Our Rockpool Consulting team are some of the better travelled folk in the Rockpool family. It is all in the name of business of course – overseeing catering centres and tasting new menus around the world for Qantas First and Business, setting up new Qantas First lounges and lending a hand at the odd VIP Qantas cocktail party or two. Yes, our hearts bleed too!  But as long as they bring us back some good stories and a good blog, we can deal with it.

The lovely Mari Karpinnen is a Menu Planning Consultant for Rockpool Consulting, and recently enjoyed her very first (sort of) trip to Shanghai. Thanks for sharing Mari – and for the great pics!

My First trip to Shanghai,

I had never really been to Shanghai, other than a brief stopover on my way back from Europe. I had always wanted to go, and now was my chance.

I was going there to attend a menu presentation, and I was on my own.

I arrived in around 6:30pm and was picked up by my contact Victor. We headed straight to the hotel, dropped off my stuff, and then went out for a bite to eat. I was knackered after an 11 hour flight, but nonetheless the grumbling in my tummy had to be quietened.

After being picked up at 8am the next day, I was on my way to the first day of presentation. I met the team, had a briefing, and then I spent the next 11 hours eating.

As per every overseas presentation, the caterers like to take you out for dinner on the first night. This time it was a Sichuan style restaurant called South Beauty located in town. There were four of us. As I listened to our waiter take our order, I knew we weren’t going to be hungry, nor that he would have any ink left in his pen.

The first dish to come out was batons of cucumber wrapped in iceberg lettuce, drowned in a sesame dressing. Delicious! Then began the roll out of 7 more dishes!

-          A cold black fungus salad in a Szechuan dressing

-          Bassa fish and preserved vegetable soup

-          Stir fried okra with capsicum, onion and more mouth numbing Szechuan

-          Fried river eel with chilli

-          Beef and tripe in chilli oil

-          Fried fish in Szechuan oil with chilli and the root of Chinese lettuce

-          And the show stopper which is South Beauty’s poached pork ribs with mini corn buns

-          An amazing sugar decoration, which the restaurant gifted me.

I was full before we started the meal, and I definitely wasn’t hungry at the end of it. It was great to taste and explore another range of flavours and textures that I hadn’t encountered as yet, and I cannot wait to go back!

48hrs after arriving into Shanghai, I was back on the plane headed back home down south.

Thank you to the team in Shanghai, I had a great time.

Go Phil! Our very own Boy Wonder, Phil Wood, is fronting up to the Sydney Seafood School at Sydney Fish Market to teach a class on June 17. So if flavour and technical perfection are your aim, we suggest you pop on down and join in. This will be a class not to be missed.

I’d tell you a little more about Phil, but they pretty much have it all in hand, so I think I’ll just hand it over to the Seafood School…and yes, it’s true…he was just 7 years old when Rockpool opened! Bless!

When Neil Perry opened Rockpool in 1989, ‘modern Australian’ cuisine was in its infancy, and many credit Perry with its inception. Since then he’s opened and closed numerous restaurants, currently running seven across three states. You don’t build that sort of empire without a gift for finding the right people to help.

Today the kitchen of the flagship Rockpool, now called Rockpool on George, is headed by the laid back Phil Wood, who was junior sous chef at Tetsuya’s when he won the Josephine Pignolet Award for best young chef in the 2007 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. This gave him the opportunity to work abroad, spending two years at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry. He returned to Sydney in early 2009 and joined Rockpool as Head Chef. Promoting him to Executive Chef in 2010, Perry described him as “one of the best young chefs this country has to offer”.

A meal at Rockpool (on George) is as exciting today as it was in the early days. Stepping through the heavy, heritage-green doors of this discreet sandstone building still has a touch of the special about it. Inside, precisely set double-clothed tables with the signature Bill McMahon-designed chairs and Alessi peppermills testify that good design doesn’t date. The long, light room looks smart but comfortable with forest and earth tones, plush studded banquettes and a dramatic honeycomb lighting installation.

