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Don’t panic. If you’ve been avoiding Baker D Chirico (149 Fitzroy St, St Kilda +61 3 9534 3777) all week you should visit them today to buy your hot cross buns.
I too was influenced by the taste test in Epicure in The Age where the buns were given 4/10 and described as chewy and lacking flavour. The problem was it wasn’t a hot cross bun that was tasted but a regular fruit bun.
Funnily enough as I publish this, the damaging review is still available on the Epicure web page here.
I can assure you that Chirico hot cross buns are among the best available locally and favourite among my neighbours.
Apparently, an apology will be printed next week but, of course, Easter will be over by then and it will be too late.
These taste tests are fraught with difficulty for journalists and suppliers alike. Journalists are often under the pressure of deadlines and supplies ca be pressured to supply produce when it is not necessarily at its best.
This happened a couple of weeks ago again with Epicure for a review of Wagyu. When requesting a sample the journalist was told it had only been killed five days earlier and would be tough. Typically the meat should be hung for four to six weeks and wasn’t ready to be tested.
Of course, what the review say about the meat – it was tough.
Ad this is the problem for small producers who are damned if they participate in these tests and damned if they don’t.
Pictures to come; my photo plug-in has stuffed-up for now. Solved with the help of Matt. Thanks.
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Its a bit of a case of Fairfax, fluffs it again, maybe they should consider renaming the organisation to “Unfairfax” I don’t think there is any excuse. They should do their research particularly if they are going to can someone or something. All very well to get an appology after the horse has bolted, good one, I’m disgusted as I was recently when Matthew Evans got it wrong. He refused to concede he wrote a misleading article, the editor thought he had, and 4 weeks later the clarification was published in the smallest print on page 2
AK has hit the nail on the head, I can’t believe the crap I read in the Good Living section of The SMH sometimes. A few weeks ago, they rpinted a costing breakdown of a dish at a Restataurant in Woolloomoolo. It worked out that the restaurant was making about two bucks on the dish. Now, some of the cost prices of the items were severely over inflated, it was obviuos, but, they printed it anyway. Suppose its the old “We can only go on what people tell us” excuse. Disgraceful.
A couple of weeks ago Huon Hooke in The Age Good Weekend wrote about Chablis as being at the climatic extreme for the chardonnay grape destined for table wine. I wrote to him and pointed out that there was an appellation further north than this (coteaux champenois) and he wrote back that he didn’t consider it because he didn’t rate the wines. Well, the French did go to the trouble of declaring it an appellation and chardonnay has been grown here for hundreds of years, long before champagne was invented. A little arrogance perhaps?
AK, As a journalist I find it strange when people don’t admit they are wrong. I must admit last week I was urged to call up the person I wrote about pre publication after I spelt the name chocolatier wrong and I did. Carl I saw that about the ingredient costs and it posted somewhere. Neil, again strange attitude as it isn’t exactly that difficult to check this kind of fact.
what??? it wasn’t a hot cross bun that they tested for the hot corss bun challenge? I have to admit that i was really surprised by the score they gave.
the other thing that i thought was a little odd was that phillipa was one of the taste testers and the Phillipa’s HCB scored the equal highest - despite the lack of fruit in it.
There’s so little concern about anything more than press-release journalism at the moment that it’s unsurprising that things like the restaurant dish pricing just appear without critique. (Or the recent press release about kids drinking fruit juice being fat… or …) Either that or one gets to opinionate without knowledge just cos one is a staff writer somewhere.
Ed: those aren’t *chocolate* hot crossies are they?!
My main criticism of the Epicure piece would be that, with a bazillion bakeries producing hot cross buns, it seems distinctly unfair to present a field of 14 (some predictable and some seemingly random).
Cin, I should have noticed the Phillipa’s bit. i saw some of her HCBs in IGA and they do look a bit lighter than th Baker D Chirico ones. If i have a criticism of them it is that they are very dense and heavy.
Duncan, ‘fraid they are not chocolate and I don’t really approve of chocolate ones. I’m a bit of a purist and that applies to hournalism too although the odd press elease can be helpful
We wound up roadtesting three lots of buns: Baker D. Chirico’s, Babka’s, and some random half dozen from the Queen Vic market. Baker D, Chirico’s were certainly excellent — very spicy, and by far the best looking — but In the end we liked Babka’s the best: big, light and with a nice balance of fruit and spice.
matthew,
I’d like to have tried babka but i wasn’t up that end of town. On Sunday i saw some of Phillipa’s for sale at IGA but by then I’d overdosed.
I have kept out of this until now but with great interest. Last year I did a bit of an accidental taste off in the week leading up, of the usual highly commercial options (Baker delight, brumbys, supermarkets) and then Babka and Baker Chirico. This year I think I was still over them from last year but had a couple of Browns HCB… I have to say the Babka buns still rate highest in my mind, soft yet aromatic, fruity buns with generous spice and a gentle glaze.
I also saw the SMH piece on the restaurant dish costing and noticed that it was sooo wrong, I can’t believe at least the GST calculation didn’t get picked up on yet all the other crazy costs! I tried to make a rebuttle of this piece but kept getting road blocks. Perhaps they choose not to know what we think.
Jack
This year we tried HCB from Phillipa’s, Babka, Chimmy’s, D. Chirico & Noisette(Port Melb). The latter won hands down and we were subsequently in there every morning over Easter including GF for our daily dose.
On the subject of food journalism much of it is inconsistent, and some of those who tackle it are seriously under-qualified in terms of literary and culinary skill.
There was a time when I wrote for papers on a freelance basis, but I was frequently annoyed that by the time my story hit the page, the Editors had changed my text to be factually or grammatically incorrect - which in turn could potentially be misinterpreted and construed as being not factual. As the bunny with the byline I must have been subject to similar scathing remarks.
Having been consistently reliable with my research, I threw in the towel after an argument whereby I was told - by one Editor - that they would write whatever they liked about whomever they liked.