Roman Block Party 2010
Giuseppe Arnaldo and Sons
Crown Casino

This is my second year in the Roman Block Party and I must say last years party was bigger and better.  Yes, there were still fantastic food making their rounds, filling your belly till it protests.  Yes, there are still hourly cocktails, making their rounds, unlimited sparkling and beer going around, or if you prefer, mineral water, but it just doesn’t feel the same.

Let’s talk about the food:  The food is still good- there are a few “stations” lying around the restaurant.  The token cured meat station is there, churning out beautifully sliced pieces of prosciutto and salamis.  Last year’s cheese station became a “Roadside Pork roll” station, succulent pork served with their crispy skin with tomato pesto, basil pesto and chutney on a soft ciabatta roll.  Yummmmmm

There are also freshly shucked oysters that’s so fresh that even I couldn’t resist having 4 (when normally I have half because I don’t like oysters).  I think the oyster station packed up the fastest.  God knows how many oysters those three guys shucked, but they packed up an hour and a half after they opened cos all the oysters are gone!

There were cheesy arancini balls, pork and veal balls from G.A.S, fresh tuna sashimi with freshly grated wasabi from Wasabi; dim sum, pork springrolls and spring onion pancake with crab meat from Flowerdrum; Wagyu beef burger, braised lamb w/ cauliflower and anchovies and a takeaway lamington dessert from Maze.

Maybe I was spoilt for choice last year, but I remembered having a lot more variety of food and more complicated food, the most memorable one last year being this taco thingy with Kingfish, tomato bits on top of this tomato consomme with liquid nitrate in it. Apparently you can drink it after the liquid nitrate dissolves- amazing, and certainly complicated; there were mushroom on mushroom foam, beef tartare with a tiny quail’s egg on top… looking at all the pics I had on last year’s Roman Block Party makes me drool- it was certainly the party of the year in 2009.  This year, not so sure. 6/10