Canberra
A few weeks ago now, Kieran and I went on a day trip to Canberra, just because we could. It was a beautiful day to start with and it only started to rain as we were having dinner. We worked out that with the exception of our trip to India, it has rained on every FINAL day of our trips together… is it a sign? or sheer coincidence?
Given that Kieran isn’t a morning person I took the reigns for the drive down to Canberra, stopping only at Goulburn for some breakfast at the Rose’s Cafe (Montague Street – Next to Courthouse), it was a hearty breakfast, a nice warm cup of hot chocolate went down beautifully with my Bacon and Eggs.
We continued on our merry way to the National Gallery of Australia where currently until mid-July they have a Soft Sculpture exhibition. The soft sculptures were actually very interesting and I like the idea of creating sculptures using a variety of mediums. I have to confess I don’t know much about art, but I appreciate the thought and design processes that go behind them. I always take a moment to think about it and similar to when I read books, it often conjures up other memories and ideas.
After looking at some of the other exhibitions including the ‘Sculpture Gardens’ which I have to say is a bit ‘fail’ in that there aren’t many sculptures and there didn’t seem to be many new additions. I’m not expecting a massive ‘sculpture park’ it is afterall a ‘garden’, but there didn’t seem to be in my humble opinion much perspective given to the relative size and positioning of some of the scupltures.
We decided to head into the Civic to find something to eat, not that we were particularly hungry. In a stroke of genius (mind the hyperbole) we decided to head into Borders to check out the Canberra Good Food Guide (GFG). There were either not enough restaurants for Canberra to have its own Good Food Guide or that it’s just such a hole that it didn’t warrant it’s own edition of the Good Good Guide like the many of the other major cities seem to have.
Regardless we managed to find one whole page filled with places to eat in Canberra. So for lunch we decided to head to Silo Bakery where I ordered Toulouse Sausage and Oysters, which was amazing in that the pepper and spices in the sausage balanced the fresh Oyster with fresh lemon taste. There was a simple olive-oil dressed salad in between which blended in beautifully with both the oyster and the sausage. I’ve not had something at it, but my decision to choose something from the menu that was ‘different’ was rewarded.
Our next stop after lunch was Questacon, which in all honesty hadn’t really changed much since I was last there, still it was lots of fun and relatively interesting. Kieran was extraordinarily proud of himself when he managed to get closest to 15 seconds on a stop watch like gizmo, what he won’t tell you is that he cheated.
Petrol and dinner were the last things on our agenda and although the thought of sniffing petrol crossed my mind we ended up after a failed first attempt to get into a restaurant mentioned in the GFG to dine at Ottoman Cuisine in Barton. The food there was that good that I’d want to drive down to Canberra just to experience it all over again. I had for entree the ‘ enginar ‘ artichoke hearts filled with goat’s fetta & pine-nuts; served crisp with a light yoghurt sauce; and for mains ‘Sis Balik‘ – skewered Hiramasa king fish pieces marinated in lemon & bay leaves, char-grilled served with leeks braised with local extra virgin olive oil.
Whilst the entree and main was simply delectable the dessert was in a world of its own. The ‘kazandibi” sounded enticing on the menu, when it arrived it looked alluring and it tasted simply sensational. All it was, was baked custard with mastica extract served with morello cherries in syrup and pomegranate ice-cream.
It was a pleasurable way to end the school holidays. Good food in the company of a good friend.
February 24, 2010 10:27 pm | 
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