Nights Of Exotica

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday July 14, 1998

Cerentha Harris

MAEVE O'Meara plans to take you and your tastebuds around the world when she hosts a series of dinners called Gourmet Safaris.

"I chose safari because there is the element of adventure in all these meals," she says.

"The nationalities I've chosen are all reasonably exotic and even the ones that are more familiar will be presented in an unfamiliar way."

With a passion for exotic flavours, O'Meara has been taking herself on food adventures for years. She sees her work as co-author of the SBS Eating Guide to Sydney as a bit of hand-holding, in that she introduces Australians to another country.

With her safaris she takes the idea a step further. "Each meal will be a special banquet," she says.

"The Iranian night, for example, will have music, and the Vietnamese chef is an electric woman who'll be in traditional dress and talk to us about the history of her dishes."

Even if you are familiar with the cuisine, the banquet presentation,

the kitchen tours and the chef involvement will make the experience unique.

All dinners are within 40 minutes of the CBD. The series kicks off on Tuesday, July 28, with a night at Fare Go Gourmet in North Sydney for a Louisiana home-cooked

banquet that starts with spicy seafood gumbo, followed by maple-glazed quails, then a dessert of traditional pecan pie.

Other dinners include an Iranian evening at The Orchid Persian Restaurant in Willoughby with music and exotic grilled dishes, a Malaysian feast of Singapore chilli crab, stir-fried noodles and spicy curries at Seri Nonya in Miranda, and an evening in one of Sydney's great up-scale Korean restaurants, Central Court, in Crows Nest.

O'Meara's aim is to make the evenings relaxed and fun. With that in mind, she has limited the numbers for each dinner to 30.

"We'll fill most of the restaurants and I think that's a good number for the kitchens to handle and people to mix."

For bookings and information call: 9960 5675. Series of three restaurant, $140 a person, one restaurant is $50 a person.

© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald

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