Pasta & Rock'n'RollWe know that being on tour can be a Highway to Hell. Especially for Italians, who cannot settle easily for the mediocre food you find around the world... And it's really tough! Especially when you are away from Italy for months because you're on tour with AC/DC. Australia has been a real challenge for us. And it still is.
THE SECRETARY GENERAL (Italian cuisine and wine expert): I always manage to provide an effective solution to AC/DC Abruzzo food problems in every country we go. But I got to admit that here in Australia it's been pretty tough. I mean, here even to make a simple PASTA AL SUGO with some fresh basil becomes a challenge...
During the Australian tour we've been through all sort of food misadventures, especially when we didn't have a kitchen to cook our own pasta etc. We always try to book hostels or apartments with a semi-professional kitchen that can be used by guests, by here in Australia, with all these backpackers who survive with those disgusting $ 0.99 instant noodles, the quality standard is much lower than elsewhere. So we've seen all kinds of food aberrations, from fake Chinese Parmesan to totally tasteless mozzarella... Surprisingly, even the quality of the vegetables is lower than in Italy. We still can't figure out why, considering the sun they have here in Australia. It must be the distribution to big supermarket chains that mess everything up. Still, probably nobody cares here about taste and freshness of food (at least in the cities)... In the end we even saw people putting ketchup on spaghetti or eating "garlic bread" thinking it's BRUSCHETTA!
As for the wine, the situation is a bit better. But still very challenging. At least the Australians are developing a good taste so it is possible to find some good bottles of wine from Europe. But, as Brian told us in Perth, sometimes your dinner in a posh restaurant in Australia becomes a nightmare when you find out that they only have Australian wines on the wine list!! You ask the waiter and he will confirm that they have nothing from Italy or France! Unbelievable! Even for Brian Johnson!
Anyway the Australian wine production looks like it is improving comparing to a few years ago. But still you see things that will be unthinkable in Europe such as wine in 4-litre boxes. Yes! They sell wine in plastic bags put inside cardboard boxes. But we gotta admit that it's marketed so well that most backpackers who go shopping for wine will come out carrying a few BOXES of wine... We won't tell you what they do to filter wine (actually we will: EGGS, MILK and FISH!!! Read the small prints!).
As for wine bottles, forget about the cork! Here is the kingdom of the SCREW CAP! The future of "sustainable" wine making... But the biggest scandal we saw, as far as wine is concerned, a proper contradiction in terms, is the NON-ALCOHOLIC WINE. 3000 years of glorious history, from the Ancient Greece to Italian traditional wine making and aging techniques, destroyed by this oxymoron...
Fake arancini alla Bolognese (???) - Only 13.5$ each
The most famous OZ food specialty
Wine in box (don't read the small prints!)
The infamous non-alcoholic wine
The picky Secretary General with a disappointing OZ pizza
