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Monday, August 23, 2004
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A Town Like Alice
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VOLUME 1
ISSUE 12
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LETTERS
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[POST LETTER]
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Alice's Restaurants
For us, charm took the form of Chef Athol Wark and Chef Jimmy Shu. Jimmy, you remember, along with Kate McGhie, looked after us in Melbourne. As if that wasn't enough, he flew to Alice to see us and to make sure that our dinner at his signature restaurant, Hanuman, was memorable. And Athol Wark presided over the Taste Down Under grand final cook off in Miami. He pulled out all the stops to make sure we got to know the real Alice. And we did.
The night we ate at Samphire, at Lasseters, turned out to be Athol's last night there. He was since taken up a lecturing position at  Charles Darwin Univeristy’s Alice Springs Campus. But his influence is certainly still there and the new Executive Chef is a gifted, experienced chef who is also committed to exploring new Australian Cuisine. We also stayed at Lasseters and very much appreciated their hospitality, their loaner bikes and the great location, with the impressive backdrop of the MacDonald Ranges.
We also dined at Keller’s Swiss-Indian restaurant, Beat (prounounced Be-at). Keller is Swiss, came to Alice and took over an ailing Indian restaurant with the idea of turning it into a Swiss restaurant. But the vocal locals insisted that he keep the Indian dishes on so, it is now a Swiss and Indian restaurant. One of his claims to fame was an endorsement by the British comedian Billy Connelly who once dined at the restaurant and then put it in one of his routines. His other two claims to fame are his food – bloody good – and his generosity. He opened the restaurant just for us one lunchtime and took us into his kitchen to prepare his own traditional fondue recipe which we devoured.
 We ate at Barra-on-Todd (Barra is short for Barramundi, Australia’s quintessential fish) and were wowed by the seafood in the ice bowl, particularly the marinated and grilled octopus.
Purple Shades of Mary treated us to a Moroccan influenced evening and some great wines and ambiance.
A terrific little Italian place La Cosa Nostra produced a killer pizza.
And of course, Hanuman. Dish after exquisite dish and perhaps best of all another great behind the scenes cooking demo as Jimmy’s “wok master” demonstrated her red curry recipe. Jimmy your secret is safe with Ben and Jean-Jacques (“You can torture me all you want, I’ll never tell”).
We also had the opportunity to tour some of the local producers, including a hydroponic lettuce  farm, smack bang in the middle of arid Australia. Amazing that clear out here, you can get the best greens and microgreens. Ben was even able to pick some out that were then shipped the following week to Darwin for our big dinner there (see the next issue).
We found a wonderful Date farm, which became the inspiration for a date and rum ice cream that Ben tried out on the locals. And a special delivery mango spritzer called "mango mist," which became the inspiration for the risotto at the “Big Dinner."
And we had one amazing evening under the desert sky. Athol, David and Ben volunteered to help prepare a meal of authentic Australian proteins for a visiting convention of nurses (nearly 500 of them). Served up was crocodile, camel, wallaby, buffalo, emu and kangaroo. All with various dipping sauces that featured indigenous herbs, fruits and spices. What was interesting was that the vast majority of  the conventioneers had not previously sampled many, if any, of the meats. But being away from the big cities in a pretty remote and spectacular place somehow gave them the permission to be adventurous. The overwhelming response was very positive. It could very well be that Alice, just by virtue of its remoteness and its true outback status, could be the town that nurtures and perfects a cuisine based on these wild foods. And the place where people feel the permission to try them.
At the end of the evening, on our drive back we pulled over to the side of the road, turned off the lights, and gazed up at a moonless night sky. With no light pollution affecting our view of the Southern expanse of the Milky Way we were awed by the stars. Most of us had never seen so many, many stars.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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Published by
Barbara Connell
Copyright © 2004 Abel Gower Enterprises, Inc.. All rights reserved.
Copyright, Abel Gower Enterprises, 2003
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