Yummo: Bennie hooks into a super iced chocolate ($6.50) at Co’klat; his mother wishes she was doing likewise.

Yarraville Central, February 11, 2011

The number of Yarraville Festivals we’ve hung out at is a bit of a blur, memory wise.

It’s always fun and cool in that it’s manageable in terms of size – just a few blocks and maybe 3-4000 people, tops. The St Kilda Festival it is not.

In terms of food, as with all festivals – it seems to me – the idea is better than the execution. All too often it seems we all get excited about paying for food that is not as fine and funky as we’d normally get, pay more for it and consume it in less than ideal circumstances from plastic containers.

This year I made do with a platter of rogan josh, rice, onion bhaji and samosa from the Tandoori Times stall – with a can of that Coca Cola stuff, the damage was a tad under $10.

I also had a cheapo sausage on a roll with heaps of mustard from one of several stands selling such like and gyros. I gobbled it up while talking to Keith from Heather Dell.

I got the day’s caffeine hit from Co’klat, a small, new place specialising in all things chocolate that had escaped our attention until our next door neighbour, Dulcie, spoke of its excellence.

I had two good coffees there, the second with Bennie and his mum. The boy loved his iced chocolate.

Co’klat was reasonably busy, but also like a little calm oasis in the middle of the festival noise and bustle.

As always with festivals, especially one as neighbourhood-oriented as this, was running into friends – crash, bang, wallop!

As I was wearing the official Consider The Sauce Spongebob T-shirt, a regular reader, Kristine, spotted me in the crowd and introduced herself. She’s also a fan of Footscray Food Blog, Bear Head Soup and the Africa Taste salad.

I saw the Ross Hannford Trio playing Tequila.

We marvelled at the mindblowing diversity of dogs in attendance – everything from microwave oven size to outhouse size, from drop dead gorgeous to the most ordinary of mutts.

We noted the high number ageing hippies, of both genders, in the crowd.

We walked round and round.

We went home.

Doing research into Winston Churchill’s third nipple.