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TOP-CLASS TIPPLES
James Hallidays denitive Australian Wine Companion (Hardie Grant $39.95) is now available. Featuring tasting notes for 4009 wines and ratings for an additional 2207, plus winery proles and best-of-the-best wines by variety, vintage charts and regional notes from around the country, it is the most comprehensive guide of its kind, and certainly of the many that will appear in the lead-up to Christmas.

ASIAN FEAST: Ian Chan with some of the delicious dishes on offer at MYU Easy Bites; below right, grilled lemongrass pork spare ribs and Hainanese clay pot chicken Pictures: MATT THOMPSON

Have a bowlful of fantastic history

DINING
Graeme Phillips

+ TODAY: Tasmanian Wine Centres Annual Wine Exhibition with 25 Australian producers presenting 250 wines. Henry Jones Art Hotel, noon to 5pm. $10. + TUESDAY: Gourmania Food Tours kicks off a new caffeine-fuelled hike around the cafes and the sweet, savoury and beverage treats of Hobart. 0419 180 113 + WEDNESDAY: Cool Wines tasting of 2009 and 2010 Red Burgundy. From 6pm to 7.15pm. $56.50. 6231 4000. + THURSDAY: Tales from Hanoi at Bottega Rotolo.

From 6pm to 9.30pm. $95. 6234 9978 + AUGUST 30: Virtuosi Tasmania presents Schuberts masterly Octet for strings and winds at Home Hill Winery at 11am. 1800 001 190 + AUGUST 30/31: Peter Lehman Wines Golf Class at Barnbougle with luxurious accommodation, food and wine. $370. Book a team on 6356 1124. + AUGUST 28: Tribute dinner to the late, great Peter Lehmann. Wrest Point. 6.30pm. Six courses with wines $125. 6221 7700.

Review
+ MYU Easy Bites + 2/93 New Town Rd, New Town + Licensed + Wednesday to Saturday 5.30pm to 8pm; Lunch by appointment. + 03 6228 7777

ENG and Ian Chan moved from Sydney and opened MYU a year ago. As one of a group of four small, nondescript shops on the New Town side of Pirie St, and with no advertising and almost non-existent signage, their patronage has depended solely on Facebook and word of mouth. And the word of mouth thats come my way has varied from sensational to fantastic and exciting, like nowhere else in Hobart. Fantastic certainly describes their family stories. Lengs grandparents ed war in China to another in Vietnam, having travelled overland through Cambodia with her grandmother, giving birth to six children along the way, before nally arriving in Thailand and ying as ofcial migrants to Australia in 1983. Leng says in Australia shes considered Chinese, but in China she is considered Australian. Ian, whose grandparents moved from Chinas Fujian province to Japan before settling in Malaysia, arrived in Australia in 1997 and describes himself as Malay/Chinese with an Aussie heart. More importantly is the fact that his grandfather was a chef whose cooking quickly

absorbed the inuences of the unique blending of Malay and Chinese ingredients, seasonings and food styles that, since the arrival of the rst Chinese immigrants from Southern China to Malaysia centuries ago, has evolved into what is commonly known as Nyonya cuisine. And its his grandfathers recipes that Ian cooks, rst as a journeyman chef in Sydney, and today at MYU, the name simply meaning me and you. Rather than ne dining at MYU, you eat at bare tables in their kitchen, with Ian at one end juggling his woks and steamers, a young lad washing up at the other end and Leng putting her long Sydney hospitality experience to good effect, waiting on the few tables with their four-month-old harnessed to her stomach. Like nowhere else in Hobart is spot-on. And the food from the days menu of eight entrees and seven mains is like nowhere else in Hobart too. Glutinous rice subtley infused with the avours of the bamboo leaf wrapping in which it is steamed and served; a mildly spiced chilli and ginger beef murtabak with a pillow of bao to mop the juices; a richly glazed and sauced, fall-off-the-bone pork shank; and, on the winter menu at least, a seafood steamboat consisting, on our visit, of spotty trevally, big piles of sliced greens and a few different soya-bean sh balls accompanied by a delicious tamarind/peanut sambal and an even more delicious cooking broth. Based on dried slices of tamarind, blachan and shredded mackerel, the broth was so wondrously avoured, complex and balanced that I would have been happy to drink it by the bowlful. The dish was simply titled Assam steamboat, Assam, I understand meaning tamarind. In which case, and on the basis of that broth, as they lighten up their seasonal menus for spring and summer, I hope they might do an Assam laksa, a Nyonya version that is so different to the usual creamy, coconutbased ones. But, Assam laksa or not, well certainly be back. Entrees $5.50 to $10; mains $17 to $20; beers and a few basic, reasonably-priced wines.

Tracks Cafe
Come in for a hearty breakfast or a long leisurely lunch in a warm environment OPEN 7 DAYS FULLY LICENSED 6228 2255

65 Belle Vue Parade, New Town

(Inside the New Town Station Nursery)

Reservations welcome
2020291-130804

2009-I0
SAVOUR THE FRUIT S OF OUR L ABOUR Bookings are essential - RSVP by August 26 11.45am - Pinot Tastings/matched canapes/ presentation $25pp 1.15pm - 2 course set lunch/glass of pinot in the Sass dining lounge $45pp $70 to attend both events

INVITATION HERIOTS POINT VINTAGE PINOT FIRST RELEASE S E P T E M BE R 1S T

KERMANDIE.COM.AU 4518 MAIN ROAD, PORT HUON TEL: 03 6297 1052

2034498-130818