All aboard!

With Cam O’Keefe.

For me, it reads like one brilliant checklist for a Saturday night out:

Blues music? Check.

Buckets of chilled local beers? Check.

Southern American food goodness? Check.

Train…? Ahhh, check!

Welcome back to the Blues Train, an icon of our Geelong and Bellarine tourism industry for nearly 30 years now.

In fact, next year will celebrate its three decade long contribution to our local music scene via the Queenscliff to Drysdale railway lines, with countless guests – and an insane amount of good times – had in their rock’n’roll train carriages.

What an achievement! Hats off here, please.

Though among the champagne popping for this accomplishment is the realisation by owner Hugo T. Armstrong that he can’t continue this tune forever, which is why he’s decided to hang up his blue suede shoes.

A buyer for this set of wheels is yet to be found, but Hugo – who was recently inducted into Blues Music Victoria’s Hall of Fame – remains optimistic on finding the right custodian to hand over his reverser handle to (that’s the ignition keys for you train novices out there).

Here’s hoping this isn’t the last choo choo we hear from this icon… anyone out there think they’re capable of driving this four carriage blues-beast into the future?

I finally got to eat at Two Noble last week, Geelong’s answer to the Melbourne’s hip Coda and Tonka establishments that focus on full-flavoured, south-east Asian cuisine.

I was reasonably impressed by the overall offering, although the actual dining room space is quite small: snagging a table during some of the busier periods of the week may become quite the challenge, I feel.

A standout dish for me was the tender roast duck that the kitchen had been quietly dry aging for the past couple of weeks.

It was served with their version of hoisin (a thick, fragrant Cantonese sauce) that contained Cointreau, which makes sense given duck and orange are reasonably good partners in crime.

I’d return again to eat this and explore more of the menu, although I hope they lift the level of overall heat (spice-wise, not serving temperature) to some of their dishes.

Time will tell whether this sticks as a Geelong food institution, although the signs are positive for now.

Tasting trade samples are part of the everyday gig for this column – tough job, I know – but a couple of bottles crossed my desk this week that I thought were worth a mention, particularly because they are part of the growing non-alcohol drinks category, or zero-alc as it likes to get called in a more modern hipster tone.

I struggled to pronounce the name initially (okay, it’s harder to read on the label!) but, Sinensis is a series of new non-alc wines with a significant twist: their base component is made from some of the very best imported teas.

These are mixed with the grape must (ie. freshly pressed grape juice) of whichever wine variety they want to create and voila, you have possibly the most impressive range of non-alcoholic wine alternatives available to the market.

Best of all? These are actually produced right here in Geelong by Australian Tea Masters. If you need a couple of AFDs this week, perhaps this could be your best option?

As they say, always finish with dessert, and (for most) this most definitely means ice-cream/gelato.

Certainly my go-to in this department is Augustus Gelatery, that after whipping the cream at their first Geelong store along Gheringhap Street only a few years ago, have now extended into Torquay, Waurn Ponds and beyond.

Found here are some seriously good frozen delights, with some of the favourites including mango ripple (ube, condensed milk and mango) fairy bread (popcorn gelato, sprinkles of 100s and 1000s) or raspberry, pineapple and lychee sorbet.

Given the quality, prices are completely reasonable I feel, with a unique part of the customer experience being their architecturally designed stores, making the purchasing part of their authentic gelato product even more enjoyable.

I even cheated last year and got gift vouchers for my niece and nephew for Christmas… Apparently $100 of ice-cream goes a long way over summer, according to their parents!