Ginger Without Borders

We left the GOR with a lot of pictures. Last night was Saturday and time for the big quarter-final game between England and Australia in the World Cup of Rugby. Now that apparently means something in Queensland and New South Wales (home of Sydney). But in South Australia and Victoria, it is Australian rules football that is king. The cabbie in Adelaide and the barman in Torquay didn’t even know Australia had qualified for the semis at the World Cup of Rugby. My wife, the new Rugby fan, wanted to know when the game started (6:15pm from Japan) and whether the telly in the apartment would have that channel (it did). So I was off to dinner on my own. And after dinner, I drove to Coles (the Australian grocery store chain) and bought Dawn some Mango flavored sweet Lipton tea and four packages of TimTams, an Australian biscuit (what we would call a cookie). A TimTam is somewhat like putting a soft center of mint between two Girl Scout thin mints. Dawn doesn’t like my comparison because the TimTam is bigger and made with a lot more chocolate. By the time I got back, Australia had lost to England 40 to 16. England now must face the All Blacks of New Zealand next Saturday in the semi-finals. New Zealand, as usual, is expected to win it all.

I wondered when I heard some folks from Brisbane and Sydney make snide remarks about the food in the hinterlands whether that was just the usual Australian sniping at one another. I mean, these are some of the prime tourist areas of Australia. But for the most part, it has been a difficult search to find something other than fish and chips (battered fish and french fries) along the GOR. Even Trip Advisor gives family fish and chip places along the GOR four and a half stars! Add in a Sunday evening, like tonight on Phillip Island, and I ended up with the worst dinner I have had in Australia. Now this is where our travel experience should have warned me. The hotel tonight is a real gem, so our experience told me dinner was not going to be good. I also need to explain the Australian barbie before continuing my rant. A barbie is a piece of grilling equipment, but not a grill in the US sense of overlapping rods of metal. A barbie is a flat sheet of metal that we would refer to as a griddle. And fish is cooked on it with butter or olive oil. Below is the barbie for guests of our hotel to use.

In all fairness, the fish platter I ordered tonight provided a big piece of whiting fish (grilled on the barbie) , six nice steamed shrimp (in buttered garlic) and some big slices of calamari (they were battered and I assume deep fat fried). The fish was very fresh but there was no sauce and the vegetables were steamed so much my grandmother would have been proud to serve them (ie, close to mush). But I have to remember that it was not so long ago that North Carolina’s coast provided only fried battered fish and mushy vegetables. So I stopped at the Coles after dinner and bought some more TimTams (and two more bottles of Mango flavored Lipton sweet tea for Dawn). We will be in Melbourne in two days and I can get my fill of haute cuisine.

I could also have eaten Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC even here) or at McDonalds, which Australian’s call Macca’s (or several other spellings depending on who you ask), and had Krispy Kreme donuts for dessert. Those stores are everywhere.

We were lucky this morning at the cafe that serves the ferry to Phillip Island. It was not yet noon, so they were still serving breakfast. Dawn usually prefers a lunch to a brunch and she found a chicken and leak pie with a nice flakey crust (which tasted like chicken pot pie with leaks) in a cabinet. The cafe had a limited breakfast selection and I had to settle for what the menu called a bacon and egg sandwich. But this was not McDonalds. It came on what Australians call Turkish bread (like a small French bread loaf but very moist) with a soft fried egg, two layers of fried ham and a tomato relish spread. It was delicious, so at least one meal today was satisfactory. And the Cafe had a great view of the port.

By the way, when we arrived on Phillip Island, our greeting party was a flock of Cape Barren geese. They are one of the rarest of the world’s geese. They rarely swim and are able to drink salt or brackish water. According to the lady at the Information station, they are the kings of Phillip Island.

PS., Lena, we opted not to spend your inheritance on a ticket to the Churchill Island heritage farm but we will spend some to get good seats for tomorrow night’s Penguin March. Mom liked that I bought more TimTams and sweet tea, so I am safe for now.