Festival Village 2015, Sydney

Can you believe it? We are already hitting into the third week of the New Year, and it has come to that special time of year again, the Sydney Festival. Stalking social media is when you see photos of food that makes you instantly go ‘I want to go and eat that!’ or is that just me?

Because once news got around that Porteno and Gelato messina were pairing up and creating a diner for the Festival Village I had instantly linked my partner in crime, Miss CC up.  Planned our spontaneous date on the very first day.

The queue for Porteno was no surprise, however the wait seemed a little odd when our number was never called and numbers after ours were getting called to the point of nearly twenty numbers later. A quick approach and question got us our order in less than five minutes. Though a system is probably still in trial as it was their first day. But through observation, I note that it would have been quicker if the three of us were to have ordered our meals separately.

Smoked wagyu philly cheese steak sandwich $15

Mr CH ordered the wagyu steak sandwich, he enjoyed it, and this was filled with thingly sliced wagyu beef with American cheese, grilled onions, pepper and mustard. But noted that a long wait like that was probably not exactly worth it.

Reuben sandwich $15

Miss CC went with the reuben sandwich, filled with corn beef, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, special sauce and pickles. Miss CC’s cravings were telling her she wanted sauerkraut and she was pleased, or perhaps it was her hunger telling her that as she also noted that she has had better.

Grilled chilli dog $15

I opted for the grilled chilli dog, a grilled beef hot dog with chilli mince and cheese sauce. I was in love with how fresh and soft the bun was as well as the cheese sauce complimenting the chilli mince, personally I wouldn’t have minded this to be a tad more spicy but I could understand why it’s as mild as it was.

And there was no passing by from visiting the gelato messina pop up right next-door Porteno, so no need to walk far at all. 

The royale with cheese $10

And with the sudden burger craze, I guess messina was not going to miss on jumping up on the bandwagon. Within the sesame brioche bun sits a milk chocolate gelato pattie layered with a slice of white chocolate cheese with passionfruit mustard and raspberry ketchup. We cut this into quarters and you would want no more than a quarter. The novelty of this won many points already, but I loved the sourness emitting from the passionfruit and raspberry through the chocolate pattie which had little bites of choc chip.

Lemon meringue pie $8

The lemon meringue was tasty in all the right ways; the torched meringue’s sweetness was broken through with the zesty lemon curd and gelato. However the biscuit layers were a little too thick to get through, and by the edges (which is usually my favourite part) was a little too floury.

Not chicken and waffles $10

Another for messina to jump on the bandwagon with, fried chicken and waffles! However, I promise this one was totally ordered because we missed the REAL chicken and waffles from the Porteno store. So, we opted for the not chicken and waffles, because of photo purposes and I guess the idea of it. Must say, this was probably my least favourite, the waffle was a little too thick. The ‘fried chicken’ was made of deep fried maple and pecan gelato drizzled with a whisky caramel gravy. But I was all for the caramel gravy, but only with a scoop of gelato to bring it all together.

Have you hit up any of the other entertainment around for the Sydney Festival this year? If not, are you planning to and what would that be?

Hit: Lemon Meringue Pie, Royale Cheeseburger

Miss: -

Festival Village

Hyde Park North

Opening hours

8^th – 25^th January

Available from 11am

Closed Mondays