Food Service Australia Expo 19 - 21 June - Launch Party

Food Service Australia's expo is actually the oldest running food expo in Australia. I hadn't heard of FSA before until I got an invite to the launch party for the expo and their Chef and Apprentice of the Year Competition. The expo is owned by the Foodservice Suppliers Association of Australia, and will features stalls by industry professionals. The expo looks like lots of fun and will features plenty of food stalls, the three day cooking competition (Masterchef style) to find the Apprentice and Chef of the year and lots of cooking demonstrations.

What: Food Service Australia Expo
When 19 - 21 June, 10am - 5pm
Where: Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre

At the launch party, I bumped into fellow food bloggers Adrian and Celeste. Look at Adrian about to eat something. That was going to be a common sight as he was an eating machine and powered through so many canapes.


The canapes were good, with some exceptional. I really liked the Seared Scallop served in the half shell with fish roe and a mash. The salmon cubes were good too, with layers of salmon and cream cheese making it quite a rich dish. I may have eaten too many of those at the beginning. The cauliflower mash was smooth and creamy.



One of my favourite canapes of the night was the Shredded Chicken Salad. It was tangy and bursting with flavour. The Prawn Tempura with Egg Custard contained a crunchy tempura prawn, but the egg custard was way too salty. The Pork Terrine looked really good but only tasted ok. It was again quite salty and could have used something sweet to break it up.



The best canape of the night without doubt was the CFQ, the Crispy Fried Quail. The quail was beboned to only have a convenient leg bone to hold onto. It was fried to a perfect crunch and the piquant plum type sauce served with it made the whole dish super tasty. The quail flew off the serving board the fastest of all the canapes and didn't make it to the other side of the room.


Desserts consisted of really good Opera Cakes. A dark and white chocolate versions were served. The dark chocolate tasted more like the traditional opera cake and was beautiful. But surprisingly, I loved the white chocolate cake even more. There were hints of honey, vanilla, white chocolate and nuts, sublime.


I had a wonderful time at the launch event, learning a lot about Food Service Australia and the expo. The food was excellent and it was great to hang out with my fellow food bloggers and food industry representatives.

Thanks to Clifford Fairbrass from ETF on behalf of Food Service Australia for the invitation.