Perry was one of the first champions of premium Australian produce, especially seafood, and Wood adheres to the same mantra. Chirashi zushi of kingfish, snapper, prawn, squid, and scallop is a vibrant combination of flavours and textures – spanking fresh seafood, vinegared sushi rice mixed with black sesame seeds, a creamy, briny, spicy (kimchi), tangy (finger lime) taste sensation. Blue swimmer crab and corn congee with almond tofu, star anise-scented peanuts, fried bread and chilli oil is a similar roller coaster of flavours, textures and aromas. This is food that makes you sit up and take notice … just as Perry’s cooking first did back in 1989!

With Phil Wood (who was just 7 when Rockpool opened) in the kitchen, this iconic Sydney restaurant is set to wow a whole new generation of diners and keep those who’ve long loved it on their toes.

Monday 17 June 2013 | Phil Wood – Rockpool on George
6.30pm – 9.30pm Class Code: PWO $120.00

When Rockpool opened in 1989 ‘modern Australian’ cuisine was in its infancy – and many acknowledge this iconic restaurant as its birthplace. Phil Wood (ex-Tetsuya’s and Josephine Pignolet award winner) has been Rockpool Head Chef since 2009. At this hands-on dinner class you’ll master some of the techniques and flavour combinations that make Rockpool as revolutionary now as it was 20 years ago.

Recipies from Good Weekend if you missed them on Saturday. The bibimbap is fantastic served with a fried egg on top. You can also use chicken thigh fillet instead  of beef. Enjoy!

Bibimbap with beef and onions

Serves 4

300g scotch fillet, cut into thin strips

1 brown onion, peeled, halved and finely sliced

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon kochujang red pepper paste, plus extra

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon soft brown sugar

2 teaspoons sesame oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

400g jasmine rice, rinsed

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 handfuls baby spinach leaves

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Pickled cucumber and carrot

1 Lebanese cucumber, peeled and finely sliced in strips

1 small carrot, cut into fine matchsticks

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon caster sugar

2 tablespoon rice vinegar

To make the pickles, toss the cucumber and carrot with the salt and leave for 30 minutes. Dissolve the sugar in rice vinegar. Drain and rinse the vegetables, squeeze dry and toss in the sweet vinegar. Leave until ready to serve, then drain.

For the bibimbap, combine the beef in a bowl with the onion, soy sauce, kochujang paste, garlic, sugar, sesame oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Set aside to marinate for 30 minutes.

Combine rice and 700ml water in a lidded pot and bring to the boil. Cover tightly reduce to a very low heat and cook for 15 minutes or until cooked. Remove from the heat and rest for five minutes then fluff with a fork.

Heat a wok on high heat with the oil and stir fry beef and its marinade until the beef is cooked through. Add the spinach leaves, and stir until just wilted.

Serve rice in a large bowl, top with the beef and some of the pickles and sprinkle with sesame seeds and extra kochulang or chilli sauce if desired.

Chocolate Mousse with Hazelnut Praline

Serves 4

250g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped

300ml double cream

1½ tablespoons fresh espresso coffee

3 large eggs, separated

½ cup raw, unsalted hazelnuts

½ cup caster sugar

3 tablespoons water

Place chocolate and cream in a stainless steel bowl on top of a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that bowl fits into the saucepan and that it does not touch the water. Stir frequently until the chocolate and cream have melted and combined well. Remove bowl from pan and set aside to cool.

Whisk the coffee and egg yolks into the chocolate mixture until well combined.

Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form, and using a large spatula, gently fold the whites into chocolate mixture in 3 stages. Spoon mousse into 4 martini glasses, cover and refrigerate for 6 hours or until set.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180C and place the hazelnuts on a lined baking tray. Roast hazelnuts for about 8 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and rub in-between a clean tea towel to remove shells. Place roasted nuts onto a lined baking tray.

Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and boil, occasionally brushing the side of the pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent sticking, until syrup is golden in colour. Remove from the heat, allow the bubbles to subside, and then pour the caramel over the nuts and leave to set until hard. Chop the praline once it is hard into small pieces.

To serve, remove glasses from fridge and sprinkle with hazelnut praline.

Wine girl extraordinaire, Sophie Otton, recently visited the South Coast of NSW where she paid a visit to the amazing Bay Rock Oysters, a favourite of ours here at Rockpool.  Here is Sophie’s rundown on the trip and a fascintaing insight into Bay Rock (and sea horses)…take it away Sophie…

BAY ROCK OYSTERS – CLYDE RIVER, BATEMAN’S BAY

Bay Rock Oysters is owned by Audrey Thor who supplies us with our superb Clyde River oysters.

Prior to establishing Bay Rock Oysters, Audrey’s first attempt at aqua culture was raising sea horses. Her motivation was the high demand from the Chinese who use dried sea horses in their medicine, fetching $9,000 per kilo! She soon found out the seahorse is notoriously difficult to breed. Interestingly this is because they mate for life and if one partner dies the other becomes prone to annorexia and stops feeding. Eventually she gave up on this idea and decided to switch to oyster farming. That was 20 years ago and today she cultivates five million oysters in her river beds at any one time.

Sydney  Rock Oysters are indigenous to the South Coast of NSW. They are called ‘Sydney Rock’ because they used to be harvested from the rocks around Sydney Harbour. Their shells would be ground and used as an ingredient in lime wash for housing by the early settlers.

The Clyde River is part of the Bateman’s Bay Marine Park. Currently the water is so clean the oysters don’t have a lot of nutrients to feed on. As a conseqence, they take longer to mature in size and struggle to put on weight. The lack of nutrient is due to many years of preceeding drought which means less vegetation and debris flows into the river system. The more debris, the more nutrition in the water, the faster they gain weight.
Rule of thumb: Don’t judge an oyster by its size, it is smell and taste that are more important. The average age of the harvested Clyde River oyster is three years. They are graded depending from A – AA – AAA from smallest to largest. The largest size, however, is the five year old oyster grown specifically for the Rockpool group. Interestingly, however, whilst the shell is bigger, the oyster is not. The key difference is in the flavour which is richer and more intense with age.

Other Oyster traits:

Clyde River oysters can live out of water for up three weeks and remain in perfect condition.

Clyde Rivers can withstand high water temperatures, without damage, even if they are close to the suface.

Clyde River oysters filter five litres of water per hour whilst the bigger Pacifics filter well over twice as much.

Pacific oysters have a very short shelf life and begin to deteriorate once they leave the water.

Pacific Oysters mature in 18 months (as opposed to three years for Clyde River) and are in high demand from the Asian market because of their bigger size.

They Clyde River oysters need protecting from the hardy Pacific oysters which dominate on the South Australian and Tasmanian coasts.

And how do the tastes compare? The Clyde Rivers are explosive! Intense, tangy, salty with long flinty mineral flavours. Amazing….The Pacifics tend to be more creamy and fleshy in texture, less briny and have less mineral than the Clyde Rivers.

Times are a’changing within the Rockpool family. In recent months and in fact, years, a few of our treasured long term staff have moved on – some take a break from the industry, others take up fresh challenges and a handful take the leap and launch into their own businesses. That, as they say, is life in the fast lane. The moving on of integral and often executive staff does, however, pave the way for the next generation to step up. The unsung heroes of the kitchen – the sous chefs – some of the hardest working individuals in any restaurant. We are proud to have some unashamedly great talent handling the kitchen reins at the seven restaurants within the Rockpool Group – and thought it was time we introduced them to you properly. In part one of our introductions, we bring you Phil, Ben and Dan.

