Heading into a sports club in the Brisbane suburbs for a traditional Australian roast dinner, I was confronted by trays of refrigerated raw meat and asked if I wanted to buy a ticket. The steaks, chops and sausages looked top quality, but the presentation struck a Hong Kong Brit like me as odd, more like a butcher's than a restaurant - and I hadn't seen a menu. But I had been promised a real Aussie night out.
'Do we have to choose our own meat for dinner?' I asked, much to their amusement. Clearly, they said, I had spent too long living in a city where diners regularly selected live seafood from tanks.
The trays of raw meat on ice were the club's nightly raffle prize. Winners walk away with enough prime Australian beef, lamb and sausages to feed a family or friends at a barbecue.
Across Australia, every week you'll find meat tray raffles in sports clubs, traditional pubs and licensed clubs run by the Returned Services League of Australia. RSLs and sports clubs are known for a reasonably priced night out and usually have community sports facilities, a choice of restaurants, bars and the ubiquitous pokies (slot machines).
Chinese politicians might do yum cha, and President Barack Obama might have a beer to show solidarity with grass-roots voters. But when Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard needed to show that she was still in touch with the people, she headed to a local tavern in Newcastle, New South Wales, downed a schooner of beer and bought a ticket for the meat raffle.
At the Arana Leagues Club in Brisbane, where I bought raffle tickets, their meat tray raffles raise thousands of dollars for junior rugby league teams, the netball team and the fishing club.
For A$5 (HK$40) you get six chances to win a meat tray worth A$30 upwards. In Australia that's a lot of quality meat, almost always from a reputable local butcher; it would cost well over HK$1,000 in Hong Kong. It may not be the Mark Six, but the odds of winning are good and everyone who takes part either has won one or knows someone who has won a tray of meaty goodies.