The restaurants represented have a glossy façade with very little behind them; show booths where they serve up three tastes of their regular fare often fronted by the chefs that make the restaurants tick. With chef at front of house (most often, signing their recipe book), it's a good chance to press the flesh and ask that question that you've been dying to ask. Or buy a signed book, perhaps.

It's not a good chance to eat their food at its best, but more on that later.

The SBS Food team had collected a team of bloggers via Twitter - ironchefshellie, myfoodtrail, justmetagirl (accompanying 11 year-old food blogger Riley), JanelleJohnston, mysecondhelping and scentedstars – in an attempt to eat every single dish at the event, a task which immediately appeared unfeasible. People were too hungry and had plans of their own afoot so we scattered into the grand Victorian hall to do some damage.

Once inside the scrum and with a quick peruse of the menu, I had absolutely no idea where to start, so I picked probably the world’s least represented cuisine on the menu.

I hit The Court House first. In North Melbourne, the Court House is a deco gastropub and its appearance at Taste probably signals an aspiration to continue appearing in more serious reviews. I used to live practically next door and often ate in their wood-panelled bar, over a period long enough to see it transmute from dishing up workaday pub grub to genteel French bistro dining. It seemed to go through a golden patch in 2005, when it was still something of a surprise to reviewers. They continue to draw a solid, local crowd.

Today they were serving something Mauritian – a direct reflection of Chef Jocelyn Riviere’s heritage. The only thing that I know of Mauritian cuisine is that they ran short of dodos, which by all accounts, were not tasty. I'm a poor assessor of Mauritian food.

The Court House’s Mauritian tamarind cured kingfish and scallops with green chilli, curry leaf and ocean trout pearls was somehow disappointing. Curing scallops removes their subtle texture.

A few doors down was an eponym from Oyster Little Bourke.

One thing that I’ve been meaning to ask Frank Camorra (above) from Spanish restaurant MoVida, is how did growing up in Geelong influence his take on tapas? I’m certain that every other article written about him follows his family tree back to Spain, where he left when he was four years old. Maybe there is something about Geelong that leaves an indelible mark on his food. His booth was holding a competition to name the third MoVida restaurant, soon to be opening. My suggestion of Mo-three-da was neither recorded nor funny.

The braised beef dish that he was serving was identical to that which he serves at MoVida, apart from the paper plate, plastic fork, and having to lean up against a post while eating it because by this stage, every seat in the Exhibition Building is taken. Warming paprika with a slightly creamy mash.

The only chef who wasn’t keen to talk was Tadashi Takahashi (above) of the local outlet of Nobu. He’d lost his voice. When I suggested that he was working too hard, he responded with: “Never” and pointed to himself and said “Chef”.

Two of the Masterchef judges were represented: Gary Mehigan (above) and George Calombaris. I skipped over Calombaris' selection: I'd had average meals at his restaurants Maha and Press Club and wasn't about to repeat the same mistake again. Judging by the crowds, being on television is the prime predictor of whether you will do good business at Taste of Melbourne.

Mehigan was serving up a party pie floater on a lurid green mash. My suspicion that Masterchef is the food television equivalent of Sesame Street was confirmed by the constant stream of children vying for a photograph with Mehigan. This bodes well for the future of Australian food as the intervening years between now and when these kids are old enough to enrol at a TAFE is enough time to realise that watching food television is not going to turn them into chefs.

The highlight of Taste of Melbourne were the (apostrophe-free) “Chefs Table” sessions: an hour and a half at a broad plank table with twenty others and one of the chefs from a represented restaurant. I managed to get into the only one not fronted by a chef but presented by Chuck Hahn (above) of James Squire fame, Australia’s highest profile imported brewer since the Fosters brothers.

One question I had for Hahn, was why is there such conservatism amongst Australian microbrewers? Where in the US, microbrewers are wildly experimental; Australian brewers tend to rigorously follow the beer style guidelines. To be sure, both Australian and American microbreweries will have two or three brews that aim for commercial success but it is rare for an Australian brewer to try to establish their own styles.

Chuck’s answer was unexpected.

“Excise tax. When we changed one of our recipes and the alcohol by volume increased by half a per cent, the tax per case of beer increased by more than a dollar. There is one immediate reason why brewers won’t try new styles, especially more alcoholic styles.”

Is it just a case of economics that stifles the art of brewing in Australia?

While much of the presentation was marketing spiel for the James Squire range and the worthy exhortation to consider the beer that you drink, the session included a single, slow-roasted lamb rib from restaurant Maha matched with James Squire Amber Ale. I reassessed my view on Calombaris’ venues. I needed more.

Delivering lamb ribs.

A pot of one’s own. This was a snack perfect for this event: it can be eaten while standing, needs no cutlery and implores you to lick the lamb grease mixed with yoghurt and spices from your fingers afterwards. It pointed out where much of the other food had gone wrong. Most of the dishes on offer at Taste of Melbourne are designed to be confined to a restaurant, part of a continuum of plates that construct a full meal. When they slip out of context, they begin to look paltry. Sitting on a paper plate, they are sad facsimiles of the real thing. To top off the day, I finished with two below-par dishes.

These steamed siu mai from Silks were first-rate earlier in the day, but my guess is that they’d been in and out of the steamer in the intervening period: one side of the pastry soggy, the other dry and rubbery.

Jacques Reymond’s quail breast tempura had suffered a similar fate. Well presented but put onto a plate long ago, allowing the tempura to go soggy. This would have been a different dish if it was where I had began my day.

When I mentioned earlier that Taste of Melbourne isn’t the best chance to eat the food from these chefs, it is because it is so far out of context. This is eating that you do when you feel the need to tick off restaurants from the mental list of places to eat before you die; eating as competition rather than pleasure. Any number of foods work well at a carnival but there is a reason that they’re mostly deep-fried and on sticks.