Brian Polli: www.polliweb.com

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Archive for October, 2008

Oktoberfest

October 14th, 2008

3 weeks ago I had the great fortune to go to Munich, Germany for a supplier meeting. A meeting that happened to coincide with the Oktoberfest beer festival It could be argued that the meeting was setup so that we could attend said festival afterwards – and you’d be correct.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Beer? Obviously… but what was the setting? Well, it’s basically a big carnival.. Lots of rides and food stalls (kind of like the Royal Melbourne Show but without the animals – well, perhaps a different breed of animal..).. Visually it was incredible.. Lots of pretty lights on the rides.. The smells were really strong and wonderful – a mixture of roasting pork/chicken, grilled sausages and onions, sugared nuts and fairy floss. Sweet, savoury – and one wanted to devour the lot..

One of the first things I noticed was that despite the wholesale beer drinking going on, I felt incredibly safe.. You wouldn’t have a similar festival in the UK – it simply wouldn’t work – not least because the dominant smell would be that of urine – but I can imagine it would turn very ugly, very quickly..

After about half an hour wandering around the festival, passing all the food stalls and massive buildings that turned out to be the beer “tents” (a very loose use of the term – these are buildings not tents) we entered our tent, which turned out to be the wine tent (ironic, huh?).. This was more of a corporate tent, beer was served until 9pm, and then wine until 1am when the tent closed. The first thing I noticed when I entered the hall was the Kiss cover band playing “I was made for loving you” – and the crowd going nuts..

We were seated at our table upstairs, and the beer started flowing right away.. Being a corporate type tent they didn’t serve the monster one litre steins of beer – 500ml glasses was the beer measurement of choice. And all of it wheat beer – a good thing since I love the stuff.. Before you ask, my intake for the evening was modest – 5 x 500ml glasses. Not a lot by any serious beer drinkers standard (sorry Adam, I feel like I’ve let you down) – but I’m hardly a serious beer drinker so I consider it a fair personal effort..

As with the afternoon tea described in my previous post, the event was far greater than the sum of it’s parts. You can eat a great meal anywhere (well you can in Germany), you can get pickled while listening to a bad cover band anywhere. But the combination of all elements really made for an amazing experience. Everyone was simply having fun – eating, drinking, singing, dancing. Lots of clinking glasses everywhere.

Let me point out, people on most tables got around the “no beer served after 9pm” situation by ordering up big at around 8:55pm and drawing from that for the rest of the evening. You would think that the beer would go flat and disgusting – it didn’t. Perhaps it’s something to do with the wheat beer – or perhaps we were too merry to notice..

Great atmosphere, great company, great food and drink (I had roast suckling pig with beer sauce, red braised cabbage and potato “knodel” – yummo!!) – I felt extremely preiveleged to be there.

The morning after? Let’s just say.. B B B B B B B B B Berocca gives you back your B B Bounce..

Here are some of the photos.. I sincerely hope I get the chance to go again some day.

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Posted in Food, Travel

A spot of afternoon tea

October 12th, 2008

I remember when Jason first told me about going to Afternoon Tea at a fancy schmancy London hotel – I thought – “You paid THAT much for sandwiches, scones and tea?” Well folks, I now been there, done that and have officially seen the light.

Olivia’s parents were recently in town and we thought it would be a nice treat for all to see what thing whole afternoon tea thing was all about.. We booked The Dorchester three months in advance (the Ritz was already booked out even this far out).

The afternoon tea room “The Promenade” is delightfully beautiful..

Our waiter Ramon (at least it was a suitably swish name along those lines) was attentive, pleasant and far from pretentious (which let’s face it would not be altogether out of place in a setting such as this). The table settings were beautiful, as you would expect.

The afternoon consisted of champagne, finger sandwiches, tea from a 10 page tea menu (I chose Earl Grey), scones with the obligatory clotted cream and jam, and finishing off with a round of dainty but delicious cakes/pastries. On their own, all these components of the meal were very nice – but as per my original reservations about afternoon tea – not necessarily ground breaking. The clincher is that the experience of an afternoon tea like this is far greater than the sum of its parts. It was awesome to spend a couple of hours in such a lovely room, in great company, being served excellent produce by staff who are no strangers to showing people a good time.

It was a great afternoon. Here’s a link to the small photo collection. A most enjoyable experience – and one I’d heartily recommend to anyone visiting the UK. (Having said that I’m told the Windsor in Melbourne does a mean afternoon tea also…)