Phil Wood
Head Chef, Rockpool on George

Described by Neil Perry as one of Australia’s best chefs, Phil Wood, 31, is Head Chef of Rockpool Group mother ship, Rockpool on George.  Heading a team of 15+ chefs at this multi-award winning institution, Phil has learnt his craft working in the kitchens of Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry and Tetsuya’s.  In 2007, his skills earned him the celebrated Josephine Pignolet Award, which acknowledges the talent of young chefs and aims to inspire them to greater heights.  A star in the making, Phil’s creativity, leadership and unwavering dedication to quality has made him one of the country’s most exciting chefs and one to watch.  Phil oversaw the return to Rockpool on George’s hatted glory when the restaurant received 3 hats in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide last year, after a long absence.

Culinary heroes?   Thomas Keller, Neil Perry and Tetsuya Wakuda

Best meal ever eaten?   Urasawa, Los Angeles

What inspires you?   All the chefs I work with

What produce are you working with currently that rocks your boat?   Hand dived sea urchin and local abalone

What dish on your menu is your current favourite?   Cuttlefish with Gaian poultry duck prosciutto, ink, crispy chicken skin, carrot leather and furikake

An amazing place you’ve been recently that blew your mind?   Clovelly Beach, Sydney – the best place to swim

What are you looking forward to?   Holidays…

Ben Pollard
Head Chef, Spice Temple Melbourne

32 year old Ben Pollard has been a talented fixture in the kitchens of many Rockpool restaurants since his career commenced in 1997. He started cooking in his hometown of Byron Bay, working for two years with ex-Rockpool Chef Tippy Heng before heading to Rockpool himself where he spent three years as an apprentice. Overseas travel lured Ben to a private resort in the Caribbean where he worked as a Sous Chef for two years with a handful of other ex-Rockpool staff, before moving to NYC to work as a private chef for a year, eventually returning to Sydney and Rockpool on George as Sous Chef.  When Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne opened its doors in late 2006, Ben was appointed Sous Chef, a position he held for the past four years.  Ben jumped kitchens in 2010 to become Spice Temple Melbourne’s inaugural Head Chef.

Culinary heroes?   Thomas Keller, Neil Perry, Fuschia Dunlop, David Thompson

Best meal ever eaten?   Pier was great back in the day, some great desserts by Katrina Kanetani. WD50 in NYC was a big eye opener, awesome

What inspires you?   Beautiful fresh produce, the great stories behind dishes and passionate apprentices!

What produce are you working with currently that rocks your boat?   Organic red jalapenos, fresh bamboo shoots, young ginger

What dish on your menu is your current favourite?   Stir fried prawns with salted duck egg and four chillies brined, dried, fermented and pickled. I love the chillies – they all have such a unique flavour

An amazing place you’ve been recently that blew your mind?   I absolutely love going up to the hills near Lake Eildon, North of Melbourne on my bike…the air is so fresh in the morning up there and seeing the regrowth from the fires from a few years ago is incredible. There are some great little places for lunch too, serving local produce and also some great farmers markets happening

What are you looking forward to?   Weekends with my little boys

Dan Masters
Head Chef, Rockpool Bar & Grill Perth

32 year old Dan Masters started his career in food at the young age of 15, commencing an apprenticeship in Forster on the mid-North coast of NSW. He joined Rockpool’s Bistro Mars in 1998 under the guidance of Neil and after two years left to finish his apprenticeship at Sydney’s Banc.  These were Dan’s formative years where his love of food was consolidated and he made the decision to forge a career in cooking and restaurants. Overseas travel lured Dan to many corners of the globe including the Caribbean, Singapore and London where he spent a year working at the famous Le Gavroche. In 2008, Dan spent 12 months in the kitchen of Thomas Keller’s legendary Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry before returning to Sydney to take up the position of Senior Sous Chef at Rockpool on George. Six months prior to the opening of Rockpool Bar & Grill Perth, Dan moved to sister restaurant, Rockpool Bar & Grill Sydney to start training for his role as Head Chef. Dan shares the same food philosophy as Neil Perry in which excellent produce is cooked simply.  He is also passionate about sustainability and hopes the trend to respect and nurture our food supplies continues. Dan is addicted to golf.

