Primo Italiano 2007

I’d never been able to go to this before as I’d always had to work on Sundays. So, this being the only chance I had, I decided there was no better way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Well, it turned out that half of Sydney also thought so. When we arrived, Sydney’s Little Italy, Stanley St and Yurong St were both closed to traffic, with bands, roaming performers and a fountain filled with vegetables! I noticed that Café Sasa, the restaurant I visited not that long ago had closed down. Being 2pm though, we were desperate for food so had to fight with the rest of the crowd around the various food stalls.

Our first criteria was actually not the most appealing food, but the shortest line, so that’s how we ended up paying $5 for a very very small tub of Mushroom & truffle risotto. In terms of taste, it was pretty good for restaurant risotto, but nothing on what I could make myself.

Filling only a little fuller, we didn’t want to walk too far or deliberate too much, so decided to get some North Italian flatbread, well, big mistake. I’d miscalculated how long it takes to make one flatbread (and I’d obviously forgotten about the Italian way of doing thing…) and because the line was so long, everybody ordered lots and lots when it was their turn. After about half hour, we made it to the front, but by that time I wasn’t hungry anymore, so we only got 4 flatbreads to share. These flatbreads were a pizza-style dough, very thin, wrapped in the following fillings. The Prosciutto, bocconcini ($10) was a favourite, salty prosciutto with creamy cheese, yum! The Butternut pumpkin ($9) is a good vegetarian option, with sweet pumpkin chunks. The Porcini & ricotta ($11) was extremely sparse in filling (probably because they realised the crowd was huge and the food had to last the whole day), but what little we got of it was very nice indeed.

The flatbreads certainly went down nicely with a beer. That’s right, we made our way to the Lord Roberts Hotel, and actually managed to grab a table (no chairs though), and listened to the DJ and watched the drunk old people muck around. The waiter was quite rude and told us off for brining our own food, even though the bouncer had let us through. It’s a festival, lighten up! It’s not as if you’re not getting enough business!

After some merry hours were wined away and lost forever, we picked ourselves up, picked up some fresh flowers and cheese from Formaggi Ocello: goats, cinnamon and “dessert wine” flavour, and made our way to Pat’s place for her housewarming.

For a supposed cook on training wheels, Pat put on a very commendable feast. Chicken and sweet corn soup, Malaysian chicken curry, steamed chicken, stir-fried veges and rice. Dessert was apple crumble and ice-cream, and some more of that fabulous cheese and grapes. I went home satisfied and with a very full belly.