Assorted

As an interested bystander, I have been amused by the various chess-like movements around the kitchens of Hobart’s top eating venues over the past few weeks.

As pointed out, by commenters on this blog, by GP, and Steve on his blog, we’ve seen Paul Foreman move from Marque IV to Peppermint Bay. We’ve seen Simon West resign from Meadowbank to return to the mainland. And now we see Justin Harris resign from Moorilla and go to Marque IV to replace Paul.

Where will it end? Well, the simple fact is that it will never end, and I’m overjoyed about that.

My opinion is that these guys need to move round. They need to gain more varied experiences in their cooking, from whatever means they can. It’s great when they go away to compete in interstate competitions, or to cook with other chefs around the world.

It can only ultimately be good for us, the consumers, and them. We get to benefit long term, and they do too, as they expand their repertoires, and flex their culinary muscles (shit, I’m turning into Steve with my phraseology!!).

So my best wishes, and heartiest congratulations go to all these chefs. I wish them well in their separate new jobs, and will take huge pleasure going to the new PB and MIV and sampling the new menus, and seeing how the changes have translated.

I gather MIV will close down for a few weeks while they prepare for the innovations wrought by incoming chef Harris.

Rita will await with much anticipation for the day to dawn when she eats at new PB and MIV.

Meanwhile, Rita returned to the Stockmans Restaurant at Old Woolstore last night to eat with some interstate work colleagues. This time she selected the lamb party pie entrée (as described in detail last Saturday), which was beautiful, and a repeat of the eye fillet main, which yet again came with pepper sauce which was still not as heavily peppered as Rita would have liked, but given their explanation of the fact that the previous week they had had two complaints about the pepperiness of the sauce, it’s understandable the chefs are pulling back.

This time I remembered to take a photo of the fake florals, as requested by one of my commenters last week, hence the tacky pic accompanying this post!

A blogsite I hadn’t checked for ages but happened on again yesterday was Ms Creosote’s, where I noted she had added a review (the only one for this year so far) of Infusion in South Hobart, where I felt validated to read she had had a similar experience to mine. Thank god it’s not just me that found fault with Infusion!

Lastly, some interesting opinions have emerged on Steve’s blog about the latest Prosser comments in the Mercury this week. Check them out if you’re interested.