Fine produce and sweet pickins - Saturday in Hobart

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Woke early and eager for a cup of tea, as always - headed down to the kitchen to have a look at the facilities and provisions. I had assumed that the hostel would provide milk and there was plenty of milk in assorted fridges, but there was no knowing who any of it belonged to, so I headed out into the street to buy some. It was 6.30am and I imagined I would soon come across a newsagents open. To my surprise I came across several newsagents, all of them still tightly closed. I ventured on and eventually found a small shop open. Back in the hostel kitchen I was greeted by another guest who on sight began exclaiming about the lack of hot water in the showers that morning and expecting me to join in his outrage.

Fellow travellers please note : I am an enthusiast so please do not share your quibbles with me. On the other hand, if you have any excitement about anything quirky or surprising going on, I am the woman for you to tell.

We gratefully enjoy our tea, investigate the showers and discover the rumour re no hot water is true, wash our faces and hands instead and head out into the windy world, still amazed to be here. As always I am captivated by Mount Wellington lumbering contentedly there behind the city. We walk down to Salamanca Markets and join the thronging crowd. I am immediately entranced by the glowing displays of onions, beetroot, cherries...but there is a much more urgent piece of business to be dealt with - breakfast! We use our mild superpowers to hone in on the "Wurst on Bread" stall as we do at every market we visit (a shout out to our very favourite purveyor of "Wurst in bread" - Nick from Nick's Swiss Italian Restaurant in Yungaburra, Queensland. Nick has a Wurst stall at the fantastic Yungaburra Markets). From the Wurst man at Salamanca I order a Beef Bratwurst, which comes on a roll with fried onion and sauerkraut, and with strong encouragement to apply German Mustard. It is completely delicious. The Bratwurst is juicy, not too salty and the texture is light. Perfect. The roll is fresh and chewy. There was nothing to fault. Eric had a Pork Bratwurst, and while he enjoyed it, felt it was not as juicy as those he was accustomed to from Nick.

Then we went in search of gourmet food items we knew were to be had. We sought out the Tassal Salmon shop, which did take a little finding but we were determined. (Note to anyone seeking it : it is in Salamanca Square, which is entered by a laneway that runs between some of the beautiful old Salamanca warehouses. Even once in there, we did not find it easy to find. It is at the back of the square, sharing a building with Smolt restaurant). Inside : joyous things. All manner of salmon products, and many other gourmet provisions besides. Although not usually inclined towards fruit treatments being given to savoury foods, the apricot salmon glows so gorgeously orange that I put aside my usual prejudice and buy a piece to try. We also buy a packet of plain smoked salmon fillets. Outside we stop at a table and pop open the container of apricot salmon to satisfy our curiousity. Barely five minutes later the whole fillet has been devoured and we are delighted.

Next we stop by Rare Foods, the stall partly owned and operated by Matthew Evans (Gourmet Farmer). His partner Ross is in the shop today and we buy a packet of Freerange Pork and Fennel Sausages . We try some Bruny Island cheese while we are waiting there....a stunning, salty, pungent soft ripe cheese washed in pinot noir and wrapped in vine leaves. We wander away, enthusing about it and soon return to buy one. While I am waiting for Eric to buy the cheese, Ross gives me a taste of the Rare Foods Pork Rillettes, and we immediately buy a jar of that also. Our Highland picnic on Monday is shaping up as some kind of feast!

We head away from the markets, stopping to examine a grand old church on the way, and head to a couple of music shops in search of a cheap ukulele to act as our second instrument while we are away (we usually both play guitar but only brought our smallest lightest guitar with us). Instead, we fall instantly in love with a beautiful, reasonably expensive Tanglewood uke and decide to invest in it as a most joyous holiday souvenir. We go back to the hostel and mess round with it for a while, head back down to the Shamrock (everyone is speaking widely understood languages today) and have three exceptionally tasty Cascade Draughts on tap. Extremely cold and wonderful. While we sit there we get anxious about the security of the quite considerably valuable amount of smallgoods we have sitting in the hostel fridge. We have had things stolen from communal fridges before (most annoyingly once, a whole cask of wine-to help yourself to a glass or two would have been cool with us, but not to leave us any? A bit crap) so we headed out to Target and bought a cooler bag. Couldn't find our way back out and roamed endlessly around in the undies section looking for a checkout- "Lost like Alice in Wonderbraland"!

Back to the Shamrock for one more round of those tasty beers, back to the hostel for a (now hot) shower and off in search of the "Ocean Child Inn" for dinner. We discovered on arrival that bookings are usually the order of the day here and usually without a booking you are out of luck (not used to that in pubs at home) but to our very good fortune, they were able to fit us in. The Ocean Child is a wonderful old pub with timber booths as well as tables for dining. One of my very favourite things about it was the blessed lack of electronic sounds - no pokies, keno, horseracing, TV or music - simply the sound of people eating, laughing and talking. The staff were warmly and naturally friendly and helpful. Bliss! We both ordered T-bone with veges (we usually eat heaps of veges and start to feel deprived of them very quickly). The T-bones were fall apart tender, perfectly cooked and as tasty as only southern beef can be. We usually find the beef we can buy in the north very bland by comparison. The veges were creamed potatoes, lightly steamed cauliflower, zucchini and carrots. All quite perfect. We picked up a bottle of red wine for a nightcap and strolled back to our hostel, past a wild-eyed sheep statue below a fairy-lit tree. We rejoiced that our smallgoods were secure and collapsed to sleep.

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Photos

Brilliant Salamanca Produce
Plain, or with organic double cream?