in Darwin (multicultural melting pot = foodie heaven) and remember one of the Greek girls bringing these in on "round the World" day.  The rice was a little dry but the flavour was still good.  I'm going to try making these at home. The moussaka was delicious but I find it hard to rate any moussaka over my own recipe.  The layer of white sauce over the top of this dish was lovely and thick.  I liked the inclusion of zucchini and potato.  I've only ever used eggplant to layer.

The halloumi was as expected, AMAZING!  I don't think I have ever had bad halloumi. We don't usually have lemon with it at home, and it was a good accompaniment. I was very selfless and let BF have the third and last piece of halloumi.  I think we got three pieces of halloumi for $3.  I won't include a photo of the cheese, because it was massacred before I managed to get a decent shot.  The snap I got of the cheese has imprint of BFs chompers on it. 

We next ventured over to the Southern end of the stalls, and got some baby octopus and quail.  Octopus is a Greek favourite for me.  This octopus was tasty, but not the best that I have had.  I think I got a small plastic tub for about $8. It can't have been too bad, because it didn't last long enough between the group for a photo to be taken.  The tub was filled to the brim with octopus and sprinkled with chopped parsley and  served with a wedge of lemon.    The seasoning was delicious, but the octopus didn't seem to have been BBQ'd. 

The quail was the winner of the day.  I've never really liked quail, but I'm a convert.  The quail was perfectly BBQ'd.  The skin was very crispy whilst the meat was very tender and moist.  The seasoning was perfect -   a very good mix of salt and pepper.  It is amazing what two simple ingredients and cooking method can mean for flavour. BF made two trips back to his chosen quail store and we all spent a good deal of time nibbling away on the little morsels. 

BF with two of his favourite things - beer and quail.

Next was dessert.  I had been hankering for galaktoboureko since we'd decided to go to Panyiri a month earlier.  This delicious honey drenched custard filo slice is another favourite from my childhood. Dad used to treat Mum to much deserved sleep-ins of a Saturday morning when my sister and I were little.  He'd take us to Casuarina Shopping Square and treat us to galaktoboureko or a doughnut man whilst he read the paper and drank a cappuccino (which we'd always scrape the chocoloate off!).  I've grown out of doughnut men as I've grown up, but galaktaboureko has always remained a favourite.  I bough a slice of galaktoboureko and baklava from the only dessert designated sweets cafe in the food area.  The slices on offer at this stall were some of the smaller servings I'd seen whilst wandering around, but let's be honest - after the  indulgences of the day, small was a good thing.   The galaktoboureko looks a little insipid in the photo below. Don't be fooled! It was amazing!

 

A trip to Paniyiri wouldn't be complete without a generous plate of honey puffs.  We all got sucked in by a banner promising, "Best Honey Puffs in Brisbane".  We shouldn't have been such gullible and easy targets for blatant advertising.  The puffs were quite soggy and didn't have much of the usual icing sugar dusted over the top. Amongst the soggies, there was the occasional crunchy puff but overall, the weren't very good. 

It was a fantastic day, and we will definitely be heading to Paniyiri again next year.  I haven't seen any advertising for the Gold Coast Greek Festival yet and have heard a whisper that it is only to be held second yearly from now on.  I hope this isn't true! I need more than one fix of galaktoboureko a year.