Eat Like Ushi

Considering how rare it is that I'm not at work on a Monday night, it seemed a good idea to take the opportunity and eat out. The other reason for the excitement is that Canberra is one of the few places that actively entices you to spend your hard earned meal entertainment tax-free dollars during the week by offering 2-for-1 deals around town.

The quiet Civic centre drizzled with rain and made the streets seem even emptier than they already were. Thai food was on the agenda and I couldn't wait for a hot bowl of tom kha to warm me up.

Unfortunately this Thai restaurant didn't have soup on the menu. It could be that they only do it as part of their winter menu, but considering the South East of Australia can have summer or autumn days that are cold, raining and miserable, I would have thought it would be a staple. Additionally the constant humid heat of Thailand certainly doesn't detract from soups and incredible chilli dishes.

Anyway there was still a good variety of dishes that seemed tempting.

- Sweet corn fritters - exceptional flavours with a delicious dipping sauce to match;
- Fish cakes - nice fish pieces rather than the smooth paste that is more common and a delicious dipping sauce to match;
- Special salad of Chiang Mai sausage, herbs and fried rice croutons - a strange dish that was made up for by the herbs;
- Special of deep fried softshell crab on green papaya salad - one of the most flavoursome softshell crabs I've eaten topping a well constructed salad.

There was probably a distinct lack of (heat) hot food selected, although the curries on the menu are all quite standard sounding. Nonetheless I'd come back to try the laab gai, crispy fish salad or a curry. On a Monday or a Tuesday that is.

Apparently Penny University refers to old coffee houses in London where people paid a penny for coffee. Anything London-related piques my interest these days, although London coffee is notoriously quite average (with the exception of a reputed few run by Australians). Local new cafes are always welcome, and on their second day of opening it certainly caught my attention as I walked past aimlessly.

I've been a few times and tried several things. It's great for the daytime (odd-hour employed) people who want somewhere to sit, somewhere to eat, relaxing atmosphere and to wifi their laptops.

It isn't cheap, and I'm not especially fond of Sunday, public holiday and credit card surcharges. But what can you do.

I've had coffee here once (I'm not a coffee drinker) and it was exceptionally bitter. If you ask me that usually means it's burnt, but I'm certainly not an expert. Maybe it's just a unique type of bean. The soy chai latte is average standard too (for outside Melbourne) - creamy, sweet and quite a lot of cinnamon. On the other hand, the mixed berry smoothie is great - sour yoghurt, lots of blended berries and topped with pistachios. I definitely approve.

- Cazuela (soft poached eggs, spicy harissa baked beans, greens, pistachios, dukkah, labneh) - simple dish, very tomato flavoured, nice;
- Magic Mushroom (pan tossed salad of truffled mushrooms, olive oil poached potato, baby chard, asparagus, chevre with leek & parmesan pancake) - I think too much white truffle oil is lathered across which overpowers the flavours;
- Mr Penny (breakfast burger of fluffy cheddar scrambles, streaky pialligo smoked bacon, spinach, penny's tomato salsa) - burger version of a big breakfast;
- Croissant French Toast (with caramelised banana, cinnamon, mascarpone & maple syrup) - enormous serve of heavily sweet and buttery components. It's very nice but trying to finish it is an exercise in overindulgence;
- Eggs Your Way (free-range poached) with side of Breakfast Pudding (black sticky rice, coconut, grilled mango, nut brittle) - given the supposed London connection, I thought I'd ask if they did black pudding. The waitress asked the chef who said yes, and came back with this. Miscommunication. Lesson learnt. Nonetheless the pudding is nice, not much coconut milk/flavour as you'd expect after having black sticky rice in Asian desserts. I suppose it's meant to be the healthy option.

The atmosphere is nice, the food is good (without being great) and it's somewhere local in Kingston to meet up and hangout.

Next time I would order things I haven't eaten there yet - Avo Dish or Miso-Cured Snapper for breakfast or Twice-Cooked Beef Rib for lunch. Washed down with a berry smoothie.

