Bastille Festival, Circular Quay

The Bastille Festival is one of my favourite cultural festivals during the year. Now in its 5th year running (and previously called the BBR Festival), it is now bigger than ever having taken over more turf in Circular Quay.

If you don’t like French food, have no fear, there’s plenty of other foods including a lot of German food for some reason. There are food stalls, crafts/goods stalls, wine stalls, mulled wine stalls, and music!

I can’t remember which exhibitor we bought the above dish from (I think it was Riza’s Catering) but we had a plate with 5 meats: all pork with 2 different sausages, speck, roast pork, and some other pork meat. It was delicious and the sauerkraut and potatoes that the meat was served with was also well done. At $24 a pop, it might seem a little hefty, but given that we shared the plate between 3, it worked out nicely. It was definitely more German than French but oh well, good food is good food.

The food highlight of the evening were the mussels from The Love Mussel. Wow – that mariniere sauce was amazing and the right level of saltiness, white wine and garlic. They also served the mussels with either bread or fries – our fries were cooked fresh in front of us and were a great addition to the yummy mussels.

For dessert, we tried the Stroopwafles from Stroopboys.  This was my first time trying this Dutch dessert with two thin waffles pressed together with warm caramel in the middle. It sounds like a heart attack but it wasn’t actually that rich or sweet which was great. I really liked the waffles – it was crisp on the outside but still carried some softness within. A really great winter dessert as it is served hot off the press.

Now to less happy news, I love love love love love mulled wine. It always brings back memories of being at the German Christmas Markets one December a few years ago, eating copious amounts of meat and drinking a lot of gluhwein (to keep warm of course!). Sadly, having tried the mulled wine at two different stalls at the Bastille Festival, I was a little disappointed. One was average and the other one was going well until I discovered a piece of plastic. The vendor was kind enough to refund me for my cup of mulled wine but it was enough to put me off mulled wine the rest of the evening!

Details: Bastille Festival, 13 – 17 July 2017: http://bastillefestival.com.au/