Who are your culinary heroes?   Thomas Keller, Neil Perry, Yoshihiro Murata

Best meal ever eaten?   Urusawa, Los Angeles

What inspires you?   Like-minded professionals, beautiful produce and cutting fish

What produce are you working with currently that rocks your boat?   Genoa figs from down south, Yellow Neck clams from Mark Eather, soooooooooooooo sweet

What dish on your menu is your current favourite?   Pulled Jarrahdene pork pie with chipotle sauce

An amazing place you’ve been recently that blew your mind? – Urasawa again

What are you looking forward to?   My daughter gracing this world. (Dan’s first child is due in July)

Still to come…Andy Evans, Corey Costelloe, Brendan Sheldrick and Will Cowan-Lunn…

It’s been a stretch between our much-loved regional dinners at Spice Temple Sydney so we are out of our skin EXCITED to announce our Shaanxi night on Wednesday, June 12!

We like to go a little bit all out for these, as anyone who has joined us before will know, so don’t delay in booking for what is bound to be yet another to be remembered!

Shaanxi, in the North West of China is a fascinating province in when it comes to food…famous for taking simple ingredients and turning them into elaborate dishes…and for their delicious flat chewy noodles, pork and lamb or mutton. They steam and stir fry, boil, braise and fry in Shaanxi and in the course of research we uncovered such gems as ‘Scorpion and fish on a bamboo platter’, ‘Guozi fish in milky soup’ and ‘White lotus in limpid pond’. We won’t be serving you any of those! The menu looks a little more like this…kick starting proceedings of course with a special wee cocktail.

The Mandarin Emperor
~ Fresh mandarin soda, spiced with ginger, Beefeater gin and a touch of lemon

Combination pickled radishes

Rou Jia Mo – Steamed bun with braised pork and coriander

Steamed chicken salad with black sesame paste and wood roasted chilli

Shaanxi flat noodles with salted olive and chilli

Steamed river trout with ham, pickled green chilli and shitake

Beer braised duck with wild mushrooms

Yang rou chuan – Wood roasted lamb skewers with heaven facing chilli

Stir fried greens with fermented bean curd

Almond milk custard tart

Shaanxi is one of Neil’s favourite Chinese provinces…and he will be there on the night as he, Head Chef Andy Evans and the talented Spice Temple team deliver this very special banquet. Neil and Andy aim to highlight and explain the specialty dishes and cooking techniques that are unique to these often-unknown provinces.

Cost for the dinner is $95 per person with an additional $55 per person for matching wines.

For bookings or further details contact Spice Temple Sydney on (02) 8078 1888 or visit rockpool.com.

See you across a Mandarin Emperor!

A word from sommelier Ben Richards…

In March 1866, the Civil Rights Act was passed by U.S. Congress to protect the rights of African Americans. Meanwhile, in the pauper high country of Portugal’s Douro Valley, the dust of the 1866 harvest was settling. Whether or not this vintage would be seen as good, or not so, would be by the definition of those around to write about it. What could not be in question is the quality of the 1866 Qunita do Vallado Colheita Tawny Port experienced by those dining at Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne on a sunny Wednesday in April, 2013, some 147 years after the grapes were harvested.

Scott Wasley of the Spanish Acquisition, one of the most considered importers of European wine to this country, is known for his generosity of spirit and desire to share Spain & Portugal’s finest wines. If there is one tasting on my calendar that heaven and earth would be moved for, it would be the post shipping, settled, first tasting of the wines from the Palacios winemaking dynasty. From Bierzo, in Spain’s North West, and Priorat, in the North East, this particular line up of 2010’s made all the more nerve racking after David Lawler visited Bierzo in 2011, proclaiming the wines ‘the most exciting I had seen in barrel’. Myself visiting the Priorat outpost just 2 years ago, having had a similarly ethereal experience.