PappaRich is a Malaysia-cuisine based chain of restaurants. It posed a conundrum to me. My friend frequently went to one of the restaurants in Melbourne without hesitation. A family member of mine said it was not authentic and overpriced for what it was, but not terrible. Urbanspoon ratings for Melbourne and Sydney vary between 50-65%. Yet the recently opened Canberra one is rated 85% and has very frequent queues. I suppose you can explain the frequent queues being that there isn't anything like that around Civic (that I know of) and probably nothing that good. You could also say the higher rating is because locals here probably don't know any better, although I do find Dickson Noodle House to be good and better than some of the Chinatown standards (eg. China Bar). It won't reach the cheap prices of other cities' Asia restaurants, but it's certainly cheaper than those around Canberra.

PappaRich in Canberra is full of all sorts. Young, older, Asian, white, Indian... everybody comes and by 12pm on a Sunday there is a small mob outside waiting to get in. On a 40deg day, the place inside the Canberra Centre is remarkably well cooled. Not your typical Malaysia hot humid experience whilst eating chilli food.

The picture menu is very reminiscent of Chinese restaurants in Australia and some in Asia too, with big enticing pictures for the assumption that a lot of their clientele won't know what many of the dishes actually are or look like. They actually do have a nice range of drinks, mains and desserts and seem to cover all three bases quite well.

The ordering system requires you to write the menu item on a piece of paper and press a buzzer for a waiter to collect. The staff are friendly and happily answer questions about the dishes. Some people don't like the ordering system. Go somewhere else then.

- Matcha Rocks (green tea soya, red bean, green tea icecream) - lovely cold slush of lightly flavoured green tea milk and icecream. Kudos for not adding ridiculous amounts of sugar;
- Iced Red Bean - another simple drink presumably combining red bean icecream, red beans and milk;
- Roti Chanai with Tandoori Chicken - roti is a freshly cooked piece with a very mildly crisp outside and a thicker doughy inside. It's very good and I preferred it to the very thin flaky ones other places have. Tandoori was an odd combination (not my choice) but it was reasonable. The sambal sauce it came with was a little spicy. Next time curry beef will be the go for this;
- Pappa Special Nasi Lemak with Curry Chicken & Sambal Prawns - it came out ridiculously fast, after about 3 mins. Like all nasi lemaks the ingredients are probably in trays ready to serve. I don't mind - it's how it is usually done. Coconut rice was good, chicken curry tender and tasty, sambal prawns a bit average and soft, sambal sauce good, salty ikan bilis great, roast peanuts topped it off. I'd prefer extra sauce and ikan bilis, but I won't complain. It was a good version.

There's a lot to pick from on the menu that I'd be willing to try to see how well they do. Assam laksa, curry laksa, har mee, wat dan hor, char kuey teow and of course ice kacang. I'll go back.

Closing in at #20 on the Canberra Times top 20 for 2013 came Red Chilli Sichuan. I haven't had a lot of Sichuan food in the past, the closest probably being Mao's in Fitzroy, which has delicious food. The top 20 list also featured Malamay which was skipped due to a higher price than preferred on this evening (and I recently found out that Malamay isn't particularly Sichuanese at all...).

There's a lot of red about the restaurant - the red sign, the red lanterns, the red seat cushions, and of course the red chilli.

- Mapo Tofu - tofu, pork mince, hot Sichuan sauce. Delicious fragrant and excellent;
- Lamb Ribs with Cumin - rich cumin flavours encrusting tender meat;
- Salt and Pepper Fried Fish - quite salty fish which was nice, but surprisingly the addition of fried corn kernels was a wonder.

Multiple topups of rice are necessary for completeness and to handle some of the numbing heat. I'll certainly be going back. There's a lot of good looking dishes on the menu here. They have live lobster, abalone and fish in tanks as a start. But when it comes to Chinese chilli cooking, I think I'm going to be a lamb rib/cumin and mapo tofu kinda-person for a while. Thanks to Beijing for starting that off for me.

09-2015

On a return trip (honestly there have been a couple in between) I ended up with the reliable mapo tofu and cumin lamb ribs again. I also added some new things to the taste explosion:

- King prawns with salted egg yolk and corn - an incredibly delicious umami-packed dish of textured prawns, crispy coating and corn and salted yolk;
- Fried soft shell crab - a large dish of juicy crab, chillis and salty fried crisp chunks.

