Our second shabbos in Australia was magical for many reasons.  First the hotel was gorgeous, close to the beach in Surfer’s Paradise, Australia.  Surfer’s Paradise reminded me and my wife of a nicer and less seedy Miami Beach. Second the hotel was literally next door to the synagogue!  No joke, I promise!  Crazy cool. Third, we picked up some great stuff to enjoy for the Shabbos meals.  First we picked up some lovely rolls at the partially kosher bakery chain; Goldstein’s Bakery. Partially kosher, because only the articles clearly labeled as kosher, along with uncut breads are kosher.  Along with the lovely rolls, we picked up two packets of cold cuts at the Synagogue’s kosher food store, and a lovely Pumpkin/Sweet Potato soup.  The two cold cuts we bought were ones we never saw, at least in cold cuts anyway.  We bought Mortadella and Brisket. Mortadella is normally made of finely hashed/ground heat-cured pork sausage which incorporates at least 15% small cubes of pork fat (principally the hard fat from the neck of the pig). It is delicately flavored with spices, including whole or ground black pepper, myrtle berries, nutmeg, coriander and pistachios, jalapeños and/or olives (from Wikipedia). This particular Mortadella had no pork, of course.  Instead, the ingredients read Beef, Chicken, Water, Salt, Spices, peppercorns, and mineral salts.  The brisket seemed to be pastrami, but I could not be sure.

Overall, the meal and the area were just fantastic.  The sad thing was that to find a decent bottle of kosher wine in that area, was close to impossible – which was truly sad.  In the end, we found a bottle of Teal Lake Shiraz, and even that was a fair amount of work – we found it at a wine and spirits superstore called Dan Murphy’s, which reminded me of BevMo (a wine and spirits superstore here in California).

The wine note follows below:

2008 Teal Lake Shiraz – Score: B+
The nose on this purple colored wine starts off hot initially with spicy oak, ripe plum, blackberry, mineral notes, stony, raspberry, bramble fruit, white pepper, and jasmine or rose flowers.  The mouth on this full bodied wine hits you with spicy blackberry, raspberry, and plum that fill your mouth with soft and integrating tannins.  The mid palate is brooding with acid, oak, and pepper.  The finish is long with oak, pepper, blackberry, and more tannin that linger long on the palate with plum, oak, and chocolate.  This wine went downhill quickly after my initial notes, so I would drink this up now.