We didn’t start the fireside festival.

Towards the end of May, I noticed the Fireside Festival website was still carrying information for August 2008. Having survived a memorable long weekend during Stanthorpe’s Brass Monkey Season in my youth, I subscribed to email updates/newsletters for this year’s event. By late June nothing had come through, so I checked back and found the 2008 information was still up.

Yesterday the ABC carried a report the festival was set to kick off on 1 August. Also that fine journal of record Canberra Weekly Magazine ran a full page advert of the festival program.

I’m yet to receive any updates and by the looks of it, a couple of events are already booked out, so if you fancy fine wine, food, flicks and fires just point your browser here for more details.

Tags:
Canberra, Fireside Festival,Canberra Weekly Magazine, Canberra tourism.

The Lynwood charm offensive

It’s one of those things about Canberra. If someone recommends a restaurant or tourist attraction as absolutely brilliant, then you’re bound to be disappointed.

It’s happened to me repeatedly. I’ve been told by every second person that this place or that is just so dammed fantastic, usually with reviews, awards and promo pieces to back them up. But when we get there, at best it's a reasonable experience – one I’d probably rate more highly if it wasn’t for over-inflated expectations – but often it’s just so much nothing.

Lynwood Café is a case in point. Lynwood isn’t bad by any standard but it wasn’t the gourmet explosion I was led to expect*. We’ve eaten at Lynwood twice now. The first time was a flying visit on a busy Sunday afternoon, so I wasn’t too disappointed when the service was stretched. We sat outside near the road which meant the charm of the building was completely lost on me.

I was hungry at the time and the shepherd’s pie (or was it lasagne) went down well. It wasn’t what I expected although it was a long way from the DMP rating for mediocrity. I can’t remember what my companion ate and neither can he, clearly it wasn’t that mind blowing (nor overly bad).

My second attempt at understanding the Lynwood mystique happened when we went to Collector for the pumpkin festival. This time we had a table inside and it was early in the lunch sitting, so no problems with the service. And any complaints I have about the food are relatively minor – the size of my roast pumpkin and rocket salad was a bit stingy at $15.50. The pumpkin was a tad undercooked but the flavours were well balanced. The side order of chips ($6) was competent if not great and my companion praised the taste and quality of the produce in his ham and cheddar toasty ($12.50).

What disappointed me was that I still couldn’t see what everyone in Canberra was raving about. Sure the old building had a quaint charm but not everyone comes from a place like Canberra where a building is considered National Trust material if it’s more than 40 years old. Perhaps it’s not Lynwood I should be disappointed in - much of it's popularity seems to have been built on the fact that people who read Gourmet Traveller can’t bear the thought of eating somewhere that hasn’t been vetted by Pat Nourse.

I’ll give Lynwood another go, but next time it will be on my own terms. DMP rating – good homestyle fare (or should that be fair?).


*I find the same thing with Silo – sure the bread and pastries are good but it’s also the place where I was served a poached egg with a completely cold (but still runny) centre.

Tags:
Canberra, Lynwood Cafe,Collector, restaurant, Pat Nourse.

Much ado about nutting

When we first arrived in our notional capital it was April and one thing we noticed, apart from the birds, were the small, light tan, capped nuts that carpeted some of the footpaths around Kingston and the inner south.

After correctly identifying them as acorns (using a childhood template apparently furnished by Warner Bros), my next thought was whether they were edible.

I had a vague recollection indians native Americans used them as a foodstuff and that was about it. I forgot about acorns for another 12 months until I saw an old bloke in our street gathering them up as though it was a gardening chore, and then stowing them into a sack, which looked more like discreet harvesting. ‘A Pig,’ I thought at the time, ‘maybe he’s feeding the acorns to a pig.’

Now, another acorn season has come (and just about gone) and thanks to Angela over at Exotic Produce, Forgotten Basics and Gatherings I know all about acorns, including how to prepare them (questions answered with minimal effort... ain’t the interwebs grand).

And that means more time to watch educational cartoons.

Tags:
Canberra, acorns,Exotic Produce, Forgotten Basics and Gatherings, Canberra blogs.

Goat learning

Image courtesy of KerryJ
It was the phrase “annual goat barbeque” that made me set aside any latent antipathy for Cafe in the House. In the past, thanks to a gristly chicken lunch of unusual awfulness, I’ve taken potshots at CitH and, despite Janet Jeffs glowing rep at the Ginger Room, avoided eating there.

The lure of BBQ goat, at a very reasonable $15 per person, called for a temporary ceasefire. Besides, even if the food wasn’t to my taste, it would be worth attending just to be able to drop the phrase “annual goat barbeque” into casual conversation i.e. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you, I’ve been flat out studying for my third masters and buying a new Audi!” - “Hmmm? Didn’t really notice Norberta - I was too busy attending the annual goat BBQ, don’t you know”.

To give Janet her due, she was front and centre at the barbie when we arrived at the OPH courtyard just after 12. There was the usual queuing for tickets, drinks, then food, and finally I was seated in a sunny spot, alone with my goat.

The meat was served in two ways; straight from the grill and with a tomato-laced sauce, both dishes offering up large pieces of tasty meat with generous chunks of fat attached. A couple of salads (quick check for obligatory pieces of uncooked capsicum, yep big tick) and a fresh bread roll made up the reinforcements.


