After more than three years and more than 600 posts, Consider The Sauce is just as excited as ever about the food of Melbourne’s western suburbs.

If anything, in fact, we’re even more amazed by our food riches and inspired by the people who produce them.

All that is true, too, for Lauren at Footscray Food Blog.

We’d like to think we’ve both played a role in helping to enhance the reputation of western suburbs food and the sense of community surrounding it.

But now we reckon it’s time to step things up a notch or two.

So in partnership with Footscray Food Blog, Consider The Sauce is excited to announce The Westies – the first food awards dedicated to Melbourne’s western suburbs.

The winners of the 2013 “Westies – Dishes of Distinction” will be announced at the annual Footscray Food Blog/Consider The Sauce Spring Picnic.

See you there!

We hope The Westies become a regular, yearly celebration of western suburbs food.

To further that aim, the awards will celebrate three dishes a year chosen by us as excellent representatives of westie food rather than the awards going to the eateries themselves.

The selection process will take into account taste, consistency, pricing, and a sense of uniqueness or tradition.  This year’s winners will be decided after countless emails, Facebook messages, dining-out sojourns and an epic knock-down bar-room brawl.

Eateries responsible for producing Westies winners will be ineligible for similar honours for the following three years.

Footscray Food Blog/Consider The Sauce Spring Picnic,

Yarraville Gardens, Somerville Road.

Saturday, November 30, from 11am.

The Westies – Dishes of Distinction winners announced at noon.