This restaurant still remains near the top of flavoursome Chinese cuisine in Canberra. It isn't fine or fancy but it sure is satisfying.

After the Korean food overload in Melbourne over the past month (Gami, Bistro K, Chimac) it seemed natural to have some more albeit more traditional/standard. I'd even watched my first ever Korean cooking TV show on SBS in December (Sinae Choi's Korean Food Cult - interesting but I wouldn't overly recommend it). It's difficult justifying Canberra prices for some food items that we are used to seeing cheaply around, but unless you're going to make everything yourself there's nothing to do except suck it up.

Canberra's Chinatown/Asiatown suburb Dickson is lucky enough to have Cantonese, Vietnamese, Malaysia/Singapore, Korea and I'm sure others covered. Apparently they had an Ethiopian place that closed a few months ago (unfortunately) which is actually the main reason for going on this occasion. Nonetheless Korean it was.

As per the custom I discovered in Seoul in December 2008, Korean restaurants like to give a lot of free sides with the meal. Here we were presented with kimchi, beanshoots, grated potato and some sliced sausage & onions.

- Ddeokkochi (deep fried rice cake stick with spicy sweet chilli sauce) - my favourite dish of the lot. Sticks of rice cakes with crisp thin outsides and chewy gummy insides coated by chilli sauce. Fixed a rice cake craving;
- Dolsot-Bibimbap with Beef - stone pot with the usual array of vegetables. It was quite expensive (extra $3 for meat), the rice wasn't crispy on the bottom, I prefer raw egg and the gochujang sauce was very very mild. It was ok, but nothing I'd say was great;
- Haemul-Pajeon (seafood pancake) - a pancake/pizza/doughy concoction with some small squid and shrimp embedded. Again it was ok, but nothing all too great.

Next time I would order rice cakes and more rice cakes (or somehow learn to make them myself). I'd probably stick to a stew for a main as I tend to like Korean kimchi stews and they have a non-kimchi one with rice cakes!

It was a reasonably easy decision in the end. The fridge has nothing except vegetables, which would have made for an adequate dinner. But suddenly the realisation it was Chinese New Year dawned and it seemed a much better idea to go out to somewhere Asian (inspired at least). The choices for a short walk on a 35C evening came down to Wild Duck, Malamay and a local called Madam Woo. In the end Malamay won out due to the recent enamour with Sichuan food (just found out the Szechuan spelling is now obselete) and craving for mapo tofu.

I wasn't expecting any dragon dances or fireworks or the usual fanfare that is found in Chinatowns all over the world (or normal town in Asia) and given it was Canberra I wasn't expecting any Asian diners either. The latter could also be due to that Asians don't often go for higher end or fusion Chinese cuisine.

In any case the Burbury (not Burberry) Hotel hosts the restaurant. The entrance is sleek, books and wine bottles line shelves, the decor is mood lit and quiet and the air-conditioning is welcome. The degustation menu of signature dishes was recommened, but it seemed a little too much food that day.

- Crabmeat Croquette with Smoked Portobello - thin-crusted croquette with mild crab and manchego flavoured interior sitting on an even milder squid ink sauce. Slivers of portobello and cracks of Sichuan peppercorn completed the dish;
- Slow-Cooked Eggplant with Kombu & Chilli Oil - a really excellent exultation of soft eggplant flesh firmly supported by the skin, topped with thick konbu (Japanese spelling) sauce a sesame seeds and sitting in a pool of umami;
- Lamb Shoulder with Cumin & Salted Chilli - shredded lamb pieces in an interesting combination of cumin and black vinegar (I think?). There were pieces of chilli which had almost no detectable heat;
- White Fish with Mapo Tofu - nicely cooked and seasoned barramundi with medium tofu. It was difficult to see where the mapo part came in as it looked as far from it as you could get, with nothing visibly red or chilli. The sauce did have a little hidden kick to it, assumably ground Sichuan pepper or cooked with chilli then removed;
- Chocolate & Chilli Charcoal - strange frozen chocolate (again no detected chilli) mousse, refreshing lemon yoghurt roll, and salted pistachio & mandarin powder bits for crunchy texture. Not too bad overall.

