On the Chutney trail in Perth

In Perth? Fancy a curry? Head for the trendy suburb of Subiaco, where Chutney Mary’s has just been joined by Little Chutney's: it's next door and on the corner of Hay Street and Rokeby Road.

And if it’s a night out you are looking for, duck down the small nearby alley and check out the Bhudda Bar (no relation to the popular bars of the same name in New York and Paris).

The Buddha Bar seems to attract some of the best young DJ’s in Western Australia – and they set the scene from Tuesday to Friday. The Buddha Bar’s butter chicken is not bad either.

Back to Little Chutney's, which is by far the classiest of Subiaco’s Indian restaurants: the management have taken the humble curry into the classy realm of leather banquettes and perspex seats.

Despite its name, Little Chutney's is not so little. With seating for a hundred and a gigantic bar around which much of the action takes place, the owners have had to stress in Little Chutney's publicity blurb that “it can also work well for a romantic dinner for two”, with the banquettes providing intimacy.

Little Chutney's caters for robust tastes with a large number of tandoori dishes, seared to a crisp finish in the oven.

We started off with fish tikka -- ling fillets marinated in a yoghurt-based marinade with traditional spices and baked in the tandoori oven. Not badly priced at AUD 7 (per person, of course).

Trying to stay relatively health conscious, we followed up with a tandoori seared red emperor (AUD 26) served in a Malabar curry of coconut cream, tomato, onion and ginger.

The service was spot on, and Little Chutney's has a huge wine list, with a choice of more than 160 local and international labels.

Alas, the wines are a little overpriced – and there is no BYO. I am all for restaurants earning a living, but I baulk at the idea of paying AUD 33 for a 2006 MadFish, which I could have picked up in a nearby bottle shop for only AUD 11.

Noosa tour for foodies

For foodies visiting Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Sir Lunchalot recommends the Noosa Food and Wine Trail day tour, which is a popular item in the Noosa Hinterland Tours programme.

This off-the-tourist-trail tour also showcases some of the most picturesque yet lesser travelled parts of the Noosa Hinterland.

The tour includes Noosa Reds, a state-of-the-art tomato farm dedicated to producing old-fashioned flavours; an organic tropical fruit farm, where an excellent morning tea is served; a vast freshwater crayfish farm; plus two wineries that offer tastings of some interesting Queensland wines.

...back to those Aussie meat pies

If you have been waiting impatiently for the results of this year’s Great Aussie Meat Pie contest held in Sydney this week with pie-makers from around Australia taking part (see Sir Lunchalot’s last posting), then here it comes: the winner was the Village Hot Bake Bakery Café, in Dubbo, New South Wales.

Dubbo is a popular tourist destination and home to one of the world's finest open range zoos. Meat pies? Zoos? No, don’t worry, we’ve done a head count and there are no missing animals.

The Village Hot Bake Bakery Café first opened back in 1918 when Aussie Stevenson became a baker. Since those early days of delivering bakery products by horse and cart to Dubbo residents, including the army camp where the Western Plains Zoo is now situated, the Stevenson's have passed down three generations of baking tradition and secret recipes.

Today it’s a modern, country-style Bakery Café that has won many an award for its meat pies, and is run by Aussie’s grandsons, Bill, Robert and John, who are all master bakers and pastry cooks. The bakery’s dining area caters for up to 120 people.

Apart from its 19 different varieties of award-winning meat pies and sausage rolls, the Village Hot Bake Bakery Café also has a great reputation (apart from with WeightWatchers), for its fresh cream tortes, continental cheesecakes and an array of other, cakes – all ready to serve up as soon as the bakery opens at 06:00.

You might not want to go to Dubbo just for the meat pies, but there is a fair amount to see and do in the city, which is a five-hour drive from Sydney on the way to the spectacular New South Wales Outback.

Dubbo boasts long summers, fine food and wine and its famous zoo, as well as one or two interesting festivals during the course of the year. And it’s not so far from Mudgee, a wine region with a vast array of boutique wines to explore at close to 40 individual cellar door outlets.

If you do find yourself in the area, drop in for a pie at the Village Hot Bake Bakery Café, if only to satisfy your curiosity as to what makes an award-winning Aussie meat pie, and also visit one of the local wineries.

One of Sir Lunchalot’s favourites is the Red Earth Estate Vineyard, some eight kilometres south of Dubbo, a 8.4 hectare property set up some seven years ago by Ken and Christine Borchardt.

Ken tells me that as a winemaker he was attracted to Dubbo for a number of reasons – mainly the clean environment, the hot dry air and soil types that are ideal for grape growing. The property is also located within the Western Plains Tourist Circuit offering easy access for visitors to the region.

Only fruit from the Red Earth Estate Vineyard goes into wine sold under the Red Earth Estate label – which is probably the only wine label in the world that has a couple of colourful giraffes pictured on its bottles. All Red Earth Estate wine is estate grown and made.

As well as a free wine tasting at Red Earth Estate Vineyard, the Borchardts offer a platter tasting that features some delicious cheeses, dried fruits and regional produce - the perfect complement to their wines!

So it's Aussie meat pies, great wines and a world famous zoo -- sounds to me like three good reasons to head for Dubbo while touring New South Wales.