These bottlings, for me and many others, exemplify what is great in wine. The sense of place, the energy and individuality, from both single and multiple sites, tell a fascinating story of this very unique countryside.

Since 1999 the wines of Descendientes de Jose Palacios, or DJP (named after Alvaro’s father), have been slowly etching their way into the minds of tasters across the globe, with each vintage coming a greater understanding of the vineyards at their disposal. The immediate perfume of the regional wine, Petalos, and the village wine, Corullon (named after the local town), is striking, pretty and laced with layers of fruit. The single vineyard wines, of which only a couple of barrels are made every year, are the most beguiling. Moncerbal, long, soft, elegant, juicy and immediate, Las Lamas, layered, structured, with tannins that command the palate less velvety than Moncerbal but lip smackingly tasty. La Farona, the jewel of the DJP crown is seemingly all the elements of the previous wines drawn together and harnessed in a darker, more concentrated package, exceedingly rare, 1.5 barrels this year. One cannot help but draw on comparisons from the great vineyards of Europe, Burgundy, Barolo, Hermitage. But Mencia is it’s own beast, controlled and inescapably beautiful. The 2010 vintage is one to drink now, and forever. Quite possibly the finest brace of young wines one could wish to taste. Paired with Redgate Farms Rotisserie Partridge, Parsnip puree and grilled pear.

Alvaro Palacios is credited with revival of Priorat. In the early 1980’s, with the help of peers, he took the bones of a picturesque, yet almost destitute wine growing area just an hour and half outside of Barcelona, and spurned one of the great success stories of modern Spanish guile and fortitude. Though many wines from Priorat are now highly prized, rich and plump from particularly generous lashings of French varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, as well as particularly high ratings from certain wine commentators, Alvaro’s vineyards and winemaking began a referral to tradition over 15 years ago. Syrah and Cabernet are almost all gone, replaced with the local Garnacha and Samso. The most prized fruit comes from L’Ermita, a tiny pocket of licorella (the name of the dark slate found in Priorat), that is now Spain’s most justifiably expensive wine on release. The thread that ties the regional blend, Camins del Priorat, in the with the following village wines of Les Terrasses, Gratallops, Finca Dofi and L’Ermita is that black ash, soot and dark spiced perfume found in each glass, derived from that licorella. Progressively, they become more elegant and lifted as we move from larger, to smaller scopes of vineyard site, culminating in Finca Dofi, Alvaro’s 25 year old site directly behind his very modern, ostentatious, yet somehow discreet winery perched on the hill overlooking the Gratallops village. L’Ermita is almost a different beast, entirely made from exceedingly precious, rare, achingly beautiful old vine (100 years +) Garnacha and Samso, it is a wine hard to quantify. Though profound and long, pure and dark, it is story of a vineyard best understood by the notion that wine is beyond a grape variety or a winemaker, it is story of place and time, of earth and climate. Cape Grim Rib Eye and sautéed mushrooms were perfectly simple and elegant fodder.

Only by finishing with a discussion of wether or not Abraham Lincoln had indeed passed away when the 1866 Qunita do Vallado Colheita Tawny Port was harvested could these two brackets of wine be overshadowed. This Port beyond words and beyond typical vinous descriptors, an indebted thankyou to the custodians of this wine in Douro, and to Scott for sharing it with us is I believe the most fitting of words.

 Last month, Qantas unveiled its sparkling new Singapore Lounge.

Proudly showcasing the culture and famous cuisine of Singapore, menus are based on those of Spice Temple and Spice Temple Melbourne, with a focus on Neil’s food philosophy…”the cornerstone of good cooking is to source the finest produce”.