The food flavours were good and more modern than any close resemblance to Sichuan food. There was a distinct lack of chilli impact, but I suppose it wouldn't be best for the business meetings, older Australians and fancy date nights that they probably market towards. The waiter did say that the best dishes for chilli were the Xian roast duck and Sichuan style chicken. I'd still go back again, although not before trying other places that may provide better value for money. Service is good, although we had 3 different waiters which is a bit strange.

Next time I would order the degustation to impress (but it doesn't have the Eggplant) or a la carte otherwise. The BBQ Lamb Ribs, Sichuan Chicken, Braised Oxtail and Xian Roast Duck all appeal to me.

One of the great foods in Germany (if not the only range) are large serves of roasted meats. Some people swear by sausages (of which I'd tend to say German isn't the best) but I think universally non-vegetarians agree that they can at least cook meat.

Harmonie German Club houses the Knuckles German Restaurant, which (surprise surprise) specialises in a roasted pork knuckle. Someone in the party has to have a club membership otherwise pay a $5 member fee (valid for 2 years) to attend.

- Salt & Pepper Prawns - medium-sized deveined prawns in a light batter. Batter and prawn meat both lacked some crispiness but flavour was ok;
- Schweine Haxe (roasted pork knuckle served with mashed potato, sauerkraut & gravy) - a rather large bone-in knuckle with soft gelatinous flesh and beyond-crispy skin. Worked well with the gravy or English mustard for my own preference. Mash was adequate as was sauerkraut;
- Semmel Knodel (Bavarian dumplings) - two dense doughy dumplings in gravy. Ok for carbohydrates but I've never been a fan of the Eastern European dumpling balls;
- Rot Kraut (red cabbage) - like the sauerkraut, a tangy intermission for the meat.

People only seem to come here for beer and pork knuckle. You can share a knuckle between two, but even skinny Aussie girls were having a whole one to themselves.

Next time I would order the Pork Knuckle. If you wanted an alternative (or were sharing), I'd be curious about the Wiener Schnitzel.

I haven't quite gotten used to the cafe culture in Canberra yet. It's quite well known that they lag behind Melbourne (and probably most cuisines). I'm almost afraid to order soy chai lattes for the fear of getting an over-syrupped and cinnamon concoction.

- Chahan (vego wrap, crisp sushi rice cake, avocado, beetroot, spanish onion, sesame dressing, mixed leaves, nori dusties) - essentially a large sushi wrap with some flavoursome sushi rice that had a crunchy crispy edge to it (oven or grill maybe?). Surprisingly plain and good;
- Foghorn Leghorn (free-range half Moroccan barbecue chicken, de-boned with seasoned wedges, herbed sour cream) - deep flavoured chicken with Middle-Eastern flair and decent juicy meat with some excellent spiced wedges although I wasn't a fan of the dill sour cream.

These were washed down with some typical freshly squeezed OJ and a banana brekkie smoothie, which tasty pretty heavy on vanilla ice-cream. The iced cafe that other people ordered looked delectable served in a large beer mug.

There's a lot of good looking food options here. Maybe I'll even try the chai latte next time. It's overall a bit expensive, but that's my welcome to Canberra.

Next time I would order the iced mocha or chai latte and try the Mekong burger or Nipper (fish & chips).

Canberra dining - a conundrum. A small city with a lot of expendable income, where very few people voluntarily come to. Consequently food is expensive no matter what you look for and no matter how cheaply it may be found elsewhere in Australia.

Even the online ratings are a little difficult to judge - you're always not quite sure what taste people have (if any) and when the discrepancy between a chain store in Canberra and other states differ in rating by 30-40% (ie. Canberrans rate it much higher), it makes you wonder...

In any case, it's uncommon that a reputed source such as the Good Food Guide (mostly known to me from The Age in Melbourne) gets finer dining completely wrong. I'm sure there are instances where (like Michelin) the name of the restauranteur has to be catered for more than the quality of food. I wouldn't think there are that many major toes in Canberra to step on.

