Text 9244, 109 rader
Skriven 2006-12-24 16:14:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Central Market 758
==========================
Central Market day. We took the Prospect Road bus downtown,
as this makes more sense than taking a car in, trying to
park, and so on. Had a good day shopping for the picnic and
for self-catering part of the rest of the week. As usual,
Carol went her own way, looking for things that neither
Glen nor I saw any charm in. We met for lunch at the food
hall across the way, where the bargain hunters eat. The
various stalls all had interesting offerings - the Vietnam
place was the least interesting, though it was fairly
popular; an Indian stall, whose food smelled good but whose
prices were too much by about a dollar was deserted. Korean
and Thai places had their things and their clientele. Three
Chinese stalls - one with saddish-looking dim sum (nobody
seemed to want to eat their food, aside from a Chinese
couple who came in later), two all-you-can-put-on-one-plate
buffets - the lady running the one near the entrance was
palpably desperate when she shoved samples of General Tso
my way ... but I was not in the mood for heavily battered
anything; found the Shanghai stall offering a dish that I
like very much, red-cooked pork belly. I built my plate
this way: a modest bed of yellow noodles, a good-size dose
of pork; a couple spoonfuls of sauteed mixed vegetables
(carrots, broccoli, cabbage), and chicken wings (I think 3
whole wings) to top off. Everything was well prepared and
good tasting except for the noodles, which turned out to be
just horrible, underdone and doughy. As I made my main meal
of pork belly, I didn't overload my plate and so didn't eat
horribly badly. Glen ate from the same place and perhaps
even more modestly than I, though he had both noodles and
rice on his plate. We ate fairly well and fairly copiously
for our five bucks a head; by being more architecturally
talented and greedier we could have eating ourselves silly.

There's a beverage stand in the middle: you can buy soft
drinks, bubble tea, beer, and wine. I drank VB; Glen had
cheap box wine.

Carol got a seafood tom yum from the Thai stall: it was
tasty if mildly spiced but came with a dish of extremely hot
sauce, which she rejected but I then appropriated for my
chicken wings.

We were going to the place where a dozen oysters and a
schooner used to be 10 bucks; now it's 13, and we didn't
have any time anyhow, and besides, the grapes were sour.

=

We were scheduled to visit Glen's daughter Jo and her
husband Murray (along with son Ryan) for tasting a pair of
wines that had been put up for review at the newspaper
they work for; they had already been written up by the
house critic, but the additional input from some outlanders
was thought to be interesting as well.

Jo and Murray live with their son in a pleasant, slightly
upscale suburb, but the one thing I noticed - and noticed a
lot in Adelaide - was how many locks there were on the front
door, and how many of them were kept locked even in daylight
with lots of people in the house. I don't know, maybe bands
of marauding rebels from Banda Aceh or something? Anyway,
it's a nice house, apparently built by the builder with
extra features as it had been meant for his daughter, who
ended up living somewhere else; and so it has powerful air
conditioning, which is especially good as it was topping
out at 35 (95F).

We started off with a clean pointless but refreshing Jacob's
Creek Chardonnay 05 before the tasting of two Barossa wines:

RBJ Theologicum Mataro 02, a smooth and complex wine that
started a bit dumb but had licorice and honey coming out
nicely in the palate. Assertive acidity. A smoky plummy
aspect developed in the glass, and there was a long, tartish
butterscotchy finish.

Diggers Bluff Stray Dog GSM 04 had phenol and shoes giving
way to the aromas of an Indian grocer, with pineapple and
plum in the background. It had a bit more sugar than I
thought it ought, followed by a bitterish finish. I could
see this wine pairing rather nicely with south Asian food.

Our snacks were various kinds of cheese and sausages and
smoked 'roo from the shop in the Central Market, which was
plenty for an afternoon nosh; but it was decreed that dinner
should follow, and Murray was busily grilling things out on
the back porch, and whoever in his right mind says no to
grilled food?

These were packaged goods but not too bad for that - chicken
satays had a decent brined texture and an okay flavor,
though a bit too much fennel; snags "with Texas seasoning"
I thought mild to the point of tastelessness, but Ryan, who
is preternaturally sensitive to spices, found them
mouth-burning hot.

I just happened to have with me some Port Lincoln mussels -
5 lb of them to be precise -, and I added them to the pot,
as it were, grilling them on the still-hot grill after the
snags had been taken off. These were excellent, very briny,
not a dead one in the lot.

Rounded out the evening with Elevenses sparkling Chardonnay
04 from Wayne Thomas (McLaren Vale), a singularly bitter and
grapefruity wine that I rather enjoyed.

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