Eat, Look, Listen, Walk…..and eat some more!
Darwin: Guided Gourmet Food and Street Art Walking Tour https://www.darwingourmettours.com/
A trip to Darwin during the final frost days of Perth’s winter was just what this doctor ordered. Darwin by day is a riot of endless sunshine, vivid tropical vistas and heady aromas. Cooler evenings see a different streetscape come to life. Darwin’s Guided Gourmet Food and Street Art Walking Tour. (https://www.darwingourmettours.com/) gives you a generous serving of both.
I would not have known about this if it weren’t for my good friend, host in Darwin and fellow hospitality survivor Chris Bond, a woman of many talents. I wasn’t surprised to discover she’s an excellent tour guide.
Following our feerless leader
Walking tours are popping up all over the place these days. I’m a bit of a veteran of walking tours myself, but that’s another story. The trick I discovered is to make sure no-one gets run over.
Darwin really is another world: South-East Asian geographically and visually; its multicultural population makes Perth look somewhat bland. I will make my one and only critique (if you can call it that) of Darwin. Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to swim in. Yes, that magnificent Timor Sea be full of creatures you don’t want to meet! Raised as I was in Bondi, salt water you can’t swim, or even dip your tootsies in, seems like a cruel joke.
Darwin is all about the geography: the Top End just screams “Asia” and this is of course reflected in the city’s foodscape. To enjoy that, there’s nothing like the local knowledge this tour offered. The tour starts in daylight and ends after dark. $179 might seem a lot, but with 3 restaurant visits and so much spectacular street art to take in; we certainly got our money’s worth.
We met up and began at Phat Mango, (https://www.phatmango.com.au) gotta love the name, for what we used to call Modern Australian cuisine, that is, classic European techniques applied (in this case) to local NT produce using bush flavours. Phat Mango offered us an entrée tasting plate which included local NT Eva Valley buffalo chorizo with hummous, fresh baked mini damper using Darwin’s famous One Mile Brewery beer, topped with a bush tomato salsa and Humpty Doo barramundi smoked in melaleuca bark.
If you want to try locally sourced produce paired with bush flavours this is the place for you. We did return to Phat Mango a few days later for dinner. I can definitely recommend their cocktails – how could I go past a “territory showgirl?” Made with vodka, elderflower and apple it was deceptively light and super refreshing, as a good cocktail should be.
Leaving Phat Mango we wandered past young artists working on the final of three huge new murals opposite what must be Darwin’s most famous example of street art. This multi-story representation of the late, celebrated Arnhem Land musician Gurumul:
The tour incorporates augmented reality, much of it is visual but you can hear Gurumul sing in language. You can find out more about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flMh8iLgfGU
I have enough trouble just coping with my reality but the more tech-savvy members of the group seemed to enjoy it immensely.
Ella by Manoli (https://ellabyminoli.au/) took me by surprise – but then I am so easily distracted that I didn’t immediately twig to the fact that I’d seen (and loved) Manoli on Masterchef. So there’s a confession, I do occasionally tune in to Masterchef, though I find the hoopla nauseating. I remembered that Manoli’s rotis looked outstanding on the tellie, and indeed they were light, as air, crispy and simply the perfect accompaniment to the complex and rich Sri Lankan curries that just kept on coming. I knew I should hold back for the last stop but faced with such delicious choices, I just couldn’t restrain myself.
Manoli’s signature dish, kiwifruit in a mustard seed, coconut and turmeric sauce was divine, smooth, rich and flavourful. Is this how manna from heaven might have tasted? I think I can speak for the group when I say we all ate more than we should have. And subsequently felt very guilty not to do justice to our last stop.
Now it was evening and Chris had led us to the waterfront for our last stop Urban Spice https://www.facebook.com/urbanspicepantry/
I’ve long believed you can get fabulous water views or fabulous food but seldom do you get both. Urban Spice knocks that myth on its head. I’m going to be honest, none of us had much room at this point . But we gave it our best shot and thoroughly enjoyed their food, especially the local barramundi;
lightly spiced, coated in chick-pea flour and fried.
And finally, crème brulee with a hint of cardamon. I was never allowed dessert if I didn’t finish my dinner, but there was no-one to stop me.
The walking aspect of the tour is every bit as interesting as the delicious food we enjoyed, but less fattening of course. It’s so good to see a city with a local, but especially with an informed and friendly person like Chris and an eager group of food lovers. A tropical night that ended with tales of ice-hotels and the aurora borealis from the couple from Denmark? Only in Darwin.
I enjoyed this tour as a guest of the Guided Gourmet Food and Street Art Walking Tour (https://www.darwingourmettours.com/)
I JUST love a birthday! In fact I just love a celebration – I’ll drink to that!
