In Short: The Royal Easter Show in 2017 will wow you with the food. Head to the The Stables for downright delicious burgers and sublime meatballs. At tea time don’t forget to drop by the CWA Tearoom for the best scones in the city!
The Royal Easter Show at Sydney Olympic Park has become a tradition for us. Seeing the best livestock in the country, watching woodchoppers slice through impossibly thick logs, marvelling in the incredible fruit and vegetable displays, and letting little Coco and Viner Sammi go crazy in the showbag pavilion, are just some of the many highlights we look forward to each March or April around Easter time. On the food front we’ve subsisted on a sinful combination of chips, corn dogs, and fairy floss in past years. This year though, The Royal Easter Show has elevated its offerings with a new concept called The Stables; a beautifully laid out pavilion with pop-up food stalls on the ground level, and ciders and wine upstairs, as well as a seating area to consume your munchies. An added bonus is that it’s totally weatherproof!
After a couple of hours walking around the Easter Show our tummies were rumbling and, logically, The Stables is located in the vicinity of where the horses’s stalls are. I am not usually a huge burger eater, but I couldn’t go past the aromas coming from the Burger Head pop-up shop. The Burger Head team have an impressive resume with experience in hatted restaurants including Momofuku Seiobo and Quay. What’s also impressive, to me at least, is instead of opting for a plush city location, they’ve brought burgers to Penrith, and set up shop at the foot of the mountains. The cheese burger is a simple 5 ingredient affair; two soft milk buns, with a beef patty, pickles, cheese, bacon and BH sauce. There’s a nice charred, caramelized crust to the burger, but when you bite into it I see a nice pink centre, perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned. There’s a nice texture to the patty as well, and bacon and American cheese elevates it into burger heaven. Sweet, salty, cheesy and rich; it’s naughty, yet so nice! Pickles, with their briney flavours, round out what is a memorable burger. Suffice to say, we’ll be heading out to Penrith in no time to try Burger Head’s other offerings.
If it were the aromas that attracted us to Burger Head, it was the blowtorch that had us lining up at Balls by Jimmy Liks. It’s all about meatballs, and their signature offering is a meatball sub with rocket and Pecorino cheese.
The show begins with a ladle of meatballs onto to a bed of rocket in a soft bun. The Pecorino cheese is freshly grated over the meatballs, and the blowtorch is fired up, making the cheese start to wilt and melt. Tasting the meatballs, there’s a nice hit of garlic, which is enhanced by the ribbon of pesto laced over them. The meatballs are tender and perfectly seasoned. Pecorino cheese, with it’s sharp and tangy flavour, is a delight as is its melted, stringy textures.
Batting 100% on the food front, it was time to score a caffeine hit. In past editions of The Royal Easter Show, I haven’t had much luck with the coffee; bitter coffee, or burnt milk, were the norm. This year though, Killer Coffee Co. came to the party and delivered the hit I needed. Killer Coffee Co.’s blend is done by boutique roaster Adore Estate Coffee. Their tag line is “Really.Strong.Coffee“, and yes, that is what I received with my flat white. A robust flavour, with that initial acidic injection that awakens the palate, yet transitions smoothly. I love the rich caramel notes. It was definitely a show stopper and the best coffee I have had at The Royal Easter Show. If you really need a good coffee, head to The Stables and look out for the Killer Coffee Co. pop-up.
With little Sammi “encouraging” us to head to the showbag pavillion, we spend a few last minutes on the second level of The Stables tasting a beautiful Zen dessert from Koi Dessert Bar. A deliciously sculpted, cube-shaped, matcha mousse with a hidden mango filling, sits on top of a crunchy almond sable biscuit. As a topping, a wafer-thin piece of tempered chocolate sits on top of the cube, and is delicately decorated with flecks of finely crushed honeycomb and little ferns of green. The fun element in the dessert for us was when we found the hidden mango filling inside; I just kept digging deeper into the dessert for more and before long, done! All gone! Flavour-wise, there’s a harmonious dance between sweetness and savoury, between the match mousse and citrus infused mango centre.
If you go to the Royal Easter Show, my recommendation is to definitely re-fuel at The Stables. It’s comfortable and the food was quality. Our last food stop was at CWA Teamroom; every show goer, must stop in. There was something charming about how the ladies went about their work. There was warmth, there were smiles, and just an air of friendliness, that is so scant these days. Then, there were the scones! I stood in line, and waited to be served. As I got to the front of queue, the lady advised me she’d be back with a fresh batch. That was like music to my ears. I took my scones when she returned and scooted back to the table. These scones were still warm, fresh from the oven. Each scone was bulbous, and generous, and broke up perfectly. They were light, soft and creamy. It was perhaps the ‘icing’ on a grand day at the Royal Easter Show.
For foodies out there that make the trek out to Homebush, you can go now, knowing that you won’t have to go without, as The Stable along with CWA Teamroom will look after your foodie needs. We will be returning to the Easter Show in 2018 and I hope that the concept of The Stables continues to evolve.
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