Eightysix opened less than a year ago. Funnily enough it rated #3 in the Good Food Guide to Canberra for 2013 and landed itself a 73% Urbanspoon rating. Conundrum. Reading the comments, a few seem to relate to inappropriate tactile tactics from staff toward female patrons. It sounds strange. I think I'm safe.

The space is nice. Open kitchen with bar seating, rows of wine, a picture of MPW on the door in the kitchen and even outdoor area for warmer evenings. Our host leads offers the bar seating experience and identifies us as "86 virgins" (sounds like a dream waiting in heaven) before explaining the menu written across the restaurant wall. It's different and fun. People wander around to read the menu.

- Sous Vide Corn with Lime & Coriander - 75C for 45mins then charred and topped with grated cheese and salt crystals. Beautifully cooked and flavoursome. It was resting on a few salt crystals that made the occasional bite salty;
- Steak Tartare with Prawn Crackers - diced (not minced) steak mixed with a sauce of tabasco/wasabi/English mustard, topped with raw egg, onion, chives, salt and pepper. An unusual take on tartare with diced beef chunks eaten on prawn crackers. The taste of the sauce was also stronger than the usual relatively plain French-style. Not bad, just different;
- NZ Bream with lemon & green beans - 57C for 14min in olive oil, topped with salt crystals, pepper, blanched green beans, spring onion, parsley & lemon rind. Soft white fish that pulled apart easily but still kept some firm texture. The outside flesh tasted a little too salty though;
- Charcoal Chicken & Buttermilk Slaw - chicken legs sous vide 67C for 2hours with a long-list marinade of maple syrup, cumin/cinnamon/chilliother spices, and a cabbage/carrot slaw with walnuts, capers. Excellent juicy chicken with a savoury and slightly chilli/sweet edge. Skin wasn't crispy which would be my only other preference. It was topped with salt crystals which probably wasn't necessary;
- Caramel Popcorn Sundae - salted caramel icecream, salted caramel sauce, crispy caramel pieces, salty popcorn and a cone. Gorgeous icecream in a fun dessert. A little too much salt crystals on the bottom.

The food was very well cooked and presented with good portion control. My only recurring theme criticism would be the heavy handed addition of salt (maybe this is a local preference?). At the start of the meal we were given a small dish of salt crystals for our own use. Each of the dishes had full salt crystals sprinkled on top which made each a little over salty (except probably the tartare where it is necessary).

Service was really excellent. Two female hosts spoke to us briefly through the night to see how things were. Two young male chefs preparing food in front of us provided some slapstick entertainment as well as genuine interest in informing about the food and cooking methods. They also gave us extra prawn crackers and ice-cream cone without us asking. A few groups of (attractive) young females weren't getting any additional attention or unwanted advances. Overall a good experience.

Next time I would order some corn and the Charcoal Chicken again. Black Pig (jamon, figs, peaches) looked like a great sharing starter and the whole Lamb Shoulder to share looked heavenly if you had 4-6 people.

07-2015

It has been a long time in between trips to eightysix. I remember the great food last time with a little too much salt. I was keen to see what had changed in that time.

The first thing I noticed was the menu is now also in paper form as well as on the back blackboard. I suppose too many people complained about having to arch their necks and backs to see what was on offer. Unfortunately didn't get any photos so it'll just have to remain in imagination.

- Duck bun with hoisin sauce $8ea - very thin open bun with a small amount of duck meat. Tasted nice but too expensive for the portion;
- Steak tartare with prawn crackers $24 - seemed much more plain than last time reading about it. The diced beef was mixed with a raw egg to top the prawn crackers. Simple and tasty;
- Calamari agnolotti with angel hair chilli $34 - 4 deep fried parcels with crispy outsides and a pretty non-distinctive inside. The topping with angel hair chilli made it special but still too expensive for the offering;
- Black chicken with slaw $40 - an excellent two marylands of beautifully cooked chicken with a thick marinade coating the skin. Served with slaw;
- Beef cheek with potato mash $35 - a perfectly delicate sous-vide cheek with gelatin and flavour. Outstanding.

The $66 lamb shoulder and an interesting spaghetti with "lots of truffles" $50 await me for next time. I was really glad to see the salt has reduced but the flavours remain great. Very impressed.