Bathurst adventure

The long weekend (courtesy of Her Majesty Queen E) is great time for a short break, though unfortunately for me this weekend was fragmented due to the annual Dragon Boat Festival family feast (Blog coming VERY soon) on Sunday, so any attempt for a weekend away would have been futile. But we don't complain - when it comes to food anything else is secondary... almost.

But we still managed to have a day out to Bathurst/Orange on this bright beautiful mild blue sky day. Why Bathurst? It's where Bathurst 2000 V8 supercar race is held annually, and the race circuit is open to public for a fun drive (with a speed limit of 60kph and constant police monitoring too). The top of the hill also offers a good vista to the entire town, which was a scaled down version of visiting the Centerpoint Tower.

Anyway, just like any other country town, it has it's quirkiness, relaxed country pace, and depending on where you go, quality local produce and culinary fare. We went to a little cafe called Ziegler's, with a lovely courtyard and slightly alternative interior decoration such as a scroll of buddha alongside oil painting of landscape or abstract objects.

We were there for lunch and asked for a lamb with chargrilled eggplant, asparagus and tomato ragu, and an Osso Bucco, but the friendly waitress then came out very apologetically telling us "it won't be ready for another 3 hours". We didn't know whether to feel pleased that they slow cook their osso bucco properly, or to feel annoyed that it's not available but it's on the venue. The osso bucco was then replaced with a steak open sandwich with fries, which had delicious grilled haloumi cheese, salad and cucumber yogurt. The meat was a bit overcooked for my liking - we asked for medium but it was definitely well-done. My lamb had the same problem but a bit worse as I asked for medium rare (pink but not bloody) but it came well-done and therefore a bit tough, but the tomato ragu was VERY flavoursome, not too acid at all. The asparagus was a bit tough too but I think it's not quite asparagus season yet, so I forgave them for that. The chargrilled eggplant at the bottom has a fantastic charred taste and because it had soaked up the tomato ragu flavour it was my favourite part of this dish.

I have also ordered an apple juice, which was freshly pressed from granny smith apples - so the juice was very tart but very refreshing. The macchiato also passed the critique's judgment, with bonus points for being fair trade coffee.

Later in the evening for dinner we visited the Robin Hood Hotel at Orange for their (in)famous HUGE sized pub grub - a full sized pork rib with spicy sweet marinade, and lamb shanks (two shanks from the biggest and fattest lamb you could find) with mash. I ordered pork ribs because I have been warned of their size, and ribs usually have less meat on them, but it had more meat than bones, tender juicy and good sweet-spicy flavour. The lamb shanks were off the bone - one shank would have been enough to feed me, while I could only have half the rib and barely touched the vegetables and chips on the side.

So I was fat and happy at the end of this day trip. To be fair these weren't the best meals I had, but certainly one of the most satisfying due to its generous country portions.