Eat and Play in Tasmania

Our short stop in Tasmania was our visit to this far away island of Australia. Arriving there with visions of devils and extinct tigers, Tasmania turned out to be more developed than we had imagined. In fact we thought that it was very pleasant place. Here is a summary of our restaurant, food and other adventures in Tasmania.

The Salamanca area of Hobart has a very large collection of restaurants and other eating options. It is like Clark Quay and Robertson Quay combined. Various old warehouses and dockside buildings around the harbour live their new lives as restaurants, arts centres, bookshops, art galleries and markets.  On Saturdays, some roads are closed to make way for the Salamanca market to be organised. Farmers and craftsmen set up stalls to sell their products. A classic Jaguar car owners’ gathering took place that day. It was surprising to see so many E-types in concourse condition in Hobart.

We tried the Mezethes Greek Taverna, a restaurant on the Salamanca Square.  The prices are similar to Singapore restaurant prices.   The mixed Meze platter contained a huge portion of meats, sausages, grilled vegetables etc.  The moussaka was very good.  The top layer of egg, cream and cheese was very light and fluffy.

Another restaurant around Salamanca Square which we tried was Smolt, a trendy-looking restaurant.

Fresh oysters and a simple pizza – yummy.

We tried the Dome restaurant in the Sandy Bay area.  The interior of the restaurant and menu looks similar to the Dome restaurants in Singapore but the menu is more extensive.  We tried the burger and fish and chips – you can’t go wrong with these!

This was an interesting place we thought we should just go try. The Retro Cafe in the Salamanca area.  They stopped serving real food after lunch so we just had a piece of cake with coffee . The cake was so so but the atmosphere inside was very calming, we felt like we were in the scene of an old 60s movie.

It seems that service apartments are popular accommodation options in Tasmania. Visitors seem to like to have the facilities to cook and do laundry.  We could understand why as eating out is expensive while supermarket food prices are reasonable.   So in Tasmania, we did as the Tasmanians do. Here is the view from our apartment.   Hobart is quite hilly and some roads are very steep.  But it also means that many houses get good views.  Old cars seem to run forever in Australia.

Here is a sample of our cooking handiwork.   We love the lamb chops and salmon in Tasmania. Good taste, high quality and prices that are half those in Singapore.  Good food calls for good and affordable Australian wine. We experimented with a variety of Australian wines, some familiar names like Penfolds and some unknown Tasmanian ones.  Our conclusion was that the dry riesling from Tasmania are very good value for money. The ones from Milton Vineyard were the best.  Another riesling that we like is the Watervale Riesling from Jim Barry Wines of the Clare Valley.  The wines cost around $20 – $30 each from the bottle shops.

Enough of eating, now we show you some sights of Tasmania.  Because of our limited time, we only visited two towns near Hobart.  First, north-west to New Norfolk.

It was in East Norfolk that we had some excitement.  This was seeing in close range a wild duck-billed platypus.  We were told that they can be spotted near the Salmon Ponds and Trout Museum area. We looked in the streams with no success, then this big specimen suddenly showed up in a drain within touching distance.  It looks cute at first, but when seen close up it has mean-looking eyes.

Interesting way to serve a burger in The Cake Lady Cafe in East Norfolk.

Richmond is a quaint small town north-east of Hobart with well-preserved old buildings and antique shops.  It is famous for the old bridge that looks quite picturesque.

This is the end of our short post about places to eat and play in Tasmania that we visited. Thanks for reading.