SNAP... distracted by the raw capsicum, I managed to launch the head of my recyclable fork in a gentle arc over the table with my initial attempt to saw off said fat from meat. Disposable cutlery teamed with small, cornstarch plates and robust chunks of goat meat don’t work comfortably together.

With this in mind here a few hints to make your future annual goat barbies enjoyable:

First rule of Goat Barbeque
BYO steak knife.

Second rule of Goat Barbeque
A white hair in your food doesn’t mean your server is blonde (but your goat probably was).

Third rule of Goat Barbeque
Buy bottles not glasses. Choice of wine was between an appropriately local duo: Clonakilla sem sauv blanc and Collector Marked Tree shiraz. Bottles were $35 each, glasses $10 so the bottle mark-up was wearable but by the glass... ouch.

Forth rule of Goat Barbeque
Be punctual, by 1pm it was stumps as far as food was concerned.

Otherwise it was a simple, delicious introduction to a meat that deserves more attention if you're looking for an alternative to beef-lamb-chicken-pork. The Canberra annual goat barbeque is held during the first weekend in April by Ginger Catering.

Tags:
Canberra, Goat Barbeque,food, cuisine,restaurants .

Sausage dog at Wallaroo Wines

The first weekend of April is the Canberra district wine harvest festival and this explains why, around noon on Saturday I was at Wallaroo Wines enthusiastically putting a bratwurst roll into my face.

The sausage was a spicy, juicy little number, perfectly barbequed by the team from The Cook & Grocer for which, once they banish raw capsicum chunks from the salad mix that was also in the roll, they’ll get a gold star.

A 2006 Wallaroo shiraz was the drink of the moment. Good dark fruit but not a great deal of length didn’t stop me from having a second glass before giving Molly, the obligatory friendly winery dog scrounging for sausage, a final pat and heading home.

It wasn’t meant to end that way and the original plan was to visit the other nearby wineries including Surveyors Hill and Pankhurst. However, offer me rolling views, succulent snags washed down by a light red and murmuring jazz (plus a shady spot and a labrador to pat) and I’m the first to give up on the idea of the afternoon improving.

Except maybe if I would’ve gone for the cab sav instead...

Tags:
Canberra, Canberra district wine harvest festival,Wallaroo Wines, Canberra wines, cuisine.

Cured salmon (doing better than expected)

A flying visit to Melbourne, and with a big dinner planned lunch needed to be light. Mussel memory* directed my path to Grossi Florentino.

The bar was unexpectedly quiet, a window seat available and a selection made quickly (and lest this urbane blur of motion seems too accomplished, I've cut out the bit where I nearly knocked over the water glass and then dropped the menu). Within 10 minutes a plate of cured salmon, dotted with splinters of red onion, small capers and EVO, had joined a basket of excellent bread and a glass of something white and nicely acidic on the iPod-sized table.

For about $25 it wasn't the cheapest light lunch going but the salmon proved the clincher. Cured with sugar, salt and honey, it was a hit of pure flavour, with sweet and savoury notes that would have teamed nicely with the glass of NV Macedon Brut Cuvée XII ($15) that I glugged down earlier at Juliet's Champagne Bar.

At this point I believe it's semi-obligatory to take up the plaintive cry of 'why isn't there somewhere like this in Canberra'. Instead here's a better review of the Grossi establishment.

*Yes it's one of those sort of posts, the title was your clue so deal with it.

Tags:
Canberra, Melbourne,cuisine,Grossi Florentino,cured salmon,Macedon Brut Cuvée XII, Juliet's Champagne Bar.

Lunch at the Gorge

Well, it's official. The George Harcourt Inn at Gold Creek Village has the most ferociously average pub food in Canberra.

Tags:
Canberra, George Harcourt Inn,food, cuisine.

Parkes sanger search (or portrait of a sub mission)

Late last week work took me to Old Parliament House. I was there for longer than planned and by 12:30 it was time to address an ongoing Canberra challenge - where do you score a reasonable sandwich and a cold beer for lunch in Parkes?

Cafe in the House was out - I’ve eaten there once before but wasn’t in the mood for bits of gristle held together by brown wallpaper glue posing as a roast meat and gravy roll.

There’s no air conditioning at the relatively new Pork Barrel and with the mercury hovering around 40 degrees, climate control was critical. As was a beer, so Questacon missed the cut despite their very tasty hamburgers and steak sandwiches.

Against my better judgment I checked out Bookplate at the NLA but, as usual after 12pm, the sandwiches had sold out (and despite having a enclosed space at the back of the room sometimes referred to as a kitchen, there’s no chance of getting one freshly made).

The solution came via the unexpected agency of John Howard. Before voters eventually confirmed he had become the electoral equivalent of ratsak, the rodent flung close to $88 million up against the wall to construct the National Portrait Gallery.

The gallery itself has a slightly whacked, almost municipal feel - as though the town clerk and the local eco-friendly architect (you know the one, the bloke with the ear ring who’s really into energy efficiency) re-designed the Dalby School of Arts hall over a long counter lunch at the Imperial.

The silver lining is the gallery’s Portrait Cafe (admittedly not the most original of names), which was well stocked with ham and salad sangers along with a handful of bottled ales, even at the ridiculously late hour of 1pm. At this point, unencumbered by entries in the SMH Good Food Guide or Miettas the caff seems happy enough to provide good practical service to hungry patrons. Let’s hope it continues.

Tags:
Canberra, cafes, National Portrait Gallery, food, cuisine.