PURE SOUTH
Southgate, Melbourne
03 9699 4600

I must admit I was a mite tremulous dining at Pure South. Mainly because it was in the middle of a shitfight with the Premier of Tasmania and the Tasmanian media.

 

The reason was that Pure South serves only Tasmanian food and wine.

 

As I wrote in the Melbourne Sunday Herald Sun recently I had been called a traitor. I had been called “un-Australian and “not a real Australian” because I had only been an Australian citizen for 25 years and was born in New Zealand.

 

And it was all because of bloody spuds!

 

McDonald’s decided that they could get high quality potatoes for their French fries in New Zealand and dumped some Tasmanian growers. A commercial decision. And they were entitled to make that commercial decision.

 

Since then we have seen Tasmanian farmers trundling their (Japanese made) tractors through Victoria and across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on their way to Canberra. And the Tasmanian premier, Paul Lennon,  grandstanded and demanded I go to Tasmania for a public debate.  He called me “cowardly and unAustralian”. I think that’s because I said I had more important things to do.

 

AS I said, and wrote, imagine if a Tasmanian potato grower could sell all his spuds to a fast food outlet in Texas. Do you think he wouldn’t?  He would be on to it like a seagull on a piece of hot fat.

 

We buy and eat imported food. We wear imported clothes. The days of protectionism are gone. We watch American TV on sets made in Japan. We drink orange juice from concentrate that comes from South America. We drink Australian wine but so do the Poms and Californians.

 

You can’t have it both ways. Kylie Minogue sells more records in Britain than she sells here. Should she be restricted from record sales there?

 

Our politicians and so-called economic gurus keep talking about our balance of trade deficit and how we must export more. And yet, selfish, blinkered, self-serving, pointy-heads in Tasmania shout: “What about me?”

Anyway, back to Tasmanian food and wine and Pure South. I have never had any antipathy to Tasmanian meat or wine or cheese. Love it. Been to Launceston and Hobart heaps of times. And  I agree with the campaign that there should be honesty and clarity on labels  so that we know the origins of what we eat and drink.

 

Pure South is clever. The night we were there – to celebrate another Drive Time ratings win for 3AW – the place was packed.

 

I loved their Tasmanian blurb:  “The air and seas that surround the islands of King, Flinders and Tasmania are consistently tested as the purest on our planet. We have traversed this pristine wonderland  many times to set up trade directly with the farmers and fishermen  and the hunters and gatherers who we believe have the very finest natural produce in the world”.

 

Their menu backs up the blurb.

 

I must confess I did not go for the shucked Tasmanian Pacific oysters with lime, vodka and mint, because I only eat oysters from places like Coffin Bay in SA.

 

Two companions went for the steamed asparagus with goat’s cheese polenta. Looked great.

 

At Pure South (a strange name ) they have quail and scallops and lobster and rabbit. Although I am usually a light diner at night I lashed out. Try this:  Roast Bluff Point pork belly with apple and garlic puree, apple glaze, shaved ginger and spicy calamari. Holy schmoly! And I enjoyed it.

 

It is a very clever, inventive, menu. Imagine scallops with lamb sweetbreads and a lemon and spiced pear vinaigrette?

 

Maybe after this the pointy heads might start to like me.

 

An ironical postscript:  My fight with the Tasmanian press and premier was about spuds. The night we ate at Pure South they had run out of – mashed potatoes.

 

JANUARY 10, 2006