A live cooking station inspired by Singapore’s famous hawker centres is at the centre of culinary attention, as well as a tray service that offers some of the most popular dishes from the Qantas lounges back home in Sydney and Melbourne, such as the salt & pepper calamari and the steak sandwich.

Spice Temple inspired cocktails are also on offer in the lounge, alongside an international wine list and a barista service.

The lounge seats 460 guests, has 30 showers, 80-inch television screens and technology pods scattered throughout. Now…how to get myself there..?

Neil’s story for the May Issue of the Qantas Australian Way Inflight Magazine – a fascinating insight to the goings on behind the scenes at Q Catering and some seriously crazy statistics!

I was recently involved in a workshop at Q Catering to change some of the meal service options on Qantas’ east-west services. It all went well and I was very pleased with the food quality. Afterwards, I took a tour of the centre. What struck me most of all was the sheer volume of product that is prepared every day. The logistical know-how required to get it all on and off each plane in a timely manner is phenomenal.

Let’s start with catering. The food in all classes, from Economy to Business on domestic routes and from Economy to First on international routes, is prepared, chilled down to four degrees Celsius and cold chain-managed until it’s loaded onto meal carts. Qantas Airways has 18,000 meal carts – 24 different kinds – which are placed onto trucks and trundled across the tarmac before finally being loaded onto the planes.

Given the number of different aircraft, different flight times and different journeys at different times of the day, there are actually 680 different ways to load an aircraft. Who knew?

If that was it, the caterers would be very happy, indeed. But along with the meals go cutlery, glassware, napkins, salt and pepper, bread rolls, butter, oil, salad dressing and the food trays themselves. Bear in mind that many routes offer more than one meal service.

But wait, there’s more – spirits, beer, wine and water bottles; newspapers, magazines and toilet paper. There are amenities kits, children’s kits, first-aid kits and duty free. And don’t forget all those blankets and pillows – Qantas launders five million Economy blankets a year, or about 250 tonnes’ worth.

Catering and airline staff are everywhere, from the minute the cart arrives at the catering centre until the moment it leaves. Everyone is focused on their particular task as they slowly but surely piece together what is essentially a massive jigsaw puzzle. This happens every single day of the year.

To give you a snapshot: for a Qantas A380 flying from Sydney or Melbourne to Los Angeles, some 40,000 items are loaded onto the plane, including more than 5300 pieces of cutlery, 2500 glasses and tumblers, 1500 sugar sachets and 200 oven racks – all contained within 100 meal carts.

At journey’s end, the carts are off-loaded and everything – including the carts – is washed and sorted for next time. Qantas washes more than six million napkins and 2.6 million tablecloths a year. And whatever ends up in a far-flung port has to find its way back to the home port. That’s just another variable to fit into the logistics equation. Did I mention Qantas prints 10 million menus each year?

Enough with the figures. Suffice to say that it takes a great deal of coordination to get that drink, meal, amenities kit, blanket, pillow and more to each passenger. Next time you’re settling in with a nice aperitif and wondering which movie to watch, raise a glass to the people of Q Catering who make it happen so smoothly.

Announcing our Friday ‘classics’ lunch menu for the month of May, at Rockpool on George

Phil Wood is taking us around the world in 3 dishes this month as we revisit a handful of Rockpool on George’s classics from days gone by.

Fish poached in coconut garam masala has been on and off the menu at George St for as many years as we care to remember – we’ve used snapper, bar cod, blue eye and more. We’ve made versions of this dish at VIP dinners in NYC and Singapore, and every time it makes it’s way back, it earns bundles of praise. A Rockpool classic, for sure.

White- cut chicken and jelly fish salad

Red emperor fillets poached in coconut milk with garam masala

Fine apple tart with vanilla bean ice-cream

We hope you can visit us for Friday lunch this month and try these wonderful dishes for yourself.

 Rockpool on George, 107 George St, The Rocks, Sydney,  02. 9252 1888