Crawl n Bite

Well it's not often that you eat at every single venue you have a drink in.... if only that was the case there would be a few less sore heads after a night out!

Last night I attended Crawl n Bite part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, an event where you are ushered very orderly from place to place to crawl and bite!  This is the first year for this event which is happening in Fitzroy, St Kilda and the City.

We started at Easy Tiger at 6pm on the dot, they kicked off the evening promptly with the option of a cocktail called the "Mother Plum" or a Singa beer, followed quickly behind by the first small plate.

The night started with "The Mother Plum" Cocktail... Gin, Aloe, Umeshu & Soda

This was an aged rare wagu beef, served with coconut rice, a salad of coriander, red onion, finely shredded spinach, sliced lemongrass and a very zingy dressing that really brought the dish together.

Small Plate #1 great start to the evening

Next, we were ferried up the road to Huxtable.  We sauntered past Huxtaburger which smelt delicious and almost had the same amount of people queueing for burgers as we had on the crawl... mental note...try those burgers.

At Huxtable, we started off with a Medhurst Rose, which was served with a tuna sushami with a yuzo and tofu sauce with a seaweed on the side topped with tempura ginger and watercress.

Beautifully presented... check out the Tempura Ginger perfectly crunchy

This dish looked amazing and the flavours worked well with the Rose, but the flavour wasn't nearly as punchy as the previous bite.  We however, had no problems finishing our plates!

Emily was disappointed that the tempura ginger was missing on her plate!

Our last round was at Anada where we were greeted with a green pea gazpacho with smoked olive oil.

Pea gazpacho, with the smoked olive oil circling the top of the gazpacho

The gazpacho was my favourite dish of the night is had an amazing creamy texture with a bursting with freshness and flavour (I surprise myself not been a great fan of the humble pea!).

This was followed by a small taster of some Iberica ham and a glass of sherry to accompany the next plate.

Sherry line up

The final plate was a real treat.  It consisted of a small cut of pork bellie with fennel and smokey aubergine with a delicate crackling on the top.

Great mix of tapas, I would definitely go back for the pork!

Beside the pork was a small dish of beef cheek, slowly cooked in oloroso sherry. The beef was served with a fava bean mash and was so tender it melted in your mouth.

A very cute salad completed the meal, it was made up of gem lettuce salad with barberries (little red berries that look like pomegranates used to add a burst of tart flavour to a dish), chervil and a white balsamic dressing, gorgeous.

The Barberry...a small burst of tart flavour, known as one of "Natures Superfoods" if you believe the hype!

This was a great event, it was really well organised and fairly priced ($50 for three dishes plus a beverage at each place), if you want to check it out go to the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival website.

If you run out of time in the next two weeks why not do your own crawl and bite there are plenty of places in Fitzroy that serve small plates and a great way to try new places.

Thanks to Simon from Easy Tiger who was our tour leader, he made the event run smoothly and was a great host, I will be back to try out the rest of the menu!